Student Travel – Page 3

Tag: Student Travel (page 3 of 3)

The Cliffs of Moher

Adventures in Scotland and Ireland

St. Gile's Cathedral

While I had dreamed of traveling the world when I was younger, I never fully believed that would be possible for myself. There was always some seemingly big obstacle in the way, such as money or being too young. Last week I found myself doing the “impossible”: I traveled around Europe, living out of a backpack. While I have been on a few weekend trips already this semester, it felt so authentic to be traveling for a whole week. I finally felt like a real traveler that spends their life meeting new people, wearing the few clothes that they have with them repeatedly, and learning about many new cultures while seeing it before your own eyes. After traveling for a straight week, I finally realized how fun it is to wake up in the morning and think, “Where am I going next today?”

My first stop was in Edinburgh, Scotland. I had really chosen this location randomly based off the opinion of a friend who had been there already, and I didn’t know much about the city or even Scotland itself. I had head that it was a very beautiful city, but it wasn’t until I stepped off the bus and took a look around that I knew the stories were true. Edinburgh is an amazing city. It isn’t very big, but it makes up for its small size with its sheer beauty. Everywhere you look, there is something wonderful to see. It has a castle, many cathedrals and churches, mountains, and a lake. What else could you ask for from a city? One small downside to living in Edinburgh is the weather. Although it was the end of April when I visited, it was only in the 50s all week, and there would be random boughts of wind and rain. A lot of locals said it was summer weather! Despite the bad weather, Edinburgh charmed me in so many other ways that I soon forgot about the cold.

Athur's Seat

The first day my friend and I were there, we climbed Arthur’s Seat, which is the highest peak of a group of hills in the center of the city that were formed by an extinct valcano. It was a little steep going up, but there were steps built into the hills to help us along. The grass on these hills was incredibly green, and there was a huge breeze that nearly knocked us off the side of the hill as soon as we reached the top. The view was wonderful, and it was an amazing start to my weekend in Edinburgh.

Throughout the few days that we were there, my friend and I went on three different tours of the city. The first was a ghost tour at night which took us to a graveyard, underground vaults, and other spooky places while telling us about the dark history of Edinburgh. The next tour was a free three hour walking tour, which was surprisingly great for a free tour. I learned so much more history about the city and Scotland than I thought I would in the few short days I was there. The company (Sandeman’s New Europe Tours) has tours all over Europe, so I would recommend checking them out if you are ever in Europe. We also went no their spooky tour about witches, fairies, and cannibals, and that was pretty awesome as well. Overall, I really enjoyed my time in Scotland, learning about its history, and talking to the locals.

The Cliffs of Moher

Next on our agenda was Dublin, Ireland. I have heard so many times that Ireland is an amazing and beautiful place to visit, so of course I had to see it for myself. Dublin is a fairly large city with lovely cathedrals and a fun nightlife. What else would you expect in Ireland? We ended up taking the same free walking tour around the city and learned a lot about Ireland’s history. I’m not much of a history buff, but it’s so different when you’ve thrown yourself into a strange city and have no idea about its present or past. That’s why I really liked taking these walking tours; it’s so much better learning about a foreign city if you are actually there to see the sights for yourself.

My favorite part of my trip to Ireland was when we went on a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway, which are on the complete opposite side of the country from Dublin. The Cliffs of Moher look over the Atlantic Ocean and are just breathtaking. On the way to Galway, the bus took us through the countryside along the coast, and we stopped at a few sights to take pictures. It was a perfect sunny day, and I had such a great time looking at all of the sheep and rock walls amongst the green fields. Galway was a very sweet town next to the sea filled with ancient churches, landmarks, and good food.

I had a wonderful time seeing the sights in Scotland and Ireland during my first week of spring break, and I can’t wait to continue my journey around Europe this coming week.

Rocks on the Irish Countryside

Blue Skies and Ocean Eyes

April 24, 2013 / Lauren Zomparelli / 0 Comments

One of the most beautiful countries that I have ever been to (and yes I know I have said this before) has been Greece. Not only did I get a view of the city, Athens, but also was able to see one of the Greek Islands, Aegina. On day one, I did a four and a half hour walking tour that brought me to all of the main points and ruins in Athens. Not only did I see these beautiful places, but also heard a lot of history about each place.

There were so many interesting aspects to Greece that were very unique and that I never noticed anywhere else. One being, how there are so many stray animals all around the city. Not stray animals as in only cats wandering around like we have at home, but dogs as well. This bewildered me. Everywhere I looked were random, full grown dogs wandering around the streets or sleeping on the sidewalks. It was very sad at first, since at home, the only dogs you see are either pets or in a shelter. What was even more interesting was how nice and friendly all of the dogs were. They would casually walk up to you and wag their tail if you pet them. As the weekend wore on, I noticed that locals in town would put out food and water for the dogs to have. None of them looked to be starving in the least, but very well fed. I was almost floored when I saw dogs and cats hanging out in the Parthenon at the top of the Acropolis.

Something else, that is very random but definitely worth mentioning, is how amazingly sweet the strawberries were. They were sold at a lot of the little stands in the squares and markets. Now that may not seem too unusual, but they sold them by the kilo, which is 2.2lbs. Between myself and a friend of mine I traveled around Greece with, and within the three full days we were there, we ate more than 3lbs of strawberries.

It surprised me after visiting places like Paris, how much the Greeks loved Americans and loved that we were there visiting their country. Everywhere we went and spoke, someone would ask us where we were from. Once they heard “Chicago”, they would tell us how much they loved America and Chicago. More times than not, they would also tell me how beautiful my “ocean eyes” were, since no pure Greeks had blue eyes. Many restaurant workers on the streets would warn us to keep a close hold on our bags for those non-Greeks living in Athens, because, of course, no Greeks would steal from you. The restaurant workers would always give you a good deal to come and eat in their restaurant. On our first full day in Athens, we ate at a restaurant that offered us free wine as well as a free shot after dinner. The waiters were very nice and welcoming, helping us decide what to order and what was good, which, of course, was everything.

Something that I did expect, though, were the cheap prices that we found. Since Greece’s economy is not the best, prices for food or souvenirs, compared to other places, were very inexpensive. We found souvlaki for only €2, and t-shirts were as low as €5. It was great! Though, we might have went a little overboard since everything was so cheap. However, I would rather spend my money and help out the caring people of Greece than some of the other places that I visited where they hated Americans.

On Saturday, we decided to go to Aegina, one of the Greek Islands for the day. It was so excited as we got on a huge cruise ship to take the hour journey through the Mediterranean. The ship had a nice seating area and food. Once we were on the island we rented 4-wheelers. We each decided to get our own and for the entire day, both of the 4-wheelers were only €55, something unheard of back home. He allowed us to have them for the day, and we could take them anywhere. Gaining up to 40mph, we flew down the streets and rode all along the coast. It was the most beautiful sights with bright, clear blue water all the way.

Though, things couldn’t go smooth sailing all the way. After our fifth stop, we found that we could no longer kick start the ATV, the clutch kept getting stuck. As though this may seem like a huge inconvenience, which, in a way it was, it was a blessing in disguise too. We were able to meet so many new people since, anytime we wanted to stop and explore, we had to ask someone to kick start my bike for me. We met a university professor who invited us to stay with him for the summer so he could teach us Greek and who was obsessed with our blue eyes. We also met construction workers who told us not to stop the bikes again, seeing as by the end of the day it took them quite a while to even get them working again. Each person was always more than happy to help us in any way they could and give us any helpful hints about the island that would make our stay more enjoyable. Riding up through the mountains and overlooking the coast and beaches was breathtaking. If I could go somewhere next week and I didn’t have to worry about cost (since flights to Greece are a bit pricey) I would definitely hop on a plane to Greece, probably Santorini, another island that is known to be the most beautiful.

Though the people were nice, they might have been a bit too nice at times. It was clear to me the difference in the culture in Greek and the culture in America. In America, you usually don’t go up to someone randomly while they are walking down the street and start talking to them and ask them out. Well, at least not in my experience. However, I do have experience with that happening to me in Greece. Walking down a main street one night, a guy, probably around my age, came up to me and starting walking and talking to me. I assumed that he was a restaurant worker and was trying to get us to go into his restaurant to eat, but I soon realized this wasn’t the case as he asked me to go out for drinks with him. I was very thrown off by this and really didn’t know how to respond. He told me how he loved America and stared hard into my eyes. I’m really not used to that kind of attention and, since I did not know his intentions, I told him I couldn’t, but thanked him for the offer. He looked at me with a blank expression, not seeming to have understood that I was saying no, so we turned and continued walking.

This was not my only experience with very forward Greek men. On our last night, we were sitting in the square talking, when a middle aged man who was sitting next to us asked us where we were from. We told him Chicago and then had a nice conversation with him about where our ancestors were from and how the economy in Greece got so bad. It was very interested and we appreciated finally having a normal conversation with someone who didn’t end up creeping us out. We thought too soon. After about a half n hour, the man asked us to go get drinks with him and his friend. We respectfully declined saying we had an early flight the next morning. He told us we should just go out with him and he could drive us to the airport in the morning, but we said no. He then proceeded to look at me and tell me that I had “the body for sin and the mind for challenge”. Though I think that’s supposed to be a compliment, I took that as my cue to head back to the hostel and go to bed. He insisted on giving me his business card because “now that I have met you I don’t want to lose you”. The whole encounter was very weird in my American perspective. The man was probably my parents age. Walking home, we counted how many guys looked us up and down and I realized that wearing a dress in Athens was not a good life decision.

Though the men might be more forward than we’re used to, it might just be a part of their culture and what they think is appropriate, so I’m not holding it against them. They were always respectful and nice, which is still better than some of the creepy people back home. Even though some of the guys did creep us out a bit, we never felt like we weren’t safe or too uncomfortable. I absolutely loved my stay in Greece and wish it didn’t go by as fast as it did. If anyone is thinking of a beautiful get-a-way vacation, I highly recommend going to Greece, you can’t go wrong.

Big Ben and Parliament

London’s Calling

April 19, 2013 / Emily Hardesty / 0 Comments

Big Ben and Parliament

I have always dreamed of visiting London; seeing Big Ben has always been towards the top of my bucket list. Last weekend, I finally got to make that dream a reality. Of course I wanted to see as much as possible in the three days that I was there, so I arrived with a long list of sights to see. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how big London is, and I didn’t get to cross everything off my list during this trip. As soon as we walked outside of the train station, I instantly knew that I was in London. Everywhere I turned, I could see red double-decker buses and telephone booths, and as I listened in on conversations on the street, I could clearly hear British accents. I can’t describe how nice it was to finally be surrounded by English for a change!

When we arrived, the weather was a bit rainy, so we didn’t get to see many sights at first. Instead, we spent our time mostly indoors on Saturday, first at the world’s largest Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. I had been to one before in Wisconsin Dells, but this one was undoubtedly the best of its kind. I personally love everything bizarre, so I had to go inside once I heard it was the world’s largest Ripley’s museum. They had all sorts of strange items, including a prehistoric shark’s set of teeth, an iron maiden, and shrunken heads. It may not have been worth the 22 pounds that we paid (even with a student discount), but it was a nice was to pass the time out of the rain.

Bre and I in front of Buckingham Palace

The highlight of my weekend was without a doubt seeing The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre. I am a huge fan of the story; I have read the original book and many other fanfiction novels about the Phantom, and I have seen the both original and most recent film countless times. I adore the soundtrack and can sing you any song you choose by heart and play it for you on the piano (not necessarily at the same time!). During the show, I couldn’t help but mouth the words along with the actors. I was completely blown away by the quality of the singers’ voices and the special effects. When the chandelier went up at the very beginning and the organ started wailing the main tune, I had a mini heart attack and had the widest grin on my face. I believe that the Phantom of the Opera is a very important part of London’s broadway history, and I am so happy that I had the chance to see my favorite musical on stage in the best place in the world to see it performed.

After two days of rain, the sky finally opened up on Sunday and made way for a unbelievably beautiful day. My friend and I spent the entire day walking around London sight seeing. Our first stop was Abbey Road, made famous by the Beatles’ album of the same name. There were many tourists there literally stopping traffic just to snap a photo like the Beatles, and of course I became one of them. We then headed toward the River Thames, where we passed Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, and a lot of other really cool buildings. I was really surprised by how many great tourist spots were all clustered together in the same area. It did make for an easy sight seeing tour, though! After that, we saw the Globe Theatre, Millenium Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the London Bridge, just to name a few.

I was completely amazed at how much there is to see in London, and I’m sad I couldn’t see it all in three days. Now that I know how great London really is, I am itching to go back and take a closer look at all this city has to offer.

Millenium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral

London Bridge

The Land of Sounds of Music

December 4, 2011 / Stephanie Volz / 0 Comments

A taste of Salzburg

To finally finish up my blogs about fall break (which was actually more of a winter break, since we didn’t get back to Reutlingen until mid-November), I’ll talk about my time in Austria! In short, I love this country. I mean, The Sound of Music is my favorite movie, so of course that doesn’t hurt my fascination with it. But also, it’s just beautiful. The cities themselves are picturesque, and of course then there’s the Alps in the background in parts of the country. Just absolutely fabulous. And it’s a cheap country, even with the exchange rate. Just another enticement for someone on a student budget.

So first stop was Salzburg, THE land of the Sound of Music. Literally the only downsides to this place were the fact that we didn’t get to our hostel until 2 a.m. and the fact that it was so foggy the whole time we were there that we couldn’t see the Alps. Not that it wasn’t still beautiful. We walked around the city for a good bit, and went inside a few of the gorgeous churches and hiked to the top of one of the hills with a gigantic fortress on top. And after wandering around for a good long while, we got to take the super-touristy Sound of Music tour!!!

The Gazebo

Oh my gosh the marriage church.

Not that I cared how touristy it was. Because we got to sit in a van with other Americans and sing the soundtrack as we drove through beautiful countryside and see all the places that were included in the film. Like the wedding church where Maria and the Captain got married, the row of trees the children climbed, the Von Trapp house, the pond and gardens behind the house, the gazebo, most of the sights in the “Do a Deer” musical section, and so much more. It was some of the most exciting few hours of my life. And since I can’t put all the pictures up here, just look at the ones on Picasa.(https://picasaweb.google.com/100454144518688283131/SoundOfMusic) So doing all that, plus more walking around since it was a beautiful city, took up a good day and a half, and then we headed to Vienna!

Inside the colorful cathedral

Vienna was also amazing. There is so much history and culture in that city, it’s ridiculous. You can also see Zach’s and Jake’s posts about their time in Vienna. I didn’t have quite as much time there, just about two days, but it was still fantastic. We got in a bit before dinnertime, so decided to wander the city for a bit and get food. The absolute highlight of the night was going into the huge church downtown on a whim. Turns out they turn on tons of colorful lights inside at night, and it was just dazzling. I can’t describe it. So beautiful seeing a huge cathedral burst with color.

The next day we started at Schoenbrunn Palace, which is basically Versailles #2. It was absolutely gorgeous inside (and it was nice not to have to take a tour for once.. they just give out audioguides with the tickets and let you wander yourself). And the gardens also were fantastic. If it wasn’t so cold I could’ve spent an entire day there just sitting outside. After that, Molly and I went to the famous art museum while Matt went to go find Bach stuff, and other music-related stuff. It is famous for a reason, it had so many famous paintings by famous artists that even I knew, as artistically retarded as I am.

Molly in front of Schloss Schoenbrunn

After lunch at Nordsee (cheap fish!) Molly and I wandered around the city for a good bit. Since Christmas decorations were starting to go up, it was even more beautiful. After a bit of shopping and hot chocolate and cake, we made it over to the Belvedere Palace, which had a bunch of Klimt art, which Molly went crazy over while I relaxed in the garden instead. And then for the rest of the night we just relaxed in the city over drinks and at the hostel.

The next morning we decided to see if we could catch the end of the Vienna Boy’s Choir, since they sing every Sunday during the chapel service at the Hofburg Palace. We figured there’d be no way to see them, since they supposedly sing from the balcony and nobody can see. BUT turns out they came downstairs for a final song after the procession out! And we got there at just the right moment, right before they started singing. So we just so happened to see and hear the most famous choir in the world in a palace, without paying anything and without planning it. It was absolutely fabulous. And I mean, they’re pretty good, but the main attraction is that they’re so famous. There’s fabulous music all over Europe in the churches.

Vienna Boy’s Choir

Vienna’s Rathaus, or city hall

After that, we had a few hours to wander around before our train back to Reutlingen. So we found the beautiful Austrian Parliament building, and the city hall of Vienna. Both absolutely stunning. And the Christmas market in Vienna had just started, so we were able to get our first taste of Christmas in Europe! More posts about Christmas markets coming later, of course, but this one was beautiful with the gigantic city hall in the back ground. But then we had to leave.. And thus concluded my fabulous two-week adventure all over western Europe. Five countries, plus an island, and many more cities than that, not bad for two weeks. Bis zum nächsten Mal!

Click! Here I come!

September 29, 2011 / Stephanie Volz / 0 Comments

Lichtenstein

Last weekend was the weekend of palaces, castles, and fortresses for me. It’s been one of my favorite parts of traveling so far, being able to see all the cool sights and beautiful nature of Germany. On Friday, our class ended at noon, so we decided to spend the afternoon at Lichtenstein Castle, only a short bus ride and a steep hike away. Lichtenstein Castle, not country. And in no way related to Heath Ledger as Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein. Sadly. But the hike was incredibly beautiful, like walking through a Tolkein novel, with moss-covered rocks and castle ruins on the way up. The castle itself was also beautiful. It was built only a few hundred years ago, and was based on the description of a castle in a book. Even though it was fairly small, it still held all the awesomeness of a castle. Really, they’re pretty dang cool.

When we got back to Reutlingen that night, I decided that I really wanted to go somewhere over the weekend, because we have German Rail passes that expire next week. Since it was the night before I needed a hostel, reservations were hard to find online, and I tried several cities before finding one that would work. The first one I found was in Würzburg, a town in northern Bavaria, so without really knowing what the town had to offer, I decided to go for it! And then after reading about the town and being there, I’ve decided that randomly picking a city on a hostel website can turn out to be an amazing weekend. Even if you do have to go by yourself because the rest of your group is lazy.

Residenz

After wandering the city for a bit, I headed to the Würzburg Residenz, the palace constructed for two prince-bishops and finished in the early 18th century. The largest fresco in the world is located there, and actually is pretty funny. It depicts the four “continents” of the world, with Europe as the most modernized, and the Americas as this backwards place. Each nation had its own symbolic creature, and I found it amusing that the American scene depicted a native American woman riding an alligator. Pretty interesting stuff right there. But it was also a beautiful palace inside and out. It even had the typical palace mirror room, a room made entirely of mirrors with paint and embellishings on them.

I also hiked up a hill covered in vineyards for wine to the old Fortress Marienberg. I didn’t take a tour, so I didn’t get inside the buildings of the fortress, but even being on the grounds and in the courtyards was impressive. It gave a full view over the river Main and the downtown area of Würzburg. I also got to see the outsides of beautiful churches downtown and relax on a really old bridge over the river that had huge statues of religious figures.

The old bridge, the Main river, and Fortress Marienberg

By then it was getting dark, so I tried to find my hostel. Try being a key word. The map online definitely led me to the middle of a park. Across the river from where the hostel is. I have no idea how that one worked out. But eventually I got directions and made it safe and sound. And the benefit of traveling alone kicked in when I met another American study abroad student, because we felt a little safer walking around town and comparing our experiences so far and drinking wine with at least a hundred others on the old bridge. I think that’s one of the best parts really, getting to meet people from all over the world, or who are studying all over the world (this girl was in Luxembourg).

The next day I headed out to stop at Dachau to see the concentration camp before getting into Reutlingen. But since that didn’t have the same exciting emotions as the rest of my weekend, I’ll save it for another post. Moral of this story: travel wherever chance takes you, because you’ll never know what and who you’re missing out on if you don’t!

Cologne and Heidelberg

September 24, 2011 / Stephanie Volz / 0 Comments

So after our completely amazing Berlin trip, we had to decide where to go that could compare in the least to our last few days. We decided on Cologne (Köln, in German) because of its incredibly massive cathedral. And indeed, the first thing we see as we step out of the train station was this incredibly massive cathedral. That doesn’t even begin to describe the monstrously huge intricate structure blotting out the skyline. It was absolutely beautiful, but the first reaction was naturally “oh my freaking gosh that is so freaking big.” Or something along those lines.

IT'S SO BIG

But since it was already night by the time we got to Köln, we couldn’t go inside until the next day. And we put it off until we had visited other sights the city had to offer. Like the Lindt chocolate museum. With its free chocolate tasting along the way. And chocolate cake and hot chocolate afterwards in the Lindt chocolate cafe. And more chocolate. And an insane chocolate overload afterwards. Totally worth it, though. So to work off our body’s protestations, we wandered around the Stadtmitte for a bit and found a wooden handiwork shop, which had intricate cuckoo clocks and wooden figurines covering the walls. It really was a typical German shop, and I was fascinated by the craftsmanship that went into everything.

Inside the Cathedral

THEN we finally got into the cathedral. It was so enormous, and so marvelous. Did I mention enormous? And beautiful. Words really can’t describe how amazing it was, so you’ll just have to check out all my pictures on Picasa (link: picasaweb.google.com). But you can see a few here. And once we had wandered the main part, we climbed way, way too many stairs to one of the two tallest towers to check out the view, and to see again just how enormous the cathedral is. The view really was amazing once we caught our breath, especially since it overlooks the Rhine river.

After making our way downstairs again, we split up to explore on our own. I decided to first check out the Roman-German museum (since Romans occupied most of Germany way back when). Although it didn’t actually give me much history, it did give me a chance to see tons of artifacts from olden days, many from 1st to 3rd century A.D., as well as some older pieces. After steeping myself in history, I went to the Rhine river to sit on the bank and relax for a while. A few minutes later a guy came to sit with me, and we ended up talking in German (brokenly on my part) for a good half hour or 45 minutes. And of everything in Köln, this was one that will stay with me the most, sitting on the banks of a beautiful river practicing my German skills. (German language classes should consider this method, it’s very effective). And that night for dinner we found a restaurant on the edge of the river from which to admire the view.

Heidelburg Castle

Matt on top of a vat of wine. Believe me now that it's the biggest one in the world?

The next morning we set off for Heidelberg on our way to Reutlingen. I had actually seen this town before when I visited Germany with my family 3 years ago. But seeing it again brought new experiences, naturally. I was still impressed with the famous bridge across the Rhine, and with the outside views of the castle of Heidelberg. However, the inside of the castle was disappointing, because you could only go into the courtyard, and there wasn’t much to see from there. Except, of course, the largest vat of wine in the world. But Heidelberg as a town is still worth the trip, because it is just absolutely beautiful, in the typical German old-town beauty.

That’s it for our Berlin trip! But right now I’m touring Würzburg, a town in northern Bavaria, so be sure to keep up with the blog in the next few days to hear about more of my travels! Bis dann!

Chao Valparaíso! Espero que nos vemos pronto!

July 22, 2011 / Anna Wiersma / 0 Comments

At the beach! Almost like summer! 😉 Easter Island statue! The beach at Laguna Verde and cliff we camped on top of!: View of the mountains from the bus!

El grupo! Love these people 🙂

‘WOW. It’s my last day in Valparaso,Chile. This is weird. It’s definitely not sinking in yet…and I don’t think it will for awhile. It’s just not a definitive goodbye, seeing as I’m off tomorrow to Santiago to see Avril Lavigne in concert (yup…you heard right…how hilarious is that?!?!?! Tickets are so cheap here, WOOOO!) and then off to Buenos Aires for 5 days and then La Paz for a week. So it’s not like my adventures in South America are ending, and I am SO excited to travel and actually be on vacation all the time…so the fact that I’m leaving Valpo just isn’t stinging as much!

But I’ve had some really great last moments here. I’ve been racing around to see the touristy places that I just haven’t gotten around too, and I went to this awesome museum in Vina del Mar that had tons of artifacts and information on the history of the Mapuche Indians, the indigenous people here in Chile, and Easter Island, they even had a real Moai statue from Easter Island outside! I took a day trip to visit Isla Negra, one of Pablo Neruda’s houses, and it was incredible! I was just geeked out to see the house of one of my favorite poets…but I didn’t realize it was going to be so beautiful! And of course, this is the one time I leave my camera in my room, UGH! But he built his house on the cliff overlooking the ocean, with an amazing, rocky beach below. I never knew that he was a collector as well, but his house is filled with collections of anything to do with sailing, things from Chile’s history and indigenous people and just random collections, like glass table feet and pipes! Getting to drink coffee while overlooking the ocean on Pablo Neruda’s porch, and then going to lay a flower on his grave? Priceless 🙂 That same weekend we took another day trip with the Curso de Lideres youth group here at the YMCA to travel up the mountains in search of….SNOW! All the Chileans were ECSTATIC for snow, most of them had never seen it before, how lucky are they?! (haha, I hate cold!) So even though I was not as enamored with the snow, it was pretty funny to see their reactions, and the mountains were incredibly beautiful.

Speaking of great last moments, I just got back from an epic goodbye party thrown by Mauricio, the director of the center we work at in Las Cañas, in which we trekked out to Laguna Verde, these absolutely GORGEOUS cliffs and beach and waterfalls, and pitched tents to camp for the night…in the middle of winter…bahahahahaha 🙂 But it was so much fun! Our tent was on the top of this huge cliff that overlooked the ocean and we hiked down it the next day in order to spend time at the beach. We also ventured to see a small waterfall, which was one of the more treacherous hikes of my life (if any Hope Church AT hikers are reading this, my trail experiences served me well!). There was pretty much no trail, just mud, rocks, thorns and rivers to cross…madness! But really fun 🙂 The best part for me was getting to roast hot dogs and make smores over the fire, it felt like summer! (Ok, I was wearing 3 shirts, a hoodie, a sweatshirt, scarf, coat, 2 pairs of leggings and two pairs of sweatpants….but still!). Our Chilean friends had never had smores before, and graham crackers don’t exist here…so Johnna found some sweet, square cookies and we went with it! I thought they were delicious, I miss making smores with my family in our backyard firepit so much!

I’m going off to serve at the soup kitchen for the last time this afternoon, preparing myself for tears….the people who work at Las Cañas have really become my family here, they crack me up, have seen me cry, give me advice and are just wonderful friends. I’m gonna miss them a ton. Plus, I’m sad to leave the soup kitchen. I love having my English students tell me “Thank you Mees (how they pronounce “Miss” :D), this looks good!” when I serve them food and I love that I know so many faces by this point and receive hugs and greetings wherever I walk in the center. It’s been a gradual goodbye process, from center to center and program to program…but this is really it…still not hitting home! :-/

I’m doing 2 posts today before leaving, so check out the next one too! I should have internet this weekend in Santiago, and the hostel we’re staying at in Buenos Aires is supposed to have wi-fi, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep blogging as I’m traveling, but it’s going to be a little more up in the air from now on. Wish me luck on my travels, I can’t wait!

Long Weekend! Carnaval de San Pedro

June 27, 2011 / Anna Wiersma / 0 Comments

Gringo family (minus one member) at the dunes!!: Las Dunas!! Why are there so many beautiful places here?! 🙂

Carnaval de San Pedro! These are the dancers we followed 🙂

Hola choros!

I’m working on a couple longer posts, but I wanted to give a quick update on the Festival de San Pedro that happened this weekend! There are always surprises in Chile, especially because people don’t like to tell you about upcoming events in advance! So on Friday we learned that there was going to be a festival and parades and boat display on Sunday and a vacation day with no school or work on Monday, que bakan! (awesome!)

And the celebration on Sunday was SO cool, I had no idea what to expect, but we went to the main harbor and there were tons of people there….but nothing happening…but all the boats were decorated with flowers and little flags, so that was pretty to see…and just as we were getting bored and thinking of going to a restaurant, this loud marching band music starts up and a huge parade comes our way! And this was no Tulip Time parade, this was a Chilean parade for sure, because it was all music and dancing! There were tons of different dancing groups, each wearing the traditional clothing for the type of dance that they were performing, and personal little marching bands to follow each group of dancers. Mixed in were banners and images and mini floats of the Virgin Mary, San Pedro and other saints. San Pedro is the patron saint of fisherman, therefore since Valparaiso is the most important port city in Chile and a has a huge shipping and fishing industry, Valparaiso throws one heck of a party on this day 🙂

The best part was that once the parade was finished and passed us, we started walking after the dancers down the parade route, trying to mimic there dance moves, and once we had them down started dancing behind the last marching band with the same moves that the real dancers were doing, in the parade route, baha!! People started laughing and taking pictures of us along with the dancers and yelling “gringas miren aca! Aca!” (White girls, look over here!”…I was with two of my friends who are from France and a Chilena 🙂 ). It was hilarious, we were dancing like that for a good 20 minutes until the real dancers finally ended, and then on our way back to the harbor, another parade started up! More dancing!

Then today we had a lovely free day to sleep in and then headed out to the sand dunes at Con Con, a city close to Vina del Mar, very touristy (you can tell because there was a McDonalds, Starbucks and Burger King and huge condo buildings along the beach 😀 ). The dunes were so beautiful! So I spent my afternoon hiking, eating our picnic lunch of bananas, turkey and cheese sandwiches, peach juice (I’m addicted to juice because of Chile, they have every possible flavor and stands all over that squeeze it for you fresh, SO GOOD!), and our dessert of oreos and peanut butter, and finally watching the puesta del sol (sunset) over the ocean…life is good!

Ships decorated for San Pedro!

So there’s my holiday update! I return to work tomorrow, but this upcoming weekend we’re going to celebrate the 4^th of July with our Chilean friends by having a good ol’ American cookout! Too bad fireworks are illegal here… 🙁

Chao amigos! Besitos!

Ich Liebe Dich!

March 16, 2011 / hannahbauer / 0 Comments

The Old Bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland

I can’t say a lot in German, but I did know how to say “Hello,” “Goodbye,” “Please,” “Thank You,” and “I love you.” I tried to throw these out as much as possible and “Ich liebe dich” or “I love you” kept coming up. Mostly in reference to the places we were visiting! When we got to Lucerne I immediately noticed the largest difference from England from the entire trip. And that was that Swiss people are so nice, like so, so nice. On the train, a couple overheard us talking about our hostel and they offered directions and helpful bits of advice for our trip without us even asking. Then on the walk to our hostel we stopped to check a map and within the minute a man—dressed as a revolutionary as it was still Mardi Gras—offered us directions yet again! The entire time we had spent in England, I’ve never met such outwardly friendly people.

Gorgeous Lucerne!

Thanks to all the help, we had no trouble finding our hostel where we crashed for the night. The next morning when we emerged from our hostel we were all dumbfounded by the amazing surroundings we hadn’t noticed because of how dark it was when we got in the night before. Lucerne’s quaint buildings and houses were nestled around a cool alpine lake surrounded by the Alps. The water was full of elegant swans and friendly ducks. The mountains rose suddenly, taking bits of the town up with them, into stunning snow covered peaks. We spent the day wondering the streets then sitting, then wandering around the lake then sitting, then hiking in the mountains then sitting. It was a pretty fantastic way to see Lucerne actually.

The Gutsch!!

The highlight of the day by far was when we saw “The Gutsch” (a huge palace like hotel perched high on a mountain side) and decided to walk to it. The walk wasn’t near as bad as expected and the path gave way to a beautiful forest whose trail was marked with a fresh water spring which we all used to quench our thirst. Side note—you can drink all the water from the springs in Switzerland unless specifically noted. The Gutsch offered a stunning panorama of the city, the lake, and the Alps; it really was breathtaking. The biggest drawback to Switzerland was by far the price of food. If I thought food in England was expensive, a quick trip to Switzerland would clear that matter right up.

Pretty Flowers at our picnic spot in Zurich

The next day as we sat on the lake-side stoop we had claimed as our own and ate breakfast, I knew it would be so hard to leave Lucerne. However, I reassured myself that I would be back one day and that I would treat myself to a night at The Gutsch. We got on our train to Zurich and spent the majority of the day there. Zurich was not nearly as pretty or interesting as Lucerne, but it reminded me a lot of Denver and nothing of England. The cars were big like America, not small and “smart” like England and Italy. We ended up eating dinner in a park with food we bought from a grocery store because Swiss food turned out to be too expensive, yet again.

After our make-shift picnic, we got on a train to Munich where we arrived somewhat disheveled but still managed to find our way to the hostel because it was really close to the train station. The next morning, we were dumbfounded by the bus system but eventually figured out how to take the metro/bus to get to Duchau concentration camp. Public transportation in Germany is so much cheaper than England! We got unlimited day transportation for 3.80 Euros a piece, whereas one ride on the London Tube is around 1.80 pounds! So that was awesome. Duchau was sad and humbling. It is hard to believe that human kind could ever have been that heartless and it made me pray that nothing like that will ever happen again.

After returning from Duchau we stopped into a very cute and very authentic German restaurant and had a (relatively inexpensive!) Bavarian style meal! There were men in lederhosen and children drinking beer (ok, apple juice from a beer stein… we think…) and everyone just seemed really happy. It made me very proud of my hair-itage (as I say this as I touch my hair, in honor of the band Lost & Found).

Haufbrauhaus, see my initials!?

We spent the rest of the day exploring Munich until we had all you can eat fajitas (because Europe has Mexican restaurants and England doesn’t!) for dinner and then we went to the Haufbrauhaus. Now, before I go into this, I need to explain to you two things: 1) I hate beer. 2) I love the Haufbrauhaus because it makes me proud to be German and my initials (HB) are one everything. These conflicting feelings made me anxious to go because I wanted to drink beer out of one of their huge awesome steins! But I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand it. What we ended up doing was my friend Lauren and I split one and actually managed— small sips at a time—to finish the whole thing. Go us.

View from the castle!

Neuschwanstein!!

The next day may have been my favorite day of the whole trip, jury is still out. We woke up relatively early and got on a train that took us into the Alps (yay!) to the town of Fussen to see the famous Neuschwanstein castle that inspired Disney’s Cinderella castle. I expected to love the castle, but a couple things caught me off guard. First of all, this place looked so much like my home! The greenery was similar, the mountains were similar, it was just amazing. The second thing was that usually the insides of castles are disappointing. I always expect them to feel grand and lavish, but usually they are cold and stony. Neuschwanstein, however, was absolutely no disappointment. Everything was ornate and decorated and everything there was still originals.

After hiking around the castle, we returned to Munich and met up with Sabrina, a friend of Lauren’s who had studied abroad and stayed at their house some years earlier. Sabrina and her fiancé treated us to my favorite meal of the whole trip. I had an amazing Bavarian meal smothered in mushroom sauce and seemingly endless rounds of drinks (turns out beer is pretty good mixed with lemonade). But the best part by far was the camaraderie, they taught us how to toast like a German (“Prost!”) and told many highly entertaining stories. The brewery was nothing like pubs in England where people tend to keep to themselves and things never seem to be too crowded or too out of hand. This brewery had long tables and you sat and ate and toasted with people you didn’t know. It was so much fun and I really never have been prouder to be a Bauer (which is on many-a signs in Germany) and German. Check out the rest of my pictures here and I look forward to reporting back again soon after Paris this weekend!

Valpo Voyager

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