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Elephants

2012-05-24T15:26:47Z

I woke up refreshed and feeling like I was over my 24 hour bug. We had told our driver that we would be ready to go again around 10 am. As we ate breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, the same waiter that we had had the previous evening made a bee line towards Brennan’s stomach once again. Brennan, who was visibly annoyed, smacked his hand away a few times, but the waiter apparently wasn’t taking the hint. Then, Brennan grabbed the waiter’s arm and forcefully removed it from the area of his abdomen, but the waiter was still undaunted. Finally, Brennan had to resort to contorting his body in strange configurations in order to keep his stomach out of arm’s reach. In all, it was quite a strenuous breakfast! Once we had eaten our fill, we hit the road once again. We returned to Angkor Thom in order to see some of the things we had missed the previous day. As we neared the southernmost Victory Gate, we saw a group of monkeys along the side of the road- so we asked our driver to stop. We got out and took some pictures, but Brennan got a little too close to one and it shrieked at him. The funniest thing that we saw was when a car drove by and honked at the monkeys, which were now blocking part of the road. The biggest monkey smacked the side of the car as it drove by, as if to say “that will teach you to honk at me!”

As we passed Bayon, we saw a group of elephants there. They were there to give tourists a ride around Bayon. We stopped and took some pictures, but decided that an elephant ride could wait. One of the main things that we had missed in Angkor Thom was the Terrace of the Elephants, which stretched between Bayon and the Terrace of the Leper King. We had missed it by taking the alternate route past Baphuon and Phimeanakas the previous day. We walked past the first terrace, which contained many carvings of elephants along it, until we reached the second one, this time stopping to see the statue of the leper king himself, which was located on the roof of the complex.

After this, we left Angkor Thom and visited some of the myriad of ruins which lay to the east of it, an area referred to as Eastern Barray. We started at Preah Khan, one of the largest temple complexes in the area, then moved on to Preh Neak Pean, which has a single spire coming out from what used to be a group of pools, but was now dry pits. We went to Ta Som, known for its gate which is overgrown by a large tree, and climbed around on Ta Keo, a pyramid which, since it was never finished, lacked the elaborate carvings of the others. After this, we decided to go to lunch since it was already 1:30.

We ate at a restaurant which our driver recommended, being one of the few sit down restaurants in the vicinity of the temples. It ended up being very good, and gave us enough energy to continue our temple exploration. I had saved the best for last- Ta Prohm was a complex very similar to Preah Khan, except that it was overgrown by jungle. Instead of just one overgrown gate, as in Ta Som, the whole temple was this way. I had also wanted to save this one for last for a more practical reason. I figured that the chance of seeing a snake here was a pretty good one, and wanted our day to be at nearly an end before Trudy got frightened and refused to go to any more temples. In the end, my fears were unfounded- we saw no snakes that, or any other, day.

Ta Prohm was worth the wait, though. It really felt like we had discovered a lost civilization deep in the jungle- except for the man who was dressed as a policeman and who insisted on showing us around. In all of the temple complexes, we had the most fun just exploring by ourselves, content with not knowing the complete history of a site or being personally shown the highlights. I didn’t have the heart to tell the man that we didn’t want a guide, so we followed him around- looking at the area where they filmed “Tomb Raider” as well the movie “Two Brothers”. I gave the man a few dollars for his trouble when we left. Everyone agreed that this was one of our favorite temples.

After returning to our driver, we decided that we would take a balloon ride in order to see Angkor Wat from the air. He warned us that it was very expensive- $15 per person! We told him that balloon rides were nearly ten times this price in America and we, therefore, had never taken one. Alas, when we arrived at the balloon launch, we were told that it was too windy and that they could not fly. Instead, we opted for an elephant ride, which was the same price. Trudy said that riding one to the top of Bakheng Hill to see the sunset from the temple there, as I suggested, would freak her out and that she would much rather take the safer route around Bayon. Alas, when we reached Bayon, all the elephants had been moved to the hill, so we were left with no choice.

The 30 minute trip up the hill was one to remember. Justin and Trudy took the lead elephant, while Brennan and I followed closely behind on ours. We both had professional elephant drivers with us, of course. Trudy was quite frightened, thinking that her elephant would misstep and go plummeting down the steep slope- but this didn’t happen. Soon, we were at the top climbing on our last Khmer temple. It appeared that many other people had the same idea as we did, since more and more people were gathering on the temple as time went on. Most of these had chosen to walk up the hill using a different trail than we had taken with the elephants. Since it was only 4:30 and we had a whole hour to wait until sunset, we decided that the elephant ride and seeing the beautiful view was enough for us and that it was time that we returned to the hotel. We walked down the hill together and were able to reach our hotel before dark.

We ate in the hotel’s restaurant once again, luckily for Brennan- the waiter with the stomach fetish was nowhere to been seen. This time they did start showing “The Killing Fields” right at 7 pm. Trudy and Brennan didn’t really care to see it, however, so they returned to the room. Justin and I joined them when the movie was over, around 9 pm.

Angkor Wat

2012-05-23T13:52:49Z

Since we had a 6:30 a.m. flight to Cambodia, we had asked the hostel to call us a taxi for 4 am. This time we couldn’t take the MRT there, since it did not begin operations until 5:30. We had also asked for a wake-up call at 3:30, which we ended up not needing. Trudy woke up first, she looked at my watch and determined that it was 3 am. She then decided to get up to dry some laundry that, in our haste to leave Hong Kong, we had packed in a plastic bag before it was completely dry. I woke up soon afterwards and felt that I could finally take a shower, which I had not been able to do the previous night while I felt so chilled. I couldn’t shave, however, since my electric razor had ground to a halt in Hong Kong and I had then realized the one thing that I forgot to pack- the cord to recharge it! After showering and helping Trudy with the laundry, I looked at my watch- it was still 3 am! We figured out that it must have actually been 2 am when Trudy got up. By the time our wake-up call came, we had everything ready to go.

We dragged the kids out of their beds and into the waiting taxi at 4. The kids usually complained about Trudy’s insistence that we get to the airport two hours ahead of time for international flights, but this time we really needed it. First, on our way to the airport, the driver ran into some unexpected construction on the expressway, so that we had to enter it from the next on-ramp. In addition, we had flown into a different terminal than where we had caught the MRT, so we got confused about which was which and told the taxi driver to drop us off at the wrong terminal. After going inside and realizing our mistake, an employee told us that it was a 20 minute walk to the correct terminal, and that a taxi really wouldn’t speed up the process appreciably, since they had to exit the airport after leaving the terminal that we were at before heading to the correct one.

So there we were, at 5 in the morning, lugging our suitcases between terminals at Changi airport. Luckily for us, airport employees must not walk very fast, because we reached the other terminal in about half the time that they had estimated it would take and were able to check in for our next flight with no difficulties whatsoever. Most of us dozed on the 95 minute flight which followed.

We landed in the tiny Siem Reap airport a little behind schedule. The airport had no gates to speak of, the airplane landed on the airfield and then we walked to the terminal building. Siem Reap is a town of 150,000 people which has the distinction of being the closest town to the complex of ancient architecture best known for one particular temple complex contained within its midst- Angkor Wat. Siem Reap’s population had boomed as the tourism trade in Cambodia took hold and the popularity of visiting Angkor Wat had increased during the proceeding decades.

Our hotel, the Golden Temple Villa, had promised a pick up service at the airport, but we found ourselves waiting there for about 20 minutes before someone arrived. This would not have been a big deal, but I had been in contact with the minister of the Siem Reap Church of Christ via email and knew that their Sunday service started at 8 am that day. It was about 10 after 8 by the time we reached the hotel. We, of course, didn’t expect our room to be ready that early, so we asked if they would keep our luggage while we headed to church. The same driver who brought us from the airport offered to take us to and from the service for $8. Although Cambodia has their own currency, the riel, most transactions are performed using U.S. dollars. It was a strange feeling to be spending U.S. dollars for the first time in over 3 months, especially to be spending them in a foreign country.

We finally made it to church about 30 minutes late, and only after our driver had gotten turned around trying to find it and had phoned the minister, Chann Lork, in the middle of his lesson, to get directions. When we arrived, we could see how it was easy to miss the building. It was open in the front, so that the congregation sat outside, in plastic chairs that had been placed in the dirt. There were a little more than a dozen people at the service, but only a few adults, with the average age being about Brennan’s age. Chann was the only one who stood in the building, which extended behind him down a hallway leading to his living quarters. He was barefoot, as was the custom indoors in Cambodia. He nodded to us as we took our seats with the rest of the church members.

Chann soon finished his lesson, which was given in Cambodian, complete with notes written on a chalk board behind him. We sang a few songs and then he launched into another lesson. We followed along the best we could, luckily his notes on the board included the references to the Bible verses he was going over written in English. It was difficult to concentrate, the language barrier notwithstanding, due to the cars which were driving by on the busy street which was just 20 feet from where we sat- at times blaring music or announcements from a loud speaker. In addition, roosters clucked and strutted around in the yard next door and a puppy made his way around the congregation, sometimes stopping to bark at one of the kids or to play tug-of-war with Brennan’s backpack.

At the close of the service, Chann asked if I would like to come up to say a few words. I removed my shoes as I made my way into the enclosure and then gave an impromptu speech about how we had traveled a long way to get there and how happy we were to be there and how, even though America was very different from Cambodia, Christians were essentially the same everywhere, at least in their hearts. The service ended about 9:30. We thanked Chann for having us and apologized for being late, we then met his wife, who had been in the back of the building taking care of the small children, before we were whisked back to the hotel by our driver, who had returned for us.

Since our room was still not ready, the hotel put us in a temporary room and served us “welcome drinks” consisting of lime juice in decorative silver cups. Soon, we decided to eat an early lunch and to go see Angkor Wat. We ate at the restaurant which was attached to the hotel; they had very good food as well as a relaxing atmosphere. From the dark wooden tables inside, we could look out into the lush vegetation which surrounded the hotel. There was also a pool table located inside, near the kitchen, which the kids took advantage of. Our driver was waiting at 11 to take us around to the various sites.

Our first stop was the office of tourism, where we paid $40 a piece for all but Brennan (who was free) to get a three-day pass to the “archeological zone”. We bought three-day passes, even though we were only going to be in the area for two days, since they were the same price as two 1-day passes. We found that there was always someone on hand at the various sites who asked to see our passes, which were laminated and contained pictures that the tourism staff took of us.

We then headed to Angkor Wat itself, the first complex that one comes to on the road leading out of town. It was amazing! We spent the next two hours wandering around its corridors, climbing on its parapets, and generally exploring around the place. It was very hot outside, which was probably compounded by the return of my fever. Nevertheless, I knew that this was one of the highlights of our tour, and was determined to enjoy it.

When we were ready to move on, our driver took us to Angkor Thom, a lesser known, but much larger and more spread-out complex than Angkor Wat. Angkor Thom was surrounded by a large stone wall which could be entered by driving through one of five “Victory Gates”. At the very center of the complex was Bayon Temple, one of its main attractions. The temple is filled with faces which had been carved into the rock, 200 in all; many are located on stone towers which rise from the temple. The faces are said to be representations of the Khmer king who ruled during the 12th century, when the temple was built. After wandering around this area for a while, I found our driver and, feeling quite sick, asked him to take me to an emergency trip to the bathroom- where, by the way, they had someone to check my archaeology pass as I entered.

The family was busy looking for me by the time we returned. The driver had told me that he would move the car and would be waiting for us at the “Terrace of the Leper King”, near the northernmost Victory Gate, so we set off across the grounds of Angkor Thom to find him. On the way there, I wanted to walk past two more temples, Baphuon and Phimeanakas. Justin was walking ahead of the rest of the family on the raised parapet leading to the former, when he spotted a large snake with a green body and orange head. Luckily, it darted off before Trudy, who is deathly afraid of snakes, could see it. To my surprise, that would be the only snake that anyone would see on the entire trip.

Baphuon ended up being closed to tourists, but we were able to see it from afar. It has been described as the world’s largest jig saw puzzle since archeologists had de-assembled it in order to restore it- then the plans for the temple were destroyed when the Khmer Rouge took over. Archeologists had been trying to piece it together ever since. We also took a quick look at Phimeanakas and kept moving, finally locating our driver past some huge square pools of water and through a decaying stone wall. Even though it was only about 4:30, we decided that we had seen enough for the day, and asked to be taken back to the hotel.

Once there, we discovered that our room had been prepared and that our luggage had been transferred to this larger room. Since we didn’t really feel like leaving the hotel, we ate at the attached restaurant once again. While we were eating, the waiter reached over and patted Brennan on the belly, saying “you look very full”. Brennan looked horrified. He had been slightly chubby in junior high but had not previously experienced such a blatant assessment of his weight. We tried to assure him that the culture was quite different in Southeast Asia and that the waiter had most likely meant it as a compliment, but Brennan didn’t completely buy it. After we had eaten, we waited around for the movie that the hotel was showing at 7 pm. The board said that they would show “The Killing Fields”, which we thought would be a good, albeit heartbreaking, introduction to Phnom Penh for when we traveled there. Since the movie had still not started by 8, the family, with the exception of Justin, decided to turn in for the night. Trudy and I were especially tired after being up for 18 hours straight. Justin, however, had begun playing pool with a number of 20-something backpackers and wanted to finish his game. He said that a movie did eventually come on, but that it was “A History of Angkor Wat”, rather than what we had expected. We didn’t even wake up when he came to bed around 9:30.

Home is Where the Heart Is

2012-05-22T23:03:06Z

It has now been 10 days since my program ended, and almost a week since I have been back in the States. I still can’t believe that this whole experience is now in the past. It’s kind of surreal—the more I tell stories to friends at home, the more I feel like they’re part of some fantastic dream or something. The experiences I have had, and the life I’m in now are two completely separate things. I’m sure they will eventually blend together to some extent, but right now they feel worlds apart.

The final days of our trip were spent in London. My mom and I walked all over the city. We saw Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul’s (in the pouring rain!), visited Earl’s Court (where we lived during the program), Portobello Road, and more!! We went to see Sweeney Todd which was fabulous. I had never seen it on stage before, and the performances from the actors, especially the leads, were incredible. On Tuesday, we went to have high tea at a different hotel from where I had gone in March. It was lovely, and once again I was stuffed to the brim by the time we left. I also decided at the last minute that night to get 5 pound standing-room tickets to the highly recommended Misterman at the National, and I’m so glad that I did. Cillian Murphy, the actor in this one-man piece, filled up the entire, huge stage and held my attention from all the way at the back of the house.

Of course we also spent some time drinking cider and eating steak-and-ale pies. One night, though, we got bruschetta as an appetizer… I don’t think I’ll ever be sick of Italian food. Even though it will never be as good as Mamma’s.

The whole trip with my mom was not only a way to prove to myself that I have learned a ton on this trip—I accidentally gave her a few lectures on some buildings we passed—a great (and fun!) transition from the program, into vacation, and finally into being at home. Our flight was mostly uneventful, other than a short delay (but I would prefer to fly with a working engine, thanks) and a screaming child. But we got back intact with all of our bags and I went straight to St. Olaf. I miss my friends from ACM already, but it was nice to see a bunch of friends that I had been missing all semester. Then I spent some much needed R&R/family time with my aunt and uncle, and am now back on campus getting ready to work for the next couple of weeks before going back to my home in Oregon. It has been great catching up and telling stories, though that separation becomes more and more apparent as I tell more. And I get a lot of the same questions.

What was the best part?

Meeting people. A general answer for a general question, but it’s true. I got to know the other ACM students and be surrounded by different backgrounds and ideas in the classroom. I learned how to strike up meaningful-ish conversations with random strangers at pubs, I was able to communicate with my wonderful family despite a language and cultural barrier, and I met loads of other wonderful people in lines at the post office, cafes, parks, on public transportation, and more. I gained some ideas of other cultures—things I may or may not want to incorporate into my own life (for example, I do want to keep up the confidence in pub talk, eat slower dinners, and hopefully keep up some of my Italian skills).

London or Florence?

I can’t even answer that. They are two completely different places, and my experiences there were totally separate. In London, I had a lot more free time and it was great to see theatre and, with that, more nightlife in a city that has so much going on all of the time. Florence in general required a much steeper learning curve. Not only did I learn an entirely new language and take a fast-paced art history course (which is not at all my area of expertise), but I also lived with strangers and learned how to find my way around brand new places without getting too lost. In both cities I was challenged to manage my time so that I wouldn’t stretch myself too thin by doing too many things at once. Whether or not I ever found that balance is debatable…

Both were incredible. Really. As were all of the other beautiful cities I was able to visit. I know each has a piece of my heart, and hopefully someday I’ll return “home” there.

To quote myself from our first full day, I feel so fortunate to have spent the last four months “in a cool place with cool people doing cool things.” But I guess all good things must end.

Let’s see what adventures await us now…!

Singapore

2012-05-22T15:35:05Z

We had Annette call us a taxi for 8:45, since it was a 30-minute cab ride to the airport and we had a flight at 11:15. The airport was actually located on Lantau Island, so we headed there once again, where we boarded our flight to Singapore. We watched out the windows as the plane took off to bid a fond farewell to Hong Kong.

The flight took about 4 hours, after which time we began our approach to Changi Airport on the outskirts of the city-state. Singapore, at 4.5 million inhabitants, is an island nation which is both a single city as well as an independent country. With its abundance of water and palm trees, it looked much more tropical than our previous destinations. This was not surprising, since it is only 85 miles north of the equator. The heat in Singapore at that time, however, was no worse than any of the other places we had visited.

The kids were most struck by the machine-gun toting police who were standing guard at the airport. Singapore is known for its hard-line stance on drugs (trafficking holds the death penalty); I assumed that they wanted people to know that they meant business right from the start when one entered the country.

We took Singapore’s MRT to a section of town called Little India. I had found a hostel which was located on a hill overlooking a park which was not too expensive. Nevertheless, at about $100, our stay in Singapore ended up being the most expensive place that we stayed the entire trip. Despite this increased cost, it had still been worth our while to go to Singapore, since it saved us $100 per person routing through there instead of flying directly to our next destination from Hong Kong.

Since it was around 5 by the time we checked in, I asked the women behind the counter where a good place to get Indian food was. One of them, who happened to be Indian, took great pleasure in mapping out for us where her favorite restaurant was. After we had gotten settled in the room, we set out in search of the place she had told us about. We realized on the way to dinner that Little India was indeed aptly named. Indian people were everywhere, as were Indian restaurants, shops, and Hindu temples. Justin and I left Trudy and Brennan on the grounds of one of these temples as we headed past where we needed to turn for the restaurant in order to exchange money at a place that had also been recommended by the hostel staff. This done, we then backtracked to where the others were waiting for us.

The restaurant ended up serving the most authentic Indian food that we had ever eaten. It was all served in dollops on top of a huge banana leaf that served as both a place mat as well as a plate. As most people there were using the traditional method of eating with their fingers, Justin and I joined in, while Brennan and Trudy held out for silverware. After a very filling meal, we took our time walking back to the hostel, pausing to look at the various stands of wares which lined most of the road leading back.

Once back at the hostel, the kids played pool in their common room, while Trudy and I caught up on our email using the computers which were located there. By 11, we forced everyone to return to the room to go to bed, since we had a very early flight the next morning. Suddenly, I started shivering and felt very chilled. I huddled under the blankets in bed but still felt very cold. Trudy was sure that I was running a fever. Nevertheless, I soon fell fast asleep.

Those Pandas I Promised

2012-05-22T12:06:00Z

This post's theme is: cafes!

The huge variety of cafes is one of the few things I like about Tokyo. But let me tell you, going out to them too often can kill your wallet. My finances are in dire straits right now, not just thanks to cafes, so hopefully some sort of income source will materialize when I get back to the US... Food is expensive, and coffee is expensive, and guess what my favorite things are? Going to eat food and going to drink coffee.

Now that I've vented my financial stresses, cafes.

First of all, I went to Daikanyama, near Shibuya, with one of my friends, as part of my mission to explore Tokyo for cute cafes. The first place we found when we got there was The Queen's Collection Chocolate Cafe. So, naturally, we had to go in.

Their big thing is hot chocolate. You pick the bitterness of your chocolate, and then you get a candle/fondue pot thing and milk and you heat it up and mix it yourself. I really wanted to try it, but the day my friend and I went it was too hot so... I got hot coffee... because that makes sense. I kinda really want to go back on a cold rainy day and try that hot chocolate.

But look how happy my orange mocha was!

I ordered an orange mocha, and it took me a while before I realized that all of the orange was at the bottom. But after I stirred it it was delicious!

And the cafe was pretty adorable.

Occasionally Tokyo rewards me with places like Daikanyama, where the streets are wider and not that crowded and there are cute cafes everywhere, including places that look like old-fashioned sweet shops on the inside and are devoted to chocolate. Yeah. And then the rest of Tokyo continues to be Tokyo and it figures that the part I end up being charmed by is like... not at all thrifty.

So yeah, I've gotta go back to Daikanyama at least one more time before I leave. Maybe back to the chocolate cafe, maybe someplace new.

Next stop (I promise, the pandas are coming at the end), the giant Gundam statue in Odaiba.
For those of you who don't know, Gundam is an anime series about giant fighting robots, and this one is life-size. So it's really huge. It's also cool because if you get close it has all this stuff like "only assemble by a trained professional" and "caution: not a step" and stuff like that on. I don't think it really says that specifically, but like, those sorts of things...

Detail shot of the Gundam's foot.

After seeing the Gundam, we attempted to explore some of the malls in Odaiba, but we didn't get very far because we couldn't stop eating (lunch turned into Auntie Anne's Pretzels) and then the boys we were with were like... so ridiculously chill that we never got anywhere. And we couldn't get them to stop talking about trading card games. So it was a lot later than we meant it to be when we finally got home. And it was Sunday. Whoops.

But we got to see a nice sunset behind rainbow bridge and check out the lights of Tokyo Tower from the Yurikamome line on the way home. And then we managed to find, from the Yurikamome line platform, what we're pretty sure is the cliche view of the Tokyo streetlights that you see all the time online but we couldn't find in real life. If you're ever going to Odaiba for some reason, you should take the Yurikamome line at least one way. I was turned off by how expensive it was compared to the subway, but it does a loop in the middle for some reason, so it's good for sightseeing. You can get a good look at Tokyo Tower and some cool skyscrapers and stuff.

Rainbow Bridge

Rainbow lights

Okay, now, finally, pandas.

I bought a book of cafes in Tokyo, and one of the featured cafes was panda-themed! I didn't take a picture of the inside of the cafe because I already had it in my book but it was quite adorable and quite delicious.

Sign out front

Small sign out front

Sign at the top of the stairs (the cafe was on the 2nd floor of the building)

Panda table decoration

Panda keema curry

Panda mocha

Cookies and cream ice cream!

Laura and her Panda Set

So that was last Thursday. Then on Saturday my class was cancelled so I went to the Ueno Park Zoo with another friend, and we saw the real panda! And really cute elephants. And lots of other stuff. It was a really good zoo day somehow. We got to see the zookeepers feed a lot of different animals, and they all seemed really active.

The female panda! There's a male one too but he wasn't outside.

The zoo keepers encouraged the elephants to walk around the enclosure in a line like this and then gave them bananas.

Me and the elephants.

Oh, and today I drank this at a cafe in my train station that I keep wanting to try:

Azuki shirotama float

It was kinda expensive considering how much of it was ice but you live and learn, I guess. Now I don't have to be curious about that cafe anymore.

Oh, and of course, it's not related to pandas or cafes, but on Monday there was a solar eclipse over Japan, and I bought the special reflective sunglasses and got to see it. I didn't take a picture or anything, but I woke up at 7 to go check it out and it was well worth it, standing in the driveway looking at the sun through the special glasses and taking a break every two minutes. The moon covered the sun so that it was a perfect ring. I think you could see the eclipse in California too, but I'm not sure. It was really cool to see.

70 days left in Japan, counting today (and it's already 9pm so I suppose I should be done counting today). See you sooner than I can believe, America!

Hello Dears,

Looking forward, I promise to fill this seemingly

2012-05-22T03:04:00Z

Hello Dears,

Looking forward, I promise to fill this seemingly boring summer with plenty of juicy and interesting material for you all. Due to financial reasons and other lovely circumstances (note the sarcasm) I will be spending the next 10 weeks with my mother at her house. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad, I mean free rent, most of my food is payed for, but I often wonder if the stress level is worth it. As you may already know, my mom and I are a bipolar power team to say the least. We are very alike, and just don't get along all that well WHEN LIVING TOGETHER. We have realized that we get along much better as mother and daughter when not living together, although there are still ups and downs. However, she is spending about half of each week at her boyfriends, (where she and my brothers are moving at the end of summer) and I think that will give us enough separate time for us to survive the summer without strangling each other. My brothers are another story entirely...

So yes, that means my ACM semester in Chicago is behind me, sadly! :( But never the less Chicago is continually in my future thanks to the experience ACM provided me. It has been an amazing whirlwind that ended all to soon. You gain so much more than you can ever expect on the Chicago Program. Of course there were ups and downs, as with anything in life, but the programs ups definitely outweighed the downs this past semester.

So I saved the most exciting update for last, I got the job I wanted today! Of course I am still working at my true love, the Gap (yes I'm back at Hawthorn! I never transfered more like had a 3 month leave lol). However that's very part time, so I needed another job ASAP. I have never worked a job I didn't love and enjoy, and I've come to live by that with whatever job I do. If you don't like it, you won't be performing at your best. So I went in search of a job that I would enjoy, and I had to eliminate retail because I can't work at a competing clothing store to Gap. I set my eyes on Foss Swim School, recommended to me by one of my dear friends who used to work there. I'll be teaching kids how to swim in a fun and energetic environment. I am so excited that I get to work with kids (cause I love kids, hello, I don't just work at Gap, I work at Kids and BabyGap) and I get to be in the water all summer! Yay swimming! I am so so so so so excited!

Peace.

Big Buddha

2012-05-21T01:47:06Z

I woke up at 7 and went into the living room, where I watched the ships go by while everyone else slept. Trudy soon woke up, as did Annette, who was expecting some workers at 8 (they were finishing some renovations upstairs). Annette fixed us breakfast and told us that Friday was the day that the American warships headed out from the harbor. It was as if we were watching T.V. and she was reciting the viewing schedule to us. Sure enough, we saw five American ships head out over the next several hours.

I wanted to go to Lantau Island, across the channel from Hong Kong Island, which was home to the largest outdoor Buddha in the world. This was the one “must see” item on my list for Hong Kong. We asked Annette, who had never been there, if she wanted to come with. She said that she would, but that she had to wait until afternoon for the workers to leave. This was fine, since the kids did not wake up until about noon, and it gave Trudy the chance to finish washing our laundry from the previous week. We left the house around 1 pm, after having a quick lunch at the house. This time we took a “minibus” (essentially a van) to Central, which was a bit quicker than one of the double-decker buses we had taken the previous day. We then took the MRT, mass transit rail, to a station on Lantau Island. Upon arriving there, however, we found out that the cable cars that we had wanted to take to the Buddha were not running and that we would have to take the bus there instead.

The bus ride ended up being quite interesting. It was a 45-minute trip which wound through the mountains which covered the island- past waterfalls, beaches, and even a stray water buffalo who was walking near a lake. It was at this point that we finally caught sight of our goal- sitting atop one of the highest peaks. The bus soon arrived at the foot of this peak, where we spent the next 90 minutes climbing the 250-odd steps that led to the Buddha, taking pictures of the amazing statue, taking in the view from the top of the mountain, as well as exploring the nearby temples which were located on the grounds of a monastery. This would be our first, but certainly not last, encounter with a Buddha during our trip, Buddhism being quite popular in the Far East and Southeast Asia.

Instead of returning the way that we had come, we decided to get on a different bus, which would take us to a small town where we could catch a ferry across the channel. This bus took us by many more water buffalo; we saw at least half a dozen along the road on the way there. When we reached the town, about 30 minutes later, we boarded a ferry which took us right to Central. We were quite hungry by this time, since it was almost 7 pm, so we took the MRT to Kowloon and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Café. We figured that we would have one last Western feast before heading off into the culinary unknown the following day. By the time we returned to the Goachs’ house, it was getting quite late. Trudy made sure that we were all packed for the following day’s travel before we went to bed. The kids, of course, watched more movies on the DVD player in the guest bedroom before they turned in for the night.

Hong Kong

2012-05-18T13:02:10Z

I woke up around 6 am and peeked out of the curtains of our cabin window to see a strange sight- a man and women were riding a motorcycle together directly outside the window! They had been riding on a road which ran parallel to the train tracks, but soon disappeared as the road dipped out of sight. The landscape had transformed while we slept- the flat expanse had been replaced by hills made of reddish clay, while the corn fields had been replaced by rice patties and palm trees. It looked more like what my preconceived notions had been of what China should look like. Trudy got up after I had sat in the passageway for 90 minutes or so, staring out the window, and we decided to have breakfast together in the dining car while the children slept in.

We were able to have a Western-type breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee there, while still watching the scenery pass by. We once again passed through mostly smaller villages that day, with the exception of Guangzhou (Canton), which was quite a large city indeed. Brennan woke up around 10 am, but all was silent from Justin’s cabin- which we did not want to enter for fear of waking his roommates. Finally, around 11:30, Justin emerged from his cabin. Soon after that, we started getting into a more and more urban environment, complete with skyscrapers and high rise apartments. The outskirts of Hong Kong actually looked a lot more like what we had been used to in Japan. At 1:35, the train finally pulled into the station in Kowloon, across the bay from Hong Kong Island.

We were all very hungry, so we went to the McDonalds in the train station for lunch after we collected our baggage. This would be the start of two days worth of Western food, which we were all missing very much after our experiences on the boat, in Beijing, as well as on the train- much more than we ever had in Japan.

After lunch, we took a taxi to our friends’ house on Hong Kong Island. Aaron and Johanna Goach were actually the brother and sister-in-law of Audra, one of the professors I worked with in Monmouth. When I heard that her brother lived in Hong Kong, I urged Audra to introduce us to him and his family. We had hit it off well, and they later said that they would love for us to come stay at their home during our trip to Asia. The one unexpected part was that Johanna found out that she was pregnant and due around Christmas time. Although they normally visited the U.S. during the holidays, they moved their trip to the summer, since Johanna would be unable to travel at Christmas. This meant that we would still be staying at their house- but they would not be home.

The Goachs’ live-in Filipino housekeeper, Annette, was going to be around, however, and had arranged to meet us at their house. Their condo on Victoria Harbor was by far the best accommodation that we would stay in for our entire trip. During our stay there, it was almost as if Annette was our housekeeper- calling me “sir” and Trudy “mum”, helping wash our clothes, as well as serving us drinks. Even without this, Hong Kong was also everyone’s favorite city that we visited. It stood in sharp contrast to Beijing in being a bright, clean, beautiful city. Especially beautiful was the view from the Goachs’ window, where we watched the huge boats coming into and out of the harbor.

After taking some much-needed showers as well as changing our clothes, we decided to go sightseeing for a bit. Annette offered to show us around the city. She showed us how to take a double-decker bus to downtown Hong Kong, called “Central”. From there, we boarded a cable-car which took us to the top of Victoria Peak, or simply “The Peak” to the natives. From there we were treated with another spectacular view- the skyline of Hong Kong surrounded by the shimmering water which encircled it. Since the Peak was topped by a large shopping mall, we looked around for a while and then had dinner at “Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company”.

After dinner, we took a taxi back to the Goachs’ house, which was actually just on the other side of the Peak from Central, and settled down for the night. The kids, who were quite impressed with the Goachs’ movie collection, stayed up to watch movies, while Trudy and I went right to sleep.

"How do you know that you're right? / If you're not nervous anymore..."

2012-05-18T09:56:00Z

"How do you know that you're right?
If you're not nervous anymore..."

"Bling (Confessions of a King)" by The Killers

You learn a lot of things about your personality when you study abroad. One of the things I've learned is that I have the sort of personality that, for whatever reason, wants me to be continually denying myself something. If something is too comfortable, then maybe it can't be trusted. I've learned to overcome this in a lot of parts of my life - my schoolwork and my eating habits, for example - but it always manages to seep into some other area of my existence. Like English. Not in an "I'm going to challenge myself by only speaking Japanese today" way, but in a "You spoke too much English today. You should feel bad about that" way. There's a fine line between immersion and self-denial that results in the coding of English-language experiences and friendships as inherently less valuable than the same things in a foreign language. I'm not sure that I agree with that value system, but I'm definitely trapped in it.

I've also realized that at the beginning of my study abroad experience, I chose to be a good study abroad student, specifically a good white American encroaching on a foreign country, by deciding to avoid bothering people as much as possible. I don't really recommend this approach. There are other, probably better, ways to be a "good" study abroad student. Ask intelligent questions and engage empathetically with the people around you as much as possible, for example.

Now, as my friends in the US start to prepare for summer vacation, I'm starting to think about my senior year, and my future after graduation. And I haven't the slightest clue what that will be.

But I don't think I want to go right back to Japan. It's not that I'm having a bad experience here, but my family and friends are all an ocean away. There's not much that ties me to Japan except for my desire to master Japanese, though if you asked me why I want to be able to speak and read it, I'm not really sure anymore. I feel very temporary in Japan, and very precarious. There are a lot of political things going on in the US right now that make me want to punch something, but at least there I know where I stand and I feel at home.

But I only feel so comfortable in the US because I am a white, straight, cisgender, middle-class American. I know better than to think that my comfort extends to every American. I know that there are people who are hurt or killed every day in America because of the institutions that make me feel like I have a place there. So that self-denial comes out again. I imagine someone with all the privileges I lack telling me "Oh, poor baby, you don't feel comfortable in Japan? I don't feel comfortable anywhere." There are jobs in Japan that I know I could do, if the only concern I had for my future was financial. English teaching, for example. Knowing Japanese, being a woman, speaking American English, and having a college degree would be great advantages to me in the "teach-English-in-Japan" field. And I wouldn't lose my hard-earned Japanese. So how can I turn that down for an uncertain job future in the US, just because I feel a little uncomfortable with being a gaijin forever and I want to be close to my family?

There's the additional problem that no one can recommend me any career fields anywhere but in Japan. Obviously, being physically located in Japan, people in charge my study abroad program are bound to be most familiar with the opportunities there. But no one knows anything about Japan Study alumni who didn't come back to Japan*. There's this accepted mythology that good study abroad students want nothing more than to live in their host country forever, and the ones who aren't dying to come back are failures. I don't want to be a failure.

I don't want to give up the progress I've made in Japanese. I've finally gotten to the point where I can actually talk with people and begin to read things, and I want to keep improving. But I want to work in America. I don't want the limits I feel placed on myself in Japan, both as a woman and as a gaijin (although I realize that gaijin women are privileged above Japanese women in some fields). In any case, I'm not ready to commit to any sort of two-year teaching contract in Japan right away.

This makes me feel like a bad white American study abroad student for not being "international enough" and sufficiently "culturally flexible," for not loving my host country more than my family, my friends, and my personal comfort, for wanting to take a path I imagine to be both "easier" and less restrictive in the long-run. For not having the sort of study abroad experience programs want to brag about, and for having the gall to write about it on a blog linked from that program's website.

So I'm sorry about all of that.

To my family, I promise I'm not depressed right now. I've been having a lot of enjoyable experiences that you can look forward to in future posts once I find a convenient way to host the photos (Gundams, chocolate, and pandas, oh my!). I'm just trying to work my way through a lot of thoughts, and some of them are stupid and for some reason I want to work through them on the internet in public. Probably in the hopes of advice from people older and wiser than me. Comments and emails are welcome.

*This year's program assistant is in the process of a new reconnect-with-alumni for the sake of her graduate research and the 50th anniversary of the program, so I could have answers soon.

Train to Hong Kong

2012-05-17T13:34:36Z

Even though our train did not leave until noon, we got up early, ate breakfast at the hostel, and were on our way by 9 am. We wanted to allow plenty of time for getting to the station, as well as for checking in, etc. The hostel provided a bicycle rickshaw to get our luggage as far as the main road, where we hailed a cab for Beijing West Train Station. Since we had bought our tickets at the main train station, we had not yet been to this particular one. It ended up being just as large and imposing as the other, but looked like it had recently undergone a renovation. We went through much the same process of finding out where we needed to check in as we did buying the tickets at the other. We asked a number of people where we needed to go, most of which didn’t speak enough English to point us in the right direction. Finally, we figured out that we needed to exit the station and go to a special foreigner check in area which was located one level lower than where we had come in. The family finally boarded the train to Hong Kong about 11:30.

We had been a little concerned since the family was to be split between two compartments, but our fears were allayed when we saw who was in our cabins. Justin and Trudy had the top bunks in a cabin with two twenty-something girls, one from Beijing and one from Korea, while Brennan and I had the top bunks in a cabin with only one other person, a Chinese woman who was traveling to see her daughter in Hong Kong. Trudy actually had a very good time talking with the two girls in her cabin, while the lady in ours shared peanuts with us and tried to teach us how to say some Chinese words.

I had expected the train to go through many metropolitan areas, once again assuming that China was basically wall-to-wall people, but we actually went through very few on this day. Most of the scenery that passed by looked like something out of the Midwest- with many cornfields and small villages. We were please to find that none of these were obscured by smog once we were out of the vicinity of Beijing. The boys and I went to the train’s dining car for lunch, but Trudy was not feeling the greatest, so she stayed in her cabin with her new friends. The food on the train was all Chinese, of course. It was pretty good, but the family was starting to tire of Chinese food after almost a week of little else. For dinner, we decided to stay put and get a box meal that they were selling from baskets that the staff carried down the corridors, while Trudy mainly stuck with the snack food that another vendor was selling.

Since our cabin only ended up with three people in it, Trudy decided to sleep with Brennan and me so she could have a bottom bunk, leaving Justin with the two girls. He didn’t seem to mind at all! Trudy and the boys read a lot during the trip, while I just stared out the window or talked to people. Eventually, we were all rocked to sleep in our bunks by the gentle sway of the train as it made its way across China.

Talley up the Score

2012-05-16T18:42:00Z

As most of you know, I have been living in the windy city since February. And you may also know, I have not had the opportunity to write since about mid-February. So, I am going to take the time since its FINALLY summer to update you on what's been happening here. Ready? Here it goes..

FEBRUARY

I began my 4 month stint as an intern at Lyon Communications. Despite leaving the first day in tears, well lets just say it could have been worse and we'll leave it at that. SCORE: Maddie-0 Chicago-1

We continued to battle the cold and I learned just how much it sucked to not have my car. My legs and waistline on the other hand are severely reaping the benefits of walking 3+ miles each day on top of whatever I do at the gym. And speaking of the gym, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Xport fitness. I love working out there! Everyday I feel like I am on the same level as everyone else there. Everyone is a little tired, everyone really just wants to go home, but we all come there and kick ass. Excuse me, Janice, boufay. I made a joke the other day that the first time I actually would feel confident in a swim suit is the summer I decided to end my career as a lifeguard and start wearing clothes to work. Oh well, ce la vie.
SCORE: Maddie- 2 (1 for each leg) Chicago- 1

MARCH

Chicago saw one week of 80 degree weather at the beginning of the month and everyone thought it was here to stay. So naturally I had my dad bring all of my spring clothes and I shipped all my sweaters, long sleeves and coats home. It should come to no surprise to anyone that it turned cold almost as soon as my dad drove away. So I used my skilled fashion sense to turn all my summer/spring clothes into a brightly colored winter wardrobe.
Score: Maddie- 3 Chicago-2 (we'll call that one a tie)

This month we celebrated St. Patrick's Day. It wasn't until I moved to Chicago that I learned what a huge deal St. Patty's Day, as it is so affectionately called, is. I had the privilege, if that's what you want to call it, to experience such a show as St. Patty's Day. Lets just say that was the most difficult time I had being only 20 when I intermixed with the sea of green drunks swarming the streets of Chicago. I have never seen anything like it. Score: Maddie-3 Chicago- 3 (well done, Chicago)

As many of you know, March also happened to be my birthday. And not only was it my birthday, it was my 21st. My lovely sister came in from Florida to help celebrate this blessed occasion. Let me just recap Wednesday's events. Keep in mind this is the night before my birthday, 21 at midnight...

6:45 PM- Pick Erin up from the Airport and make plans for the evening

7:30 PM- Erin, Christina and I hit up Dunley's on the Square for $5 burger night.

This is where the night officially starts. We were served Sangria as a treat

for my birthday.

8:30-9:00 PM- Decide we're going to go out at midnight for my birthday in Wicker Park.

We'll have 1 drink since I had school the next morning and pregame a little

before the bars.

9:30 PM- Erin's friends Bill and Dee come join us to go to the bars. Christina and I split a bottle

of Dragon Fruit (what ever the hell that is) Bacardi. No, we didn't drink the whole thing!

There is at least 1/4 of the bottle left. (Now's the part where you say "Oh dear")

10:30 PM- We (Me, Erin, Christina, Bill, Dee and Evin) decide to see if we can get into

the bars a little early. With no luck we decide to take the train to Wicker Park.

11:30 PM- Decide to try our luck at one bar and get turned down. We walk across the street and

get right in.

11:45 PM- A round of Long Islands (strong enough to knock a 7 footer down) for everyone!

11: 55 PM- Walk to the next bar. The bar tender lets us in but says I can't order a drink

for 5 minutes. Let the countdown begin. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.. BIRTHDAY CAKE SHOT!

And yes I did receive a balloon that unfortunately came undone and still sits at the

ceiling of this bar, or so I like to think. Here I also ordered my first drink, a

Cosmopolitan in honor of my hero and fashion role model, Carrie Bradshaw.

12:10 PM- Walk to the next bar. On the way there I called Julie to tell her about the

adventures I had but her voice mail didn't work. In this next nearly empty bar, we ordered

another Cosmo. Here is where we found a jukebox. As a present to me, my

wonderful roommates bought my favorite song, Miss American Pie. Well, this

dude at the bar proclaimed that he hated this song and that these next 5 minutes was going to be hell.

I of course corrected him and told him the song was in fact 8 minutes and 32 seconds and

it was my birthday so he better be quiet. Throughout the entire song he made faces and comments

so naturally I made several specific hand gestures and faces behind his back, while doing

my very best singing and interpretive dancing to my very favorite song.

12:40 PM- Time to go home. We get into a cab where I insist on sitting up front with the driver.

I asked him what his name was and he told me it was Ali. Now, I don't know if any

of you know this about me, but I love Disney and pride myself on knowing all the songs.

So what did I do? Prince Ali, fabulous he, Ali Ababoua. And to my surprise, he didn't know

the song. I told him all about it of course and we both had a good laugh, or at least

that's how I remember it.

12:50 PM- Home. Lets just say there was a flip onto the couch, a face plant, a face on the dirty

toilet seat, and leave it at that.

Morning

Extremely hungover. Swore off alcohol forever. Lets just say I won't be going to

Groupon any time soon. End of story.

After spending the next 3 days drinking and celebrating, I still can barely walk by the liquor

store without feeling nauseous. Moral of the story, well there is no moral to the story really,

except you only turn 21 once so be sure to want to swear off alcohol by the end of it.

Oh, and I couldn't finish the story of my birthday without mentioning that my awesome friends, Abby and Julia, came to help their little DD celebrate. We had an awesome day at Navy Pier and were wasted away in Margaritaville. I only was injured once on this trip when I hit my head on the ceiling of the bus for being too tall. Woops.

Score: Maddie: 7 (four points for surviving a birthday week) Chicago: 4 (1 for surviving my birthday week) and Groupon: -1 for locking their bathrooms.

APRIL

This entire month was dedicated to projects. Pretty boring here really.

So that about wraps it up. That's what has been going on here for the past few months. As you can tell by the final score, I have conquered the city. I survived 4 months of living here on my own with the help of 3 great roommates. Three months to go... wish me luck as I take the windy city.

Flow

2012-05-16T15:09:00Z

Last week, we watched the documentary “Flow,” which is about the privatization of water resources leading to a lack of potable water for much of the world’s population. We then took a field trip to the town of Concepción de San Rafael de Heredia to see their water source and learn about water conservation efforts there.

When we arrived, we were so happy to breathe the fresh, slightly chilly air. I’ve said it before, but that’s one thing that I love about Costa Rica: even just an hour bus ride brought us to a completely different ecosystem. The weather here reminded me of Northern California; pine trees and mountains galore. We met up with an environmental lawyer/activist and a farmer, who have both worked hard on water conservation efforts in the region.

As we hiked up to see the water source for this county, our hosts explained to us the importance of avoiding privatization of the water supply. There are several large, powerful international companies that have taken over government control of water supply, claiming they will provide cleaner water for more people. Most of the time, the opposite happens: public water fountains are shut down, cutting the poorest citizens off completely from the water supply. Unable to afford iodine tablets for purification, they are then forced to drink untreated water from the polluted rivers and risk death from disease. The water supply in Concepción is owned by the people (through taxes), which is a very important step.

After hiking for awhile, our guides stopped us to explain that we had arrived at the border of the protected region. A law passed in 1888 protected a large area of land in Heredia Province from which much of the water supply originates, stating that no private ownership or building was allowed on this land. This law has been completely forgotten and ignored, which was clear to us by the fact that there was no difference between the land on either side of the border; private farms and houses continued with no interruption.

Here's the border of the protected area... there aren't even any signs marking it

Finally, we ended up at the stream that is the source of drinking water for the region. Our guides explained that before massive citizen fundraising efforts in recent years, water “treatment” consisted of taking water straight from the streams and dumping in unmeasured amounts of chlorine. Often, in the rainy season, sediment would be washed into the river and water from the tap would come out brown in color. Now, they have a much more technologically advanced system that removes sediments and treats the water with the proper amounts of chemicals. The water in Concepción can now actually be considered “potable.”


Water collection for human consumption... Don't swim in the drinking water stream.

Stream where the drinking water comes from

One thing that shocked me to learn was that many small towns in Costa Rica still drink river water with chlorine dumped in. And, according to our guide, that type of water “treatment” is included in the 95% potable water in Costa Rica that you read about in tourist guide books. He believes that is a flat-out lie, explaining that there is a difference between “safe for human consumption” and “potable;” Costa Rica may have 95% “safe for human consumption” water, but far, far less than that percentage is actually potable. Yikes!

We found some black raspberries on our hike!

This was all very educational and thought-provoking, but it was also fun to just go on a hike with my friends in a beautiful place! We hiked back from the stream (which was very exciting and involved one of my classmates twisting her ankle and being picked up in an ox cart… only in Costa Rica) to ACM director Chris Vaughan’s organic farm.

View from the road we hiked up

On the farm, we picked our own carrots for a snack, which we ate along with some gallos (corn tortilla sandwiches) made with homemade tortillas and fresh queso blanco from the region. The cheese tasted so fresh – one of my friends remarked that she could taste the cow in the cheese. It was good… but being a Wisconsinite I have to say it wasn’t as good as fresh cheese curds at the Dane County Farmer’s Market in Madison! We also snacked on home-baked tamal asado (like a dense cake, made with corn flour, sugar and sour cream). We then took a tour of the organic farm, seeing banana plants and avocado trees before running back onto the bus right before the rain started. It’s definitely transitioning into the rainy season here; sunny in the mornings and rainy in the afternoons.

Picking carrots

Eating gallos

Tamal asado con pasas (with raisins)

Baby aguacate (avocado) tree

It was a fun, quick field trip in the midst of cramming to finish our research projects!

The Great Wall

2012-05-16T13:08:59Z

Since the tour of the Great Wall left at 6 am from the original Leo Hostel, we asked for a wake-up call at 4:30 in order to get ready and have breakfast before we left. We had asked the previous night when the restaurant closed and the girl that worked there said that it “never closed”. Luckily, we woke up around 4:30 by ourselves since our wake up call didn’t come until ten after 5. Apparently, the front desk was not manned 24 hours, and the timing of the wake up calls depended on when the first employee got up. The same must have been true of the restaurant, which was definitely closed when we woke up and had still not opened when we left for Leo I, at 5:30.

Leo I was in a similar shape when we arrived, the lobby was dark and the front doors were even chained shut. The kids wanted to ring the bell to wake up the employees, but we were starting to realize how hard they all worked (a shift seemed to last from dawn until late into the night), so we held off. Eventually, someone did wake up and opened the doors. By that time, about 20 people had assembled to head to the Great Wall. We then divided into two vans for the two-hour trip to the Wall; we were in a van with a Dutch family of four, as well as two Israeli girls.

The Dutch family was quite an interesting one. They had taken a year off from their jobs to travel around the world for that amount of time. They had two girls who were 8 and 12 years old. The family had just come from nearly 2 weeks in Mongolia, where they traveled with local people and existed off of products derived entirely from yaks. They had lived in tents called yurts the entire time and can traveled 1100 miles, only 100 of which were on paved roads. And I thought our family was adventurous!

The main thing I noticed on the drive to the wall was the smog. Smog blanketed Beijing that morning, so much that most of the nearby buildings were obscured by it. Smog even blanketed the countryside through which we then drove- for the entire two hour trip! The small villages and farms would have been very quaint otherwise, if not for the polluted air which surrounded them. Our driver drove like a lunatic, of course, swerving around bicycles, carts, pedestrians, as well as other cars. We finally reached a small village, Mutianyu, in which we began to climb into the foothills of a mountain range and were able to rise up out of the smog for the first time that morning. That’s when were got our first glimpse of the Great Wall, which capped the peaks of the surrounding mountains.

Within 10 minutes we had parked in the village and reassembled our entire group. We were then given 3 1/2 hours to explore the wall, after which the van would leave for its return trip to Beijing. We had a choice of climbing a trail to the Great Wall, which took one-hour, or taking a chair lift to the top. We chose the latter, wanting to maximize our actual time on the wall, which many of the singles in our group, including our German friend Robert, opted for the former. Since we had not eaten breakfast, the boys and I headed down toward the village to get some, while Trudy headed up to the wall with the Dutch family. Getting breakfast involved running the gauntlet of merchants, just like in Beijing. Some of them literally leapt from where they were sitting and ran to their stalls in order to be there to sell us their product. We found a stand selling different kinds of crepes, where I was able to negotiate a decent price for four of them. We then boarded the chairlift to reach the Wall as well as to deliver a banana crepe to Trudy.

The Wall was amazing- it was easily the highlight of our trip so far. The view was breathtaking and it was great to explore the area on our own, relatively free from distraction. Every now and then we would encounter a strategically placed merchant who had climbed the wall ahead of us in order to sell water at triple the going price in Beijing. Since we had bought a liter of water before we left, we were not interested in their overpriced refreshment at this point. Since only a section of the wall had been restored for tourists to visit, we could only go so far down it before having to turn around and come back. The chair lift had deposited us one-third of the way from one end of the section, so we decided to walk that direction all the way to the end.

This ended up being the right choice, since we found that the direction we had chosen held the most picturesque section, while most tourists had done the opposite and had headed the other way. There were a series of guardhouses along the section of the Wall which we explored, we figured out a way to climb onto most of their roofs to get a better view of the surrounding area. We soon reached a steep stairway that was impassible to Trudy and Nicole, the Dutch lady who had accompanied us from the chair lifts, along with her youngest daughter. The three of them waited as the boys and I climbed the stairs and reached the end of the restored section, which was not far beyond that point. We then retraced our steps to the chairlift, by which time it was 9:45; half of our time on the Wall had been spent.

The boys and I wanted to make it to the other end of the section, and some simple math determined that we would have to move more than twice as fast in order to see the remaining portion in the 90 minutes we had before we needed to descend from the wall. Trudy, however, was content with what she had seen, and opted to wait for us there. We ran for much of the remaining section, stopping for short rests as well as to take pictures in certain spots. We could see why most tourists chose this section, since it was much easier to transverse and did not have quite as many sets of stairs and difficult climbs. One glaring exception was apparent when we reached the end of that section, which could be only reached by ascending hundreds of stairs.

Justin climbed all of these, while Brennan and I were content that we could actually see the end of the section, so we didn’t feel like we actually had to reach it. When Justin came down the stairs, his face was redder than I have ever seen it. Since we were out of water by this point, I told him to play it cool while I negotiated for some more. We found a water salesman on the way back and, despite Justin’s telltale face, I was able to get two waters for the price of one, spending about $1. We then hightailed it back to where we had caught the chairlift up, arriving at 11:15, fifteen minutes before the van was to leave. Trudy was still waiting there for us but she had started to wonder if we were ever coming back.

Luckily, in addition to the chairlift, the Chinese had built a metal toboggan shoot onto the side of the mountain in order to make the descent quickly. We all took turns taking a toboggan slide down the mountain at exhilarating speeds, reaching the parking lot just before the van pulled out. By this time, the sun had burned through the smog and the trip back to Beijing was much more picturesque, although I mostly dozed along the way, exhausted from all that climbing.

It was 1:30 by the time we reached Leo I; we were famished, having only eaten a crepe each for breakfast. Our Dutch friends suggested that we all go to Sakura, a nearby restaurant, for lunch. We all enjoyed this restaurant very much, it had a good mix of Western as well as Asian food, and we agreed that it was by far our favorite place to eat in Beijing so far.

Brennan wanted to go shopping after we had finished with lunch. He had been walking past a display of swords on our way into and out of the alleyway. Occasionally, he had stopped to look at one, following which the shop owners would swarm on us and begin bargaining for the swords. Through this process we had narrowed down which sword he wanted as well as gained a rough idea of how much the sellers were willing to come down on the price. This trip we did purchase his sword, for $12- less than half the original asking price. The only problem that remained was getting it home. We knew that we couldn’t take it on the train we were to catch the following day, let alone any of the plane trips that we had scheduled for later. I therefore inquired back at Leo I about the location of the nearest Post Office, from which we could mail the sword home to the U.S.

Brennan and I then returned to Leo II, where Trudy and Justin were waiting for us. Although Brennan had no interest in going, I talked Justin into accompanying me to the Post Office with the lure of taking a bicycle rickshaw there, even though he was still exhausted from running around on the Great Wall. Knowing that the Post Office was actually not far from our hostel, but still not trusting myself to navigate the winding alleyways which led there, I openly laughed at the rickshaw driver who offered to take us there for $5. Following some brief negotiations, I was then able to find someone willing to take us there for half that amount, which was still slightly overpriced. Soon, we had reached the Post Office, showed them the sword, and asked “America?” While there was no one who spoke a word of English in the Post Office, one thing we could understand was that they weren’t going to send the sword anywhere and the man behind the counter kept pointing towards the main road and saying something like “Hopi mon post”.

We then walked the 10-minute trip to the main road, all the while keeping an eye out for whatever the man had been indicating to us. After reaching the main road and coming up empty-handed, we returned to the Post Office and tried to ask the man to write out our destination in Chinese so we could ask more people along the way. He couldn’t understand us, but this time we though we understood that we should look for “Helping Host”, instead. With this newfound knowledge, we headed back to the main road once again. After reaching it yet again without finding anything, we decided to travel up it, towards Tiananmen Square, and continue our search for a while longer. As we neared the square, I decided that we would stop at a hotel so we could ask the Post Office question all over again. Before we made it to the lobby, however, we happened to walk by a building that looked suspiciously like a large Post Office. We went inside this building instead, having finally reached our goal by blind chance.

Ironically, it cost $2 more to mail the sword to the U.S. than it actually did to buy it in the first place, but, considering his relative contempt of China so far, I was happy that Brennan had found something that interested him. Based on my sense of direction, I thought it would be easier to continue to follow along Tiananmen Square and then turn down the main road which led to Leo I instead of re-tracing our steps past the two Post Offices, but after walking for a while, we seemed no closer to our goal. I decided that it would be easiest to take a rickshaw back from that point, so I found someone who would take us to the hostel for $2. This ended up being an exciting ride- we went down narrow alleys, around sharp corners, and even down some stairs in order to reach the hostel. The man who took us worked so hard to get us there that I gave him an extra $.50 for his troubles. We finally rejoined Trudy and Brennan, just in time to leave to see a Kung Fu show at the same theater that we had watched the Chinese acrobats.

We went to this show with a Russian family, an American man, as well as a burly bald Australian fellow. Three of us sat together, while Justin sat a row in front of us with the American and Australian. The show was just as good as the acrobatic display, if not better. It was the story of a Kung Fu apprentice that had to give up the girl he loved in order to become a Kung Fu Master. It involved lots of fight scenes, as well as acrobatic-type scenes, such as those which featured the young lovers flying through the air on ribbons. The final portion involved displays of strength which were designed to test the new Master, such as lying between beds of spikes and having cinder blocks smashed by sledgehammers over the top of them. The only thing the kids did not like was the moral that you should give up the things you love in order to give yourself fully to Kung Fu. In all, it was a fitting close to our last night in Beijing.

Exploring Beijing

2012-05-15T12:41:29Z

I woke up early, as usual, and took a shower in our interesting bathroom. When the whole family was assembled, we went to get breakfast at the hostel’s restaurant. Justin and Trudy stuck with toast and honey, while Brennan ordered a huge “Western breakfast”: eggs, ham, toast, and a salad, and I had banana pancakes. My breakfast looked more like what I thought of as a German pancake since it was made in a little skillet and therefore had raised edges, but it was very delicious.

It was 10 by the time we left the hostel, but before we could tour Beijing we had an important errand to run. We needed to head to the train station in order to secure our tickets for Hong Kong, which one had to purchase in the city that your train trip originated. We walked up to Tiananmen Square in order to catch the subway to the train station. The subway was not unlike the one in Japan, although there was no vending machine to buy tickets from, everyone went to a manned ticket office, it also cost us $ .40, which was also quite different from what we were used to in Japan.

We found the train station with no problem; we just followed thousands of people who were pushing their way to get in. It took us a while to find where we could buy tickets, though. First, we followed the crowds into the train station itself and went around to various places asking where we could buy a ticket. No one spoke English, of course, but we eventually realized that we had to exit the station and go to an attached building that was expressly used for ticket sales. We waited in line for a bit, but soon realized that there was a special window for foreigners to buy tickets from. The only catch was that there was no one manning this window. I waited in line at the next-door window, but when I got to the front, he directed me to wait at the unmanned foreigner one.

Finally, a lady came to the window and I explained what we wanted. She said that, unfortunately, there weren’t four beds in the same room, that we would have to buy top bunks in two different rooms. Since we didn’t have much of a choice, I agreed to that arrangement. However, when she rang up the price, it was more than I had anticipated from researching it on the internet, $125 each instead of $115. That was fine, but meant that I didn’t have enough cash on me to buy them, since I had tried not to exchange too much money on the boat at the less than prime exchange rates offered there. This meant that I had to find a bank to exchange more money and then return to the train station.

Since we couldn’t see a bank in the vicinity, Justin and I had Trudy and Brennan wait for us across the street from the train station while we went in search of one. We stopped in at a hostel to ask for directions, but had to wait a long time at the front desk before we could ask someone. They told us to go to the fourth floor of an adjacent building, a shopping mall, in order to find the Bank of China. When we got to the mall, it was impossible to find the 4th floor. We found elevators that only stopped at the 5th floor and above and asked many people, none of which could understand what we were looking for. Finally, as we were about to give up, we asked some security guards if they knew where the bank was. They directed us down a back hallway and up a manned service elevator, where we finally found the bank. Getting there that way, it felt like we were part of some secret bank-using society, but I later discovered that we had just entered the building from the wrong side. The bank had a long line of people, waiting for a teller, so I gave Justin some money and sent him back to warn the others that it would still take a while.

By the time I finally exchanged more money, returned to the station, and bought the tickets, it was 12:30. We still wanted to see the Temple of Heaven, a colossal structure that dates from the 1400′s, in which the emperor used to pray for the crops in a yearly ceremony. After walking in what I thought was the right direction for a while, we found only the ancient city walls of Beijing, and had to ask some Europeans where the temple was. They said it was quite a walk from there and suggested taking a cab. We figured that we could afford the $2 cab ride to the temple, so we hailed one, which took us right there.

We spent the next 90 minutes walking around the temple grounds and exploring the ancient Chinese architecture which was found within. It was just the sort of place I wanted to see in China- complete with it ornate, circular temple complex and a granite amphitheater on the far end of the grounds. We were all amazed by the ancient architecture and had a great time looking around. After our 7th try, we were able to find a cab which would take us back to the hostel, and this only after finally convincing a woman driver to take us as far as the subway stop on Tiananmen Square, which was close enough for us.

We ate a late lunch at the original Leo Hostel as we waited for a ride to a Chinese Acrobat show. Since we purchased the tickets through the hostel, the price included a ride there and back. Trudy and Brennan stuck with Western fare, while Justin and I had Chinese food. Trudy ordered a hamburger, this time getting the real thing. We ate quickly, as to not be late to our show. In addition to our family, there was a Dutch couple, and two college-age men, a Russian as well as a Chicagoan, who went to see the acrobats. Since their van was caught in traffic, the hostel called us a couple of cabs and then had a man waiting to pay for them when we got to the other end.

The show was great- the acrobats did all kinds of amazing stunts. We were most impressed by them jumping from a swinging pole and catching themselves on a rope using only their thigh muscles. We wondered if that stunt ever went terribly wrong in practice sessions. When we returned to the hostel, we met up with our friends from the boat for dinner. We all went out for none other than Peking Duck. It was really delicious. Robert, the German, took it upon himself to order lots of strange dishes as well: jellyfish, duck liver, as well as a green bean paste. The eight of us shared all the dishes, which was facilitated by a large rotating disk which made up the center of our table.

After dinner, Trudy and Justin walked to Tiananmen Square with Aya so they could see it all lit up, while Brennan and I headed back to the hostel. It was not long before the family was reunited at the hostel and fast asleep in our creaky beds.

Exploring San Jose

2012-05-14T21:01:00Z

I would guess that most people, when they plan a vacation to Costa Rica, don’t want to spend much time in its capital city San José. The draw of Costa Rica is really the nature, the unmatched biodiversity and wealth of ecosystems to explore. Still, now that I’ve been here for four months I feel like I’ve gotten the chance to experience many of the natural wonders of this country, and I chose to spend my free time in my last weeks here exploring San José (plus, I’ve had a lot of work to do on my project).

My friends and I have spent the last couple Sundays working on our projects in a McDonald’s in downtown San José. I know, I know, McDonald’s? Really?! But it’s in a central location, and is one of the few places with free wifi (though it hasn’t been working lately). And McDonalds' here are actually really classy – they have a “McCafé” that is just like a regular café, serving fancy coffee drinks and desserts and offering comfy chairs to sit and work at. We got into a Sunday habit of meeting at Mickey D’s, sipping our coffee as we worked for a few hours, and then wandering around downtown to get ice cream or buy souvenirs from the art market. It’s been a nice way to spend my Sundays, and I now feel much more comfortable with the bus system after many trips downtown.

Dove statue outside of the Teatro Nacional. There are dozens of these painted doves all over the city - San Jose's version of the Cow Parade

We also went on a field trip last Wednesday with our Spanish professors to tour the Teatro Nacional (National Theater). The building, supposedly built to replicate the Vienna Opera House, is ornate and a very impressive sight, especially when it’s lit up at night. It was built in the late 1800’s, after exportation to Europe made Costa Rican coffee farmers rich. These farmers, determined to boost Costa Rica’s appreciation of the fine arts, convinced the government to build this elaborate theater. Somehow, the coffee farmers didn’t end up paying as much as they originally claimed they would for the construction of this building; instead, an export tax on rice and beans meant that the lower agricultural class, who weren’t even allowed to enter the theater and reap the benefits of this investment, paid for a large percentage.

Still, whatever its history, the Teatro Nacional is a gorgeous building. Each room is ornately decorated, with marble statues and pillars brought from Italy, lavish candle holders and chandeliers, and paintings on nearly every inch of ceiling.


Dancer statue in the Teatro Nacional. Plus a trash can.

Fancy room in the Teatro Nacional. Connected to this room were the mens' and womens' smoking salons - separate, of course.

The theater. This picture was taken from the president's booth, where the presidente (or presidenta, as the current Costa Rican president is a woman) gets to sit to watch shows.

The most famous painting is Alegoría al café y el banana, which shows coffee and banana harvests. Our guide explained that this painting was done by an Italian artist who had never actually been to Costa Rica, a fact that is evident by several mistakes. The women depicted harvesting cacao have very light, European complexions, and are wearing shirts that expose their shoulders; at this time in Costa Rican history, women wore very modest clothing and would never show their shoulders. Also, the man in the center of the painting is holding his bunch of bananas all wrong – actual banana workers hoist the bunch onto their shoulders upside down.

Alegoria al cafe y el banano painting. It's hard to take pictures of things on the ceiling; sorry. But you can see the women with their skimpy shirts on the right, and the man awkwardly holding his bananas in the middle.

I had another San José adventure last Saturday night with Lauren and my host mom, Vicky. We decided to get tickets to La Media Docena, which is like Costa Rica’s version of Saturday Night Live. Lauren and I decided that seeing a comedy show would be the ultimate test of our Spanish fluency. And we were proud to discover that we understood the majority of the Spanish, and even most of the jokes that were specifically making fun of Costa Rican culture! We had a great time, and Vicky was especially excited when we got to take a picture with the most guapo comedian at the end of the show :).

I’m still hoping to explore some of the museums in San José before I go, but I’ve had a good time getting to know the city better these last couple of weeks.

Just imagine a pasture of cows without tongues and you’ll...

2012-05-14T19:28:12Z

Just imagine a pasture of cows without tongues and you’ll get it. (Taken with instagram)

China!

2012-05-14T11:52:44Z

When we awoke, the sea was calm, and the boat did not rock appreciably for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, Trudy and Justin ate little at breakfast- as they were getting very tired of the food on the boat by this time and did not really feel the greatest. We returned to deck, but for most of the day we could see nothing but open sea- with an occasional boat breaking the monotony. Trudy and Justin did eat lunch, we made sure to line up early in order to get the choice food before it was gone. On the previous days, we had gotten there just as the egg rolls or Japanese fried chicken disappeared and had been stuck with Chinese selections that had often left little to be desired. We all had tonkatsu, pork cutlets, for lunch- which was a nice change of pace. The only strange thing was that it came with a salad which was covered with ketchup, instead of salad dressing. Brennan also picked a plate of something that resembled fried apples, but ended up being gelatinous goop that none of us could finish and that no one at the table could even identify. As we ate, we could see that the number of boats outside was steadily increasing. By the time we returned to deck, the sea resembled a big parking lot with all of the boats on anchor that we were passing.

As I leaned over the side of the rail, I caught my first glimpse of land! It was actually not that impressive. Tianjin, being a main shipping center, reminded me of the parts of New Jersey that we used to live near. All I could see were loading cranes and warehouses and the smell was fairly unpleasant as well. The kids were unimpressed and returned to the ping-pong table below deck to play for one last hour. We pulled up a channel and we were at the dock by 2 pm, as promised. After docking, however, there was a 45-minute wait to be cleared by health officials before we could disembark. We had all filled out cards listing any ailments that we had. Finally, we walked down the gangplank into China, where we immediately boarded a bus that took us a short distance to the passenger terminal.

At the terminal, we passed through an area where they stamped our passports, then we picked up the luggage we had checked, and passed it through an X-ray machine on our way out of the building. We were pleasantly surprised by this process, since we had expected the entry procedures to be more involved than that. We then met up with an impromptu group which had assembled. Teddy, since he had done this so many times before, knew all of the tricks of getting to Beijing. He had told us that we could come with him when the boat docked, and we had invariably mentioned this to the Australians, the Brits, as well as the German guy. Teddy was also helping a group of Japanese students get to the train station. No less than 15 people now stood in our group of foreign acquaintances.

Although there were people in the parking lot asking “Bus? Bus?” we knew from the information on the boat that they charged $33/person to get to Beijing. Instead, Teddy directed us to the city bus stop for the 30-minute ride to the main bus depot, which cost us the equivalent of 26 cents a piece. The ride to the bus depot was interesting, to say the least. The bus was soon crowded with people, the driver honked his horn constantly as he swerved in and out of traffic, and we drove past some of the most dismal houses that we had ever seen. The whole town looked dirty, gray, and run down. The bus depot, by contrast, looked brand new, as they had just finished building it in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. The entire area of China we were in was apparently undergoing massive construction projects in order to prepare for this event.

The tickets we bought to Beijing at this depot were less than $8/person, without our friend Teddy, we would have not known where to go and probably would have paid the people at the port the exorbitant prices. The bus we took was, admittedly, a little less modern than the expensive buses. The speedometer didn’t work and it sounded like the gears were going to fall off the bus every time the driver shifted them. Luckily, he didn’t feel that he had to honk constantly during the 2-hour expressway ride to Beijing, just every now and then. The family all had to sit apart, since we were the last to get on, after making sure our luggage had been loaded safely on board. All but Justin sat within a few seats of each other, however, who had found a seat in the back of the bus near the Australian girls. This bus, unlike the previous one, was air conditioned- almost too much, perhaps, since I got very cold before we reached our destination.

I was surprised to see so many open spaces between Tianjin and Beijing, I had thought of China as being wall-to-wall with people. On the trip, we passed a number of fields and small villages, which stood in stark contrast to the urban blight that we had just experienced. The family mostly read and napped on the bus ride. The ride seemed to take forever, probably because we were so tired of traveling by that point. Finally, we started seeing more and more buildings and we could tell that we were entering a large metropolitan area.

On the surface, Beijing looked like any large city- with its buildings, traffic, and smog- but this illusion would soon pass. The bus pulled up to a station, and we all got out, assembling our group one final time. Teddy suggested that we take a cab to the hostel we were staying in, near Tiananmen Square. We had discovered on the boat that a number of the other travelers had booked a room at the same place, and that still others, after talking with us, wanted to stay there. We therefore had two cab loads of people, with our family filling up one.

I had the address of the hostel written down in Chinese, so I showed it to the cab driver, who just shook his head. I rejoined our group, who was still standing in a circle, and told Teddy that apparently the cab driver did not want to take us where we were going. Teddy took my paper, talked to the driver for a few minutes in Chinese, and then told us to get in to the cab. We found out later that, due to the traffic and construction there, cabs didn’t really like to head to that area. Teddy warned us that it would normally take us a few different tries to find someone who would be willing to take us there. The 20-minute cab ride to our hostel cost us about $4, even with the driver having to turn around once to make the right turn and then stopping and asking someone where the hostel was after making it to the general area. After getting directions, the cab turned into a narrow alley that was mobbed with people, honking the horn the whole way to get them to clear a way for us. People were on foot, riding bicycles, pushing carts, hawking their wears, they were literally everywhere. The smells emanating from the alleyway were unpleasant, to say the least.

The cab pulled up to the hostel and let us off. We entered to learn from the proprietor that the triple room I had reserved would never be large enough to fit our family of four. Instead, he suggested that we switch to their sister hostel a bit further down the street where we could have a quad room for the same price, about $40. The hostel staff loaded our luggage onto the back of a bicycle rickshaw and we walked along side as they carted our luggage to the other hostel. People from the shops which lined the street would say “Hello, hello” and then mention what they were selling. We would experience this same “running of the gauntlet” every time we walked down the alleyway to get to the main street.

Trudy and Brennan were getting more and more freaked out every step we took into the underbelly of Beijing. Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was 10 minutes at the most, we found ourselves at “Leo Hostel II”, also called the Shal Ling Hostel. It was located in the middle of a neighborhood of crumbling Chinese residences that were jammed into a side alleyway off the main alley. The foyer looked like it was taken from an old movie of the Orient, with high ceilings, a large woodcarving, a pond with turtles and goldfish, as well as people sitting on wicker chairs and fanning themselves.

Our room had barren walls and could barely contain the four single beds which were haphazardly arranged in it, two of which creaked every time the person on them moved even an inch. The bathroom had a sink and toilet, with a shower opposite the toilet. There was a drain on the floor for when one used the shower, but the water sprayed everywhere within the small confines of the bathroom. You could literally use the toilet and shower at the same time! The one thing you couldn’t do was flush any toilet paper down the commode, a sign on the wall said to throw it in the wastebasket after you used it. Trudy sat on one of the non-creaky beds and began to cry, completely overwhelmed. We were all tired, hungry, and culture-shocked from our trip into Beijing.

After a while I suggested that we go to the hostel’s restaurant and have dinner, since it was after 8 pm by this point. The restaurant was a quaint little place with a room above it where one could watch a movie or use the internet. Trudy and I ordered hamburgers and fries, since we had been craving Western food after the boat trip and could have used any little connection to home at the moment. What came was literally a “ham” burger, a bun with ham, lettuce, and dressing. It ended up being quite good, even if it was not what we had expected to receive. We ran into Aya, one of the Australian girls we had met on the boat, as we were finishing our food. She was able to commiserate about the surroundings. Trudy felt better after talking with her and we all were feeling much better after eating something, so we returned to our room and went to sleep, exhausted.

Ciao, Italia

2012-05-13T16:52:42Z

Friday I had my last final, yesterday I moved out of my host family’s home, and tomorrow morning I leave Italy. It is crazy to me that this trip is almost over and my study abroad experience will be in the past. I’ve met some amazing people and have seen a lot of incredible things. I’m excited to be back in the US and looking forward to my summer plans, but as the days count down I get more and more hesitant to leave.

This week has been lovely. The beginning of it was kind of boring, but still good. We had final classes and papers and things to get in order. The weather perked up again, though, later in the week (it was actually in the upper 80s and 90s Thursday through Saturday!) and everything—God knows how—was accomplished and turned in. Thursday night we had our “final” for the drawing class which was an art show. It was the last chance for some of us to see each other and everyone was mingling and drinking wine and showing off their best drawings—it was a lot of fun.

Friday, after my last final (which I think went well, for those of you wondering), my Mom got into town!! We walked around the city and soaked up the sun while eating gelato… it is officially Summer vacation. It’s really great to have her here, but it’s also sort of weird to have her in this setting that is so very separate from home. It’s a good way to transition, I think. Plus, I have found myself giving her mini-lectures on parts of the city that we learned about in our art history class. She heard all about the doors of the Baptistry… I’m sure she was thrilled. :)

That night, we had our final dinner with Mamma Orsola and the whole family! Rafaelle came home because it was his “sisters’ last night in town.” It was a full table; 9 of us (including my mom!). It was so much fun, delicious as always, and we just ignored the word “leaving” for as long as we could. Saturday morning we all lost it. I miss them so much already. Spero che tornerò presto!!

After many hugs, tears, and more hugs, I left the house and met my mom at the hotel that would become my new home in Florence for a few days. They almost feel like two separate days. Crazy.

We did some shopping in the market and walked around a bit, but our main event for the day was a tour of the Chianti region and wine tasting! It was a bit of an adventure meeting the bus, but we got there and it was SO MUCH FUN! The weather was gorgeous, we made some new friends on the bus, and—once again—the countryside is the kind of Italy that I was expecting all along. And the wine tasting part wasn’t too bad either… hee hee! When we returned, we had a nice, calm evening getting dinner and walking the city by night.

Today the sun has been hiding all day, but we’ve managed to enjoy ourselves still. We attended mass in the Duomo which started as a ploy to see the inside of the church for free. It ended up being a perfect way to wrap up my trip. A great chance to reflect and be reminded of the huge amount of beauty that I have been surrounded by for two months. Four months for that matter!

From there, after stopping for a delicious pizza (you HAVE to have pizza on your last day in Italy!) we went to the Boboli Gardens (still pretty in the rain!) and the Pitti Palace. We walked through the costume gallery full of different outfits and styles from all different time periods which I thought was very interesting, but I might be done with museums for a while. We’ll see. Tonight’s plans include a final dinner and packing. London tomorrow, US on Wednesday. Wow.

Good Morning Dears!

So remember way back here when I promised

2012-05-13T17:06:00Z

Good Morning Dears!

So remember way back here when I promised to tell you about my new favorite artist? Well of course you don't which is why I put the link there! His name is Dylan Scholinski, and his work is all about mental health and emotions and depression and feelings. There is also some GLBTQA influence since he is Transgender. The work he does is so powerful its unreal. Here is his website/blog. It has not been updated since around Christmas, and I am on a mission to figure out why! But there's some cool stuff on there like his artwork and his book that he wrote that is for sale. Oh and here's two videos about him and can explain better why he is so fucking awesome and such a strong person in addition to an amazing artist. Peace.

Oh! And I also spent a relaxing afternoon yesterday walking

2012-05-12T00:13:00Z

Oh! And I also spent a relaxing afternoon yesterday walking through the beautiful Lincoln Park Zoo! It is by far one of my favorite places in the world, even when I am not living in Chicago. But I had not been in so long, and I had nothing better to do on Thursday afternoon so off to see my favorite animals I went! Plus the gorgeous gardens and parks that surround the zoo. Here is a picture of one of my favorite animals, the Polar Bear! :) Peace.