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Postcard from Spain
Granada
Hola todos,
I’ve completed my second week in Spain and I have seen so many great things so far - from masterpieces in Madrid to Arabian architecture at the Alhambra in Granada. Of course I took many photographs and I’ll show you all the best ones when I get home. This past week I attended a 25 hour intensive study class about Islamic Granada and Al-Andalus. Though this was a largely history-based course, we discussed art, architecture, music, religion, and cuisine as well. I had learned some of the material before, but a lot of information was new and I really enjoyed it. Next year, I think that the theme of the madrigal feast will be Al-Andalus, so I’ll be very involved in the planning if we actually do that theme.
We completed the course on Sunday by traveling to the Alhambra, a palace, fortress, and small city. It is on a mountain above Granada and was the center of Moorish culture for several centuries until the fall of Granada in 1492, a critical year for Spain. Not only did Columbus discover America in that year, but Granada, the last Moorish kingdom, fell to the Catholic Kings (Fernando and Isabel), and the Jews were expelled from Spain. I took many photographs inside and around the Alhambra, but I couldn’t take a picture of the most famous Alhambra scene. The Patio de los Leones was closed for restoration, but I have plenty of great photos anyway. Although, it’s not prime tourist season, there were still many tourists from around the world. Either el Museo del Prado or the Alhambra is the most visited site in Spain and the other is the second most visited – I went to both so far! The flowers were not yet in bloom, but the gardens were still beautiful with shimmering pools of cool mountain water, bubbling fountains, and verdant patios – all components of a hidden paradise in Al-Andalus.
On Saturday, Julie Hill and I went on a walk and explored part of the city that we had never seen before. She’s been here for over a month and she said that walking is a good way to get your bearings and it’s great for picture-taking as well. Also on Saturday, we went to el Parque de las Ciencias with some friends. El Parque de las Ciencias is like the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia; however, many exhibits are outside and we got some fresh air. Since we arrived at the museum two hours before the closing time on Saturday, we got our tickets stamped and were allowed to enter free on Sunday. Only Julie and I went on Sunday and we saw what we had missed the day before. Since it wasn’t cloudy on Sunday, we spent most of the time outside looking at exhibits such as: Astronomy and Measuring Time, Water Works, Biomes, Farming Technology, and Raptors of the World. We also journeyed into the tropical butterfly house and some of the butterflies landed on us. . . .
I think that I’m adjusting to the European and, more specifically, the Spanish way of living, but I still miss my friends, family, and McDaniel. I’d like to thank everyone for their e-mails and encouragement and I hope that you all continue to keep in touch.
Adiós,
Timmy Neeson
Barcelona
Hey everyone, I want to update you all on what I have seen and experienced thus far. On one of our last days in Madrid we went to an art museum called él Prado´. I was able to see more el greco paintina, Goyas, Velazquez, Ruben, Rembrants, and more. I wish I could have stayed longer but I didn´t know how to get back so I had to go with the group.
I saw the Royal Palace of Spain with exquisite furniture, tapestry, mosiacs, and paintings. The bus ride to Barcelona was long but I was able to see the countryside which reminds me of Arizona but more rocky and montaneous. Barcelona is by far, much better than Madrid.
My house or apartment is right at the foot of a beautiful park called Mont Juic. It is incredibly beautiful. This is where the Olympic stadium is located. I had to climb six flights of stairs to get to my apartment but my host mom, Serrana, helped me. My apartment is tiny but this is the city and there are thousands of people here. The noise from the traffic can be annoying when I'm trying to go to sleep and when I´m trying to sleep in the morning but I love the hustle and bustle of city life.
My host mom is 37 and a cook in a restaurant near the water. She is very nice and accommodating. Unlike me, however, she does not care about being on time for things, much less early for an appointment. From the roof top I can see the entire city which is breathtaking.
On my first full day the group met at the plaza catalunya to walk down las ramblas which is a road in the heart of the city filled with shops, food and flower stands, souvenirs, dancing, music and people doing tricks for spare change. This road is several blocks long and goes all the way down to the port where this an air tram, aquarium, more shops, a mall, boats, seagulls, and....The Mediterranean!! It´s so blue it is unbelievable.
I am doing well, and have a lot of alone time, being cautious of my surroundings when outside walking, and relaxing. I miss everyone, especially my family, but am taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity and also improving my Spanish and Catalan.
Shopping es bueno para el alma. For those of you at home, this means "shopping is good for the soul." Yesterday, I spent the morning shopping in Las Ramblas. It is this very long road filled with shops, boutiques, souvenir kiosks, food, music and of course people. There are two tricks to shopping in Barcelona.
- The country has government regulated sales dates. This means that only during the months of January and August is anything on sale. With only a few days left in January, I felt I should attempt to "Europeanize" my wardrobe so that I didn´t stand out with my sneakers. Don´t worry mom, I didn´t go over board and I won´t be done this kind of shopping everyday.
- The main streets are filled with very expensive name brand stores like Burberry, Prada, Lacoste, Puma, etc. or cheap, cheesy souvenir shops. To find the really chic clothes and deals, one must take a side street which opens up into streets and streets of smaller shops with great sales.
After figuring this all out I bought a long flowy skirt, a pair of brown boots (without heels is the style here), and two amazingly pretty dresses. There is no tax here, so that´s good. Bye the end of the shopping trip, my feet were hurting so I decided to go back home and rest, another good thing for the soul.
-- Christy Searing '07, studying with API - Barcelona, spring 2006
Postcard from Budapest
During my semester in Budapest, I went to Bratislava, Slovakia. Slovakia is the country just north of Hungary, and Bratislava is very close to Budapest, only about a 2-3 hour train ride. And, Bratislava used to be the capital of Hungary before Budapest. There are many similarities between the two cities. We took the train and had absolutely no idea of where we were when we got there, or how to get anywhere. All we knew was that there was a castle to see.
We, well I, bought a map and that didn't help any, because we couldn't find where we were on the map, so we decided to walk in one direction. Luckily, we walked in the right direction. We found a small pizza shop and had lunch, and had the waitress tell us where we were. We were very close to the city center, so we thought we would just walk around. While we were walking, we found the castle! We made our way there and climbed up many stairs to get to the top. We saw some amazing views of the city from up there. We went into the castle and visited the museum, then walked back to the train station and waited for our return train.
While not the most exciting trip, I did get some great pictures, which can be seen on my website at: http://www.geocities.com/shohne86/.
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year! (if i left you out, I'm sorry), and I will be back in the states on December 20th, NEXT TUESDAY!
- Steve Hohne '08, studied at McDaniel Budapest, Fall 2006
Postcard from Costa Rica
Missing out on the early spring chill in Westminster, Laura Pritchard '06 sends some warm photos from Central America.
Taken on a hike through the Manuel Antonio National Park. Every time we came to a lookout point, we saw this large rock.
Taken on a hike through the Manuel Antonio National Park.
This monkey was a lot of fun to see! First, he was up high in the tree above us, and when one of my friends noticed him and pointed him out, we all pulled out our cameras to take pictures. I guess that he must have liked the attention because he came down closer and seemed to pose! After a few minutes, he had enough and ran away. But to do so, he passed by just a few feet away from me!
This is the view from the balcony of the hotel where we stayed with the study abroad program.
-- Laura Laura Pritchard '06, studying with ISA-Costa Rica, spring 2006
Hi All!!
So I have been in Dublin almost a month and a half now, and the time has simply flown by! Luckily, it hasn't rained much at all until yesterday/today...we are supposedly having "the biggest storm in 35 years" which is funny because its really not that bad. I have really settled in here so far; I have a great group of friends and we all travel together, I play soccer with both the girls team here and in a 5-a-side league with all guys, I am taking a hip hop class, and I have found a wonderful church in the city.
Classes are going really well. I am especially interested in my politics of the Middle East and North Africa class..the professor is just awesome. I have one paper/project for each class, and I have a paper and a final exam in the Middle East class. Our campus has a bar and huge concert stage right in the middle of the student center, which is a fun place to hang out and meet people. We went to a really fun event there a couple weeks ago called the RAG Ball (its not a ball like you would think, its more like a party with bands playing). We also have the Helix, which is similar to an opera house and attracts lots of people from the community who go see plays there.
Last week our school put on a fashion show which we went to and that was some good craic (its pronounced like "crack" and means a good time!). I spent this past weekend in Cork and Waterford. We decided to go because we could fly there for 26 euro! You can take the bus but its over 4 hours and only a tiny bit less expensive. Saturday we went to a fun pub to catch the Ireland/Wales rugby match, which unfortunately Ireland lost so now they wont have a chance at winning the Six Nations tournament. After that we explored the city, which was very cute, and found this awesome farmers market. We bought some amazinggg cheese and some crackers and went back to the hostel for a snack and a rest. Saturday night we went out to a couple pubs which was fun too. Sunday we took a bus to Waterford and took a tour of the crystal factory. It was so neat to see them blow the glass and make the beautiful pieces! Other than the factory, there isn't too much to see in Waterford, so we headed back to Cork and ended up taking a tour of the old jail, which was super interesting. I'm going to load my pictures shortly, so you'll get the email with them very soon.
--Jackie Kahler '09, CIS, Dublin City University, Ireland
Postcard from the UK
Our first leg of the journey took us to Blenheim palace, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. The palace was fantastic, and huge. I was of course impressed by all the different fronts of the palace - "Palaces only have fronts," one of the tour guides told us. "Not backs. Backs are common."
Most of the rooms we visited were stored with artistic pieces and paintings of historical Churchills. There was an interesting story about how the fourth Duke of the palace traded a stock of pedigree hunting dogs to a Polish king in exchange for an exquisite set of china. As luck (or perhaps the Duke) would have it, the dogs were actually all males, and the breed died out in a single generation. But the palace got to keep the china!
There were also some broad historical murals depicting the founder of the palace. and vast murals depicting his successes against French armies. Outside the palace was an excellent Versailles-style garden complete with statues and fountains.
The next leg of our journey took us to Oxford itself, where we basically were told to go and 'discover Oxford' on our own. I only had time to visit the 'Christ Church' of Oxford. My dad attended this college. Also, some of the rooms in this college are where scenes from the recent 'Harry Potter' movies have been shot. So that was rather interesting.
I've developed quite a taste for blackcurrants - a fruit - and their juices. The top brand is something called 'Ribena,' and it's definitely worth a try if you're ever in England at some point. Having lived in New England all my life I'd never seen this kind of fruit before, but I must say it's quite delicious. It has the purple color of dark grape juice and tastes like a mix between a grape and a berry. Although with my luck there are probably blackcurrants everywhere in the world and I've just been living under a rock and haven't noticed. Oh well.
Some friends and I traveled to Brick Lane, which not only is the setting of a book I read last year for my British Lit class, but is home to some excellent Indian restaurants, which British people love more than anything (especially curry). It also branched off into an Arabic district, and we almost got lost when we noticed that all the street signs were written in Arabic!
As for the parts of London that I DID see, I've attached some more pictures. I WILL get back there at some point and ride the London Eye!
-- James Gibbs '07, studying with IFSA - Butler U.: University of East Anglia, UK program, fall 2005
Postcard from Botswana
Dumela (hello). I just wanted to send you a quick note from Botswana!! :) Everything is going really well....having an awesome time. This has to be a quick note because its hard to get on the internet but let me just give you some of the highlights of my semester.
Started out with our first week staying at a nature reserve outside of Gaborone with wild animals walking by while we had class...then to homestay in a village outside of the city where we studied A LOT of setswana....then to Gaborone for another homestay and science classes which brought us to the first excursion.
We went to Victoria Falls and then spent 4 days in Moremi Game Reserve camping where we could hear the lions at night and would wake up with impala outside our tents. Right outside of our campsite was a huge pool were hippos and crocs were living.
Then we went to another homestay in Shorobe which was really an experience. We lived in a rural village actually living in huts and having to go fetch water and so forth. Then another excursion into the Okavango Delta and seeing the rock art at Tsodilo hills. Now we are getting ready to start ISP here in Maun. Thanks so much for helping this semester happen its been sooo awesome so far. Attached are some picutures that I've taken mostly in the game reserve although they usually make sense with the titles. thanks again :)
-- Elisabeth Mering '06, studying with SIT - Botswana: Ecology & Conservation, fall 2005
Postcard from Austria
I officially started classes at the University of Salzburg on Monday. These past two weeks, I have been taking Intensive Language Orientation classes where different levels of German are taught for the purpose of squeezing the most amount of German in a short amount of time.
There are many different levels of German, and surprisingly few fluent speakers...so the people in the different levels of German classes generally hang out together. I am in the Advanced II class with 12 other students and we generally get along well and do lots of things together and speak mostly German. The subject matter has been varied, everything on how to properly give the time to Konjunktiv II, which is a way to say "I would have liked to have done that." Ich möchte etwas tuen. Umlauts galore!
It is somewhat hard to speak English now, even after two weeks. Everyone has noticed that when we speak English to each other, we speak slower and use less contractions (it is instead of it's). Most of us find it annoying when shopkeepers try to speak English with us because we can speak the language, just not like experts. It is best not to travel in groups because it is easy to pick out a group of Americans. The Austrians love to stare and get an eye full of Americans. Whenever I travel alone, no one ever stares at me.
Life is beginning to settle down and the newness of the city has become a routine now, although every time I talk a walk I almost pinch myself that I am walking by buildings that are older than even Christopher Columbus.
-- Brent Pertusio '06, studying with AIFS at the University of Salzburg, Austria, spring 2005
Postcard from Australia
I have been up to so much in the last three weeks. Orientation was a world wind of activities. At Tjapukai Aboriginal cultural village we got a brief history and explanation of the Dreamtime. Then 4 volunteers got thier faces painted. It was a really wonderful experience. We go to go up on stage and attempt to make fire with fire sticks, and then had a improptu Aboriginal dance lesson. We had a ton of fun learning how to throw a boomerang and spears, traditional food and medicine. However, I don't think we could kill a kangaroo if we tried.
The Skyrail took us over the rainforest canopy from Cairns to Kuranda. We took the shore road from Kuranda to Port Douglas and the sea was absolutly stunning. I have fallen in love with the ocean! There was a walk on 4 mile beach at sunset, and course there had a lesson about forest classification from a distance. We took a coconut home from the beach, but it took us three days to open it. Like I said, we would starve.
The best 'tourist' attraction we have been to so far was a very well-kept secret, Kuku-yulangi Dreamtime tours. Our guide, Rodney, was made such an impression on us. Once he learned our purpose for being in Oz (Australia), he wanted to make such a point to us that we are the future, and if we don't protect the planet then no one will. He showed us native plants and there traditional uses, includindg a plant that makes soap when you rub the leaves together!
The afternoon was spent in Daintree National park, where we were able to watch and listen to the forest for a few hours...a very memorable experience. When you are first in the rainforest, it just looks like a sea of green, but once you study it for a while you can really start to see its differences.
We have traveled to the Atherton tablelands, the agricultural center behind Cairns. The next day was a right of passage for all SIT students, the drop-off. Each student is dropped in a separate town and we get to spend the day getting to know the people. After 30 seconds of being in Kairi, I had a ride to the Agricultural Research station, where I spent the day with local farmers, had a guided tour around the facility and then a drive throughout the tablelands to show me all the different farms. I then spent the afternoon in the pub getting to know some more Aussies.
We had to celebrate a few 21st birthdays while in Atherton, but not before we spent the evening platapus spotting! However, a group of 15 people proves entirely too loud to spot anything but mosquitos. Better luck next time.
We spent the morning helping a local organization, TREAT, which grows and plants native trees along eroded creek beds and estuaries in order to restore habitats to their original state, quite an important task. We pealed seeds and repotted baby trees all morning! The afternoon was spent at Lake Echem, hiking and swimming in the 50 m deep lake.
The last day of orientation was spent on the Great Barrier Reef. After overcoming my sea sickness, I got to actually enjoy the sparkling blue water. We changed into our ever fashionable stinger suits and did two dives on the reef. I think I go my monthly salt intake on the first dive, but once you get the snorkel thing down, you can enjoy the scenary below! I saw all kinds of fish, white tip reef sharks, and ''Wally'' a fish about the size of your kitchen table.
The last two weeks have been spent at our homestay. I live with Linda, David, Meg (21), Matilda (14), Tom (16), and Charlie (3). Charlie thinks he is Steve Irwin and likes to wrestle a toy croc. He also likes to wake me up very early to play soccer. Meg and I hang out a whole lot, and she is going to be working at a 4-H camp in New York this summer, how ironic!
During homestay we had two papers, a flora/fauna research project, an ecological field project and presentation due, so I have been quite consumed with work. We go into class at Reef Teach three times a week. Reef Teach was started by a quirky Irishman, Paddy Colewell. He educated tourists about the reef so they know what they are looking at, and how not to hurt the reef when they go out there. We also had several guest lectures during our two weeks in class. I really enjoyed my time at the homestay and I don't feel like a tourist anymore.
Since I have the 'in' on Aussie culture, I thought I would let you in on a few quirks. They hate peanut butter, they are never on time to things, store hours really don't exist, they put sweet chile sauce on just about everything, the love to picnic and hike, they don't use napkins at dinner, the eat with thier forks upside down, no one talks at dinner (i'm totally not kidding), they aren't really sure how John Howard was elected and most shocking of all, they don't sun tan...only the tourists do that. I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!
A lot of you have been asking about the weather. Australia has two seasons, wet and dry. Since I am in the middle of the wet tropics, the wet is a fair bit wetter then anywhere else (2500 cm/year). North Queensland rain is a bit different then what you are thinking of, once the first rain drop falls you have exactly 30 seconds before it POURS for the next 3-4 hours.
The next section of my trip is in Townsville. We are going to spend 4 days in town participating in cultural workshops and viewing locall sacred Aboriginal sites. We get a free day on Magnetic Island (Captain Cook thought the rocks on the Island were magnetic, thus explaining his broken compass. Crazy.) to go fringe reef snorkeling, horseback riding and koala spotting. The next 6 days is our Aboriginal camping trop. This trip is meant to give us a real insight into Aboriginal culture and land ethic.
-- Alicia Feuillet '07 studing with SIT Australia: Natural & Cultural Ecology Program
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Postcard from Australia
I loved the whole time I was in Rome--I would go back to live there permanently in a heartbeat.The whole experience, the people from AUR, and fellow Romans could not have been any better.? I am glad that I made the decision to be there for the whole year, because after coming back I realize that a semester abroad is barely a taste of what it is like, but in a year, you really make yourself at home there and stop being just another study abroad student.
--Zeynep Esendemir--Towson U.: American University of Rome program, Fall & spring 2006-2007
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