Why didn't I bring my Renaissance gown?

I've finally got a couple of free minutes, so I should take a minute and digest exactly what's been going on for the last five days.

I stopped over in London for two days, which was lovely, but somewhat of a whirlwind. Traveling alone is certainly different than traveling with a companion, though not necessarily inferior. You can do what you want, travel at your own pace, and no one cares when you get lost except yourself. It also forces you to talk to people, since it's easy to slip into a world of your own, and listen only to your own thoughts. I enjoyed my first solo meal in London at a nice Moroccan restaurant, talked to a farmers market manager about London markets, and slept in a hostel bunk that resembled a small and comfortable cave.

The real adventure began in Estonia. I feel as if I've been here for a week, though it's only been two days. This is probably because I've only slept about 7 hours in the past 48+. There's so much going on, all of it rather bizarre compared to, say, the day before I left.

I'm currently in a town called Kuressaare, on the island of Saaremaa, closish to Finland if you'd like a reference. It felt a bit as if I were going to the ends of the earth, as I boarded first a bus, then a ferry, then another bus to get from the capital, Tallinn, to Kuressarre. It turns out that it's a quaint little town where people leave their keys in their unlocked cars, and leave their doors to their houses wide open. There is a nice little downtown, a 700 year old castle, and a harbor.

I was under the impression that I was going to work on a farm that provided food for a restaurant. Once I met my hosts, Karen and Alar, it was soon clear that the restaurant was closed, the garden out of comission. Instead, I am helping them with their several "projects," which are a little vague, but mostly involve encouraging organic food production and local eating. So far, I have used my anthropology skills to interview people about their food choices. Too bad I never learned how to conduct interviews in Estonian. Or at an Estonian festival, complete with dancing and smoked fish with heads. I managed to find a few people who spoke at least broken English, and learned some interesting things.

And then last night, my first night in Kurresaare, I accompanied my hosts to a birthday party: a medieval themed birthday party. We showed up, and there were various Estonians wearing medieval garb, with clay mugs, and gathering around a roasting pig. The entertainment for the night included a magician, fire breathers, and lute players. Ummmm, not what I was expecting for my first night here, or really ever, but a fantastic experience. Many Estonians speak a little English, and there are various North American expats around (my hosts are both Canadian- Estonian) so the awkwardness of being the only one who didn't speak Estonian was kept to a minimum.

I have no idea what I'm doing the rest of the week, but I expect it will be great fun. When I'm done with my time here, I'll post something extensive about the agriculture and food- I've already learned a lot, but there's a lot more to figure out.

So, I'm alive, having a lot of fun, and being productive. I'll keep up with this when I can!

New Adventures

I'm glad I've chosen this title for my blog, as it's very appropriate for my upcoming journey to Europe. For those of you I missed telling during the whirlwind of graduation, I applied for and received a rather generous scholarship to study sustainable agriculture and food systems in Europe.

The scholarship is rather vague, and it's up to me to decide what I'll be doing for the time I'm there, from August to October. I've got some concrete plans, as well as some leeway to improvise and follow any suggestions I might get on the way. So far, I will be farming on the island of Saaremaa in Estonia, doing some as-yet-to-be-determined travel(l)ing in Ireland and the UK, working at a Scottish brewery, participating in a Heifer International study tour of Poland, and staying at an estate in Poland, which appears to be the only bison farm in the country.

The goal of my trip is to study and observe the ways that Europeans approach sustainable food and agriculture, and maybe bring some new insights back to the US. What that means exactly will be a bit clearer as I start to actually study and observe.

I'm a'leaving in less than a week. I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but I want to get as much out of this as possible! I don't know how often I'll update, or if my posts will be particularly profound, but I'll try to keep up. Happy reading!

Last Leg

I'm finally back in Rochester and feel that I'm in a good place to finish up this blog for now. My program ended May 24, after which I had a week or so in England, the same amount of time in Vestal, and plenty of time to reflect on this whole adventure.

Almost everyone I have ever known who has come back from study abroad has claimed it to be the best semester or year of his or her life. Which is also the expected answer to the question, "How was studying abroad?", or the even more tricky "Was your semester abroad great?" I've been trying to formulate the best answer to these questions, both for other people, and for myself. I really can't say that this past semester was fantastic or even great, but I can say that I'm glad I went and that I gained a lot from it.

After four and a half months of living in the south of Spain, I can definitely say that it isn't the place for me, and that I probably would have been happier in other study abroad programs. I never felt the same sort of affinity for Granada or my particular program that most of my fellow students felt; there was lots to enjoy and do and see, but I never felt as comfortable as I'd hoped to be. But, of course, my Spanish improved tremendously, I got to see all sorts of new parts of the world, and I learned a few academic things along the way. So I'm not about to tell anyone that it was a waste of time, just that it was another nuanced semester that had its ups and downs.

I ended my trip with a visit to England which is somewhere I would absolutely love to go back to. I spent almost all of my time in London, but hardly saw a fraction of it since there's so much to do (despite traversing most of it by foot for 6 or 7 hours). I thought I'd end with a few pics from the last couple of weeks in Spain and some from England:















Lovely house on a hike up into the Granada hills.














View of the bridge I crossed at least 4 times a day.














The Natural History museum of London.














A beautiful section of London's canal called Little Venice.














A trip out to the country-side (ie. not London) to Colchester.


















Colchester's Roman wall. It may or may not be missing a tiny stone.














Outside the British Museum.

Well, that's it for now, though I may revive this blog if something important happens or travel ensues. I know I picked up a few people along the way, so thanks for reading and commenting (or trying to comment).

I've had two fantastic weekends in a row (sandwiched by two not so inspiring weeks of classes that are dragging on a little too long), so I'd like to share a little bit about them.

Weekend 1: Sevilla/Día de los Cruces

On Friday, several of us headed over to Sevilla, about 3 hours away from Granada, to the Feria de abril, the city's annual festival. We got there around noon, and walked from the bus station to the feria grounds, a little like a giant state fair. There are hundreds of tents set up, with kitchens and tables inside, for eating, dancing, and merrymaking. We apparently got there too early, since there was no one around, and all the tents shut up. Fortunately, the midway was not too empty, and we chose a slightly nauseating and exhilarating carnival ride to get the day started. Sadly, there were no tilt-a-whirls, but it was fun anyway.

We then headed over to a park (Sevilla is filled with lots of great, green parks) and chilled for awhile, eating our picnics and taking a Spanish siesta. We woke up for the main attraction of the day, a bullfight. Now, a lot of people have strong feelings about bullfights. I did not, though I had a vague suspicion that I would find it interesting rather than horrific. Turns out that I thoroughly enjoyed myself, for several reasons. First, bullfights- known as "corridas"- are actually pretty exciting. Corridas involve a lot of different people doing different tasks, and each one at least appears to be in considerable danger as a bull comes charging at them. It was also a bit bewildering, because there are lots of etiquette points that Spaniards who attend bullfights know, and which we didn't. Whistling means that the crowd doesn't like what's going on, trumpets announce when a phase of the bullfight is beginning or ending, etc. So it was exciting simply because we didn't know what to expect. It also made me think a lot about the symbolism behind the corrida, that of man vs. nature. While at first glance it seems that the show (which is an art, not a sport- it's listed with music and dance events, not sports) is about man dominating nature, for me it simply reinforced the fact that people and nature are intertwined, and that yes, we do kill animals. Everyone involved with the corrida shows a high level of respect for the bulls, and people have created this intricate show entirely based on their behavior. And they send the bull to a special butcher to be prepared for consumption, which is a definite plus for me.

Some of my companions did not feel the same way as me, and left after the fourth bull (there are 6 in every corrida). We met up with them afterwards and went back to the fair grounds to look for a bite to eat. The whole place had completely transformed. Every woman and child was dressed in a traditional flamenco outfit, with the men wearing suits. Thousands of people milled around the fantastically-lit grounds, or sat or danced inside tents. Unfortunately, they are all private tents, sponsored by families or companies from Sevilla, so there wasn't anywhere to eat. We realized we didn't have time to eat anyway, and ran back to catch our bus, arriving back exhausted in Granada at 3am.

That Sunday was Día de los Cruces in Granada, which means that different organizations set up elaborately decorated crosses in plazas to compete for prizes. It also means that Granada becomes a different city. The streets, usually completely dead on Sundays, were filled with as many people as there had been in Sevilla, eating outside, strolling to look at the crosses, wearing their flamenco dresses. There were also horses prancing about on the streets. I walked around for awhile, marveling at how different the atmosphere was in the city. It's too bad that we leave just as things are getting started...during the winter, people stay inside, or hurry from one place to another. Just recently have people really been "living in the street," as is said of the south of Spain.


















Sevilla feria before...














...and after.














The bullring in Sevilla.














Día de los Cruces

Weekend 2: Cabo de Gata

This weekend, I went with the rest of my program to a national park called Cabo de Gata, which stretches several kilometers along the coast. Friday started off with a 9 mile hike that was really more like dodging scorpions and tarantulas, rock climbing without gear, and relaxing on beaches. It was a nice change from city life, hiking in the country and doing some strenuous exercise. Some highlights included watching a bunch of goats being herded, giant asparagus (that keeps popping up), these crazy dead trees (see photo below), and swimming in the crystal clear water. We ended in a town called San José, where we were to spend the night.

The hike was followed by a glorious Italian dinner, since San José has more Italians than Spaniards. All 75 of us sat took over the restaurant and were served course after course of pasta and delicious pizza, including several rounds of free sangria...Spanish food is great, but really repetitious, so the chance to eat any other type of food is always welcomed.

The next day dawned grey and cold, ruining our hopes of a day on the beach. But we had several activities planned, so three of us chilled in a cafe before meeting up to go snorkeling. As it was cold, we got to wear wet suits, which are one of the most intense things I've experienced. They took us 10 minutes to put on, and made breathing rather difficult. Nevertheless, they worked, keeping us relatively warm as we hovered above a reef, watching colorful fish, sea slugs, urchins, and waving sea plants called "Poseidons."

And after a relaxing beach side lunch, I headed back to Granada to finish up my last two weeks. If only I didn't have them filled with projects and studying...















This picture doesn't quite do it justice...we hiked up maybe a 60 degree incline here.














View from one of the peaks we climbed.














These are the great, odd looking trees.

Varias Cosas 1-4

Before I forget to write them down, I've got a few things floating around in my mind.

1. On the news today, about halfway in, there was a story titled "El espárragus más grande de España," or, "Spain's biggest asparagus." I thought this was great, especially as the asparagus in question was a good 20+ meters long.

2. People, especially young ones, in Spain are curiously fixated on the US. In my University of Granada course (War and Modern Society), the US is a topic of conversation every single day, generally with tenuous connections to the topic being discussed. Questions from students are framed as: "Why do some countries, like the US, not have child soldiers, and why do others have them?", or discussions of war propaganda turn into conversations about how the US media works, unrelated to its portrayal of the war. It's frustrating that I keep hearing about the US, especially as I generally lack enough confidence/language skills to answer students in class. and correct their misconceptions (though I'm not always sure what those misconceptions are, since it's really, really, really hard to follow Spanish 20 years olds speed talking with a Granada accent). My professor had to almost force the class to start thinking about Spanish media at one point...I keep wondering why they don't show curiosity about their own country, or why they seem to avoid talking about any topic in relation to where they live. Of course, that's just in one modern history class, so my perceptions are a bit skewed.

3. I'm increasingly aware of the danger of returning home after having adopted the Spanish way of asking for things. As in, you demand them. So just a warning before I go back- if I command you to do something without adding a please, or forget to say excuse me if I bump into you, I'm not being rude! I think I've said please maybe 3 times in the past 3 months...it's just not done here. You tell people what you want, obviously in a nice tone of voice. People are just very blunt (sometimes to the point of being rude), but they get to the point and cut out all the flowery language we sometimes use.

4. And most fantastic of all, I saw a turtle on the sidewalk today on my way to school. A little river turtle, at least a half mile and several major roads between the river and my apartment, but there he was, chilling on the sidewalk looking a bit nervous. He had disappeared by the time I came home.

An Update

So. I've done and seen a lot of things since Morocco, and I should probably document them so that some of you (Sabrina...) can live vicariously through me.

Here in Spain, they celebrate Semana Santa, the week leading up to Easter. There are lots of concerts, speeches, processions, people, though I didn't see any of these. IES students need to leave their homestays for the week, since the directors want to give our host families a break, and also don't want to be responsible for us when they take their vacation. So, as the rest of my program went to Italy or Greece, I naturally headed over to Finland, Estonia, and Latvia.

Mike and I previously planned on going to Russia or Turkey during for break, but it turned out that you need a visa so we looked for somewhere you didn't need documentation to get to. After deciding that the Baltics would be a friendly non-visa place to go (When else am I going to get there?), we then discovered it was easier to fly to Helsinki, so we tacked that on as well.

(As a side note, Mike is writing about this too. Obviously it's more interesting on my vastly superior blog, but there's a couple of perspectives on the same trip floating around out there.)

After a pretty painless flight from Malaga to Helsinki, with a stop in London where I met my dear Michael, we discovered that we'd arrived one day too late for good weather. This was a theme to be reiterated on the whole trip, but the frozen bay and the cold really weren't too bad, considering I was in a completely different part of the world, and warm weather would be awaiting me in Granada.

We mostly wandered around Helsinki, going into various impressive churches and monumental buildings. Among the highlights were the national library, the Finnish History museum (complete with an entire exhibit commemorating a war the Finns lost), an underground rock church, and the market. There weren't too many tourists about, though there were some. At one point, I was fairly certain that a vendor we were talking to told us we were stupid for coming to wintery Finland for spring break, but Mike heard "different."

We then took the ferry over to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. We spent most of our time in the old city, an ancient part of town surrounded by an old stone wall. It was a bit touristy, but still charming, with its wool markets, antique stores, multitude of restaurants, and several old churches, one of which we were almost locked into. I ate one of the best meals of my life here with the BEST beer...following a recommendation, we went to a Medieval-themed restaurant, which may or may not have had anything to do with Tallinn, but which was still fun. Between the honey beer, which I may go back to Estonia for, and the huge plate of wild game sausages, I definitely left satisfied.

We also explored some of the newer part of the city. Estonia was under Soviet control until about 15 years ago, and since then, they've done a whole lot to modernize. There were old, old farm houses with yards sitting next to Soviet-style block buildings, nearby to huge glass high rises. Definitely crazy. We even found a cemetery, which although not as old as it appeared at first glance, was pretty creepy and great.

From there, it was on to Riga, the capital of Latvia, via a 5 hour bus ride through the country. Riga was way different than Tallinn- more of a big city, with dozens of museums, big imposing buildings, shopping, parks. We ended up going to the Occupation Museum (Soviets and Nazis, not jobs), more churches, and an amazing market. There were rooms for fish, bread, dairy, meat, pickles, all in a zeppelin hangar. I'm pretty sure I wasn't hungry this entire trip, because I was always eating something. We also stayed for a night in the "Tiger Hostel," which was decorated up with tiger print. Those Latvians sure loved their animal prints- they were everywhere.

I was a bit sad to say goodbye to the Baltics, but three days or so staying with Mike in London awaited me. London was a great city, with an overstimulating array of restaurants and markets, but I'll be back for a week after my program ends in Granada, so I won't devote too much time to describing it.

Lest you think the excitement was over, I then flew to Madrid to pick up my parents, who came to visit for a week. I'll spare them too much agony, and not say anything embarrassing about them, but I'm pretty sure they had a great time. I introduced them to tapas, schawarma, and my host family. Then we went to Madrid for the weekend, where we saw a big protest against the king held by several hundred communists, and looked at a lot of art within a 12 hour span. I believe they now have the urge to keep traveling having done it once...thanks for coming parents!

And now things have settled down for the time being. I've got less than 5 weeks left, which look to be filled with lots of projects and essays, but also some fun times. Then London, then home on June 3, for all those who will be there. Then Rochester for the summer sometime the following week, where I will (most likely) be living in the lovely-- soon to be renamed-- Ecoestate. (!!!)














Frozen Helsinki.














A Big Building in Helsinki.














Tallinn's Old Town.


















There was some nice weather!














Riga from above.














Who could resist this picture? Riga had ingenious underground walkways (the site of this cartoon), a bit like UR's ingenious tunnels.

Ehhhh

Before you all die of suspense, I do plan on updating this sometime in the very near future, barring meteors, or more Internet problems! On my to-do list is writing about Semana Santa (=spring break) and adventures with my parents. But after this one last essay, a cooking class, celebration of finishing a presentation in my Spanish university class, and perhaps fixing my Internet.