Allison: At School

This is our school, “Instituto Cultural” in Oaxaca City. It is a language school for students and visitors to take Spanish classes. Fortunately, we also have our studio here as well. So we spend more time here than we like to.

Our spanish class is taught in this room. The group of 19 students from the UofM are divided into four levels according to our spanish skills. I bet you can guess which level I am in… Lessons are taught only in Spanish by teachers from the Cultural Institute, which made it very difficult to catch on to.

We play games often – teléfono caliente (‘hot potato’ with a cell phone), Spanish family feud, pictionary, charades, and sometimes we do role playing (which can be quite dramatic at times).

Our studio is in a gated area where nobody else is allowed. We have our own building with drafting tables, bathrooms, a patio and hammocks. It is a comfortable area big enough for all 19 of us, so we couldn’t ask for more!

Below is a photo of our instructors Daniel Lopez (Mexican architect) and Lance LaVine (U of M professor) at studio having fun with Daniel’s dog, Chufa. Both of them are fantastic instructors and maintain a good balance for the class. Lance likes to tear our projects apart (literally) and Daniel seems to like everything we do – he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.

Ross: Rainy Days in London

So it’s a rainy Saturday in London town and like the true Minnesotan I am instead of stomping puddles in the street, settling down to a game of monopoly or renting a movie I set out to London’s answer to the American shopping centre.

Opened in October of 2008 Westfield London Shopping Centre is Europe’s largest mall. So how does it compare with our beloved Mall of America? It may not be bigger, but it is no doubt better. Sure it only has 255 stores compared to MOA’s 520, there’s no amusement park or massive food cafeteria. Rather it’s what this mall lacks that makes it better, I didn’t see a single gothed-out emo girl with her pathetic teenage bad-ass skateboarding boyfriend waltzing through a hot topic to pick out the most ripped up, silver studded rags that cost $80 so they can show everyone else just how unique their personal style is.

Westfield shopping center was one classy establishment, good brands decent prices, some unique food choices (I had a mock Chipotle that wasn’t nearly as good as the real thing). I honestly think if Isaac Adler visited this mall he may just renounce his U.S. citizenship.

This mall even featured a special section reserved for the top brands. “The Village” featured Dior, Prada, Gucci, Movado, etc. Naturally I picked out a few Mothers day gifts and birthday presents to bring home (NOT!). Below is a picture of me below 1 of 3 crystal chandeliers in the classier part of the mall. So if you’re in London on a rainy day (which can be quite often) give the Westfield center a shot. It’s right across the street from the BBC headquarters which offers free tours so you can make a day of it.

Shannon: Random thoughts…

I have been pondering on:

• The fact that everyone needs to read the book 1984 by George Orwell. It has some crazy, amazing, relevant, and applicable ideas about politics in there that are still being practiced hoy en día (presently). We discussed one of the ideas in my Politics and Society of Latin America class, and I just beamed the entire time we talked about it ’cause I already knew what we were talking about! It goes like this: If the government is corrupt, or there are problems (ie financial crisis) they “create” a dispute/war/controversy/distraction with another country. This way they create a common and external enemy for the entire country to “hate” so the country will unify behind this new cause in order to beat this “said threat.” This is exactly what’s happening with Bolivia and Chile right now. Obviously there are some hard core financial problems everywhere in the world right now, however, to distract their people from the internal crisis, Bolivia has convinced them (with the help of a lot of press) that their strife is the fault of Chile who has robbed them of their access to the ocean/ robbed them of their ports. This happened… how many years/ centuries ago? And their now bringing it up? Anyways, long story short. George Orwell= smart man, and everyone should read that book.

• After looking at everyone else’s facebook pictures I am now really excited to go sit on the beach of Mallorca for 5 days with Nicole! I’m ready to get some fun reading in

• My spanish is actually getting better! I had a few compliments today, “How are you so good at Spanish” and “you have a really good accent” YAY

• I can’t wait to see my mom and sister… they are coming in 17 days!!!! I miss my whole family and have decided that one of the major things that will ever keep me from living abroad for an extended period of time is my family. I would miss them too much, miss being a part of their lives, and seeing them!

• I am very unsatisfied with the physical shape I am in right now. You know when you start getting lazy and you try to convince yourself, “oh, I don’t look that bad”…? Well I’ve been saying that for too long, time to get my big butt out and running, and stop eating so darn much.

• It’s really hard to appreciate/enjoy a culture when you don’t enjoy the food.

• I want to join a Spanish club when I get home… I don’t want to lose everything I’ve gained, and the only way to do that is keep talking to natural spanish speakers.

• I already have a list of things to do when I get home: EAT copious amounts of mexican food, and papa john’s pizza, summerfest ’09, visit Chicago, WORK OUT, spend an unmeasurable amount of time with my family, visit my grandparents!, road trip?, six flags, valley fair, sit all day and read in my hammock, read, read, read… did I mention reading?, prepare myself for the coming semester, find a job, see new harry potter movie, catch up on all the movies I missed, camping, make my dream book, LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE.

Ross: Thinking of you…

Dear U.S.A.,
I’m sorry we haven’t stayed in touch in the past few weeks. How is has everything been going? I want you to know that everything is just peachy over across the pond. The weather has been fantastic, which has lead me to do some more in-depth exploring of the city. My lectures and seminars will be over this week and then I’m off for all of April to study and fill my craving for some much-needed travel adventures. Next week I’m off to a whirlwind tour of Italia, I will be visiting Milan, Florence and of course ROMA! The last leg of my April holiday will be a short trip to Dubrovnik, Croatia. This should be interesting, I signed up for this trip with London International Student House so I’m sure to meet a wide range of people from all over the world.

Well USA what else can I tell you? Things are good here, and I wish I had more to say… but instead I’ll just leave you with some pictures.

The Gherkin Building (apparently gherkin is a type of cucumber, I guess if the building were seaside it would be a pickle)

Canary Wharf from the Queen Mary campus

Natasha: Alba

I headed off Friday afternoon for a weekend in Scotland and had a really good time. I flew from Montpellier to Gatwick, waited two hours, then caught a flight to Edinburgh, arriving just after 8. I took the bus into city centre and walked to my hostel, only a few blocks from the bus stop, and just off Prince’s Street, one of the main thoroughfares of Edinburgh. Since it was late and I wasn’t feeling well, I just took a short walk to get some dinner and then called it an early night.

I got up around 7 Saturday morning, with the intention of using every last second of daylight to see the city. I first walked down Prince’s street to grab some breakfast, then I headed towards my farthest destination: the Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh. The first and only time prior to this I was in Scotland in May of 2002, my mom and I spent quite a while there, but the only things I remembered about it was that it was a really long walk to get there and that their café had excellent carrot soup. The walk wasn’t nearly as long as I remembered, probably because I’m more accustomed to walking places now. I spent well over an hour there, admiring the scenery and taking plenty of pictures of flowers. I did make it back to the café, and while they didn’t have any carrot soup, I tried their minestrone, which was quite good as well. The bread they served it with was what sold it for me.

Tyler: Msambweni District Hospital

I am now on Kenya’s coastline. I am very close to the Tanzanian border in a town called Msambweni (m-sam-BWAY-nee). It’s a cute little town with barely the essentials. My house has power, running water, a TV, and toilets (they don’t flush; you have to rinse the bowl with a little bucket of water). I am living a whopping 2 minute walk away from the Indian Ocean. It’s like looking at a post card when I walk to the beach. There are palm trees and then sand and then blue water stretching to the horizon. Mrembo sana (very beautiful). I’ve gone swimming in it a couple times and the water is so warm that it isn’t refreshing. It is like going in warm bath water. I can’t wait to scuba dive here. Still working on that though…

I started working at Msambweni District Hospital on Tuesday the 17th. It’s hard to describe the differences that there are between the medical facilities here and back in the States. In the men’s ward, the patients are all in the same room in beds with less than white sheets. For the most part of the day in that ward, we just went around and checked on patient management and progression. Basically, we just talked for 30 seconds and wrote on their records, which are $0.50 notebooks, “continue management.” 

On weekends, I plan to do a little traveling, but not as much as when I was in Nairobi. I don’t know why, but I feel that the need is not there and I would just prefer to sit here on the beach. I want to go to Lamu, which is another coastal city north of Mombasa. It is an old city built hundreds of years ago and is supposedly one of the most beautiful places of Kenya. Other than that, I really want to scuba dive a lot. I’m working on arranging that today, so my fingers are crossed.

Allison: Hiking Day 3

We left the village of Latuvi at 9:00 Sunday morning. We had to hike 8 miles to the last city to catch our bus at 4:00, so the earlier we left the better our chances getting back to Oaxaca City. Busses only pass through these cities twice a day – once in the morning and once in the afternoon. What we found too is the busses are not exactly busses, but vans. So seating is limited and so is standing space.

The last hike was the most beautiful of the three day trip. Clear blue skies, moss hanging from trees, enjoying the quiet. We stopped for a quick lunch and to switch our tour guides. A little later, we stopped along a creek to relax, have a snack and cool off in the afternoon. The water looked inviting, but was way too cold to take a dip. Well, that was for everyone except for Jonathan. I don’t know how or why he did it, but he swam in water that couldn’t have been warmer than 55 degrees. He didn’t last more than 3 minutes, not even enough time to get a picture.

When we arrived in the last village, we had a wonderful lunch and laid down in the grass for a siesta. We finished our hike at 2:00 and had a couple hours to ourselves. We found a beautiful church and were unable to go inside – as an alternative we decided to climb the bell tower (as if we hadn’t had enough climbing yet.) Our bus arrived a little after 4:00 and we had another adventurous ride through the mountains back to Oaxaca City. The ride was bumpy, hot and most of us were nauseous. After two hours, we were set free on the street side in Oaxaca City in our smelly clothes and large backpacks. Two things were on our minds: food and shower.

Natasha: Ticket to Ride

Well, I bought a Eurail pass intending to use it for spring break, but since I had extra days I set out Thursday night for a long weekend in Italy.

A weekend isn’t enough time to make it as far east as Venice or as far south as Naples or Rome, so I decided to spend one night each in Milan and Florence, as well as a few hours in whatever cities I hit by train along the way, due to a lack of direct routes that didn’t require an extra charge.

It took a bit of effort just for me to get to Italy; I had to change trains in Marseille and Nice before arriving in Ventimiglia, known in French as Vintimille, just on the other side of the border. It was after midnight by the time I got there, and the train I would be taking to Genoa didn’t leave until 5 am, so I pulled out my blanket prepared to sleep in the station. It worked for a little while, but around 2:30 or so I just couldn’t stand sitting on the hard ground, so I decided to get up and go for a walk outside. The station was less than half a mile from the Mediterranean, so I walked to the rocky shore and sat for a while, just staring at the ocean. I walked around a bit longer getting back to the station around 4:30 and finally got on the regional train for Genova Piazza Principe.

I got into Genoa around 8:30 am and had about three hours until my next train, so I went for a walk around the city. Something about the ancientness of Italy made me want to take lots of pictures in black and white. This isn’t to say other places I’ve been were un-ancienty, just maybe not in the same way. (And yes, un-ancienty. That’s exactly the word I was going for. Bonus points if you know why.) This took care of my time there and soon I was on the train for Arquata Scrivia, where I had 40 minutes before the train to Milan.

Allison: Day 2

We were off to a later start on the second day of our adventure. It took until about 11:00 in the morning for our bodies to completely thaw from the cold night. Although we had a fireplace in our cabin it did manage to burn out during the night. And when you’re sleeping in an adobe cabin with no heat source in the mountains it begins to feel a little like Minnesota. The temperature reached about 35 degrees Fahrenheit overnight.

Around noon we left for the adventure that would be much longer than the one previous. We covered a distance of 10 miles to the next city—Latuvi. This walk was long and steady with fewer intense climbs. By this time we were used to the altitude change so our breathing was a little more calm and we all felt more comfortable on the hike.

We traveled with a group of 8 on this hike. Turns out it was a perfect number, we all were able to keep up with our tour guide (and sometimes had to wait for him or her). Its amazing how these guides can find their way through the mountains. What a job! What we found interesting was the guides make 150 pesos for guiding us through the countryside. This is exactly $10 (dollars) for the 5+ hour hike we embarked on. Not too much—and you really begin to understand the issues with poverty in Mexico.

Kari: How Now Brown Cow?

I feel like I am always starting off a blog post with apologizing for not posting in a while, so I won’t break the trend now. I’m sorry that it’s taken me almost two weeks to update my blog, but these past two weeks have seriously taken a hold of me and I’ve been struggling to keep my head above the water. I’ve been having so much fun immersing myself into the culture here that I totally lost track of time. But, here we go. I’m going to update you on my doings since March 3rd…

March 3rd: Tuesdays are quite possibly my most lazy of days. I don’t have class until 3:15 in the afternoon, a bunch of us normally go out Monday nights so we don’t get in until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, then I catch up on sleep. This Tuesday was no different. I got up, ate lunch, went to class, then spent the rest of the day dilly-dallying around the flat until bible study that evening. Paul, our bible study leader was unable to make it that night, so Stuart was voted to lead us in our discussion of the Word. Stu did an awesome job and there was some good discussion, not to mention Stu also brought us some of the most amazing double chocolate cookies. Delicious. After b.stud, I called it a night and headed back to the flat for some rest and relaxation.

March 4th: I normally have class from 9:15 AM until 1:15 PM on Wednesday, but this particular Wednesday was a reading week for the sociology department. A reading week means that classes are canceled for the week and students are suppose to use this week to catch up on reading. So needlessly to say, I did not have class Wednesday, instead there was a conference for undergraduate students put on by the Institution for High Education (?) about globalization. We were encouraged to attend, so Kelsey, Amanda, Bethany and I all went. I’m pretty sure we all went because there was a free lunch of chicken tenders, sausage rolls, and some of the most delicious desserts ever created. We left at tea break because the conference was quite boring. Some of the research presented was interesting, especially the bit about the English language taking over the Nordic Lands, and trying to find ways to prevent that from happening. That night, we headed over to iCafe, like every other Wednesday night. It was quite a cool night because I was able to chat with some people that I haven’t had the opportunity to meet before. I had met Aaron (Big A) a couple of times before, but had never really had the chance to get to know him. We headed back to Uni around 10 PM or so, and I called it a night. I had class at 9:15 the next morning.