December 2010
6 posts
Hygge in Denmark
For my final trip as a study abroad student, I went to Denmark, where I visited Langley and Ashley (ADPi friends studying with DIS) in Copenhagen and then Jens and Ulrik (friends from the EWH summer institute) in Aalborg. The weekend was an amazing chance to catch up with friends, experience a new culture, and enjoy Christmas in Europe, and I couldn’t have asked for a better last trip!
I...
Paris Part II
The next morning after our magical day in Strasbourg, Tim and I hopped on the train back to Paris, where we enjoyed our last day together. After our first weekend, we felt like pros at nagivating the city, so we didn’t even print directions to the hotel. Big mistake. That decision ended up costing us hours (mainly thanks to the confusion on a map of an avenue with a boulevard), but we tried to...
Strasbourg
Our daytrip to Nancy was fun, but after getting back, we started to second-guess our plans of staying overnight in Strasbourg. If it was as entertaining as Nancy, a day trip would be enough, so we though it might be best to cancel our hotel in Strasbourg and save some euros for more delicious dinners. Turns out it was too late to cancel the Strasbourg hotel, which might have been the luckiest...
Winter in Metz
As a result of all my incredible travels, I haven’t devoted nearly enough attention to my daily life in Metz. Now that Metz is a winter wonderland, I thought it would be the perfect time to post some pictures of how beautiful my everyday life is here.
The “campus” is this building, where all my classes take place. (This was also the site of the Thanksgiving potluck). Looks...
Hygge
In preparation for my trip to Denmark this weekend, where I’ll be staying with Duke friends (Langley and Ashley) in Copenhagen and then visiting EWH friends (Jens and Ulrik) in Aalborg, I’ve been catching up on Langley’s blog. In doing so, I discovered the Danish word “hygge,” which definitely deserves its own post.
According to Langs:
“Hygge (naturally...
Tim's Visit - Week in Metz (and Nancy)
We got back to Metz around 8pm on Monday evening, and by then we were very hungry for dinner so we started cooking right away – pesto pasta. I had planned an elaborate combo of veggies to sauté and pour over the pasta, until Tim informed me that one of his (many) picky food habits is never wanting to mix food. Veggies must be separate from the pasta. OK, then! I had fun learning these quirks,...
November 2010
7 posts
Tim's Visit - Paris (Weekend #1)
I’ve created a ton of incredible memories in Europe, but this past week undoubtedly my favorite by far. Tim visited! He arrived on Saturday the 20th and didn’t leave until Sunday the 29th. We realized that since June, we’d only had 5 days together. So what an amazing change of pace it was to spend 9 days together in France! The week really felt like a dream come true, and I am going to try to...
London
By Wednesday night of my fall break, I was sitting in London’s palace theater, surrounded by Duke friends and watching “Priscilla,” a crazy new musical about an Australian drag queen’s quest to find his son. Think Mamma Mia mixed with a little bit of Rent.
My trip to London certainly provided a huge contrast to the 5 days I’d spent in Greece, yet the trips were...
Athens: Greece - Days 4 and 5
The rest of my time in Greece provided a large contrast to the country life I experienced in the village of Prosymni. While the kids were at school, Sarah and Yanni devoted their week to being incredible tour guides of Athens. Sarah had English lessons on Monday, so I spent the day exploring Athens with Yanni. It was amazing to finally spend hours of quality time with him, really for the first...
Life in the Village: Greece - Day 3
I woke up on Sunday to the sounds of the Greek Orthodox church service, which are blasted on a loudspeaker from the church so that the whole town can hear. Yanni’s family lives next door to the church, so the music was especially… audible. It was unlike any Sunday morning I’d ever experienced, but was certainly entertaining to say the least.
Typical view from the village.
For breakfast, I...
Life in the Village: Greece - Day 2
The village is an important part of Sarah’s family’s life in Greece. It is where Yanni’s parents live and work on their olive farm (comprised of more than 1000 olive trees). They have lived there, in Prosymni, for most of their life (save for the 5 years they spent working in the US), and the home we stayed in is on the same property where Yanni was born. They go to the village for Christmas,...
Γρεεκ λεττερσ
A few anecdotes about Greek writing:
Though fraternities and sorororities have engrained the belief in America that B sounds like “beta,” it is really pronounced “vita.” In fact, there is no letter that results in the “bee” sound in the greek alphabet. So my last name is written as the combination of several other greek letters: M and π.
ΜΠΡΙΤΤ
note also that...
Greece - Day 1
Sixteen years ago, my aunt Sarah fell in love, moved to Greece, and married my uncle Yanni. Sounds adventurous and terrifying all at once, but for Sarah, this was the realization of her childhood dream to marry a European and live her life in Europe. Ever since then, I’ve wondered what life was like for her and her famiy in Athens. Every summer when they would return to spend time in the US, I...
October 2010
8 posts
So Long, EuRail Pass
The Amsterdam trip marked my last journey using the EuRail pass. From here on out, I’ll be using the 12-25 youth discount card for regional trains, and flying everywhere else. But the EuRail pass has been great, so I wanted to include a quick post about it for anyone who is considering getting it!
I had the 5 country select pass (Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Belgium count as one country -...
Amsterdam
From Rembrandt to the Red Light District and everything in between, Amsterdam truly offers has something for everybody. I’ve been told by countless people, from grandparents to students, that it is one of the best European cities to visit, so my expectations going in to this weekend were very high. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed.
Amsterdam at sunrise.
Beautiful blue sky. No...
watch your bags!
In hindsight, we could have seen the situation coming. A series of abnormal events on the train from Amsterdam to Bruxelles yesterday unfortunately culminated in Curtis’ bag, filled with a camera, ipod, phone, glasses, and clothes, being stolen. Amsterdam trains are infamous for clever thieves, a stereotype which sadly proved to be true.
Series of events:
- A sketchy man sat in our booth...
More Friends in More Places
… still trying to catch up on blogging for the whole month of October!
On my way to the airport for my trip back to the US for the NAE Grand Challenges Conference, I made a one day detour to Bruxelles to visit Outi, who I met on the first weekend in Chamonix. She is originally Finnish, but her family moved to Belgium when she was three years old, so she has lived there for most of her life....
More on McDonalds
I blogged earlier about McDonalds’ cultural adaptations for their menus in Germany, Luxembourg, and Nicaragua. This weekend, I came across another version of the McDonalds Menu in Geneva. This one was the classiest I’ve found yet - gourmet sandwiches on artisan bread with cheese from the elite cheese producer Emmi. From looking a the ad, you’d never even know it was affiliated...
Travel Schedule
I’ve finalized my travel plans for the rest of the semester! Any tips from people who have already been to these cities would be greatly appreciated.
*Oct 22-24: Amsterdam
*Oct 29-Nov 3: Athens to visit Aunt Sarah, Uncle Yannis, and cousins Yiorgos and Magdalena
*Nov 3-Nov 8: London to visit EWH friends and Peggy and Emily
*Nov 20-28: TIM’S VISIT! Paris, Luxembourg, Strasbourg,...
Geneva
I’ve fallen behind on blogging my trips! The following have so far gone without mention:
-Luxembourg
-Bruxelles, Belgium
-Los Angeles for NAE Grand Challenges National Conference
-(and a wonderful return to Duke, where I saw the people and beauty of the campus I’d been longing for ever since Nicaragua)
Before catching up on those, I’ll put up a post about my most recent...
September 2010
5 posts
Germany
I spent the past 2 weekends visiting various cities in Germany - Stuttgart, Munich, Trier, and Saarburg. All very distinct from each other, I was lucky to experience different flavors of Germany with each stop.
Day 1: Stuttgart
First stop was Stuttgart, last Friday. Famous as the site of Porche and BMW, our first stop was of course the Porche museum. I didn’t expect to be too interested...
Cultural Fast Food
This is just a small anecdote, but I’ve found it interesting to notice how fast food menus vary depending on the region. Today when I was walking around Luxembourg, I saw an ad for the McDonalds “Nürnberger” - a bun with 3 bratwursts and cheese, which apparently debuted in Germany earlier this year. Then I remembered that in Costa Rica, they served “McPinto” with the...
Museum Connections
Now that I’ve visited 5 art museums in France, I’m starting to become familiar with some of the artists whose work has been shown in several places. This type of exposure is the best way to really learn about the artists and their work. I got so excited when I started recognizing the same artists at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice that I’d first encountered in...
Antibes, Nice, Monaco: A Weekend in the French...
This weekend’s adventures started on Thursday night, when I and a group of GTL students rushed to the train station after French class to board the couchette - the sleeper TGV train. The couchette is certainly a unique experience - triple bunk beds on both side of each “room,” leaving not even enough headroom to sit up straight. The only options for those who wanted to hang out...
August 2010
16 posts
Paris, Chamonix, Pollone - a weekend in France and...
This weekend felt wonderfully European in ways that may have been commonplace to all the friends I was with but were new and exciting to me. My journeys took me through Paris, Chamonix, Polone and back to Metz, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better first weekend trip in Europe.
The travels started at 7:30 on Saturday morning, when I made my way over to le Gare Metz, just in time to see the...
Centre Pompidou - Metz
On Sunday, a group of us explored Le Centre Pompidou - Metz, a new modern art museum (not to be confused with the original Centre Pompidou in Paris!). The museum was very interesting, but one of my favorite features was the architecture. The building’s sweeping arcs and geometric patterns stand out in what is otherwise a very traditional, historic European city. Traveling with a group of...
Exploring Metz
“This is incredible! I can’t believe we get to live here for 4 months! Get your camera!”
Our dialogue sounded like something straight from a travel movie as we got off the bus and stepped foot in the city of Metz. If we didn’t look like tourists before, we certainly did then. Metz is breathtaking. Cobblestone roads, boulangeries, cathedrals… everything I imagined...
La Vie en France
I arrived in Metz last night and am thrilled to be here! The city is beautiful, the people are very friendly and I’m conversing with them in French without much difficulty, and my dorm already feels like home. While last month I felt like a confused outsider, I already feel like I’m blending in well here - this morning, somebody pulled over to ask me for directions, and even though I...
Adventures with the Director
Every week, Dr. Eliazar Gurdian, the director of Hospital La Trinidad, takes us on an adventure. The first week, we went to Managua for a the celebration of the 31st anniversary of the revolution and the FSLN party. That day was crazy, to say the least. I’ve never seen a group of thousands of people more passonate about their government and president, Daniel Ortega. Explosions, cheers, and...
La Trinidad
So far this blog has included tours of Masaya, Ometepe, and San Juan del Sur, with little mention of La Trinidad! So here’s a long overdue description of the town I live in.
La Trinidad is an extremely rural village about 30 minutes south of Esteli and 3 hours north of Managua. The village is filled with lots of family owned shops, often connected to their homes, and not much else. Few...
Masaya
This weekend Dinachi and I met up with some of the girls on the program in Masaya, a city famous for its markets and flowers. Well… its called the “city of flowers,” but to be honest we didn’t see too many flowers anywhere! But there were certainly tons of markets, so we spent the day exploring them and looking for the perfect gifts for all our loved ones.
The markets...
The God Particle
I picked up Leon Lederman’s The God Particle because the quote on the front of the book claims it as “The funniest book about physics ever written,” and the quote on the back hails Lederman as the Stephen Hawking of particle physics. Being that A Brief History of Time is one of my favorite books and I’d never encountered a book about physics that was deemed hilarious, those quotes were enough to...
Tomas Ovalle Photography →
Tomas has worked a professional photographer for decades, and his journalism has brought him all over the world. Check out his incredible photos here!
Photoshoot
Yesterday, photographer Tomas Ovalle came to Hospital La Trinidad with his nephew Chris to conduct a photo/videoshoot for the upcoming EWH promotional video. The morning was predictable - he just shot pictures of us working on a NIBP. Pretty standard (until he asked Dinachi to pose with her eyes peeking over the top of the circuit board, at which point things started to feel like ANTM. And...
Making a house a home
Think a mosquito net and utensils could change your life?
Ok, that might be a bit dramatic. But its amazing what a difference having those belongings makes for Dinachi and me. We finally have acquired mosquito nets and pillows for our beds, a fan for our workspace, and bowls, cutlery, cutting boards, and a hot water kettle for our kitchen. I can’t believe what a difference it makes for our...
Island Adventures
This past weekend was undoubtedly my favorite trip in Central America. It started off on a great note - meeting up with all the Duke students on Friday night, enjoying the Intercontinental Hotel, Pizza Hut, McFlurries, and celebrating Grace’s 20th birthday in style.
Then on Saturday we made the voyage to Ometepe island, an island made of 2 volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua.
One...
July 2010
6 posts
Fiction and Perspective
Anybody who knows me well knows that I have a very strong “non-fiction only policy.” There are too many facts to learn and fascinating subjects to explore, and there will never be enough time to tap into even a fraction of the things I’m curious about. But my roommate Dinachi strongly disagrees, so we made a deal that I would read Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” in exchange for her reading...
Home Sweet Home
And now for a photo tour of our humble abode. We like to call it the cabin, though I’m not sure if that description really applies here. Its quaint, and its certainly the bare minimum, but every night Dinachi fill it with laughter, dancing, singing, and fun movies. I’m learning that no matter where you are, you can enjoy yourself if surrounded by good company.
Our bedroom. No...
San Juan Del Sur
This weekend we packed our bags and hit the road for San Juan Del Sur, a gorgeous beach/surfer town in the south of Nicaragua. It was so enjoyable to be reunited with all the summer institute students, and feeling the impact of their community and friendship really highlighted how different it is to be living in the middle of nowhere. Every day, I develop an even deeper appreciation for the value...
Challenges
written: Saturday, July 17, 2010 (delayed upload due to lack of internet access here)
This isn’t going to be easy. I knew that going in, but I wasn’t quite sure how the challenges would present themselves. I didn’t know what to expect in any sense, which was scary. But after my first night in La Trinidad, Nicaragua, I’m beginning to learn what to expect, and in many ways that’s even more...
time to say goodbye
Before arriving in Costa Rica, and then many times during our month here, the EWH staff drew our attention to the concept of “culture shock.” We were warned that we would go through stages of euphoria, followed by frustration, depression, and ultimately find ways to accept the cultural differences. But this was not my experience at all. I have loved every minute of living in Costa Rica...
Pura Vida
Pura Vida is a phrase used uniquely by Costa Ricans, of which I have become quite fond over the past several weeks. You can almost always guarantee that when you greet anybody with even a basic “hola, como estas?”, the response will be an enthusiastic “pura vida!” accompanied by a warm, smiling face. It translates directly to “pure life”, and it conveys an...
June 2010
6 posts
Weekend in Monteverde
I wasn’t sure if anything in Costa Rica could top the feeling of floating peacefully down the Rio Pacuare. But then I found myself flying through a rainforest in Monteverde on a zipline, coasting over the trees at a level where I could see the mountains peaking through the clouds. At that point, I realized that the experiences on this trip will constantly out-do themselves in ways that are...
settling in
Its been 8 days since my arrival in Costa Rica and have finally settled into a comfortable routine. The first few days, while incredible, were also stressful. Some lessons learned:
Prepare some spanish phrases before meeting your homestay family.
Learn the public transportation system immediately. We got lost on the first day of school due to the fact that neglected to pay careful attention to...