Prepararations, preparations

Today I attended a WVRC meeting and heard Jamie Feld's presentation about her year about in Cordoba, Argentina. It seems like she had a great support system in Cordoba and she participated in many activities with Rotaract Clubs and various NGOs. Currently she is working at the CDC and has a 2-year fellowship; after, she will pursue a 2-year EurPubMed fellowship in Spain and France. It seems like she really made the most of her study year by being actively engaged in her community, as well as gaining experience that will further her career in public health.

Also I sent out emails to the presidents of Rotary Clubs in:
Culver City
Manhattan Beach
Wilshire
Westchester
Santa Monica

Hopefully, I'll attend their meetings next year with my counselor, Gordon. Part of my pre-departure year requirements involve making brief presentations about myself to clubs in District 5280. This gives me the opportunity to refine my public speaking skills and get to know more clubs in the District, while allowing various clubs to hear from the individuals who are benefiting from their support and donations!

A Rotary-filled week

4 events within 6 days!

The first was last Thursday, when I attended a Westwood Village Rotary Club meeting. I usually can't make it because of class, but lecture was canceled this week! Gordon, my counselor, is actually the WVRC President and it was the first that I've attended a meeting that he's led. Anyways, I made a short speech about myself and my plans for the future with the Scholarship to the club. It's a bit disconcerting when you're presenting to people who are eating, because I never know if they're actually listening or not. It's definitely a bigger mistake to assume they're not listening when they actually are, though. At least I have plenty of experience from CBE 104A & B when everybody in the class is doing homework and a few people are listening keenly to my presentation.

The next event was SCOTS in Palos Verdes, which was orientation and training for outbound scholars. There were 4 inbound Scholars (Ikumi from Japan, Ari from Korea, Rahel from Zurich, and Marco from Bologna), 3 outbound Ambassadorial Scholars (Dave from USC going to Cambridge, Amber from Smith College going to Zimbabwe, and me; the fourth girl couldn't make it), and 1 Peace Scholar (Pani going to Brisbane). We all made a short speech about ourselves, and it was really great to hear about everyone and their great plans for the future. Especially the outbound scholars were all very international- volunteering in places like India and Honduras, and studying in places like Argentina. Pani works a lot with Nobel Peace Laureates through her job at a non-profit, and even mentioned the advice that Archbishop Tutu gave her! Anyways, various members of the Committee went over parts of the Scholar Handbook and we even had a quiz.

Main components of my pre-departure year (i.e. 2010-2011):
*Make 8 short talks introducing myself to the clubs of District 5280
*Attend various Rotary events and functions, like District Breakfasts and the District Conference
*Submit monthly progress reports to my counselor (Gordon) and the Ambassadorial Committee Chair (Dave)
*Obtain admission to my assigned institution
*Arrange my visa, bank account, housing
*Contact my host counselor in Valencia

The third event was the Paul Harris Foundation Celebration. There were over 500 attendees to this event, which serves to raise money for the Rotary Foundation projects. There was a silent auction and raffle, and of course music, drinks, and food. Unfortunately, it was a bit loud to hold long conversations, but I still talked to Miloni about her experiences in Singapore which was great.

This morning was the District Breakfast. There's always short announcements promoting the next Conference (either International or District), and a distinguished speaker, Father Boyle. At first my mind kept wandering during his talk, but when he used more humor and real anecdotes from his work with former gang members (Homeboy Industries is his organization's name) it really caught everybody's attention.

more UPV!

Got another reply from Javi, a friend of a friend who attended UPV and is still at the University of Stuttgart. He was really nice, offered to give me advice on finding a flat, etc. Interestingly enough, he said that UPV is way more organized than Stuttgart (for him at least) and that he misses it a lot.

I got some other news from UPV today, but completely unexpected. Nathan forwarded me an email that he didn't know how to answer. I read it over, and realized that the girl had an email from UPV! Out of all the countries and cities and universities that EWB-UCLA receive an email from today... Anyways I told Nathan that I would reply to her (I'm sure he was relieved), so I did (in castellano). I'm still giving her advice about finding an internship here, and hopefully she will give me some good advice about studying in Valencia.

On a different note, it was very difficult adjusting to life back at home. Of course, I had my friends and family, better food, (much much) better weather, but I missed traveling a lot. Supposedly there is a period of 3 weeks of adjustment. Anyways, the scholarship made things a bit easier in that I know that I will be back soon enough.

my last 17 days in europe...

Ended with a bang! I continued my travels, met up with some old friends, and made lots of new ones.

I went to Dachau Memorial, which is outside of Munich. I'm glad I went, but for some reason it wasn't nearly as emotional for me as the Anne Frank House (where I literally cried through the last one-third of the museum).


Here I am with my CS host, Martina, after we cooked dinner together.


And here's the famous Mirabell Garden (where the Trapp kids sing "Doe a Deer" in the Sound of Music).


Then I headed to Vienna...







Then to Innsbruck, which is a small town in the center of lots of snow-capped mountains. The scenery was gorgeous.


Eating typical Styrian food with Veronika and Vero halfway up the mountain


Veronika's village, Götzens, was so so so cute.


Then I stopped for a night in Zurich, where I had a bizarre experience at a bar/club that the bankers to go. It turned out to be fun, though. After that was 5 beautiful days in Paris.

My hands-down favorite spot in Paris


No trip to Paris is complete without some crepe...


or going to the Seine...


or seeing the Arc de Triomphe.


Then I went to Cologne where I stayed with my friend Pola. Here we are eating yummy Turkish food.


I also really enjoyed the one day I had in Hamburg


My last day, I sprinted to the dock in Koblenz and arrived in the knick of time for the KD Rhine ferry/cruise/boat. Someone actually mentioned that she saw me running onto the pier with my backpack, purse, and plastic bag of shopping. But it was worth it!

Valencia

Exactly one week ago, (Sep 20 2010) I received an email from RI with my assignment: La Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. This was my first choice university! I also received some files that were informative but perhaps created more questions than answers.

I got the contact information of two friends of friends who attend UPV (and were also Erasmus students in Stuttgart). Hopefully I can remain in contact with them and ask them about Valencia.

Sunday night (Sep 26 2010) was the DISTRICT 5280 FOUNDATION ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PARTY. It was the first time that they had held this event, but I got to meet some of the leaders of the Alumni Association and also past Ambassadorial Scholars, which was awesome. Mina is the President, and she gave me some materials that she had kept from Spain (which I unfortunately left at Karis' house and felt terrible about). She studied in Bilbao, Spain about 7 years ago. Karis is going to Argentina in February as a Peace Scholar. Brian has applied for a Peace Scholarship. Jamie is a UCLA Public Health grad and returned from Córdoba, Argentina in December and now has a job with the CDC in Arizona.

Lessons learned:
- Communicate with the RI counselor (mine is Jorge). It seems like a lot of my more difficult questions should be directed to him, not my WVRC counselor Gordon or Dave.
- Make lots of connections before I go abroad... through Rotaract, Couchsurfing, common-interest groups, etc.
- Make an effort to meet as many people as possible, which may or may not be difficult
- Meet guys on motorcycles and make lots of novios, which is the best way of learning the language (from Jamie, of course... Jamie had only taken Spanish 1 and 2 before going to Argentina but made it clear to everybody she met that they were going to speak Spanish not English. Her classes were in Spanish as well but the other students were really helpful and made she that she understood)

eating our way through the Black Forest and Strasbourg

Claire brought back some Black Forest cake from Freiburg. I had never had it before, and didn't expect it to be so alcoholic! There is kirschewasser (cherry water), as well as some kind of alcohol in the frosting.



Started a Thursday morning off right with some Berliners & quark croissants on the train.



In Schiltach, a really pretty town (but extremely small and quiet)



At the highest waterfall in Germany (in Triberg) which was extremely touristy. Claire and I said we were 16 years old to get in for a cheaper price, haha. Anyways, despite the loads of people by the waterfall, it only took a 5 minute walk to get on a trail that was almost completely empty.


The famous Black Forest cake... we got the supposed original recipe. It was actually a bit disappointing.


But afterwards, our hike was frequently interrupted with discoveries of blackberry bushes. Yum!


This is the next day (Friday) in Stuttgart.


We finally got pork knuckle (schweinshaxe)! It was good, but not anything too amazing.


The gingerbread hearts at the Stuttgart Weindorf (wine festival). I'm not a fan of gingerbread but Claire tried one.


In Strasbourg (on Saturday) with a kougelhopf


Droolworthy chocolates in Strasbourg. These shops were literally on each block, and Claire and I literally went into each bakery, cheese shop, chocolate shop we saw.


We did get lucky a couple times when we found free samples, especially with the pistachio macaron we sampled. It was absolutely divine. Here's us with a praline macaron

story of my visa

Anyone holding a U.S. passport gets a 90-day visa. Along with some other interns, I am staying a few days past the 90 days. About a month ago, my supervisor took me to the foreigners' office to get a waiver (basically a piece of paper that allows me to stay a few days past). We woke up super early to go to the office before work, only to talk to a woman who would not give me the waiver. She told us that we would have to come back in September to get it, and wouldn't budge. Jen tried explaining that in previous years, her other interns were able to get the waiver. And she tried explaining that she had called the office earlier to confirm that I would be able to get it. Anyways, we were sent away, dejected and angry at the German way... without bending and each person doing things by their own interpretation because nobody knows the rules.

So today, we tried again. This time we were ready to stand our ground (because I REALLY need this piece of paper) and even ready to ask the woman for her name if she wouldn't cooperate. After we were called, we walk in and find the same woman. Jen explained the situation just like she did last time, only this time the woman (Frau Greiger) was very cooperative and the entire process took about 3 minutes. Apparently, she even told Jen that it was good that we didn't wait until it was very late to come to the office for the form. Lucky for me, the woman was in a better mood today.

finally set... that is, my life for the next 17 days

Sep 1: Stuttgart -> Salzburg
Sep 2: Salzburg
Sep 3: Salzburg -> Vienna
4: Vienna
5: Vienna -> Innsbruck
6: Innsbruck
7: Innsbruck -> Lucerne
8: Lucern -> Paris
8-13: Paris
13-16: Cologne (day trips to Hamburg, Lubeck and Kiel)
16: Cologne -> Stuttgart
17: fly from Stuttgart -> Zurich -> LAX

Phew!

August

So June was the month that I saw a lot of Germany, got used to living in my dorm, was still in the beginning stages of my internship, and tried really hard to meet as many people as I could (around campus, at work, on the train, etc). July was the month that I traveled and went out a ton, and hung out with (but also said goodbye to) the really good friends I made. August is a weird month, maybe the month that lots of people visited me. Right now Claire, a friend from UCLA, is staying with me for 6 days. We actually met at freshman orientation, and her home is in San Marcos, about a ten minute drive away from mine. Claire arrived in Stuttgart yesterday, and so far we've been trading travel stories, eating yummy food, and tomorrow we're going hiking together in the Black Forest! Mostly we've actually been talking a lot... about flings. In Germany. With non-German boys. We're actually in really similar situations and it's nice to have somebody to just talk and gripe and gossip to.

poker face?

Mine is nonexistent. But I did get to practice a little Biddy Early's weekly Tuesday poker night. Basically, a local Irish pub has poker night and the winner of each table (of ~10) gets a free bottle of whiskey. I only went once, but ended up being third at my table... not bad for a newb, eh? There was definitely some beginner's luck involved there... I won a few hands right after I sat down and all the guys started calling me "rich lady." Maybe I would've won if Tommy wasn't there... Tommy is another RISE intern and won all three weeks that he went to poker night. And trust me, the whiskey was not wasted on him.

This is Tommy, proud owner of a Tallamore Dew. We actually snuck out of the bar because the guy who came in 2nd at the table and his friends wanted shots of the whiskey, and Tommy was not keen on the idea.


And us in the schlossplatz after poker night with the random German kids that we met. I think this was their last day of school so a ton of high school kids were out drinking.

Oops moments...

I had thought that my German was improving, and I was recognizing more words and phrases that are used commonly. But lately I've realized that a lot of this was me assuming that I knew what certain words meant when in actuality, I had no idea.

Schnell: I assumed this word meant slow, because it looks like snail. However, it actually means fast.

Ganz falsch: There's this comic that is in the bathroom at work, about using a plunger. I'll have to take a picture of it or something. Anyways, I thought that it was illustrating the sustainable way to use a plunger, but instead it was illustrating the correct and incorrect ways of using a plunger. I think i need to upload it for anybody to understand...

Richtung: Means direction. I'm not kidding, I thought it was an actual location until a week ago when I realized the meaning. God, I amaze myself sometimes.

observations

1. French-speaking = better food.
For example, food in Prague was pretty much the same as German food... potatoes and pork. And bread. The Netherlands had some nice seafood, but otherwise nothing too special. However, Belgium (which is half French-speaking) had the most delicious food.

2. French-speaking = romance & affection.
PDA is very uncommon in Germany. Even hand-holding, I feel! It's a rarity to see a couple making out in a public place (exceptions are clubs or festivals like loveparade... but the people making out there aren't even in a relationship). But the Belgians are definitely more affectionate and not afraid to display it! I can't really say if there was a normal amount of PDA relative to the U.S. and it just seemed like more because I've been in Germany for so long, or there is actually more there.

3. French-speaking = more diverse.
Ok, so I'm only going off of the 2 mostly French-speaking cities I've visited this summer, Geneva and Brussels. But going from Amsterdam, which is still a large city, to Brussels, there was a huge change in demographics. Same with going from Germany to Geneva.

belgium

Belgium was more than a pleasant surprise. I honestly had no expectations for Brussels before going, although I had heard that Bruges was supposed to be really beautiful. And indeed it was!

Maybe Bruges was everything that I expected the Netherlands to be, but even better. There were canals, swans, cutesy homes, windmills, even clogs.









And yes, Belgian beer is really really good. Didn't get to try as many flavors and varieties as I would've liked...



Diocesan Seminary in Bruges (we weren't supposed to be allowed in but the priest was nice enough to let us explore for a couple minutes).



The next day we were in Brussels, which the internet and other sources had called ugly, a concrete jungle, and other not so nice names. From what I saw, Brussels was none of the above. People were out at cafes, the architecture was nice, and the city was alive (not just with tourists!).

We were lucky enough to see the famous Flower Carpet, which is only there for 3 days, every other year.




Brussels' landmarks do not do it justice... the Atomium (for the 1958 World Fair), Manneken Pis (peeing boy), and other peeing statues.





With Brussels being 90% French-speaking, the cuisine was noticeably of higher quality.

First off, chocolate shops everywhere:



The escargot I had at a random flea market was delicious.



Being such an international city, Brussels was extremely diverse... the most famous areas are the Moroccan neighborhood, African neighborhood, Portuguese neighborhood. Here's a bakery in the Moroccan street:



And last, but certainly not least, the ubiquitous Belgian waffle

surfing in benelux

Couchsurfing, that is! Indeed, much to the surprise of my fellow RISE interns, I did couchsurf with my mom. The trick to making everything work (relatively) well was choosing hosts who were compatible with us... most surfers are young, like to party, etc. so I looked for hosts who said that they don't want surfers who stay up late and drink too much and stuff.

Actually, our first host was Selin, in Nurnberg. She was super chill, and we arrived pretty late to her flat. Selin is half Turkish, half German and works as a law consultant (or something), and is in her early/mid thirties. Oh, and she has a 19 year old boyfriend. Yes, it was a bit odd. My mom was convinced at first that he was her son! Of course neither of us really asked what their relationship was, and later when she was showing us around the flat she mentioned that one of the rooms was where "we sleep." Anyways, we hung out for awhile and later I watched part of a Lost episode with them (I believe the finale of season 4).

Sooo, our hosts in Amsterdam were Jan and Renske. They were nice enough to pick us up in their boat. We met in front of the Nemo museum, and we went around the canals before "parking" and then walking to their place. That night they took us to a local Indian restaurant, and the next night they took us to an Indonesian restaurant in town. Again, they were super chill and we had a great stay with them.






Next up: Brussels. We stayed the first night with Melson and Els (they're actually Dutch) who have a 3-month old daughter, Mia. They were really nice and had so many interests... Els is getting an herbologist license and is learning how to make cheese and has started a garden in their backyard. Her day job is teaching Dutch but I think she speaks like 5 languages. Melson has been looking into peak oil, and various childrearing and development techniques. They recently decided to stop taking flights, and their preferred method of travel is hitchhiking, which is pretty awesome. And it goes without saying that they always buy bio (which means organic), and they always buy used clothing.

They could only host us for 1 night because their parents were coming for the weekend, so the second night in Brussels we stayed with Claire, a 40-something woman who works for the European Council (Brussels is "Europe's capital" and most of the EU is located there). Claire was really nice as well, and she recently fell in love, with Africa! I love seeing her face light up when she talks about Africa, or when she was listening to the African songs.

czech it out!

(forgive the cheesy titles...)

I had built up Prague too much in my mind, because so many people have told me that Prague is their favorite city in Europe. It was still a beautiful city, and the old town has so many windy streets that it is impossible to get your bearings. Charles Bridge, the most famous site in Prague other than the castle, was so full of tourists that it took really long to cross. Also, I had heard that everything there was really really cheap, what with it being eastern Europe and all, but of course things were comparable to Germany in the touristy areas. But enough griping... my favorite part of the Czech Republic were the smaller towns that we saw, like Cesky Krumlov, Cesky Budejovice, and Plzen.

the Dancing House in the New Town in Prague


Cesky Krumlov is tiny and straight out of a fairy tale, with the castle, old town, and river. It was also very touristy, as in everyone inside the town was a tourist, but that wasn't enough to ruin it for me.







We stopped at Cesky Budejovice on the way back to Prague from Cesky Krumlov. This felt like the first real Czech city that I had visited. The streets seemed relatively empty, and the town square was really beautiful, with some cool sculptures. The Budweiser that we know in the U.S. actually takes (stole!) its name from a brewery here.