Prospective Traveler?

I guess this is my post to the students and faculty who have gone through this: Is it hard to be away from family over the holidays? What have you guys done to either compensate or has it not even been a big deal because you don't have the hype of Thanksgiving between Halloween and Christmas? Just wondering since if I was to go abroad, it looks like it would be in the fall, and that is one of the problems I am trying to figure out.

Hope to heard your input!

Experiences While Abroad

The best part of studying abroad is gaining experiences, not just going to school (although that is the reason you're there, right?). Granted, there can be both positive and negative sides of studying abroad. So here's the question to ponder: 

What are the best experiences you've have abroad?

Special Afternoon

Hey there everyone! Geez, it's been a while since I've posted stuff. (I blame that entirely on Erika; she's being a computer-hog.) Anyways, I have some pictures of an afternoon out with a great friend of mine, the Black Beast of Aarggh. He's a really fun guy and we had a wonderful time reenacting the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. We both had a fantastic time strolling around campus and enjoying the unnaturally warming weather. As you can see, it took some serious skill from both of us not to fall off, me from the railing and the Black Beast from the wall.

Anyways, I have to get ready for Thanksgiving Break here with Erika. Gotta love free, all-you-can-eat food, right? Have a great Thanksgiving everyone (and watch out for those crazies on Black Friday)! Enjoy the pictures!

Monteverdi at OWU

I'm back! This past weekend I went to the "Monteverdi Reimagined" performance here at OWU. It was amazing! The music was great and the singers were spectacular, as I expected. I sat in the balcony since the best seating was up there. As you can see behind me, there's are very large projector screen. While the singers were doing their musical thing, a slideshow with videos, pictures, and words appeared on the screen to help the audience figure what each song was about (the whole performance was in Italian). It was really cool. Isn't technology wonderful? I had an amazing time and was very glad I went. My human Erika went too since her friend Sarah sang in the opera. We had a great time.

This is a picture of Sarah, who I got to meet after the show. She's cool and allowed me to take a picture with her. Isn't she's just awesome!?! She even signed my program! The other picture is me posing with the program and the ticket.

Have a good one everyone; I'll be checking back in really soon!

Early Music

This Side of the Atlantic

Last night, AMRS freshman Becca Pollard and her roommate Kristen Schwacha joined Dr. Knapp and myself for a student performance of madrigals about love written by the Baroque master composter, Monteverdi. (Here we are posing from the balcony of Jemison auditorium after the performance).

I love early music, and this was a particularly lovely performance of some of the finest madrigals about love written in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Most impressive of all was the vocal talent of OWU vocal music students. Every student sang both in ensemble and solo, delighting everyone with the beautiful harmonies and playful improvisations. You couldn't listen without wanting to be an opera diva yourself!

Another fantastic thing about this early music performance was the updated, multi-media setting. As the performers sang each madrigal, video was projected on the screen behind them, showcasing gracefully executed dance performances, stylized renditions of lovers in various poses (the hopes of a new love, the disappointments of an old love lost), and creative graphics displays of the song lyrics (in English translation).

This was a wonderful night out with AMRS students!

If you haven't ever had a chance to enjoy this music, I recommend the following:

dr demarco

Raymond Rozman reports from the field

Hello all, I'm Raymond Rozman. I graduated from OWU this past May with a BA in Medieval Studies, and now I'm working on my MA at the University of Leeds in England. It took a lot of long hours  to get myself here, but let me tell you, it's payed off in big ways. 

You get to do interesting things as a graduate student. Just yesterday I had my British Battlefields class at the Royal Armories, where we finally got to handle (and wear) arms and armour. Some of the stuff was real, yes (including the back of a breastplate with a rather nasty gash in it), but the suits we tried on were reproductions of pieces in the museum, for obvious reasons. The next two meetings of that class will be held there, where we will be discussing the origins of firepower. More classes in the fun line-up include Paleography and Viking and Anglo-Saxon Heroic Culture, both of those coming up in the spring.

There's a lot of legwork involved, though. Our Latin course is designed to teach us the language (yes, all of it) in a year. I'm doing well enough there, because I've had a decent amount of it before (Thank you, Dr. Fratantuono), but it's not by any means easy. The Research Methods class isn't a cakewalk either. Come to think of it, British Battlefields is actually quite complex too, what with having to think like the commanders in order to understand the situation and terrain, even when the site itself remains relatively unchanged. For each class (I'm enrolled in three, if you haven't been counting), there's about a day's worth of work per week.

I do manage to have fun, though. I've lucked out by having the folks in my department being decently awesome people. We collectively go to pub for dinner, drink and conversation once a week, and on Sundays a house full of the PhDs hosts dinner, with one of us cooking the meal and the rest of us bringing in some other sort of tasty. This is a great way to counter the dismal feeling of eating alone in a dorm, and I know that all of us look forward to these nights each week.

Next time I write I'll tell you more about adjusting to a foreign culture (Britain is surprisingly alien), and how to find your academic niche, or at least how important it is to do so.

Prep for Study Abroad

Most people don't realize how much extra work goes into applying for a study abroad program. After a preliminary application from the school to get permission to go off-campus, then the study abroad program application most be filed. That's the easiest part. After being accepted then it gets trickier. I'm studying in Greece in the spring, and Greece is not a easy country to get into I discovered. After being accepted into the College Year in Athens program, I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork that I wasn't aware of, such as getting an FBI profile and applying for a visa. Greece is one of the countries in the European Union that requires a visa for traveling you're going to be there for more than a few days.

The hardest part of the paperwork is getting the FBI profile done. Ink fingerprints are needed, not electronic ones as most places do nowadays. Finding somewhere that still does ink fingerprinting is harder than I thought. I had to call the local police department, the sheriff's office, and even the jail before finally finding somewhere that could do ink fingerprints. And don't forget about the fingerprint fee. I was lucky; my fee is only $5 but I've heard of it going as high as $35 so be prepared for that. The FBI profile is required for the student visa to Greece along with other papers, such as a health form, your passport, and financial forms proving that you can afford to go.

The process for the FBI profile and the visa can take a few weeks so don't wait until the last minute! Who knew there would be so much paperwork!

Posting, Commenting, and Following; Posting Pictures

I hope everyone's having a great day. Here are the Blogger basics so people can post and comment on the Blog Abroad and be a Follower of the Blog Abroad.

For posting comments:
Sign in with Blogger with any e-mail address. A Google e-mail works best but any e-mail will work (owu.edu e-mail addresses fall under Google Mail so that will work, too). Create a profile with display name; this is the name that will be displayed whenever you make a comment or post something. I advise using your first name and the first letter of your last name, but it's up to you. The only way to post your own post is to be invited by the administrator. Otherwise, the only thing you can do is leave comments on events already posted. If you'd like to see comments, click on the post-it in the upper right corner of the post to leave or view comments.

For commenting:
Make sure you have a Blogger account. (See above section for making a Blogger account.) After you've made an account, then you can comment on any post. If you don't want to make a Blogger account, there's a option to be an anonymous commenter too. Just choose that when you leave a comment.

For being a Follower:
On the right side of the Blog Abroad homepage is a box labeled "Followers." If you wish to become a Follower of the Blog Abroad, then click on the button that says "Follow." A box pops up. Choose a display name and decide if you want to follow the Blog Abroad publicly or privately. Once you've done that, then you're officially a Follower on the Blog Abroad. To be a Follower, you don't need a Blogger account or a Google e-mail address.

POSTING PICTURES


Pictures are an excellent way to let people know all about the awesome and fun things you're doing and place you're going while abroad. If you'd like to post pictures (which you should!) and don't know how then here are some basic instructions:

After you log into Blogger, your dashboard comes up. On that page is a button that says "New Post." Click that and a new page for comes up for you to write a post. On the toolbar above the text box there is a small picture-looking icon (it's next to the word "link" on the toolbar). Click that. Another box will appear for you to upload images. You can add as many pictures as you'd like. After you insert pictures, then another, smaller box will appear that allows you to move the picture (left, center, or right alignment) and allows you to adjust the size of the picture. If you insert a picture with left or right alignment then any text added with wrap around the pictures. 


Let me know if you have any trouble. I hope that's helpful. Happy blogging!

Maerwynn Signing In!

Hiya, everybody! I'm Lady Aquila Maerwynn Rosa of Anmeres, the royal mascot of the Blog Abroad. Since I have such a long name just call me Maerwynn, or Maer, for short; it saves time. :) Anyways, I'm the mascot! Isn't that awesome!? It's a tough job being a mascot. I have to read the Blog Abroad and keep my human Erika in line. (She's the editor, and sometimes she's kinda lazy; I have to keep a close eye on her.) It's nice to have a human. I have short forepaws so I can't type well so she types what I dictate to her. What a wonderful human. :)

That's all for now! There's lots of stuff to get done about here. I'll be checking back in soon!

Visit to Madrid

For part of a backpacking trip around Europe, my friend Emily and I went to Madrid, Spain. It was an incredible city, and we took a train from Paris to get there.

We got to the Madrid Train Station and found a taxi cab that would take us to our hostel, and even though he didn’t speak English, he got us there fine. Our hostel arrangement took up about two small rooms, with two twin beds and a bathroom. It was in Royal Madrid/Old Madrid, so it was close to all the sights we wanted to see.

We went outside to walk around and see the sights. All around were old buildings, statues, and other amazing structures. Everything is so much more colorful there, and the facades of buildings are so interesting and intricate.

We walked through some plazas and then got to the Royal Palace of Madrid, which had some amazing gardens around it and looked humungous. We walked through the armory and the official rooms and saw everything it had to offer.

We walked around the Plaza Mayor after that, and had lunch at a restaurant called "Segun...Enma" where I ate pumpkin ravioli with a pistachio pesto sauce on top. It was delicious but very interesting and different.

We walked around a bit after that because we needed to find an adapter... our plugs are all flat and don’t fit into the depressed European outlets. We walked around a lot and no one spoke English so we had a lot of trouble. Eventually we ended up at El Corte Ingles, where an employee approached us and spoke English very well. He helped us find what we needed, and so once we each bought one we were totally set.

After being true inhabitants of Madrid and taking a siesta, we walked around a lot and tried to find a good place to eat, but most places we couldn’t understand the menu or it was too expensive, etc. We ended up at this tavern off the beaten path, and we each got a glass of a Rioja as well as some steak and chips. The chips (fries) were probably the best I have ever had.

We didn’t love the wine, but it was ok. When we were finished, we were waiting for the check, and the waiter, who spoke no English, came back and gave us each another half-glass of wine. We tried to protest, but he gave us some anyway. We also went out after dinner and had some sangria. Madrid is such a wonderful city for nightlife because of how late they wake up and their sietas, so they are definitely night owls.

On day two in Madrid, we knew we were going to visit the Prado that day but then we wanted lunch first so we walked around to find a place to eat. We ended up walking really far and way out of the way. It was extremely hot, and we were sweating and tired, so we just stopped at a restaurant in the middle of this business/government district, and so we went in to get some ham and cheese sandwiches, which were pretty good.

On our way out, we bought some chocolate ice cream, which we ate on the way to the Prado. We spent literally all day in the Prado walking through all the galleries. It took us hours, and our favorite ended up being the same painting for us both: a painting by Simon Vouet, called Time Conquered by Love, Hope, and Beauty. (We didn't snap a picture of it, unfortunately, so here's a copy):

While we were there, one of the museum workers yelled at me for sneezing. She was shushing us and we weren’t even being loud. We were whispering when we were discussing the art, but when she shushed me we were being silent except for my sneeze.

After we left the Prado, we walked around and found a restaurant and had a jar of sangria, and I had a half a chicken and fries. It's sad that we didn't really eat all that much Spanish food, but it was because they mostly eat tapas of fish dishes, and my friend doesn't eat fish, so that ruled a lot out. Still, everything we ate and drank in Spain was wonderful. Madrid was an incredible city, and definitely should be a stop on any European backpacking adventures.

Dublin Exhibits

This past weekend, I meant to spend two days in Dublin. In the end, I was only there for about five hours. However, within that time, I went to the Trinity College Old Library and the Book of Kells Exhibition, as well as the National Museum of Ireland's Archaeology Building. It was really incredible. It is one thing to see a slide of something like the Tara Brooch in art history class, but it is quite another to actually see it in person. At the same time, I know it was seeing these things, or similar things, in class beforehand that made it as interesting as it was. Lord knows my grandparents (who came to visit and took me to Dublin) got tired enough of me giving the history and background information on everything that we saw, however fascinating I thought it was.

I was especially excited to see the Book of Kells, considering that I wrote a paper on it last spring. The Trinity College Exhibit was really well done. Before you get to the actual manuscripts that they have on display, you walk through an exhibit of floor-to-ceiling reproductions of the manuscript pages, along with desciptions and meanings behind the contents, as well as information about making manuscripts. However, there was one thing that I found very frustrating about the exhibit. Because it is designed to be of interest to anyone, most of the descriptions are very simplified. I can understand why, but it is still frustrating to see a one-sentence, definitive reason given for something that I know scholars still disagree over, and have read ten articles that give ten different views on the subject.

Well, this is all I have time for at the moment...I didn't come all the way to Ireland to sit at my computer all day!

Hey there!

Hear ye, hear ye! The Blog Abroad is now up and running! That's right; after weeks and weeks of work, the BA has finally (and officially) launched. Current AMRS students will be blogging here about their adventures and experiences so check back often! And you never know; maybe the AMRS dragon mascot will stop by and post some stuff too. Enjoy!