Whose English and When It Matters

It seems when people travel to English-speaking countries, the most noticeable differences are ones that don’t matter very much. So you say “hob” and I say “stove.” I call that arrangement of stars “The Big Dipper” and you call it “The Plow.” You say “ye” and I thought no one had used that form of the verb since King James’ Bible. In the end, though, it highlights our similarities more than our differences, because there’s no cultural confusion: we just have two ways of saying the exact same thing.
There are times, though, when two ways of saying the same thing can matter a lot. A few weeks ago I went to the island of Cape Clear, the southernmost inhabited point in Ireland. I was there for a storytelling workshop hosted by an American named Chuck Kruger, and attended by around ten people from the storytelling community in Ireland and England. Nearly every person there had a different accent, from thick country Irish to a sincere Cockney. It was an incredible experience, but I had one problem: due to a fluke in the off-season bus schedule, it was not possible for me to get back to Cork. I could get to Cape Clear without a problem, but there was no bus back. So I explained my situation at dinner and asked for a ride.

To their credit, the Irishmen kept straight faces while we worked out transportation logistics, but Gerry couldn’t help grinning when he explained I really couldn’t use that wording anymore. “In Ireland, needing a ride means you want to have sex.”
“If I ask for a lift, is that better or worse?”
They all lost it. Daphne said where she’s from they sometimes ask for a spin, thus avoiding the awkwardness of both ride and lift. Nina, an American girl currently living in Dublin, wondered how you would say “ride a horse” if you can’t use those words, and Noona (eighty years old, wears a crocheted cap) went into a fit of giggles and didn’t recover for a solid five minutes.
Luckily I had the ultimate payback: “It goes both ways you know. When Kate told us that story about the nun who liked her fags…”*

For your further edification, here is an incomplete introduction to Irish phraseology:
Give out: Another phrase that sounds funny but is completely innocent. It means to give someone a hard time. “I suppose I can’t give out about burning the Thanksgiving turkey, since I messed up the sweet potatoes.”
Your man: This is not establishing any ownership over the man, it’s just a way of referring to someone male. “Isn’t that your man from the pub last night?”
Lads: Just like we say “guys,” this does not say anything about the gender of the people in question. In fact, the lads might all be girls. “We’ll stay here a moment and wait for the lads.”
Laughs: When something is a laugh, it is fun or entertaining, not necessarily humorous. “That trip was a laugh.”
Fair play: Roughly “good job.” “I succeeded in putting photos up on Facebook! Fair play to me.”
Didn’t he…: This is a trick where you turn whatever your main point is into a question. I think it’s for emphasis, because you’re not expected to answer. You might not even know the answer. “We were walking back from the second pub, and didn’t your man fall right down the hill?”
Ah sure: Thrown in front of things every once in a while, for good measure. “Obama says ‘Yes we can,’ Irish politicians say ‘Ah sure, we’ll think about it and get back to you in a week.’” (Direct quote—this was not me. I would never confuse Obama with Bob the Builder.)
Thanks be to God: Peppers the speech of Irish people of a certain generation. Gaelic speakers tended to say “Thanks be to God” (it is somewhat shorter in Gaelic) frequently, and I think the tendency translated into English. “It’s cold but it’s not wet, thanks be to God.”

*The nun in question was fond of cigarettes.

Amsterdam: The Museums, a guide?

This will be a rather brief (as brief as I can make it) summary of a trip I took with one of my art history classes (Genre Painting, heavy emphasis on Dutch painting) to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The trip was a lot of fun, especially because, as one of three Americans (and the only one to stay the whole trip), I was forced to make friends with Irish students. By Saturday I had been adopted into the group and was being taught (possibly futilely) to speak with an Irish accent and various slang terms. It was quite the experience, filled with much laughter, and one somehow appropriate to the pub location.

The city itself was AMAZING! I had never been before, so it was all new to me. You could tell that it was the holiday season because the whole city already had its Christmas lights up. Most small side streets were lined with lights, even the notorious Red Light District had its own lights (red lights with a big 'W' in the middle, de Wallen is the name of that area in Dutch).

The purpose of the trip was to look at art, of course, so most of our trip was spent going to the Museum District of the city by tram. We went twice to the Rijksmuseum (if you should ever think of going there, make it a whole day trip because it's the most expensive museum in that area and they don't let you back in even with a ticket from that day once you leave), and while the museum was laid out in a thought-provoking and well-planned manner, most of the building is under restoration, meaning that only a small part of their collection is out for viewing. This makes the amount you pay to get in even more ridiculous because you don't even get to see everything. Wait until 2013 to go back, when the whole thing will be done, because it will be amazing, since this building is enormous.

The Historical Museum had an interesting exhibit on the history of men's fashion from the beginning of the Republic to modern day in Amsterdam. The waist coats and hats were cool, and I would have spent more time looking at it had a large group of fashion design students not been occupying the entire floor area.

We also went to the Van Gogh museum which had a moving exhibit called "Illusions of Reality" that focused on various medias illustration of people's lives during the 1800s, especially the period of Van Gogh's life. The purpose was to show what might have influenced his style and subject choices. This applies mostly to his first phase of painting.

However, the Stedelijk Museum (their modern art museum) was by far the best museum of them all. The building is apparently just their temporary location, which explains the numerous empty rooms. I just walked through and would comment on the white color of choice in the room, debating if it was ivory, egg shell, etc. The rooms that were occupied more than made up for those rooms, though. My two favorite rooms were the one covered floor to ceiling in giant black and white quotes and the one in which my height was marked on a wall. They were even on the floor! And we were allowed to take pictures of everything, so it was just a wonderland for all of the girls in this group.
The other room was a work in progress, and pretty much every visitor who comes in picks a place along the wall for their height to be marked and then labeled with their name and date. It certainly showed me how very average my height is.


I also visited Amsterdam's Cat Museum, which was very fab. It was all art inspired by cats, and then real cats who lived there. I ended up sitting on a couch and petting one cat for a good 15-20 minutes. Worth going to if you are a cat lover, though it is off the beaten path.

That basically sums up my museum trip of Amsterdam. In Haarlem (a most adorable town, one I highly recommend), we went to the Frans Hals museum which was rather, eh. It was well laid out, but not my preferred style so I was not blown away.

(For more pictures, look to Facebook. Either friend me or grab someone who is friends with me to look at them. Erika is always a good choice :) )

Amadea

AMRS Movie, Take 2!

Hello again everyone!

The second AMRS movie night was a blast! We watched The Secret of the Kells, which is an animated movie "set in medieval Ireland. This movie tells the adventure of Brendan and a celebrated master illuminator of manuscripts who arrives with a book brimming with secret wisdom and powers. Magic, fantasy, and Celtic mythology come together in a riot of color and detail that dazzle the eyes in a sweeping story about the power of imagination and faith to carry humanity through dark times." In other words, it was just awesome. :) The animation and colors were fantastic. My favorite character was Pangur Ban, the white cat who belongs to the master illuminator and, later, Brendan. Pangur provided comic moments throughout the film by acting like a typical cat.

And to make this second movie even better, Dr. DeMarco cooked a delicious pork butt, cumin carrots, and mashed potatoes with a secret ingredient, which shall not be disclosed (it is secret after all). The food was absolutely soooo good!

Everyone had a wonderful time and enjoyed the fantastic food!

I did some amazing traveling this week and am preparing to do some more, but in the spirit of All Hallow's Eve I want to talk about something more terrifying than ghouls or ghosts: IMMIGRATION.

One semester is not very long to live in Ireland. However, it is slightly longer than 90 days, which is the maximum amount of time you can spend here as a tourist or visitor. When you get off the plane, you go through customs, where they ask your business in Ireland and when you'll be leaving, and your passport is stamped. Because we are right on the borderline of that 90 day limit, the whole process comes down to who is standing in the customs booth that day and how they are feeling. If you're lucky, they give you a stamp for 90 days, write in the day you leave, and spare you the trouble of having to acquire a visa. Or they could give you a stamp that requires you to obtain a visa within two months. Or, if it's me, they give one month.

A month is not unreasonable, but I didn't realize how time-consuming this process would actually be. To immigrate, you need (are you taking notes?): 150 euro for the processing fee, a passport, a student ID card, a bank statement from an Irish bank with at least 1, 500 euro in it OR a letter of financial responsibility from your sending university, a mini bank statement from the day you apply, and a letter from your insurance company stating your name and your dates of coverage. Right. So. Most kids had a letter from their home university, but OWU doesn't provide that. Nor did they inform me ahead of time what I would need, despite the fact that they've been sending students to this program for years. So I had to open an account with the Bank of Ireland, then give my information to my mother so she could go to my bank in the US and have the money wired, wait for the wire transfer, go in to request a bank statement, wait for the statement to come. This took two weeks. My statement did not arrive before my month was up.

Then the insurance. The document in question absolutely must have your name AND the dates of coverage on it, which is not something my insurance company understood the first time. "This is what we always give to students abroad." Look lady, I told you what I needed. So I waited for a second document. This took three days, two e-mails and an international phone call in which I navigated through five minutes of automated caller assistance.

The Garda (police) Station has a desk where two people deal with immigration from 9 AM to noon and 2 to 4 PM. If you arrive at 2, there is already a line so long that you will not be helped by the time they close at 4. If you get there decently early, you will still be at least an hour in line. To acquire a bank printout from that day meant that I walked three quarters of a mile to the machine and then back to the station before they opened. If you do not have all the necessary paperwork, you will get a full-scale telling-off in the dulcet tones of a Cork accent, something along the lines of, "If you want to stay in the country, you have to abide by the laws of the country. You can't be a burden on the Irish government. If you want to stay in the country--" and so forth. And you will have to come back and do it again.

Essentially, I went through the smoothest immigration process in the world today. I am a student like thousands before me, fairly harmless, English-speaking, here for a short time, unable to legally hold a job, and ready to spend cash. The Irish government is definitely the winner in this situation, and they made it inconvenient enough. Imagine, if you dare, the bureaucratic labyrinth rigged up in the USA.

All I can say is BOO!

AMRS Movie Night! (AKA Free Yummy Food for the Awesome Ones!)

Hi everyone!
On Tuesday the AMRS program had its first movie night of the year and we watched The Return of Martin Guerre. It was a French film from the 80s, and it was really good. It's "a suspenseful tale based on records from 16th century France about a man who abandoned his wife and left his village. Eight years later, he returns, a changed man, more loving than the violent husband of years past. Soon villagers begin to suspect he may not be the man he claims to be, and an investigation unfolds, threatening the new romance and the life of Martin Guerre" (thank you, Dr. DeMarco). It's based on real documents so it's totally historically accurate, which is cool because we all know that all movie that are "historical accurate" aren't really, just "inspired by true events." Right. Whatever.


Anyways, this was a good movie with enough suspense to keep me interested. I didn't even realize that over two hours had passed until the lights went back on. Definitely two thumbs way, way up. :) The acting was great too.

And Dr. DeMarco made her famous lasagna and meatballs, which, as usual, were awesome. Thanks, Dr. DeMarco for feeding us! We appreciate it! (Sorry to the AMRS majors/minors who are currently abroad right now; you missed some great munchies!)

And as you can see, we had a pretty good turn out. Thanks for showing up everyone! It made the movie that much better and more enjoyable!

Greetings from Cork!

So, confession time: I am not an AMRS kid.

More importantly, though, I am personally aquainted with the mascot, and maybe ye of AMRS bent will get something out of the gibbering of an English/Anthropology/Sociology student abroad in Ireland.

They told us at Orientation that culture shock is a W curve. When you get here, you're delighted with yourself and your surroundings. This honeymoon period is followed by rapid disintigration, which gradually gets better through "reintigration" until you reach "autonomy" in your new surroundings. That's the first "U" of the W. Then you get to do it all over again when you get home. Luckily the closest thing I had to disintigration was a nasty bout of jet lag, which didn't take long to kick.

Cork is a beautiful city, and very safe as long as you're not on the street when the bars close. It is still a city. You get the occasional puke on the sidewalk or, as I witnessed recently, a fellow retrieving his stash from behind the shrubbery on the corner. But the groceries are close by, which makes a difference when you carry them by hand (do not take two for one deals on sacks of potatoes). I am fascinated by the nearby River Lee, which is pretty poluted but still attracts all kinds of birds, fish, and even the occasional seal.

The Irish academic calendar is very different from ours at OWU, so the true semester did not begin until late September. For American students, they offer 4 week Early Start programs in music, history, economics, folklore, literature, and archaeology. For the biased record, Archaeology is the best. A working knowledge of the last 10,000 years of Irish history is a good background for just about everything you encounter here, from Blarney tower house to the tombs of the Bru na Boinne. We got to see some of the most important and impressive monuments in all Ireland, and a few off the beaten path (the farmers didn't mind). It's nice to have travel, meals and hostels all arranged by someone else, in addition to having your own very knowledgeable tour guide. The only disadvantage is he has this nasty habit of quizzing us on our lecture notes as we stand before the object of interest, almost as though we're supposed to apply what we've learned. The nerve.

I have been traveling outside of class as well: weekend trips to Killarney National Park, the Dingle Peninsula, Mangerton Mountain, West Cork, and Cape Clear Island. Traveling is never cheap unless you go with a group from the University, but it is made easier by a decent long-distance bus system and youth hostels. Cooking at the hostel is cheaper than eating out. Expect to do a lot of walking, but often the places of interest are scattered over a broad area and it is better to rent a bike or pay for a driving tour. Those early Christian monks didn't build their beehive huts in town where they would be convenient for 21st century tourists, darn their hides.

It's hard to believe how quickly the time goes by. I love being here, but I do miss my friends, my family, and watching movies without waiting for them to load. Enjoy that for me. Signing off, Abby D.

Killarney

For the first time in a great many weeks, Captain Rohan and I left the city to go on a trip anywhere. This weekend we went northwest to Killarney, a town that lays claim to Ireland's largest national park (possible it's only, since it doesn't appear that there are any other parks of significance on my map).

We left on Friday, missing the 3.30 bus because it had filled with people (apparently a popular bus to get on on Fridays) and had to make sure we got on the 4.30 bus. After getting dropped off at Killarney's bus station (part of it's outlet mall) we went in search of a hostel. Originally we went the wrong direction, but we found it in the end. Our late departure and the time it took to find our hostel meant that it was long past dinner time by the time we went in search of food. Having a group of five meant that our food cost was low because we bought lunch and dinner at Tesco, but everyone was very hungry when we finally had the food all cooked and ready to eat (yum, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup!). We also lucked out in getting a room for five (the Buzzard room) so we didn't need to worry about sharing with anyone else.

The next day we ate breakfast and packed up our stuff, leaving most of it in lockers at the hostel and went to the street to wait for the horse-drawn carriage to come pick us up to take us around part of the park. It was AWESOME! Our driver was very friendly and I was surprised by how calm the horse was having to deal with cars passing it and eventually dogs around its feet. The park was absolutely lovely, made even more visually awesome by the perfect weather we had. Crisp, cool autumn air and a clear blue sky almost the same color as the lakes we saw on our ride.
The ride took us around part of the park (saving my bum knee from having to walk it, thank goodness) and we were able to see (at a distance) Ross castle, the lakes, the ruins of a lime kiln, and even some Irish Red Deer! The deer were pretty cool because they are not always to easy to see. Even heard a buck roaring because it's rutting season.

After the ride our group split, and Abby went on a bike ride around more of the park and the rest of the group wandered around the town. We ate lunch at Killarney House (now in serious need of TLC) and went to see the cathedral (second tallest in Ireland!). I was also able to find some lovely Irish wool socks to wear around my apartment because, man, is it getting cool around here!

Cheers!

Ireland Update

Hi all! I know it's been a while, but honestly, not much has happened that is especially noteworthy around here. Oh, of course there are the little events that happen in each day that are memorable but as far as reporting from abroad, not so much.

While I have been here I have discovered an incredible new love of Ohio Wesleyan's school system, notably the fact that a class meets at the same time in the same place for whatever time slot and location it takes. Here I have to move classrooms (and times) for every class that doesn't have it's two hours smooshed together into one block. Won't lie, this has led to many freak-outs over whether or not I am about to be late for a class. This usually happens for my Monday/Tuesday art history class which on Monday is at 4pm and on Tuesday is at 5pm. 3:45 rolls around on Tuesday and I panic and start getting ready in a hurry (luckily I have a bike here, so I can make it to school relatively quickly...I also miss that about OWU.) only to realize that I have another 45minutes until I need to leave.


Also, Cork did win the All-Ireland Gaelic Football (this has to be the most intense sport EVER! Think of rugby meets european football, yeah, that intense) Championship for the first time in 20 years! Molly O'Malley, our roommate Ali, and I were lucky to find out about the HUGE street celebration that the city held the following Monday. Probably a third of Cork's population showed up. Ok, well, at least a couple of thousand people were there. It was utter chaos with music. The oddest thing we saw were people waving Confederate flags (because the team are the Rebels). As American students we weren't quite sure how we felt about that.

I have discovered that the Irish have an odd love of things that are "Southern." Not southern Ireland southern, but the American South southern. For goodness sake, there are frozen fries that proclaim to be "Southern style" in flavor. I don't really know what they mean by that, but it's confusing.


Adventures will continue later in the semester as I am going on a trip to Amsterdam with my Dutch art class, London in December with other friends, Dublin with my Medieval Irish Art class to see the conservation department as well as do our presentations WHILE IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM!!! That will be AWESOME! (Can you tell how excited I am?) And this weekend I am headed up to Killarney with some OWU girls. It's going to be nice to get out of the city for a weekend, since I haven't left since the Early start program ended.

So Long Everyone!
Cheers!

Adventures in the first 5 weeks of Ireland!!

Hey all, this is Amadea writing under threat from Erika! It's been an incredibly busy 5 weeks since I got to Ireland with my rubber pirate-duck companion Captain Rohan Corteo. This duck was given to me at the beginning of the summer by my boss and I decided to bring him along with me and he has gone along with me on all of my adventures.

  The first big adventure (besides getting here, which is a crazy story all its own, but I will not recount here, because it is much too long) was a trip out to Blarney with 4 other OWU girls: Hairong, Marie, Abigail Dockter, and Molly O'Malley. We got out to the town by bus and wandered over enjoying the amazing weather towards the castle. We paid for our tickets and walked up the path that led up to Blarney castle, taking many pictures, of course. It was a lot of fun exploring the ruin, we all looked into the guard post and dungeon, though some went in further than others (meaning, Molly and I went out before the others, disliking the tight space and great number of people). Eventually we made it to the top of the castle where Molly and Abby both kissed the Blarney Stone to gain the gift of blarney (speak the varnished truth basically). The rest of us chose to keep our lips of the stone and hope for the best! After leaving the castle and its most

treacherous spiral stairs we went through the Rock Close. Not completely sure what that entails, but we got to see the wishing steps, witch's hut, and druid's circle among other supernatural sites. Afterwards we enjoyed the town and the weather then headed back to Cork. Check: adventure one!

Next adventure was with my Early Start class to west county Cork. That trip gave new meaning to "field trip." The first stop was a medieval ring fort in the middle of a cow pasture that we had to cross to get there. This stop also introduced us to Tomas' habit of climbing onto things in order to talk to us. Ring forts are apparently quite common on the Irish landscape, though they were being quickly destroyed in the 1970s to make room for more agricultural pursuits. Then we drove to Ballinacarriga Tower house, this one is late medieval though, versus the early medieval ring fort (at this point I wish to inform everyone that I only learned while here that Ireland never really experienced the Renaissance that most of Europe underwent so the periods here are early medieval, late medieval, and the early modern. This means that anything that is late medieval merely follows the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169). After lunch, our third stop was a late medieval/ early modern fortified house called Coppinger's Court. Sadly the place was not safe enough for us to climb around as we had been allowed at the tower house. Lastly we went to Drombeg stone circle. I can no longer remember if it was a neolithic or bronze age site, but either way, the stones there are all the original ones. Check: adventure two!

The day after this I went with my roommates, Molly and Ali, to Youghal (pronounced 'yawl') on the very eastern border of Cork and Waterford counties. Youghal is a cute beach resort town with great history. It has some late medieval structures including a parish church with its original wooden ceiling, one of the only ones in all of Ireland, and part of it's medieval walls that you can (and we did!) walk upon. Check: adventure three!

The second field trip (another single day trip) went to northern county cork and in to Tipperary. The first stop was the Labbacallee Wedge tomb, the largest in Ireland, which sadly says a lot about how small wedge tombs are. Labbacallee is also the name of the town and means "bed of the witch/ wise woman" and may refer to the body buried furthest back in the wedge tomb, that of a 60 year old woman. Then we went to the Mitchelstown caves where we were not allowed to take any pictures, but all you need to really do to imagine what it looked like is think 'caves'. Then we drove to Cashel for lunch and the to see the Rock of Cashel. The Rock of Cashel is actually a large cashel (round enclosure built up on the inside

with dirt and rocks to create an elevated platform to build upon) that was originally the site where the kings of Munster ruled from. In 1101 the site was given to the Church to basically kill two birds with one stone. By giving this land to the Church it helped promote the shift to a diocesan hierarchy as well as deny the family that had formerly been the kings of Munster their political center. We went to see Cormac's Chapel, the finest example of the Romanesque architectural style in Ireland, which had been awkwardly assimilated into a Gothic cathedral, now the ruins of a Gothic cathedral. The restoration that was going on there made seeing most the building difficult, though the restoration has been revealing a lot of significant discoveries as far as the art history and archaeological world are concerned. Check: adventure four!

         The third week of Early Start brought with it the two-day field trips. This time we headed up to Dublin and county Meath. It was a ridiculously long bus ride there, but going to the National Museum was amazing! Admittedly we were there for only about an hour and a half, so I didn't get to see much, but what we did see was great! There was a large prehistory gallery that had examples of pretty much everything we had learned about in class. Seeing how thin a lunulae really is is a very different thing that knowing theoretically how thin it is. Sadly, no pictures were allowed, so I have none of the museum. While in Dublin we also went to Christ Church Cathedral, the mixed architectural style cathedral that it is. The transepts and chancel are in the Romanesque and the nave and aisles are Gothic. The most random and amusing part of that church was the gift shop and coffee shop in the crypt. Though, with the story Tomas told of how the crypt used to be a place where (in the modern period) ladies of the night would ply their trade and during the day, a market would be held, it made more sense that the crypt would now be a place to set up a gift shop. Lastly, we drove out to Monasterboice to see the 8th century high crosses. I had not realized how tall the Tall Cross was until I saw it in person. The next day we went to Newgrange, the Neoltihic passage tomb. Now that was HUGE. Pictures do not do its size justice at all. And Tomas had made sure 18 months prior that we would get to go inside the passage tomb. I cannot believe how efficient the neolithic

people must have been to do all of their rituals in less than 17 minutes of light. Then was Trim castle. Again a place that pictures are deceiving. It, on the other hand, seems much larger in pictures that it is in real life. Not that it was not incredible to see, but it just seemed smaller. Our tour guide there was quite funny. Told us a lot of random facts, not always of any connection with Trim. Check: adventure five!

  The last two-day trip my class went on was to the Burren, an area in western Ireland that translates as "the place of rocks". Most of the places we saw while there were not sites that are along the tourists path, which was the most rewarding since it meant we were getting an experience we would never have gotten as a regular tourist. We saw what historically was the most impoverished dioceses in Ireland (Kilfenora) and the small cathedral that was built there. Then we drove further and stopped at an intersection, got out of the bus and stood on the road to look at a tower house that had been assimilated into a semi-fortified house. We couldn't go up closer to look at it because the land owner won't let anyone up there, but we got great pictures from the road! This was followed by a visit to Poulnabrone portal tomb, where we got rained on. Right after we left it was sunny and lovely, of course. After lunch we went to Corcomroe Abbey, which, while being built, lost its funding and thus only part of the church is well crafted and the rest is very rough stone. Then a long walk to another cashel, where, once again, we got heavily rained on. Poor Tomas wore his voice out yelling over the wind. Our last stop of the first day was the Cliffs of Moher where it was VERY windy. It was not the best day to have worn a dress, but all of my pants were in the laundry, so there wasn't much of an option. The next day had fewer sites, but was still intense in pace. We went to Quin Abbey first, which is a lovely Franciscan abbey that still has parts of its second floors! Then to Moughan hillfort, honestly the least impressive site to be seen from the ground. Because of the forest growth, you really can't get a good idea of how large it is, which is important considering it is the largest hillfort in Ireland. The last stop for this field trip, and really the whole class, was Bunratty castle and folk park. Bunratty castle is the largest tower house in Ireland and has been restored to pretty much the condition it would have been in to be lived in. It has been furnished with pieces that aren't Irish, but you still are able to get an idea of how a medieval tower house would have felt to live in.
              That about sums up the adventures of Amadea and Captain Rohan for the first five weeks. Stay tuned for the next ones!

Returning Home

Hello everyone,

It's been nearly a month since I returned to the States after spending four months in Greece. All flights went smoothly and luckily no luggage was lost. Surprisingly, I didn't get jet lag either. :)

I've heard that many students who study abroad have a few problems adjusting to American life/culture after being away for a few months. I think it can be difficult for people mostly because of the time given to that person to readjust. Let me explain: If I had studied in the fall semester that would have only given me a month to completely return to American culture and return to OWU to start classes once again but I studied in the spring semester so I have three months to readjust and wait to return to school. I think time is the greatest factor for readjusting.

Personally, I didn't really have problems re-assimilating to American life. At first, I wanted to say things in Greek and I was thinking in Metric but other than that, I didn't have any problems. (The hardest part for me is knowing that I have so much time until I have return to school. I can't wait to go back to OWU!)

If you've studied abroad or if you've spent an extended time in a foreign country and you have any advice for students returning from studying abroad, feel free to share them below please!

So, this is Erika (and Maerwynn) signing off. Have a wonderful and fantastic summer, everyone!

Trip to Northern Greece

Hey everyone! I'm back for another post. CYA had another five-day field trip, this time to northern Greece. It was loads of fun. I went to Delphi, Meteora, Thermopylae, Thessaloniki, and a few other places. I loved Delphi. It has to be one of the most amazing places on Earth. Here are some pictures of my favorite sites.

Here's a picture of the Temple of Pythian Apollo as seen from beneath it. This is the east section because the altar is directly in front of these pillars. And this is the eastern portion of the temple as seen from above. The western portion doesn't have any standing columns. The Pythia, who delivered the oracles, sat above a chasm with mysterious vapors on the western portion of the temple. However, no chasm has ever been discovered by archaeologists or geologists. (I know that the dates on these pictures aren't the same; that's because I also went to Delphi over spring break with my mom so I took a majority of my Delphi pictures then.)

This is the Great Meteoron Monaster at Meteora. Meteora has these huge stone pillars with monasteries perched on the top. This particularly monastery is still active; a few monks still live there despite that it's a huge tourist attraction. Since it's a monastery, women aren't supposed to be there. However, they do allowed women enter only if they are wearing skirts. I didn't bring a skirt so I had to wear a wraparound skirt that was provided. Today, there is a road and steps that lead to the monasteries but back in the day, people and supplies were pulled up with pulleys and rope baskets. I think that would be terrifying.

We stopped for lunch in a town in the mountains. After a quick lunch of a gyro and Coke, my friends and I went to see the waterfalls on the river that flows through the town. There were three or four waterfalls including a rather large one that I unfortunately coudn't get a picture of because you could only see it from the road and I didn't have enough time to go down there. I thought that it's just so beautiful looking, don't you?

I know that this is rather a cloudy picture but I gave up after about ten minutes because the clouds just weren't cooperating. This is Mt. Olympus. That's right, people. MT. OLYMPUS, home of the gods and divine gods. I think that's pretty awesome. I was told that Mt. Olympus is nearly always surrounded by clouds. I suppose that Zeus wants to keep him and the other gods hidden from prying mortal eyes.

I bet you know this one. Three guesses who this is. Yes, it's a Spartan. Yes, it's that guys who yelled, "This is Sparta!" Yup, that's right. It's King Leonidas of Sparta who led the legendary 300 against the Persians at Thermopylae. Let me tell you that Thermopylae is full of mosquitoes and smells like sulfur because there is a sulfur hot spring that runs through it. The Greek on the statue is, "Molon labe," or "Come get them," which is what he says to the Persians about their weapons. Below is the sunset at Thermopylae (taken from the bus).

Thessaloniki was really nice. It's must smaller than Athens but is the second largest city (it has about 500,000 people). Thessaloniki is rich in Roman history rather than ancient Greek history. I also saw Pella, which was the capitol of the Macedonian empire (you know, Alexander the Great?). I hope you enjoyed my quick rendition of trip to northern Greece!

Rhodes!

Γεία σας! (That means "hello you all" in modern Greek!)

So I've been traveling tons here while in Greece and finally I have time to tell you all about my weekend trip to Rhodes, one of the largest islands belonging to Greece. It's, like, the best Greek island ever! It was so amazing. The weather was great, the food was wonderful, and the people were nice. (It was lots of fun surprising the owners of shops and restaurants with my Greek, ha ha!)

This is the Medieval castle in the middle of Old Town inside Rhodes Town. (There's also New Town Rhodes, which is the modern town around it.) Rhodes was used as the final pit-stop before the Holy Land during the Crusades. Knights lived in the fortress and the town. The castle on the left is called the Palace of the Grand Masters. I just like the name. Below is the room that was used for the hospital inside the fortress where the knights lived. Isn't just huge!?

Of course, there were people on Rhodes before the knights. These are ruins from the Temple of Pythian Apollo are on the left side of the picture while the remains of the Temple of Artemis are on the right. I had a blast climbing through the remains of the Artemis temple. There weren't any ropes to keep me out so I went explore. It was loads of fun (of course Erika wasn't around with her camera to take any photos of me; she was off enjoying the view, which was amazing too). That's the view. You can see the sea.

I also went to Lindos, where there was a sanctuary to Athena. There are still parts of the temple left with sections of the original stoa standing. This is the sanctuary-turned-castle at the acropolis of Lindos, which is nearly two hours south of Rhodes Town (the capital of Rhodes island). Also you can see the white buildings below the acropolis. This is stereotypical of Greek islands. Here you can see the pretty water, too. It was so awesome but too cold to go in, at least for me.

I know this picture is a little hard to see but I didn't get to see this famous landmark until right before I fly back to Athens. This is one of the famous deer columns at the entrance to Mandraki Harbor, the main harbor of ancient Rhodes. As you know, the famous Colossus statue was in Rhodes. The two deer columns mark were this huge statue might have stood. This column has a stag on top; the other one has a doe at the top.

Even with all those knights around, I still managed to find some new friends on Rhodes. On the left is Rhodes and on the right is Helios. They agreed to come home with me to the States too.

Isn't that super awesome!?

I'll leave you with one more parting photo. Enjoy! I'll be back soon!

Trip to the Peloponnese

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been on in a while - classes you know and I've been traveling quite a bit, including this five-day school trip to the Peloponnese region south of Athens with my study abroad program. It was amazing! I went to so many awesome places in five days. Here's a list of the places we went (including archaeological places): Corinth, Akrokorinth, Napflion, Epidarous, Mycenae, Sparta, Mystra, Methoni, Messene, Pylos, and Olympia. It was so great. I took 745 pictures and since I obviously can't upload then all, I've selected a few of my favorites for you. Enjoy!

This is the Corinth Canal. It enables ships to safely and quickly pass from the Ionian Sea on the west side of Greece to the Aegean Sea on the east side of the Greece. This is facing west. People actually bungee-jump off this bridge! Isn't that crazy?! The water is an amazing blue too. I'd hate to fall off the walkway were I was standing. It would be a long way down that's for sure.

This is the first gate entrance to Akrokorinth, where the town of Corinth was before its modern location at the bottom of this large hill. It's a large fortress that was used by the ancient Greeks, the modern Greeks, the Turks, and the French (maybe the English too but I don't recall). We drove up the side of the large hill but as far as I'm concerned if anyone could climb that hill with supplies and animals then they were welcome to the fortress. It sure would've been a hike. The walls go almost all the way around the top of the hill; there's a natural outcropping on part of the hill (you can see it on the right side of the picture) where there aren't any walls but the cliffs are hard to scale.

This is the world-famous Lions Gate at Mycenae. Of course, I had to take a picture of it. The stone blocks surrounding the gate and in the walls around Mycenae are absolutely enormous. Some of them weight many tons and are four to six feet high and wide. Crazy big. The ancient Greeks called these huge cyclopean blocks because they thought that cyclopes put them into place they were so big. The lions don't have any heads, and it's unknown of each of them had a head or if the two bodies shared one head. Supposed there was lion figure found at Mycenae or in the area of Mycenae that had a lion head with two bodies. Archaeologists aren't sure which option it is.

Napflion has the best gelato ever. Here's the sign for the gelato place. My advise: have gelato for dinner; it will definitely fill you up and it tastes great. Napflion is a medium-sized town about two hours south of Athens by bus. It's very nice and I'll make an effort to go back while in Greece. To the right, is the floating bastion. A bastion is a fortress where ammunition was stored. Today, it's just s castle where tourists can visit.

This is the bastion as Methoni (left). Methoni was by far my favorite place I visited. It was a fortress used in the Medieval times, I think. It was really windy the day we went but that was okay. The professors on the trip just turned all the students loose in the fortress and told us to go play (literally). They let us explore everything in there almost two hours. It was great being able to just run around and explore the buildings, rooms, and tunnels. Methoni was on the sea, as you can see by its bastion. I've took a picture of the causeway that you have to cross to get to the bastion. The water was rather turbulent that day. I got splashed on the causeway, and let me tell you, Mediterranean seawater tastes different than Atlantic seawater.

As we were driving to Olympia through the mountains, there were sheep blocking the road! It was crazy. I managed to get a quick picture before the bus scared them off. It was really funny. And you could hear the bells on the sheep too.

The final day of the trip we went to Olympia. This is just one of the many toppled columns from the Temple of Zeus. This is where one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World was - the statue of Zeus at Olympia. The statue was never found but the molds used to create the statues were found as was the probable workshop. The columns were pulled down by Christians traveling through Greece in order to topple (no pun intended) the "pagan" religion of the ancient Greeks. The archaeological museum at Olympia was really neat too with many sculptures from the Zeus temple and other temples and buildings in the Olympian complex.

As I was heading back to Athens, we passed the coastal city of Patras. This is a picture of one of the most famous bridges in Greece and one of the most revolutionary bridges in Europe: the Rio-Antirrio Bridge. As you can see, it's a cable bridge. It's firmly secured to land on both sides but it's not secured to the sea floor. The pylons are actually merely resting on the bottom to allow the bridge to move naturally with earthquakes.

That's all for now! If you have any questions about any particular places or would like a blog entry with pictures about a particular place, let me know and I'll be happy to oblige!