Pompeii

We woke up early on our second full day in Rome to catch a train to Pompeii. The train ride was two hours to Naples and then we had to take the above ground metro to Pompeii (which took an hour). At first we got on the wrong train, but it wasn't a huge deal because we got off the wrong train while it was still on the same route as the right train. The only downside was that we had to stand in the rain for 40 minutes waiting for the right train to come. We did meet a really nice couple from Iceland while we were waiting though (they had made the same mistake we had).

Hello world! Long time, no write. I apologize, and with my apology I have good news: one week of updates! I've written five blog entries, so I'll be putting one up every week day for the next week. I hope you enjoy them!

Hello everyone,

It's been forever since I have updated and I apologize for the huge gap. I have a lot to tell you all about my travels. March was a crazy month and I was in Granada for only half of one weekend. March began in Brussels and ended in Barcelona. I will put this month into three separate entries to make it easier to read. First, I will write about Sevilla and Barcelona, the Spanish legs of my journeys. My third post will be about my week-long Spring Break to Rome, Vienna, and Frankfurt with my one of my closet Bucknell friends, Bryce.

Flash forward to March 28. Kay, Emily, Vicki, Farzeen and I flew out of Granada early Friday morning to Barcelona to meet up with some Bucknellians who are studying outside of London for House Party weekend. Barcelona is in northern Spain. The people here speak another language besides Spanish, Catalan, that seems to be a combination of French and Spanish. Fortunately, we did not have any problems communicating since everyone we encountered spoke Castilian Spanish. (Please read my previous and new entry on Sevilla, too!)

Viel ist seit meinem letzten Blog passiert! Orienteriung ist jetzt vorbei, ich habe Frankfurt, Köln, und Berlin besucht, und heute haben die Kurse an der Uni angefangen. Wo anfangen?

Well, I said I'd talk about the differences between the U.S. and France, so here it is, the promised entry. I guess you could call me a big gourmand, so one of the biggest differences for me personally is the food. It's difficult to generalize what's different -- I wouldn't really say "French food is healthier" or "French food tastes better" or anything like that. What is available is just really different. Quiche, crepes and baguettes are staples of my diet, instead of my typical cafeteria burritos and chili. When you go out for a fancy meal, the steak is often served with French fries. When you go out to the bar, you're just as likely to get wine as beer.

Today, I'm going to talk about a topic everybody loves -- fun. Fun is easier to come by here in Tours than at Bucknell, although it costs more. We're in a city, so during the day, there are plenty of shops and restaurants, and at night lots of bars. ((Videos included!))

Greetings! I have returned from my "spring" break trip to the outback. It was AMAZING! Basically I flew to Alice Springs and did stuff around there, dove to Darwin and did stuff around there, and then flew back to Sydney. I went not knowing anyone, but met "heaps" of amazing people along the way and made some great friends. Warning: This post is ridiculously long, but definitely check out the PICTURES!

In keeping with the nature of the Wonderful Educational Experience I am getting by studying abroad, this entry's going to talk about some of the neat places I've seen through the Bucknell in France program. We've mostly stuck to the chateaux in the Loire River Valley region, but within those chateaux there are a wide variety of places to see, all linked to France's long history. They're often good spots to explore, play in, and take silly pictures as well.

To quote one of my favorite comedians, Eddie Izzard. "They say Britain and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean. And it's true. No, they say two countries separated by a common language." That's the line. It's an Oscar Wilde line, I think.

UPDATED WITH CAVING PICTURES

Time is a confusing thing, especially when you study abroad. So I lost a day when I flew over here (Feb. 12 just didn't happen) and when I arrived I was 16 hours ahead of the East coast. One issue with being so off from everyone at home is that most of the time it is a different day here than back in the U.S. Wishing people happy birthday has never been so complex.

Our weekend started on Thursday morning at 9 a.m. This weekend was a trip planned and sponsored by Arcadia, so we got out of all of our Thursday classes and had a very strict schedule of events to stick to.

So this weekend, despite my overwhelming exhaustion from balancing a fresh load of homework, my social life, and spending time with my parents while they were here (which was molto bene!), Emily and I lept across the English Channel for a visit to jolly old London. Having no idea what to expect besides Big Ben, double-decker buses, fish and chips, and a whole lot of bloody brilliants, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I adored the city ... even if I had to stop converting pounds to euros and then to dollars in my head because it was starting to give me a migraine.

These past few weeks have been flying by and it's terrifying to think that I only have just over a month left here! As much as I don't like to think about it like that, it's good motivation to get me to do and see all the things I have yet to experience here. The last week or so has been a good start to that, as I found myself doing things very typical of Danish life that I had previously missed out on.

Wow, it seems like everything is happening at once. Since the Blue Mountains I've been working like crazy ... or at least "working." This past weekend was, I think, my first "regular" weekend since I've been in Australia. And by "regular" I mean I slept in, bummed around, and did work. It was AMAZING to sleep in.

Yes, yes... I know. My last blog said Corinth part one and I'm moving on to Meteora, but alas, life moves too quickly. I mean, I'm actually leaving for this next weekend in an hour. So, time is just whizzing by. Hopefully, I'll get back to Corinth, but no promises.

My program, unlike many others, only had a week for Spring Break, although when you add in the Friday of the week previous (we don't have classes on Fridays) and the Monday of the week we came back (I don't have class on Monday) I had 10 days off. I was thinking of going to Spain, but also wanted to see relatives, and soon realized that I couldn't do both. Finally, a week before our break began I figured it all out. I would go to Edingburgh to visit one of my best friends from Bucknell, Megan, and then down to Scarborough to vist my great-aunts and Uncles, and at last to Nottingham to visit a cousin.

Breath-taking. Unassuming. Temperamental. Verdant. Inspirational. Grand, yet simple. Difficult to climb yet worth it once you get to the top. All these things describe the Isle of Capri, an Italian island off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, and subsequently one of the most beautiful places in the world. I went for a weekend trip with my program, and despite the unfavorable weather, I would've been happy to stay for a week, a month, a year, forever. Capri captured my heart, and it's not very hard to see why.

Before I left for Spain, I decided that I wanted to go to Morocco at some point during my time abroad. This past weekend, Robert, Adam, Emily and I traveled to Africa to see Fes. Tangier, a port city of Morocco, is only a few hours or minutes by ferry (depending on the ferry) from Spain. On Thursday, we took a bus to Algericas and began our adventure.

Das Semester ist drei Woche alt und ich habe (endlich) meinen Stundenplan! Ich belege vier Kurse--Deutsche Geschichte, 1945-1990; Deutsch Grammatik; Kunstgeschichte, Impressionismus bis Expressionismus; und Marketing--und ich besuche eine fünften Kurs, Polikit in der Nahost zwischen Israel und Palestine. Ich habe nur neun Kursstunden pro Woche und nicht so viel Hausaufgaben, die wir für unsere Kurse für einen Not machen müssen, aber gibt es doch noch viel zu tun. Es gibt immer etwas zu lesen. Für jede Sitzung muss man fast immer ein paar Texte lesen, manchmal in beide Deutsch und Englisch. Und wenn wir keine Texte für Kurs haben, die wir lesen müssen, haben wir zwei Hausarbeiten für unsere Geschichte und Grammatik Kurse, die wir Bücher und Texte finden müssen und lesen müssen. Und ich versuche jeden Tag die Zeitung zu lesen, aber, naja, geht es nur manchmal, weil ich schon so viel lese. Es kann schwierig und arbeitsam werden, so viel zu lesen und besonders so viel auf Deutsch zu lesen, aber gibt es keinen Zweifel, dass mein Deutsch sich schnell verbessert. Ich lese viel öfter hier in Hamburg, als ich an Bucknell lese--aber wenn man fast keine „extracurrectular activities" hat, ist es leichter Zeit zu finden, zu lesen.

The task of documenting my 25-day Spring Break trip is pretty terrifying. My journey started exactly one month ago, so remembering the details that made the trip so great might be tough. On top of that, I've written about 4,000 words in papers in the past few days. No time to rest though, because if I wait much longer the memories will be lost forever. Plus, answering the question, "How was your trip?" a million times gets pretty old... How do you answer such a general question? I usually just go with "good." Due to popular demand, here's a more thorough description for your reading pleasure. Ready. Go.

I've been living in Europe now for more than 16 weeks, which to me is mind-boggling. I feel that after 16 weeks I have gotten a good glimpse into the European lifestyle. Look's take a look of what I love, hate, and flat out find interesting here in Spain. All of these are my personal observations from what I have experienced in Europe and I may be stereotyping or even offending a few people or an entire nation. I apologize but when I leave Europe these are the impressions that I will take with me, even if they are incorrect.

No worries, mate, I'm still alive and well down here. The past few weeks have been what should be my busiest weeks of the semester in terms of school work. Midterms (yes, I know you all are finishing up), projects, presentations, assignments...why is it that professors feel the need to make everything due at the same time? Also, before this weekend, it rained for about two weeks straight. Cold and rainy? Wait, am I in London or Sydney?

But seriously, folks, I didn't realize how cold it would get here! Tonight (aka right now) it is going to be in the 40s. Fahrenheit. I'm really appreciating all the warm clothes that everyone teased me about for bringing. It is a little depressing that the weather is only going to get worse while I'm here.

OK, time to talk about all the fun things that have happened!

I absolutely cannot believe that I leave Rome in less than two weeks! But I can't say I wasn't warned... I mean, everyone I've ever know who went abroad told me (more than once), that it was going to a) be the best time of my life, and, b) it was going to feel like only the blink of an eye. Personally, I think that was a bit of an understatement. Either way, knowing that it's all slipping away from me, day by day, I'm certainly beginning to appreciate all the wonderful things I've seen and done thus far.