A visit to Barcelona

After completing a gruelling course of final exams here at the University of St. Andrews in January, I got a two week break before the next semester started. I, like most of my fellow students, chose to go travelling. By throwing darts at a map, err, consulting with maps, Lonely Planet, and friends, I selected Barcelona as my destination! With a couple clicks of the mouse, I was all set!



I was in Barcelona for just over five days, and I could have stayed longer. I had heard nothing but good things about Barcelona, so much so that I was thinking that I was in for a bit of a let-down. Once arriving, though, I saw that Barcelona really was as nice as I had heard.

This was my first time travelling alone, and it was fun and exciting to try and muddle through in a language I’m only marginally familiar with in a country I hadn’t been to in six or seven years. I did have, however, a very long itinerary created from the recommendations of the numerous friends who were anxious to share their enthusiasm for Barcelona.

Perhaps the most prominent items on this itinerary were those designed by a Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi. Gaudi worked in the 1880s through around 1910. His work, though, looks later, as is the case with many great innovators. His style is reminiscent of art nouveau, but is less complicated and “fiddly.” His emphasis is on curving shapes reminiscent of those found in nature. While he doesn’t cram his works with loads of detailed ornamentation, every detail is considered. Everything I’m saying here, though, is just my opinion and what I learned from the many exhibitions I went to about him. I’ve never taken an art class, or anything, so I guess if you want reality, you’ll just have to go yourself! Be sure to take LOTS of film, though, because his buildings make great pictures!



As I said, Gaudi got a lot of his inspiration from nature, and natural shapes. Perhaps my favourite of Gaudi’s creations was Park Guell, a park on what used to be the outskirts of Barcelona that Gaudi salted with goodies such as winding paths, serpentine benches, columned marketplaces, and colourful, tiled sculptures. Around every turn in the path, there was an interesting feature. Really, it was quite a nice place to spend a couple hours.



Outside of Barcelona there were also some lovely things to do. I walked along the beach and spent some time by the harbour eyeing the sailing ships, but the main tourist attraction outside of Barcelona’s city limits is Montserrat, a monastery on a mountain about an hour from Barcelona. The monastery is located high on a steep mountain, and the only way up is by cable car. The views were stunning! Not only were there wonderful views out over the surrounding (fairly flat) countryside, glimpses of a shady river winding around the foot of the mountain, and a view out to the sea in the far distance, but the mountain itself was lovely as well! From the foot of the mountain, the buildings of the monastery and the more recent museums seem to be perched on the very top of the mountain. Once reaching these buildings, though, it’s surprising to learn that there’s still another half of the mountain above you! I satisfied a bit of my desire to hike by walking around the mountain for several hours which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Despite the lovely scenery and the interesting architecture, perhaps the most interesting thing about Barcelona was the people I met. The last time I had travelled in Europe was this summer when I had come straight off the plane from the states and had spent two weeks in Italy. While there, I met lots of people who seemed to me veterans of travel, young people who had spent weeks, even months in foreign countries learning about different cultures and languages. I respected these long-term travellers, and wondered what experiences they had had that differentiated them from other travellers, because they were noticeably different from newer travellers. In Barcelona, however, I was suddenly the veteran traveller, having been in Europe for nearly five months. This difference was really made clear to me one night when I went out to dinner with a group of three American law students just starting a semester abroad in Ireland. Although I was three or more years younger than they were, I was able to teach them things about travelling. It was interesting!

I must say that although January probably isn’t an ideal time for a visit (brrrr) it’s still a very nice city! The tapas are great, and the Spanish seem to take their hot chocolate very seriously, and there’s nothing better to warm you up!

A Mexico photo essay

I. Hotel Tuna. This is the hotel I stayed at for the first two nights while I searched for an apartment. I still haven’t figured out why they paint the tree trunks white in Mexico. I’ve been told everything from “the paint protects the trees from tree-eating ants” to “it keeps dogs from peeing on them.”



II. ¡Arriba, Abajo, al Centro, por Dentro! The first day we arrived also happened to be Giovanna’s birthday, so an ad hoc party was thrown in Benito’s apartment accordingly. Giovanna’s the one with red curly hair just to my left. This turned out to be the first of an endless string of partying. At some point I got tired of going to so many parties, so I stopped going. I got in trouble when one of my teachers found out though. “Mexico = fiesta,” I was told. She then made it homework for me to party myself silly and ... something else that won’t be repeated here. All of my teachers check homework on a regular basis. Attendance is mandatory and automatically taken, as we have to pass our ID cards in front of scanners by the doors before we enter for class.



III. Ludivina y los Gallos. I was informed that I had to take the route-20 bus to get from my apartment to Tecnológico de Monterrey, but there was actually more to taking the bus than just knowing the route. The first time I tried taking the bus, none of them stopped for me, and I had to take a taxi to Tec instead. The next day, Ludivina showed me how to hurl myself into the street in front of an approaching bus to force it to stop. I didn’t have any more trouble after that.



IV. La Parada de Autobús. This is me with my roommate, Maxim, waiting for the bus. Even though Maxim will tell you that it was incredibly cold that morning, you shouldn’t believe him. Just because you can see your breath every time you exhale doesn’t mean it’s cold.



V. Nuestro Apartamento. This is our apartment in all of its glory. As I mentioned before the students here like to party hard, and sometimes the festivities are held in our apartment. I’m glad I took this picture when I did because our apartment would never look this good again. Our apartment has three bedrooms: two small and one large. Since we naturally all wanted the large room, we decided to draw rooms from a hat. Bruno got the large-room, I got the middle small-room, and Maxim got the end small-room. This picture shows the kitchen on the left and the window (why in the world is there a window?) between the main room and Maxim’s room, on the right.



VI. Nuevas Llaves. We were only given one set of keys for the three of us, so our first task was to make copies. Fortunately we were able to achieve this at the plaza located within walking distance from our apartment. Our friend here actually copied our keys so quickly that I didn’t have time to get my camera out; he’s only pretending to be working in this picture. It looks like he’s doing a good job nonetheless.



VII. Perrito. Pets are really well trained here in San Luis Potosí. Sometimes when their owners are tired of driving, they let their dogs drive for awhile. Here, we see a crafty Schnauzer parking his owner’s vehicle at the Soriana supermarket.



VIII. Una Calle. This is one of the streets we walk along to get to the Tangamanga Park from our apartment. All of the street signs here are affixed to buildings instead of being on a pole, so they’re often hard to find amidst all of the city clutter. This, in addition to the names all sounding the same to me, makes it difficult to learn the street names. Most of the people here seem to have trouble as well. Every time I get lost and ask someone where Tatanacho (my street) is, they say they’ve never heard of it. As long as you’re not lost though, not knowing the street names isn’t a big deal since you can easily navigate by utilizing the many landmarks.



IX. Escultura. As I mentioned previously, there are many landmarks in San Luis Potosí which decorate the city. Here I am in the middle of a roundabout standing in front of a sculpture of four Charros who appear to be at war with the oncoming traffic.



X. Entrada del Parque Tangamanga I. This is the entrance to the Tangamanga Park; it’s actually Tangamanga Park I, of two. I’ve been told that this one is bigger and better than Tangamanga II. In fact, this park is so big that you would need a car to traverse all of it within a single day. Though I’ve visited it on several occasions, most of the park remains undiscovered to me.



XI. Jugo de Naranja. This woman is making fresh orange juice for Bruno. Her shop is located at what I believe to be the center of Tangamanga.



XII. Bicicletas. When you feel like your puny little legs can’t stand any more walking through the park, the opportunity exists for you to be free of your primitive-walking-self in the form of hourly-rated bicycle rentals.



XIII. Bruno y el Nopal. Bruno, apparently having never seen a cactus before, ponders this one deeply. Bruno’s from Belgium. Make of these two statements what you will (syllogism not intended). As a side note, there are seven international students this semester at Tec: Bruno and Max (my roommates) from Belgium; Suvi, Markus, Juha, and Ahmed from Finland; and, me from Dallas. The “Finnish Guys,” as they are known—Suvi is the only female among the seven of us, live in a house on the opposite side of the city. Busses don’t pass by that area so they have to take a taxi everywhere they go.



XIV. Carro con las Plantas. One of many decorations in Tangamanga Park.



XV. Estatua. One of countless statues in Tangamanga.



XVI. ¿Dónde está el fuego? We tried to have a barbeque one of the times we were at the park. Unfortunately we remembered to bring everything except for the lighter fluid. Here, Ahmed and Edna work together to prepare a mushroom, while Arturo and Maxim try to ignite the fire by staring intensely at the charcoal and thinking only happy thoughts. The rest of us, being so hungry that we were looking yearningly at the trash cans, were ready to give up and go out for dinner instead. However, Ahmed said his only goal was to be able to eat his mushroom at an acceptably warm temperature, and then we could go. After two and a half hours, Arturo and Maxim’s efforts paid off, and we had Fire. Just as the fire began to create a detectable amount of heat, a park policeman came by to tell us the park was closing. Geraldo pleaded for fifteen minutes more (along with cunningly bribing him with a taste of our uncooked food), which the officer sympathetically granted, and the face-stuffing of lukewarm foods commenced. By the way, there’s a huge rock on the grill because it was holding down the small piece of foil we had placed there. The foil is no longer visible in this picture because the wind still got the best of us.

Just so you know, kind reader, it’s not all just party-and-park here. We go to school and do school things, too. I will upload pictures of Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus San Luis Potosí with the next posting. Right now though, the weather’s been uncharacteristically gloomy, so I haven’t been able to take a decent picture of Tec yet.

Exploring the Scottish Highlands

Last week was Reading Week here at St. Andrews University, a lovely town on the east coast of Scotland famous for being “The Home of Golf.” I’m spending two semesters here at the University where I’m continuing my studies of Physics. I am really enjoying the university, but I was glad when Reading Week came along as it is a whole week off of lectures, a wonderful tradition in my mind! The week is nominally used for revising and catching up with your lectures, but most students, particularly the young ones, travel. This is what I chose to do, and on the 6th of November, I set out for Edinburgh where a five-day tour of the Highlands began.

Interestingly enough, our first stop was none other than the quaint little village of… St. Andrews. Here, we had about an hour to “see the sights.” A fellow St. Andrews student and I played tour guide and even sampled the pseudo-Scottish pseudo-delicacy: the deep fried Mars Bar. Surprisingly, it was tasty enough, and I found myself wishing that I had delayed trying it until I was about to leave so I couldn’t eat more than one of these heart attacks in a bag.

From St. Andrews we ventured north, up towards the Highlands. I’ve received many questions regarding the difference between the Highlands and the Lowlands, so I’ll take a moment and explain that here. Geographically, the two regions are divided by the Highland Fault Line or the Highland Boundary Fault. Looking at any map will show you this line without difficulty; it is where the mountains start. The “high” in “Highland” is derived from the elevation not the latitude, after all! Culturally, the Highlands and Lowlands are very different, due in part to the isolation that the mountains produce. The Lowlands have been more influenced my England and Europe. For example, the “traditional” clothes worn in the Lowlands would have been the same as the current fashions in Europe and particularly France. Only in the Highlands was the plaid worn. Now, of course, the kilt -- the modernization of the plaid -- is worn by Highlanders and Lowlanders alike, and that’s a good thing!

After a stop at Dunkeld to see the amazing cathedral and some very unique trees (The Duke of Atholl who owned the land fired the seeds of many different species of tree out of a cannon to disperse them) we headed on to Pitlochery where we spent our first night in the youth hostel there.



The next day we headed north again. Our first stop was at a place called the Queen’s View. Queen Victoria, the site’s namesake, had good taste!



We also saw Killiekrankie pass, site of the first Jacobite uprising in 1689. The scenery was so lovely that I had a hard time paying attention to the history! I was very lucky in taking this tour right as the leaves were changing. It was amazing!
Then it was straight on to Loch Ness, were we saw everything except Nessie, the famous monster of this huge, dark, and -- it must be said -- rather mysterious loch. Three of us opted for a quick swimming dip in, and were relieved to have mugs of whisky-hot chocolate waiting for us on shore to help warm us up!

After heading to the hostel in Inverness for a hot shower and a change of clothes, we headed out for a night on the town. We found a great pub that had live music and a great atmosphere and spent most of the evening there. This place was great! It was lit mostly by large, serviceable candles, the floors and all the furniture was all wood and had clearly been there for some time. There was a group of people playing traditional music that were just sitting at a table in the centre of the room. There were three fiddles, a small set of bagpipes, and a wooden flute, quite the traditional ensemble!

The next morning it was up early again and we were off to Clava Cairns. (As the sun sets here around 4:00, you have to get up early to make the most of the daylight!) Clava Cairns is a Pictish site that has three large stone mounds each of which is surrounded by a circle of standing stones. It was really a neat place, and we were the only ones there.

We also stopped at Eilean Donan Castle, site of the filming of many famous movies such as Highlander and even scenes from The World is Not Enough, the 19th James Bond film. We were told that this is the most photographed castle in Britain, if not the world, so I figured I’d help them maintain their claim!



From there we drove on to Skye, an island off the west coast. We spent the night there and got up early, of course, to explore Skye the next day. The weather was really awful while we were there; we almost got blown off a cliff! It cleared up in the afternoon, though, and we went to the Farie Glen, an awesome place complete with miniature landscapes and a castle -- all natural, I hasten to add. The Little People have good taste in scenery!

From there, we drove back down to Edinburgh and the trip ended. I caught the train back to St. Andrews and was surprised that I was sad to come back to St. Andrews. I love this place, and didn’t think I would ever be sad to come back to it!

Trying to find the words to sum up Russia

It is difficult to say everything I want to say about so large a country as Russia in just a few short paragraphs, but for the sake of my friends back home who would like a nice little summary of my adventures, I'll try…

After spending two and a half months baking in the sweltering St. Petersburg summer, I decided it was high time for a change. Russia being the land of extremes that I have found it to be, it is no surprise that after all those tank-top days in St. Petersburg, I now find myself bundled-up in every possible way against the friggedness of Siberia.

While Irkutsk is one of the most southern of Siberia's cities (only one degree of latitude north of London), we still get our fair share of cold. September and October weren't bad – an occasional snow day here and there, but for the most part the weather was surprisingly good. I spent as much time as I could at Lake Baikal (THE lake – the one that holds 20% of the world's fresh water) and other outdoor destinations. I had this image in my head of huge snowdrifts and such. That may soon happen, but not yet. I'm still debating whether these trips will be repeated in the next two months – it'll be absolutely freezing, but you only see something that beautiful once in a great while, right?

Speaking of which, I've come to a conclusion in the past few days – a realization that is difficult for a photographer like me to accept. There are some things in this country (and this world) which simply cannot be translated to a photograph. What is hardest about this fact is that so many of my favorite moments on this trip cannot be preserved other than in my memory and in an occasional blog entry. For example, I was on a night train last night from Ulan Ude (capital of the neighboring Buryati Republic) back to Irkutsk when I was suddenly and for no particular reason awoken. I looked out the window (possible at this point only because all the lights in the cabin were off) and saw something quite miraculous – a full moon gave me a wonderful view of the snow-topped mountains surrounding Lake Baikal, while in the sky, framed perfectly in my window, was the constellation Orion. It was one of those "right-place-at-the-right-time" kind of moments, and one that I will probably never experience again. But I think I will always remember lying there, as the train slowly chugged along the lakeshore, staring in wonder at all the natural beauty that was passing by my window. While my studies are interesting and I'm learning a lot about Russian language and culture, I count these moments as the ones that make my trip halfway around the globe the most worthwhile – the moments for which it is worth it to put up with the -10˚C (and lower, as I suspect the temperature will yet drop before I return to the sunny Lone Star State).

I'm not quite sure what to expect from the next month and a half. Exactly how cold is it going to get? How on Earth am I going to be able to pass all my exams (since all my classes are in Russian, including a literature class which covers Dostoevsky and Tolstoy)? And how am I going to handle things when I get back home? By now I've gotten used to hand washing all my clothes, riding the trolley or walking everywhere I need to go, and operating just about 24 hours a day in a foreign language. While I miss a lot of the conveniences of American life, I know I can get buy just fine without them.

China

This is me outside of beautiful Hemu Village. Hemu is a small, self-contained Tuvan village in NW Xinjiang.

I got back last Sunday from our two week trip all around China. We started off going to Northwest Xinjiang (where China meets Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan). Talk about a mix of cultures! Haha! I never thought I would feel relieved to find a person who spoke Chinese, but everyone spoke Tuvan or Mongolian where we went. And then we worked our way back east going down the ancient Silk Road.

One of my favorite stops on our trip was Xiahe; seeing a large group of Buddhist monks all sit in an internet bar and play Counterstrike was pretty awesome. Xiahe is in northeastern Tibet, and has one of the largest Buddhist monasteries in the world. The Buddhists in Xiahe had such a faith and devotion to Buddhism; their faith was their lives. I only wish we Christians would show such devotion in our lives as I saw in these people; the world would then be a very different place indeed.



This is the western part of Xiahe.

And then we got back to Beijing just in time for National Day. October 1st is National Day - the day that the Chinese people celebrate the formation of the Communist Party of China. It's actually a week long holiday. I went down to Tian'anmen square to see the insane floral decorations and just the sheer amount of people. It was definitely something worth seeing. And then my friends and I celebrated this day of Chinese pride by eating dinner at a KFC on the south side of Tian'anmen. We thought it was only appropriate.

So now my week of rest and recovery from my intense trip is over and classes start again tomorrow. But all in all everything here is going very well. I am slowly becoming more accommodated to life in Beijing and the Chinese culture is growing on me.

Oh more good news; I think we are going to go to this place named Grandma's Kitchen soon, and they serve Dr Pepper!