France

It’s interesting, but being in Paris in a French immersion program makes me desperate not only for the occasional connection with home, but also a deluge of English. Consequently, I troll google news – and the story that struck home today was about the New York Phil playing in Pyongyang. Apparently Kim Jung Il couldn’t make it to the concert – being too busy trying to figure out how to not dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons, presumably. The cited reason was that he couldn’t be bothered to attend since Condoleeza Rice flew to China to bolster the Six-Nation agreement instead of dropping by his country so his starving people would have to be hidden from her.

Obviously I’m worked up about this. When I was in China, the U.S. Ambassador was a little late to a dinner he had scheduled with us because he was working on the Six-Nation talks, and then during the meal we got to talk to him about the situation for more than an hour. So many people in the world are so oppressed, and it makes me mad! The next step is to figure out what to do about it. Public health efforts and other development work is crucial, I believe, but true economic and political freedom is still a work in progress for many, many citizens of the world.

But perhaps music does represent freedom. I think of Shostakovich and his poignant and pointed musical critique of Stalinism on one hand, and the fiercely free and haunting traditional melodies of South Sudan on the other. There is a huge difference in the technical sophistication of the pair, but both ring so strongly of a sacred defiance.

I went to a concert by the Paris city orchestra and chorus yesterday night at St. Sulpice. They played part (thankfully…if it had been four hours long the subway would have stopped running and I wouldn’t have been able to get home) of a Wagner Opera, a Brahms chorale work and Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, (in French, the translation is less charitable – the “Unachieved” Symphony!) but the real treasure of the night was a piece I’d not heard before but LOVED entitled Le Mort de Boris Godunov. It’s fantastic, and Mussorgsky has this same deliciously effective air of defiance. Not only does he break most of the “rules” of western composition, but he also flouts death itself– the piece is a totally beautiful cacophony of joy in the face of sorrow and grief.

It’s hard to believe, but I think it was even more wonderful than all of the lovely food I’ve been eating. My host mother is quite a cook, and she’s also very indulgent. She told me that she loves cooking for me because I like everything, but honestly she’s just incredible. We have 4 and 5 course meals every night, she buys the cheese she knows that I like best, and tonight she made sour cherry soup for me. Heaven will be stocked with this particular dessert, I can tell you, and it knocks the socks off of ambrosia.

My pants don’t seem to be much tighter, however, and that is perhaps because I walk around everywhere. I’ve traipsed through all of the arrondisements (districts) of Paris now – not lost, per se, because I could find where I am on my map if I so desired – but rather, wandering so as to get to know the city. I do this after my classes end at 1 pm, and it has been a fabulous time to think. I also haunt museums! I have unlimited access to the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay as a student for only 30 euro, which considering the time I’ve already spent there is a ridiculously low per-hour cost. I probably didn’t think I would say this when I was a freshman, but I am so very thankful for Dr. Brettel’s class now! He structured his art history class as an analysis of the influence Paris had on various painters, and threw in some composers to boot. How perfect, right? It’s sort of the way I felt in Rome, too, when I went right after taking AP European History, which of course included oodles of information about painters, architects and their works.

I have to leave chez moi by before 8 am though, in order to get to class on time – so my night life is a bit restricted. Most diversions don’t even start getting wound up until 11. The four or five times I’ve been out until 2 – the absolute limit since the last subway trains leave the outskirts of Paris on their treks across the city at 1:30 – I have paid dearly the next day. So, coupled with the fact that I’m easily spooked on the metro at night by myself, I’ve learned my lesson. However, I want to fully experience Paris, and one of my friends lives only about 5 minutes away, so when we go out we always try to ride back together. I feel perfectly safe, actually, although one friend had her phone stolen out of her pocket and another had her wallet stolen out of her purse while it was sitting on her feet at a movie theater, and therefore I have doubled my vigilance.

But now, having traveled to Florence, Pisa, London and Oxford over the last few weekends, I appreciate Paris so much more as home. I feel in place now, and it’s nice to have a place that I feel like is mine. My French keeps improving, and it was actually a relief to be back in Paris after Italy and even England for some reason. I have to think sometimes about English words…I had the hardest time thinking of “altruism” the other day.

I got to see ’02 Scholar Sophie Rutenbar in London, which was great. She is a truly remarkable person! I also spent a day with my mentor from my experience in Sudan and his wife and their son and got to see his lab at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (the British way of saying “public health”) where he is a Fellow. I got to see Chagas under a microscope and see lots of bugs that are responsible for spreading diseases. Oxford was a bit of a whirlwind, but I got to visit the Rhodes Scholars’ Common Room and drink their very fancy glass-bottled, logoed sparkling and still water (and elderberry juice) and eat their brownies. I have now eaten White House brownies (for Presidential Scholars), Ross Perot’s brownies, Mrs. McDermott’s brownies, and the Rhodes Scholars’ brownies. I’m really being honest here – Mrs. McDermott’s taste the best. I also had dinner with one of Sophie’s friends in the Hall at Merton College, the first college at Oxford to admit students. It was BEAUTIFUL. New College at Oxford is apparently where the Harry Potter eating scenes were filmed, and each of the halls is pretty similar. Merton recently had an alum give 10 million pounds for the food services at the college, so as you can imagine the food was quite good, especially for what is essentially a cafeteria. I hope that our trusty dining hall development committee will do just as good a job :)

I miss everyone in Dallas!

Welcome to Oz

Upon hearing about my conservation project, my Australian friend Nijel gave me a glare and said, “Good to see you’ve had fun killing our forests. Did you eat a koala while you were here, too?"

I managed to placate him by showing that I only killed bad trees and planted loads of good ones and even hugged a koala.



See? But most of my time was spent doing some intense conservation work in and around the Blue Mountains, well west of Sydney. The first project was by far the most amazing: the bunch of us hiked down into the valleys and began rebuilding a trail (it was originally built in the late 1800s by convicts, and has since been obliterated by rockslides, trees, and erosion). We pickaxed, prybarred huge rocks off the path, dug, created and shored up terraces, built steps, and fended off the angry populations of Sydney funnelweb spiders. I don't want to scare my parents by telling you how dangerous they are, but I hear the internet is pretty reliable these days. The only really bad bit of the project was trying to leave. We had to hike up the "Golden Stairs," a mile's worth of horrible climbing, while carrying mattocks, pickaxes, chainsaws, prybars, and trash from our meals.

The other weeks were spent planting trees for the Aussie government, going possum-spotting in national parks, and chopping wood for fires. Oh, and wading around in chest-deep, 33 degree water and axing willow trees to death (and then poisoning them, to be sure). Somehow, we enjoyed ourselves wholly despite being soaked and numb each day.

And now, I think I need to share more pictures of the Aussie animals. You see, once I returned home, I started slowly posting pictures of me and cute animals on the internet for my friends to see. While I would hate for anyone to think my trip was all about fuzzy animals, I think it would also be very sad if I did not share some of the photos.



I visited a lot of zoos while I was in Australia, and most of them allowed you to wander around with the emus, wallabies, and 'roos. It seemed unusual, though fun, until I spent more time in-country. I eventually came to know that I could visit the (wild) kangaroos by just stepping outside the town I was in. You couldn't even drive around a coal mine without a herd of kangaroos following you!



If you can't tell (you can't), the area in that picture was once an open cut mine: the trees, plants, and top fifty yards of dirt were, about six years earlier, torn away and the rich coal mined out. This particular coal mine was more environmentally-conscious than most (if you prefer, this can be thought of equally well as image-conscious), and the important bits were put back and regrown into something that thousands of kangaroos could hop around in.



But not all of Oz is on the ground. Sydney Harbor was always ready with a beautiful view, and I even grabbed a few days in between projects to visit the Great Barrier Reef.



In my New Zealand post, I mentioned the ubiquitous sheep jokes. Since these were no less common in Australia, I'll offer up one more: What do you get when you cross a sheep with a kangaroo? A wooly jumper! Lastly, if you're wondering why I've typed 'Oz' throughout this post, try saying 'Australia' in an Aussie accent, and then shorten it to Aus. Cheers!

"Whoosh" You Were in the Philippines

I'm studying abroad in Hong Kong, but took a few days over the weekend to visit the Philippines. I'd decided to visit the World Heritage sites up in Northern Luzon, which are basically massive terraces for rice farming (beautiful, and disappearing slowly from disrepair). After a six hour bus ride, a changeover on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and another three hour bus ride to Banaue, I'd arrived at the near edge of the terraces. To get to this particular photo point, I rode on the back of a motorcycle for an hour, and then hiked three more over some steeply mountainous terrain (made worth it by the amazing vistas I passed) to the smaller barangay - village - of Batad.

I met some locals, as well as some Ifugao elders (not photographed, because they charged on a per-picture basis, and I didn't have any bills that were small enough), and somehow ended up with the opportunity to try on some of the traditional hunting gear stored in one of the Ifugao huts - bark armor, bark-based cloth, a six foot long spear, and a machete. I learned some basic tribal dance forms, and suddenly realized that I just had to give a Whoosh! for the folks back home - so after a little explanation to everyone there, I walked away with this photo!

Trees, Sheep, and Time in New Zealand

It may seem like an odd title, but I planted 5,000 trees, saw around ten thousand of the (purported) 45 million sheep, and had no doubts whatsoever that I was (after twenty hours of flights, thirty hours of flight delays, and fifty hours of layovers) in New Zealand. Also, a small warning: from here on, I refer to anything New Zealand as Kiwi. And, a second small warning for you, should you visit New Zealand, what you eat is kiwi fruit. Not kiwi.

Kiwi grass - and you'll excuse me if I get this out of the way now - is green. And not the Texas-brown sort of green that I see after the occasional rainy week we get. Lush, wavy, and undeniably green. In fact, here's a picture:



You may also notice that I've chosen a picture that includes a number of sheep (actually, it's hard to find a picture without sheep). The sheep stick in my mind for two reasons: there are more sheep than people in New Zealand by a factor of about ten-point-two, and I've now heard more sheep jokes than knock-knock jokes (How do Kiwis find sheep in long grass? Quite well, actually.) I've even heard more than a few sheep knock-knock jokes.



Now, the conservation group I was with consisted of me, three Brits, and a Australian team leader. Our job was to plant around 5,000 trees to (re)create the natural environment and to build a wildlife corridor - this also means that the trees I planted are protected against damage by Kiwi federal law, forever. I definitely plan to return to New Zealand by means of Google Earth in about ten years to check on my trees. I have no doubts that the kauri trees will be massive. We also sanded and restored a small bit of a historic Portuguese tram that had been lovingly shipped all the way from Colorado, and to pot a number of tiny, ant-ridden plants for future conservation purposes on the volcanic island of Motutapu.



So, Andy, Andrew, Suzie and I dug holes, fertilized, and planted trees for about two weeks. And it was awesome. Besides the free 'Shoveling Today' magazine you get (I'm making this bit up), were able to help restore the original, natural environment in one of the last places we have the chance to do so. Some of the other work done by volunteers was focused on restoring native kiwi habitats to the islands by moving or eliminating the rat and stoat populations. Of course, I was also able to make some great friends, share music, learn an awful lot about the native flora and fauna, watch the truly bizarre Auckland AltTV channel, ride a horse over miles of empty beachfront with a Maori guide, learn about ancient and contemporary Maori culture, gape at astonishing vistas along the coast, and ride boats out around in the beautiful bays.



But I still wish I could have arrived a few weeks sooner: someone had the job of fitting hedgehogs with tiny radio collars.

Tour of Europe

Hello everyone! I’ve been having a blast travelling in Europe! My journey started in Rome, Italy where I learned that knowing some Spanish and French helped me get around the city. Beyond the vocabulary, my reasoning skills took over and getting around became simple enough. Walking around Rome over the next two days was a welcome, albeit tiring, break from my many days spent driving in Texas. The main thing that struck me as I walked around the Eternal City, was that it lived up to its name. Noisy cars and buses whizzed past each other on the streets in front of two millennia old buildings, with Latin inscriptions-timeless as well since people today can still read them. It was interesting to see archaeological digs takings place next to and often on top of construction zones for new streets and buildings. Over the two days I spent there, I was able to see the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Circus Maximus (now converted into a running track for locals), the Arch of Constantine, and dozens upon dozens of beautiful palaces, government buildings, and monuments from various periods in Rome’s massive history.

Ancient Rome and the Coliseum
Part of my travels also took me to Vatican City, where I was hoping to get to finally marvel
at the wonder of the beautiful Sistine Chapel, and attend Pope Benedict XVI’s public appearance and blessing in St. Peter’s Square. Unfortunately, August 15th is a major Roman holiday, Ferragosto, in honor of Caesar Augustus, so most museums (including the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum) were closed, and His Papal Authority was elsewhere occupied as the day is also the Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary- so if you’re planning to visit Rome in August, plan more wisely than I.


Outside St. Peter’s Basilica
After my days in Rome, I trained on to Pisa to see the most famous example of poor foundation planning. From Pisa it was on to Florence and l’Accademia dell Galleria which is home to Michelangelo’s David. After basking in the shadow of the 18 foot tall masterpiece, and snapping a few photos I toured around the city to see the narrow walks, beautiful bridges, and massive open-air markets. Then one more train on to Venice where I had to catch a boat at one o’clock in the morning to get to the island where my hostel for the evening was located. The next morning I was up early to tour the city, mainly around St. Mark’s Square, bordered on three sides by a continuous line of three story shops and apartments, and on the final side by the massive, ornate, and beautiful St. Mark’s Basilica. I enjoyed an amazing pannini for lunch and then headed off to Milan to rest for the evening. Unfortunately, in Milan I didn’t get to see any of the sites I’d planned, but instead learned a fun lesson in planning. When I tried to book my ticket to Paris for the next evening, I discovered that there were no seats left on any train that day, or the next, or the one after… The first rude ticket officer told me to pick another city in Europe and shooed me away. Luckily the second, nicer officer spoke English very well and told me that Nice was lovely this time of year and that I might be able to get a ticket to Paris from there. So I was on the first train out of Milan the next morning to arrive in Nice, France. My luck changed when I arrived, and I was able to book a ticket to Paris for that evening. So what could I do with eight hours on a beautiful sunny day in the south of France on the coast of the Mediterranean I wondered?

On the Beach in Nice
That night I was on the Lunasa overnight train-Traveler’s Warning: This overnight train in France was one of the most cramped and unpleasant experiences in my travels, not to mention my two hour layover in the middle of nowhere..-but fortunately I arrived safely in Paris the next morning! That’s all for now, but look for the next update soon!
End of Part One of Austin in Europe