Study Abroad – Sidra Zaidi

It’s pretty much rather awful to blog about the remainder of my time in Croatia while sitting in my bed in the USA! Yes, I’ve been home for three days now and am finally gathering up the energy to complete my study abroad blog. (It’s kind of sad…) So before I begin talking about my journey home and readjustment to the U.S and all that jazz, I’ll stick to my promise of discussing Croatia in a tiny bit more detail.

I think that out of all of the different European countries I’ve visited, Croatians are some of the nicest people I’ve come across. Unlike the Swiss or other Western Europeans who mostly keep to themselves, many of the Croatians I met liked to spark up conversation. Maybe it was because it was quite unusual for there to be handfuls of American tourists in Croatia in December but nevertheless, I never got tired of being asked, “Where are you from?” and “What are you doing in Croatia?” And since none of us had any grasp of Slavic languages, the English-speaking Croats were more than happy to help us out when we were trying to figure out what was on a menu or how much our bus tickets were. Swiss people never really took the time to interfere in those kinds of things.

Another thing I really enjoyed about Croatia was how CHEAP everything was. The only things that were really expensive were clothing or shoes — probably because they were imported from Italy or Austria — but we didn’t have a need to buy those items anyway. The exchange rate in Croatia is 5 kunas to $1, which made food and transportation rather inexpensive. It was the perfect way to end a study abroad semester that began in Switzerland, a country that has one of the strongest currencies in the world and, therefore, is SUPER expensive to live in.

Pula itself was a very interesting city. It’s not the cleanest or most pristine of Croatian cities but it definitely had its charms. I can definitely see it being lots of fun in spring and summer but since we were there in late fall/early winter, it rained almost every single day and lots of its touristy perks were closed for the off-season. So when the sun DID shine on Pula — which was quite rare in December — I leaped at almost every opportunity to explore. The Roman ruins (some of the best preserved outside of Rome) were really cool and a must-see:

The Arch of Sergius in Pula’s main shopping district. The yellow building to the right houses a café that Irish author James Joyce used to frequent when he lived in Pula. During his short time in this city, he wrote one of his most famous works — Dubliners.

Temple of Augustus in Pula’s forum. This temple was built in the first century A.D. I really wanted to see the inside but unfortunately, the interior is closed from November until April.

Cathedral in Pula dating from the fourth or fifth century A.D.

Roman amphitheater in Pula dating from 27 BC. It’s the sixth-largest ancient Roman amphitheater present today and is the best-preserved one in the world.

But I suppose the real beauty of Pula is the Adriatic coastline. I can see why so many European tourists flock to Pula in the summer to take advantage of it. These are some shots I took while on a walk around Verudela, the tiny peninsula that our resort was on. On the days that it was sunny, I was lucky enough to go for a run by the water.

There’s something about the chemistry of the water that makes it SO blue.

Once we had all finished our Independent Study Project presentations, SIT took us on an excursion to the two major cities in Istria (the name of the peninsula of Croatia) outside of Pula, which is the de-facto capitol of Istria. The first city we went to was Rovinj (pronounced Roh-veen), which was like a beautiful “Little Venice.” In fact, there were many throwbacks to Venetian architecture present in Rovinj since it used to be ruled by the Venetian Republic. Also, Rovinj’s church tower is a replica of the one in Venice and, on a clear day, you can even see Venice from the top of this church tower. Unfortunately for us, it was NOT a clear day (more rain…) plus the church tower isn’t accessible in winter. Boo.

City of Rovinj, Croatia.

I loved the Italian-inspired architecture.

After a short walking tour of Rovinj, SIT took us to a seafood restaurant overlooking a fjord (a fjord in Croatia … weird, right?). There was a bit of a cultural mishap at this restaurant, however. Unbeknownst to us, fish is traditionally servied in Croatia (as well as many other places in the world) complete with its head, scales and tail intact. Needless to say, a lot of us (including me — I have had a rather embarrassing irrational fear of fish since I was little, although I do enjoy eating fish… as long as it’s clean!) freaked out at the sight. The Croatian waiters were kind enough to clean the fish for us but I think that our reactions kind of upset Paola, the Croatian assistant to our group. She argued that fish should be served that way so that the diner can be assured that it is fresh. While I totally understand this cultural practice, I’d rather take my chances than see my food staring back at me…

So after lunch, we made our way to Poreč (pronounced Poh-rich), a town on the western coast of Istria. Poreč has been given Croatia’s “cleanest city” reward many times and this was very apparent from our brief stroll through the town.

The main purpose of our visit to Poreč was to see the fifth-century basicila there.

Our last weekend in Croatia, some friends and I made our way to Motovun (pronounced Moto-voohn), a hill-town in the Istrian interior. Much like the hill-towns in Italy, Motovun had a medieval-looking city wall with ramparts that you could walk on to enjoy the view.

I loved the cute terracotta roofs.

This arch was built when Motovun was ruled by Venice.

One of the best parts about our trip to Motovun was this really cute and cozy restaurant called Mondo Konoba. It even had a New York Times review written about it (the review described it as one of the best restaurants you’ll never get to try, since it’s practically in the middle of nowhere). The local specialty in the Istrian interior is truffles — and not the dessert kind that you might be thinking of but these mushroom-like things. Truffles grow underground and are very difficult to find (you need a special trained dog or pig in order to “hunt” them), which makes them pretty valueable. While at Mondo Konoba, I ordered eggplant risotto with black truffles. The taste is a little strange to describe. It’s kind of like a pungent, woody, dried mushroom. But the risotto itself was SO good.

The cute little restaurant. You can see the NYT review framed in black in the left-hand window.

After our tour of Motovun, we decided to venture a few kilometers out to Hum (pronounced Hoom), which is described as the “smallest city in the world.” The population of Hum is 16, which makes you think, “I’ve seen cities smaller than that.” But in order for a city to truly be labeled as such (compared to a village or a hamlet) it must have a place of worship, a town hall, and a school so I guess since Hum has all of these things, they could technically be considered the smallest city in the world. In any case, Hum was REALLY TINY and we had nothing better to do so we decided to go see it.

Standing by a sign that says “smallest city in the world” in Croatian.

Pretty much the entire “city” of Hum. The building to the right is where the
mayor has been sworn in since the 16th century!

Sorry about not posting anything in awhile. The internet at our hotel in Pula is SO slow and it’s really difficult to just get my e-mail to load, let alone upload pictures and write a blog post. To all of you who are wondering what the heck I’m doing right now since I’m not in Switzerland anymore, here’s the scoop:

For the last two and a half weeks of the program (only 10 days left!), we’re staying on a hotel beach resort in Pula, Croatia. Pula is a beautiful little city at the tip of the Istrian peninsula in Croatia. It boasts some of the best Roman ruins outside of Italy and has gorgeous views of the Adriatic. This is the view from my hotel room:

Even though I’ve been in Pula  for a week, I haven’t had the time to do a lot of sightseeing since the first few days we worked on finishing our Independent Study Projects (ISPs) and then had ISP presentations. I had the incredibly good fortune of getting the chance to see my parents and sister in Zagreb (Croatia’s capitol) for Thanksgiving.

Getting there was no easy task, however. One thing I REALLY miss about Switzerland (and predicted that I would miss) is their amazing transport system. They have an awesomely efficient network of trains and buses that run around the clock that traveling to even the most remote towns is such a breeze. My only option for getting from Pula to Zagreb was by bus, which normally takes four hours. But on the way up, we got caught in a pretty bad snowstorm and it took SEVEN.

In any case, I finally got to see my family — if only for less than 24 hours — but it was the highlight of my week. They had already been in Zagreb for two days (I unfortunately couldn’t join them earlier because their trip conflicted with ISP presentations), so they showed me around the city. Zagreb is a very cool city to visit. There are so many historical monuments and interesting museums there, plus it’s just pretty!

Photo of my dad buying a traditional Croatian tie. Interesting fact: the tie was invented in Croatia (Hrvatska), which is why the tie is also called a “cravat.”

My sister and I standing outside of the Sabor (parliament) building.
Croatia is entering the EU in the next round.

Funny story: my mom lost her glove (one that my grandma knit) the day before I came. The next day, when my family was showing me around Zagreb, she stopped at every place and asked if they had found her glove. Then, we approached a random city wall and it was just sitting there!

I’ll be sure to post some more about Croatian culture, language, currency and other interesting factoids in upcoming posts so check back soon.

Tonight is my last night in Switzerland (and it’ll be an early one as well, since we’re leaving the country at 7:40 a.m.!). Tomorrow, I’ll be on my way to Croatia for 2.5 weeks where our program is finishing out the semester. The reason why we can’t stay is because SIT isn’t an actual Swiss university and, therefore, we’re not eligible to receive student visas. So our tourist visas are expiring this weekend and sadly, we have to leave.

Being in Switzerland has certainly made an impression on me. I told a friend the other day that, despite my previous visits to Europe, this semester in particular has been life-changing. Maybe it’s because I’m actually living here but I don’t think I experienced as much culture shock this trip. No, the life-changing aspects of this semester have definitely been personal ones.

I thought that by signing up for a study abroad program that had everything to do with my focus of study (international studies, political science and French), I would finally be able to piece together the puzzle and figure out what I want to do with my life. However, being exposed to so many different aspects of international relations has only opened me up to more possibilities rather than allowed me to narrow down my true passion.

I think that this semester, academically speaking, can be best summarized by a quote from one of our lecturers, Dr. Spiegel, a Dutch national who works in Brussels, when he said: “I know less and less about more and more until I know nothing about everything.”

But to lead a reader to think that my whole semester was purely about academics would be quite a lie. This program has challenged me to be independent in all its aspects. Living with a homestay family in a tiny Swiss village, choosing my own independent study project and completing that project with little guidance from my professors, trekking across Europe on my own accord, and, most importantly, coming to Switzerland without knowing anyone beforehand have all been interesting experiences that I’ve really grown from.

I’m going to miss Switzerland so much. It’s the most beautiful country that I’ve ever been to. (Not to mention, the chocolate is great!) My homestay family has been so kind to me and we’ve gotten really close. I really feel like I’m apart of their family. Paul and I both agreed that we’re already jealous of whoever is going to replace us next semester!

So I guess I’m really leaving but I can’t wait to come back.

For my last weekend in the Schengen Zone (my tourist visa for Schengen countries expires this Saturday), I went to Amsterdam to visit my second-cousin Mona, her husband Craig and their two kids Zak (age 6) and Mia (age 8). Amsterdam is a really beautiful city with bikes and canals everywhere (it has more canals than Venice!). The bicyclists rule the road there (in fact, they have their own bike lanes ALL over the city) and I never could seem to get used to looking out for them.

Like most tourists, I associated Amsterdam with the legalization of hookers, hashish and weed. But I was surprised to find that the Red Light District encompasses such a small part of Amsterdam and it’s not difficult to avoid it altogether. Case in point, one of my SIT friends happened to be visiting Amsterdam at the same time as me and his apartment was actually one block away from the RLD and he had no idea.

For its part, the RLD was interesting but kind of sad. Basically, it was just a bunch of lingerie-clad women standing in front of these windows that were lit with red lights. You could see beds behind them and, at times, men coming up and making an offer. He and the sex worker would bargain and then she’d let him inside and close the curtains. But the vast majority of people who were in the RLD were just tourists. I don’t even see how those women make much money since everyone was just there to gawk at them.

But like I said earlier, Amsterdam has so much more to offer than just prostitutes and pot. I really enjoyed visiting the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House, or the annex where Anne Frank went into hiding while writing her famous diary. It was quite a moving experience to be there after having so much exposure to Anne Frank when I was growing up (by reading her diary and seeing the play).

The best part of the trip was spending time with my family. I’ve been getting a little homesick lately so being around my little cousins Zak and Mia was a treat. I’m pretty jealous of them because they get to live in Amsterdam on Nike’s dime (my cousin Mona’s husband works for Nike — all the more reason to consider switching to business). But the whole fam just recently moved there from Portland so they’re all adjusting to living in a new country.

Zak is so goofy.

I was lucky to be in the Netherlands at the same time as the arrival of Sinterklaas (what we know as Santa in the States). Sinterklaas comes to Holland by way of boat from Spain (the Dutch tell their kids that this is where Sinterklaas lives) to the North Sea. His arrival is marked by a parade all over Amsterdam. He’s also accompanied by Zwarte Piet (meaning Black Pete), who is his servant.

Zwarte Piet is a bit controversial in Holland. During the parade, there were a bunch of Zwarte Piet characters, or Dutch people in blackface, who sang songs, danced and passed out candy and ginger snaps. My family and I experienced a little bit of culture shock at this since going in blackface is really taboo in the U.S. Little Zak, however, didn’t even seem to notice that the Zwarte Piets were in costume and even asked us, “Are these the real Zwarte Piets?” to which we, of course, said, “Yes,” and that really made his day.

Mia with some Zwarte Piet characters.

Sinterklaas on his horse “Amerigo.”

Zwarte Piet passing out some yummy candy and ginger snaps.

After having a mini-reunion with my bestie Michael in Edinburgh, I took the 50-minute train to Glasgow to visit my cousin Hammad and his wife Aisha. They showed me around Buchanan Street — the main shopping district in Glasgow — and the campus of the University of Glasgow, where my cousin Hammad used to go to school.

The next day, we went on a bus tour of the Trossachs area of Scotland, which is a beautiful woodland area and home to several lakes (or “lochs,” as the Scots call them).

Loch Lomond.

Loch Katrine

We also saw many Scottish farms along the countryside and had the pleasure of seeing highland cows or, as the Scots called them, “hairy cows” (cows pronounced “cooooos”).

My cousin Hammad and me.

Our final stop was the town of Stirling, where William Wallace (who Mel Gibson played in Braveheart) defeated the English and also where Stirling Castle is. Since I’d already seen Edinburgh Castle, we decided to explore the town of Stirling instead. Maybe it’s because we were there in the off-season but I thought that Stirling was SUPER gloomy. There were graveyards everywhere and all of the buildings were dark and ominous looking.

Stirling Castle

Stirling, Scotland

Graveyard in Stirling.

A lot of the buildings in Stirling’s city center look like this… Creepy and old.

I have less than a week left in Switzerland (and I’m typing this while in Holland)!!!

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and the Trossachs in Scotland. Despite the fact that it was freezing and often rainy (don’t let my pictures deceive you — I took them once the bipolar weather became sunny before quickly raining again), I had a great time.

Some interesting facts I learned about Scotland:

1. It gets dark around 4:30 p.m. there and sometimes as early as 3 p.m. in winter. This really cut down our sightseeing options since daylight is kind of important to, well, SEE things.
2. Scottish people say “aye” instead of “yes.”
3. Edinburgh and Glasgow are rivals but Edinburgh clearly wins in the tourist department but Edinburgh can’t beat Glasgow’s awesome shopping.
4. Scotland is known for its cashmere. Cashmere is everywhere and the preferred print is, naturally, plaid.

My journey began in Edinburgh — Scotland’s capitol. Edinburgh is an amazing city, mostly because of all the interesting history and well-preserved old buildings. It was easy to imagine living there five hundred years ago.

Palace of Holyrood House.

My weekend in Edinburgh ended with lunch at a really cute restaurant on the Royal Mile called Clarinda’s Teahouse. I had baked potato with haggis — Scotland’s national dish. It kind of tasted like sloppy joe meat but since I’m not a huge fan of sloppy joes, I wasn’t a huge fan of haggis. The tea, however, was wonderful.

Baked potato with haggis.

I thought that I’d take a break from just posting about all the sightseeing I’ve done and talk about studying abroad, in general. (After all, this is a study abroad blog not a travel blog.) I can’t believe that I have TWO WEEKS left in Switzerland before going to Croatia for another two weeks and then going back home! Time went by way too quickly and while I’m really excited that I’m going to Scotland this weekend and Amsterdam the next, I’m sad that I don’t have much time left with my homestay fam, especially my homestay cousin Véronique, who I’ve gotten really close to.

I was talking to a girl at Loyola today who will be studying abroad in Spain about homestays and I realized just how fortunate I am that I’ve had such an amazing experience with my homestay family. Although there were times when I questioned my decision to choose a homestay program over living in a dorm or a private apartment, I wouldn’t take my experience back for anything in the world. Don’t get me wrong — living with a homestay isn’t always easy. There are times when you don’t like the food, when personalities clash and when you have to get accustomed to someone else’s way of life. There’s also the fact that you always feel like a guest in someone else’s home and feeling that way for three months can be tiresome at times.

I love my homestay family so much but I have definitely had some challenges; however, none of them have been a huge deal. There’s just some things that I’m not used to. The biggest challenge has probably been language and communication. Since French is my fourth language, I’m not that great of a speaker (I honestly believe that the human brain has only so much capacity for vocabulary…), which can be problematic when your homestay family doesn’t understand a word of English. The fact that I have to hang-dry my clothes has been annoying at times plus my room is a lot smaller than what I’m used to. There’s also not much of a concept of “snack food” at my homestay so I’m always starving in between meals (even when I eat three apples in one sitting). My homestay mom is great but we disagree on certain things (she thinks that almost all Muslim women are oppressed by the Muslim culture and religion, which is hard for me to swallow sometimes since I was raised Muslim).

However, none of these things have really been that bad. Yes, there’s a language barrier but I feel that my French comprehension has improved a lot since I “moved” in. I’ve actually gained an appreciation for hang-drying my clothes because it’s not really that difficult and much better for the environment. I think that I’ll start doing it more often in the States. The lack of snack food has led me to overeat a lot less and also eat better since the only things available to eat in between meals are apples from my homestay family’s apple tree. And while it can be frustrating to debate religion with a 70-year-old European woman, I think that we’ve both learned a lot by sharing each other’s viewpoints.

All in all, I’m so glad that I chose to do a homestay. It has been one of the most enlightening experiences of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I had the pleasure of seeing Interlaken, Switzerland and going to the “top of Europe” today. I made an error in my last post about the Jungfrau (a mountain in Switzerland) being the tallest mountain in the country. A Swiss-German woman on one of the NINE trains I took in the past couple days informed me that Jungfraujoch (pronounced yoong frow yolk) is actually the tallest point that a train can reach in Europe (hence, the “top of Europe.”)

Our journey started yesterday morning, when we took a train from Geneva to Bern and Bern to Interlaken. We spent the night in an awesome hostel in Interlaken called Balmer’s Heberge. Almost everything about Interlaken was very touristy. Everyone spoke good English, there were lots of Aussies staying in our hostel (voted one of the top ten hostels in Europe — the owner has so many pictures up of himself with Bill Clinton), and to top it all off, Interlaken has its own Hooters. (I tried to find it but failed!)

One of the many signs of our hostel.

Haupstrasse — the really cute Swiss street that our hostel was on.

We decided to spend our first day in Interlaken just exploring the countryside of the Berner Oberland. There were so many farms in walking distance of our hostel so we became obsessed with this Swiss “safari.”

Gotta love Swiss farm animals…

Today, we ventured up to Jungfraujoch, which is a flat mountain in between the Mönch and Jungfrau in the Bernese Alps. The railway station at Jungfraujoch is the highest in Europe at 11,322 feet. I definitely felt light-headed and nauseated at some points because of the altitude but it was SO worth it for how beautiful the view was.

Getting to Jungfraujoch was no easy task, however. First, we took a bus from Interlaken to a small town called Wilderswil. From there, we took a train to Lauterbrunnen, where we switched to another train to get to Kleine Scheidegg. From THERE, we took our final train to Jungfraujoch and then repeated these steps on the way back. Combine that with the two trains I took home today plus the trains I took to Interlaken and that would be … too many trains for one weekend.

But we were able to get an amazing view of the Swiss alps:

A photo of some of us in the “Ice Palace” at Jungfraujoch.

Sorry that I haven’t updated this in quite a while. I was pretty busy last week writing a cultural drop-off paper and preparing for final exams. Yes, that’s right. The seminar session is over, meaning that our classes have officially ended and it’s ISP (independent study project) research time.

But first, to celebrate the end of classes, some friends and I decided to spend the weekend in St. Gallen, Switzerland, which is right across Lake Konstanz (largest lake in Europe) from Konstanz (pronounced like Constance), Germany, where we went for a day trip on Sunday.

St. Gallen is a pretty cool, small-sized Swiss-German speaking city. One of the girls named Sara on the program is friends with a guy named Matt who is studying at the University of St. Gallen, so he showed us around. So let the pictures begin:

These are some cute Swiss cows that befriended us in St. Gallen. Their “home” was literally
this stretch of grass right by the street. They liked us so much that they followed our group for a little while.

This is a view of St. Gallen with Lake Konstanz in the background.

St. Gallen is heavily influenced by German architecture, which can be seen in these ornate
baroque-style windows found all over the old town area (pictured below).

Matt and I in front of the Convent of St. Gall, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Photo of our group in Konstanz, Germany.

Really cool antique store in Konstanz.

Outside the Münster Cathedral.

Lake Konstanz.

Tomorrow, I’m going to Interlaken, Switzerland with another group of SIT students. On Friday, we’ll be making our way to the top of the Jungfrau, which is Switzerland’s tallest mountain.

This past weekend, my homestay family (actually, my homestay “aunt” Vita — the sister of my homestay mom who lives on the floor below us — and her husband Vito) took Paul (my homestay bro and SIT classmate), our friend Sara (also in SIT) and me to their Swiss chalet in the mountains. The chalet is located in a small village called St. Luc in the canton of Valais. (Switzerland has 26 cantons, which are sort of like self-governing provinces.)

A chalet is basically like a ski lodge cabin. My homestay fam’s was so beautiful and quite spacious. There were three levels with three bedrooms. Vito and Vita go to the chalet every weekend to relax. Vito, more specifically, goes to hunt for mushrooms alongside the mountains haha! St. Luc is only a 2 1/2 hour drive from our village in the canton of Vaud . On Sunday, we took a funicular train to a certain peak on one of the mountains and then hiked around it. Vito showed us where he finds his mushroom “prey.”

It was such a fun weekend! I absolutely loved just being outside, taking in the mountain air, getting a peek of the Matterhorn, playing Scrabble with Paul and Sara — who kicked our butts — and eating homemade risotto with Vito’s treasured mushrooms, not to mention Vita’s countless desserts. We also ate raclette — a traditional Swiss meal of potatoes and raclette cheese. The one thing that I’ve definitely noticed about Switzerland, in general, is that life moves much slower here. It’s hard to believe that our program is already halfway over in such a slower-paced world. Time warp, anyone?

Here are some gorgeous photos of St. Luc and the Alps (click to enlarge). Click here for the whole photostream.

Matterhorn.

The autumn colors were so gorgeous.

Example of a Swiss chalet.