Heading South

Early on Friday morning all of us at John Felice willingly arose at the crack of dawn to spend a weekend away from campus. After a week of orientation activities and the beginning of classes it was very nice to be able to spend a weekend all of us together. Most of our sleeping happened on the bus, and every other minute we spent wandering about towns, getting to know new friends, and eating a lot of good food.

Driving down the coast our first stop was Caserta. We saw La Reggia di Caserta, a Neapolitan castle which was quite the sight.  Although it rained most of the day, we had a great time. We had lunch at a very regally decorated place and then headed down to Salerno, where we would spend the next two nights. We kicked off our evening with inspiring speeches by the faculty here at the Rome center. They spoke about how special of a place this is, and how we will think about this experience every day for the rest of our lives. All of us are truly so lucky to have a staff that is so passionate about the students here and about Italy. Later in the evening we saw Salerno’s nightlife, and also enjoyed mixing in with the Italians at local places.

Saturday was a very busy day. We started off our morning at an organic buffalo mozzarella farm. We toured the grounds and saw that these buffalo have it pretty good. With sweeping mountain views, and personal massagers it is evident that happy cows make delicious cheese. Next we visited visited Paestum. This ancient Greek town contains some of the most well preserved ruins of ancient temples around. Who needs Greece when you can come here? Not to mention the weather was almost perfect this day. Our lunch in Agropoli was a blast. Definitely the best pizza in Italy I have had so far. We had a truly authentic experience including a musical performance by local Neapolitans with music and dancing. After dinner we ventured through the town of Agropoli. The Italians here were very friendly and accepting which isn’t always the case. We watched the sunset at a beautiful costal overlook and were able to unwind for a bit.

We finished off our weekend with a day in Sorrento. What a day, southern Italy is just one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is incredibly lush and green, even in January. After breakfast together at the hotel we heading north and then drove down the narrow, steep, winding coast in our very large coach bus, luckily no one got sick. To fully experience what this land has to offer we went to an Agurturismo, or a sort of lemon farm. We tasted some limoncello and had deserts completely drenched in limoncello, I think we were all feeling a bit of a lunch buzz. After a quick walk about town we were homeward bound to Rome. After a weekend away we all realized how coming back to the JFRC is comforting, and no matter where you travel on the weekends we will all come back together here and feel honored to live in such a warm community.

Ciao!

So, many of you may be wondering why the title of this blog is wonderlust, well it is my new favorite word in the English language! Being in Chile, one of the things I’ve realized is just how delicate and beautiful Spanish is. It is a much more complicated language than I’ve come to realize. Also, I didn’t know that English was one of the Germanic languages of the world while Spanish is a romantic language, so I have had a Chilean friend told me that to them since they don’t speak English, when my friends and I speak English it is almost indistinguishable from German! That surprised me mucho!

Back to wonderlust though, it is the theme of this journey for me, its definition is- a desire to travel, to understand one’s existence. The more I see of the world, the more I come to realize just how little I actually know and will ever know of the world. It’s quite ironic really. Being here has been really hard, 6 months is the longest I have been away from home, ever! I’m stepping out of my comfort zone, and really putting myself in a foreign world.

Anyway, this past weekend my class traveled to Isla Negra! About 1 hour from Santiago to the coast, it is a beautiful, little, colorful, dusty, impoverished town that is fully stocked with roadside stands of empanadas, fried fish, and helado (gelato!) There is where we got to tour one of the homes of Pablo Neruda himself! Pablo Neruda is one of the world’s famous poets and by far the best well known in Latin America because he is from Chile. His house was absolutely magnificent. Right along side cliffs with the ocean waves slapping up against them all day long, dark wooden floors, a collection of ancient Mayan Decoration and oriental rugs, porcelain bathtubs and stone walls throughout. If I ever had the chance to live there in the early 1900’s, constantly surrounded by the beautiful Pacific, white sandy beaches, Andes Mountains and the best seafood of my life- I would be able to write beautiful poems too. 🙂

Here is a little piece of one of my favorite Neruda poems- “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

I will try and add a few pictures too of the house on this blog because it is so beautiful, but if I can’t figure it out which is likely, then just check my facebook!

After the tour we had an amazing almuerzo lado del mar (lunch next to the sea). It consisted of vino blanco, salmon, clams, garlic shrimp, bread and olive oils, and to top it off chocolate and pistachio gelato! Muy Rico! After our amazing lunch we walked along the beach and took lots of pictures, and just a quick 5 minute walk down the beach was the world’s largest pool! It was unbelievable. There were sailboats in the pool that is how big it was! We didn’t swim in it because it expensive but we did get a workout just walking around it haha.

We had a long exhausting weekend that’s for sure, and it felt good to come home and catch up on sleep! It is summer here though so there is always something to do! Saturday night my friend Eva and I went out to our first discotheque! It is the equavilant of a dance club here, it was pretty fun but weird for me also.

Today we had another long day of school and then we went out to eat for lunch all together and ended up talking for hours, we are true chileans 🙂

Oh and this morning we had ANOTHER earthquake!! It is quite loco just how many we have had, but it wasn’t a big deal just shook the apartment for a minute! I guess I have to start getting used to that.

Tonight our friend Miguel who studies at Loyola is having a small fiesta with his family and we are all invited! So that should be a fun time, I am off to do some more homework on my porch over looking the mountains. 🙂

Miss you all so much!

“As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.” -Buddha

January 24, 2012

“When the Stars Make You Drool Just like a Pasta Fazool…
That’s Amore”

Buongiorno! I’m writing you from the library this cloudy Tuesday morning. (That is if you consider noon to be morning?) Either way, I promised I would tell you all about my trip down the Amalfi Coast this weekend so here’s my story…

I boarded the much too early bus Friday clad in a hooded trench, umbrella, and filled with excitement!  We were off!  Reggia Di Caserta, Salerno, Paestum, a buffalo mozzarella farm, a lemon grove, and Sorrento were on the itinerary.  These names meant nothing to me, as I am sure they mean little to you.  It wasn’t until I marveled at the intricacy of the silk wall coverings in the castle of Reggia Di Caserta, savored the rich mozzarella di bufali, sipped on fantastic limoncello, and gazed at the views of the coast from the cliffs of Salerno and Sorrento that I could understand the greatness of this trip.

I have come back to the Rome Center with a new appreciation for Italy. To stand on the Amalfi coast with my toes in the water then board a 3-hour bus and be back standing in front of the Vatican is amazing to me.

In the sexy words of Dean Martin, “that’s amore”.  Italy is love in every sense of the word.  A country filled with passionate people and wonders around every bend…I can’t wait to fall even deeper in love here.

Cheers to exploring, cheers to new friends, and cheers to Italy!

Always yours,

Christine

It seems that this whole “study abroad” endeavor is a reality and I leave real life to have fun, fake life in Barcelona. The goal is to (re)learn how to carpe a diem. To do so, I relinquish my professional life for 6 months of unemployed bliss; I shed my personal life to step into a fresh persona; I drop all pretenses that I have any clue what I’m doing.

Follow this blog to ensure I am indeed alive, to live vicariously, and to add your suggestions on seizing the day. In the end, I hope my enthusiasm is contagious.

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tomas_estoyaqui (for Spain-ish antics)
Thomas_Davison (for real life)

I arrived in Barcelona today after 12+ hours of traveling. The Barcelona airport is a beautiful building with phenomenal use of space via clean form and simple function. I am staying at the Alberg Pere Tarres and the hostel is clean and friendly. It is also a short jaunt to the closest Starbucks so I am not too far from a touch of familiarity. I picked up a tall cappuccino after settling into my room and perused the surrounding blocks more to enjoy the 58 degree weather than anything else. It’s already clear to me that Barcelona is a premier international metropolis; I’ve heard French, German, Spanish, plenty of English and I think I identified an entire family speaking Catalan. The next day is to rest and fight the impending jet lag and then I’ll take some time to familiarize myself with the city. Despite my short time here, I am intoxicated by the energy of Barcelona!

After finally vanquishing the final dregs of jet lag, I planned an afternoon to be a tourist. I hopped on the Metro, which is exponentially cleaner, more efficient, and all around better than the CTA (sorry Chicago), and made way to Antoni Gaudi’s famous park, Park Guell. Gaudi and Joan Miro are the two faces of modernisme, the artistic style of Catalonia that ignored the Gothic style at the time. Park Guell is modeled after an English garden-city model of urban planning, thus the architecture adjusts to the environment and not vice versa. In the pictures I took, you can see that Gaudi deliberately created organic looking structures and drew inspiration from the natural world around him. I did stop to admire the famous Gaudi dragon, though my favorite structures were the fences, gates, and stairs that Gaudi incorporated throughout the park. A huge, sweeping staircase caught my attention because it was almost out of place; a ballroom or grand hotel seem to be more apt locations for the staircase, not a public park. Walking most of the park took me two hours to do because the Casa-Museo Gaudi and the Casa Trias also occupy the expansive park and are worth visiting. Luckily, Park Guell is close to my university and I predict I’ll be back to relax for a siesta sometime soon.

Montserrat is the behemoth of the skyline looking south from Barcelona. This 1200+ meter monolith is an hour train ride outside of the city limits and legend has it that the Virgin Mary herself appeared on this very mountain. When you arrive at the base of the mountain, a cable car takes you to the famed monastery about halfway up the slope. The basilica, currently under renovation, is a functioning building that still holds mass on a regular basis as some unsuspecting peers found out. Montserrat is also home to a small museum with an impressive repertoire of artists, such as Degas and Carvaggio, though the works housed on the mountain are not any of their famed pieces.

Our group of intrepid, ambitious hikers chose to scale Montserrat to the peak or Sant Jeroni, the total height peaking at 1236 meters. The trek up the mountain took a little over two hours as we wound up dirt paths, inclines, and stairs upon stairs. Despite the chilly temperatures, the two hour Stairmaster session quickly warmed us up and only a sweater was necessary to combat the cold. Once at the top, the sight was impressive; more impressive, however, were the individuals climbing up over the railing with coils of rope. They had scaled the side of the mountain in two and a half hours to reach the top. And then they ran back down the mountain path. Champion status, indeed.

On a clear day you can see the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately for us, we were amongst the clouds (that high) and could only make out the surrounding towns and landscape. Darn.

Reasons why:

1.The sights! – This trip was a tour of the southern region of Campagna. We started with a tour of a huge castle called Reggia Caserta. It was filled with art and history and the gardens were massive! From there, we experienced Salerno and toured a Mozzarella di Bufalo (Mozzarella from Buffalo) farm and the historical ruins of Paestum. In Sorento, we toured a lemon farm and had a Limoncello tasting! I couldn’t believe how much we got to do on this weekend trip!

2. It’s free – Everything is included, from an awesome hotel in Salerno to all your meals and transportation. It’s excellent

3. Food – There is no bad place to eat food in Italy. All those delightfully free meals on this trip were all roughly four courses. First comes the antipasti, then the pasta, and then the main course (meat or veggie) with a side of veggies or salad. Oh yeah, and desert. Oh the deserts of Italy…

4. Nice buses – Long bus rides on these coach beauties are ideal for sleeping in between the fabulous sights of Campagna

5. Saldi – During the month of January (and again in July, I hear) all stores in Italy are on sale. It’s the perfect time to pick up a scarf for 3 Euro or post cards for 50 Eurocents.

6. Lemons – There are lemons everywhere on the Amalfi Coast! Try the lemon flavored gelato when in Sorrento! It’s where they grow all the delicious lemons! Also a good place to try Limoncello!

7. The sunset over Agropoli – This was the most amazing sight I have seen in my entire life. Nothing compared to it. Lights were just beginning to appear in the small towns below and sailboats floated in the harbor. Mountains stretched across the other side of the bay, slightly covered in haze. A church next to me rang the evening bells. An ancient castle cast shadows behind me. And in a matter of minutes the sun sank beautifully below what seems like the edge of the world. It was a perfect moment of tranquility and peace with my new friends. Which leads me to the best part of orientation in Rome…

8. New friends – I have met a million people since I arrived at the JFRC, but on the orientation trip, I was really able to get to know them. It was a great bonding experience for everyone and I think everyone came home a little more comfortable and confident about their semester!

More updates soon!

Ciao!

Kelsey O’Shaughnessy

The Mass of the Holy Spirit is a big deal here at the “Jforce”. It marks the end of orientation and sends you off into the semester with many well wishes from the staff and a delicious meal afterwards.

The mass is held in a beautiful, historical church in Piazza Navona. All religions are welcome and many students get to participate in readings and songs. The religious staff of the JFRC host the mass. They are funny guys.

Tip of the day: get to know the priests here. They are the nicest, most accepting, funniest people ever. They also know everything about Rome, from the amazing history to the great restaurants to the best wines! These guys are good company.

After the mass, the whole group goes to dinner for a celebration before school starts. It’s a great way to chat and enjoy. Afterwards, a lot of people went out and just walked around the beautiful Piazza Navona before heading back to campus.

This was a fantastic experience and I truly enjoyed getting out into Rome and visiting with new friends! Thanks to the staff of the John Felice Rome Center for putting it together!

Ciao!

Kelsey O

Hola mi amigas y familia!

Today marks the 1/12 of my journey (yes we are actually counting it down that much) or in other words my 2nd week in South America! If time continues to go this fast then I definitely can’t complain. Although day-to-day, everything here seems to go at a slower pace AKA Chilean time. The thing about Chileans is that they don’t really have a sense of a time, not sure if this is just a thing of the summer but really, people spend 3-4 hours just sitting at the table around meal times talking and laughing- Laughter is the universal language after all:) For example, my friend Mary and I noticed in the streets today walking to our favorite restaurant for lunch, everyone was just going at their own pace, talking, kissing cheeks..maybe they were so slow because everyone is 5 feet tall like me..who knows! Also, whenever I come home from school or anywhere my mom greets me with hugs and kisses and just wants to sit and talk about my day, sometimes for up to an hour! There are endless examples really, but I won’t drag on- I’m on a tight time schedule.

Just Kidding. My new favorite class is with a professor that I have usually on Tues/Thurs and we are learning about the culture, poverty and history of Chile. In class the other day we were reading these examples from adults that were in their 40s. They were from adults that were very poor- making 30.000 pesos a month or 60 U.S dollars/month.

They were given a sheet of paper and told to write their autobiography.  It was incredibly devastating to me, to see what they had written. There was one example where one person didn’t mention their name or even anything about their life. They had grown up in the slums in Santiago, constantly looked down on as a commodity, solely to make money for their family- he wrote in his autobiography he had nothing to say because he didn’t know who he was. This was a 40-year-old man writing this- can you imagine believing that about your life? I am only 19 years old and I would have difficulty writing my autobiography in 25 pages…he could write his in 4 sentences. Reading those autobiographies that consistently were less than a paragraph long, because people were ashamed of their lives- was something I will never forget. People grow up so poor, so vulnerable to poverty that they don’t even have the right to happiness because their needs always come first.

In this same class, we discussed the biggest problem in Chile right now- Public Education, and the factors to a child’s opportunity at receiving a quality education. The biggest ones were if they lived in a rural area, they had a 20% less chance of going to a school and the 2nd biggest factor was if they had a single mother- 13% less chance of the children ever going to school. This really hit me in the heart, because I never thought about how that could or even should have been me and my sister.. how lucky our family is that when my father passed away we had a choice to keep on living. For the majority of the population in Chile, and in the world if they lose the father of the house- they lose all hope for their future. In Chile, it is close to impossible to break out of the “cycle of poverty” that is so prevalent.

Ok, deep breath- now get this.. 4, yes you heard me- 4 families control 47%  of the stock market in Chile.Of course one of the families is the corrupt president that is in term right now. That is how devastating this income gap is, it is the 4th worst in the world. Also, one thing that Chile has in common with India is that they both use the Caste social ranking system according to their skin color. People with lighter skin and hair are automatically looked at as better off and more important than those with darker skin like the indigenous people.

I could go on for hours on this topic, and I think my professor knows, and he knows I’m an aspiring journalist so he always is sending me more info in emails after class!

So, after our class the other day we visited Hogar de Cristo- or the homeless shelters in a very poor part of the city. It again, was humbling to really see what we had been learning in class right in front of our eyes. For our jesuit internship next semester, one of our options is this homeless shelter, but I honestly don’t know if I’m capable of spending hours and hours there a week.. The homeless shelter consisted of a few buildings that we stopped in for about an hour each, first was the shelter that let only woman and children sleep and eat there every night, the other was a permanent home for men which helped get off the streets, get clean (drugs and alcohol are everywhere) and slowly get their life back if possible, and the 3rd was the mental institute for those too far gone and those who have no where else to go literally.. that was the last place we visited and I won’t go into detail but let’s just say it reminded me of the movie Shutter Island.

Well, it is yet another 95 degrees plus day, and I have a mountain of homework to do before this weekend is over with! But my host mother is singing in a jazz club in Bella Vista, the bohemian neighborhood of Santiago, on Saturday night and I definitely can’t wait to go!

Besitos y Abrezos!

“The place you have left forever is always there for you to see whenever you shut your eyes.” – Jane Myrdal