Baclava and the Hagia Sophia - Political Change in the Middle East Week 1

Me and fellow AIM Overseas students in front of the Hagia Sophia

 After departing Australia shortly after Christmas, embarking on a long flight to Europe, I found my self exhausted and in need of some appetising food that did not replicate that of airplane food… but regardless, I was ready for a journey that would be both adventurous and enthralling.

After spending some time in Germany, it was time to depart for Istanbul. I was feeling rather nervous and unsure on what to expect, but was ready to embrace the culture!

Arriving was much like arriving at any other airport, until I began the taxi ride to the student accommodation, which I was to spend the duration of my trip. This taxi ride started off as a culturally shocking experience, with crazy traffic conditions and constant honking of horns, but remarkably the taxi driver knew the roads well and manoeuvred his way through what appeared as complete anarchy. After arriving at my accommodation, it was nice to finally be acquainted with Australians, sharing stories of arrival and first impressions of what has become a very enchanting and remarkable city.

A shot of the Blue Mosque from a window in the Hagia Sophia

We began our first week of classes, meeting professors and starting to learn about the “Political change of the Middle East”. At this point, Istanbul was experiencing heavy snowfall, which had added an extra exciting element to the beginning of the trip.

Loving the snow at Bogazici University

Exploring the local streets of Ortaköy where the accommodation is located was a culturally enriching experience, meeting many different Turkish people, eating various foods of the Turkish kind. Indulging in local Baklava and Turkish delight, my sweet tooth had already kicked into gear, but there was nothing greater than eating such amazing food in its traditional location. The friendly smiles of the Turks and embracing attitudes made the cultural clash and language barrier something of little concern!

The stunning Hagia Sophia

Exploring the beautiful Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia was a marvellous experience. These venues demonstrated exemplary architecture and spirituality of Istanbul, indicating the wealth of history and culture of such a vibrant location in this world! The sound of the “call to prayer” coming from the Mosques on a regular occurrence throughout the day was something enchanting, bringing about realisation of the beauty of belief and culture that spreads throughout the world.

Admiring the Mosque's beauty

Having completed our first week of classes, and beginning the exploration of a diverse city, my knowledge of the Middle East and Turkey has grown substantially already. The history of Turkey and the Middle East is one that is rich, complex and forever changing and I look forward to continuing the adventure for the last two weeks of the program. 

~ Adam

Adam Saunders is completing the Political Change in the Middle East program at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. Adam is in his 4th year of a double degree at Griffith University

Goedidag from Maastricht! - Positive Psychology

After spending an action-packed New Years in Amsterdam with all the CRAZY fireworks, I finally packed my bags on the 3rd of January to head to Maastricht, a 2.5 hour train ride south of the capital. Our arrival in Maastricht was greeted with a light shower of rain that would remain constant over the next couple of days, but even that didn't lessen my excitement - after so much anticipation I was finally about to start my Positive Psychology journey!

The main entrance to Maastricht trainstation

I caught a taxi to the guesthouse accommodation with another student, but as the taxi began to pull up to a hospital entrance we became unsure of how well our driver had understood our English directions. Strangely, it turned out that the student accommodation is located within the hospital itself, who knew! As I was staying in the shared accommodation I was expecting a room similar to that in a hostel, so therefore I was pleasantly surprised to find that my room was quite spacious. It even had a kitchenette and bathroom sink, as well as a desk, bookcase and wardrobe for each person.

My roommate arrived not long after with some others from my floor, most of which were also Australian. We later discovered there were also a few Americans from North Carolina doing courses over here, so it's been interesting to hear about their college experiences compared to our experiences in Australia.

Braving the cold and crazy cyclists on our first morning

The next morning started with a guided walk to one of the university campus buildings located in the city centre. Unlike most universities in Australia, such as in my hometown of Newcastle, the university buildings here are located throughout the whole city of Maastricht rather than being located together in a central campus setting. This means that to get from building to building you get a beautiful scenic view of Maastricht. It also means that if your building is located on the other side of town, as the psychology buildings are, then it can take up to an hour to walk there. The majority of students however overcome this in a very Dutch manner - bicycles!

My beautiful bike!

Our first Dutch bicycle experience was certainly eye-opening as many students hadn't ridden a bike since childhood, but despite this and after many wobbles and near misses, our group of close to forty cyclists managed to complete the hour round trip relatively unscathed. We must have looked quite a sight to the locals, crawling along at snails pace until we got our confidence up, and constantly forgetting that we needed to stick to the right side of the bicycle lane instead of the left.

Fellow shared accommodation students; Amy (left) and Kylie (right) with their brand new bikes

As we didn't have any activities scheduled for the weekend several of us set out to explore the town by night, and as most of the christmas lights are still out it all looked absolutely beautiful. Maastricht is home to over 350 bars, so we found the nightlife to be quite active and even came across a bachelor party, which was quite interesting to say the least...

This is about half of our pack of nervous cyclists on our way to uni for the first time - the rest were behind me!

By the time Monday rolled around we were all very excited for classes, and our first lecture didn't disappoint! Our crash course introduction to Positive Psychology left us all eager for the rest of the course, and it seems like our time here will be over before we know it! Our second day of lectures introduced us to mindfulness and meditation, which I was fascinated by as I have not personally meditated before and have always been intrigued by it. I found the experience very enlightening in regards to both learning about myself and my thought processes, as well as learning about the process of meditation itself and how it can be used to benefit other people.

Our first lecture in the brand new psychology building!

With upcoming trips to Belgium and Amsterdam I'm sure there will be many more adventures to come! Our first round of assignments is also impending and hopefully the first snowfall of our visit! I'll keep you all posted.

Amy Bartolacci

Amy Bartolacci is completing the Positve Psychology program at Maastricht University running this January 2013. Amy is in her 4th year of a Bachelor of Psychology at University of Newcastle.

Feliz año nuevo from Buenos Aires! - Spanish in Argentina

I arrived in ´the Paris of South America´ on New Year´s Eve after spending 32 hours in the air, stopping in Dubai and Rio de Janeiro. This is Rio airport. It has three gift shops selling nothing but Havaianas, no airconditioning, and architecture that appears to have been influenced by shipping containers.

The excitement of Rio Airport

At the airport in Argentina, I loaded my overstuffed backpack onto my back before realising that I was supposed to remove it to go through a security checkpoint. Unfortunately, there were no chairs for me to sit down and dump the backpack. An unfriendly-looking Customs official gestured for me to remove the backpack, which would not happen without me falling over. Unable to recall the Spanish word for ´heavy´, I resorted to repeating the phrase ´I am a turtle´ whilst flailing my arms about and miming falling over backwards. It worked!

After I checked into my hostel I took the longest (and coldest, which is apparently common in Buenos Aires) shower of my life, I wandered off to a nearby street party underneath a monument called the Obelisco. A group of girls saw I was alone and offered to keep me company. I´d heard horror stories about the difficulty of understanding Argentinian Spanish, so I was glad that I could understand most of what they were saying. As it turned out, they were actually from Mexico. (And Argentinian Spanish is every bit as incomprehensible as I´d been warned.)

My new Mexican friends

Over the next few days, I learned the following interesting facts about Buenos Aires:

- Most people speak no English, including customs officials, cab drivers and the people who work at McDonald´s. I don´t mean ´not much English´, I mean No English. My phrasebook is my new best friend. 

- Due to inflation, coins are worth less than the metal they´re made of and so they ´disappear´ from circulation. However, coins are also essential for buses and laundromats, so everyone hoards any coins they come across. As a result, coins are even rarer - and more sought-after - than hot showers. 

- Due to the coin shortage, hundred-peso bills (worth about $20) are nigh on impossible to break. These are the only bills that most ATMs dispense, which can make buying things difficult. Also, plenty of notes are fake, and you need to check four different features (watermark, raised print, metallic seal, iridescent ink) before accepting one. As a result, checkout lines in Buenos Aires move very slowly.

- An important note for prospective travellers: some places do not accept credit cards with a security chip, so it is good to have a backup card with no chip. Being shouted at in incomprehensible Argentinian Spanish after I tried to pay for lunch with a hundred-peso bill and then a chip credit card is not an experience I would like to repeat. 

- There are SO MANY DOGS HERE. Also, many people hire dog walkers, so packs of dogs are a common sight. Given the terrible traffic, I think that the use of Arctic-style dogsleds for transport will begin soon.

Dogs are everywhere!!

After spending a few days at the hostel, on Saturday I arrived at my homestay. My homestay family don´t speak English, so my phrasebook accompanies me to the dinner table. Tonight we had a conversation where my host mother, unable to find the words ´monkey´ or ´butterfly´ in my phrasebook, instead mimed jumping around in monkey-fashion and flapping her arms like a butterfly. I am beginning to suspect that the ´I am a turtle´ incident at the airport may become a common occurence here.

My room has a lovely balcony overlooking the barrio (suburb) of Recoleta.

My balcony

I start classes tomorrow, in a beautiful building just near the Congresso government house. I haven´t taken a photo of the school yet, but I do have a photo of this amazing building near the Casa Rosada. It houses the Ministry of Defence, and the giant tank parked out the front really adds to the ambiance of the place.

Ministry of Defence

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city with a lot of idiosyncracies which can be frustrating, especially for travellers who aren´t confident with speaking Spanish. That said, pizza costs about a dollar, so it´s definitely worth visiting.

Hasta mas tarde,

Jayne


Jayne Krempin is currently on the Intensive Spanish in Argentina program running in January 2013. Jayne is in her 3rd year of a Bachelor of Science at the University of Newcastle.

Buenos Aires Arrival - Spanish in Argentina

It is new years day and I have slept very little after spending the night out at the beach with some friends and I have to get on a plane and fly to Buenos Aires at 8:45pm. My stomach is churning a little at the thought of it, I have only ever travelled overseas once before and it was not alone. But I am very excited. 

The plane trip was less than enjoyable being very packed out from Brisbane to Dubai (14 and a half hours), but after getting through that first half it wasn’t as bad, on to Rio for 13 hours and then just 2 hours from Rio to Buenos Aires arriving at 7pm. After the long journey and lack of sleep the airport is a little overwhelming but in a good way. Walking out of customs there are hundreds of people waiting to meet their loved ones, people yelling and taxi drivers offering rides on your way out. 

I caught a shuttle bus to my hostel the Estoril Terrazas in Avenida De Mayo, after nearly missing it because of my bad pronunciation of Mayo, (luckily an Australian traveller who I had met just earlier helped me out because he had spent lots of time in Argentina) I was dropped outside and feeling adventurous!

I walked up 6 floors of a beautiful old winding staircase checked in, and then because it was very late I had a shower and slept. (My eyes were falling out of my head from lack of sleep as the Hostel manager Nacho attempted to explain and show me around).

The view that I woke up to on my first day here.

 Waking up and looking out the window the first thing I was struck by was the amazing architecture! Then walking out for breakfast I could choose to sit on the rooftop of the backpackers and enjoy a view of the whole city.

The cobble stone streets in San Telmo

After chatting to some Aussie travellers over breakfast I headed off for a walk to San Telmo a historical part of the city, the streets are cobblestone and the building I am not sure which era they are from but they all have little terraces, bright colours and some with murals on them as well. Here I wandered around checking out some artisan stalls and attempting some broken Español with the artists, making friends and getting help improving my Español.

Street art in San Telmo

Meeting my host family -  after a 10-minute walk from the hostel to Monica’s apartment I was welcomed into a very sweet apartment and made to feel totally at home. Including a very strange but loving cat called Rubio who likes to try to go in the bath and jumps on top of high cupboards.

Historical courtyard in San Telmo

I still have another day until classes start so I will write again soon once they have started.  

Love, Mindy

In Centro I was watching as buses and cars gave way to an old man standing in the middle of the street. 

Mindy Davies is completing our Intensive Spanish in Argentina program this January 2013. Mindy is in her 4th year of a Double Degree in Law and International Relations at Griffith University.

Navigating the streets of Lima - Biodiversity in Peru

Lima!

Having never travelled out of my birth state of Western Australia I was far from knowing what to expect when arriving in Peru. People thought I was crazy (as did I), my first trip out of my home state and I go to a non-english speaking country, land in a city which is far larger than I have ever experienced, and alone! What was I thinking?

So far it has been such an awesome experience! I arrived early in my host country and spent a few days in Lima, the capital of Peru before going to Cusco for the program. I was alone and at first was nervous. My hostel-organised taxi ride was crazy, I went through some dodgy looking areas and the road rules seemed more like guidelines however, I arrived safe and sound. Getting through the language barrier has been interesting but not too big of an issue, I recommend having your flight info, accommodation booking info and confirmation emails etc handy as this helped a great deal when checking into my accommodation when the people did not speak English.

Just your average road in Lima

Over the few days I was in Lima I did a lot of walking around, getting the feel for the area and finding where to buy food and water as well as looking at the various sites. I stayed in a really beautiful area of Lima called Miraflores, which was close to the beach and had some magnificent cliffs with very pretty parks along them, this made for a great area to walk and take in some of the sites. Lima itself was a very different place depending on where you visited, with many historic churches as well as historic ritual sites dating back to 200AD right in the centre of the metropolis and residential areas. 

The gorgeous beach views near Miraflores

Walking to most areas was easy although I did visit the local zoo which required a taxi ride. At first I was very nervous about the taxis having read some scary things however, I was advised by a fellow hostel resident what to look for in a good taxi so after was a little more confident. Another issue I encountered was the chances of receiving counterfeit money, I had changed by money at the airport so didn’t consider this an issue until I tried to use some. This did not end up being too disastrous as not everyone appeared to know what was counterfeit or in fact it may not have actually been so, as others were happy to accept the money.

Huaca Pucllana

Buying food in another country… even the menus were in Spanish, as such I had to be a brave with the menus, thankfully I had received some important info from a fellow hostel resident, pollo meant chicken. Although there were still some surprises with the menu such as receiving soup on a warm day was interesting then to have chunks of chicken foot and bone in my soup (obviously used to make the broth) was another. All was fine though, I now know that caldo means soup. 

Huaca Pucllana

All in all these last few days have been amazing and I am very thankful that I was able to come on this trip. I can’t wait to see what the rest of Peru has in store for me.

Kerri-Ann Hudson

Kerri-Ann Hudson is participating on our Biodiversity in Peru program this January 2013. Kerri-Ann is in her third year of a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Management at Edith Cowan University