City of dreams! (posted by Pierre en Suisse)

Salut tout le monde! If you remember reading my last post, Voyageur du monde, you may remember that I hinted at another upcoming voyage, but I did not reveal my destination. My country count is now officially at four, as I just returned from a trip to Paris! What a weekend that was! Before heading off, I had quite a few expectations of the city, all of which are possibly the most cliché images one could produce of the city. This included wanting to eat crêpes at the Eifel Tower, hearing accordion players at various street corners, and going on long walks through the city’s gardens and famous streets, namely the Champs Elysée. But against all the stereotypes, I was most excited about just being in the presence of such history and culture. Not to mention the fact that I’d be able to visit a European capital city with such importance for politics, finance, and culture.

As always, the first thing that I was super excited about upon arriving in Paris was the fact that I could speak the language of the country. I didn’t have to ask someone at an information window to speak English, but instead, me and my friends who traveled together (other exchange students at UNIL) could all pose our questions in French and continue practicing our language skills. I also have to say that knowing the language definitely enriched the experience for me. The first site we visited was the city catacombs. Buried 45 million years under the Earth, the catacombs are the city’s former stone mines where the materials to build structures like Notre Dame Cathedral were taken from. As a more touristy twist, they have been turned into the burial site of more than six million people. Posted throughout the catacombs were writings, in both French and Latin, with very thought provoking quotes about human nature. Without knowledge of French, I would have missed out on what became my favorite part of the catacombs!

The entrance into the tomb area of the catacombs

Of course, our tour of the city moved above ground after our first stop. We later found ourselves visiting an old train station turned museum, le Musée d’Orsay, where we saw the works of some famous artists I had first learned about in elementary school, such as Monet! My group and I had all decided that it was a necessity to go to a museum in Paris, even though not all of us were crazed for looking at art, just because it was such an important part of the city.

Right in the heart of the city, with the Louvre and the river Seine in sight

We found ourselves right downtown in the city when we left the museum, and by that point we all had food on our mind. After meeting up with a friend from France who had studied abroad at U of R last semester, we went off for our first real adventure into French cuisine. Luckily, our local was able to help us out with choosing some of the more traditional French dishes. I definitely branched out when I chose a duck dish for my dinner, and tasted my friend’s dish. She had ordered something called tartare de boeuf, which is essentially raw, ground meat with various seasonings for flavor. If you thought sushi is a terrifying concept, think again. I was at first really hesitant to try this, since all of my prior food knowledge was telling me something like this needed to be cooked, but I figured if French people can eat it, so could I, so I decided to be open and try it. I rewarded myself afterwards with crêpes, and then we finally made our way to the Eifel Tower.

And of course Paris’ most famous site!

That being just our first day in Paris, it would require a much longer post for me to recount everything that we did during this trip. Four days in the city gave us the opportunity to see and do so many things, from just aimless touring to visiting some historical museums as well, notably L’Hôtel des Invalides, a a military hospital that Louis XIV ordered to be built for his forces in 1670. In some of the areas where the walls were newly renovated, it became so easy to place yourself in this time period, and feel like you were a part of it for a moment. It was an amazing feeling, when looking up at all of the stone walls and blue roofs. We also got to see the tomb of Napoleon in Les Invalides, which for a history nerd such as myself was pretty exciting.

Did Paris live up to my expectations? It certainly did, and then some. In the end, I don’t think that I embodied the clichés that I felt like I would before heading off, minus the fact that me and my group all bought berets the very last day and wore them through the airport and all the way back to Lausanne. I do count on the fact that I will be back there one day, but as always, coming back to Lausanne a third time from a trip abroad helped to solidify just how special I regard this city and country, as my first ever home away from home.

Uppsala goes fancy: Norrlands Nation’s Höstgasque and Gasque 101 (posted by Indira in Sweden)

As I mentioned in some of my previous posts, Uppsala is a meeting point for many contrary and contrasting things. Last week it was new and old. I was a part of a tradition so specific for Uppsala University students and so deeply embedded in the history of the student organizations here known as the nations, and yet so modern that still it occurs every semester.

The student life at Uppsala Uni is organized around 13 nations each representing a city or a region/county in Sweden. One can work in the nations, go for fika, study in nations’ libraries, meet friends, watch sport matches, go to the pub, attend concerts, participate in open mic and karaoke nights, go to the club there, take part in the gasque, as well as do many other things. But, let’s focus on the gasques (or gasks as they are called in Swedish). A gasque is basically  a formal dinner with an after-party. During the gasque you eat, drink, make toasts, and most importantly – sing. Yes, sing. Quite a lot, actually. Singing is basically the most important part of the gasque: You sing before making toasts, when drinking snaps (a celebratory tradition), when starting the dinner, when the dinner is almost finished, and for any other reason you could possibly propose to sing. And singing during the gasque is rather fun. Most of the songs are in Swedish, but you get a Songbook so you can follow and sing along. It’s also very easy to get the rhythm. Some songs even have their own little choreographies: My favorite song so far is one for which you stand up on your chair and sing and once the song is finished you should not sit in the chair since it means bad luck and you will fail all your exams. All in all, gasques are fun events where you get amazing food and meet new people, as well as familiarize yourself with Uppsala University and the nations’ traditions.

Höstgasque is the most formal of all the gasques during the Fall semester (höst means Fall in Swedish). The dress code is tail coat for the guys and ball gown for the girls. Ever since I heard of this gasque I made the decision to attend one, and I did so last week. A friend of mine plays in Norrlands nation’s orchestra so she attended the gasque and I joined her. All the members of the orchestra had dinner in a special room, but they followed all the gasque traditions.

The dinner table before the gasque started

There was a lot of singing, toasts, speeches, and chatting. I got to meet the members of the orchestra who were all Swedes. It was great practicing my Swedish and learning more about Sweden. Apart from that I enjoyed the food a lot – I ate moose for the first time ever. That was a whole new experience. We also played a game: All of us had a “top secret mission” that we had to fulfill during that evening. My task was to be obnoxiously loud after every toast and speech, applaud as loud as possible, and compliment the speech or toast. It was so much fun doing that! Other people had to propose toasts on every possible occasion, or start a conversation about music etc. It was a good way to bond with the people sitting near you at the table.

Some of the members of the orchestra

After dinner, the orchestra played and other gasque guests danced waltz and polonaise – that is how formal Höstgasque is! The formal dance continued during the after-party as well since more classical and jazz music was played. This is the typical after-party for these formal gasques in all nations.  Below is a video of the orchestra that played:

My friend and I decided to go for a full Höstgasque experience and went to the after-parties in two other nations  - Värmlands and Östgöta. The whole atmosphere made me feel like I travelled back in time. It was definitely an experience I am happy I was able to have. Attending the Höstgasque is definitely going to be one of the highlights of my semester abroad in Uppsala.

The Smartest Man in the Room (posted by Jimmy in England)

I woke up this morning and couldn’t exactly remember what had happened last night.  I tried to piece together the bits of information that were coming back to me but there was just so much missing.  Good thing that I wrote everything down. Let me take you back to when it all started.  During orientation week, thousands of college societies set up in a big auditorium so that every student has an opportunity to explore their interests.  Various societies include Sports Clubs,  A capella, Harry Potter Society, Philosophy Society, and my personal favorite, the Scientific Society.  I signed up for a few different societies and on Monday I received an email about different lectures that the Scientific Society holds throughout the year.  This week’s seminar was to be given by Ian Fleming.  There are probably many Ian Flemings in the world, but two of them particularly ring a bell in my mind.  The first is the English author that wrote the James Bond novels and the second is the man who appears in all of my organic chemistry textbooks.  Since this email was from the Scientific Society, I presumed that the organic chemist was coming to Oxford.  For those of you that have never heard of Ian Fleming, he is one of the most important organic chemists of the 20^th century.  He was the first person to determine the full structure of chlorophyll in 1967, he helped synthesize vitamin B12 during a one year postdoc at Harvard, and he created a mechanism (Silyl-Hydroxy Conversion, also called the Tamao-Fleming reaction) that is used in many organic chemistry research labs today.  He also did all of this at a time when there were not accurate ways of determining chemical products based on computers. Dr. Fleming is included in the panel that nominates Nobel Laureates for Chemistry as well.  Simply put, he’s big time.

I jumped at the idea of going to hear this man speak and so I emailed the Scientific Society and told them that I would definitely be attending. An amazing woman, Aimee, who is from Oklahoma and doing her postdoc with her husband at Oxford, responded and asked if I would like to attend dinner with Dr. Fleming before his speech!  The simplicity at which you can make things happen via email astonishes me.  Within a few hours I went from potentially listening Dr. Fleming speak, to walking to a little dinner with an extreme sense of anticipation as I prepared to meet him.  The dinner was at an Italian restaurant off of Banbury road.  I have yet to mention the fact that it has been a few weeks and I still can’t get used to people driving on the left side of the road.

Banbury Road

I expected that I would be one of about 30 or 40 people at dinner and I would probably introduce myself and eat with some graduate students.  When I got there, I couldn’t have been more surprised.  Dr. Fleming was sitting with one graduate student having a conversation.  I ended up joining them, along with another undergraduate and Aimee and her husband.  There were 6 of us in total, including Dr. Fleming, and I can’t even begin to explain how incredible it was.  If you want to talk about brilliance, look no further.

I want to share some of the advice that Dr. Fleming gave us throughout the night.  First off, he knew he was brilliant, but he didn’t act better than anybody.  He is 78, but still quick as a whip.  He told us to understand that we are smart, to be thankful for it, and to get better.  He also absolutely loves what he does.  He simply loves being in a lab, synthesizing organic compounds.  “It’s all about the chemistry” he would say.  At the time that he was doing all of his research, he couldn’t connect the dots, but random things would come to him later in life that ended up helping him in all of his work.  He was asked what makes him see the answers to problems that others have questioned for years and he responded, “My group of colleagues have the ability to think about a problem longer than anybody else.  We didn’t know what we were doing, but something would eventually work.  We would stare at a problem for weeks and something would click.”

During the lecture, I sat in front of two Ph.D students, one was from Canada and another from France.  Before Dr. Fleming started, these students were reciting the periodic table from memory.  They knew every element in order, all they way through.  At the end of the lecture, the French man said, “Wow, I feel like a schmuck compared to him!” His answers to problems are so simple, but they always work.  He says that most answers stare at you, and if you just think a little bit harder, they appear.  I ended the night by simply walking home and going to bed.  There was so much information that my mind was trying to wrap itself around so I made sure that throughout the night I wrote everything down.  My mind had been blown, and it clicked that I was in such a special place with the opportunity to meet one of the most important chemists of the last hundred years.

“All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders – all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of purpose. Mania … is as priceless as genius.” 
-Ian Fleming, Doctor No

A Glimpse of the Beauty (posted by Jimmy in England)

“On Thursday at 4:30 walk to the first white house on Longwall street and knock on the window in between the front door and the entrance to the courtyard.”  That was the message that my tutor sent me for the time and location of our first tutorial. In the previous week , visiting students had been warned that the cardinal sin of Oxford was being late for a tutorial. So I naturally decided to show up a little early for my first lesson and like every other day at Oxford, it was raining. When I arrived at the house,  I knocked on the window in between the front door and the courtyard and there was no response. At exactly 4:30, a man came biking up to the house.  He was fully equipped with all the essentials of biking in the rain.  He had a neon raincoat, thick rain pants, a case for his backpack, and even goggles for his eyes.  On that note, let me tell you that this is not that out of the ordinary.  There are two guarantees at Oxford: It rains and everyone uses bikes as the main form of transportation. As he got off his bike he introduced himself as my tutor.  He opened the front door and we went into the living room.  On the outer edge of the room was a couch, a desk that faced the window, and a bookshelf containing many Human Evolutionary Genetics textbooks.  In the middle was a table and at the table there were chairs.  In those chairs we were to sit and talk for an hour about the genetic differences and variation among populations of humans and chimpanzees. The tutorial, a little daunting a first, turned out to be typical of the Oxford lifestyle.  Academic life is not a job that you go to and then leave behind at the end of the day. As seen by my experience in a random house, it is something that is part of your everyday life.  It is essential to who you are.  My first week of tutorials made me realize that.

I will be completely honest with you, academic events have taken up every bit of my time here.  No matter what I am doing, there is always some component of learning involved.  Now that may seem a bit excessive, but I absolutely love it.  Every day this week I would wake up and pick a random lecture that I wanted to go to.  I sat in on biophysical chemistry  lectures and went to seminars on various biological processes.  Is this completely academic? Yes. Do I love it? Absolutely!  I may not be travelling through Europe too much this semester, but I am gaining invaluable experience by working here.

I will admit that I did take a break last night.  I went to the Turf Tavern with some other visiting students and got some very good advice from a woman who was reminiscing on old times with a long friend.  She said, “One of the problems with people in Oxford is that they all look down.  It rains all the time, so they naturally put their heads down.  While you’re here, look up.  You’re in a beautiful city, why not take it in and enjoy it.”  With that in mind, I spent most of today just ‘looking up’ and I found a lot of different sites at Oxford. The first are the Heads at Bodleian library.  I live about 30 seconds away from there and do not know the story behind the heads.  When I find it out, I will let you know.  The other two pictures I have included in this blog are from Christ Church.  Christ Church is not only one of the 38 colleges that are part of the University of Oxford, but it is also the cathedral church of the diocese of Oxford.  It is a very good representation of the beautiful architecture of this city.

Bodleian Heads, the Bodleian Library, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”- Ashley Smith

Fall in Uppsala: Seminars, Skansen und Richmond Re-union (posted by Indira in Sweden)

I started understanding how busy it can get here at Uppsala University over the past couple of weeks. Papers, reading, assignments, seminars, and exams have all come with the first days of Fall.

On the bright side – I don’t think Uppsala could look any more beautiful than it does right now. Leaves are changing colors and the whole city looks very majestic in different shades of yellow, orange, and red. I don’t need to do anything more than just look out of my window to enjoy this beauty. When the weather allows and it is not raining (unfortunately , it doesn’t happen all too often here) taking a walk in the forest close to the accommodation area Flogsta (where I live) is very calming and true food for all senses.

Fall in Uppsala

With all the school work, it is not always easy to enjoy Uppsala. Just last week I experienced the Uppsala University education system to its fullest. As I wrote earlier, there are lectures and seminars, and in seminars you are in a group of about 15 students where you discuss specific questions and have tasks to complete. My seminars so far have involved writing papers, preparing a debate and preparing a presentation. This way the students do more work on their own (but professors and lecturers are always available in case one needs help) and get to work on the questions and issues they take interest in. All lecturers encourage group and pair work. I worked on all of my seminar assignments with Izabelle who is a freshman from Stockholm. I really like that I got to work with a Swede since it provided an opportunity to meet someone new, to understand more about Sweden and Swedish culture, possibly learn new Swedish words, and also create a stronger link with someone who can be seen as an insider. I enjoyed working with Izabelle and I feel like we learned a lot from each other. Actually, all of the members of my seminar group are amazing and I got to know them pretty well. Unfortunately, as soon as we became friends (and not just classmates), our course ended (this class was basically an intensive 5 week class where I had classes every day. I wrote about this “one class at the time” system earlier). Not having a class together makes it harder to see people. On Monday I had my exam and it went really well. Uppsala University has a specific building where all the exams are held so it all feels very official. It felt somewhat weird to walk out of that exam and realize that my first Government class is over.

A view of Stockholm from Skansen, a zoo/open air museum I recently visited

Classes here are not all about having loads of reading and being stuck in the classroom. My other class, Critical Perspectives on Sustainable Development in Sweden, tries to incorporate the fieldwork in the course as well. A week ago we took a class trip to Skansen, which is a mixture of a zoo and an open air museum in Stockholm. We got to see brown bears, lynx, and many other animals, but we also learned more about sustainability in Sweden throughout its history by visiting small settlements and houses built as examples of how people used to live in different parts of Sweden at different points in history (my group, for instance, had to learn more about Sami). My personal highlight was a visit to a bakery where there was a cook who makes the Knäckebrot the way it was made traditionally. One can watch and then enjoy the delicious Knäckebrot with some salted butter. Yummy!

A brown bear at Skansen

Another exciting thing happened recently: I finally managed to meet with Carl-Johan (or CJ as he was known in Richmond), who was an exchange student at UR last year and who was a great support and source of information about Uppsala (in essence, he is the one who made me think about applying to Uppsala Uni in the first place and I am so glad he did since coming here was the best decision ever). We had a nice fika and it was great to talk about Richmond with someone in person (I am the only student from UR here this semester). I really enjoyed meeting him!

Now I’m eager to see what October brings and I am looking forward to my trip to Tallinn at the end of the month!

Waterfalls and a little bit of history

I just got back from an amazing weekend getaway in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.  Kanchanaburi is about two hours (by bus) northwest of Bangkok.  The city itself is quite small – it is most frequented by visitors on their way to Erawan Falls, but the city does boast its own attractions– for example, the Bridge over River Kwai, which we visited the morning we arrived.

The bridge was commissioned by the Japanese during World War II in order to secure a better supply route between Thailand and Burma.  The bridge was built by both local Thais and prisoners of war, thousands of whom died during its construction.  The bridge is primarily famous because of the movie “The Bridge over River Kwai.”  There is not much really to see– it is quite literally a bridge over a river–not too thrilling.

The rest of the day we saw two more sites: temple caves and a World War II allied cemetery. The temple was an incredible labyrinth of underground, natural caves–very claustrophobic at some points! Each cave contains a shrine or Buddha.  Near the caves, our tuktuk driver took us to see the most incredible view of Kanchanaburi – the beautiful river surrounded by greenery and mountains on either side.  The natural beauty in Thailand is magnificent, and that was particularly evident this trip.  After spending so much time in a city, it is refreshing to see a more rural side of the country.

Our last stop of the day was to an allied war cemetery, which serves as the resting place for many of the soldiers killed building the bridge.  It was actually quite intense walking around and seeing all the name plaques – reading the quote written on the headstone, each name and nationality engraved, and particularly reading the soldier’s age; most were between 20 and 25, around the same age as I am.  I have to admit after my four months in Thailand I don’t know that much about its role in World War II so this was certainly a glimpse into some of Thailand’s history.

The next day we made the trek to Erawan National Park, located two hours from Kanchanaburi.  We had no idea how incredibly beautiful the national park would be! We literally spent four and a half hours walking along a path through the jungle, passing waterfalls as we went.  There are seven primary waterfalls that make up the national park, though there are small ones spread throughout.  There were tons of people – both international and Thai – and like everyone else, we walked from one waterfall to another and jumped in whenever we couldn’t stand the heat anymore.  It was incredibly beautiful, and so nice and peaceful to spend an afternoon just walking through nature, and enjoying it.

The most intense part of the trek was the 7^th waterfall – much less crowded than the others because not as many people make it that far up.  As we approached the waterfall, the friend I was with, Rebecca, pointed out the monkeys overhead.  We had seen signs throughout our trek warning us to be careful of the monkeys because they can be dangerous, but hadn’t actually seen any monkeys until this point.  They were adorable climbing all over the branches, a mother and her babies.  While we were swimming in the waterfall, however, a large monkey got a little too close for comfort and started hissing at anyone who came too close.  It then went over to someone’s backpack, unzipped it, and started pulling out every piece of clothing in there and flinging it to the side.  Just as we were leaving, Rebecca pulled out a bag of peanuts, and within .2 seconds, the monkey was right in front of her, looking threatening as ever, moving exactly as the peanuts moved.  Completely scared, Rebecca just threw the bag of peanuts at the monkey – as we hurried off, we looked back to see the monkey rip the bag of peanuts open, and one by one, pop peanuts into its mouth, as he sat on the ground looking for his next target.

Reflection week

Hello everyone!  Period 4 is done, and now we have a one week break.  Most international students refer to this break as spring break, but at UCM, it’s known as reflection week.  It’s my understanding that reflection week was just implemented last semester. I decided to spend the first few days of my reflection week in Berlin, Germany.  My sorority sister is currently studying abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark, so we decided to meet up in Berlin and see all of the wonderful pieces of history in the city.

The first day we were there, we visited the Victory Column, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and a monument dedicated to Atlas Shrugged and other mythological figures.  Below is a picture of the Victory Column.  My sister and I walked all 285 steps, and I must say, we were feeling the burn after the walk back down.

This next picture is of me with two “German soldiers” at the Brandenburg Gate.  Being at the Brandenburg Gate was a lot of fun; there was music and people everywhere.  As you can see in the picture, there were also people dressed up in a variety of costumes (most of them looking to earn money).  In my opinion, these two ”soldiers” were by far the best dressed.

Being able to see the Reichstag in person was an experience that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to explain.  Just knowing that I was at a building that, for a period of time, basically served as the headquarters for Hitler and the rest of Nazi Germany left me speechless.  This building is truly a part of Germany’s history and I felt privileged to be able to see it in person.

Seeing a version of Atlas and being able to recognize him as someone I’d learned about in school was a really good feeling.  Below is a picture of me and my sorority sister in front of Atlas, Sybil, and some others.

The next day of our trip, we visited the zoo, the aquarium, and of course, the infamous Berlin Wall.  The zoo and aquarium were both nice, but if I had to pick, I’d say the zoo was better, since it had a larger selection of animals and more variety.  Below is, in my opinion, one of the nicest pictures I took while at the zoo.

Last, but certainly not least, was our visit to what’s left of the Berlin wall, which for so long divided Germany into East and West.  I knew that if I didn’t do anything else while I was in Berlin, I couldn’t leave without seeing the remainder of the wall.  As I walked along both sides of the wall, I honestly couldn’t imagine that this wall, which is currently beautifully decorated by artwork, was a source of division. It was mind-boggling.  Non-tourists walked, biked, and drove past the wall without really looking at it, but for me, this was a piece of history that people will probably learn about forever and, once again, I just felt privileged to have been able to see this in person.  In the following picture you can see a glimpse of the wall from both the East and the West side.