Kelli in Madrid: Third Post

My most sincere apologies for having neglected the blog for a few weeks now. I’ll compensate by making sure I cover all the essential bases of the events since the last entry.

(Disturbing mixed messages on American culture)

Chapter One: The Language Factor.

As everyone promised me, it does all get easier. I’m sitting in that same rooftop cafe from which I wrote the first post, with a breathtaking view of the mountains, suburbs, and desert surrounding Madrid. And now instead of wanting to block out all the Spanish around me and covering it with familiar childhood country songs, I am confidently eavesdropping on the debate next to me about governments controlling the outcomes of the World Cup, though I still find it hard to care enough to actually sit down and watch the games. At least I’m aware enough to know Spain’s already out and the US still in. Don’t quote me on that. But the point is, I generally get what’s being said the majority of the time. Though it still takes an active mental effort to listen for the direct and indirect object pronouns and which way the verb is conjugated and in which tense, and often by the time I’ve successfully achieved that I realize the train of words left without me. It’s often more nerve-wracking to say basic expressions like “someone’s in here!” when someone knocks on the door of the bathroom or “we’re out of toilet paper” because I never know the most natural way to word it. But after a while you catch on to the fact that everybody generally words something in one order. I know I sound ridiculous most of the time, but I guess you just have to own it because while you’re still learning you have no other choice but to not speak at all and be the loner in the corner.

(Like this guy.)

Even after over a month living here though, I still can't help but often feel as if I'm walking up to people and sputtering complete gibberish. As if you're jumping off a diving board blindfolded and feel certain you'll land on cement. But you're surprised and quite pleased to find it's water when the recipient of your nonsense babble actually responds to you like a normal citizen. It's a repeatedly odd and uncomfortable process every single time you try out another expression. Mental cross-training is the most accurate analogy I can muster, because you need to exercise every facet of learning the new language. As my friend Laura the Spanish major says, sure, she could probably pick up any newspaper here and recount you what it's all about but when it comes to striking up conversation - man were we unprepared from the start.

Chapter Two: My Cumpleaños.

I turned twenty in Spain. My host family and I were actually watching “El Juego de Tronos” (Game of Thrones, if you didn’t yet guess it) at the moment of the European inauguration of my birthday, and if I remember correctly I was mobbed by kisses on the cheek and pulled by the lobes of my ears twenty times. Normal is relative, I suppose, since my family always went with the traditional birthday spankings and cakes that are actually just rectangular ice cream. Then after they'd all gone to bed I Skyped from the quiet confines of the bathroom with my own parents, grandparents, and cousin who were still just having dinner.

(Blurry but legit)

That afternoon I ran with our dog. She's slowly becoming an athlete. Then came back super sorprendida (surprised) that my host mom had made a special birthday lunch and cake for the occasion. Fast forward past working and then I kinda sorta went out that night and around 5AM was taking my usual half-hour late-night stroll back to the central bus station, the only form of transportation available past 1:30 despite the fact that Madrid could easily challenge New York in the realm of cities-that-never-sleep. I was sung the feliz cumpleaños theme song at least four times by packs of drunk adults. And that special day was to be followed by a semi-national four-day weekend, due to a Catholic holiday on Thursday and the "puente" (means bridge) that gives us Friday off. Which leads us to...

Chapter Three: BARCELONA!

This was our first trip as the full gang of six Michiganders, and we took full advantage of that four-day weekend by taking the seven-hour commute over to the renowned metropolis of Barcelona. It fascinates me how little civilization there really is to see when taking the winding highways to these destinations so far, because a lot of people have given me the impression that owning vast expanses of land in Europe is a very rare thing. I was rather thrilled to see some John Deere equipment scattered far and in between throughout the countryside. And the windmills! So much wind power being used here, I've been impressed. For both the trip there and back, we hitched rides through a website called BlaBlaCar, something I wouldn't seriously consider using back in the US. But in Europe it's a perfectly reasonable and the most cost-effective form of transportation to carpool with strangers, and both of our drivers were very kind and made sure we were comfortable the whole time. They also picked us up and dropped us off at the most convenient locations for us. I'm impressed by the idea of it and would like to see how effective it could be in the States, though based on what I've heard about how extremely extensive and expensive the process is to obtain a driver's license in European countries as opposed to our handing them out to any teenage punk with a quarter brain, I'd be less reluctant to trust the average European driver with solid reviews than an American.

Anyway, on the subject of the chapter's title, Barcelona was quite the beautiful, happening city. Certainly more modern than Madrid, it had much wider streets and newer buildings. The metro there seemed to be to some degree slower, less intuitive, and farther spread out in terms of location and arrival times. But I wouldn't be the expert because I basically walked the whole weekend, which I'd only recommended crazy people to do. The tourist attraction highlight I suppose would have to be the Sagrada Familia, an absolutely enormous cathedral whose design was taken over by Gaudi -yeah, that guy whose last name we English speakers use but haven't actually heard the reason why - back in the 1880s. You would think you'd just stepped into the Candy Land Ice Cream Castle. The trip would have been worth it just to finally be at a beach, and to now be able to claim to have swum in the Mediterranean Sea. More hours spent walking than sleeping on that trip, that's for sure.

Chapter Four: The Internship.

So I'm starting to actually feel like a functional and social member of my new workplace, once getting over that initial week of fears to casually talk to the people. In retrospect, that fear was uncalled for because most of them are students around my age are also "haciendo práctica", or doing internships. Took me several weeks before I actually got that expression right. I could go on for hours on words I consistently used without anyone having corrected me before I realize later how ridiculous it probably sounded to them.

But the first major task I had involved translating a 30-some-page rules handbook for an international Iberian-American design competition put on by my workplace, from Spanish to English of course. I'm sure everyone envies that, but in all serious I truly enjoyed getting to write in my mother tongue at work and actually still learning Spanish in the meantime. Then I spent a few days compiling a newsletter of event info and learning a bit of Photoshop, and now we are figuring out how to create a website with an inventory of all the past products for this year's participants to refer back to. I appreciate that practically every day at work I'm offered coffee and snacks, and the schedule is super flexible as long as we get our projects done.

Chapter Five: Because What's A Blog Post Without A Food Chapter.

Waiting for dinner. I thought it was challenging back at my dear co-op Luther House when dinner wasn't served until 7:30, but some nights I'll have barely eaten throughout the day and by the time 10:30 rolls around there's a 50% chance it's ready. But I've started to subside these issues by doing more grocery shopping (read: jars and jars of green olives, cucumbers, Pringles, and an even cheaper version of Ramen noodles). Groceries are such a great deal in Spain, even with the conversion rate! Maybe it's because I got used to seeing the rip-off small-portioned prices of the restaurants - although that is from a college student's perspective, and an American's at that since our portion sizes are rumored to be three times larger than necessary. But I'm really glad to have my breakfasts and dinners included by my host family, especially since being cooked for at night exposes me to dishes I otherwise more than likely would never have tried/made for myself.

One night when we weren't all eating together though, my host brother handed me a bowl of long green substances and proceeded to inform me that they were "aguilas" (eels). Since I had never before tried such cuisine, you can only imagine my excitement. And if you can't, refer to the following:

In my defense, it's easy to be gullible when you're constantly surrounded by novelties. But it turned out to be green spaghetti.

Oh, I also ate lion sausage!

Check up soon since this weekend's my first foreign Fourth of July AND my friend Laura and I are planning to go camping with the bulls. Peace out, cub scouts.

Mucho amor,
Kelli

Hannah - Madrid Week 7

Hi everyone,

Sagrada Familia

Last week the other students and I all went to Barcelona! Luckily, some of us got Friday off from work because of Corpus Christi and were able to leave a couple hours early. The first thing I did when I got there was go to the beach with an old friend from high school who was also in Barcelona to study Spanish. It was an amazing change from Madrid where it’s 10 degrees hotter and there aren’t any nearby bodies of water. Even though it was only June, the beach was full of people. In the typical vacation months of July and August, it apparently gets so crowded that it’s impossible to walk through the mass of beach towels and people.

The UofM gang

The next day, we planned to go to all the main tourist attractions: Sagrada Familia, Park Guell and Casa Batllo. The Sagrada Familia hasn’t been finished yet and won’t be until 2026, almost 150 years after Gaudi started working on it! Regardless, it was a beautiful basilica with a distinct, architectural style that I had never seen before. I’m not really an expert on architecture so it’s hard to even explain its unique features and it’s even hard to get a sense of the place through pictures. Park Guell seemed even more like a fairytale setting because some of the structures there had a cartoon-like quiality to them. There were buildings decorated as gingerbread houses and quirky sculptures of different animals. Further into the park, there is a balcony area where we could overlook most of Barcelona. The view appears in all the pictures of Barcelona on the Internet and postcards so it was rewarding finally to see it for myself. Though we made our way to Casa Batllo, another one of Gaudi’s work, we weren’t able to go in. Apparently the external part of the building is supposed to look like a dragon, but personally I thought the comparison was a bit of a stretch.

The ceiling...

Park Guell

Can you see the dragon?

The next day, we walked around the city, through its famous gothic neighborhood. Afterwards we headed to the beach one last time before heading back to Madrid. Overall, it was an amazing weekend in Barcelona! The only low point of the trip was when I opened my purse on Sunday to discover that my salmon sandwich had leaked all over my things. While I have a purse that now smells like salmon, I at least have some great memories of Barcelona!

Hasta luego,

Hannah

Alyssa Tender- Rabat week 5

This week there were two new high school volunteers at the main office so I spent the entire week at the Annex. The Annex is still in Rabat and mostly works with Migrants. There is a much smaller staff (3 people compared to 15) so I felt like I was really needed at the office, especially since the staff’s English and Arabic is limited. I was in charge of helping anyone who came into the office who only spoke Arabic or English.  In the afternoons, the office closes and we visit houses or organizations that specialize in helping the migrants. I helped lead condom workshops or STI information sessions.  None of the staff at the Annex are Muslim, so it will be interesting to see if my work hours will change because of Ramadan.  At most other non-profits the work day is much shorter during Ramadan.

 I am actually really excited for Ramadan. My host family has been cooking all week preparing different foods.  The nice thing about having a four year old host brother is that someone else will be eating during the day in the house. The family has told me multiple times that I am not expected to fast, but I would still feel bad being the only person eating in the house.

Preparing food for Ramadan 

Jaclyn, Cardiff - Week 7

Today brings me into Week 7 of my internship here with Admiral. It's crazy to think how much has been accomplished in only seven weeks....

I'm nearly done with my project. For those of you who don't know, I've been working on a project to implement online testing into Admiral's application process in order to improve the quality of people we recruit. My first week was spent researching in depth the different testing options available in the market and visiting several of the contact centre departments within Admiral that are often involved in the volume recruitment process. My second week was spent determining the different types of testing that would be appropriate for what we're looking for (the increased quality of candidates who make it through each stage of our volume recruitment process). I decided on 3 types of testing and moved to the next part of the project, which was researching the application processes of seven leading companies within the UK. I looked into what types of testing each of these seven companies included in their application processes and in what ways. From there, I participated in Admiral's Recruitment process first-hand in order to get a better sense of how the company recruits and where online testing options can be inserted. I completed the application and participated in a telephone interview that conducted by one of my co-workers!

After all this, I researched companies who possessed the three types of testing we were looking for and found 10 that seemed credible and capable of getting the job done. After researching these 10 a little bit deeper, I found five that I decided should be contacted. After contacting these five companies and speaking with representatives from each one, I invited four companies to come in and present what options they have to offer to myself, the Head of Recruitment, and several other decision-makers in Admiral's Recruitment process.

So far, we have had two companies come in and present and things are going wonderfully! The final two companies will come in on Thursday to present their options and then we will go from there!

It's crazy that all this has come together in 7 weeks. And, along the way, I've been doing even more things. I now conduct telephone interviews on a daily basis (I completed one today, and I have 5 to conduct tomorrow!). I have been working on a PowerPoint presentation of my Online Testing project for weeks in anticipation of a final presentation in front of Admiral's Recruitment higher-ups. Very exciting stuff! Last Wednesday, I spent the day at a Project Management Course. Funny because my project is nearly done! But I still learned some really valuable information...

In the last seven weeks, I also assisted with the facilitation of various Assessment Centres (the step after telephone interviews in the Recruitment process), handling applicants' right to work documents (including passports, national insurance numbers, birth certificates, etc.) and have completely revamped the presentation slides for five different Departments' Assessment Centres. Finally, I'm in the process of co-creating a cultural video with Amy, which is to be presented to Assessment Centre attendees the minute it's finished.

If all that can happen in just 7 weeks, I wonder what's going to happen in the next three!!

________________________________________________________________________

Now onto this past weekend's adventures....

Yesterday (Sunday), I went on a Treasure Trail! (http://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/) Essentially, it is a scavenger hunt that takes you all around whatever UK city you're in, showing you unique parts of the city in order to solve "clues." The Treasure Trail for Cardiff is a murder mystery. It took about an hour and a half to complete and took us all around the city! I saw a bunch of things I had passed by a million times, but never actually saw. It's crazy how things like that happen. Here are some of the pictures I took of all the sights we saw!

The clue told us to look for the words under
the Crowned Man!

The beautiful Bute Park

View of Cardiff Castle from Bute Park

One of the clues took us around the exterior of Millennium Stadium (the location of the Admiral Company Party a couple weekends ago). There are these cool mosaics on the ground for about 10-15 different countries. Very unique and very cool.

If you notice, there are symbols depicted of things that are representative for that country. For example, the US mosaic depicts a limo, French fries, a burger, baseball, Mickey Mouse, the Statue of Liberty, jazz music, an astronaut, etc. I thought it was so stereotypically funny! They nailed us to a T :)




Modern Art - one of the clues required us to look through
the bottom hole of the tomato!

View of Cardiff Castle



More fun to come this week/weekend. Can't wait to see how the meetings with the final two companies go on Thursday. And then celebrating the Fourth of July with my Welsh friends on Friday!!

Happy early Independence Day to everyone in the US. And to my British friends.... sorry for celebrating such a controversial holiday on your turf!! :)

Nabeel - Istanbul - Week 5

Kap A Doh Kia
Taken from my personal blog:
https://nabeelinturkorea.blogspot.com/
________________________________________________
Hello everybody! Like I said in my previous post I am sorry for the delay. A post about my Kapadokya trip is long overdue. Honestly, one of the reasons why I have put off posting this for a long time too is because of the difficulty filtering through the pictures and choosing which ones to include here because it is soo hard to describe the experience I had in just words and pictures.

Before I jump into the meat of my Kapadokya I trip I would just like to mention that one day after work we had gone to Taksim Square for dinner and encountered this peaceful protest on Istiklal Street.

Riot police were on standby in the off chance that peace turned into violence. I was smart enough to stay clear of any of these activities.

Now onto my weekend trip to Kapadokya. We (Boming, Jennifer, and I), the 3 Michigan interns at OzU spent two days there. It took 12 hours by charter bus to get to and from there. It was not so painful to go by bus because we were able to sleep for a majority of the time.

Day 1:
We arrived in the Kapadokya region in the morning and checked into our hotel. We were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the two guys that ran the hotel along with the beautifully decorated terrace.

cool old-fashioned key to our room :)

The hotel was conveniently named Terrace Hotel. We enjoyed a breakfast cooked by our wonderful hosts on the terrace. This accomodation ran us around 33 TL per night which was around $15 per night per person.

Our hosts were very helpful in helping us figure out the best way to make the most of our short 2 days in Kapadokya. There were two tours that were the most popular (red and green tour) and each one took basically the whole day. So it was decided that the first day we spend exploring places on the red tour and on day two we spend exploring the green tour. Our host mentioned that it was possible to do the red tour by scooter so I decided to rent one because it was cheaper than a guided tour and more of an adventure

On day 1 I completed the red tour without the help of a guide by scooter and on day 2 I was advised that the green tour was too much driving and harder to complete by scooter so I did a guided tour instead.

Rocking the vintage style helmet :)

The first place I visited was Çavuşin, a small but beautiful mountain-side town. Here you could find a beautiful landscape with a mix of cliffs, desert, and old mountainside cave dwellings.

After cavusin I rode up to avunos which was about a 20 km away. Other than the famous pottery there wasn't much else worth seeing so after looking at very collerful and exotic potter we headed down to pasabagi and zelve

This was a cave church. Talk about simple. 

Open air museum in Zelve. You can explore the cave houses carved out of the sides of the cliffs

This area of the town is popular for the mystical fairy chimneys also known as the weird mushroom shaped rock formations

In the devrent valley there were supposedly rock formations resembling different animals. This was the only one I could find, a rock camel. 

My last stop on the tour was the goreme open air museum. This is the most popular museum in the area.

I made it back to the hotel by 530 pm in the evening. I had skipped out on lunch and breakfast so I was really hungry by that time. I made it my next task to find dinner and my trip would not have been complete without the famous Testi Kebap:

Its customary for the waiter to break open the clay jar in front of you with a short saber

After dinner we explored one of the main cliffs of the town in which you can see many beautiful panoramas. This was the view of the city at night.

Just taking some silly pictures in a rug shop with a traditional kapadokyan headdress on.

Day 2:

On day 2 we woke up at 4am to catch the launching of many hot air balloons. Kapadokya is famous for its balloon tours but instead of coughing up 200 USD we just went to where we watched the sunset to watch the balloons and sunrise

panoramic view. It was amazing seeing how precise the balloon pilots were in their flights. It's crazy how close to the rocks the balloons are floating.

Definitely worth waiting for 2 hours after 4am for the view. Had a great nap back at the hotel afterwards.

We woke up promptly at 830 am to depart for our guided green tour. I am glad I took the guided tour because the destinations of this trip were very far from where we were. It would have been very hard to navigate on my own.

Cool tree decorated with eyes of nazar. These are very popular in middle eastern and western asian countries. The folklore behind it is that they soak up all negative energy aimed towards you or your home.

This was a yemekhane, or cafeteria in one of the underground cities

Then we went for a hike in one of the famous valleys. We walked for about 3km down stream to where we would have lunch.

The restaurant at the end of our hike where we had lunch had this shelters where you could literally eat on top of the water

Then with no surprise we visited another place with more cave dwellings. This place was pretty nice because there were less tourists and more secluded.

After our tour we went to "Turkish Night" organized by one of the restaurants in Avanos. It consisted of traditional Turkish food and many shows, including a whirling dervish ceremony.

Turkish Night was the last activity of our Kapadokya Trip. We woke up the next morning at 8am to catch our 10hr bus ride back to Istanbul. This was by far my favorite trip in Turkish. It was an excellent mix of nature hikes, history, and Turkish culture. I could have definitely spent another 2-3 days further exploring the area.

When I was in Kapadokya my sister had also arrived to Istanbul. She is spending six weeks teaching English and working in a hospital. I was able to meet up with her a couple of times after I returned during the very little free time I had between work and my travel. Nonetheless, it was fun spending time with her and showing her around Turkey (as if I knew everything about Istanbul).

PS I have one more experience from Turkey (Antalya) to share with you before I begin to share my South Korean experiences so please bear with me. I'll hopefully make the antalya post a bit shorter than this one :)