Tag Archives: sports

Field Trips and Rugby

This is way over due but geoblog/ possibly the internet provider here has not wanted to let me upload pictures lately. It just sits there forever and doesn’t process my request for some reason. I’ve been able to put a few pictures on but that’s all. But anyway…

I’d have to say last week was rather tame minus a few hick-ups and fun activities.

The first fun event to take place involved a field-trip in my Management class to a dairy farm to check out their water usage and to see how they are using the river that cuts through it to generate their own power. On this little excursion to the end of the 10 kilometer long farm we traversed some less than safe and rather narrow unpaved roads of sand and dirt in a bus. Up and down several hills with no guard rails with a river on one side and a gully on the other. But the fun didn’t happen until we come down one hill onto a patch of road of pure sand. Though the bus had managed to make it way that far the sand provided unstable enough ground for its left side to slip down into a sizable ditch and completely beach the bus.

Of course I happened to be sitting on the left side next to a friend of mine, who was closest to the window, and proceeded to jump into my lap when the bus started to go down. With everyone screaming and the emergency alarm going off the professor simply told us to get off the bus via the main door and we would continue the field trip…

Needless to say I was completely shocked that the trip continued because I know in the States that would have been the end of it for sure. Instead we left the driver with the bus and continued on for four hours around the farm before one van showed up taking only 15 guys, who all rudely rushed forward without a caring that they were the only ones who got to leave, before taking off. It was another hour until another bus showed up to take the rest of us and a backhoe belonging to the farm owner came to pull out the first bus.

But before we left I did get a glimpse at the bus flipped on its side completely in the ditch. The sand had given way under the pressure of the bus so the bus had kept going. The professor was not too keen on us getting shots of the bus in that condition though.

This past Saturday I got a chance to go to a Canterbury Crusaders game. The stadium was irreparably damaged in last year’s earthquake so the team had nowhere to play until this temporary stadium was made. (There are currently plans being made to build a bigger permanent stadium in another location) It was really interesting to get to see a live game and the differences in how kiwi’s act at sporting events compared to Americans.

The Crusaders played against the Cheetahs from South Africa. I could safely say that I did not see a single person in clothes representing the South African team. There was just a field of red and black and the whole stadium was sold out. Before the game started a Calvary of knights on horses (The Crusaders) came galloping across the field, waving their swords about and pumping up the crowd. Free team flags had been handed out at the gate so it was a challenge to get a good shot of the riders without catching a corner of a flag, everyone was really excited.

The big differences between American sporting events and New Zealand ones game about when the other team made a try (goal). At Penn State football game, for example, if the other team scored everyone would have booed and shouted how awful the other team was. But here when the other team scores everyone claps. Like saying “good job on getting closer to beating us,” but really it’s just amazing sportsmanship. The same thing also happened when the referee would make a call against The Crusaders. At a Penn State game everyone would have booed and shouted obscenities but here everyone claps.

In the end The Crusaders won (28 to 21) and fireworks/ celebratory torches were shot off and everyone was quite happy and filed out in an orderly fashion. There was no rush, no fights and no yelling. When people bump into one another they say “sorry” and give way. The atmosphere just seemed so calm and relaxed.

Location: Christchurch, New Zealand

1 week down

I’ve been here a few days and it has definitely been a really interesting transition. Not too many massive differences but enough to make it so weird so I’m going to share some of them and the flow of the last couple days.

I live in Stevens hall and my flat (like an apartment/ floor) consist of only 5 people including myself. 4 girls and 1 boy. There was supposed to be another boy moving in but he never showed up. Oddly enough everyone in this flat ended up being Americans even though the rest of the whole building is either kiwi’s (natives) or Europeans. This school does not do roommates which is a little different from Penn State where you have to request a single. So there are a little over 2,000 students here about 50% being international and everyone has a single room. Each room has one power outlet which I thought was rather interesting, I ended up needing to buy a power strip, and it has its own switch that is supposed to be turned over when not being so used so power stops flowing to it entirely.

Lincoln is also really big on recycling and composting used materials and food. There are recycling bins everywhere you look and at meals all food and drinks go into a bucket and is then carted off to be composted.

Public transit is really big around here so as soon as we got here the RA (Claire) suggested we get a pass to get into town. There aren’t even school buses around here, either kids ride bikes or they get onto the public bus in large groups. It’s well-known that the school kids all sit in the back all together and adults sit in the front when school is let out. It’s also not uncommon for the driver to let kids off right at their driveway.

I have always considered myself a big environmentalist and want to improve the way people treat the world around them so to see that in New Zealand that so many environmentally positive things are a norm is really refreshing.

I’ve spent the past couple of days attending events on campus that the school organizes so people can get to know each other (one of the benefits to a small school.) The one I enjoyed the most had to be the “Silly Sports Day” yesterday where all the halls made up teams and played football (soccer), ultimate frisbee and volleyball. My hall did really well and we managed to take 3^rd in ultimate frisbee, 2^nd in volleyball and 1^st in football.

I also managed to find myself in a rugby tournament this week with another girl from my hall. We ended up being the only girls there and because of us they had to change it to be a touch rugby game. It turned out not to be that hard to figure out how to play but hard to be good. Thus, the boys ended up playing around us more than with us and I still ended up getting hit pretty hard a few times by boys twice my size and will be feeling it for days.

(Don’t worry I did catch the ball)

It’s also rather common for people to walk around barefoot. Kids get on the bus barefoot, go to meals, stores, class and play sports all without shoes or socks. I’ve tried it a few times but without built up callouses it can get a little painful walking along the sidewalks or gravel.

The school also organized a little bus tour around Christchurch and some of the neighboring towns to help us understand more of the layout of the area. We got a chance to see one of the beaches where they give surfing lessons, which I plan on doing very soon, downtown Christchurch and some of the damage that took place last year.

Flowers in the cones in honor of those lost in the earthquake a year ago.

This area sustained the most damage from the quake last year. It caused the cliffs to fall apart along the edges and thus brought the backs of houses down with it.

Classes start tomorrow so the hope is that it will be a great chance to meet some more people and make some good friends. Oddly enough I’m considered a sociology and tourism major here since they don’t have Community, Environment and Development. I must say I do enjoy the way their schedule is set up because Monday, Tuesday and Thursday are the only days I have all my classes, Wednesday I only have one and Friday I’m free which I have learned is not abnormal.

So I will be sure to post soon and talk about classes and meeting more people here.

Till then stay beautiful everyone.

Location: Christchurch, New Zealand

My Girona

I apologize for the gap between blog posts. The past few weeks I have been extremely busy with schoolwork and exploring Barcelona.

It was another exciting weekend in Barcelona. The thing I like most about this city is that there are so many different things that you can do here. I haven’t even explored the beach yet now that the weather is getting better. I guess that is my goal in the upcoming weeks. Unfortunately the school work is starting to pile up, and it seems that every day I lose more and more of my free time.

Thursday, February 24, I went to RCD Espanyol’s stadium with my Sport and Society in Spain class. Espanyol is the other, less known soccer team in Barcelona. If you didn’t know, the term “soccer” is never said here in Spain, or even in Europe. Europeans always refer to soccer as football. The stadium was very, very nice, having been constructed in 2009. The tour started off with a 3-D movie about the club’s history. After the movie, we got to see the home team’s locker room, which was very nice and clean. The highlight of the visit was when we were allowed to go on the pitch (the field) and sit on the team’s bench. We weren’t supposed to step on the grass, but some rules were meant to be broken…

Friday the 25th was an interesting day for me. I made a last minute decision to go on a free field trip sponsored by my Sustainability class. The field trip was to Can Masdeu, a former leper hospital that became a squatted settlement and is now home to ecologists and activists who live off of the land. They build things completely from recycled materials. For example, they use a bicycle to run a washing machine instead of using electricity. They built a dry bathroom from used materials that they gathered around the community and in Barcelona. It was a very interesting trip and I learned a lot. The hospital that the 20 members of the settlement live in is very dilapidated, but they make the best of it. I found the whole place to be very cool. It was an old hospital surrounded by gardens, in the middle of a mountain, with a great view of the city of Barcelona. It is truly amazing what people can do with so little materials. Unfortunately, it was a little awkward because I was the only student from the class who showed up, so it was just my professor and me on a 4 hour field trip together. I hope he gives me some extra credit for that!

Saturday, the 26^th of February, was another long day. My friend Molly and I set out in the morning to catch a train to the nearby city of Girona. I had heard it was very easy to purchase a ticket at the train station, but naturally nothing is ever as easy as people say it is. It took so long to figure out how to buy a ticket that we missed our train. Once we finally found an employee who spoke a little bit of English, we discovered that we had an hour to kill until the next train. We explored the area near the train station and found a really cool city park. It was really pretty even though the water was a nauseating color of green. This park even had a giant metal dragon that doubled as a slide. Because I still have the mind of a twelve year old, I was enthralled with this dragon. I couldn’t believe how fast you went down the slides! It was a lot of fun, even though the whole thing smelled like urine and I’m pretty sure homeless people slept in the dragon.

The train ride lasted about an hour and a half, and showed us some of the countryside of Spain. When we got off the bus, we ran into two other kids who are studying with us at IES and the 4 of us joined forces for the adventure. Girona is a very interesting city. It has residential buildings that tower over a canal-like river.

The buildings are very colorful and the river is nearly still, which allows for a unique reflection of the buildings in the river. Throughout the history of the city, it was home to Romans, Moors, and Jews. Influences from each of these inhabitants are present in the city to this day, which makes for interesting multi-cultural sightseeing. There is an Arab bathhouse, which was really just some ruins. Since I like archaeology, I was intrigued by the old architecture of the bathhouse and the artifacts that remained. There was a beautiful iglesia, or church, which had many shrines and a cloister. We also walked through the Jewish Quarter. The streets were so tiny and beautiful with flowers and vines hanging from the balconies above. The streets and walkways seemed to disappear into the buildings as they wound through the city. We then walked to the top of the fort structure that overlooked all of the city. It was so beautiful with the mountains in the background. After that we walked along the “Great Wall of Girona”. It is a fortified wall that surrounds the old city of Girona. I don’t know the real name of the wall, but it reminded me of the great wall of China, only not as great. After walking along the wall, we finally found our way to the Catedral de Girona, which was a truly impressive Cathedral. Unfortunately, I got scolded for taking a picture and disrupting the sanctity of the cathedral. I’m Catholic, so I was offended that I couldn’t take pictures of how ornate everything looked. There were about 25 shrines surrounding the altar. Each shrine either contained a sarcophagus or a gold altar piece from another church. After exploring the cathedral for a little bit, and being denied entrance to the bell tower, we decided to head home. On the way home, we made a pit stop at the Cinema Museum. This museum charted the first hundred years or so of film. It was fascinating to see the way film progressed. Being somewhat of a film and cinema geek, I really enjoyed looking at all of the antique cameras and recorders and video boxes. After spending a long time in the film museum, we hopped on a train back to Barcelona.

On Sunday, I went to my first Spanish movie theater. My “Contemporary Spanish Film” teacher challenged us with viewing a movie in Spanish, in a Spanish cinema, and writing a review about it. I had never watched a foreign movie without subtitles before, so I knew it was going to be an experience. I bought my ticket and the guy at the ticket booth mumbled something in Spanish to me. I just replied “Si,” and headed into the theater. Well, apparently in Spain they give you an assigned seat in the theater. I should have realized this when I saw people getting kicked out of the seats by others. I was sitting in a nearly empty row in the middle of the theater. About two minutes after the movie starts, I see two older ladies walk into my row and I just rolled my eyes. Of course, I was sitting in their seats. They refused to sit anywhere else in a nearly empty theater. They insisted on sitting in the seat I was sitting in. So I had to crawl over people to find a new seat somewhere in the theater that would not be occupied. It was very annoying and the language barrier was frustrating. The movie was Tamien La Lluvia which in English is “Even The Rain.” It was an excellent movie, from what I understood. I enjoyed going to the theater, but I would appreciate subtitles.

This weekend also marked the end of the time of “Rebaixes” or sales period. For two months, nearly every retail store in BCN offered great deals on clothes. So on the last day of the sales, I took advantage of it and made some interesting purchases (including a V-neck). Still not so sure how I feel about that one…

I’m a little bit behind on my blogging, so I am going to write three one-week installments to catch up instead of writing an incredibly long and ponderous post.

Hasta Luego!

~Sean

Location: Girona, Spain

Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole…Pato, Pato!

Tonight I saw my first European football game, Serie A showdown of #1 AC Milan vs. #3 Napoli! Having been to every Penn State home football game for the past three years (plus every home game versus OSU and Michigan for the past 5 years), I thought I had a pretty good idea of what a loud stadium and electric environment was like. Wow was I wrong.

The common message out of Europe has always been that Americans have no idea about the passion and intensity that European football fans have towards their favorite teams. While this is typically combated with the passion displayed by American college football fans, in reality it is not even close. San Siro Stadium on Monday night, the home stadium to both AC Milan and Inter Milan, was the loudest environment I have ever experienced. While the student sections at places such as PSU, LSU, Florida, and Alabama give them a run for their money, the passion shown by the adult crowd is absolutely amazing. In Italy, being a fan of a football team is not a passing interest, but something that defines you. In a place where fans are let out of the stadium according to which team they root for, where riot police line the stadium and walk up from our apartment, and where fans were banned from attending games for an entire year for throwing flares in the stands and onto the field, football is serious business in Italy.

Featuring two of the top teams in the Italian league, this game featured some great soccer and resulted in a 3-0 AC victory. I would recommend to everyone studying abroad in any European city to go to at least one game, even if you don’t like football or sports, just to experience the crazy atmosphere. I can’t wait until the next one, hopefully Champions League!

Location: San Siro Stadium, Milano, Italy

Super Bowl in Milan

When I left for Italy, one of my more minor concerns about spending a semester abroad in Europe was possibly missing out on a great American holiday, the Super Bowl. Each year, every red-blooded American tunes in to watch the ultimate in event in American sports. Whether your favorite team is involved or not, it is almost sacrilegious as an American to not watch this great spectacle. I was particularly concerned because my hometown Steelers were headed to playoffs and a possible trip in Dallas in February. However, for anyone studying abroad in Milan, have no fear as several places in the city showed the game (If you are staying in Rome, there is an entire Steelers Bar!)

Fiori Oscuri and Bar Magenta both hosted large Super Bowl parties so that Americans in Milan could still experience the game. My roommates, friends, and I went to Fiori Oscuri, a sports bar owned and operated by an American from Texas who has lived in Italy for 18 years, and watched the game with fellow college students studying in Milan, as well as ex-pats living in the city. With perhaps the most cliche American menu ever, (4 options: Cheeseburger, 2 Hot Dogs, Chicken Strips, or Chicken Quesadilla, each served with fries) it was like watching the game in America. The only downside was that we were not able watch any of the famous Super Bowl commercials, since the broadcast we got included analysis of the game during each commercial break.

Even though I was disappointed in the result, I had a great time watching the game. Its really true when they say that Steelers fans are everywhere as a good portion of the bar was filled with Pittsburgh fans from back in the States. I even met 3 Americans from Pittsburgh who now live in Milan. One woman actually participated in the exact same IES study abroad program 9 years ago and has lived in Milan for the past 2 years. Small world.

Here is picture of one of my good friends in the program and I showing off our Steelers Pride:

Gotta give a shout out to Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. Great game. Classy guy and classy organization. As far the Steelers are concerned, the “Stairway to Seven” continues.

Location: Fiori Oscuri, 4, Milano, Italy

On Beijing

It’s currently 11:30 AM here in Dalian. We arrived on an overnight train early this morning and are taking a short break before heading out to tour the city. While I have some downtime, I want to reflect on the trip so far and the crash course our class took through Beijing.

The approximately 13 hour flight from Newark to Beijing seemed pretty much as long as it sounds. I had time to watch 4 movies, listen to about 3 full albums, and take a decent nap. Our flight path took us within 60 miles of the North Pole, though I had an aisle seat so I did not get a chance to open the window and look at all the ice. We arrived in Beijing and our passports were checked in one of the world’s largest terminals. After dropping our bags at the hotel, we headed out for a hot pot dinner. I had experienced a hot pot meal once before in the U.S., but never a hot pot meal where pig brain was an option. Feeling slightly jet lagged and completely exhausted, I decided not to be adventurous and went with what I thought was beef, but later found out was lamb.

The following day marked the beginning of our adventures through Beijing, beginning with Tienanmen Square. Mao Zedong, who is seen in the U.S. as a controversial former communist leader, is essentially worshiped here.

This is his mausoleum. The building is massive and citizens buy flowers to present as an offering before entering the viewing room.

Following Tienanmen Square, we visited China’s National Center for the Performing Arts. The building is the largest dome structure in the world, and contains multiple theaters. It seemed as though no expense was spared during the structure’s construction; everything was modern and clean.

The following day we toured the Forbidden City. Even before entering, the massive walls guarding the city displayed just how powerful and wealthy the Chinese dynasties were. The Imperial garden was breathtaking. Some of the trees were over 300 years old, and I was amazed by the size of the rocks moved into the garden. Every building was painted with meticulous detail and used bright reds, blues, greens, and yellows to give the structures a very regal appearance. This style is seen in nearly all ancient Chinese architecture, but each building has its own purpose and meaning, and each structure really is its own work of art.

I took a particular interest in the various sculptures seen throughout the ancient sites we visited. Most important buildings seemed to have a pair of sculptures or statues to the right and left of the entrances. The lion statues are the only animals which are noticeably different from one another. The lion on the right is female, which can be noted by the lion cub under its paw. The lion on the left is the male, and has a decorative ball under its paw rather than the cub. Although I believe most are for decoration some served as large incense burners during celebrations. I tried to get at least one photo of each of these statues.

The air in Beijing was far from clear. The smog began to dull vision at only a few hundred feet. This was most obvious when we visited the Great Wall. The wall itself was impressive, but the smog prevented us from observing the distant hills and mountains.

The olympic park was our next stop. The Bird’s Nest was extremely impressive and the its design is unlike any building I have seen. Although it looks absolutely massive from the outside, it seats fewer people than PSU’s Beaver Stadium.

The following day we visited the Summer Palace. This massive garden contains a huge manmade lake and some extremely intricate structure design. One of my favorite pictures I’ve taken so far this trip is of the ceiling in a gazebo type structure located within the palace garden.

We ended our stay in Beijing with a trip to the Temple of Heaven and a city street on which foods such as scorpion and centipede could be purchased.

All in all I really liked Beijing. I generally am not one to enjoy city life; I prefer open fields and trees to busy streets and skyscrapers, but Beijing is one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to. Even though nearly 22 million people live there, the layout allows the sidewalks to be less crowded than sidewalks in New York City. Buildings aren’t jammed one right against another, they are spread over a huge area leaving space for sculptures and gardens to be scattered throughout the entire city. Although we only had a few days to spend in Beijing, it has become one of my favorite cities.

Location: Beijing, China

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