Student Activities Blogs

Andrea Lama

The Beginning of the End!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

So everyone, Monday officially started the third term of the school year here at Warwick, and my last term abroad. Before coming back to school to start studying for finals, I traveled a lot on my ridiculously long 5-week Easter break.

Right after it started, I headed to Berlin on a "blind-booking." One of the coolest and most stressful ways to schedule holidays, "blind-booking" is sort of a roulette wheel of internet booking. The website we used gave us five or six categories, like shopping, culture, skiing, etc. Then, once you pick a category, each one has eight or so cities that you could be sent to…completely randomly. And the best/worst part is that you don’t know where you’re going until after you’ve paid for the tickets. We picked "culture" and after telling us which days we would go, we found out that our options were all incredible. Berlin, Barcelona, Rome, London, Prague, Vienna, Bucharest, all of these cities were on the list. After clicking "submit payment"...ta-da! Berlin! At first, I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed when all the other options were so amazing, but after going, I don’t regret it at all.

Berlin was amazing. Even though it was a little cold, as it was March, it was a great time. We saw the Berlin wall, the Holocaust memorial, the Dom, and lots of museums and fancy government buildings. While there was a little bit of a language barrier (primarily in menus), Berlin was one of my favorite cities so far in Europe.

The Berlin Wall

Then, I went to London to meet my family who came to visit! We went all around London, to see the Tower Bridge, the Parliament Buildings, and the London Zoo! While the Zoo was neat, particularly the Reptile House (I’ll admit it, I like Harry Potter!), the trip’s fun was dampened a bit when a bird pooped on my brand new jacket. My mother said that is a sign of good luck in Chile, but I’m not sure if I believe it. Since I didn’t win the lottery immediately afterwards, I guess that one bird just didn’t like me. After London, my parents, sister, and I went to Paris to see all the sights there. The Louvre was incredible, even though it was the third time I’d seen it, every time got better! After the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Elysees, we took the train back to England to visit the White Cliffs of Dover. Those were by far the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Just like the pictures of them, the cliffs were straight down, bright white, and beautiful. Complemented with cloudy skies and the typical British weather, the air didn’t smell like sea water, was completely void of that salty bite that curls and frizzes my hair. Horses and the sheep lazily grazed on the edge of the cliffs, almost as though they had no idea they were there. Out of anywhere else in England, I’d go back to the cliffs in a heartbeat.

After my parents left, I jetted to Brussels, to then see the tulip and flower fields near Amsterdam. There were streaks of colored flowers for miles, looking in photos like someone dragged magic markers across the page. There were hundreds of different kinds of flowers, and while my distinguishing abilities are limited solely to color, I am pretty sure I snapped a photo of at least half of the variations. After a day of flower-photographing, I then left for Barcelona for the weekend!

Barcelona has an energy about it that I haven’t found in any other city anywhere in the world. Everything there is so colorful, so much louder than the usual gray and black facades of other cities. The markets were my favorite places. One market was an open-air cultural market, one row of tents housing ethnic food from beer to Tibetan food, with another row housing crafts and hand-made valuables for sale. Another market was the local food market, open every day except Sunday. Incredibly crowded, almost to the point of claustrophobia, there were sections for every major ingredient. There was a section with seafood vendors where the lobster legs still wiggled with life, a section of people who sold fruit and mouth-watering fresh smoothies, and another of those who sold meat, where pig heads stared you down and beef stomachs lied inside-out next to tongues and kidneys. Of course I ate paella until I almost exploded, and when I wasn’t walking around the city or touring Cathedrals like the Sagrada Familia, I was lying on the beach, skipping rocks on the Mediterranean, eating a kilo of cheap strawberries, and taking naps.

The Mediterranean

Now I’m back at school, getting ready for finals that are at the end of May, and after that, back home to reunite with UConn in the fall! I really like it here, and am a little bit nervous about going back! One thing is for sure though, I miss HOLDUP! like my own bed and my mother’s cooking. Speaking of which, I’d like to take this time to personally congratulate HOLDUP! on winning the Student Life Award for Organization Community Service! You all deserve it and the amount of work you’ve all put into the great program that is HOLDUP! is greatly appreciated by those at UConn and the students you serve outside our community. And, I miss you!

I’ll keep you updated as my studies progress! Stay in touch!