Lochness odjuret, har det hittat ett nytt hem?

Är det en val som hamnat fel?

Eller är det någon källa som sprutar vatten?

Runt om nätet här i Storbritannien sprider sig nu rykten, filmer och bilder på vad det egentligen är som sprutar vatten i en översvämmad galoppbana. Men vi kanske ska börja från början, innan vi drar några förhastade slutsatser.

River Severn, Storbritanniens längsta flod. Med sina 354 km räcker sig river Severn från Wales till Bristol och mynnar så småningom ut i Themsen. Men riktigt så långt söderut ska vi inte, vi tar ett stopp i den lilla staden där jag numera bor och där ryktena sprider sig. Worcester. River Severn flyter genom vår lilla stad och delar in staden i en vacker oas. Men ibland kommer det till den punkten då barriärerna man har satt upp för att hindra vattnet från att stiga inte hjälper och regnet fortsätter dundra ner. Då är det bara ett faktum, översvämning. Parkbänkarna som står längs promenadvägen syns knappt och trapporna som leder till roddklubbarna är borta, täckta av vatten. Vackert intill denna flod ligger en galoppbana, en stor bana med ett perfekt läge intill både stad och flod. Men floden kan ställa till det, som det har gjort nu. Numera är galoppbanan en sjö med små byggnader som syns i mitten. Här bor nu alltså Lochness, en val eller något helt annat. Vad exakt lär vi väl få reda på när vattnet har försvunnit. Sakta men säkert försvinner vattnet, men det vet man ju inte hur länge det håller sig. England är ju känt för sina 365 dagar med regn. 😉

Förutom vår stads nya mysterium så flyter livet på. 3 veckor har snart passerat och jag har kommit tillrätta i både rum, universitet och stad. Jag har hittat mina egna små smultronställen i staden dit jag kan gå för att få några timmars lugn och ro, drömma mig bort eller tänka tillbaka på det man saknar där hemma.

3 veckor in, betyder även 2 veckor in i terminen och nu börjar förberedelserna för 4 uppsatser som ska in lagom till påsk. Nu börjar läsningen, pluggandet och skrivandet. Men jag försöker att ha något att göra varje helg och på kvällarna för att inte bli uppslukad av universitet. Jag spelar badminton två dagar i veckan, går på högmässa i domkyrkan varje söndag och sociala kvällar och helger med nyfunna vänner runt om från världen. När man håller sig sysselsatt blir hemlängtan lite mindre.Under de kommande 6 veckornas dagar existerar endast 4 uppsatser. Men det lär bli bra uppsatser då jag studerar väldgt intressanta kurser. 🙂

Until next time. <3

Wow. What a fantastic week! Fascinating lectures covering everything from different aspects of  sustainable agriculture, post-war reconstruction in rural areas, to the effects climate change has on rural development.

We also got to visit a cultural, village in a rural area; Kepuhsari, also known as Wayang village from the traditional shadow puppets they create. UNESCO recognises the art as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and it has been part of the Javanese culture since the 8th century. During our visit we were given a guided tour through the village, were invited to javanese food, and got to try our hands at either creating Wayang puppets, Wayang glass painting, or playing the traditional Gamalan instruments. As a finale we were treated to a full Wayang puppet show. All in all, a fantastic day!

A man creating Wayang puppets outside his home

Let the show begin!

However, we also got to see the darker side of Java. You cannot have sustainable development without the environmental aspect, and one of the biggest problems on Java today is the trash disposal. We visited the Bandung City Dump Sarimukti. This is where all the trash from Bandung area ends up as landfill. No real sorting is done beforehand, everything is just dumped here, creating mountains of trash. People then make their living sorting through the trash by hand, gathering what’s valuable and reselling it. They make their houses as close to the trash as possible, to be able to be the first ones on site when the garbage trucks arrive. Doing this they make the equivalent of 4 USD per day (according to the world bank, 1.90 USD per day is the limit for what is considered extreme poverty). It was incredibly difficult to witness.

Trash to the left, houses to the right…

To end on a positive note, we also got to be part of some truly amazing cultural performances. They put on a fantastic show with various traditional dance styles, and we all got to play the traditional instrument Angklung together 🙂

Traditional dance with feathers…

…and with plates. Ending with this guy smashing his two plates and jumping on the broken pieces!

Angklung concert

The academic part of the conference was summarized during the Role-play exercise, where participants were divided into working groups and was asked to provide recommendations regarding sustainable  development of Wayang village. Each group focused on a certain area like environment, infrastructure or business and trade. In the end, each proposals was discussed and debated on, with some really tough negotiations when it came to expected budget and success measurements. This exercise allowed us to practice our public speaking skills, also serving as an excellent way to summarize our experience and make an attempt to help the villagers who were so kind to host and welcome us.

The closing moments of the conference were indeed memorable thanks to cultural performances where participants from each country had a chance to present their national music and dances. For instance, Helene and Cecilia introduced a traditional Midsommmarfest song, which received a truly warm welcome. The closing ceremony also became an award ceremony, with certificates handed to all participants. Summarizing the roleplay debates, teachers also came up with several additional nominations, among them Best Spokesperson award handed to our Yegor Vlasenko.

The evening after the closing ceremony became a time for socializing, fun and last good-byes. Next morning we took a bus that brought us to busy Jakarta, where we had our flight back to Sweden.

Because my internet crashed weeks ago I haven’t been able to post the post I wanted about my  stay here in Genova from October, so I will post it not. Better late than never? 🙂

The last weeks since my last blog has been bissy, in a good way. I try to plan my work so that a sometimes can go on trips, like a did for two weekends ago, I went to Florence, the city of beautiful art! I had really high expectations about Florence and of course I was more than contect with all the museums, places to visit, exhibitions, churches etc, but just to walk in as a city it was not really what I had expected.

Even if this was I the middle of October there was a lot of tourists. I had the opportunity to buy a special museum card so I didn’t have to stand in line, which saved me a lot of time, but still it was very crowded at the streets and in the restaurants. It was quite expensive to I think but definitely worth a visit. It was a special feeling to visit some of the famous places and in real life see so so famous paintings, statues etc. I felt really lucky to have this kind of experience. I went there over the weekend and I thought that I on Sunday morning should go to Galleria Dell’Academia to see David by DA VINCI. When I came there was so many tourists, even this early morning, but I thought: “I can’t leave Florence without visit and taking a picture of David, it is impossible”. So ofcourse I went in to this crowded place and got my pictures!

In total, at 2½ day I visited totalt 25 museum, exhibitions and churches, but YES it was difficult! J

I also had the opportunity to visit the Cinque Terre which are very famous here in the north of Italy. It is five beautiful small fishing villages which small colourful houses by the sea, fantastico! Usually iy is possible to walk between the villiages, it is not that far, but when I went some roads were closed, unfortunately. I had to take the train but it only took some minutes, but there was big problem with the trains that morning so I had to wait forever with of course A LOT of other tourists. Even if the tourist season starts to calme down, I thought there was a lot of tourists and it was not really suitable for this small villiages, but nothing to do with that. Instead I tried to make sure that I was one step ahead the groups! I became a little as a sport! The names of the villages are: Riomaggioare, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazze and Monterosso. My favourites were Riomaggiore and Manarola!

Now when I’m writing this I’m sitting on the morning train to Milano, and the surroundings has started to get some autumn colour, it is really beautiful! Thankfully in Genova we are stille blessed with good and nice weather most of the time. For some days now it has been a blue sky with any clouds and 20+. Belissima!

Ciao!

It might not have happened a lot since my last blog, but I have to say I really enjoy my time here in Genoa. The weather has been great today, hot, sunny without any cloud in the sky, absolutely perfect, took a cup of caffe at my terasse and enjoyed the view and sun, belissima, real life quality!

I’m doing my internship at two places, in a school and in a cooperative and I like the change in the work. Something in common for both places is of course the children, between the age of 6 to 15 in total. Every one is unique and all have their own experiences and personalities! I have to take the bus to the school, usually when I start at 8 am I take the bus 7:15, at latest, and by then the traffic is okay. If you wait to 8 à clock, the traffic jams are horrible! Not worth waiting for so long time for being late on a bus full (and then I mean really full) of people. No, my neighborhood is very quite in the morning, sleeping for a long time, so I think it is really nice to go out to the bus when most of the people are still sleeping and the Foccacerias are just opening. The smell of this lovely new fresh baked bread is like heaven, irresistible.

I have bought a tv for some company and for watching movies. There is a big library here called Berio where it is possible to rent movies for free, especially older Italian movies, really good! a good idea when I want to practice my Italian, I can have the subtitles or language on Italian! Right now I’m watching a chines history movie, great, but the only language was Chinese and the only subtitle available was Chinese or Italian, thought Italian was the best option…. 🙂

Tomorrow I will take the train to Florence and stay there over the weekend, I think it is going to be absolutely perfect and I’m really excited!

I will post some pictures from the Rolli Day event and hopefully after the weekend, I will quick upload pictures from Florence!

 
Ciao!

So, I wrote her last term also, when I was visiting Vilnius in Lithuania for a half years of studies.

This term I’m doing my “socionompraktik” internship here in Genoa, Italy. I arrived for about one and a half week ago but it feels like lot longer ago. Genoa is a big city, all people say different things about the population, from 700 000 to 1 000 000 miljon habitans in the Genoa-area. Even though it is a big city, the historical center and the historical parts of the city is one of the biggest in Europe. I live in the old Historic Center where the streets are really smalled, in italian called “vico”. It different from the streets I use to know in Malmö and some times it really reminds you of “Lady and Lufsen” – the Disney movie.

So what do I do here in Genoa? I have to mainly places where I do my internship, first at a home for children and secondly on a school a little bit outside the city center where I observ the integration of children with special needs and are supporting the teachers in the english courses.
Yet, the students hasn’t arrived because the school starts official about some days. But I’m looking forward to meet the kids in the school.

So until now, I have most been at the structure as we call the home and visited different meetings at the school. I also had the opportunity to do my own sightseeings here in the city, which I needed because it is really easy to take the wrong street when you visit the historic center. There is a big aquarium in Genoa, some people says it is famous in Europe, i don’t know but it was nice to visit. I also started to drink the italian coffe which is lovely!!!

In Genoa there is an airport but if you want to flight from copenhagen it is really expensive and it take a lot of time because you have to change flight in France och Germany. So a good way to go to Genoa, and the same way I took, is to flight to Milano (2h) and then take the train (about 2h 30 min in total from Milano Airport). It was a nice experience to take the train, a lot of green areas, mountains and small villages.

Soon I will post some picture!
Ciao!!!