Home, sweet home

I have been home for a day now, and it's the weirdest thing ever. Not waking up to sunshine streaming through the window, not feeling the insane urge to explore the city, not being able to get into the water to swim or snorkel. It's different. But as the saying goes, home is where the heart is and Boulder is definitely where my heart is. It's a place of comfort, a place where I can always say "I have returned." I will definitely miss Palma and Kralendijk and definitely hope to return to these places one day. Without studying abroad, I would have never heard of Mallorca or Bonaire, nor would I have even given a second thought about going there. There's a reason everyone says to study abroad, and I think that is certainly one of them. A part of me appreciates studying in a larger, more famous city like Madrid or London, but there is something to be said about going off the beaten path, to a place where not many people know about. At the very least, it'sc a cool story I can tell to someone. A lot of me wishes that I had studied abroad a whole semester though. 4 weeks in a location is certainly not enough time to make a city feel like home; in fact, it's just enough time to get familiar with the city to feel comfortable moving around. There was still a lot of Palma and Kralendijk that I did not have the opportunity to see or explore because of class or time constraints. Had I been there for a longer period of time, there would not be such a rush to see and do this, that, and the other thing. Ah well, someone else can learn from my experience I guess. 

I can say with certainty now that I would recommend every student to study abroad. It's such an eye-opening experience, both in terms of seeing new and different cultures, but also in terms of learning about yourself. I learned so much about myself and the way I interact with other people (especially cross-culturally) during my time abroad, and that is something I certainly would not have learned spending a summer at Pitt or sitting at home. If I could, I would definitely go study abroad again in a heart beat. I guess that's something to do in another lifetime. 

For now, this is the end of my adventures abroad. As I always say, a new adventure awaits. But adventure does not always have to mean something new and novel abroad. Every moment of your life can be a new adventure--it just depends on how you view and use your life. So take an adventure today, explore the environment around you, because someone on the opposite side of the world may think its paradise. 

--Andrew Ng

What the future holds

As the program comes to an end, I have been reflecting on my past two months abroad and how the relationships I have formed with the people around me have panned out and are continuing to develop. It's really strange to think that the Palma program happened a month ago--it seems like forever since I met the 15 other people in that program. It's almost as if we are strangers again; I am not sure that many people have kept in touch, if at all, after the program ended. Sure, some of the people who were able to form deep, deep friendships are probably still talking, but for me, I certainly have not been talking to most of the people I met. And even for the people I keep in touch with, it's only through an occasional message and snapchat updates of their lives that they send to me. It's easy to imagine that it won't be long before all of us stop talking altogether, and lose contact. And honestly, this is probably what is going to happen with the people in Bonaire as well. As we say our final goodbyes to people as they leave over the weekend, I feel like it truly is a final goodbye. Chances are, I probably will not talk to these people ever again, becoming nothing more than another friend on Facebook that shows up on the newsfeed every once in a while. 4 weeks certainly was not enough time (for me at least) to form lifelong relationships with people...it's kind of jarring to be so involved in someone's life for a month, and never see them ever again. Maybe this is just me though...I know some people in the program, especially those that stayed in one location for more than one session, were able to form pretty strong friendships with others. This is not to say that one style is necessarily good or bad, but simply different.

Today's the day to catch up with some updates! This is going to be the last post from abroad--the next one will be written back home in Boulder. Thanks for keeping up with me during my adventures. 

On Thursday, I woke up early to study a little bit and then headed over to the research station at 8:15 for our 9:00 final exam. The two hour exam went pretty smoothly--most of it was short response, and basically straight off the lectures that were given in class which was nice. After the exam was over, I stayed a little bit at the station to catch up on some work before heading back to Hamlet for lunch. I took a quick nap after lunch, and feeling refreshed, I went out to snorkel at the Hamlet reef. Since it was the end of the program, I decided to test my Galaxy S5 to its limits and take it underwater with me to take some photos. I put it in a plastic bag of course for good measure, but it seemed to work pretty well, with minimal water leakage. And most of the photos I took were pretty good quality as well which was awesome to see! Now I have some of my own underwater photos that came from my own camera! Part of me wishes I had done this sooner, part of me is glad that I waited until the end just in case the phone were to break. Anyway, I am attaching some of the best photos. After snorkeling, we headed over to Coco beach for a final farewell BBQ with the interns and staff for the program. Juxtaposed with the sunset off the beach, it was a great place to say our goodbyes to the staff and finalize details for Bonaire. We came back to Hamlet for a few hours, and then headed out to Cuba Cuba for salsa night. I only stayed for an hour before heading home because I was tired, but the atmosphere was just as lively as ever and was a little throwback to Spain. 

(Coco beach once again!)

(The professors and interns giving their farewell speech)

(Another beautiful sunset out on the beach)

(Salsa night!)

Friday morning, I woke up early to go to downtown Kralendijk and walk around/take pictures/get souvenirs for people. Downtown is really small, consisting of one main street with limited amount of stores, so it was pretty easy to walk around to each store and pick and choose the right souvenirs. It also poured rain a couple times while I was shopping which was super weird because I had not really seen it rain at all while I was on the island for the past few weeks. Ah well, there's always a first for everything. After returning from downtown, I returned my bike and finalized details for the program before catching lunch at Hamlet. During the afternoon, one of the interns took a few of us on a snorkel to a local coral nursery. It was amazing to see in situ development of acropora corals. Pretty massive structures of hanging corals were implanted into the ground in waters really close to shore, and they seemed to be growing really fast, which is really good news for the rapid loss of corals in and around Bonaire. We came back from the snorkel after an 1-1.5 hours, and got ready for dinner which was at a fancy italian place. I had an amazing chicken parmesan  which had not just chicken, but layers of eggplant and ham stacked on top of it. It was bursting with flavor, and definitely something that I could eat over and over again. After dinner we went to a gelato place called Gio's (pretty good, but admittedly not as good as the gelato I have had in Palma...), and then sat in Karel's beach bar talking. Before heading home, we stopped over at Havana's bar to check out the Friday nightclub scene, and left pretty quickly because of the sheer amount of people trying to pack themselves into that tiny space. For a small island, the people sure know where to go on Friday nights it seems. We came home and hopped in the pool for a few hours, playing around and chatting away. We ended up deciding that to celebrate our last nights in Bonaire, we would pull an all-nighter so that's exactly what we did.........after swimming in the pool for at least 3-4 hours, we came back to the apartment at 4AM and pulled out some cards, playing simple card games until the sun came up and it was time to pack. I am exhausted right now from staying up, but it was definitely a memorable way to end my time here in Bonaire!

(Entrance to Hamlet)

(Boats lined up on the docking ramp)

(Street art map)

(Street art lines this road)

(More street art)

(This statement couldn't be more true)

(Wish I could have gone to more of these!)

(This artwork is truly representative of Bonaire)

(Watta Burger, which is supposed to be pretty good!)

(Of course I <3 Bonaire!)

(Never a truer statement)

(Thinking on the dock out to the water)

(These are everywhere...)

(The colorful buildings of downtown)

(An important building downtown. I couldn't tell you what it is besides the fact that it is important...)

(The place where we have salsa nights!)

(Apartments line the shore to the waters)

(The colors of this sunset were spectacular! No editing needed)

(One of the best chicken parmeseans I have ever had)

(The remains of our late night card playing...)

We are currently in the process of moving our luggage around, but today is a free day for everyone who has flights on Sunday. I leave tomorrow morning, so I have one last day to get everything checked off my bucket list!

A new adventure awaits. 

Nearing the end....

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, but a lot seems to have been going on. I am going to update in two parts—the first tonight, and the second tomorrow. There are a lot of pictures to post!

It’s the end of the program—people are leaving in a few days, and I myself am leaving on Sunday. It’s crazy to think that I have been abroad for two months at this point—I have been away from the US with only a vague idea of what has been going on for two whole months. That’s a pretty long time. And these past two months, I have been experiencing and learning things that I would have never thought possible had I not been studying abroad. It’s been a month since I have been in Palma, and it feels like a dream, almost as if I was never there. Soon, my experiences in Bonaire will be a faded memory as well. Do I have any regrets? Probably, but I am not thinking about them right now. These next few days are dedicated to getting done everything on Bonaire that I have wanted to do, but not had a chance. It’s an opportunity for me to leave the island saying I got the complete Bonairean experience. I don’t think I am ready to end my time abroad quite yet if I am going to be completely honest. A part of me doesn’t want to go back to the mundane life that is regular school, regular cycles. It’s difficult to conceive after two months of complete freedom to explore vast landscapes of beauty. Especially going back to a city like Pittsburgh, where the beauty is encompassed in the city, not in nature itself. I guess that is an adjustment that I will have to eventually make. But let’s not think about that too much right now, and savor the few short days I have left.

On Monday, we woke up at pretty early to get to breakfast at 7:30, and then to an orientation for a submarine trip at 8:30 at the Substation Curacao. As part of our trip, we got to go into a submarine with a few other people, snap some pictures, and observe deep marine flora and fauna in the comfort of a pressurized cabin. The submarine trip was amazing—we dove down to 510 ft below the surface, and we had the opportunity to see corals and fish down there that I would have never been able to see myself just snorkeling. The trip overall took 2 hours, and it consisted of us simply following the reef down and exploring, poking around to see whether we could see anything cool. We definitely saw quite a few lionfish, an invasive species, and many sea fans and sea whips along the way down. Probably one of the highlights of this trip. After the sub trip we went across the street to the aquarium for a quick tour from one of the workers. He led us around the building, explaining to us the science behind the happenings at the aquarium and showing us the labs and behind the scenes work for the maintenance of the aquarium species. Although definitely not as spectacular as the Palma aquarium, this one had quite a few benthic species that were captured locally that I have not seen anywhere else. The tour ended around 1:00, and I sat down to have a quick lunch before lounging out on one of the beach chairs and taking a two hour nap—one of the best naps I have ever taken, soaking up the warmth of the sun underneath a tent. When I woke up, we went to a sea lion show before finishing the tour. I went for a quick snorkel after the tour was finished—down to some pretty high-current areas (I was being tossed around pretty badly…), but very, very rewarding because I got to see a coral reef restoration project and tons of new and established corals in shallow areas. After snorkeling we headed to dinner as a group at one of the resort restaurants, before going back to the apartment to relax.

 (The submarine company)

(The docked submarine)

(Moving the sub outside--if it looks small, it is...it's not that big at all)

(A bulldozer is used to lift the sub into the water)

(Randi sitting in the back of the sub)

(Sub selfie)

(Diver taking our pictures from the outside)

(Pretty great view of the reef)

(More reef!)

(An old anchor from a ship)

(Lionfish sighting)

(Got down to 500 feet!)

(Things down deep look different)

(Another lionfish sighting!)

(A beautiful coral)

(View of a shipwreck)

(A nurse shark at the aquarium)

(A diver cleaning the glass)

(Sea turtle!!!)

(Sea lion demonstrating its tricks up close and personal)

(The sea lion show)

(The sea lion is actually pretty tall...)

(Flamingos in the aquarium)

(The dolphin show)

On Tuesday, we woke up early once again to pack and get ready to leave the hotel. Breakfast was at 8, and the bus left at 9 to get to downtown Willemstad. We had a couple hours to explore, so a small group of us just walked up and down a couple random streets which is what I enjoy doing best. I have always found that I find the most interesting things when I wander around and get lost. It’s probably dangerous to do by myself, but it’s also the most fun. We eventually crossed a bridge to get over a canal; as soon as we got across, the bridge rotated to let some boats cross through to the canal. I guess that was their solution for boats instead of building a typical drawbridge (see picture below). We continued walking around, looking at stores and getting souvenirs before heading to a small café to order lunch. We then met up as a larger group, snapped a couple pictures in front of “Dushi” and “Curacao”, before heading back to Hamlet to collect our stuff and go to the airport. Everything at the airport was pretty smooth, except for the fact that they got us to the wrong plane at first. The bus driver taking us from the terminal to the plane mistakenly drove us to the one that was going to Aruba (which was fine by me!), and we were a quarter boarded before people realized their mistake…so we had to deboard and get back on the bus, and find our already delayed flight. The flight was smooth though, and we got back to Hamlet without any problems. I ended up doing homework for the rest of that night, because of a few deadlines for things the next morning.

(The beginning of our shopping adventure)

(They used an old fort to build up a shopping center)

(View of a hotel)

(The two bridges)

(Caribbean buildings are so multi-colored)

(Down downtown)

(Donkey street art)

(More street art)

(Brilliant colors on the buildings)

(Bridge swiveling outward to let the boats through)

(Another street for shopping!)

(Street art; Curacao is definitely not as big as Cuba though...)

(Dushi in Papiamentu means "sweet")

(Giant Curacao)

(A lemon smoothie--perfect for a hot day)

(Spicy chicken sandwich--not terribly spicy, which was really nice)

(Cookies and caramel ice cream to top it all off)

(Taxi selfie)

(Gateway to the world)

(We started boarding the wrong plane.....)

(A daily sight of mine--the road right outside Hamlet)

Wednesday was a work day--the whole day was dedicated to studying, since our class final was Thursday. Besides homework and snorkeling, there really isn't anything to report from Wednesday...

I will update with Thursday and Friday tomorrow!

A new adventure awaits.