My Public Leadership Journey

As some of you may or may not have noticed, I studied abroad last semester as a sophomore. Every time that fact was brought up to me, I had to go through and explain why because everyone seemed to find it odd. First of all, I don't think it was odd because I met people in Rome studying abroad as first semester freshman or final semester seniors, regardless of your grade, you can and will learn a lot from studying abroad. Doing it at different times of course comes with different advantages. Studying abroad in your final semester of college would be a great way to treat yourself for seven semesters of hard work then using that final one to enjoy college one last time in a different setting with unlimited opportunities. On the other hand, because of so much I learned in the classroom, about myself, about the world, about time management and Italian culture I wish I would have considered studying abroad freshman year first semester. The amount of maturity you undergo while abroad would have been a great way for me to start off my undergraduate career.

Enough about that, what you want to know is why I chose second semester sophomore year to do it. It is all because of the College Park Scholars Public Leadership Program. Upon acceptance to UMD, I was also extended the honorable opportunity to join the Public Leadership Program. Apart from how much I learned and experienced as a direct result of being in the program at College Park (you can read about that below), it is also the reason I went to Rome. To obtain your citation, you must complete a capstone project. One day back in the spring of 2010, my professor, Stacy Kosko, suggested to me that I study abroad and in the process forever changed my life for the better. As a two year program, I had to complete my capstone by the end of sophomore year, which meant, if I chose the study abroad option (among other options available), I would have to do it sometime during my sophomore year.

Would I have ever chosen to study abroad had I not been asked to join the Public Leadership program, or more specifically would I have done it spring semester of sophomore year? Would I even have considered studying abroad as a capstone project if Stacy had not brought it up to me? Would I be who I am today without these great experiences in PL and Rome? Would I, at any other point in my life, gone to the amazing places I saw or met the incredible people I met? Obviously, I, nor anyone else, will ever be able to answer those "what if" questions about how an alternate past would have played out. But I can tell you this, blogosphere;  I love who I am today, I love the things I did and the people I met, and most importantly I loved those experiences in PL and Rome that made me who I am today so I find it painful to even imagine those "what if" situations.

Below is my final reflection on my time in the Public Leadership Program, ranging from my first day when I was a muddy mess cleaning the swamps of the Anacostia River in the rain all the way to my final reflections as I was on the plane home from Rome in late May. I learned a lot and I hope you do too. Enjoy.

America to Italy: My Public Leadership Journey Across the Globe

Upon entering the University of Maryland, I was under the impression that I would learn an extensive amount of material from books, lectures and professors. Never did the thought cross my mind that I would learn just as much, if not more, about myself. For me, being in the Public Leadership Program was the epitome example of this double learning effect. I learned valuable lessons on what it means to be a leader, how to be a good leader with positive effects on society and most importantly knowing when to be a leader. I used this newfound knowledge from public leadership courses and my capstone project by applying it to experiences both inside and outside the classroom over the past four semesters. In the process, I developed my own unique style of leadership that helped me through my experiences thus far in college. This type of leadership that I have been consistently building on is what will enable me to be a good leader in my future endeavors.

A key aspect to my public leadership studies that has had an effect on every part of my life is context. The importance of context in any situation is something I never deeply reflected on until fall semester of freshman year. In the lecture taught by Dr. Crocker, I started to realize that every discussion we had about leadership, or anything else for that matter, related back to context. What does the context of this situation call for and are you able to distinguish this contextual importance? To me, that was the biggest aspect to my realizations of my abilities as a leader. I know having charisma is important along with balancing hard and soft power, but if you do not have the awareness and intelligence to know which type of power a situation calls for, then in my mind, you are not a good leader. Understanding context, to me, is what separates the true enlightened despot leaders from the rest. If you do not make your decisions and actions (or lack of) as a leader at the appropriate time, than you could be having a negative effect on those you have a duty to; whether it be political constituents, employees or classmates.

This understanding of context will be one of my best leadership traits in my future experiences. Already, my understanding of context has reaped benefits for me twice in this short time since I started fully understanding its importance. First, in applying to become a terrorism studies minor at University of Maryland, one of my main points on my application was how well the Public Leadership Program prepared me for the issues I will face in it, especially in terms of dealing with each situation contextually and subjectively. Just like in leadership, when analyzing terrorism issues, it is important to notice how each situation has a different context that calls for a particular response.

Similarly, during my capstone experience of studying abroad in Rome, I saw many of my public leadership traits evident. One major take away from my Public Leadership Program experience was the importance of open mindedness. Being open to the ideas and beliefs of others is essential to leadership because it makes those you are leading feel included in the decision making. After working in groups so many times in seminar with my PL peers, I learned what does and does not work in working with people you both know and do not know well. Realizing the importance of keeping an open mind helped me throughout my study abroad experience, whether it was making sure everyone got a say on what they wanted to see when we went touring, or keeping an open mind when dealing with Italians and their culture. When working in class groups, or when traveling, I found myself often taking the leadership role while keeping in mind many of the things I had learned about being a leader. Although traveling for a weekend in Florence with friends wasn’t exactly intense public leadership, I still had to use mediating, negotiating, organization skills and both hard and soft power throughout it when problems arose whether it was between my friends or due to travel issues.

In my Public Leadership Development Plans, I talked about wanting to be the more obvious and ‘out-loud’ type of leader because I felt that up to that point, I often took the backseat and only led when no one else would. I feel that I definitely changed that while in Rome. I confirmed what I had long thought about myself as a leader, that being that I tend to only take up the leadership role when I am certain of what I am getting into and confident I will do well. I was never the type of kid who rounded up his friends in elementary school to go on an impromptu adventure through the woods. I like to have my plan researched and feel comfortable when taking on a leadership role because it gives me confidence that I will be able to succeed (confidence was another of my PLDP action plans that I wanted to work on). Since I was the only one of my friends who spoke Italian well, I felt confident on my ability to take that leadership role when traveling around. Then when we would get lost, or things went wrong, I did a good job of maintaining strong leadership so not to worry anyone. This helped me feel substantial progress in my ability to lead effectively when thing do not go as scripted.

I am excited to see where I end up in my life as a future agent of change. I get very passionate about things that I invest time into and feel strongly about. After taking the philanthropy class with Dr. Grimm, I became really interested in that field as a potential way to use my leadership skills for the benefit of society. As I said, when I find something that I am passionate about, I have found that I work endlessly and enthusiastically for that cause. Pursuing a field related to my terrorism studies minor is also something that I would love to apply my public leadership skills to. I feel that I have developed a good balance and hard and soft power, and my understanding on contextual and situational importance would also assist me in that. Just like many of my Public Leadership peers, I also have dreams of leading a life as a public servant in a political office of some type. This is me, would be the best way I feel I could give back to a country that has given so much to me. This career, would of course utilize all the elements of public leadership that I studied and would be the ultimate test, in my mind, on how effective of a leader I actually am. As of now, I’m unsure what my future holds for me, but I know it will involve leadership in some capacity, which is something I am excited to be part of.

As I briefly mentioned before, I learned a lot about myself from doing the Public Leadership Development and Action Plans. They helped me realize what my weaknesses and strengths are. I feel that because of those assignments, I have put a focused effort on building upon my strengths and also improving my weaknesses into fortes. I enjoyed setting these as goals for myself because they are things that I am actually able to chart my progress in. I feel that everything I learned in Public Leadership, from day one cleaning the swamps of the Anacostia all the way to the incredible things I learned in my capstone in Rome, has benefited me in a positive way and helped mold me into a better leader. The thing about leadership, and learning in general, which I learned from all this was that I am never done learning. The great leaders and successful philanthropists that we studied all had times in their lives when they learned and adapted after they finished school. This, for me, will be a very important aspect to focus on. Although I am graduating two years from now, and have finished my Public Leadership Program, none of that means I am done learning or improving. I realize that constant reflection, revision and implementation will be necessary throughout my life to build upon my leadership abilities and I see this realization as another of the most important aspects I learned from Public Leadership that I can apply to anything in my life.

Two years after the commencement of my Public Leadership experience, I am a changed person for the better in so many ways as a direct result of it. I realized the importance of civic engagement through my time spent at the Anacostia, tutoring students in Columbia Heights for my Community Based Learning project and spending time getting to know local non-profits in philanthropy class. As a result of all these great experiences in the community, I found myself volunteering at the campus Help Center and doing additional tutoring at another school in Columbia Heights. I have also had conversations among friends about the topics we debated in class because of how interesting I found them, such as asking them their opinions on making community or military service mandatory. I have learned invaluable aspects to being a leader that I have been able to apply everywhere in my life, in the class room, at work, with friends and especially in my capstone. I had the best four months of my life studying abroad in Rome and if the Public Leadership Program had not motivated me to go there, I am not sure I would have gone. I truly believe I got more out of that experience than anyone else in the program because of how consciously aware and taking advantage of I was of everything around me. Learning how to appropriately and respectfully interact with foreign cultures will benefit me later in any career, especially leadership related. It was because I am in the Public Leadership Program that I actively sought out lessons like that outside of the classroom from my local friends so to maximize my experience. As I sit on this flight back to America, although I do not know what or where I will be in my future, I do know for certain that I will be applying what I learned and experienced in the Public Leadership Program on a consistent basis and will be there because of it.

Thoughts on Returning Home

From May 10th, 2011

Fitting my emotions on leaving Rome to return to America would be impossible in just a short reflection. This has truly been an experience that changed my life and although I’m ‘returning to America’ now, I think using the phrase ‘going to America’ would suit it better because of the connotation that returning implies normalcy. My life won’t be back to normal how it was, my life will continue evolving just as it has the past four months and I will see things different than I ever have before. I did not suffer much culture shock upon arriving here, but I think I will suffer it once I get back home. I’ve adjusted so well to life here that I don’t think I’m ready to experience American lifestyle again already. It will be the hardest to adjust to leaving the city life because that is one thing that I learned here that I want to do again in my life. Many friends here complained about city life but my favorite part of my morning was stepping outside onto a busy street with people everywhere and downtown in sight.

I’ve changed for the better, I think. I’m more understanding, accepting, educated and aware of how complex yet intertwined this whole world is. I’m looking forward to seeing my friends and family again but I’m not in a place where I miss them so much that I need to go home immediately, thanks to the incredible capabilities of technology. I hope to come back to Rome, and to do it soon. I know the older I get, the less opportunity I’ll have to travel spontaneously at will so I want to make the best of my remaining two years in college. I hope to persuade a friend to study here, not only so I can have a reason to come back and visit, but also because above all, I think every person should have the opportunity to study abroad because of how valuable and positive experience this has been for me.
 That journey is Rome is over for me now. I'll never be able to relive those times, but I hope to go back and make new ones to add to my great memories from that city.  

My last walk down the road from the San Sebastian Catacombs to the WWII Memorial - serene & beautiful

My Goals - Revisited

If you think that I'm done blogging about the past four months of my life, then you're terribly mistaken. As long as I have free time, I will most definitely be updating this throughout the summer when I come across something that seems blogworthy that I can relate back to my experience abroad. Now, at the great suggestion of my Aunt Mary, I'd like to go back and revisit my goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the semester and see how they turned out. If you want to read about them as I originally wrote them, scroll down to the Blog Archive section on the right and click "I miei obbietivi" (although it's posted in April I actually typed them up first for a class in February).

Okay, so the semesters over and I'm as far from that life as you can get. I'm sitting on campus at UMD right now, drinking Dr Pepper from Chick-fil-a and burning in this 90 degree heat despite being in air conditioning; all things I couldn't do a few weeks ago. But before I get started on my feelings about being back in America, I'll follow through with revisiting those goals.

So the first goal from that past blog post that I set for myself fell under the 'personal goal' category and it was to expand my worldview. By this I wanted to learn more about Italian culture, my American culture from a European point of view and learn how to understand and view other cultures throughout the world. I think that I definitely achieved this. At the language exchange that I went to every week, I learned so much about Italian culture from actual Italians and I also learned what they thought of Americans, especially after big events like our entrance into the Libya conflict and the killing of bin Laden. This all helped expand my worldview in a way that enabled me to see things from other cultures points of view on a subjective basis. I know this is a hard one to judge objectively to see if I accomplished it but just from talking to friends already back here and reading through my past blog posts I have a good feeling that I made significant progress in this category.

Next was my professional goal for the semester which was my desire to leave Rome with a better understanding of what I wanted to do with my career. This, of the 4 goals, is probably the one that I succeeded least in, but I'm not saying I didn't succeed in it, just that it's the least of the 4. As I mentioned in the first post, I loved my business law class, and that really made me want to pursue law school like I've been planning since I entered college and probably in the corporate law field which was the main focus of that course. Additionally, I have good news - I got accepted into that Terrorism Studies Minor that I applied to so I'm extremely excited to start those courses this Fall. This just kind of clouds my path though, I'll need to make a decision if I want to pursue something counter-terrorism related which I think I would really enjoy or stick to my law track that I've been planning. Maybe I can find something that incorporates the two of them? We'll see what happens, but at least I've narrowed down what I think I want, tough decisions ahead.

My third goal was academic in nature and was to get straight A's. Pretty straightforward goal and I'm proud to say I achieved it, with the exception of my 1 credit online "Connecting Across Cultures" course that isn't finished until mid June so I don't know my grade in that yet. But as far as academic courses in the classroom at AUR, this goal was a success.

Lastly was my cultural goal of being able to carry on a conversation in Italian with a local and not have them immediately know I was America. Now, I'm going to say that I won this one on a technicality, but nevertheless did make good improvement in my Italian skills. Fooling a local Italian into thinking I was also Italian was a high goal to reach, granted how many obvious tell tale signs I have of not being a native Italian (clothes, linguistic ability, looks, accent, hairstyle etc). That being said, I do have a couple stories that made me feel good about my Italian skills (which I probably already have blogged about). First off, early in the semester, there was an American couple who asked me for directions in broken Italian but I responded in Italian anyways and they responded by apologizing in English saying that they couldn't understand Italian actually and wanted to know if I by any chance spoke English. After I gave them the directions in English they told me I had the best English accent of all the Italians they had come across so far. I hope I do, I'm American, idiots. Anyways, I don't think I should get much credit for fooling American tourists though. Second noteable story was on the tram when two elderly Italian ladies asked me which stop San Giovanni di Dio was. I told them in Italian when it would be and said that it was right after mine so just get off one after I do. They complimented me and said I spoke very good Italian (already realizing that I wasn't actually Italian) and then asked me my thoughts about the Royal Wedding earlier that day. Well, turns out they actually thought I was British, buttt since that's at least in the EU, I consider that more of a win than the other stories. In general and in all seriousness, most people did compliment me on my Italian skills as the trip progressed so I'm very happy with where my Italian got me (I even use Facebook in Italian now!).

So overall, I can say that I'm pretty happy with my job on those goals. Of course I'm not judging the past 4 months by the success or failure of those 4 things. As everyone can probably tell, I loved and enjoyed every single second of my time in Rome but I think those goals did play a good part in that enjoyment. 

From England - A Final Reflection

England, apart from the British accents, which we all love, really didn’t feel too different from America. Then again, this whole Eurotrip I haven’t felt entirely in another culture like I had in Italy. I know one reason was that I felt never really felt out of place during this trip. In Brussels, with visiting my old school and former go-to restaurants, of course I felt right at home. In Paris, my French carried me enough to not feel out of sorts and I still had vivid memories of visiting Paris many a time, along with Amsterdam. Then London, well is as close to America as you can get without being in America. The restaurants and shops were another big thing. In Italy, there were no chains or variety of choices for the most part. Every shop and pizzeria was family run and the only chains were grocery stores, which there weren’t a ton of. Contrastingly, in all the cities we visited, there were chains everywhere, from KFC and Pizza Hut to Staples and Best Buy – stores that simply don’t exist in Italy as far as I saw, even downtown in Roman tourist areas. I just got a different feel from Rome than the other cities, it seemed more culturally authentic then the others. I know that everyone wants to scream at me how bias I am because of how I lived there and knew the ins and outs better but I’m trying to be objective and really do feel like if you want a taste of authentic culture within a major European city, Rome (or Italy) is definitely your destination. However, Rome also does not have solid public transport, extraordinary customer service or the variety of food options that these other cities did. Everything’s a give and take. I am very happy to say though that I can count on my hand the amount of times in Rome that I had food that was not Italian in nature. Then again, I can’t blame Londoners for not wanting to have solely English food places everywhere.

Late semester relaxing & reflecting in Villa Borghese

Leaving this morning really wasn’t that tough. I have to say, the saddest I was about leaving was two Saturdays ago when all my Roman friends left. That, to me, officially marked the end of my time studying abroad. The past two weeks have been great, but they’ve felt like a vacation. I’m not in Rome anymore, and I’m not in Baltimore. It was a weird feeling, I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. In my perfect world, I’d be in Rome for the summer with some kind of job (tour guide) and perhaps even studying there again Fall semester. I don’t know how possible it is but I’m also not ruling out another study abroad opportunity at this point either. But yeah, after I got over everyone leaving Rome, it wasn’t as hard to return home as I thought it would be. Walking around Rome with Adam for those 4 extra days felt so weird, seeing all the sights and bars I had just been with my Roman friends; it felt like I was looking back at another life, especially in the case of when I took him to eat at the Archi Bar next to school only about 20 hours after I had been there celebrating the end of finals with everyone. I had so much fun living there this semester, I learned so much both in and outside of the classroom, expanded my worldview, became more aware of so much about the world, I met so many great people, saw so many great places; I really am struggling to find a negative, which I’m normally good at doing in situations. I got no sleep that last Saturday, I just laid there thinking about the great 4 months that I just had. I also remember getting no sleep my last night in my apartment in College Park in the Fall but I didn’t even understand what great life changing experience I was about to have at that point. That Michael is so changed now, but don’t worry, I’d say it’s for the better, but again, I might be bias, I am me after all. Per questo, vi ringrazio, Roma. Sempre, forza Roma ed Italia.

Museums in London

Well, no more train blogging for me. Right now it’s just me in seat 15C on US AIR729 flying over the Atlantic Ocean. I’m done watching movies so now I have the GPS on my video screen, eerily enough, it has the Titanic wreck spot listed and we’re just about to fly over it, not sure why that was labeled on the map yet a dot for Washington DC didn’t make it. Only complaint about the plane ride so far is that it left about three hours after it was supposed to, of which about 90 minutes was spent sitting here on the runway. However, I want to divert any pity anyone would have for me to the people who were on the Middle East Airlines flight out of Heathrow here two days ago when they spent 8 hours waiting on the runway. That had to have been horrible. However, after a few people had too much to drink there was a ‘mutiny’ as the paper called it and they raided the meal carts and got in fistfights with stewards, look it up online, interesting for sure. I watched “Unstoppable”, the movie about the runaway train and then I just finished “A Special Relationship” which was an incredible movie about the unique relationship between Britain’s own Tony Blair and President Bill Clinton. Enough about the plane ride; you’ve all been there and done that.

So I spent the last 2 days in London, Thursday and Friday. We arrived via Eurostar, which to Adam’s dismay did not have windows underwater to see the fish. We got in around 9am thanks to the time difference, giving us a 25 hour day to explore London. After dumping our bags at the hotel, which was conveniently (still have never been able to spell that word right all semester w/out autocorrects help) right next to King’s Cross where the train took us, we were off! First stop was St. James Park, better known for being the location of Buckingham Palace. Changing of the guard occurs daily at 11:30, so being a little early, we strolled around the park, checked out the many war monuments and got to the fringes of Hyde Park before turning back for the ceremony. It would have been more enjoyable without the rain but still a neat experience and something I felt we just had to do in London. Also, what’s London without a little (lot) of rain here and there? We escaped the storm at the end of the ceremony by grabbing a good lunch at a nearby café then continued down towards Westminster Abbey after taking a detour into a church.


Wow that was embarrassingly hard for me to open this damn bag of bad tasting airplane pretzels, I feel like the people across the aisle saw and were laughing at me (finally got it open by poking it with my headphones cable). Westminster Abbey was really cool, I loved it. SO many important people buried in one place. My new goal is to get at least some sort of memorial plaque in there, they did have some for Americans, including some Presidents which London in general had a lot of monuments for. Also, on the same note, I think every major city that we were in had a John F Kennedy named road in a major area of their city. The rest of the day included checking out the sites: Big Ben, Downing Street, Parliament, Harrod’s (where I bought the new Michael Jackson CD only 3 pounds!) then checking out the Museum of Natural History which was highly regarded in our city guide, not too spectacular, and finished off the day walking around Piccadilly Circus, which was a really awesome area and had dinner at my first Chinese place in months.

Friendly reminder to foreigners when crossing the streets

Friday was a very productive day. I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot, but it’s true, we’ve done a good job at being productive. First was the Imperial War Museum, which probably was the most time we spent at any museum all trip and deservedly so. This museum, free, as were most of London’s, was fantastic. First was an exhibition room of past machines of war, tanks, artillery, etc from the past century or two. Then there was a real neat informative and interactive exhibit on naval submarines. Next was one of the most emotional parts in a special exhibit on World War II in Britain through the eyes of children. This was complete with letters of children to their parents who were separated from them during London evacuations amongst the Nazi bombings as well as posters and statements issued by the Ministry of Home Security about what to do for your children to protect them. Then, in one of the most memorable parts for me, there was a letter written by a 9 year old girl. She was off on a boat with hundreds of other children to a safer life in America. The letter was sent before she boarded, but the boat was sunk by a German U-boat and no child survived. It then had the letters that were sent to the parents of the children. Just terrible, reading those original letters, thinking about how this was just one case of so many similar stories from that tragic time made me just stand there in silence. There was also an exhibition on the Holocaust which was equally as moving, if not more. I’ve been to concentration camps, Anne Frank’s house, holocaust memorial sites and museums in many cities, but I still never get jaded to it. I know I brought it up in my blog after visiting Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam but god damn was that a terrible atrocity that never should have occurred. This exhibit put a different perspective on it that I hadn’t gotten at many other places and had a lot devoted to the history and roots of anti-Semitic feelings. There, in huge letters, was the great Edmund Burke quote that I love which reads “For evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing”. Too many people did nothing then, or at least in my opinion, after reading what the exhibit had to say about that. I haven’t even mentioned the whole floors of incredibly accurate, visitor-friendly, interactive and enjoyable exhibits they had on the wars of the 20^th century. Such a great museum, anyone who is in London should make time to visit it. It’s right off the tube line, free, and was a bit out of the city so it wasn’t crowded with tourists.

British Museum Mummified Man, from 3000+ Years Ago

       Now that I spent so much time on that, I’ll try and be concise with the rest of the day. We checked out London Bridge and walked through some neat English markets by it leading up to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. Then after crossing the neat Millennium Bridge and passing St. Paul’s Cathedral we were at the Tower of London. We tagged along a tour with a pretty funny yeoman tour guide for a bit before breaking off to check out the royal jewels and white castle on our own. Real cool place, but we had to walk through kind of quick because we were short on time. Not as cool as the Ghent castle or other castles I’ve been to though, but perhaps I didn’t give it enough time. There were many interesting stories about people who had been held captive there or had been executed there. After that it was onto the infamous British Museum with all its great collections of things taken from the rest of the world. Highlights were a 3000+ year old man miraculously preserved by the African desert still with hair and skin and of course the Rosetta stone. Then, we went to Hamley’s 6 story toy store, walked around Regent Street and Oxford Circus then ended in Piccadilly Circus again like the previous night for dinner at Ed’s American Diner. Ha, yup, that’s right. I couldn’t hold off another day for a good burger, fries and retro themed diner. It was delicious. Don’t worry, Nautilus Diner, you’re still my one and only. Then some cider beer at a pub capped off the night.

Ghent! (& some Amsterdam)

Hello again, another train, another blog. Many train rides on this trip, but this will be my last. Off to London via the Eurostar. Should be an exciting trip through the chunnel. But before I start talking about London, let’s recap the past two days since I last train blogged about my time in Brussels.

o   Amsterdam

§  Heineken Experience

§  Anne Frank House

§  Getting lost among the canals

§  Hanging out in Dam Square with food and street performers

§  Night scene

o   Ghent

§  Gravensteen Castle

§  Gruut Brewery

§  Sint Baaf’s Cathedral

§  Belfry Tower

§  Graffiti Street

§  Grote Kanan

§  Drinking and eating along canal banks

Out floating hostel boat

Tuesday was spent in Amsterdam for the day and night, then yesterday, Wednesday, was spent in Ghent for the day and the night. We left Ghent early this morning (got up at 5am) to take the train back here to Brussels where we caught the Eurostar train to London. Amsterdam won’t be the main focus of this blog, so sorry to anyone who was expecting that, it’s just not one of my favorite cities and anyone who knows me can see why. There were a couple neat parts that I’ll talk about though. 

Bartending with Adam

First was the Heineken Experience, which was the first thing we did. It’s at the spot of their former brewery but now is a very modern, interactive and informative ‘experience’ about everything and anything Heineken. You learned stuff, did neat interactive things, watch cool movies, went on a simulator ride and got 2 and a half beers free included! Not too shabby for Michael. The other notable experience was of course visiting the Anne Frank house. It felt odd transitioning from the brewery right to this, emotional roller coaster. Everyone knows her story and read her book so I’m not going to talk about all that but just being there in that house was very sobering (figuratively and literally – remember all the free beers?). Hearing the story of her dying just a month before the liberation, and thinking that she had no one left, not knowing that her dad was still out there was just so sad. And those pictures, letters and stories about the concentration camps, just terrible. I’ll stop depressing people but just take a minute to think about how awful all those events were and how you can play your part to make sure something like that that never happens again in our world. Of course there’s the other dumb side to Amsterdam which was a whole other area of emotions but I’m not going to waste blog space about that.

Gravensteen Castle

Although physically similar, Ghent was much better Amsterdam in every single way. It was another quaint old town, with lots of canals, bicyclists, bridges and open squares but that’s where the similarities stop. It was just such a nicer city. First was Gravensteen Castle, a medieval castle dating to the 1100’s when believe it not, Ghent was one of the biggest cities in Europe, up in the top 5 along with London and Paris. It wasn’t like any castle I had ever seen before. Instead of being in shambles and crumbling walls like most are, they actually restored this one to look like its former self. Although this took a little of the authentic feel away from it, because you could tell which stones were clearly new or thousands of years old, it was neat seeing what it used to look like, sitting there towering over the city and river. Inside they had everything a castle needs from torture rooms to swords and armor. Very cool castle overall, high rating by MikeAdvisor, speaking of, I’ve got some beef with TripAdvisor but I’ll complain about that issue another time.

Gruut Brewery Beer Sampler

After wandering down the canals and small streets of the old town, and visiting a couple impressively large cathedrals and towers, we went down to a brewery called Gruut. It’s a local beer, they only just started exporting their beer out of the country (albeit only to the Netherlands) but it was really good. It was a small small place, with mostly everything taking place in one big room, which neatly doubled as the bar/hang out area. We went in for a tour but they said you needed a reservation for that but since the place was empty and the bartender was the sweetest nicest lady I’ve ever met, she basically gave us one anyways. After sampling their stock, a white, blonde, amber, dark and ‘inferno’ beer, we ended up liking it so much that we bought another round or so and some souvenir glasses and some more beers for later in the evening to drink on the banks of the canals with all the other youth (it was definitely the thing to do for people our age, even though it was a Wednesday night the canal banks were still very crowded with people enjoying some drinks and food with their friends). Gruut was the epitome of a small friendly brewery feel, much different than Heineken the day before of course. Their coasters do a neat ‘anamorphosis’ thing as they call it, with the glasses when its empty, difficult to explain but I’ll put up a picture perhaps. Or I can show you once I get back, granted that TSA lets me carry my beer glass on and it doesn’t break.. After that we went and visited the ‘graffiti street’ which is exactly what it sounds to be, very cool (look at my fb album for those pictures too – everything’s there already from these two days). Hmm..Oh then was dinner, which I did at “Quick” for one last time, man are their chicken nuggets good. I supersized my meal and even got extra nuggets – #SoAmerican, but it was totally worth it as my last meal for awhile there. We took our dinners down to the canal and ate there with our Gruuts then we strolled around some more, drank some more by the river and just repeated that for the rest of the evening, enjoying the peaceful town, medieval streets and local brew. A really great city, we didn’t really put a dent in the city guide recommendations (which was the most well put together city guide of any city I’ve been to yet – bravo Ghent) but we couldn’t stay any longer. If you’re into getting out of the bustling European cities and going into an old medieval town that was once a powerful city state, and also want to perhaps be one of the only Americans in the whole city (which I felt at times, I rarely heard a passerby speaking English – British or American) then Ghent is the charming town that you need to visit.

Graffiti Street in Ghent

"Anamorphosis"

 Needless to say, I liked Ghent a lot. Anyways, the trains hustling through the Belgian countryside now and we’re getting close to the water so I think I’m going to take a nap and rest up for the remaining 48 hours of my EuroTrip, wow is that really all that’s left? Time flies when you’re having a good time. Hopefully the hotel was WiFi so I can upload this when I get there, or else I guess I’m just typing to no one, which I might still be doing, I don’t know if people still read this blog. O well. I’m excited to write my final blogs on the plane ride home, you can expect a lot of them. I still want to tell everyone about the neat differences and similarities between Italian and American culture, then I’ll probably write another blog about how great Belgium is ha, we’ll see how long my computer can last. Ciao for now, onto London!

Je t'adore, Bruxelles!

I’m on a train again. My new favorite train activity has got to be blogging, replacing laying my head on the rumbling window listening to my iPod. This one is going from Brussels to Amsterdam. Takes about 3 hours. I’m just rolling right along through the low-lands countryside of this beautiful country. So, last blog I was on the train to Brussels from Paris which seems like so long ago, it really was just a couple days ago. Crazy how time flies but also seems so distant. Now I’ll update you on what I’ve done since then. One of those things has been eat a lot of waffles.

After arriving in Brussels on that train, we left the train station heading towards the hotel, and got to walk through an interestingly sketchy part of town in the process. Sunday was touring day in Brussels. We started out by walking through the Grand Place, of course, then traveled down the road to get a glance at the Manikin Pis. It’s a statue of a little boy peeing, but it’s by far the most famous in all of Brussels. Legend was that there was a great fire and he saved the city by putting it out with his pee. Legend…dary. After him we walked backed the Grand Place to visit the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate. Besides getting tons of free tastes and smells, and a demonstration, I also learned a ton about the process of chocolate making, where it comes from, and even the healthy aspects of it!

2 in 1: Mannekin Pis meets Belgian Chocolate

More touring followed, saw the Royal Palace, EU Parliament building (which was real neat after spending a whole course on EU Politics this semester), walked through some nice spacious parks (Parc du Bruxelles, Parc de Leopold, Parc de Cinquantenaire), walked through the famous squares like Sablon with all its chocolate shops, then saw a couple churches, St Michel of course being the best because he is the patron saint of Brussels, and we share a name in common. Parc Cinquantenaire was great because as we exited the park into Montgomery Circle, where they have a statue dedicated to General Montgomery who liberated Brussels in World War II, there was a carnival fair going on that was real cool. It had an awesome flea market of interesting stuff from medieval armor to classic LP albums, then tons of mini-rides for kids, concerts, and of course all the waffles, fries and beer you could imagine. I’m going to take this opportunity to remind people that French fries are Belgian, don’t let the French in the name fool you. That was just some dumb English translation, everywhere else in the world they’re just called ‘frites’. And obviously Belgium also does waffles and beer better than anyone else too. After getting my fill on all of that, we went back towards the city to check out a brewery that TripAdvisor rated as the 2^nd best thing to do in Brussels but when we got there it was boarded up closed. So, we just walked around some more and enjoyed the nice day we had out. At night, we went to some bars to test out the local beers (Palm, Jupiler and Kwak were my favorites) as the sun set then went to a big restaurant area for a good spaghetti bolognaise dinner.

Early evening Kwak beers & peanuts

My brick on the Walkway of Memories

 Monday was one of my favorite days of the trip so far. First stop was going to my old school ISB (International School of Brussels) at 10am for a tour of it. After having to switch trams twice and lots of walking to other tram stops because of tram-car accidents on the track ahead of us, we finally got there a little past 10. It was so crazy walking up to it, the place I went to school every day for years but hadn’t been back to in almost a decade. Everything definitely seemed smaller, the parking lot, the playground, the hallways, I felt like it used to take me much longer to walk across the campus but I guess my legs have grown since then. Not too much had changed, except more security, cooler playgrounds, newer buildings, oh and the fact that everyone grade 5 and above gets a laptop or tablet (their choice) now, so cool! I got pictures of my old favorite places, my favorite teachers room etc, I was talking to the guide (who happened to be the older sister of one of my good friends from when I lived in Belgium – such a small world) and for the most part all the teachers I had that I asked about weren’t there anymore. I really enjoyed that part of the day, it was so cool seeing the swing set, or the chairs in the library knowing that I had been in those exact places before, all the way here in little old Belgium. Then the best part of course was going to the brick walkway of memories where we had a brick put in with our name on it. My official mark on the country of Belgium, I got an awesome picture of me with it, facebook profile picture material for sure.

BruPark from Atonium: Planetarium, MiniEurope, Oceade &The Village

After grabbing lunch there in Boisfort, we took the tram and then metro to the other side of town to Heysel Park (or BruPark). This place, the area from the Worlds Fair in 1958, has so much cool stuff to do and is a must for anyone traveling to Brussels. First off, The Atomium, a 9 sphere architectural wonder in the shape of a crystal atom magnified like 100 billion times, is one of the coolest sites in the whole county. You can go to the top and get a great view of the city and then there are neat exhibitions in the other spheres and you get to take awesome escalators in between them.

After that was MiniEurope. Another must. I’m serious. You learn about all the different countries of Europe and at the same time how the EU works, its history, and what makes it unique. All the models were 1/25^th scaled down so you can easily compare their sizes and see that the Eiffel Tower towers over everything in Europe. Checking out my facebook album from that will make you feel like you took a quick tour of Europe-do it. It was neat seeing the places that I was just recently at like in France and Italy too. After that was the Planetarium (we’re still in BruPark, this stuff is like 2 minutes walk from each other, so convenient). There was a neat thing on the universe and asteroid attacks there that we saw, which is related to the course I’m taking next semester at UMD titled ASTR220 – Collisions in Space and Asteroid Impacts. You all know how I love my astronomy. Then, after grabbing a good Belgian beer in “the village” a restaurant/bar area of the park area, we went to the Exposition Center for a thing on King Tut and his tomb which was also really neat. So much cool stuff in that small area, I didn’t even mention the water theme park Oceade that’s there too. Well now I did, but it’s also real cool, we didn’t do it though. Then we went back to the village and ate dinner at a Mexican place that we used to go to a lot when I lived here (remember Los Amigos, Mom and Dad? – with that cool car inside that I’d always want to climb in) so that was good and nostalgic. We went back to Brussels downtown area, did some walking around some more then settled down at a bar in the Grand Place for some more Belgian beers. I got a sampler of four house beers and they were all so delicious, the amber beer being the best.

Happy Hour Perfection

I hope you guys can tell how much fun I had this day through this blog, it was really fun. I’m petitioning hard for Brussels here because I’m sick of people always telling me they’ve either never heard of it or don’t think there’s anything here to do. There is! I swear! Come to Brussels – capital of Europe for a reason!

Sunset in the Grand Place

Well, still have 2 hours left of this train ride, not sure how I’ll spend it, I’ve written enough here to even make myself not want to have to proofread it so my apologies for it being a little long. I’m not sure if people are even still reading this blog anyways, I haven’t checked my stats section lately. Congratulations again to my sister and all the 2011 graduates! I can’t wait to see all you real-people soon! 4 days from now I’ll be on a plane back home to America, (as long as this volcano eruption in Iceland isn’t a repeat of last year’s air traffic debacle.) I’m not starting work for about a week or so, so if you want to hang out with me before I get consumed by work every day again, send me a message and let’s make it happen!

Normandy = 1st Trip Failure

Le Havre was an experience. We made the train out with only minutes to spare; not that it ended up mattering. We got into Le Havre, which is in the province of Normandy at 11am. That gave us 6 hours to see the D-Day beaches, American Cemetery, War Museums, etc. None of that happened, if you were interested in reading about them, do not bother reading any more. Turns out, the bus to that area only leaves every 3 hours on Saturdays, so even if we took it out when it left (not until 2pm), it wouldn’t be able to bring us back in time to make our 5pm train back to Paris. A cab, the information guy told me, would be about 160 Euro, each way – forget that. Car rental seemed to be the cheapest and flexible option. The Avis dealership at the train station was closed for renovation. The "information guy" then sent us down a street which he promised had 3 rental agencies, he was wrong. 30 minutes of walking later, we hit the beach. There the Tourism Office told us that Europcar agency opened soon and to walk over there.  After grabbing lunch, with an amazing croque monsieur, we found Europcar and they opened at 2pm, except today, they were closed. 

Le Havre: Porte de L'Europe

Let me fill you in on the bane of our existence today. The G8 Summit Manifestation. So apparently there was a G8 summit, going on in Le Havre, today. This meant that every single thing in the town was shut down. It was eerie when we first got there and no one was walking the streets, and all the shops were closed, but I didn’t think much of it. Then at the lunch place and tourism agency, I found out this was why. According to one shopkeeper, everyone was mandated to shut down for the day because of security reasons (?). The lunch place was even violating them by being open, so odd. I’m going to have to look more up about it online. I know G8 summits are always heavily protested and threatened, but this seemed over the top. [According to later news articles, about 7,000 rioters/protesters were there] All the car rental places in the whole town were shut down, along with every other type of tourist attraction or shop. Another person I asked about it on the street said that it was too dangerous for places to be open today and she had only gone into her shop to do some cleaning. Then, in the weirdest event of the day, when I asked a couple for directions to the train station as we were leaving, she told me not to go in that direction because it was dangerous, but when I told her I needed to go there for my train, she said that we were very courageous and shuttered at the thought of us going that way. I guess ignorance is bliss, I’ve always liked that phrase and it applied today (perhaps). I still don’t feel like there was any danger anywhere I went, but I guess I don’t know the full story.. On our train to Le Havre, there were cops pacing the aisles a lot, and the train station in Le Havre was flooded with police, not to mention police everywhere out on the streets. 

relaxing on the pebble beach

I’m not sure exactly where in the city the events were taking place, but as we were leaving we noticed one of the streets was trashed (looking like a protest was there earlier) and there was an audible megaphone in the near distance. Odd odd odd. Whatever, we’re on the train back to Paris now. So, since going to the D-Day sites was impossible, we relaxed on the pebble beach for the afternoon, which honestly, was really fun. It was nice to just relax and not do anything, after a morning, and week, full of walking non-stop rushing to fit everything in. It was a very peaceful way to break up the trip at the halfway mark. So that’s that, right now I’m bustling through the French countryside on this train, and in a few hours will be in Belgium. I don’t even need to say how excited I am to go back (home) to Belgium. Yes, I can call it home, I grew up there. So many memories will hopefully come flooding back to me, just like speaking French has. Can’t wait. Au Revoir for now, 7 days from now at this time I will be landing in Philly, so so crazy.

Trois Jours a Paris

Here’s a quick recap of my three days in Paris plus one day in Le Havre. The glorious luxurious RyanAir flight landed at Paris Beauvais (which is actually 50 miles North of Paris = blatant lies by having Paris in the airport name) around 9am. After the really long shuttle to downtown Paris, we were walking down the Champs Elysees with our big backpacks and the Arc de Triumphe in sight when it was just about lunch time. We stopped at a ‘Quick’ the name of a fast food burger joint in France and Belgium, my childhood favorite by far. We walked to the hotel after that and checked in around 1pm.

The main parts of the day after that was the Louvre Museum and Notre Dame Cathedral. Did a lot of walk-around sightseeing, checking out the different monuments and such. Grabbed dinner at a McDonalds (fast food day=money saving day) then called it a night a little on the early side given that we had gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before.

Also, before I go any farther, I need to give two thank-you shout outs. First to my friend Eran and his sister who sent me an incredible itinerary of things to do and the order to do them all in the three days that I would be there. Also to my sister, who sent me a great list of stuff to do too. Without them I would've been lost not knowing what to do at all, so thanks to all of you, you really helped!

Jardin Luxembourg Eiffel Tower View

Thursday was productive. Versailles in the morning followed by a nice lunch in its gardens. After riding the metro back to Paris, we visited the Pantheon, which was really cool. I hope people reading this blog see the funny irony of Rousseau and Voltaire being buried directly across from each other. Across from that was the Jardin Luxembourg which was really neat. Just a medium sized park in the middle of Paris with a stage set up where some guys were playing jazz. It was a nice relaxing stop to break up the day. We then walked to Shakespeare and Company, an old bookstore that Hemingway and those fellows used to frequent in their time. Neat place. Then it was off across the river to the Centre Pompidou with its crazy architecture. We ate our sandwiches there while watching an impromptu performance of Michael Jackson dances by the most random assortment of people, both young, old, female, male, black and white (no they didn’t do that song though). They did Thriller, which was awesome. I was tempted to join in, having the 2 hour Thriller class at Eppley under my belt from last Halloween – shout out to my partner Cristin Carey! After some more wandering around the city, we ended up by the Eiffel Tower at the Trocadero across the Seine to watch the light show. It was underwhelming but still neat to see all the lights flashing about on it. It looked cooler simply lit up at night than with the light show though.

Crowded steps of Sacre Coeur

Friday, I feel like was spent mostly in some sort of line. First up was the Eiffel tower, which was a multi-hour ordeal in itself. Ticket line, line to walk up to second floor, line to elevator to the top, line down from the top, etc etc. Totally worth it thought of course, after all, it is The Eiffel Tower. Paris from 300 meters high looks pretty darn cool. After that, we took the metro to Mont Marte, which was one of my favorite areas of Paris. It was up on a hill, away from downtown area so it had an awesome view of the whole city. Sitting on the steps of Sacre Coeur enjoying a guitarist street performer was really fun. Great way to spend the late afternoon time period. The area itself was a small artsy area with lots of cool shops and places to eat. Definitely recommend doing that to anyone going to Paris.

Au Revoir, Paris - Io sono ancora italiano.

After waiting in another line at the train station to buy the Le Havre tickets, we continued on venturing through the city and stumbled on a good cheap dinner joint with excellent Tortellini Pesto (wow I had missed Italian food, albeit after only a few days) then settled down on the Champs de Mars, the field leading up to the Eiffel Tower, where we hung out for awhile along with what seemed to be every other young person in Paris. It was cool how so many groups of friends were there picnicking with snacks and drinks as the sun set. I wish we could do stuff like that in America. It was so relaxing, just lying on the grass, enjoying a cold drink with the Eiffel Tower looming in front of you. I don’t have much faith in American college kids that they’d be able to do that as maturely/peacefully as the French kids were doing it though, not to mention that you can’t drink in public in America anyways, and also have to be over 21 (in France it’s only 18 – and in Italy, the age is - well, it’s Italy..). That just about wraps up Paris.

Comparing Paris and Rome

Arc de Triomphe

Vittorio Emanuele Monument

 

Da Roma -- à Paris

So I’m going to use this two hour train ride from Le Havre to Paris to catch up on some blogging. Afterward, there’s another train ride from Paris to Brussels so I might use that time too, we’ll see how much I have to say (like I’ve ever been short of that). I’m trying to remember where I left off. I know I put up a short blog last night but I think my last real one was when I was leaving Rome. For all that Rome was for me, I feel that last one didn’t really do it justice with how short it was. I’m also bummed that I was so busy the last week or so of Rome I never really had time to blog about all those last memorable experiences. 

Having that cookout with 20 other people, then all of us traveling to the Olympic Stadium together in a pack to cheer on Roma against AC Milan was definitely a great day and a highlight of my farewell week. The weather was perfect for it, the grill smelled incredible and the atmosphere at the game was unreal. They are so much more passionate about sports here, I love it. Almost too much. They were throwing flares from the Milan side over to the Roma side, and vice versa. I also finally bought a Roma jersey, Totti, obbviamente, numero 10. I’m excited to wear that around Europe now and show off my Italian pride. In Paris from time to time these past few days I’ve heard people speaking Italian on the streets. It’s so easy to pick up and hear now, it brings a smile to my face every time; more so than hearing people speak English for sure. Mi gia manchi, italia!

I guess I should talk a little about Paris. Now, obviously, after living for so long in Rome, and loving every second of it, I wasn’t going to feel the same about Paris. The cities are too different. Now I know I’m going to be bias in part because I felt at home in Rome and feel like a touring stranger in Paris but that’s just how things go. Sorry Maria, but Rome wins. There are a lot of great things about Paris though, if I try to be objective (but where’s the fun in that). The public transportation is incredible, for starters. This is compared to Rome where you would wait forever for a bus or for your driver to finish his smoke break, that’s if they weren’t striking that day. The metro system is incredible in Paris. I’ve never waited over 5 minutes for one and they’re quick, easy to navigate and cover every corner of the city. They don’t rely on buses anywhere near the amount that Rome does. I guess it’s easier to build a metro line in Paris though. In Rome, every time they try and dig a metro they uncover more ruins and have to halt construction while the site gets excavated. Very tedious.

Pizza Vicoletta at Dar Poeta

The food is exponentially better in Italy both in taste and cost. There’s nothing more to say about that. Italian food just flat out wins in every way. Also, historically, Rome is way more interesting. No debate there either. Oh, and the people are much nicer (However, the French aren’t as bad as they’re stereotyped to be, just to let everyone know). Moving right along; language. French and Italian, both being in the romantic language category, are similar in many ways. At the moment, my Italian is better than my French, however, at my peak of speaking French, back when I was a young lad, that peak of linguistic ability was definitely higher than my peak in Italian skills. That semi-confusing statement being said, I haven’t done too poorly so far. The first day, my natural reactions were still kicking in and I was saying si, grazie, permesso and all those other second nature sayings that come out subconsciously. Since then, I’ve actually gotten a lot better though. My French has come flooding back to me I feel like. It’s one of those things where it’s easier to recognize then recall. By this I mean, when I see or hear things, I can understand it, but it’s much harder to spit out a sentence out of nowhere. It’s weird to explain, but once I get going in a conversation and am hearing what they say, and just responding to it, it’s smooth sailing for the most part.

I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty impressed at how much I remember and how I’ve managed so far. It’s funny to compare speaking with people here to in Italy. When I go up to ask someone something here in French, they reply in French. In Italy, when I would ask someone something in Italian, they would reply in English. This isn’t because Italians could tell I was American and French people can’t. No, no. There’s no hiding my Americanness (go away red squiggly line, that’s totally a word). It’s because the Italians were anxious to practice back their English skills on me or were just doing it because they assume that no Americans actually know Italian (which is a good assumption for a language spoken nowhere in the world outside of Italy, unlike French which is spoken in lots of other countries, and even non-countries (holla Quebec!)). In France, I’ve never once been responded to in English despite it being very clear I’m not French. They don’t really have an interest in speaking English back nor are they worried about making the conversation easier for you. I like it though, there were so many times in Italy that I would say “Non, voglio parlare in italiano, per favore”, pleading with them to keep talking in Italian so I could keep practicing my skills. But to sum it up, I think I would get a “tres bon” grade in remembering my French so far.