Post Tagged with: "culture"
China Swooped: When Friends Get the Bill
The last time I was in China, fall 2008, I had a part-time internship with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, a think tank in Shanghai. Towards the end of my internship, my boss invited me to lunch with him and someone he wanted me to meet.
Futbol is Much More than Just Soccer
Spain is generally thought of as a united country, with the exception of the Basque region in the north, which desperately wants to secede. As I found out this past weekend in Barcelona, that image of unity is not always the truth
Volunteering Abroad in a Global Economic Crisis
In today’s economy it is very difficult to find work and so many college graduates are turning to volunteer opportunities to fill in the “gap” between their academic studies and the real world. That is not exactly the approach I took (I chose to acquire a Masters degree while serving abroad) but it is more common among my fellow volunteers here in the Republic of Moldova
Bridging My Experiences Abroad
Strolling along Buenos Aires’s famous Puerto Madero, I understood for the first time why the locals are called “porteños” or people of the port. The city of Buenos Aires has grown from its roots as a port on the Rio de la Plata to a bustling city of 13 million. In contrast to the port’;s 19th-century stone architecture was a large, white, modern bridge. Stretched out as a splash of modernity, I felt an odd sense of déjà vu, as I gazed upon this immense engineering expanse.
Finding a Piece of Home in Italy
After about 12 days of whirlwind travel through London, Paris, Lucerne, and Florence with only Rome left on my journey, I was feeling like an estranged stranger, overwhelmed by the mosaic of cultures that I had encountered thus far. I had been traveling with my best friends from high school, backpacking and tour-busing across the continent, and fatigue was beginning to set in.
