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Exploring Central Europe (with a toddler) - Part 2

16/9/2015

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This is the second installment of Meaghan Marsh's fascinating and, often amusing, adventures around Europe with her 2 year old daughter, Anna. This leg of the trip finds them in Bosnia, Croatia, and Italy, discussing recent history and finding friendship despite a language barrier.

Bosnia was the country that I was most excited for. I love that it is off the beaten track. I love that it is not a popular tourist destination.  I love the culture and I love the people. It did not disappoint. We stayed in Mostar, a small town in the southwest region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was particularly interested in this town because of its recent war. Bosnia's population is divided between Muslims and Christians. Initially, the two groups fought against the Serbians in an effort to remove them from Bosnia. As the war continued, the two groups eventually turned on each other and a civil war broke out. Mostar was front and center in this war. The town is divided by a river, which almost perfectly divides the Muslims from the Christians. In the early 1990s, the Mostar Bridge became a figurative and literal connection between the two, and later, when it was destroyed in war, the divide. As a side note, this was also Anna's first melt down. Given that we were on day 12 of 10 hour days in 100+ degrees- it was a well-deserved melt down, however ill timed. 

We stayed with a young family, the father doubled as a tour guide. We spent one day touring all of the highlights in the region, including the house and burial site for two very famous Dervishes, a river that had massive amounts of wild mint growing on its shores, creating an entire river of mint water, and several Roman Ruins. The father's stories of government corruption were sprinkled throughout the day. One of the most interesting stories was about the recent statue erected in the local park. He claims that the Muslim side of town felt that the government was favoring the Christians, and spending more funds on them. The government responded with a Bruce Lee statue. After all, who else could bridge the gap between a town divided. Our guide also commented on how, while on a daily basis the two groups get along and work together with little to no tension, there is still a very apparent social divide. Muslims and Christians do not inter-marry. He stated that his parents were an inter-religious marriage years ago. He feels that since he does not specifically belong to one group or the other, it was hard for him to find a wife. Families want their daughters to marry into the same religion. He reported that his sisters both encountered similar problems and both left the country to marry and raise a family without the social divide. 


Bosnia
Bosnia
Bosnia
Bosnia
Bosnia
Bosnia
Anna and I spent the next two weeks driving up the Croatian coast! We hopped from one beach town to the next! Our route was based on the suggestions of the families we rented rooms or apartments from. Using Airbnb ended up being one of the best decisions I made. I was extremely cautious in this process and only used people who had 5 star ratings with 20 or more reviews, leaning towards renters with families.  Many times, we became friends with the families which afforded us the opportunity to see “real life”. We were often invited for breakfast and dinner with the families. Once, Anna and one of the grandmothers had an instant connection. In fact, Anna began to call her “Croatian Gram”. Croatian Gram would style Anna’s hair each morning, and had a stash of Anna’s favorite candy on hand at all times, and one day she even hopped in car and without speaking a word of English and spent an awesome day with us at the beach. 
Croatia
Croatia
Croatia
The last leg of our trip involved taking an early morning ferry across the Adriatic Sea to Venice. Venice was as amazing as you imagine it is. It also proved to be a little more difficult to navigate than I anticipated. I did not consider the fact that every single of the over 400 bridges in the city includes stairs up and down. This  is hard to do with a stroller and takes forever to do with a walking, talking, extra curious two year old. After the first night, I did some research on the topic, and in a travel thread found an Italian mom describing the perfect technique for carrying a toddler in a stroller over the bridges. This slight change in approach made the next few days much easier. We spent our time here wandering around. Anna joined other kids in street soccer games, we ate (a lot) and watched the boats go by. The Bienalle was well underway during our visit, so there were endless impromptu galleries and art festivals around town. This added such a great touch to our trip.

         Some of highlights included seeing the Bridge of Sighs. This is the bridge that connects the court house to the jail. It was named this because the prisoners would often sigh as they looked through the bridges windows to see what would be their last view of the outside world after being convicted. We also took a ferry to the Island of Burano. This is a town with wildly colored houses. Home owners need to write to the local government before painting their house to find out which colors they were allowed to use. The legend of the town is that fishermen use to paint their houses bright colors so they were identifiable from a distance. This is highly disputed- either way, this was an amazing stop. It is impossible to be in a bad mood when every time you turn a corner there are more loud colors there to great you. 


Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
One of the greatest things about traveling is the interactions with other people. I can’t even begin to express how amazing it was to watch Anna learn to interact with other kids who did not speak English. While a majority of the adults we encountered spoke some Englsih, most the kids we met were not old enough to have had English lessons in school yet. Regardless, playgrounds offered common ground. I truly admired her willingness to hop into a game or a conversation that she had no idea about, or to begin using words she picked up in each country. The faces of the people around us when Anna would wave good bye and shout “Chow!!”, or Havla (Croatian for thank you) when someone would hand her something, were priceless.  Although she is two, and will have no memory of this trip, it is these qualities that I hope will continue to form her personality and who is she as she becomes an adult. 
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Exploring Central Europe (with a toddler) - Part 1

14/9/2015

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Meaghan Marsh is a special educator at Rutland High School, and a Rutland High School alumna. She has worked at RHS for the past ten years. She coaches lacrosse and is the supervisor for Green Mountain Teen Institute. Meaghan has been traveling since she was 16, when she participated in an exchange program in India. She has also been to Egypt, China, Tibet, France, Spain, Ireland and Costa Rica. This past summer, Meaghan and her two year old daughter travelled around Europe. 
Germany
Germany
This summer proved to be an extremely exciting one for my two year old daughter, Anna, and I. We spent the summer traveling across Europe together, just the two of us. In addition to this, it was also the summer of potty training. The combination of these two made for an amusing and eventful trip. If I were a super cool mom, I would have created hashtags for the trip such as #UNESCOsitesmykidhassleptthrough or #chasingpigeonsacrosseurope or #historicalplacesmydaughterleftherdiaper. 

We began our trip in Munich, Germany.  The minute we stepped off the plane, we realized that we were coming to Europe in the middle of a massive heat wave. It was over 100 degrees. We made our way out of the airport, to the train, and from the train we walked the mile to the house where we were renting a room. We must have been quite the site. I was carrying a backpacking pack and a purse, pushing Anna in a stroller, with a daypack on the back. Needless to say, it was a hot walk.  We watched the Glockenspiel chime on the hour, we ate dinner, and listened to the music in the Hofbrauhaus, where Anna was pulled up on stage to dance with the band, in front of the entire hall. Another highlight was climbing the 299 steps to the top of St. Peter’s bell tower and looking out over a city of amazing steeples of red roofs. 


Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro was when Anna decided she was completely ready for potty training. No, she didn't use her words to express this to me. Instead, she got into the habit of taking her diaper off and leaving it wherever she happened to be, or handing it to whoever was standing closest to her. She didn't discriminate, she would happily hand her diaper to the shop owner, or the Japanese tourist, the waitress, or the man sweeping the sidewalk.

We stayed in Kotor, Montenegro. After renting a car in Croatia, we drove around the entire Bay of Kotor. This was one of the most breathtaking sights on the trip. The drive was spotted with amazing little swimming pull offs and tiny towns made up of a restaurant, an ice cream cart, several houses and a church. We rented a room from a local family and spent hours exploring the old town and climbing the city walls- all 1350 of them. Anna was a trooper. She multitasked and used the time to perfect her ABC's. The view at the top was worth every step. 


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Global Alumni - Rachel Black

30/8/2015

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PictureRachel in Tunisia, 2012
Rachel Black is a 2009 graduate of Rutland High School and was co-captain of the 2009 girls’ state champion lacrosse team. She is also a 2013 graduate of American University in Washington D.C. She currently lives in Los Angeles and teaches garden education as a FoodCorps Service Member. Her blog post reflects on her travels of the past four years and how they have changed her view on the world. She has been fortunate to travel through Asia, North Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and the Middle East and each has provided her with deeper cultural understanding , imbedded in her the importance of communication, and opened her eyes to the fact that some countries do ‘it’ better.


In the Fall of 2011, I studied abroad in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I chose to study abroad in the UAE when I realized that the Arab World was a whole region that I knew nothing about besides what I was taught by the media and the few books that I had read. In 2001, I was 10 so I had pretty much grown up under this culture of fear, mistrust and hatred for the Middle East. I was influenced to believe that these people hated me and my culture. But, I wanted to find out more. So, I put in my application for the UAE and to this day, I think it was one of the best choices that I have ever made. Throughout the semester, I was continually bombarded with excited, friendly questions and eager friendship.  Everyone was so happy to have American exchange students who wanted to come to their country. They were so happy to hear that we did not think they were all terrorists and that we were open to hear them talk about Islam and how it had been misrepresented by the events of 9/11, extremist groups, and the media. They could not believe that we were interested and open minded because they thought everyone in the U.S. hated them. I remember leaving that semester with such a great appreciation for first hand cultural experiences because I saw so much similarity in what both of us assumed. We both assumed hatred by the others, we trusted what the media told us about each other (I saw some pretty interesting ‘American actor’ portrayals), and I knew that if everyone could have similar experiences there would be so much more cultural understanding, appreciation, and hopefully, peace.

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Egypt, 2011
In the Summer of 2012, I was a participant in the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship Program in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia where I took intensive formal Arabic and Tunisian dialect. This was probably one of the most brain exhausting experiences of my life, but also one of the most rewarding. The most important thing I took out of this summer was how much more than just communication that language gives you. Language allows you access to people and through them, you are allowed access to situations and cultural insights that you would not have had as an outsider. That summer because of my language skills, I was able to create a wonderful bond with my host mother, I was able to travel independently of the program seeing and experiencing places that I would have missed otherwise, and I built life lasting friendships with locals. All of these experiences allowed for a deeper cultural understanding and appreciation for Tunisia and its people. So whenever you travel, even if for only a few days, try to learn a few words and use them as much as possible. People will be extremely grateful and it humbles you immensely.
Havana, Cuba in 2015
South Korea, 2014
In the Summer of 2013, I moved to Dongbaek, South Korea where I taught English for a year. When Korea comes up in conversations, the first thing I say is that it is the easiest place to live as a foreigner. It is modern, a multilingual country, and Seoul is what every big city should be. By this I mean the metro system was widely used (there is very little traffic in Seoul) and fantastic- clean, organized, labeled in different languages and it even has an offline app which made traveling amazingly easy-, clean green space was built into the city, cultural and historic landmarks were well preserved and provided a great juxtaposition between old and new, wifi was everywhere, built the city with exercise and health in mind (there were prevalent running, walking and biking paths, the many mountains in the city were covered with hiking paths, and public exercise machines were everywhere), and the city was safe. Korea, and Seoul especially, knew how to make a city of 10 million seem like an inviting and wonderful place to live. Even after significant traveling, I was still under the impression that is berated into our minds that the U.S. does ‘it’ best. After Korea, I realized that that isn’t necessarily true and this forced me out of a mindset I had carried since childhood.
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Angkor Wat in Cambodia, 2014
Traveling abroad provided me with some of the greatest memories, most fun adventures and craziest stories. I think any chance to leave the country is an opportunity to learn, create relationships and to be a representative of the U.S. I can’t tell you how many times I have traveled abroad and groaned when hearing a loud American voice complaining about something or telling others that ‘this would never happen in the U.S.’ and if you hear yourself starting to say that, remember that you’re not in the U.S. and that is what is important. Instead, change your state of mind and be the person who listens to what others have to say in order to learn about cultures with an open mind, who learns the language (even if just a few words) in order to connect to the people, and who accepts the idea that the U.S. isn’t the best at everything in order to have a better understanding of the world. And travel, travel, travel!
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