Mountain Excursions

We had the opportunity again this weekend to see some of the other parts of Sardinia outside of Cagliari, specifically the mountainous region surrounding the island's east coast. Though it was a bit of bus ride to get out there, it was well worth it to see some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever come across.

On the road 

After about a two hour drive from Cagliari we found ourselves in a small town on the outskirts of the mountains. Here we visited a cultural museum which highlighted customary Sardinian clothing and its use in religious traditions that were carried out in the region. We were informed of some of the ceremonies that were once carried out and shown photographs of some of them in action, as well as models of recreations. Some of them seemed a little eccentric and strange but highly interesting nonetheless. 

Another costume from a traditional celebration, bearing strong resemblance to the creepy dead rabbit thing in 'Donnie Darko'  

Masked men dressed in black from head to toe pull a cart for a 'carnival' type of festival in which people take on the roles of animals. These men are symbolically switching place with oxen on a farm.

These practices were seen as pagan and primitive to Christian missionaries that eventually came to the region, who discouraged their popularity and continuation. Based on what we saw it was easy to see how these festivals can look a little less than angelic to the outside viewer. If I was unfamiliar with these traditions and saw the pack of men from the picture above trudging in my direction I would certainly be a little freaked out. Though Christianity has been the dominant belief system in the area for some time now it was interesting to get a glimpse of how the culture of the region developed completely independently of those in continental Europe.  

Took this picture in passing from the bus, got lucky and accidentally got a Sardinian flag in there 

The next leg of our journey brought us about an hour further into the mountains to a large farm run by shepherds who cook massive meals for travelers visiting the area. The food was fresh and incredibly good, and as usual the wine was plentiful. We had sheep meat boiled with potatoes in some sort of broth that was so tender it is practically falling apart in your mouth. My personal favorite was the roasted suckling pig, whose aroma became the first thing on your mind upon walking into the seating area. The tender juicy white meet of the pig is perfectly complemented by the crispy, smoky, and salty skin surrounding it. I ate as much of it as physically could and left myself feeling uncomfortably full and totally satisfied. The meal also came with a shot of grain alcohol at its conclusion, in case you didn't get your fill from the wine. The lunch suddenly became a huge social function after all of the eating was done. The shepherds led traditional group dances and belted out some impressive sounding traditional throat singing. We intermingled with other Italian tourists at the site, who had clearly taken advantage of the farm's unlimited wine policy. They were extremely friendly, took plenty of pictures with us, and welcomed us to their country. I really got a kick out of the whole thing. Not a single person without a smile could be found.  

I succumbed to my food coma immediately upon sitting back down on the bus and woke up in Orgosolo, a mountainside city know for its infamous history of banditry and rebellion. The city is filled with dozens of beautiful graffiti murals, most of which are filled with political and social commentary. We wandered up and down the streets admiring them. The US was depicted in a few of the murals, in a not so positive way.

We spent the night at an amazing hotel built right up on a mountainside. As soon as we pulled into parking lot the first thing on my mind was finding a way to the top of the mountain that was essentially in the backyard of the hotel.  I went to my room to quickly throw down my belongings, appreciated the insane view of the mountains our balcony provided, and set out on a hike. A lot of people got wind of our plan and came along with us. We found a few trails and began making our way up the mountain. I saw a rock formation with a few anchors drilled into its side and decided that I should try climbing one of the easier routes, which a little overambitious considering I didn't have any ropes and was only wearing hiking boots. I made it about 15-20 feet up before I did't feel safe enough to keep climbing. Thankfully Ted was right with me the whole time and was able to guide me down safely, with only a minor scratch on my stomach from scraping against rock. We caught up to the rest of the group making our way up off trail through some more rocks and got to the rock formation just shy of the mountain's peak where everyone was gathering. We took turns climbing to the tippy top (for lack of a better word) of the rock formation and enjoyed one of the best panoramic views I have ever seen on a hike:

Just before sunset

The hike was so great we decided to do it again before we left, and got up at 5:30 the next morning to see the sunrise from the mountain's peak:

Sunrise from the top of the mountain

After breakfast we shipped out to a small port side town on the island's eastern coast and boarded a boat that took us out on the crystal clear Mediterranean waters for a series of scenic location visits. We stopped first at a massive cave on the ocean that was once heavily populated with seals that has since become a tourist destination. Though the cave was very cool (In both the literal and colloquial sense of the word) they unfortunately did not allow any pictures. We then proceeded to spend the remainder of the day essentially being chauffeured by boat to what were without a doubt the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to. There were plenty of rocks to be climbed and jumped off of into the perfectly picturesque ocean. Here's what the beaches looked like:

  After the long and exhausting day of lounging on the beach, we finally made it to land and three hours later back to Cagliari. We had met a few Americans in a rock band touring on the island a few nights ago and knew that they were playing a show at a local bar that night. A couple of us went down to see what turned out to be a pretty fun show. It is still so strange to me to see Sardinians with such appreciation for rock music in English but nonetheless I love it. We also met a few other native English speakers hailing from England, Scotland, and the US who all live and work in the city. I am slowing getting better at meeting other people in these types of situations when we go out, given that I really don't speak any Italian and most Sardinians don't speak English. In fact last night I think I spoke more Spanish than either language, just because of the preference of the locals in being able to understand me given how similar the languages are. It always works out though, hand gestures tend to make up for what words can't. It was a good end to an amazing weekend. 

First Project in The Books

So we're about two weeks into the program at this point and on Monday afternoon we presented our first group projects to the class. Our topic focused around the handling of construction and demolition waste in the EU and how it compares to the US. I was a bit surprised by how little this topic has been mentioned historically and currently in EU environmental regulation given how substantial of a portion construction and demolition waste make up of all of the EU's solid waste. Though there may be a lack of detail in their regulation the EU has set the impressive and ambitious goal of recycling 70% of this type of waste by the year 2020. By contrast the US has no common goal for the reuse and recycling of construction and demolition waste, and individual states are free to set their own standards. This results in lots of non-uniformity in sustainability throughout the country which in my opinion holds the nation back as a whole. I believe that for the progression of sustainable waste management in the US the federal government must begin to impose nationwide regulation pertaining to the management of construction and demolition. 

After our presentation my fellow group members and I went out for a celebratory meal at a local restaurant. We ordered a few liters of wine and two sampler type appetizers to start us off and were caught completely off guard by what was eventually brought to our table. A fleet of waiters brought 3 or 4 trays full of plates of native Sardinian foods we otherwise would have never ordered on our own. There was so much food coming to us the waiters had a grab another table to add alongside ours just to have enough room for all of the plates. Various types of seafood like sea snail and octopus were brought out alongside various cheeses and breads. Some more exotic foods made an appearance as well, such as what was apparently cow knuckle and liver. This was gesticulated to us by our enthusiastic waitress who pointed to her hand to indicate the knuckle dish and said "when you drink too much" and pointed to the mid-chest region for the liver. All hope of ordering a main course was eliminated once we finally finished the mountains  of delicious appetizers, concluding one of the most enjoyable meals I have had thus far on the island. I really liked having no idea what it was that we ordered and eaten until we had already had it all and would like to do that again. On a side note I ate horse for the first time today, in the form of a generously sized steak accompanied by french fries. It was very good and surprisingly similar to steak from a cow, though just a little bit tougher. I will never look at a horse the same way again.      

Our most recent technical field trip was to a large Sardinian landfill about 45 minutes from Cagliari. I had seen landfills from a distance before but this was my first time seeing one in the process of being operated and maintained. The property the landfill occupies is absolutely massive and it took us an additional 10-15 minuets just to drive from the front gates of the property to the actively maintained portion of the landfill. I had no idea how huge and complicated it was to handle the systems involved with landfill operation and maintenance. Surprisingly though, this was definitely the least smelly of all of the sites we have visited this far and there was quite a nice view from the landfill. We also visited the co-generative power portion of the site, where captured biogas from the landfill is used to generate both heat and electricity sustainability.    

  

West Coast Weekend Trip

After a fun filled late night of enjoying a Bob Dylan cover band at a local rock venue, we woke up early the next day to embark on our first weekend trip. Actually 'woke up early' is a total overstatement, as the first words I heard upon opening my eyes that morning were "the bus is here". I made it to the bus as quickly as i possibly could, albeit late and totally under packed for an overnight stay. With everyone finally on board (me being the person now making that statement true) we headed out to our first destination, the Sardinian geo-mining park.

The drive to the geomining park was about an hour of stunning views of the Sardinian western mountain ranges and the dramatic cliffs of the coastline. Long steep roads lead us through the windy route to our destination, a white sandy beach surrounded by tremendously tall and flat rock faces:

View from just right of the beach

After about a 20 minuet hike alongside the basses of the mountains, we found ourselves at the entrance of the geomine, a now closed but once active mine. The site is now used as an example to show visitors the basic structure and layout of the mines that once flourished in the area. It is very interesting to see the now abandoned ghost towns in the surrounding area that were once heavily populated during the peak operation of these mines. We went on a tour of the mine which was cool and even cooler when we reached the end of the dark mining tunnel and were shown what was probably the best view I have seen on the island thus far:

 

We spent the night on an agroturismo tucked away in the mountains about another hour from the geomining park. An agroturismo is essentially a farm in which tourists are provided with rooms to sleep in as well as breakfast, dinner, and lunch, usually consisting of foods produced on the farm itself. Everything was delicious and it was nice to have a great sit down meal of authentic and fresh Sardinian food after a long day outside. After dinner a few of us went outside and laid in a nearby field to talk and stare up at the stars for while. It was a good end to a good day.

Photos of Sardinian Waste Management in Action!

Mountain of paper and cardboard products stored at a paper recycling facility

Some of Cagliari's finest on duty collecting waste throughout the city

Small plastic recycling collection in the the University 

Toner cartridge recycling alongside a paper recycling bin 

General waste bin in a plaza

Street art decorated containers for paper, plastic, and glass waste

Paper, plastic, and organic waste recycling bins  

What a dump, am I right?

In the past few days we have begun the transition from the obligationless vacation-like phase of our time here to the start of our classes. It was nice to not have any scholastic responsibility for a little while but after all the whole reason for us being here revolves around fulfilling an academic program for credits. Our first day of classes at the University of Cagliari went well and some students we had met from the previous weekend met us for lunch and showed us a few local food spots. After two days of class on campus we went on our first technical field trip today.

The first stop of the day was to a paper recycling facility. This was of particular interest to myself as I had always wondered how paper products were recycled and had no idea how they were actually processed. It was impressive to see the sheer amount of raw unprocessed paper and cardboard that were stacked into mountains outside of the main pulping facility waiting to be processed. The process of pulping itself was also quite interesting to see and I never expected the medium that is later turned into paper to be of such an oatmeal like consistency. I was also surprised by the fineness of the quality of the office grade paper that the facility produces. The most impressive thing I learned from this portion of the trip was that apparently 95% of cardboard and paper products in Italy are made from recycled materials. 

Next we went to a composting facility nearby, in which municipal waste is sorted into organic waste and then processed into fertile composting mulch. Although the tour of the facility was very in depth, interesting, and through the smell of the composting waste was a bit overwhelming at times. There were literal mountains of stagnated trash awaiting to be processed, moved by a tremendously powerful claw-like mechanisms coupled with cranes. The mulch the facility produces is sold off at the ludicrously low price of 2 Euro per ton, which sounds like it could be tempting to those of the entrepreneurial mindset to procure for markup and resale in garden stores throughout the US. 

The last stop of the day was to a waste to energy incineration facility also located nearby. The industrial equipment involved in this process is absolutely massive in scale, making one wonder about the tremendous amount of waste that is processed within it. Though I was able appreciate the complexity with which these mechanisms work cooperatively, I could not bear the thought of working in this facility on a daily basis. Although it did not smell nearly as bad as the composting facility the incineration processing equipment was so loud it made verbal communication almost completely ineffective at certain times.  

I had spectacularly filling lunch today in between the first and second stops on the trip. We went out to an off-season beach community about 15 minuets away from the industrial areas to find a place to eat. We wound up finding a fairly large restaurant in which we were initially the only occupants. We walked into the restaurant to discover that the entire staff to consisted solely of one waitress and one man making pizza in a brick oven. I would have not at all been surprised if they were husband and wife. Anticipating there being some downtime between ordering and receiving our food due to the size of the staff, I decided to order a large beer for the wait. To do this I told the waitress my pizza order followed by "Heiniken gigante", as the menu had specified for the larger size of beer. Most likely due to my brutal pronunciation, lack of clarity, and total disregard for grammatical structure of the Italian language, the waitress interpreted this as me wanting a "gigantic pizza" and later presented me with a pizza about 15" in diameter all for myself. And man oh man was it delicious. I initially had no intention of finishing it in one sitting but my taste buds got the best of me and before I knew it I was down to one slice, which I fully intended to take home. When I informed the waitress of this she simply smiled at me and gestured towards my pizza while encouragingly exclaiming "Mangare!". I smiled, rallied, and forced down the last slice of deliciousness, thoroughly disgusted at the amount of food I was apparently capable of eating. 

No regrets. 

Really hoping to keep the overwhelming positive experiences with Italian cuisine coming. 

    

First Few Days

My first impressions of Cagliari and Sardinia in general have been overwhelmingly positive. It really is tough too see what's not to like about most things  here. The food, the culture, the lifestyle, and the people are all undeniably agreeable. It is definitely a stark contrast to America in almost every way imaginable. A sense of urgency more or less doesn't seem to exist here and to be honest I kind of enjoy that.  The whole schedule of daily life seems to be delayed by a few hours. We returned from dinner tonight around 11pm, after having just gone out just before 10pm. In the US most restaurants probably would have been closed by this time but here this is apparently a very common time to go out for dinner. Initially I had thought that we would be one of the last groups of people to be going out at this time but that turned out to be completely false, as the piazza was probably the most crowded I have seen it so far, despite it being a Sunday night.

My impressions of Italian students has also been very positive. We have met students from both Sardinia and mainland Italy and both groups have been extremely hospitable and accommodating while having us as their guests. They made every effort to speak English in front of us even though they clearly would be more comfortable in Italian. I feel as though I have made good friends with some of these students despite the short amount of time I have spent with them. They were so generous as to invite me to stay with them in Padua when I will be traveling at the end of this program in June, which I will be more than happy to do. We also were fortunate enough to have been invited to the home of their professors last night to socialize with his students, which was a fantastic experience. At first it was unclear if the weather would cooperate with our plans but in the end it was a beautiful day and in the end a good time was had by all. This was my first time having ever set foot in the Mediterranean and it couldn't have been a better experience all around.

Having to sit down to write this blog post has reminded me of just how short of an amount of time we have been here for so far. After this weekend I could have sworn that I we have been in Sardnina for weeks, let alone just a few days. The time I have spent here so far has been outstanding and I cannot wait to see what else is in store for us on this trip.

Preliminary Thoughts

For the next month or so I will living in Sardinia, a Mediterranean island that is part of Italy located almost equidistant from the coasts of northern Africa, eastern Spain, and western Italy. After which I will be doing some traveling on my own visiting a few cities throughout Europe while living out of my backpack and staying in hostels for a few weeks. I will be writing this blog to fulfill the requirements of the environmental engineering courses I will be taking in Sardinia and then probably keep writing new entries just for fun as I travel throughout Europe.  I couldn't be more excited. So here we go I guess.

Preliminary Thoughts:

I kind of have no idea what to expect Sardinia to be like. Having grown up in New York I am pretty familiar with the delicious variations of different types of mainland Italian cuisine out there but honestly know almost nothing of the foods indigenous to Sardinia. My gastronomic ignorance is actually something I'm pretty excited about and I can't wait to try what ever kind of crazy stuff they get down with over there. Judging from the rest of Italian food I've tried before, I don't think I could really go wrong with what I eat over there.

I imagine Italian society and the Italians themselves to be very laid back and relaxed. With a culture that holds foods and family in such high regard I can't imagine daily life in Italy to be nearly as high strung and stressful as it can be in America. I also imagine the people to be very welcoming, inviting, and to be generous sharers of food, as anyone who has ever been over asked over for dinner at an Italian friend's house may have already guessed.

I have never traveled to anywhere in the world before where I do not know the country's native language. I don't speak a word of Italian. Being a fluent Spanish speaker I can understand a few basic words and phrases, but conjugating a verb and forming a sentence in a conversation? Not a chance. My incompetence in the language department both scares and excites me, and I can't wait to see how I figure out my way around the language barriers I will no doubt encounter on a daily basis.

I hope my time in Sardinia leaves me with a good general idea of what both Italian and Sardinian culture are like as well as how different they are. From the food to the people to the island itself I can not wait to experience what is out there.