This Spring Break I had the amazing opportunity to visit Prague and various other areas in the Czech Republic and Germany. Most of the photos now have captions.
Great information if you are going to be visiting Prague: Ten Essentials to Experiencing Prague
After I had finished my summer research project and Ross finished his summer classes in Madison, we were fortunate enough to have another great family vacation. This time we went to Nova Scotia, Canada. Passports are required to travel into Canada now. We all remembered ours, but Ross’ had expired. Fortunately, they allowed him on the plane, into Canada, and, after the week long trip, back into the United States. I bet if we had been going anywhere but Canada, the airline/customs people would not have let him board the plane.
Photos of the trip to Nova Scotia.
I had a great time visiting a friend going to school at Hopkins School of Medicine.
To see the gallery, please go here: Baltimore/Washington DC 2007
We just got back from a ski trip to Whistler, British Columbia. The snow was incredible! I’ve never skied powder that was so deep and fresh as I did at Whistler. Numerous people that I talked to on the slopes said that this was the best snow that they’ve had in a long time.
Here are some of my favorite photos from this trip:
(See more photos here…)
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I just received an incredible phone call this evening. The caller id on my cell phone said “Unknown.” This usually means that someone on Skype is calling me… So I answered, expecting a friend. Instead, I hear: “Hello, Scott? Scott? How are you?” I have no idea who this is, so I ask who is calling and how he knows my name. It is pretty difficult to understand him and the line is crackly. Then I hear, “My name is Jose Manuel.” I could not believe it. This was a guy that I had met over a year ago (same summer when I went on the trip to Cyprus) in the small town of Comunidad El Bonete, Villanueva, Departamento de Chinandega. I had practiced my Spanish with him and he had worked on his English with me. He even had a CD player and had phonetically written out the lyrics to some American songs that he had. At the time, I would say that my Spanish was quite a bit better than his English. It was amazing how far along he had gotten in his English because he did not have an English-Spanish dictionary.
I was in Nicaragua doing a medical mission trip with a bunch of pre-med, med, dental, and vet students. We actually started in Costa Rica and then made our way up to Nicaragua. Staying in El Bonete was one of the highlights of the 2-week trip. The people of the village were very kind to host us in their homes for the 2 nights that we stayed there. It was a very interesting experience. Most of us slept in hammocks over the home’s dirt floor. I was fortunate enough to stay with Jose Manuel’s family…they were quite well off and had wood floors and access to a boombox. (I’m hoping that Jose will eventually have access to a computer because at that time he had not heard of it, the Internet, or email.) Some of our medical team actually slept with chickens running on the floor below their hammock!
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There’s a place we all want to go when we climb into the saddle of a bicycle.
For some people, it has a name; it is the “there yet” destination that children whine about when hunger, impatience, and nature call. It is the slam of the inside door and whir of the A/C fans and satisfaction of knowing that the hot bath and unplugged phone await. However, for many others, it is the semi-transcendence of just being on the way to wherever “there yet” is; it is the rush of merely being in the saddle, legs spinning, heart pumping and wind catching the grooves and corrugations of a snug Rock-locked helmet. The bath can wait, as can the hug of privacy. There is satisfaction in the groove of consistent motion that makes the trip to point B just as (if not more) exciting than actually B-ing there.
But even for enthusiasts of the latter variety, every way does not lead to the Way (to borrow from a Buddhist axiom). The way along a shoulder on a commercial vehicle access road is a far cry from the way along a scenic and remote county path through the Fall-yellow thick of an aspen grove and the scarlet symphony of a maple swarm. The way through the crush of an urban jungle does not allow for the same introspection that the way along a mountain ridge road of breathless horizons does…
Photos of my travels in the spring and summer of 2006:
Spring break: Chicago
I had never really been in Chicago except passing through or at the airport. We walked around the city, saw the musical “Wicked,” and saw the many attractions (museums, aquarium, navy pier).
Summer: Moab, Utah
Immediately after graduation we drove to Utah to see Canyon Country. The United States has an incredibly diverse landscape.
Summer: Immokalee, Florida
I spent one week volunteering at a food pantry in Florida.
Summer: Beartooth Mountains, Montana
My dad and I, and a friend, his dad, and his brother drove to Montana for some backpacking. On the way we stopped at Mount Rushmore and Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The trip was very memorable.
Wow, Cyprus was amazing! I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take this class on social justice. As always, photos are available on my Smugmug Cyprus Trip Photo Page. (The more I use Smugmug, the more that I love it.)
I’m going to be leaving for a Costa Rica/Nicaragua medical mission trip this Sunday (July 3rd) but I’ll update this blog with more of my thoughts on Cyprus once I get back. I don’t have time to do it now because I have to 1) finish my reflective learning journal about the Cyprus class, 2) finish my medical school applications, 3) request letters of recommendation from various teachers.
After all the waiting and a long plane ride, I’m finally in Europe! My friend, Johnny, and I will be staying in Denmark for one week prior to our 3-week class in Cyprus.
Pictures will be updated daily at this site: Scott and Johnny’s Cyprus Trip and Scott and Johnny’s Europe Trip.
Dates: May 27th-June 25th, 2005
The following is the complete itinerary for our trip to Nicosia, Cyprus:
Friday, May 27th – Appleton to Copenhagen, Denmark
We are flying out of Appleton, WI (ATW) on Northwest Airlines. We are connecting in Detroit (DTW) where we are on a Northwest flight to Amsterdam (AMS). We are leaving Amsterdam for Copenhagen (CPH) on KLM and arriving in Scandinavia at Copenhagen Kastrup airport on Saturday, May 28th. From there, we will meet my aunt, uncle, and cousins at the airport and take a commuter train to their home in Hellerup, Denmark (the train ride takes about half an hour because the airport is slightly south of downtown Copenhagen and they live on the north side of the city).
Saturday, May 28th-Tuesday, May 31st – Hellerup, Denmark
We are staying with my aunt, uncle, and cousins at their house in Hellerup, Denmark during this time. Hellerup is a suburb of Copenhagen with most of the Danish foreign embassies, but it is only about 3 miles north of actual downtown Copenhagen. During this time Scott and I have planned on enjoying the red clay tennis courts and doing some biking. Denmark has bike lanes on almost every single road in the country, which is quite nice. About 30 miles north of Hellerup is a city called Helsingor where Shakespeare supposedly wrote his play Hamlet. We are thinking of biking there and around the northeast coast of Zealand, the third main island of Denmark (where Copenhagen, Hellerup, and Helsingor are located). We also will take the train or ferry to Sweden which both only take about 30 minutes.
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