...To Infinity and Belgium

As we near the end of our journey, I can't believe how fast the time has passed. Yesterday, we were all saying, "Oh well we have four weeks. We have time." Now that time is nearly up and this dialogue has been everything I could have ever hoped for. Coming into it, I was nervous being one out of only two second-year students going on the trip. I was definitely not up to par academically and socially I knew no one else on this trip. Everyone seemed to be in the same year, and it was intimidating. Now after spending four weeks with everyone, we have grown closer and formed great friendships within the group (at least we can joke and laugh with each other if that is any indication). We survived countless blog posts, late-night projects, cultural activities, Italian fails, the Mediterranean sun, crazy ocean waves, the tallest rocks we could find, and the early morning classes powered by cappuccini.

Car festival/race in the center of Cagliari

These past couple of days have been filled with laughter, shopping, and indecisiveness to the nth degree. People are much harder to find gifts for than we originally anticipated, and I think I have re-visited almost all of the places. We are starting to become regulars now. My favorite part about this though is that every time we walk into the same store, we are greeted as a group with a familiar smile. Each time we are asked more questions by the shop owner and forced to listen to more Italian and try to communicate the best we can. It's like a puzzle trying to figure out what's trying to be conveyed to you and how you can respond. I think it's so much fun getting to interact with so many people and see how communication doesn't have to be a precise science. Things just flow, and it's really hard to let go of what exactly you want to say to go with something that could potentially convey the same meaning. I'm also quite sure that everyone in this city has at least seen part of our group at one time or another. We never wander off too far in either direction.

Top view of Poetto. The beach stretches about 8 km and is one of the longest beaches in Europe.

Yesterday, I was reflecting as well on how much this dialogue has taught me about  solid waste management here in the EU as well as in the USA. It gave me an insight into all kinds of waste management options which I found really interesting. So far, the majority of my classes in school have been those that are the basic science and math courses that every engineer has to take. Basically the boring stuff that's important for a foundation, but doesn't really relate to anything civil. Being a part of this dialogue gave me the opportunity to not only work with and get to know other students in my major, but also give me an insight into one facet of the civil engineering profession. I'm not sure that waste management is exactly my thing, especially after some of the smells, yet, I do really like civil engineering, especially the more environmental side. This class wasn't calculations heavy, but the amount of information that was taught as well as how much I actually absorbed surprised me. It made me kind of start to enjoy school again which was a nice surprise.

A big thanks should go to our Professor for all of the work she has done throughout the dialogue to make sure everything runs smoothly. We wouldn't have had as many great cultural experiences without a true Sardinian, nor would we have found anyone who could give us better beach suggestions.

View walking to our dorm

For those who aren't aware, we are allowed to differ our return flights home to Boston. So I will be taking advantage of my current geographical position and visit some of my exchange friends who I haven't seen in one to two years. I couldn't be more excited as I look forward to visiting Belgium, France, Denmark, and Norway over the next couple of weeks. Cagliari has been a wonderful start to this summer, and now it's onto true vacation time. Hopefully I can return in the future to once again greet the Sardinian island that I have called home for the past month. Ciao Cagliari.

The Usual

Yesterday, we had two guest speakers who were friends or friends of friends of our Professor. It's always fun to have a guest speaker come and talk about the work that they do that relates to topics that we are covering in class. I also enjoy listening to how our Professor knows these people from both the school/professional field and just in a social setting as well. The first guest speaker we had talked about end of life vehicles (ELV). ELV is exactly what it sounds like, dealing with cars after they don't function anymore. The difficulty is dealing with all of the different components that make up a car. The process of dividing the car into separate components in order to ensure that the majority is recycled is first de-pollution, followed by dismantling, shredding, and then automotive shredder residue (ASR). During the first part of the process, parts that can be reused or recycled are collected as well as parts that contain hazardous materials. The parts that contain hazardous materials are disposed of properly and then the ELV continues to dismantling where more parts are reused or recycled. Shredding allows different materials to be recovered such as metal. The ASR is what is left after all that can be recycled or reused is collected. This waste mostly goes to landfills, but they are looking at ways to get even more out of the waste such as producing fuel from it through combustion. I thought it was interesting to look at ELVs once again after a presentation from one of the groups during the beginning of the program. Cars are a big part of our lives in the USA, and most parts of the world, and people never really think about what happens once a car can no longer function.

Another thing that is part of ELV is the disposal of tires. During one of our site visits we saw a pile of shredded tires which have a lot of different applications, just think of an artificial turf field. 

Our other guest speaker works for the government here in Cagliari dealing with remediation of mine sites on the island. There are many old mine sites here on the island with a lot of different chemicals leaking into nearby water and soil. In order to contain these chemicals as much as possible, it's important to remediate a site which can be difficult due geography as many of these sites are along the rocky coasts. I personally thought it was interesting although I'm not sure I would want it to be my career. Many places in Colorado also have to deal with mining waste left behind after many years and seeing how they do it here in Cagliari gave me an idea of how it might look in the USA as well. What I found the most interesting about the work that he does is that a lot of the different contaminated sites just look like part of the scenery. When we were driving to the beach, many of the abandoned mines we passed were either remediated sites or will be in the near future. Much of the landscape looked natural besides the abandoned buildings, but in reality, a lot of the "natural" looking formations were not natural. This was surprising to me because I would never think to see them as anything but part of nature because they had already started to look like the surrounding area. Talk about deceptive!

One of the mines sites we drove by going to the beach earlier in the month

Today we spent another day at the beach. The water is always crystal clear, and since it's June, the weather was beautiful (although a bit windy). It may not seem like we were doing anything but having fun in the sun, which is true for the most part, but it's actually a really big cultural thing here in Sardinia. People during the summer go to the beach for the entire day and just relax. So technically we are doing just what the people here would be doing.

The beach today. Yes, the water was this clear

Just Keep Swimming

Typical morning cappuccino

This week has gone by as fast as any other week, yet now it really feels as though we have lived here as our time seems to come to an end. Just the other day we were saying there were four weeks left. Now there's about one and a half weeks. I can't believe how much we have done in such a short amount of time, and how much we can still come up with to do.

About a week ago, I decided that I wanted to see if scuba diving here on the island was possible. I have had my certification since I was 10, and have really only had the opportunity to dive in the Pacific Ocean. After doing some research and going through countless emails, I was able to set up a dive date for yesterday. It was absolutely amazing and different than any diving I have done. First, the water was clear as always and the visibility was better than I've ever had it on a dive which allowed me to see all around which I was under the water. Another thing that I wasn't really expecting was the variety of fish that I saw and how some of them were just as colorful as fish that I had seen in Hawaii. There was a giant crab, some groupers, and also a little hermit crab. The part that I liked the most though was there was this one rock that was covered in thousands of these little tiny black fish and they seemed to just be suspended there. I always forget how exhilarating and nerve wracking diving can be. There's all the equipment, maintaining buoyancy, trying not to crash into other divers, and freaking out when you accidentally try to breath through your nose. But it's the small moments such as watching all of the little fish where I feel as though I am actually part of the world that make all the weird feelings worth it.

Isola dei Cavoli - second dive spot

My scuba equipment for the day

There are flowers EVERYWHERE on the island

As of right now, the language is still a bit of a mystery to me. When I went diving, only my instructors spoke English. When they were speaking in Italian with the rest of the group, I was kind of lost. Of course there were more technical terms with all of the dive equipment, but still it was a bit frustrating and intimidating. This older lady sat next to me on the bus one day, and unfortunately I couldn't really have a conversation with her because I didn't had the words to respond. All of these little events made me recall how hard it really was when I was learning Portuguese. There were definitely more days in the beginning where I would understand nothing but a few words. Some days I would go without speaking to many people or even forming complete sentences. Yet, eventually I figured things out. Here, I don't really have that time and I feel caught in that space where it's as if I'm a child all over again, watching, observing, and listening to everything around me. It's a weird feeling and hard to not get annoyed sometimes, yet whenever I do manage to say something right (majority of these encounters involving food) it's always a small accomplishment. Everyday we all just keep going, and maybe by the end of the dialogue, some Italian will come to us.

Part of the boat pier from the boardwalk

Digestion of the Future

View from the top of one of the anaerobic digestion centrifuges

Today we had our last technical visit where we visited an anaerobic digestion plant. The entire center consisted of not only this facility, but also a landfill, solar park, waste water treatment center, and a composting plant. There were so many different waste management systems in this place that it was almost like an entire park. For those who aren't familiar with the term, anaerobic digestion is where organic waste is broken down without oxygen and uses microorganisms to produce methane, which then becomes an energy source. This is a much cleaner way to produce energy as well as reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfills. Here, they receive so much organic waste (food and yard scraps) from municipalities that they have to separate them between anaerobic digestion and composting. At this specific plant, the anaerobic digestion side is processed in two different stages in order to collect the gas that the microorganisms produce.

Giant biogas ball

Eucalyptus tree filter

One of the coolest things at the facility was how they contained the biogas they collected, which was a giant sphere made of a type of plastic where the inside would fill with gas if there was too much being produced that could go into the system at once. It looked like a giant planetarium from the outside and looked like something that didn't belong. Another thing that I found interesting was the bio-filter they had created out of eucalyptus trees. These trees are not native to the island, but can be found everywhere. Their branches and trunk are used in order to limit the amount of smell that was coming out of the compost facility. It neutralized the smell with only some water and some trees. What really made this visit stand out from the others was our tour guide that led us around the plant. He was very enthusiastic, always smiling and joking. And his English was really good compared to a lot of the other people we have talked to. It was surprising to learn though, that he is self-taught in English with his only big interaction with native English speakers being a week long trip to the UK. Other than that, he just watches TV shows and learns from that. It's amazing to think that everything he was telling us he learned on his own with no one to practice with. I'm glad we could help him out by giving him an audience for the morning!

Some falling water

The second half of the day was spent doing more hiking. I didn't realize coming here that the terrain would be so mountainous. I did look up the island before-hand, but I thought more of my time would be spent on the beach rather than hiking. The first part of our hike led up to a waterfall, but it was more like a water-trickle since it is currently the dry season here in Sardinia. After seeing the water, myself and a couple other people couldn't resist the rocks that were all around us and followed the trail in order to hike higher. It was a lot of fun following the trail and hiking over rocks in order to get a better view. Heights still freak me out continuously, yet having the view of everything around you is worth the little bit of fear in the back of your mind.

View from climbing (not even close to the top)