...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)

A Switch-back Situation

This weekend we went on our second overnight trip to see the middle of the island as well as the east coast. It was a much longer bus ride this time with far too many switch-backs to keep track. We went up and down the mountains so many times that I just had to close my eyes and pretend I wasn't in the bus anymore. I'm just thankful that I never got carsick enough to actually be sick. Although, I felt very close to it.

The first stop we made was to the Museo della Vita e delle Tradizioni Popolari Sarde, which translates to the Museum of the Life and of the Popular Sardinian Traditions. The museum was really neat because it showed many of the traditional clothes, jewelry, and customs of the different regions on the island of Sardegna. One of the important things that we saw there were the traditional outfits during the time of carneval which were very interesting but disturbing as well. The shepherds outfits resembled those of animals, and they would wear them while walking in the streets to perform. I personally thought they were very dark and had an eerie air about them, but at the same time I was amazed at the thought that something like that survived for so many years. The outfits differed from place to place even though they all lived on the same island which shows how much the perception of geography has changed throughout the years.

Traditional outfits from different Sardinian regions

Carneval costumes with shepherds dressed as sheep

After the tour, we went to eat lunch with the shepherds at a traditional style lunch. It was different than I had expected because it was much more touristy with a huge group of older Italians sitting with us. It made sense after I thought about how many people would like to experience something like a traditional shepherd meal, but it still wasn't what I was expecting. We ate multiple courses of meat, bread, and cheese with no silverware on a small wooden board. Afterwards, we enjoyed one of the best oranges I have ever had and some of the traditional music performed by the shepherds. Their singing was very earthy and made me feel timeless in the sense that the music has existed for so many generations and yet is still very much the same. We then participated in "dancing" as a group with the older Italian tourists. None of us knew what was going on, and that was the best part. Our lack of Italian didn't matter. Their English wasn't important. It was just fun.

First course of our meal, salami, bacon, bread, and smoked cheese (not pictured)

Dancing?

Walking around was an order after eating so much food. We drove down the mountain to the town of Orgosolo which is famous for the many murals that adorn its streets. Down every alley and around every corner, there would be a mural with its own story to tell. Some would be of famous people and famous quotes, others would be very political in nature. Others would be so realistic that they looked like real pictures while others were abstract enough to not understand at first glance. They would tell stories of what happened around the world as well as just in Italy. The art was amazing and for such a small town on a hill, it seemed so perfect.

One of the murals down a side street

We arrived at the hotel after walking around and decided it would be a great idea to go on an adventure and hike the mountain that our hotel rested on right before dinner. After making a couple wrong turns, we made it to a look out point that reminded me of Colorado. Just hiking again took me back to the nature that surrounded me growing up. Even though I was never THAT much into hiking as many people were in Steamboat, it still reminded me of when I was younger. It was a nice change from all of the towns and cities that I've become accustomed to in the past year and slowed down time to a near stop.

View of the mountains from the hotel patio, top right rock where we climbed (I think)

View from the top of the hike

The next morning we went on a beach extravaganza where we spent the entire day on either a beach, boat, or bus. We used a type of tourist-boat circuit that would pick up and drop off people at different locations about every hour which means that we saw a lot of different places in a short amount of time. The first stop was at the Grotto del Bue Marino which translates to the grotto of the monk seal. Unfortunately, the monk seals that used to come into the cave about 30/40 years ago to give birth no longer inhabit the island or any part of Italy. They can only be seen in other parts of the Mediterranean such as Africa, Turkey, and Greece. The cave itself is massive, about 8 km, and we only saw a very small piece. There were no photos allowed inside due to copyrights on the cave.

Entrance to the Grotto del Bue Marino

First beach

After the cave, we hopped back on the boat to visit our first beach which was sand/rocks and crystal blue water. No matter where we were, the water was crystal clear.  It was glassy and very deceptive when trying to determine depth. I felt as if I had just stepped into a postcard yet one hundred times better. The next place we stopped at was farther along the rocky coast, and what was harder to believe was that this beach was better than the first. This beach was covered in small perfect white pebbles that seemed harmless yet hurt with every step to walk on. We took advantage of the rocks and deeper water to conquer our fears of heights and jump. It was an amazing day even though the sun only made an appearance for the boat ride back home. We all slept on the long bus ride back "home" to Cagliari with slightly tanned faces and salt covered bodies being all that remained from the beaches we had left.

View from the second beach

Cliffy coastline

Landfilling by Sardinia

One of the waste trucks

Today, we visited a landfill outside of the city named Ecoserdiana. Originally it was a municipal solid waste facility (MSW) which means that all of the trash that the regular population creates went there. In the year 2008, it was non-renewed for MSW and now it only deals with industrial waste. Not having taken a lot of classes about landfilling or dealing with solid waste made this tour a bit harder for me to understand in terms of processes and exactly how everything is done. The lecture in class did help the day before, but going into the tour I was unsure of how much of that information I absorbed.

Top view of the landfill, right side is half of the old MSW landfill
while the left is the other side of the MSW being covered with industrial waste

The darker grey is bottom ash from incineration while the light grey is from the top

Anyways, what I found the most interesting was the history of the facility as well as how they are preparing for the future. The landfill itself is actually 40 acres and contains six different landfills. There is a lot of preparation of the area that goes into a landfill, such as lining and clay in order to make sure the waste is contained. Landfills produce leachate which is a liquid that is produced from rainwater or from the waste itself that has been contaminated. Since the facility used to deal with more MSW, there were a lot more organic products in the waste meaning that methane gas was being produced. This gas was then transported down the road through piping and used as biofuel to create energy. The facility still produces biofuel, but since the facility can no longer handle MSW and deals mostly with waste from incineration, there is less biogas being produced. Yet, they can still extract methane from the MSW below. The incineration waste is actually being placed on top of an old MSW landfill which I thought was pretty interesting creating a sort of two-story landfill. The methane gas that is collected is then transported down the road through the pipes where it is converted into energy. All of the energy is sold back into the grid. Currently, they are looking at putting in and anaerobic digestion plant near the biogas facility where they would handle organic waste in order to be able to turn more biogas from the anaerobic digestion into energy. This would compensate for the methane gas that will eventually run out from the landfill. They also have a solar farm there producing energy. Both solar and biogas have incentives from the government, but solar has more of an incentive because it's a much cleaner process.

Data monitoring tower for the landfill

Biogas to energy facility

The idea of having so many different facilities near each other in a type of district is really neat I think. A lot of the different processes can relate to each other and work towards creating more renewable and sustainable energy and provide more sustainable waste management. One system could provide energy for another system and so on. Having a system like the one that Ecoserdiana is planning on creating would help the USA when it comes to waste management. After learning about how the USA manages waste, we could definitely benefit from following the lead of the EU. Maybe Italy would be a decent starting point since no one can compete with the Germans when it comes to waste management. Also, fun fact, the engineers who were in charge of both the landfilling and the biogas turning into energy were women.

Welcome to our classroom!

No Extra Salt Needed

This weekend was absolutely amazing where we got to see the island in an entirely new perspective. We traveled outside of the city for an overnight on the west side of the island where we enjoyed the history of the island and the farming lifestyle.

Outside of the port, view of the water and Pan di Zucchero

On Saturday morning, we traveled to the western side of the island to visit an old port called Porto Flavia that was once connected to a mine. It was created in order to be competitive with another company back when many different metals were being mined in the island. Instead of having to take the metals far away from the mine, they created a port inside of the mountain. It was cool to be able to see inside of the mine, yet I could never imagine having to work inside the darkness like that. The view from the port as well as just the coast was amazing as well. The ocean here is beautiful with crystal clear waters where you can see the bottom. We didn't enter the water, but still just to be able to stare at it for a few minutes was amazing.

Learning about the history of the port from out guide

After the mine, we enjoyed a similar lunch to our giant dinner with tons of seafood and course after course after course. It seemed like never-ending food, and not being a huge fan of seafood didn't make the food stop. I did try almost everything, but the taste of fish is still not favorite. We got back on the bus after the meal and drove to Tempio di Antas where we saw a restored structure that was created in the Roman style on top of an older structure. Many people have visited Sardinia over the years and tried to take control of the island because of its position in the Mediterranean and recently there have been discoveries on the island (well, just recently released) that would change the history of the Mediterranean and the role Sardinians played. After our long day, we went to the place we spent the night which was an agriturismo place that had a farm but also a bed and breakfast. There, we enjoyed another great meal (the food here is way too good) and the stars that aren't very apparent in the city.

Tempio di Antas

Agriturismo Sa Perda Marcada

Sunday we spent the morning enjoying breakfast at the agriturismo place and then received a cooking lesson from the owner's daughter. The first thing we had to make was called malloreddus which is a Sardinian gnocchetti. All 20 of us had to take the pasta dough we were given, roll it out into a thin rope, and then take little bit of it and press it into a shaper to make a sort of curled, ribbed piece of pasta. The result looked like this:

Malloreddus

Seadas/seabadas

It seemed like we were making pieces of pasta for a while, but working as a team to make all of the pasta that we would later eat was a lot of fun. I think it's easy to forget where food comes from because a lot of the time, we just go to the supermarket and buy whatever we need or want. This is especially true where I'm from in Colorado because the majority of our food is transported into the mountains. We couldn't produce it ourselves because of the weather and climate, so being able to make food using ingredients from the farm such as the eggs from the chickens and tomatoes from the garden for sauce was pretty neat. After making all of the pasta, we then made a traditional Sardinian dessert called seadas/sebadas. It started off with dough and from there we rolled it out to make a thin sheet. In the past, they used rolling pins, but we used a Kitchen Aid with a pasta dough rolling attachment. It wasn't the most traditional part, but it does reflect the change in the times and even with the help of the appliance the dessert took longer than the pasta. After rolling out the dough into a thin sheet, a pile of fresh goat cheese was added on top with lemon zest. The dough was rolled back onto the cheese in order to make a sort of ravioli and then sealed with a fork once removing the extra dough. This was then fried and served with honey on top. From there, the owner and her family cooked and prepared out meal and the result was delicious! One thing that I found really interesting was that Sardinian cooking doesn't use a lot of spices. For example, in a tomato sauce there is usually only onion and some basil and maybe garlic if you like it. Yet, it tastes amazing and much better than many other tomato sauces. This can only be due to the quality of the ingredients they have here on the island. They make things simple because they don't need to add anything else.

Finished pasta with tomato sauce

Fried seada with honey

After the cooking lesson, we headed to the beach for an hour where I personally got covered in a layer of salt. No wonder all of the sea food here is never salted. The Mediterranean provides enough! Now, time to get back to class and continue to explore the city of Cagliari.

Beach!