I leave for Iceland on Friday, so my family decided that we should go ahead and put up our Christmas decorations before I left. We are not one of those families who puts all of our decorations out the day after Thanksgiving and we firmly believe that Christmas music belongs in December. I cannot count the number of times we complained about the people on our street that have had their Christmas lights up since well before Thanksgiving. However, I will say that decorating for Christmas is one of my favorite things about the holiday season. There are so many traditions and I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.
When I was little I used to think that our tree was ten feet tall and had miles of lights on it, I was shocked to learn a few years ago that our tree was maybe seven feet tall before we cut it to fit in the tree stand and there are only three strands of lights on the trees. It was a bit of an adjustment recalibrating my childhood perception of the magic of Christmas. That's not to say that I don't still love Christmas. We got our tree today and I am happy to report that the weather was mild and we weren't freezing while perusing the Frasers and Douglas Firs. The second we got home a turned on Christmas music and made hot chocolate because you cannot decorate a tree without some key components and everyone in my family put on their Santa hats. My dad and I grappled with the lights and successfully wrapped our tree in rainbow colors. I was just glad the lights worked when we plugged them in because we forgot the cardinal rule of tree decorating, check your lights before you put them up. After the tree is always the outside of the house. My dad and I decked the house in twinkling lights while my mom put out the nativity scene. My sister had insisted we get giant outdoor ornaments last year, so we had to dig out a ladder and find ways to hang them. I love doing the lights on the outside of the house, every year I try to do them a little different because variety is the spice of life. Although, the true best part of Christmas decorating is doing it as a family. It wouldn't be nearly as magical without singing Christmas music and arguing over what goes where together.
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It is the week before finals week and it turns out, far more stressful than finals themselves. Now I realize that a career in business is essentially just one extended group project for the rest of my life, but four group projects being due in the span of a week is a little much for me. So for just a moment, I am going to ignore all of that and imagine I am still in Chile. In my last blog I talked about the Valle Del Luna in the Atacama Desert. So today I am going to talk about our first attempt to go to the park.
In my last blog, I realize that I failed to mention that it took several attempts for us to get into the park. Our first attempt was my favorite though. We had spent the day driving around to different destinations in Chile and we were all exhausted. I think that at one point we all fell asleep on the bus and the professors had to go down the line and wake us all up. This was our final stop of the day and we were going to watch the sunset. We showed up to the entrance to the park around 7 o'clock, and for reference, sunset was not until closer to 9 and they turned us away. Apparently to get into the park, you had to show up before 6 o'clock or they wouldn't let you in. I assumed that since our plans had been thwarted, we would go back to our hostel and probably collapse in bed. I was minding my own business when the bus just stops on the road. I must have missed some cue because everyone was getting of the bus in the middle of nowhere. As it turns out the professors decided either way we were going to get our sunset photos, turns out they were right. We were parked who knows where and I probably got the best sunset photos from the entire trip that night. Sure the sunset was vibrant, just like every night but it was the people that made it fun. I was experimenting and asked someone to pose for me to try and get a silhouette of them against the sky. The picture turned out amazing and after that everyone wanted a turn. People posed with the cameras, the girls in sororities did their house signs and the boys mockingly imitated them. Half the group was taking pictures and the other half was playing ninja. We stayed out there until the last of the sunlight faded and promptly fell asleep on the bus. Overall I would say it was a successful night, despite not going the way we planned. It may be mid-fall today, but it is well below freezing and bone-chillingly windy. I am dreaming of warmer weather, so I am writing about a place much warmer than Cincinnati in October: The Atacama Desert in Chile. Or more specifically the Valle Del Luna or Moon Valley, a beautiful state park in Chile that has sand dunes, hiking and a beautiful view of the sunset, although it to is ridiculously windy. Last December when finals were finished, I traveled to Chile for a study abroad about Geology, Anthropology, and Astronomy in Chile. We did incredible things every day and it was one of the most amazing trips of my life. Since I dreaming of somewhere warm, the sandy desert seems like a good place to start.
One night we wanted to go the valley to take pictures of the sunset and it did not disappoint. The landscape itself was almost overwhelming in sheer size. We were hiking along a sand and dirt path lined with a cliff on either side of us. The beginning of the path was rather flat but after that it became hard work to haul ourselves up the sand dune we were climbing. The climbing was harder the further we went up, but the view was also more spectacular. Looking out from the top there were distinctive patterns in the sand where the wind had blown and other places where it looked like it had never been touched by anything. There were also 25 mile an hour winds whipping around us as we watched the sunset, so we all held onto one another and pulled ourselves up to make sure no one falls. If we had slipped, we would not be able to climb back up again. It looked like we could slide down the sand forever and then just sink right through it. The best part of the entire view was the sunset, the sky was lit up with vibrant colors as we squinted at the setting sun. It was later in the trip, so we all knew each other well and felt bonded to the others in the group. There was a moment of peace at the top of that sand dune, the winds were so loud there was no point talking to each other, so we just sat and watched the sun dip below the horizon, leaving a sky painted in vibrant hues of orange and pink. It was a serene experience that not one of us would trade for anything in the world. My travels begin with a day trip to Oregonia, OH for the ROARtreat at Camp Kern. (I feel like you might need some context here) ROAR is an association of Tour Guides at the University of Cincinnati as a subset of the Office of Admissions. Unfortunately they don't pay us except for free t-shirts and pizza occasionally, but that is besides the point. And no, ROAR does not stand for anything. It used to have a super complicated name that ultimately came down to someone really wanted an acronym that spelled ROAR.
Being a ROAR guide is fairly solitary gig by nature. It's one guide standing in front of a group of people hoping to keep their attention long enough for them to not sneak off from the tour. However, one of ROAR's goals is to create a community of guides, so our illustrious president has instituted "mandatory fun"... I mean, bonding. So we all loaded up our cars and drove out to YMCA Camp Kern. Our “bonding” activities started out with an Amazing Race. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, we were divided into groups and sent all over the camp to complete activities for points to be the winning group. I mean, what better way to bond than to pit us against each other and compete for glory? We really took the competition aspect of the race to heart. We ran past groups to try to cut them off from stations and heckling was necessary to build team morale. I would disclose the activities but it was requested that we not share for the purpose of future groups doing the same activities. In the vaguest terms, lets just say I was just there for morale support for some of the more athletic challenges. I can cheer from the sidelines with the best of them. I dominated on the puzzles though, so I did contribute a little bit. We also had to have a discussion to validate driving an hour to play games at a camp for kids. In the more philosophical portion of the afternoon, I found I had a hard time relating the Amazing Race to giving a tour. Unless we start giving tours competitively, in which case, sign me up... I caught the travel bug.
It's as simple as that. My freshman year of college I was able to do a study abroad to Austria, studying music history and famous composers. The trip itself was only 10 days long, but it changed the course of my life in ways I could have never imagined. (See Vienna as the City of Music) After a few international trips, I now have a mile long list of places I want to explore and (hopefully) fall in love with. My adventures so far, have taken me to Vienna, Austria and the Atacama Desert in Chile. I wouldn't say I'm "obsessed" with travel, but I certainly would not expect to be able to keep me from a good adventure. I am part of another study abroad that is traveling to Iceland, and i can hardly wait. This semester is going to be dedicated to learning about Iceland and the wonders it has in store for me. However, as a college student I can't exactly take exotic trips every other weekend (as much as I would like to). Instead I am going to explore my home city of Cincinnati (or further) and document my adventures. I don't yet know where this semester is going to take me, but discovering that is half the fun. |
About Me3rd Year Marketing Major at the University of Cincinnati |