Grant Gussman '09- Today is Friday, August 29th 2008. Classes have begun in what will be my final semester as an undergraduate student here at Wabash College. In the midst of working 2 jobs, helping out with freshmen orientation, and gearing up for the semester, I realized I had overlooked writing any sort of final entry for this blog, something I knew I had to rectify. Then again, I think right now is the perfect time to reflect on my trip.

As I immerse myself with readings, short essays, syllabi, dropping and adding classes, meeting new professors, and meeting all the new freshmen, it's easy to forget that just one month ago, I was in another country. I was on another CONTINENT, actually. It seems so long ago now, since I've been devoting my time to all things Wabash, but for 2 months this summer, I was living, taking classes, speaking, and even dreaming in another language, amongst people with a very different outlook on life. My only regret is that, since I've been back, everyone's been asking, "How was Spain?" And although I would love to explain all the relationships I had (with people from all over the world) and the culture and what it's like to interact as a foreigner, etc., the people who ask are usually looking for a small-talk conversation. I can't blame them... for me to give any sort of pseudo-accurate description of my trip would take 2 more months of talking. But hopefully this blog can do some justice to explaining what this trip meant to me. I know I’ll be going back in the future to re-read my entries, but that’s easy because I lived through all of this. But I also pray someone else can read what I’ve written here and relate to something that happened to me… traveling to an unknown city alone, staying in a hostel, eating incredibly strange food… anything! Because even though I didn’t enjoy everything I experienced, I’m glad I had this chance.

As this will be my final post, let me say this one final time: Thank you, Rudolph family. I can’t possibly explain in a few hundred words here what your generosity has ultimately given me. Living abroad, even for a short time, has changed me in some small way. It’s made me more introspective and more tolerant of others’ ideas and cultures. It’s given me a fresh perspective on education, and especially on Wabash. And it’s made me much more aware of the rest of the world.

Even though I never had the chance to know your son, Ken, I want you to know that in the wake of the tragedy that led to his passing, you have helped 3 Wabash men so far fulfill a dream and gain a new outlook on life. I can’t say how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me, and I know I’m speaking for Brent and Ryan, too. So in closing, thank you again, and I  pray you’ll continue offering this amazing scholarship so that future generations of Wabash Men might have the same opportunities I have had.

Grant Forrester Gussman

Posted by at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brent Graham ’09 – Well I had a great time in Spain even with the snafu at the end of the trip. I can honestly say that I could live in Spain if it was necessary, or even if it wasn’t. Granada reminds me a lot of my hometown of Fort Wayne, IN. While it is the second largest city in the state, it retains kind of a small town feel for me. I think I will miss Irma and Neno, my host family, most of all. They helped me when I pronounced things wrong, taught me words and even a few local sayings. I gave Irma a small going away present, a Vera Bradley bag, that she said was beautiful and was perfect for her upcoming vacation to the beach. In return she presented me with a made for TV movie in Spanish and a CD of Opera in Spanish. They will be good additions to my DVD and CD libraries.

As you know I left for Paris by train on Thursday night. The train is something that all people should experience and preferably from first class. I took tourist class since I am a poor college student and it wasn’t bad except for I was on the top bunk and sat up into the ceiling three times. I know you’d think I learn after the first try but I can’t help that I have strange sleeping habits. The other problem was with who I was in a cabin with. It was me and two high school kids from Romania that were very fidgety and couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. I almost want to use my mothers favorite line and tell them to fold their hands and put them in their laps (mom is a kindergarten teacher).

After I arrived in Paris I wnt to the train station and checked my luggage in a locker. The sign said that it was 5€ for 10 hours and 8€ for 24 hours. I found out when I picked up my bags that that meant per bag. Paris is not a cheap city. They even charge you to use the public bathrooms in the train station. I however managed to see the city for 8€, not including the checked luggage fee. After I put my bags up I got on the metro and went to see the Eiffel Tower. It was just like Guernica much better in person. Right near the tower there is a military building that struck my eye because it had a cavalry building and looked a lot more like the town halls in Spain than a military building. The tower was also near a third building. It caught my eye because the roof is gold and beautifully sculpted and it is also surrounded by some beautiful gardens. The building was the Charles de Gaulle history museum.

Next I went to see the Arc de Triomphe. It was not something that I had to see but it was interesting. It was also Kind of a pain because you had to walk under the street to get to the center of the roundabout where the arc is and to get down and then back up the police had to search you. I’m still not sure what for. If I didn’t know any better I would have said it was built by the Romans. I learned it was based off of an arch built by the Romans but I didn’t realize the similarity until I was standing right under it.

My final stop before going back to the train station was church. I went to watch noon mass at Notre Dame (and no I don’t mean that school in South Bend, Indiana). It was amazing. Had I been half an hour earlier I could have heard the international service but instead I heard the French service. I didn’t understand it but it was still a good experience. At first I thought that the church was small but once I left to walk around it I saw how big it really is. Though I didn’t have a lot of time to see Paris I think that I saw a lot. For 8€ I saw some of the most important spots in Paris in 4 hours. After that I boarded a train to Germany to meet up with another Wabash student who is one of my fraternity brothers that is currently studying abroad, Ian scales.

(Germany trip follows)

Posted by Brent Graham at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Brent Graham ’09 – I left Germany today wishing that I had a week to spend there. The trip was amazing and a look into my roots as well as an exploration of another culture. I arrived after a long train ride at 9:30 at night and was excited to see Ian but thoroughly worn out. That feeling of fatigue was quick to pass however when I saw him. There is something about traveling that makes you tired and something about meeting friends from home in Europe that gives you a lot of energy. Ian was also with a friend of his that was once a foreign exchange student who lived with Ian’s family. To start we decided to lock our things up in a locker at the train station for the night. We then went to our hostel. In two words the hostel was a hippie commune. The hostel itself was in actuality a tent in the middle of the Botanical Garden and had about 100 beds in it. Next to that tent was another tent for people that were sleeping on the ground with just a pad and then there were fields where people with their own tens could camp. I loved every minute of it.

Later that night we went to an old industrial park that has been converted into a club area that resembles the boardwalk at Disney. There were many themes for the bars including an extraterrestrial bar, a communist bar complete with a statue of Lennon and an American bar with rock playing constantly. We however went to a bar in the back section that played a mix of house techno and rock. This was a great club and the walls were covered with video screens. The best part though was the beer that actually tasted like beer instead of water like the majority of what you are served in the states.

The next morning we went on a tour of the city. First we saw the Glockenspiel, the clock and green area on the tall tower in the picture below, and then we ate lunch at the Hofbräuhaus. Originally when we were done with that we were going to go up and hike in the Alps but we decided that with the weather threatening rain we mind as well just stay in the city. We climbed the tower of a church that I believe was the church of saint peter in English. Form the bell tower you could see the entirety of Munich for only 2€. It was actually about 1 o’clock when we reached the top and we could see the bells ringing as we walked by. The worst part about the bell was not the noise, which was loud, but the fact that the ringing bells moved the tower with them as they rang. Being a little skittish with heights I was not enjoying that part of the visit. Finally the bells stopped and I was able to enjoy the view.

Next I went to the English Garden and to see the Isar or Ice creek in German, as it was translated for me. There as the river dumps into the stream that has been carved through the park, there are small rapids. On these rapids people from Munich actually surf! I have pictures but if you have the time check it out on You Tube, just type in surf Munich. I’m pretty sure that in the video I watched it was the same guy I saw. It is of course suggested that the surfers not do this because of the risk but they do it anyway. Ian’s friend told me that a person died a few years back. I as a lifeguard of 6 years was on high alert and at one point thought I would have to jump in because it looked like one guy smashed his face on the side of the canal, which is made of concrete. After watching this for a while we sat in the garden which is a spot frequented by nude sunbathers, apparently mostly older men. Thankfully it was a cold day and we were spared the emotional scarring from such an experience. We did however sit in the Biergarten for the rest of the day and enjoy good food and beer as well as some brass band music from a pagoda in the park. When we left Ian's friend went home and Ian and I went back to our tent. He left the next day and I toured the old Olympic park. It was green and beautiful. I also did some laundry since I was down to my last pair of clean clothes. I’m going to tour London tomorrow and then I have to begin to face the unsettling fact that I and bound for the US on Wednesday. I will enjoy being home but I will miss Europe and will look forward to my next trip.

Thanks as always for reading and I will post tomorrow about my time in London.

Posted by Brent Graham at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brent Graham ’09 – On the 1st of August Grant and I both traveled to Madrid to explore the capital of the country we have both come to love. I arrived by bus at approximately 3 and Grant arrived about 40minutes later. We were supposed to meet but in the excitement of traveling we forgot to set a place and time to meet. While we were both in the station together we did not see each other and after some time I went to find a hostel and a computer to E-mail Grant. Grant at the same time went to store his luggage in a locker at the airport. Luckily Grant found internet at the airport and we decided to meet at the bus station. From there we went back to the hostel I had booked for the night which was right off of plaza mayor which I though was beautiful and Grant said was nothing compared to the plaza in Salamanca, and based on his pictures I have to agree.

After settling in, we decided to take a walk and get something to drink or to eat. We ended up having tapas and drinks for dinner while we discussed our experiences and just enjoyed the company of a friend in a foreign country. I had been without any of my friends from Granada for almost 4 days and he had not had many close friends in Salamanca the last semester because all his friends had left after the first month. Among some of the things that we discovered was that long pants and shoes were a common staple among the older generations in both cities but much more of a common dress in Salamanca than in Granada. We also noted that the old men always put their hands behind their backs when they walk unless they had a cane. One other interesting discussion we had was about tapas. In Granada when you buy a drink the drink comes with free tapas. It is not always a lot, sometimes a piece of bread with ham on it, but other times they are big enough to make a meal out of. There was one bar where a beer was 1.85€ and with it you could get a full slice of pizza. It was no NY style slice but it was big. They also had hamburgers, tortilla, empanadas, french-fries and of course ham.

On Saturday, we switched to a cheaper hostel and then went across town to the Prado to see Guernica, a famous painting by Picasso, because I really wanted to see it. Grant was a good sport and went with even though he isn’t a huge art fan. I had unfortunately been misinformed as to the location of the painting which was actually at another museum just 10 minutes from our hostel. We decided to go in anyway because we got a 50% discount for being foreign students. The Prado while beautiful was not as much fun as I had expected. The museum is mostly Renaissance art with some Greek sculpture thrown in. after the first floor we began to see the same subject by different artists over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, they were beautiful, but it got repetitive. After about two hours we left.

That evening we also upgraded our duo of Wallys in Madrid to a trio with the addition of an alumnus, Chris Haskell. He has been traveling Europe for the last few weeks and decided to meet us for our stay. After taking him to the hostel, we went to explore the neighborhood where our hostel was. It was not the best part of town, but it was safe, and we came across a street fair. There we discovered a food that puts fair food in the US to shame, salchipapas. For those that understand Spanish you probably have an idea of what this is already but for those who don’t, I will break it down. Salchichas are sausages or hot dogs depending on the store and the context. Papas Fritas are French-fries. Put the two together and you get salchipapas. They are served in what resembles a 32oz cup and to eat them you use skewers. The fries go in first and then a layer of sliced and fried hotdogs goes on top. Then you can add ketchup and/or mayonnaise. I opted not to ruin the flavor. While it is good it is not something that you would eat every day, like all fair food.

Sunday we hung out with some people we met form the hostel until grant had to leave. We said oodbye and then he left for the airport. We watched movies at the hostel and drank beer and sangria with a group of people there until bed around 1am. I went to bed early because the next day Chris and I were leaving for Barcelona, or so we thought…

(to cut down on space and loading problems the rest of this post follows in Stranded)

Posted by Brent Graham at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brent Graham ’09 – Monday morning Chris and I woke up at about 10 ate breakfast and began to look for a bus to Barcelona. We discovered that the buses were full that day. Since we were going to be there for another day, we decided to go and visit the Reigna Sofia, the actual home of Guernica because I still really wanted to see it. We took a guy from the hostel with us whose name was Phil but I called and still think of as Rob for no good reason. The Reigna Sofia was amazing. The art was much more modern and to me more interesting. I did like the Prado, but this was something else entirely. They had an exhibit where a black liquid was being charged by electro magnets to create patterns that rose up out of the pool of liquid. There was another section where a board covered in shaded wheels turned to reflect the shape and size of the person standing in front of it. It was crazy. Then we got to see Guernica. I have always enjoyed the painting mostly because its subject matter is the Spanish civil war, one of my favorite areas of study. In real life it is huge. I don’t know the exact measurements but it must have been about 5 meters tall and 12 meters long. It is panted entirely in blue and black tones and is a sight to be seen. It conveys such tragedy and grief while denouncing the war itself. There were also some Dali paintings. They are even stranger in real life.

After the museum we went to get food at a grocery store near by and then cooked a large meal. I made a soup that my host mother had made for me with pasta, peas and garbanzo beans. We also made sandwiches to go with them. That evening we repeated the events of the previous night and went to bed early, but first I booked bus tickets for 2 the next afternoon. Upon arriving at the station we learned that we were at the wrong station and were told by the bus company to go to the right station where they could help us. When we arrived at the right station we had missed the bus by 30 minutes. When we went to get help they told us that they could do nothing because we had missed our bus and the reservation was lost. They then told me that I could have gotten tickets on a later bus at the first station with no problem. I was not happy to say the least.

We went back to our hostel to try and figure out what to do. On the way back as I was carrying my luggage up the stairs of the metro station a nice Spanish man tried to help me. I was fine though and told him I didn’t need help and he began to walk away. At that moment a woman on the stairs behind me whispered in my ear, “su cartera.” Cartera in English is a wallet and my hand went immediately to my pocket and sure enough it was gone. I yelled at the man now only about 10 steps away and he slowly turned to look at me. I wanted to tell him in Spanish to give me my wallet but in that moment of panic and anger I forgot all of my Spanish and only managed in English to say “my wallet,” and gesture with my hands. It may have been the fact that I felt like I had been robbed enough by the bus company for one day and I looked pissed, it may have been Chris standing nearby with a similar disposition, or it may have been the woman who told me and her husband standing there looking the whole time. I personally believe it was a combination of these things and the fact that just across the street stood a group of 4 police officers and two more were sitting in their cars nearby. I have finally had a European experience, or so I’m told. After a day like that I didn’t have the patience or the funds to go to Barcelona and I decided to stay in Madrid until leaving Thursday for Germany. Chris, who was going to see two friends he knew there, couldn’t get in touch with them and decided to head to Paris on a night train the next night. While I am a little upset that I will not be able to see the Sagrada Familia and the beautiful beaches of Barcelona, I am happy to be traveling on a mini vacation and suggest to any of you who have the time interest and money to plan a European vacation soon.

Well that is where I leave you for now. I apologize for the length and for not posting for a while but as you can see it has been a busy week. I will write again when I reach London to tell you about my day in Paris and my weekend in Germany. As always thank you for reading and I will write soon.

Posted by Brent Graham at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)