Saturday: No One Was Kidnapped by Pirates

Previously on Cagliari Dialogue 2015: scary masks, Lord of the Rings, tiny church, singing shepherds, cougars, street art, bandits, uphill hikes with amazing views.

Saturday: Saturday morning started off strong, with some of the group (not me who accidentally set an alarm for 5pm) woke up at 5 am for a sunrise hike up the mountain. According to them, it was pretty incredible an I'm more than a little bit jealous. Once they made it back down and everybody ate breakfast, we headed down a horribly windy mountain road and to the Gulf of Orosei for a day of cruising around on the Mediterranean (I know, mountains and Mediterranean in one weekend does seem too amazing to be true) .

Our first stop was Grotta del Bue Marino, which up until the 1980s was inhabited by monk seals, but is now just inhabited by some blind lizards and tourists like us (and probably smeagol) Due to some serious rules about photo taking, I sadly didn't get to take any pictures inside but I did get to take a few at the entrance. 

From there, our next stops were some pretty incredible beaches. Due to my refusal to leave the water the entire time we were at the beach, my pictures were a little bit few and far between so I'll summarize: the water was perfect, we played around and jumped off some crazy rock formations, we ate enormous lunches provided to us by our hotel, we had some sunburns among us (although surprisingly not me), and everyone had a pretty fantastic day and was pretty upset when the boat arrived to take us back.

And so ended another exhausting but incredible weekend.

Friday: No One Was Kidnapped by Bandits

This week another amazing weekend started early when we got on the bus at 9:00 on Friday morning and headed out, this time to the east side of Sardinia. After a two hour bus ride that consisted mostly of sleeping, and some pretty amazing stories of Sardinian history from Paola, we arrived in Nuoro to the Museo Etnographico Sardo. Here we saw some beautiful traditional Sardinian clothes and artifacts, some masks you would not want to run into in the dark and at least part of the cast of Lord of the Rings.

From there we headed to a beautiful, tiny church nearby where Grazia Deledda, the first Italian woman to ever win a Nobel Prize for Literature, was buried. After that we took a couple minutes to run up the hill next to the church to check out the view, which seemed pretty amazing at the time, until later in the day when we found something new to compare it to.

After that, we headed to Orgosolo, where we ate a delicious lunch provided by the shepherds. I didn't eat any of the suckling pig, but I hear it was delicious. I can tell you that the bread and cheese were pretty excellent.

After eating, we got to know some of the other guests, including some older ladies who were very fond of some of the boys. Then the shepherds started up some music and some dancing and singing ensued. 

After that, we escaped the onslaught of the boys' admirers and headed into the city of Orgosolo itself where we saw some pretty incredible street art. We learned that they arose from a time of social unrest in Sardinia in the late 1960s and have continued to be used to express discontent with the state of the world to this day. It was one of the most photogenic places I've ever been. 

After that we headed to our hotel, which was perched about 20 switchbacks up the side of a mountain. It was sadly around this time that my camera battery died so I have no pictures of my own to show, but I will show you this picture that Maggie took, just to give an idea of what kind of view we were working with.

Photo cred to the lovely Maggie Osbahr: http://mkodoccagliari.blogspot.it/

After arriving and marveling at the view for a couple minutes, the majority of the group headed up the hill even higher on a short, but pretty intense hike in search of an even better view, which we found. We then headed down, and made it just in time for some delicious dinner and a spectacular sunset. We ended the night with some stargazing out on the balcony.

Because of how ridiculously full this weekend was, I'm going to split it into two parts, so stay tuned for Saturday's happenings.

Next time on Cagliari Dialogue 2015: sunrise hikes, carsickness inducing busrides, copyrighted caves, enormous bag lunches, perfectly clear water, feet destroying rocks and jumping off of bigger rocks. 

Landfillin' Like a Villain

Monday:
Contrary to what many might believe based on my blog posts thus far, school has been happening during this trip. On Monday, the class gave presentations on their first project, where they examined and compared solid waste policies for the United States and Europe and gave recommendations for policy changes that could be made to improve management practices. I apologize in advance to all the groups for the terrible sneaky iPhone photos I took of all of you as you were presenting.

First up was Erika, Kestral, Lindsey and Cat who talked about the organic fraction of our waste.

They taught us all about the differences in how the US and Europe handle organic waste including the fact that apparently, according to the EPA, yard waste is the same as a refrigerator when you're trying to dispose of it.

Next up was Neil, Lauren and Divya.

From them we learned all about how different packaging, including glass and plastic, is handled in the US and Europe. We learned that Belgians are really good at recycling glass, probably due to all the beer that they drink.

Next up were Sean, Dylan, Eli and Falconi who taught us about construction and demolition waste. They taught us that we might be able to learn a thing or two about sustainability from the ancient Romans as long as we're not too worried about the blood and sweat of serfs. 

Next up were Matt, Emily, Ted and Maggie, who taught us about end of life vehicles and end of life tire disposal. From them we learned that cars are technical, therefore so was their presentation. 

Finally came Dima, Danielle and Audriana.

They taught us about e-waste and reminded us of everyone's favorite quote about the environment, from the great Dr. Seuss. 

Tuesday:

On Tuesday we had another technical field trip, this time to the EcoSerdiana landfill and cogeneration facility. Most of us had never been to a landfill before, so I think we were all surprised by the giant land area, relatively beautiful landscape and general lack of smelliness.

It was a really interesting site visit, led by two female engineers and changed a lot of our preconcieved notions about landfills.

This Place is Terrible

This weekend was amazing and jam packed with an obscene amount of food, incredible views and an absurd amount of cuteness for one farm. We started off the weekend getting on the bus at 9:00ish and meeting our magnificent tour guide Paola a.k.a. the Viper. We headed up the west coast to our first stop, the Geomining Park of Sardinia in the Sulcis region.

We arrived to find an amazing view of the water before venturing underground armed with nothing but our hard hats and a few flashlights, hoping not to find any ghosts of old miners or fire breathing dragons.

We emerged on the other side safe and sound and to a pretty spectacular view.

We headed back through the tunnel and spent a little time playing on the beach before heading to our next stop, an enormous lunch at a restaurant near the water.

Our next stop was the Temple of Antas, an ancient ruin nearby where we all got in touch with our historical sides, discovered a boy band in our midst, and of course got distracted by the local animal and tree species. 

From there, we took yet another amazingly scenic drive to Agriturismo Sa Perda Marcada in Arbus where we spent the night. We explored the farm for a little while, where we met some chickens, horses, cats and the ugliest turkey any of us had ever seen, until it was time for dinner.

That night for dinner, we were served yet another amazing meal and spent the rest of the evening looking up at the stars, contemplating aliens and getting attacked by a hunting cat in the dark.

The next morning we got up and had a delicious breakfast, featuring the first eggs we've eaten since arriving in Italy. We then had a cooking lesson, led by the wonderful Elena, and made the pasta (gnochetti) and dessert (seadas) that we would later eat at lunch. 

In between cooking periods we worked really hard around the farm (aka napped with puppies and played soccer with children). 

Then for lunch we got to taste the fruits (aka pasta and cheese) of our labor. And they were pretty delicious.

After lunch we said goodbye to our amazing hosts and headed to the beach where we battled the cold and crazy waves for a couple of hours before heading back to Cagliari, sandy and sleepy.