TONGA SOA A MADAGASCAR

Just a little background info on my blog-keeping so far: there is very limited internet access (or has been for the past few days) so this update will be a very lengthy one starting from my journeys in flight to my adventures yesterday (I will maybe do an update for my adventures today later tonight).
*Oh and on a side note: Tonga Soa means "welcome" in Malagasy :-)

January 25th, 2012

Currently there is no Wi-Fi available on my loooong flight to Johannesburg so I am writing this is a word doc and will update it to my blog as soon as I find Wi-Fi. So I am about 11 hours into my 15-hour flight to Johannesburg and boy am I ready to be off of this plane. Luckily I had some Ambien on hand of which completely knocked me out. Haha only after I made a slight fool of myself to my neighbor in my high Ambien state telling her that “I couldn’t figure out how to open the window, but look at the material it’s made out of- isn’t it fascinating?” Luckily, she wasn’t a complete stranger, turns out she is good friends with one of my really good friends from home Kelsey, and they both go to UNH. Sooo weird- what a small world!

            And so my adventures begin. It started off with my alarm going off at 3:30 this morning telling me to get a move on to the Burlington Airport. After a long and tearful goodbye to Mike I was on my way. I hate saying goodbyes though; they are so hard. Especially to your best best friend who is basically the most important person in my life right now. We keep telling each other that it will only be “a few weeks” in the hopes that it will go by quicker so we can see each other again. Anyways, I love him and I miss him but enough about that- It’s making me sad 

            Onto more exciting news- I land in South Africa in less than four hours! Yayyy! (but by the time you read this I will have already landed but we can just pretend) I have never been to South Africa before- I wish I had more time to explore but we’ve got an itinerary to follow! Before boarding this flight I had the pleasure of meeting quite a few people from my program- they all seem really cool and nice and I can’t wait to start traveling with them! Oh and more good news: I somehow managed to get first class on my next flight- it was like that when I booked the ticket and was the same price as the non-business class ones. So I will be riding in style to Atnananarivo!!! Well that’s all I have to say for now- will update when I have internet and will also update when I have things to say about being in MADAGASCAR!

View of the sunrise over the Hudson on my way to JFK 

 After what seemed like an eternity, we finally landed in Johannesburg. The layover was not super long so by the time we found it to our terminal, it was time to hop on the next flight. Now let me tell you something about the next flight- for whatever reason, when I booked it through tripadvisor it automatically put me in business class for this one! And it didn’t even cost more! I was so catered too it was wonderful. 

Antananarivo airport- I have been to quite a few small, islandy airports but this by far was the smallest.

 Loading up the van to go to our hotel! 

 Thursday January 26, 2012

           Upon arrival in Madagascar, we were greeted by the program director, Roland along with some of the Malagasy coordinators for our program. We then loaded our luggage on top of a van, and were off to a town a little north of the capital, Antananarivo.

            We stayed in a beautiful, secluded hotel in the town. (see above pic) We had a bit of an orientation debriefing upon arrival at the hotel, then we went for a walk. Let me tell you, I have never seen anything more beautiful- these pictures really do not do it justice. The Antananarivo or “Tana” region of Madagascar is in the central highlands, with a landscape of mountains and valleys. It is also their summer right now- and rainy season so; the vegetation is very beautiful and green.

After the walk was dinner! My first Malagasy meal! It was green beans and sausage with rice (in Madagascar everything is served with rice) and some weird vegetable or fruit that kind of resembled a honeydew melon. Everything was delicious! (much better than the food served in Kenya!) Oh and let me tell you… I have no spice tolerance to begin with but I had the spiciest thing I had ever tasted!!!  I can’t remember what it what called in Malagasy but it was this green saucey thing with hot peppers- my mouth was burning for like an hour afterwards. My goal for the end of the program is to be able to eat it without cringing. We’ll see if that ewill happen. We also had fresh pineapple for desert- which was obviously delicious as well… as you can imagine it would be. That night the students from my program and I (there are 14 of us) just hung out and played bananagrams- at about 9:00 we were all ready to crash.

 A Malagasy man that wanted me to take his picture during one of our walks

 One of the many beautiful views from our walks- These pictures will never do it justice- I have some other landscape photos that I will upload later today and the moral is: I really wish I had panoramic capabilities because Madagascar is a wonderfully beautiful country!

 Another view from the walk- I really love taking pictures of roads... Is that weird? Its basically the reason why I named my blog "The road less traveled"

 I love taking picture of children- they love it so much because many have never seen their own photo before. You take the picture and then show them the photo on the digital camera and you can really see the joy that it brings them :-) But this was part of....

Friday January 27, 2012

            My first full day in Madagascar!!!! Breakfast was served at 7:00am, a traditional French breakfast of baguette and jam. Let me tell you about the coffee and tea though- yummmm! Probably some of the best coffee and tea I have ever had! It was pretty incredible. After breakfast brought more walks, bonding and orientation/housekeeping stuff from our program director.

            After lunch, which was beans, veggies, rice and chicken a traditional Malagasy dance group came to the hotel to perform for us. It was pretty incredible. I have really never seen anything like it.

            After that we went on another walk, hung out a bit and had dinner. Dinner for the night was pasta (not traditional Malagasy), rice, a salad of tomatoes, cheese and other veggies and some meat. So far the food has been pretty good, not a ton of flavor, but I guess I just need to adapt to the spicy stuff for that. I also had some Malagasy wine which was interesting- it was pretty good for a $2.50 glass on wine (can you believe how cheap?!). The night’s events involved rousing games of hearts, bananagrams, and then crashing. 

Hira-Gasy dancers- I wish I could have figured out the video recording on my camera because I would have loved to share the beautiful music and dancing with you. It was so unique!

One last view from one of our many walks- I will update with pics and stories from today and tomorrow very soon! I just wanted to get some stuff out on the blog while I had internet because I know people have been asking :-)!!!

A Bientôt!!!!

Madagascar Here I Come!

Tomorrow is the big day. My flight leaves here from Burlington at 6am- at that time I will have to say goodbye to my boyfriend of almost two years who will be dropping me off at the airport :-(. That is the sad news but the good news is that I will see him in three and a half months aaaand that I have adventures awaiting me across the sea! Unfortunately some more bad news is that I am snuggled up in bed right now surrounded by tissues, tea, orange juice, Advil and hydrocortisone cream. Not only am I sick, congested and drugged up on Advil, sudafed and allergy meds, I also sport some really great hives on my back (due to stress or my illness I'm not sure). Well maybe this was too much information for some of you but- I thought I would just share because I am slightly miserable and worried right now about my upcoming misery on my 20 hour journey tomorrow. Although, on the bright side, my incessant sneezing and tissue utilization might just get me on of those desired aisle seats on the plane. So, in my attempt to rest and get better, I have discovered these awesome online photo editors- yay for that! I love these things-

Yay photo editor! This is a picture of the capital, Antananarivo, where there's actually a Hollywood-esque sign spelling the name of the city. Funny, right? Well I am going to leave you all with that- it is time for me to continue packing and get dinner with Mike. On a closing note; I know that some of you had asked me about my address while I was there... Now I cannot guarantee that whatever letters you send will make it, and vice versa for  that matter but I will give it to you in case you have a craving to write to someone in Madagascar. (And if you would like a postcard from me please send me your address as well).

Olivia Zeltner

c/o SIT

BP 8172

Antananarivo (101)

MADAGASCAR

I will try to update in one of the many airports I will be in tomorrow with thoughts, feelings and maybe even pics if you're lucky!

~Much Love to All~

Just a little Inspiration...

So today as I am sitting on the couch, sneezing, blowing my nose and praying that my cold goes away before my long journey on Wednesday, I decided it would be fun to research some inspirational quotes. Having traveled abroad to a developing country by myself before, I know that it is not an easy transition. It takes a lot of inner strength, independence and confidence in yourself to succeed in such an endeavor. Not only am I going to a totally foreign country by myself, I will be assaulted by culture shock the moment I step off the plane in Antananarivo. When I was in Kenya it was very difficult for me to get over the poverty and suffering I saw in everyday life. 

I know these quotes may be a little cliche, but these I feel like these ones I chose in particular, pertain to my life now and the journey that I am about to embark on in a few days. 

This one really spoke to me- I felt so guilty for months when I got back from Kenya because I fell into these wealthier minorities. One of my goals in Madagascar is to study some of the causes of the world's unequal distribution of wealth. I hope that this experience will give me the skills and experience and knowledge I need to choose an appropriate grad school which will let me follow my passions :-)

~Much Love to ALL~

Oh and PS- I leave in three and a half days! 

Travel Travel Travel

     I decided that I am really bad at updating this blog in a timely manner- I apologize and I will try to work on that. This past week I have done enough traveling around the Northeast to last (well I don't know about a lifetime- but I would say a good while!) Mike and I drove down to Nashua New Hampshire (from Burlington) early last Wednesday for a fun-filled and novaicain-filled dentist appointment. Then we stopped by Londonderry where my mother tested our hearing and we were treated to a delicious lunch! The next stop on our journey was Cumberland Maine, where Mike's family lives. We stopped by Freeport to check out the sale at polo and then waited for an hour and a half while Mike's snow tires were put on his car. (and its a good thing because the next day Maine got a big snowstorm!) The next morning, Mike, his sister, Katie and I, went out to breakfast at this really cool restaurant where I got granola-encrusted French toasts! YUM!
     To spare all of you more boring details, I will speed up my stories a bit and get to the good parts. That night (Thursday I think it was) we drove all the way back to Burlington with a pit stop in Bedford to have dinner with Hannah, Sam and my Dad. We spent the night in Burlington and the next day we woke up early for SKIING at Jay peak. The conditions couldn't have been better!
     Now for the EXCITING part of my weekend with PICTURES! So in my last post I reflected on how I was so lucky to haver the things I have and to be able to do the things I can do (to be as vague as possible haha-) Well the thing I am most tankful fro would I guess be my mobility. I love that I am able to hop into a car and drive to someplace that is so different from where I am right now. It makes me so happy. I love exploring.
     So to make the most of my last two weeks here- Mike and I decided to take a one night trip to Canada (Montreal again) after our day of skiing in Vermont. Now this wasn't any ordinary trip to Montreal--no. This was different because it involved a little something called IGLOOFEST! Ever heard of it? Well now you have. Their website can be checked out here: http://www.igloofest.ca/en/ . Basically it is a giant outdoor concert in the snow. On the river. In Montreal. Surrounded by ice sculptures, Igloos and dupstep music. What more could one ask for? (well I admit they could use a bit of variation in the music- I'm not the biggest fan of dubstep.) I have never seen anything like it! It was sooo cool! Check out some of the pics Mike took on his phone: (they weren't the best quality because they were taken from his iphone but it's better than nothing)

Haha this is from our drive to Montreal. Clearly the Quebecois don't believe in plows

This picture above is the hotel room- we stayed in this strangely modern and stark hotel called L'hotel Zero 1 (check out some more pics on there website here)

We had a beautiful view of Vieux Montreal from the room!

  Huge Sapporo ice sculpture- I guess sapporo sponsored the whole thing but there were other ice sculptures like this all over the place!

 The stage where the DJs were- you can't really see it but there were these crazy lights all over the place that went at the beat of the music. Also- Canadians are really good at dancing to electronic music; they got the little bounce thing down- I felt like a bit of a fool.

 There were these balconies where you could go up and dance as well- Look how many people there were on the dance floor though!

 More igloos and ice sculptures (note the capitol building in the background) It was sooo beautiful there!!!!!!!

 There were also these "bar tents" set up that served special igloofest drinks-

 Moi et mon petit (I apologize for the 'graininess' of the picture)

 The next day: After a delicious breakfast, waiting for the metro to start our next adventure!

 In addition to not believing in plows, the Quebecois do not believe int censoring the ads in pubic places; such as the subway (either that or they may not realize the vulgarity of the english word "fuck")

 The beautiful Saint Joseph's Oratory

 It was so cold that day! Like zero degrees- I was so bundled up!!!

 Inside the oratory- The ceilings were so high. It was interesting to see the comparison between this and the Notre Dame Basilica that we visited last weekend. This was larger and more stark than that of Notre Dame. 

 I loved the stations of the cross in the oratory- they were these huge marble carvings around the walls of the columns in the church. I had never seen anything like it before. 

 Beautiful organ. I am always amazed at the grandeur of the organs in churches such as these.

 Saint Joseph's petit chapelle. You had to walk outside to get to this one. This was one of the first stages of Saint Joseph's oratory. There was a monastery across the street and a few small chapels such as this until they decided to build the huge dome. The construction of the dome took a few decades to complete.

 This was the shrine to Saint Joseph- behind this was a little alcove in which his tomb was located.

 Indoor market in Petit Italie- there were some really cool international spice shops within this which we checked out

The mothership of Quebec Beer!

Well thanks for stopping by! This is probably going to be one of my last updates before my trip! (of course I say that but I doubt that will actually be true- I am sitting here at the house while all of my friends are back in class so I really have nothing better to do.) But you all better get excited for some of my big trip updates in a week! One week from today I will be on a plane to Johannesburg South Africa and then onto Antananarivo!

~Much Love~