The Laaaast Melon

It’s the final countdown here in Cagliari, and everyone has been frantically trying to squeeze in way more activity than is possible to do in the few days that we have left. With the combination of school work, a few final cultural excursions, and some necessary souvenir shopping, these last days are disappearing quicker than you can imagine. 

On Friday, we had our mock town meeting, in which everyone played a different character and we all sat down and tried to come up with a solution to the issues with contamination and the resulting “Quirra Syndrome” that has been occurring in certain parts of Sardinia. We had everyone from the engineers and the activists to the shepherds and farmers and then even the mayor and some concerned parents. It turned out to be pretty interesting, especially given the topic (and the pictures of two-headed lambs).

On Saturday we went on a hike to Sella del Diavolo, which is “the Devil’s Saddle.” We went to the top and found some cool forts and things, and were able to see all of Poetto from our height- you’d think we would get sick of all these beautiful views, right?

Then, today, we went to a traditional Sardinian festival. Upon arrival, we were swarmed with people shoving wine and pastries in our hands, and after that we hung out for a while before moving on to the main attraction, which was an hour long parade of decorated tractors and horses, music, and hordes of Sardinians dressed in their fancy, homemade, traditional clothing. There were people in the beds of tractors that had transformed them into literal beds by piling mattresses on top of them and sitting above us as the procession rolled through, tossing cookies at us along the way! When the parade was over, there was music and dancing for a little bit before we boarded the bus to travel back to the guest house for the last time.

So, to anyone who may have been reading these (if there is, in fact, more than just Anna): it’s been nice blogging for you during my time here! I’m having a lot of trouble letting it sink in that this incredible place will be out of my life a few short days from now. I guess that might just mean that I will have to come back…

Ciao!

"A Little Day for a Big Swim"

The majority of this week so far has been spent at sea, and it has been fantastic! On Monday, we went on a cruise around Villasimius. We took a rather large sailboat to a couple of beaches that were great for exploring, ate a delicious lunch on board which (surprisingly) included pasta that had been cooked below decks, and jumped off the side of the boat countless times. It was great fun, despite the lightning and thunderstorms that were looming on the horizon- which made all of our hair stick up on our heads!

On Tuesday, we had presentations from a couple of guest speakers. The first was on End of Life Vehicles in Italy, which was especially interesting for me because that was the subject that my group and I had chosen for the first project, and the second presentation was about remediation of old mining sites in Sardinia.

Today was our last Wednesday in Sardinia (!) and we spent the entire day at the beach in Teurredda. Personally, I spent a lot of my beach time making tunnels in the sand with Annalisa’s kids, and was very grateful for the delicious homemade picnic food that we were given. The rest of our (final) week here will be a busy one for sure, the details of which will be explained in my final blog post on Sunday!

Beached and Ruined

After a week spent working on projects, we were given this entire weekend off to do with it what we wanted. I decided to maximize its potential. I did so by sleeping in on Saturday and then going to the beach in the afternoon with the whole gang, and then today by going on a small adventure to Pula and Nora. Pula was a relatively tourist-y town, cutely adorned with flags hanging on strings between all of the buildings and a central square where we saw a bear-sized dog. Nora, a decent walk from Pula, was the highlight of my week- it has ruins of a town that was inhabited first by Phoenicians, then by Carthaginians, and finally by the ancient Romans. We went on a small tour and saw all the ruins of the town, which included a theater, houses, baths, and a tower that we were able to climb up to and look over the ancient town that we had just walked through. Aside from the extra hour of traffic that we endured on the bus ride home, it was a fantastic day.

As far as actual work goes, on Thursday we made a visit to the Campidano Ambiente, which I am told is the Sardinian equivalent of the EPA. We heard about their door-to-door collection system, and were treated to some awesome refreshments afterwards. We also had guest speaker Giorgia De Gioannis to help us with some problems on composting. This upcoming week will be a lot of project work and preparation for the town meeting, but also a cruise tomorrow! We are closing in on the final days here, and I am ever so slightly regretting my decision to put off souvenir shopping…

Everybody look at me, cause I'm sailing on a BOAT

Yesterday was an exhausting, yet relaxing, and all the while fantastic day. We woke up at the crack of dawn (8 AM) and were transported via the trunk of a jeep to the marina right next to Poetto beach, where we split up onto three boats and sailed into the afternoon. The boat that I was on was named “Paco” and our captain, Veto, did not speak a word of English. This plot twist did not faze us in the least, however, because we had Erika to basically do everything that the six of us were supposed to without hesitation. It was a beautiful day on the water!

Today we went on a technical visit to the Villaservice plant, which consisted of waste management in the form of a landfill, composting, and anaerobic digestion. This was no exception to the tendencies of previous technical visits in that it was really smelly, and Annalisa had to explain to the engineer as he was handing us masks that “they have sensitive noses.” The facility is able to complete the cycle in that the leachate from the landfill is treated in the sewage plant to make “processed water,” which is then used to feed the anaerobic digestion. Apparently it is the only anaerobic digestion plant that receives the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, which I thought was pretty neat.

We have presentations this Friday, but the weekend will be free for us to explore (or catch up on sleep) and after that we really will only have a little more than a week left here. I’m trying not to think about it.