The pages below contain photos, videos, and text that I took and wrote during my year abroad in Tunisia (September 2004 – July 2005) and Germany (July 2005 – September 2005). Everything is listed in descending chronological order with the oldest first and the newest last. If you happen to have met me in my travels or would like higher resolution images, please contact me.
The Fall: In the fall of 2004 I participated in the first ever Oregon State University study abroad program in Tunis, Tunisia. Previously, I had completed two years of Modern Standard Arabic at my university and had visited Morocco and Egypt during high school. It only seemed natural to put my engineering studies on hold and launch into a liberal arts study abroad program in North Africa. With my bags packed for a planned year overseas, I departed for the Maghreb.
Los Angeles Excursion: Over the course of four days, I flew from Tunisia to Los Angeles and back again, stopping to compete in the 2004 ASME Student Design Challenge at the IMECE2004. My team placed 5th out of 13 teams.
My Parents Come to Visit: My parents came to visit for several weeks at the imediate end of the program. We toured from top to bottom the entire country of Tunisia and flew to Malta for several days.
A Winter Without Heat: Truly alone in Tunis, I signed up for classes at Institut Bourguiba des Langues Vivantes (IBLV) where I met other foreign students going through the same cold and damp winter as me. Some of us got up the gumption to venture forth outside of the capital for adventures as far afield as the Grand Erg Oriental and the Algerian frontier.
Spring Break in the Balkans: Albania, Kosovo, Greece, and Italy by accident. To avoid being expelled from Tunisia for overstaying my visa, I took a holiday in the Balkans. On the way back to Tunisia, Pope John Paul II’s death held me up in the Rome airport. I ended up spending five days with the pilgrims in Rome.
Spring in Tunisia: The spring remained cold even while the days grew longer. My fellow IBLV students and I strike out to explore some of the more remote and forgotten parts of Tunisia.
Americans in Tunis: 15 American college students found their way to Tunisia where I helped play host, interpreter, guide, and unwhitting bodyguard. This was the pilot program, known as Tunis Past and Present, for the US State Department-sponsored Critical Language Scholarship. In spite of a rocky start, the program turned into a great success and now operates in many countries throughout the world helping teach American college students the important languages of today.
A German Summer: I left Tunisia at the very beginning of July after having spent nine months honing my Arabic and being mistook for all nationalities other than American for the fields and forests of the Rhineland. My new home was in Karlsruhe, Germany at the Universität Karlsruhe in the Institut für Produktentwicklung where I worked on the 588 Humanoide Roboter project as part of a DAAD-RISE internship.
Circumnavigating the Baltic Sea: As my last hurrah before returning to Oregon, I traveled through eight countries spanning Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Adventures abounded from eating whale in Norway to being drugged in Poland to drinking good Russian vodka in Latvia to meeting the Green Fairy in Finland.
And thus my year abroad ended. One year to the day, I returned to Oregon jet-lagged from the direct flight from Frankfurt to Portland and in for a long spell of reverse culture shock.