Out with the Saint

This weekend has proved to be yet another weekend of balanced fun and relaxation. Saturday morning we had off and Erika, Lauren, and I enjoyed a walk around the city. Along the way we stumbled upon a flea market with a bunch of small vendors. I found some really cool jewelry embedded with fibers from Sardinian cactus. Lauren found a shop where an artist was painting and selling his work. It was fun to talk with him for a while and see his paintings of the always beautiful Sardinia (if only I could carry around a full sized painting with me on my travels, or afford said full sized painting). We also passed churches I had yet to visit. Each church here has had such a unique beautiful front (these featured impressive stained glass windows and an interesting geometric sculpture). That evening we climbed Sella del Diavolo. Each view of Cagliari from above seems more and more impressive.

Today Erika and I explored the cemetery in the morning. The cemetery grounds were huge. It was the kind of place you could discuss death without being sad, the beauty of the graves and the care given to each grave was calming in a way. This evening was a completely different experience. It still surprises me the extent of the graciousness of strangers in Sardinia is. We were immediately offered (perhaps more forced) copious amounts of food and drink upon our arrival in Orroli. While I’ve been aware of how clear it is that I’m not Italian before, this night felt particularly so. The towns gathering to celebrate Sagra di Santa Caterina showed us typical Sardinian dress, dance, and music. It was crazy to see that each family slept on top of their “float” pulled by tractor. The floats were gorgeous with hand sewn carpets and lace covering the sides and top. It was fun to see and experience so much in one night. 

More beaches~

Monday was great!!!!! I thoroughly enjoyed our boat trip around Villasimius. The island was a lot of fun and then the final beach had great climbing and places to jump into the water. I adored the rocks and had a blast climbing with thunder and lightning nearby (but not too nearby). The cloudy weather was a plus for my pale skin. J That evening a group of us went to a vegetarian soup restaurant. It was really fun because we were the only customers in the restaurant. It was a really cute place and our waitress, Alissa, spent the whole evening chatting with us. She got her bachelor’s in English and was really excited to practice her English and talk with us about American TV shows. We had a great time chatting and eating yummy vegetarian food together! We even discussed food waste, she offered us more soup without a charge so that they wouldn’t waste the soup that was made already.

Today was a very relaxing day. I enjoyed exploring the rocks around the coast. I was very thankful for the umbrella Annalisa brought and the naps that ensued. I have never considered myself a beach person before, and I wouldn’t say that I do now. But I have certainly learned to enjoy beaches much more than ever before.

Weekend on our own

It was nice to have this weekend off to explore on our own. Saturday Erika and I went to Santuario di Bonaria and passed the cemetery. That area was beautiful and I look forward to visiting the cemetery when it's open. This was the first church I have visited here and it was pretty incredible. Even the outside steps leading up to the church were gorgeous.

Sunday a group of us went to visit the town Pula and Nora, the oldest ruins in Sardegna. We came up upon the beach and could see the tower and decided we would do a tour. Once the tour started we saw the ruins were much larger ten you could see originally. Our tour guide said 8,000 people had lived there. We saw a small theater and she said 1000 people used to sit there, it's incredible! There were three layers of society built upon one another. Roman on top of Punic on top of  Phoenician buildings. It was cool to see Roman baths! The mosaics were beautiful as well. We enjoyed seeing and hearing about Roman engineering.  We climbed up the tower at the end and could see all the ruins and the beach on the strait.

Anaerobic Digestion + Some

The plant we visited today had four components to its waste management. It had landfills, an anaerobic digester, a composting plant, and a sewage plant. The combination of these components could in theory, lead to a fairly sustainable system. There were many problems me and some of my classmates had with the system present however. While it is great that they weren’t simply using landfilling (it is illegal after all), or going with the cheaper composting option to handle organics, they had many inefficiencies present. While the facility currently uses 3.7 million kWh per year, it only produces 2.5 kWh each year. The facility collects biogas from a closed landfill as well as from the anaerobic digestion process and has both solar and wind energy collection. Between all of these, I would hope that the plant could at least break even. My impression is that this is due to the sewage treatment and its high energy cost. Many of the inefficiencies are due to the changing requirements and additions over time. Looking at this plant gives me a lot of ideas about how I would organize and plan a better, sustainable collection of waste management treatment methods. 

Mostly sunny days

This weekend was my favorite thus far. Friday we headed off to the Barbagia region. We risked capture by the barbarians to enjoy an interesting meal with shepherds. The barbarians don’t seem as dangerous compared to the Italian tourists we ran into. That was an interesting cultural experience... I wasn’t expecting anyone to have a positive reaction to Americans, however many of those women were pretty excited about it. While I didn’t personally enjoy suckling pig or rabbit, I definitely enjoyed the cheese and had fun through the meal, from not getting any utensils to the dance party at the end.

I feel as if everywhere we’ve visited has been more beautiful than the past. I loved hiking in the mountain by the hotel and when we came into view of the water on the bus, my mouth literally dropped. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a gorgeous view. I thoroughly enjoyed the day between the views and getting to spend my time on boats and beaches. I’m not normally a big beach person, but getting the view of the mountains paired with different sand (albeit painful sand) and beautiful clear blue water was perfect. I could definitely get used to vigorous sunscreen application if I got to spend my time in the sun in those settings. 

Landfilling

Today we visited Sardinia’s first sanitary landfill. There are a variety of landfills on site, some complete and some still collecting. However, each landfill requires 30 years of management after closure, meaning there is still work happening even where filling is not. In the 90’s this landfill began collecting biogas and built a cogeneration plant. The landfill now is only permitted to collect “special” mostly hazardous industrial waste and ash from incinerators. This means the amount of biogas produced is lower without any organic material breaking down. This created problems for the cogeneration plant, leading to their decision to build a solar farm. While the landfill biogas generates 5 million kWh, the solar farm generates 1.5 million kWh. Since the EU is moving away from incentivizing landfill biogas, they plan to build an anaerobic digester at the plant to produce biogas.

Weekend Getaway~

This weekend we traveled out of the city to visit the Parco Geominerario Storico Ambientale Della Sardegna and to stay at Sa Perda Marcada near the west coast of Sardinia. We put on our third set of hardhats for the trip to travel through a transport system for materials being mined. We saw along our way land that was purely mining waste, churches built solely for the sake of miners, and gorgeous views along the water.

When we arrived at Sa Perda Marcada, we immediately ventured around the farmland to find all the animals. We found horses, cats, dogs, chickens, geese, and a giant turkey. The farm was beautiful and very relaxing. It was nice to stay somewhere in the country. We enjoyed yet another multi-course dinner, following a multi-course lunch, leaving everyone drowsy and full in the evening. While I've loved the food I've eaten, I’m still adjusting to how to manage the continuous flow of food. It was great eating fresh vegetables, eggs, and cheese from the farm. In the morning we enjoyed a more American style breakfast (there were delicious eggs and yogurt) and then learned to make Malloreddus and Seadas, a small rolled pasta and a fried cheese and lemon filled pastry. Both were delicious at lunch, we did well! Following lunch we headed to the beach to enjoy the sand dunes, sun, and the strongest waves I've ever seen. It was the best weekend I've had in some time. 

Trash life

Street collection

Bus collection, where's the recycling??

Paper recycling plant

Paper smoothie

Compost!

That's a lot of trash.

 

Treatment plants field trip

Today we visited three different waste management plants. First we checked out the paper recycling plant which recycles half of Sardinia's paper. The plant was capable of making a variety of different papers, from cardboard to high quality notebook paper. They regularly collected from mixed newspaper, commercial cardboard, and leftover cardboard scraps from companies cutting cardboard boxes. They were currently making higher quality paper from office and university paper waste. It was really interesting seeing the actual process and how much water was involved. The paper was mixed with water, put through various filters to remove contaminants, and then taken from a mixture with 1% paper fiber and 99% water all the way to large uniform rolls of full paper.

Next we visited the composting plant. Since Italians have to separate and treat all of their waste, all organic material comes through this plant. First off bags of organic material are aerated for 30 days, moving every 6 days in order to mix and move the material. In this time the material must be at 55 degrees Celsius for 3 days in order to kill pathogens. Next it spends time maturing inside another building. Finally it is taken to piles outside where it is exposed to air and temperature variation. It will be tested and finally sold for only 2 Euros of the 160 Euros it takes per ton to produce.

Lastly we visited a waste to energy incineration plant. We arrived and worked our way from the ash produced to the incinerators to the huge piles of trash themselves. Apparently today there was a diaper which should have been placed in hazardous material however it was detected, halting procedure while someone had to dig around to find this one said diaper. This company did solid waste management, water treatment, and hazardous waste treatment all at one location. They could work together to treat the leachate water from solid waste right on site. It was really fun to see all the treatment plants in person, despite the variety of fragrances we experienced… 

First Weekend

The past couple of days have flown by. I am still adjusting to the jet lag, sometimes it feels like it is getting worse rather than better. The first day meeting students from Cagliari and Padua was a great introduction. We bonded quickly and learned about some of our differences and similarities through debate. I’m already loving the friendly nature of Italians. Visiting the beach house with Professor Cusso and the Padua students was a blast! Despite the rain, we still had time to hang out on the beach and show off our ability to tolerate the cold water (I still think it was freezing despite many Northeastern comments on how much warmer it was than our beaches).

Today we visited Barumini, Su Nuraxi, and Giara. I loved walking through the nuraghe, particularly getting to walk through doorways designed for entirely different people. I find it impossible to even fathom how old structures here are. The history behind this culture is so much deeper than the American “culture” is. Also it is interesting that many of these structures have been simply buried and hidden away or built on top of. The archeologist who uncovered Su Nuraxi is still alive, that seems absurd to me. I like to think about what else is out there we haven’t found yet.

I just returned from spending four months working on a permaculture farm in Costa Rica a few days ago. Now I’m preparing to spend about four months in Europe, starting off with this first month in Cagliari. My first instincts are excitement for delicious food and spending time in a Mediterranean climate. I’m nervous to go from an isolated farm in the jungle, to this chaotic time of preparation and catching up, to an entirely different culture with an entirely new language.

After immersing myself in a relatively new community in Costa Rica, I’m interesting in this switch to a culture which connects deeply to its history. I’m excited to explore an area which has been inhabited for a period of time unfathomable to me. Many of the Italians I’ve met have been really proud of who they are and where they come from. Most have been boisterous, friendly, and very welcoming. While I don’t expect everyone to treat me like an old friend, I’m curious to see how I am treated on the street, in a classroom, in a restaurant. I’m ready to go with the flow and meet and hopefully befriend a part of Italy.