The Last Hours

Friday we had a fake town hall meeting. Sardinia has been victim to contamination by Italian military bases in the past. For our town meeting, we were all given a role to portray. As a group we had to come up with a solution to the military contamination that was supposedly causing "Querra Syndrome". We had moderators, goverment officials, consultants and townspeople rolls. We discussed the facts, different options and finally settled on creating national policies for military base activity with later funding for remediation.   

This weekend has been full of last minute cultural experiences! Saturday we hiked up to the Devil's Saddle of Cagliari. We had gorgeous views of the Poetto and mountains. Not to mention got in a pretty good workout!

Today we were able to see a festival! We headed into the countryside where we saw people of the town of Orroli preparing a parade. The parade consisted of townspeople in traditional clothing riding horses, then families in decorated trailers tossing cookies to onlookers, people walking in traditional clothing and lastly the cart containing the statue of the saint. The parade ended at a church that the saint was relocated to. There was later some dancing and feasting!

My time here has been incredible! I wouldn't change my experiences here for the world. Thanks for reading everyone!

Audriana

Wherrrrrreeeeee's the stress?

So far my experiences here have only gotten better! Monday we went on a sailboat cruise to Villasimius. We made two stops - one at an island and one on a beach. At the first stop some of us jumped off the boat (almost losing our bottoms in the process) and swam on shore for some rock climbing and exploring. When it was time to head back to the boat a thunderstorm rolled in! Luckily it didn't rain more than a short sprinkle, so we were able to enjoy the booms and flashes with little bother. This was best with some vino and freshly made pasta onboard the sailboat! Unfortunately, the new cloud coverage meant we couldn't work on our tans at the beach stop. That didn't stop us from enjoying the beach though. 

All of our hair was standing up from the electricity.

The storm rolling in

Mags and me on the boat 

Tuesday it was back to class! We had a guest speaker come in and talk to us about mining remediation. Sardinia used to have many mines. This has affected the soil and surrounding environment of the mines. The guest speaker showed us pictures of a couple of the sites he has worked on and various remediation methods used. As of now, he is the sole engineer in charge of managing mine remediation - we were lucky to have him present for us. 

Today it was back to the beach! We spent the day swimming, hanging and eating. It was quite wonderful, but now it's time to get back to business. There is a homework assignment and project due this week!

 

Not too shabby, right?

Audriana 

Beach Lyfe

And the vacation continues! Crazy to think only 9 more days until the trip is over. Thursday in the morning we visited a door-to-door waste collection facility. We learned about how they have implemented separate stream garbage collection programs in different cities. It was great to have a question and answer session afterwards. We discussed how some neighborhoods had difficulty getting used to the new system and how the facility handled these issues. Afterwards, we enjoyed a sandwich lunch at the facility. 

Once we got through school on Friday we had the weekend entirely off! Saturday morning I went souvenir shopping, and in the afternoon hit the beach. The Poetto is Cagliari's beach. You can walk at least 200 yards in the turquoise water before it gets too deep. There are no waves (which is a pro and a con) and gloriously soft sand. It's next to a mountain range and across from downtown Cagliari. Basically, it's heaven. It's fairly easy to take the bus from our dorm to the beach. Unfortunately, the way back is horrible. Unless you're leaving at an off time from the beach every bus is slam packed. It is nearly impossible to squeeze a group of 15 people on one packed bus! We have definitely been spoiled on this trip with private buses to every technical visit. 

Today was the Poetto again! This time we rented out some paddle boards and paddled out around the beach. 

Paddle board wars!

The bestest and me

Paddle board yoga!

Waterproof camera pro

So in case you didn't get this from my photos, don't worry about me I'm doing just fine.

Audriana 

Fart Vader Masks

I have almost achieved my tanning goal! We have gotten quite a bit of time in the sun. On Tuesday we woke up bright and early to go sailing. We had three boats split between our group with a teacher on board each. It was a gorgeous day, but not very windy. We sailed to the right of the Poetto beach each switching off steering the boat and managing the jib. I'm proud to say no one on my boat was hit by the boom during a tack! Yes I'm showing off my sailing lingo because that's pretty much all I learned that day. We stopped twice for a swim in the beautiful water and headed back around lunch time. The rest of the day was spent on the beach. A very sunburnt group returned to the dorm in the evening. 

Today we had another technical site visit. This site has three landfills, an anaerobic digester, composting, a sewage plant, photovoltaic power stations and a wind farm within its boundaries. One landfill is filled and closed, one is almost full, and the last one is ready to be used once it is needed. All those white dots above the landfill? Tons and tons of birds. 

The biogas collected from the landfill is stored, the methane is extracted and then converted to be sent to the grid. The biogas is stored in these awesome ginormous bouncy balls. I'm pretty sure that's the technical word the chemist used. 

 The anaerobic digester receives organic waste and uses leachate and wastewater that has been processed to produce methane and carbon dioxide. The methane is extracted from the water, converted and also sent off to the grid. 

This company sells all of the energy that it produces and buys back whatever they need because it is more economical to do so. The composting area was similar to the site that we have already seen - except we received dust masks to help with the horrific smell!

 Unfortunately, the sewage plant was under construction so we were not able to view it. 

We ended the day by visiting some mountain hikes and grabbing ice cream! I guess you could say it was an alright day. 

Audriana