Catherine Maria

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e00Fyw-5bLo)

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Denmark

This week I had assumed I would be staying in Copenhagen. I instead got the amazing opportunity to stay at an eco village about an hour and a half away from Copenhagen, so we had to drive pretty far every day. The point of this community is to use more sustainable energy, and also we got to meditate every  night and eat all plant based vegan food. I was way more happy than my 3 other roommates.

I was really looking forward to this week just being a week of writing about how I took a lot away from staying on this eco village, and being so close to home I will now take all of these values with me, and blah blah blah,

But good news! my streak of weird host families continues because I had not one not two but 3 host families this week because I needed to keep changing around.

Who new staying in strangers homes could be so dangerous and weird?

So yes it started off in the Eco village where I was extremely happy I had an hour and a half drive both ways into the facility everyday, with some woman I was not living with but more than happy to drive us.

There were four of us in the program living on the eco village. Two of them lived in some house where they spoke spanish(which was weird but whatever we were on an eco village), and I lived in a single mothers house with Pepa from Germany, who was supposed to be leaving on the third day because she was going to stay with her real family. 

However by the third day my host mom decided it was time for her to leave to. But no worries! Because she would be leaving me with her minimal english speaking bitter ex husband who had no idea I was even in the house in the first place, and from what I gather the divorce was recent and still stung him a little. So it was about to be just me and that guy who I never even learned the name of. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t tell me, it means I couldn’t understand what he was telling me. What I did understand was when I went downstairs to take a shower the door was REMOVED. When I asked why, he said because it was “broken”.  So I told him I’d be spending the night at the house of the girls next door. Did he understand? maybe not, but the next morning when I saw he was gone I moved my suitcase out of the house and into the other one. 

The Spanish speaking house was happy to have me because one of the girls that was staying there had just left to go home and they were grateful that they had two again. The woman who drove us everyday told me not to unpack because we’d be spending the weekend in a friends apartment in Copenhagen, so we’d get to see the city a bit more which made me and the one other girl I was staying with very happy. However something was clearly mixed up in translation because when she said “we would” be spending the weekend with some friends in Copenhagen I had assumed the woman would be with us. But instead “we” just meant me and my roomate would be staying with two men from Ghana we had never met in the city. 

Everything worked out in the end because I refused to go with them. 

In the beginning my roommate did say “wait you don’t trust them?”  but clearly she has not had the same host family experiences as me, but even if not “fuck no I don’t trust them”.

We were split up and put into different host families for the last two nights in Denmark, because we had already left the eco village and when the program heard what was happening obviously we weren’t going back there. Both of which were great and it worked out. But hopefully theres only one host family left.

Catherine Maria Cecio

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Bermuda // 4.17 - 5.02

Bermuda looks like horse shit

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Hamilton, Bermuda

House and Bed

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Hamilton, Bermuda

While yes there is still volunteer work to do here in Bermuda, the lifestyle here is so laid back and welcoming that now that I am in the middle of my two weeks here in Bermuda it seems like a complete vacation from everything else we’ve done. I get free drinks constantly just from telling the people here I’m from Up with People.

Everything’s super clean and fresh here and not two mention, compared to last month, everyone here speaks english.

However living close to the beach for the past 6 years gave me unnecessary confidence about beaches. The other day I was taken to the doctor for the first time out of the whole trip and I was trying to make it at least til the last month. The other day I stepped on a sea urchin and got 20 pricks or spikes or whatever you want to call them removed from my foot. 

Up until they were inside my body the only time I really ever heard of a sea urchin was from spongebob squarepants. 

It wasn’t only me that had stepped on the sea urchin. Vicky, a girl from china said she had never learned to swim also had this misfortune brought to her. It was me that encouraged her to swim. and about 40 seconds into the water we both screamed at the same time. And now Vicky from china has thanks to me not learned to swim and will now not learn to swim. 

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House and bed San Luis Potosí, Mexico

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San Luis Potosi, Mexico

It’s hard living in a house where all the people don’t speak the same language as you. The other day I got In a car with my host mom and she took us to a party of which I didn’t know we’d end up at. I thought we were going home. 

To be honest I know so little about my host family that I have no idea how they found out about me or why they wanted to host me or anything like that. 

I also know that despite the language barrier they want you to get drunk. They try to give you wine you say no, they try tequilla, then they try beer, and whisky and don’t understand your resistance to the alcohol. 

Another thing that I’ve learned ALL Mexicans do is they will speak spanish to you and then when it’s really obvious that you don’t speak spanish, they will continue to say the exact same thing they just said.

I think one of the most hilarious/scariest moments of this past week had been when me and two other girls went to use the bathroom and did not have any knowledge that you have to pay to use public restrooms in Mexico. They did not in fact tell you before going to the restroom but me and two other girls, one from the states and one from Denmark(never the less none of us speak spanish), all went to the bathroom because girls travel in packs to the bathroom. We went to the bathroom and tried to leave and the man guarding the bathroom(there was a man guarding the bathroom should have been a warning) would not let us leave. We all pretty much mastered the phrase “no hablo espanol” but there was no way he spoke English or Danish. He kept saying the same things as Mexicans do and we freaked out and continued to not understand. Eventually we saw the sign that said 5 Pesos and figured it out but it was about 10 minutes of being locked in a public bathroom in complete confusion.

Anyway week one in Mexico is done. 

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Houston, Texas

I didn’t write or film anything last week I felt everything in the midwest was starting to look boring and about the same. “Starting to” is me lying because it always looked boring and the same.

As much as I disliked the sights, food, and culture of the midwest the past couple months, back in Ohio my host dad told me about how he knows so many people who have traveled the world and seen great things in other countries but know very little about their own. And I can say that I have now seen enough. Thank you very much America. I love the cowboy hats that you wear un-ironically, and the donuts that seem to be in every single room I enter, and your miles and miles of literally nothing. 

I’ve seen you and I can actually say I’ve had a great time. But I’m putting my foot down and I’ll start making videos again once entered Mexico.

Catherine Maria Cecio

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House and bed

Topeka, Kansas

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We spent two weeks in two different towns in South Dakota. First Watertown where we got to learn a lot about the sex trafficking problem in the states, namel...

We spent two weeks in two different towns in South Dakota. First Watertown where we got to learn a lot about the sex trafficking problem in the states, namely South Dakota which I talk about in the video. We also got the opportunity to meet and work with every single kid in the whole town. In Sioux Falls, our second town we got the chance to work with a lot of faith based organizations in the town, mostly the Catholic community. Later on in the week myself and a bunch of other girls packaged 3,456 meals to send to Hati with the group 'Kids Against Hunger'.

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House and Bed

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

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Sioux Falls, South Dakota

I love cathedrals. Everything about them. I love the architecture, the history, everything really. Honestly I want to get married in a cathedral. Not for religious purposes, but because it looks like I’d be getting married in a castle.

I myself have never considered myself a religious person. Because of this I have never understood the need to be apart of any faith based organization. This cathedral was our first stop on our first day, before we even met our host family.

I’m sure if you straight up asked me “are all religious groups bad?” I would have of course said no, but part of me would still not understand any need to be religious in general.

Obviously this isn’t true for all of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but this past week in the Up with People experience I got a lot of Catholic experience. My host family this past week was catholic and our location was at the catholic high school here. This being said I actually enjoyed my one week as a practicing catholic. I’m not saying It’s going out of this house but it’s been fun while it lasted. 

I said grace every night, We had fish on friday, and I didn’t actually give up anything for lent but this past week I gave up swearing. Mostly because I’m slightly afraid to swear around my host family but it works for me. 

Not to mention when I announced myself Catholic my host parents let me drink with them.

Also I’m not gonna lie all those catholic school boys can seriously put themselves together. Like maybe its just the khaki’s but it really makes them look like they tried. 

So maybe I didn’t gain religion this week but I lost part of my fear of religious people. So I really did gain something.

Catherine Maria Cecio

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House and bed Watertown, South Dakota

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Pepper Pike, Ohio

So I did have an amazing time here in Pepper Pike. My host family was my favorite so far and I guess Up with People is really big in Ohio because damn do they love us here. Like everyone. This being said I have no video for Pepper Pike because the beginning of the week I was sick and since it was a short week I didn’t really see as much this week and I don’t have enough footage.

But I did see Ohio and It was really nice to be out of the midwest and not hate my life for a minute but back to the midwest with me. Ohio was nothing like I imagined it would be from my knowledge of it from watching Glee through my youth and I loved it.

Next stop is Watertown, South Dakota and I looked up some pictures of it yesterday and It looks awful and I am not looking foreword to it at all.

Catherine Maria Cecio

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House and bed 

Pepper Pike, Ohio

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Des Moines, Iowa

So I know I am currently out of Iowa, and my last blog post practically took a giant dump all over the midwest there was something in Iowa’s world food prize building that I found very interesting and very important to talk about.

In the World Food Prize Center theres an area in the museum location where a photographer (of whom I did not catch the name of for what ever reason) took hundreds of photos of around the world. I know there are only four shown above and in terrible quality. I wasn’t technically allowed to take these pictures. 

The thing from these photos that shocked me the most was my own ignorance. 

In the last photo on the bottom right it’s a man with a handful of bullets. In my own assumption I had believed at first glance that if this man was representing countries with these pictures that this photo must have been taken in some country where a war is taking place or something along those lines.

This photo I had learned was taken to represent the USA. Where the laws on gun possession are our own personal war. maybe it’s not official but people are dying on the streets every day because someone who feels they need guns and bullets with them at all times are allowed this right. 

And what I’ve noticed even further is that about 3 years ago when the sandy hook shooting took place everyone was mourning and everyone was terrified. 3 years later most people only seem to care, notice or get shook up if it’s in their area. 

At a time when the police have time and time again misused a gun, what makes you believe that anyone with a pocket of cash has the right to bare arms.

I’m from San Diego, so I hadn’t noticed it as much but the further I go to other parts of the country the more I see people unable to leave their homes without their weapons at their side. Even at their homes some people won’t answer the door without their weapons. 

And because of this, that is our photo that represents who we are as a country.

Catherine Maria Cecio