Meet Your Enrollment Specialist - Joel Lippert

What is your favorite memory from your time abroad?

While I did not study abroad, I was able to accompany the students on the Madrid Tour many years ago when it included students from Alicante, San Sebastián, and Bilbao. My single favorite memory is a travel cliché, I suppose. But I sat leaning on a log on the Playa de Ondarreta in San Sebastián, Spain, drinking wine while eating cheese and grapes as I wrote in my journal, watching the sun set.

My best take-away/memory from that time was the realization of how much we all have in common, how our basic human needs are the same. While our cultural differences matter to us and are often fascinating, both historically and maybe personally, ultimately, it is what we share that carries the burden and wonders of our human world. So, I really learned during that trip that to be the often cliché goal of students going abroad to “step outside” their comfort zones as the biggest and best real challenge, the best steps forward, one can take, student by student, over and over again, if you’re lucky.

What is your favorite place you have traveled to and why?

Akrotiri of Thera – A Minoan Site in Santorini, Greece - one of the main attractions on that crescent-shaped Greek island. The extensive ruins of this Bronze Age settlement are reported to be a likely source of the legend of the Lost City of Atlantis, as it was buried in volcanic ash in the 16th century. Of course this has never been proven, but it is fun to imagine that it is true.

While Akrotiri was my favorite, there are others breathing down its neck, such as visiting sites in Spain where the Roman Aqueducts pass through, knowing water could still be flowing over those thousand-year-old stones, or spending time with some tapas in a café off of the old-town square (Plaza de la Constitucion) in San Sebastián, watching people be people.

If you could go on any USAC program, what would it be and why?

Likely Verona, Italy, as its history seems fascinating, the course offerings nicely varied, and its location perfect for touring the rest of Italy and Europe (and I believe they may have some good cheese there).

However, what I really want to do is go to every site we have that offers a cuisine course (so that might take me several years). I believe good food is a great uniter; it brings us all together.

What’s on your bucket list?

My bucket list is small (or seems so at the moment), but going back to Santorini would be on it, visiting Kafka Square in Prague, or going to Paris to inhabit the Lovre for a week. Reading Sherlock Holmes in the corner of some old bookstore in London on a rainy day would float high in my bucket.

Top on my list, however, would be to visit the Musee de Rodin (also in Paris) as the works of the 19th/20th century French artist/sculptor, Auguste René Rodin, perhaps are my favorite. Though it (and he) was never a formal field of study, I’ve read several books about his life and work and have always been fascinated by the two, which of course, you cannot really separate.

You could say the emotions he captures in stone and bronze have captured me too. Rome calls to me as well.
In general, visiting as many of the centuries-old places in Europe and the UK, from quaint to grand, fill my bucket with one place becoming only a stop on the path to the next, and I therefore may need more than one bucket. Maybe a large, used wine cask would better serve me, as tangents, side streets, and second servings of wine and cheese sustain me, and plans only take me so far.

What is a favorite food that you have tried while abroad?

Tzatziki. I was first introduced to this classic Greek yogurt dip while in a restaurant high on a cliff overlooking the deep blue crescent bay of Santorini, and maybe you can still smell the cucumber and garlic on my breath. Second would be the sausage-sized, white asparagus and fresh-made mayonnaise often served as tapas in Spanish cafes. Both of these items were new to me, but their simplicity and regional flare drew me in and took over my tastebuds and memories.

I must also admit that my affinity for my simple morning breakfast of a chocolate croissant and a café con leche is high on my list, if not really that foreign, but there is more to the story, of course. I, a non-Spanish speaking person, often shared this meal in a café with a non-English speaking fellow, Pachi, and we understood each other perfectly for at least those few minutes each day. Salud, Pachi, salud!

Food, the Great Uniter.