WEEK ONE
Faced with a three-to-four week break filled with holiday leftovers, soap operas and no employment, Brenna Skelly, a UW-Madison sophomore, jetted out of the country for a week to Barcelona and Madrid, Spain, as well as Newcastle, England.
Skelly, who was abroad Dec. 27 to Jan. 7 and traveled with her mother and brother, cited her desire to experience a different culture and the decreasing desire to stay at home as the?? main reasons for her trip.
\A year ago it was more important to be home because I felt more connected [to people at home],"" she said. ""The more I am away with school, the less I feel compelled to spend time at home. It's so much more enjoyable to spend my time in a completely different country with a completely different culture.""
By leaving her hometown of Brookfield, Wis. behind, Skelly was able to replace trips to shopping malls with daily excursions to some of the most famous art museums in the world. There was a big art focus with this trip, she said, and listed the Sagrada Familia??-an unfinished cathedral in Barcelona-and ""Las Meninas"" by Diego Valasquez among the trip's highlights.
""A lot of people say 'Las Meninas' is the best painting ever painted,"" she said. ""I struggled to find the reason for its greatness.""
A 6 a.m. flight as well as a ""boring"" family killed any New Year's Eve revelry that might have taken place. Skelly spent New Year's Eve packing and sleeping, despite the huge parties that raged outside and fireworks that spotted the air at midnight.
Arriving in Newcastle the next day, Skelly spent the remaining days of her trip with a family for whom she was an au pair over the summer, and had little time to sightsee in a city approximately 250 miles away from London. She spent most of her time with the family and remarking on how the children had grown and matured.
Overall, Skelly found her trip to be a great experience.
""Winter break is one of the few times I have time to travel,"" she said. ""I had two plane tickets left over from my summer trip, so why not go?""
-Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen
WEEK TWO
Florida, a land of sun, is always a great place to spend winter break-not only because it provides an escape from tedious family gatherings, long languid days and frigid weather that characterizes this time of year in the Midwest, but also because the Badger football team played in the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Fla. Jan. 1.
Loyal Wisconsin fans, including UW-Madison seniors Lindsay Rasmussen and Lynn Peirick, embarked on a 21-hour road trip from Madison to Tampa to support their team and spend time in the sun. Rasmussen proudly claimed that although Wisconsin fans only filled a quarter of the stadium, they made up at least half the noise even though the Badgers lost 24-21 to Georgia.
""It was one of the best football games I've been to in a while,"" she said.
Wisconsin has long been noted for its fans' zealous support of Badger sports and it seems that this game was no different, according to Rasmussen and Peirick. Throughout the game the Wisconsin student section carried on with spirited cheering, pounding on the back of the plastic stadium seats and just acting, as Rasmussen stated, ""loud and obnoxious."" Despite the Badgers' loss, the majority of fans stayed until the end.
""Everyone was just really excited to be there even though they lost,"" Peirick said.
Rasmussen and Peirick stayed at the Howard Johnson Hotel near Tampa's International airport, which turned out to be the choice hotel for many visiting Wisconsinites. The hotel was so permeated in Badger pride that the guests had an informal pep rally the night before the game, singing ""Varsity"" and other Madison cheers in the hotel until the staff threatened to call the police.
The Outback Bowl was not the only entertainment for visiting Wisconsin fans, many of whom were in Tampa for New Year's Eve and got a chance to explore the surrounding areas. Rasmussen and Peirick spent New Year's Eve on Ebor Street, similar to State Street. They searched around the Howard Johnson, which they deemed ""the red light district of Tampa"" because Rasmussen described it as populated mostly by ""strip clubs, porn stores, and random grocery stores.""
Besides indulging themselves in football, strip clubs and bars, they spent time relaxing on Florida's beaches-building sand castles and fighting off aggressive seagulls.
-Annie Van Cleve
WEEK THREE
It is not unusual for college students on winter break to wake up late and mosey their way to McDonald's for a late breakfast.
UW-Madison freshman Ben Raznick, a member of Wisconsin's swimming and diving team, acted like many students by getting breakfast at McDonalds Jan. 7... at 6:45 a.m.
Raznick could not take time to savor his meal as he hurriedly ate in the car on the way to the ""Rainbow Invite,"" a meet the team took part in.
However, unlike many of his fellow peers, Raznick was able to eat McDonalds in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Raznick spent the majority of his semester break in Hawaii as he was only in his hometown of Boulder, Colo. for four days following finals and then he returned home again for two days before class began.
""I'm always so busy in Madison and it was nice to relax when I was home. I felt a lot of pressure to see people because it was my first time back home since August, but I had to spend time with my family too. It was kinda of hard to be home for such a short time, but I was pretty excited about coming here,"" Raznick said from Hawaii. ""It was kind of weird not to work out, though.""
Raznick had plenty of time to work out as the teams practiced and trained up to four hours per day, according to junior swim team member Cassie Kubly.
When Raznick was not spending numerous hours in the pool diving, he spent the remainder of his free time swimming with his teammates in the ocean off of Honolulu's beaches.
""This was basically the best way to spend my break. It was definitely a training trip for sure and that was obviously the most important aspect of our trip. But it was really awesome to hang out with my teammates so much at the beach. I went to Hawaii once before with my family and that was OK, but it definitely wasn't the same, but here all the seniors and juniors on the teams already knew where to go.""
The culmination of Raznick's break was the conclusion of the ""Rainbow Invite"" Jan. 9 in which the Wisconsin women, while the men came in second only to Hawaii.
-Laura-Claire Corson
