The Cavalier wrestling team left it all on the mat at the Michigan State Open Sunday as seven of Virginia’s wrestlers placed.

The open included more than 500 wrestlers from about 40 teams. The most notable performances for Virginia came from freshman Matt Bonson, sophomore Chris Henrich — ranked No. 16 in his weight class — and junior Brent Jones, who won championships at the freshman 133-pound division, and open 174- and 197-pound divisions, respectively.

The Cavaliers, who are ranked No. 23 in the country, will head to Chapel Hill, N.C. for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge this weekend to take on Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan State.

—compiled by Ben Gomez

The No. 13 Virginia men’s swimming and diving team lost to No. 7 Tennessee last Thursday with the final score standing at 128-172. Even with the upset road loss, the men stood out in three events, finishing 1-2-3 in the 1,000 free, 500 free, and 200 fly.

The men found their stroke Friday, joining the women for an impressive victory by both squads against Kentucky. Again, the men went 1-2-3 in the 1,000 free. Junior Darren Ankosko placed first with a time of 9:17.43. Sophomore John Snawerdt finished second at 9:28.48, with junior Garrett Wren following at third with a time of 9:30.26.

The relay teams proved to be strong for Virginia; both the men and women took first in the 200 medley relays. Clocking in at 1:42.76, the women’s team of juniors Mei Christensen and Katherine McDonnell, freshman Lauren Smart and senior Kristen Wallace blew the competition away by 2.5 seconds. On the men’s side in the same event, the team of junior Eric Olesen, seniors Ryan Hurley and Lee Robertson and freshman Peter Geissinger claimed a victory at 1:30.41.

Both teams will host a three-team meet scheduled for Friday and Saturday against ACC competitor Florida State and Big Ten competitor Penn State.

—compiled by Emily Bareford

Featuring players from more than 30 colleges across the country, last weekend’s ITA National Indoor Championships marked the first time Virginia has hosted an event of national championship caliber.

On the men’s side of the draw, the doubles team of sophomore Michael Shabaz and senior Dominic Inglot headlined the weekend for the Cavaliers at the Boyd Tinsley Courts at the Boar’s Head Sports Club. The pair overpowered Michigan sophomore Jason Jung and junior Mike Scroczynski (7-5, 6-3) Saturday to earn a spot in the doubles backdraw finals. Shabaz and Inglot again emerged victorious Sunday, defeating junior Monte Tucker and freshman Michael Johnson of Auburn-Montgomery in straight sets (6-2 6-2) to claim the consolation crown.

In the men’s singles bracket, Shabaz advanced to the semifinals of the backdraw before falling to Kentucky senior Bruno Agostinelli (3-6, 6-4, 6-7) in a tight three-set thriller Saturday.

Junior Jennifer Stevens was the top individual performer for the Virginia women’s team, making it to the round of 16 before losing to Auburn junior Fani Chifchieva (4-6, 6-3, 3-6).

In the women’s doubles consolation quarterfinal Friday, the Cavalier pair of seniors Amanda Rales and Maggie Yahner fell to USC junior Gabriela Niculescu and sophomore Maria Sanchez (3-8).

—compiled by Cayce Troxel

Short Pump Town Center
Distance: 1 hour

Ever get the bug to go shopping? Think Charlottesville’s Fashion Square Mall leaves something to be desired? Have some time to kill?
Then drive about an hour east, and partake in the shopping mall dream that is Short Pump Town Center. With two stories and more than 200 shops and restaurants , even the shopping killjoy can find something to do for a few hours.

Short Pump Town Center is grounded by Macy’s, Dillard’s and Nordstrom department stores. The mall contains popular stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch, J. Crew, Express and H&M, as well as other novelty stores like Soak!, Delia’s, South Moon Under and the Build-A-Bear Workshop.

Sports enthusiasts can enjoy the two-story sports and outdoors stores Dick’s Sporting Goods and Orvis, as well as check out the Washington Redskins shop.

Interested in electronics? Short Pump features the closest Apple store to Charlottesville. You can also poke around in Brookstone or check out the latest speaker technologies at Bose.

And don’t forget the food. Short Pump’s food court is a little small, but it offers Auntie Annie’s, Chik-Fil-A, Panda Express, Villa Pizza and others. The best food to try is at the restaurants located in and around the mall.

Maggiano’s Little Italy is a superb, moderately priced Italian restaurant with large portions good for groups willing to share. The Cheesecake Factory is also a choice for dinner or a quick dessert within most college students’ budgets. Coldstone Creamery can also satisfy a sweet tooth. If you’re willing to spend a bit more money, the Copper Grill Lobster and Steak House is worth the extra bucks.

If you’re looking for something quick, try Chipotle or Red Robin. And if you’re searching for a more international flavor, Tara Tai is quite popular.

Whether you’re frantically searching for that holiday party outfit or you’re craving a relaxing shopping day topped off with a first-class meal, Short Pump Town Center is the destination for you.

— Lindsey Wagner

Great Falls Park
Distance: 2 hours

More often than not, the only “nature” one could expect to encounter these days is the decaying brown leaves blown over to the sidewalk from the Lawn, or, if you’re lucky, that squirrel that sits on the trash cans outside of Garrett Hall, nibbling on a dried-up pizza crust.

As entertaining as either of these options could be, Great Falls Park, just more than two hours away in Northern Virginia, offers a remedy to this nature-deficiency. Tucked away in a hidden pocket of trees off Georgetown Pike, the park, open from 7 a.m. until dark, presents a myriad of activities to tempt anyone with the slightest bit of enthusiasm for the outdoors. One of the key features of the park is its three scenic falls overlooking the Potomac River, accessible by the River Trail. There are also other trails for horseback riding, hiking and bicycling, of 10, 15 and 5 miles, respectively. The entrance fee for horseback riders, hikers or bicyclers is $3 — not unreasonable for the benefit of outdoor activity. Additionally, the park offers opportunity for aquatic adventures such as whitewater boating — in kayaks and canoes — in the Potomac River that runs through the park. There are varied current patterns, from easy to extreme.

Finally, there are also picnic tables and grills available for use on a first-come, first-serve basis on a large grassy field — perfect for group picnicking or marshmallow-roasting on a crisp autumn afternoon.

For more information or updates about any closed trails, visit http://www.nps.gov/grfa/index.htm.

— Connie Huang

U Street
Distance: 2.5 hours

Despite what University students may have been told by their history professors, a journey to the past requires only a full tank of gas and a map of Route 29.

Should students decide to take a break from studying with a short road trip to the nation’s capital, they may experience the historic and vibrant culture of the U Street Corridor in northwest Washington, D.C.

In less than 2.5 hours , students can begin to enjoy some of the sites once frequented by jazz legends Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Visitors can stomp the same pavements as the men and women who rioted in the streets after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968.

They can walk to one of several U Street landmarks, including the Lincoln Theater — which is a fine example of the Victorian-style architecture of the neighborhood — and the Prince Hall Masonic Temple — a Neoclassical building designed by prominent African American architect Albert I. Cassell. Or visitors can simply grab a bite to eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl, a local hot-spot that first opened in 1958 and has been a long-time favorite of comedian Bill Cosby.

Nicknamed Washington’s “Black Broadway,” U Street predated Harlem as a center of black culture and continues to serve as the heart of the city’s black community today. At night, the street attracts a diverse group of music-lovers because it is known to boom with the rhythms of classical and contemporary jazz, as well as indie rock and hip-hop.

A perfect blend of the past a present, U Street provides students with opportunities for both learning and leisure.

— Stephanie Waties

Highland County
Distance: 2 hours

Just less than two hours to the west of Charlottesville lies Highland County , a great place to spend a few days away from the pressures of the University. The lofty mountains and gorgeous vistas of its eponymous high land – it boasts one of the highest average elevations east of the Mississippi – have earned it the title of “Virginia’s Switzerland.”

After a semester of being crowded in buses, in classrooms and on sidewalks, how better to unwind than getting in touch with the great outdoors in Virginia’s least populous county? Try hiking historic Civil War trails, camping in the wooded mountains or swimming in the cool valley streams. Even the drive out is breathtaking, as Route 250 takes you past a number of scenic views and along the George Washington National Forest. And if you stick to the streets, there’s still plenty of entertainment. Besides the ease of playing the cow counting game in the car with your friends, the natural beauty of the county and sparse traffic make it a popular destination for motorcyclists and classic car enthusiasts to go for weekend drives; the inns and restaurants near Highland’s sole stoplight provide some delicious dining options.

The first weekend in December, Highland hosts its Wintertide celebration, featuring a bevy of seasonal attractions. You can even pick up your own Christmas tree from the county that provided the U.S. Capitol’s 2004 Christmas Tree – the first and only time the commonwealth has provided a tree for the occasion. If you can hold out until the second and third weekends in March, don’t miss the annual Highland Maple Festival. Celebrating the local maple syrup industry, you can watch old-fashioned maple syrup making, observe the crowning of the year’s Maple Queen or sample the fresh-cooked pork rinds and to-die-for maple donuts.

— Hunter Tammaro

Union Station
Distance: 2.5 hours

Light streams in from the arched windows, reflecting against the white marble floors and impressive statues of the street level concourse. This isn’t so much a train station as an architectural gateway rising in the heart of the city of American politics and history. Not many train stations were built with gold leaf and white granite. Not many train stations were inspired by the Arch of Constantine or the Baths of Diocletian — and in turn inspired the style of the U.S. Supreme Court Building, as well as the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.

But Union Station in Washington, D.C., is still more than something pretty because it serves ‘We the People’ in a way most American residents can understand — as a transportation hub and shopping center — by boasting more than 100 shops and restaurants that cater to both locals and tourists alike.

The lowest level of the station has both commuter rail tracks and subway tracks. The other concourses, however, are home to a food court, several other restaurants, dozens of shops and a movie theater, all of which bring more than 32 million people to Union Station each year, more than any other destination in the nation’s capital. Combining the aura of politics and tourism, Union Station is both a historical landmark and modern-day shopping center.

The bus system is also the most convenient source of transportation for those without cars who find it difficult to make travel plans to destinations outside of Charlottesville. Anyone can take the Greyhound, which is part of the Charlottesville Transit Service, to Union Station in Washington, D.C.. The station is just a short bus ride away but can be a breath of fresh air for students who need to get out of town. Combining Fashion Square and the Amtrak station downtown wouldn’t work so well. Union Station does.

—compiled by Irene Kan

Amsterdam. Rome. London. Barcelona. These are just a few of the many weekend destinations of my fellow study abroad cohorts. Confident in the invincibility of our youth, the permanence of our generous cash flow and our undeniable American charm and joie de vivre, we travel across Europe during our leisure time. A new generation of savvy jet-setting American youth is breaking boundaries, and sometimes laws, with its fast paced excursions.  

Films such as “Eurotrip” and “L’auberge Espagnole” touch on this new phenomenon of impulsive student travel.

Bored?

“Hey dude, let’s go to Morocco this weekend!”

“Dude, yeah!”

It seems like such a quaint, antiquated notion that study abroad previously encompassed only one country, rather than 10. Cheap discount airlines such as Ryanair or Easyjet make the seemingly impossible possible, and now my carefree friends have the means to support their increasingly dependent travel addiction. Indeed, some view it as the only means to cure themselves of the trying school week, which, for me, consists of 25 to 30 solid contact hours of intensive French class. While I’ve not yet noticed a considerable leap in my French ability, I have observed that I am not cut out for hard wooden chairs without cushions. Already highly predisposed to daydreams, it is undeniably even more difficult for me to refrain from taking tantalizing imaginary trips when seated in these severe, rigid chairs of doom.  

While I completely sympathize with my fellow study abroaders’ travel urges, I cannot entirely support the lackadaisical manner in which they flit from country to country according to mere flights of fancy. In moderation, visiting different countries is an enriching, culturally enlightening experience, but many of my friends are now diehard addicts. I have one friend, who while studying abroad in England for a semester, visited France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Switzerland and Belgium. I’m torn between admiration, jealousy, disbelief and disapproval when I consider her feat. It seems somehow almost disrespectful to the primary study abroad country, which is routinely passed up on weekends for more exotic destinations.  

I must admit, however, I am just as tempted by travel as my peers. Ryanair’s 20 euro fare for a roundtrip ticket to London broke down even my reservist notions, and I jubilantly set off for “The Smoke” with two friends. Our hostel was well worth the 25 pounds we dropped for two nights. Though it was a large hostel and inhabited by several hundred weary, sleep-deprived young folk, it was largely a positive experience, minus the copulating Norwegian couple in our room of 12. I would have to say hostel hanky-panky is one of the top travel faux pas, stealing the top spot from fanny packs, Hawaiian shirts and forgetting to drive on the left side of the road when in the U.K.

Fortunately, we were soon able to put the hostel out of our minds and with food from Cheap-Cheap Chinese — the actual name of a restaurant we frequented — in our bellies and all-day Tube passes, we had a splendid tour of the city’s attractions with a reasonable price tag. Total cost of weekend: About $100 to $175, depending on how much willpower you had to resist such treasures as teddy bears in royal guard garb.  

Although cheap travel is possible, many spontaneous student travelers are not so careful, and some dish out vast amounts of money unflinchingly, even at a time when gas prices and exchange rates are at an all-time high.

“Hmm, I’ve spent just a bit over a thousand dollars,” one of my friends commented casually two weeks after arriving in France. “Is that bad?” Flabbergasted, I tried to stifle my shocked, “Whoaaa!”

“Whoa — well,” I corrected myself. “Perhaps that is a teensy bit high? But at least you’re doing your part in reversing the economic crisis!”

As the weekend approaches again, I hear the familiar country cries of my peers. “Rome! Salzburg! Ireland,” they cry, as they slowly awaken from their sluggish school day despondency and morph into lively, indefatigable creatures. This weekend in particular promises to be a high travel weekend, due to our two days of break Monday and Tuesday. Suddenly, even the most remote destinations are being legitimately considered. In fact, I have to go pack my suitcase for Lyon.

Kendra’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at k.kirk@cavalierdaily.com.

This past weekend, I took a trip to eastern Turkey.

The main attraction of the Turkish province of Kars, about an hour away, is a massive city of ruins, Ani. Ani was an Armenian stronghold when the Silk Road brought international trade through the region. When the route changed, the city declined. Ani sits on the Armenian-Turkish border; I could wave to Armenian miners just across the river canyon.

Ani’s cathedral was beautiful, the relics of ancient wealth were inspiring and the constant reminder of Turkish foreign policy was disheartening. Opening the border could warm relations between the two nations considerably, but, as of now, the border is closed, and tourism is neglected.

After spending time in Ani, we drove south toward Doğubeyazıt and Mt. Ararat. Other than being near the supposed resting place of Noah’s Ark, Doğubeyazıt is the home of a sprawling palace. Unfortunately, it was undergoing renovations, so we only saw the first courtyard. In fact, I will probably only remember the palace because of the boy standing in its parking lot selling necklaces. The boy was obviously a salesman, but in Turkey, that rarely equates to our greasy car dealer image. He spoke English well and surprised me with his openness … although by this point I should not be surprised by even the most personal of questions — Turks don’t have quite the same boundaries as most people in the U.S.

We talked about Kurds, the region’s poverty, his family, English lessons and the struggle to make ends meet. Several girls from our group bought necklaces, and I know it was only days like this that kept him out of school and high on the windswept, frigid plateau. But, with winter coming with an end to the tourist season, I wonder what new efforts would be demanded of him in place of homework.

But that’s the general conundrum in the east.

After the palace, we drove straight through to Van hoping to get there before dark — which fell at an uncomfortable 4:30 p.m. The modern city of Van is nothing special. It is the people, the history and the lake that make it unique. Nestled within beautiful mountain peaks and just a short jaunt from Iran, Van is a city mixed up and swirled around by an array of forces.

Riots occurred two days after our arrival in response to a visit by the Turkish prime minister. I accidentally started a heated debate among local university students by asking about the conditions Kurdish students faced there. Amnesty International and the U.N. have central offices in the region. The Kurdistan Workers Party, an organization of Kurdısh guerrilla fighters, has been — and still is — active enough to incite sizeable migration out of the mountains and villages into the city.

And on top of it all stands the ancient Van Castle with the lake at its feet.

The castle marks just another characteristic of Van, which is located at the northernmost edge of the Fertile Crescent and has been constantly inhabited. Castles, fortifications, temples, churches and other ruins are evidence of the continuous — and tempestuous — history of the region.

In recent times, Armenians and Kurds have left their marks on the region, though they remain difficult to discuss today. Armenians are few and far between in Van — if there are any at all.

While Armenians may no longer live in the region, their churches remain; a stunning example can be found on Akdamar Island in the middle of Lake Van where a church was recently restored by the Turkish government and designated a secular museum. The government has attempted to downplay the Armenian influences and heavily points out the Seljuk/Ottoman/Turkish and Islamic influences on the church’s construction and decoration. In Turkey, if it’s not Turkish, the government makes it Turkish.

This explains the riots. The Kurdish population has constantly faced the government’s attempts to “Turkicize” them and has had to deal with many measures limiting the amount of Kurdish culture they can exhibit. For a long period, the language itself was banned. Today, the “Kurdish question” remains unanswered, alongside the economic, military and legal issues in the region. In addition, many Turks in the West simply think things in the East are backward.

It’s definitely different there. But people in the East are still people. They are just as hospitable. They are just as eager to practice English. They are just as willing to offer help. And they deal with more oppression and problems than most Americans can imagine.

I can honestly say I would return to the East — especially to those Turks who sneer a little when they talk about the region.

Jessica’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at j.walker@cavalierdaily.com.

Though it is not officially a part of the University Unity Project, a new initiative from Student Council’s Student Arts Committee is set to promote the project’s goal of interaction between students and the Charlottesville community more effectively than most of Council’s other programs. The Arts Education Program announced in a press release yesterday will create a volunteer program placing University students in local classrooms to teach the arts. Though it requires few resources, the program’s organizers made sure the program is sustainable.

Too many of Council’s projects are planned and implemented by the people who are most interested in them, with no thought of what might happen if Council’s priorities change or everyone involved in the project graduates. The Student Arts Committee has taken several steps to institutionalize its program, giving it a chance to continue beyond the end of Council’s term.

The committee has already formed partnerships with community organizations like the Boys and Girls Club and the Piedmont Council of the Arts. Teachers and administrators in the Charlottesville area have expressed their excitement about the program, as well, Student Arts Committee Chair Jenny Smith said. “Word got out faster than I wanted and faster than I was ready for at first,” she said.

It’s not that students are incapable of running the program by themselves. These organizations have longer institutional memories and can help Council sustain the volunteer program across multiple Council terms. Rather than trying to go it alone, the Student Arts Committee was smart to coordinate its efforts with people who will still be working to improve arts education in Charlottesville long after Council’s current members have graduated.

The committee’s plan to develop prefabricated lesson plans for students to use in the classrooms also helps establish a framework for future volunteers to carry on the current committee’s work. The committee seems to be taking care to leave as much documentation as it can behind, making it easier for other students to continue the program.

Even more important is the committee’s hope to remove Council’s responsibility for the project eventually. Although Smith said the project was conceived by Student Council and will be exclusively run by Council in the short-term, she hopes the project will take on a life of its own and move beyond Council’s control. Either as a contracted independent organization or as a program run by an existing organization like Madison House, Smith said her committee intends to pass the project’s torch to an entity outside Student Council sometime next year. Student Council’s goals and priorities change with each new group of representatives, and it would be irresponsible to assume Council would continue to support this project. Planning ahead for its severance from Council’s support is important.

Many of Council’s programs for its University Unity Project will need to be continued beyond the end of this school year if they are to be effective. Unfortunately, Council does not seem to have a plan to continue those programs outside of its own organization, and it is difficult to imagine them existing very long after the current Council officers’ terms end. Though it still needs to gather student volunteers, the Student Arts Committee seems to have taken a proactive approach to ensuring the viability of its Arts Education Program in the coming years. It seems likely to promote student involvement in the Charlottesville community longer than any of the Unity Project’s initiatives.

TWO weeks ago, I wrote a column expressing my distaste for California proposition 8, a measure intended to amend the California State Constitution to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman, thereby invalidating a California Supreme Court decision to allow marriage between same-sex couples. The proposition, I wrote, was fundamentally discriminatory, hateful and anti-American.

Yet last Tuesday, my dear home state of California passed the proposition banning gay marriage by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent, despite the fact that California voters chose President-elect Barack Obama 61 percent to 37 percent.

For the queer and allied community, Obama’s victory was bittersweet. Though Obama has never fully supported the movement for marriage equality — he has explicitly stated that he favors same-sex civil unions to same-sex marriage — his message of progress has always included the progress, however slight, of the gay community. In his victory speech on Tuesday night, he thanked his supporters, “black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight … we are and always will be the United States of America.” The failure of the public to protect marriage equality in a state as progressive as California is a major setback to the gay rights movement.

The promise of progress and equality that has been the crowning jewel of the Obama campaign, that spoke to Americans of all races, genders, and sexual identities, suddenly rings hollow in the wake of Proposition 8’s passing. On the very same day that America elected the first African-American president, making huge strides to repair a painful and still very fresh history of discrimination and hatred, California — as well as Florida and Arizona — voted to curtail the rights of a different minority. How could one person cast his ballot for the promise of unity and change that Obama has espoused, then scroll down and vote yes on a discriminatory and regressive proposition that seeks to undo one of the greatest steps towards genuine equality in recent history?

At his birth, Obama’s own parents’ interracial marriage wasn’t legally valid in most American states. At that time, when interracial marriage was as contentious an issue as gay marriage is today, only 4 percent of Americans supported couples of different ethnicities and 94 percent favored making their unions illegal. Fortunately, no one put that measure up on a ballot.

It was a slow, painful process getting Americans to recognize the rights of the African-American population. It required much intervention by the court to force people to comply with unpopular changes like integrated schools and African-American suffrage. Though it is not a perfect comparison, the similarities between that movement and this one are striking. A mere 145 years ago, Obama himself could have been owned as a slave; now he is arguably the most powerful man in the world. Regressive, intolerant people fought to undo the gains of African-Americans at every turn, yet equality, rationality and fairness always triumphed in the end because of the powerful language of this great nation’s founding creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” All men, black or white, gay or straight.

Undoubtedly, many who voted for Proposition 8 did so because they, like Obama, do not support gay marriage but are in favor of civil unions. However, the very concept of the “civil union” is insulting. The allowance of same-sex marriage would leave no distinction between the love of a gay couple and the love of a straight couple, but civil unions render the two institutions fundamentally separate and therefore fundamentally different. Separate is inherently unequal. In fact, a major worry of the Proposition 8 supporters was that allowing gay marriage would force schools to teach their children to see gay people as equals. It’s not so hard to imagine parents fretting over a similar worry a mere 50 years ago, as they complained that integrated schools would force their children to accept African-Americans as equals. Imagine, schools teaching equality and tolerance. Oh, the horror!

America, it’s time to practice what we preach. We elected Obama because we were moved by his message of change, unity, and progress, and in doing so, we shattered racial barriers and proved that tolerance and acceptance can prevail over centuries of bigotry and hate. Now we — and Obama — need to stand by that belief, and apply that unity, tolerance, love and equality to all our fellow citizens, regardless of sexual preference.

Michelle Lamont’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at m.lamont@cavalierdaily.com.