Adventures in Europe, Part II

The coffee situation in Germany is terrible. If you need caffeine (and seeing as I have class from 9am to 7:45 pm twice a week, I often do), you usually go to a bakery, plop down €1.50, or about $1.85, for about three or four spoonfuls of disgusting sludge that somewhat smells of coffee. Starbucks, meanwhile, has the same prices as the US, only in euros, and paying $5 for coffee seems ridiculous. Besides, I try not to have too many American products in Germany.

Today, however, a friend of mine introduced me to Aspect. I got a wonderful chai latte that tastes better that Starbucks, is about the same size of a cup of Starbucks coffee, and is only €1.80. And the best part? It’s open on Sundays! YAY!

Suddenly my upcoming hellish week of term-papers doesn’t seem so bad anymore. (…Who am I kidding? It totally does.)

After yet another long week of class, I headed over to Barcelona with two friends. The way to the airport was uneventful (once we figured out that the Karlsruhe airport is actually in Baden-Baden.) The flight was nearly uneventful. For the second flight to Spain in a row, we shared a plane with a group of loud, obnoxious, drunk, 30- and 40- something-year-old German men. A man the row in front of me was taking a lot of pictures, but I was half awake so not really paying attention. Then I realized that even though he was acting like he was taking pictures of his friends in the aisle, the camera was actually pointed too far down… right at me and my friends! So I conjure up the meanest evil-eye I can muster and aim it directly at the camera. Shortly afterwards, he takes the camera down to look at the pictures, and I could tell exactly what moment my “I know what you’re doing, and I don’t approve of it” pictures came up. I heard a very loud “Bahhh!” But at least he put his camera away afterwards. We land and find there’s a bus waiting for us. “This is going too smoothly,” Aymi kept saying. “Something has to go wrong.” We shushed her and told her she’d jinx it.

Our hostel in Barcelona was in a great location- minutes away from the port and from La Rambla, a street I would liken to a Catalonian Third Street Promenade, only without all the clothes stores. It’s known for its living statues (think the made-up creepy people you see in every city, only with much more elaborate costumes), and for a jewelry market on weekends… where I may or may not have bought Christmas gifts. Katie and I walked around a bit, got hungry, then decided to call our other friend, who had decided to stay with her friend for free instead of us. We never did get a hold of her, which was sad, but we didn’t worry since we knew she was with a friend who knew the city better than we did.

After dinner, I discovered that there is definitely a reason they tell girls- particularly blondes (like the other Katie) and redheads- to be particularly careful in Barcelona. I GOT OFFERED DRUGS! I’ve never had that happen before… but I got OFFERED DRUGS! By a stranger! GAH! We ended up getting majorly creeped out and calling it a early night. You know you’ve been in Europe too long if you think you’re in bed early when you go to bed at 2 on a Friday night.

Saturday was a busy day, as Barcelona is a huge city with a ton to see. After getting totally ripped off at the exchange office (I don’t want to talk about it), we browsed the jewelry market, trekked up to Parc Guell, this gorgeous park designed by the famous architect Gaudi, whose works are all over Barcelona. This park is covered in mosaics. I was particularly fond of the mosaic lizard- it took me forever to wait around to get a picture of it that didn’t have any tourists standing in front of it! After spending some time in the park, we walked to La Sagrada Familia, another one of Gaudi’s “masterpieces.” This cathedral- perhaps one of the oddest I’ve ever seen- was started at the end of the 1800s and was unfinished when Gaudi died. Most of his original plans for the finished product were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, and there’s been a lot of disagreement over what precisely was Gaudi’s original vision, so it’s still not done. It’s expected to be finished in the next 20 years, I think. Then we walked to the Picasso Museum and the Barcelona Cathedral, where there was a mass baptism going on, and you could barely move amidst the sea of strollers. For dinner, we decided to try a restaurant recommended in Katie’s Let’s Go book- one which supposedly had fabulous meals for “astonishingly low” prices, but you needed to show up well before you hoped to eat because the lines would go halfway through the square it occupied. We showed up about 20 minutes before it opened (again, you know you’re in Europe when a restaurant won’t open for dinner before 8:30), and there was already a huge line. Thankfully, we were still among the first to get in. To give you an idea about how popular this place is, the line was so long that some people who were in line BEFORE IT OPENED needed to wait until the first batch of people filled the two floors and outside patio, finished their meals, and left before they could get seated. Anyways, since the prices were good, we ordered a lot, and thus had an expensive meal anyways. (It doesn’t seem so expensive until you convert the euros to dollars, and then think “Oh yeah… crap.”) Afterwards, we went to the Irish pub a couple doors down from our hostel, where we made friends with the Australian doorman, and the two bartenders from New Zealand and Wales. I love English speakers. I’m thoroughly convinced we are some of the friendliest people in the world. Katie and I were the guinea pigs for the New Zealand bartender- she would try to design her own cocktails and give us each a shotglass full of whatever she’d come up with to try it out, and they were usually pretty good. We went to bed early because we had to get up at 6:30 to take the metro to the bus station to catch the 2-hour bus to the airport to catch the 4-hour plane to catch the 1.5-hour train to finally get back to Freiburg. We set our alarms and call Aymi one more time. Still no response.

The next morning, Aymi wasn’t on the bus. This bus company schedules its buses to Girona to correspond with Ryanair flights. We figured it’d be no big deal, as there was another flight 30 minutes after ours, and she could still be on time if she took the bus intended for that flight. We get to the airport, we check in, we eat breakfast, then we go to watch the arrival of the second Barcelona Bus. She’s not on that one either. We call, and it goes straight to voicemail. So we go through security and hope she found a cab. Eventually the plane takes off without her. When we land, we call a friend to make sure Aymi hadn’t tried to contact her. She hadn’t, so we decide if there are no e-mails when we get back to Freiburg, we’ll call the program. This was a terrible situation as we left for our Western Europe field study the next day, and if you miss the group departure, you’re responsible for making (and paying for) your own arrangements to meet up with the group. Katie and I decided to facebook stalk Aymi to find out what her friend’s last name is, then I tracked Aymi’s friend down on Skype, where I discovered that Aymi’s phone had died (which was why we couldn’t get a hold of her), and they lost track of time eating breakfast. By the time they got to the bus station, they realized the next bus to Girona wouldn’t arrive in time for our flight. She could take a cab for 120 euros, but there was no guarantee that would make it on time either. Since Girona is a small airport, there’s no guarantee there’d be another flight to southern Germany that day. So she went to the main Barcelona airport, and said “I need a flight to southern Germany, but not to Munich.” Eventually she paid an extraordinary fee to get on a flight to Stuttgart, had an adventure with her train connections, and made it, exhausted, back to Freiburg and caught the bus to Luxembourg the next day. All without crying or smoking a single cigarette, which we were very proud of her for.

Pictures are on the photo page.

Grenoble, France: I’m walking to dinner, minding my own business. A little girl comes up to me and says, “Excuse me, mademoiselle, are you married?” I think she’s just a kid being a kid, so I lean down and tell her that I’m too young but I hope to one day find a handsome, charming man to marry. She says “Good, follow me,” grabs my hand, pulls me into the restaurant where there’s a group of 5 or 6 men ranging from 30ish to 45ish. One crosses his arms, looks at me, and says, “So you’re single.”

I had to pull a knife on a guy a couple weeks later. People seem to find the fact that I carry one “badass.”

For Munich sketchballs, see the Oktoberfest post.

Geneva, Switzerland: Still in my business clothes from earlier that day, I’m walking back to the hotel from dinner. A man comes up to me and says, “You are beautiful, but I see you are too expensive for me.” At least if you think I look like a hooker, you think I’m an expensive one.

Budapest, Hungary: I tend to swing my arms when I walk quickly, and as I extend my arm in front of me, a man walking towards me grabs my hand. I yank it back, walk a couple steps, and then pause a split second in disbelief. I turn around, half wondering if that actually just happened. The guy is still standing there staring at me.

Freiburg, Germany: Today on the way to class, a man sits beside me, tells me in English that I’m beautiful, which is weird because I hadn’t said a word and wasn’t wearing anything to identify myself as American, and starts rubbing his inner thighs. Better than mine, but still. Wie sagt man “creepy?” I got off at the next stop and entered a different car.

And I’m off to Barcelona this weekend, where I fully expect more stories to add to this post.

When I returned from Eastern Europe, I had an awful week consisting of being sick, writing three papers, and finishing my State Department application. As a reward for that week, I had booked myself a trip with four friends to Majorca, an island off the coast of Spain. (If you’ve heard of Ibiza, Majorca is the largest island in the same chain.) And I have to brag about my find: I took the advice of some Australian tourists my mom and I had met in London and checked out a popular Australian site- wotif.com. Our 4-star hotel within walking distance of the beach was €30 per person per night. The hostels I’m looking at for my upcoming trip to Barcelona cost about that.

The day I left was something else. I came to class at 9am, found out that the train we were hoping to take wouldn’t work out, so we needed to take a train at 9:30 pm. That stresses me out because I wasnät packed, and the soonest I could have gotten back to my dorm was 8pm. Between classes, I found out that my computer ate part of my paper, and I needed to rewrite it. (I’m still scared to see the grade for that paper). But I finished my paper, packed all I needed quickly, and caught my train. We got to the airport in Basel 7 hours early! Sleeping was nearly impossible, as the airport was freezing. I went to use the restroom, saw that it was being cleaned and felt that it was really warm. Being the heat seeking missile that I am, I waited until the woman was done cleaning, curled up on the diaper changing table, and had a much better night’s sleep than anyone else in my group.

Our hotel was in Portal Nous, which is about 15 minutes outside of Palma, the main city. Strangely enough, it reminded me of Laguna Beach. The houses were obviously nice, but not big. You could sort of meander through the winding streets that eventually all seem to lead to the beach. There were families with dogs everywhere. Since Portal Nous is a haven for expats, you hear lots of English. I felt nostalgic, as my mom grew up in Huntington Beach, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Orange County visiting my grandparents. We spent Friday exploring the beach and the harbor, swimming in the Mediterranean, lounging by the pool. It was like a nice slumber party in some ways. For dinner, we went to the Flintstones Cafe (Iäm not joking!), which had a type of pizza my family had in England. My dad’s been on a quest to find this type of pizza- really thin crust, not a lot of sauce or cheese, so no taste really dominates–ever since. And the sangria was really, really good.

The second day, we took the bus into Palma, the main city. We walked around, shopped, went to the Cathedral, and were about to embark on a walk along the coast when Danielle realized her purse was gone. Her life was in this purse- her passport, her credit card, several health insurance cards, her social security card, her driver’s license. (Major life lesson everyone… separate your resources!!!) It took an inordinate amount of time to find a police station because virtually no one spoke English, French, or German, we spoke very little Spanish, and even what we could say confused them because we learned Mexican Spanish, not Castillian. (Is policia really incomprehensible, or do you really insist on adding the lisp- polithia?) When we could find someone who spoke our language, they often didnät know where the police were. It took forever to file the report. I took a cab back to the hotel with Danielle, and the others were supposed to be behind us in the bus. Similar mishaps happened, and they showed up about 3 hours later. I spent those hours in the room, mostly by myself as Danielle was on the phone with her mom, starving, and getting bitchier by the second because I had gone way too long without eating a full meal. I had tried to eat earlier, but I realized after climbing into the cab that my vegetarian egg salad takeout totally had tuna in it, and it was so gross (and so not vegetarian) that I ate just enough to keep myself from passing out, and nothing more.

Getting home wasnät hard, surprisingly. Pickpocketing and passport theft is so common in Spain that most Spanish airports will let you on with a police report. The one glitch, however, was that we didnät know that the clocks changed that weekend, and couldn’t figure out why no one was there to check in passengers 30 minutes before the flight was supposed to start.

Midterms were not terrible. One had a lot of gotcha questions that I didn’t think were terribly fair. But no matter… I was just informed that I got an internship to the US Mission to NATO in Brussels this summer! Well, I will get it as long as I get a Security Clearance, which shouldn’t be a problem since I donät do drugs and have not been involved with people who committed terrorist acts while I was 8. It was completely unexpected. Normally, the EU Center of California picks two finalists and an alternate. NATO picks which of the finalists to take, but occasionally offers the internship to both. This year, they not only took both finalists, but they offered it to me, the alternate as well because they really liked my application. I’m glad it happened this way. This is so much better than getting it only because two other people dropped out. So I’ve been giddy. I could find out this evening that I didnät get a good grade on that paper I rewrote, but it wouldnät matter since I donät need to worry about summer plans or all that nonsense. Finding an internship was so stressful last semester, and I’m so glad that I know what Iäm doing by the end of October.

Be forewarned, I’m writing this on a German keyboard, and this post will probably have many typos. Again, picture links are in the password-protected page and on facebook.

Budapest, Hungary: My first morning in beautiful Budapest, I went to two meetings at the Central European University, an American-accredited graduate school that PAYS most of its students, in addition to providing housing… Obviously, that information caught my attention, and the following speech successfully kept it. When the Iron Curtain fell, Hungary was considered one of the most stable of the post-Communist countries. Now, it is one of the least, and its economy is nearly in shambles. Its last election marked the first time a Prime Minister had been reelected, but he did so only by completely lying about the state of the economy. A speech to Parliament where he acknowledged this, said his party did nothing to be proud of and needed to fix this effing country (his words, not mine) was leaked, causing the right to call for a recall, which hasnät taken place, so there are continual protests.  In any case, Hungary seems like a very interesting place to study politics or economics. The next speech is pretty much a fog. I donät remember anything, and I can’t read my notes because I couldnät control my hands. I had a seizure that afternoon, almost as soon as I got back to the hotel from the meetings. That, needless to say, was terrifzing, and I was really worried that that would continue on throughout the trip. It didnät, thankfully, but I think the fact that much of my first day there was shot really contributes to my desire to go back.

Once I recovered, I walked around Pest (pronounced Pesht) with some girls from my program for a bit. I had some good vanilla ice cream that I’m pretty sure was alcoholic before crossing the bridge into Buda. This bridge was guarded by lions that were designed to be 100% anatomically correct. The architect was so confident in his lions that he said he would jump into the Danube if anyone found a flaw. An inspection showed these lions had no tongues, and the poor architect jumped to his death.  That evening, IES took us on a Danube river cruise at sunset so we could see the city at night. I saw so much along the banks that I wanted to see- just the banks alone! I was sleepy after the day’s ordeal, so I went to a grocery store, grabbed snacks, and crashed at about 9pm.

The next morning, we toured the Hungarian Parliament. I’ve seen a few parliaments, but this one is by far the most beautiful. If you haven’t already seen my pictures, please look at them. This was a beautiful building. Afterwards, IES offered a free tour of the House of Terror, which was a museum of communist torture. Since I’d had so little free time the day before, I found someone who was willing to go back into Buda with me, where we walked along the Danube to find the Rock Church (a church built into the rocks of one of the hills of Buda) and the Citadel (a monument on top of one of said hills.) I think that was a good call, in retrospect. I’m glad I had some time in the city. Afterwards, we board a bus for the ride to…

Bratislava, Slovakia: This was one of the first times IES took us to Bratislava, and I think they did it mostly to break up the long bus ride between Budapest and Prague. Our bus let us off right in front of the castle, which is being renovated and is thus covered by a giant advertisement. Yay, capitalism. It was interesting looking at the city from the castle, however. On one side of the Danube, you saw a lot of grey Sovietness. On the other, you saw the pretty old town. Bratislava is interesting because it only became a capital when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split in 1993. You didn’t catch the same sense of history that you would in other capitals. Once we got to our hotel, we decided to go on a quest for dinner at this student restaurant and bar that was in Aymi’s Let’s Go guide (which I highly recommend for students on a budget, and they always mention vegetarian options). The waitress, adorned in a BARtislava t-shirt, recommended the national dish, Bryndzové Halušky, which is a lot of mini dumplings covered in cream sauce and sheep cheese. It doesnät look prettz… in fact, I think my dog has left me presents that look like this, but it was still filling and quite yummy.

More meetings on day 2. The most interesting thing I got out of it is that they think their economy is in great shape, even though over 50% of their economy is controlled by 5 foreign companies (3 automotive, 2 electronic… both are taking hits in the financial crisis), they have the highest unemployment rate in Europe, which should be compounded by the fact that many Slovakian labor immigrants will probably need to start coming back as the economies in Western Europe tank. BUT they get the Euro soon, so all is good, see?

Exploring Bratislava by day gave me an appreciation for just how quirky the city is. I think of it as the Berkeley of European capitals. There were a ton of random statues- a man climbing out of one of the potholes, a man peering around the corner with his camera, a man leaning over one of the benches. (I think I posted pictures of all of these.) And we found the Blue Church, which seriously looks like it came out of Candyland. We left in the afternoon for…

Prague, Czech Republic: It is unreal how beautiful this city is. I think I could live here, if it werenät for all the tourists. The first full day, we went to meetings (I’ll spare you the deals this time), took a walking tour, saw the square where the Prague Spring was suppressed, and walked around the Jewish quarter. We had a yummy Czech dinner- I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was for spinach! I tried Czech beer, which is so much better than that crap we drink in America. Which brings me to the Budweiser story:

American Budweiser was named after Budweis, a town in the CR that has its own brewery. Twentz zears after American Budweiser was created, Budweis named its own beer Budweiser. This makes sense, most European beers are named after the city in which they’re brewed. (Freiburger is disgusting, by the way.) Long legal battles ensued. Finally, it was agreed that Czech Budweiser can’t be sold in the US, while American Budweiser would be sold under the name Anheuser-Busch. Ultimately, I think we lost. (More info on Bud)

We had the second day to ourselves to explore. Normally, they take us through the Jewish quarter, but everything was closed due to holidays.They wanted to make sure only worshipers were in the synagogues, or something silly like that. So we went to the Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral, famous Prague market, walked through the Old Town and into the house where Franz Kafka was born. The evening concluded with Mexican food, which was nice to have after being out of California for so long.

Auschwitz: Needless to say, this was incredibly hard. To see the Arbeit Macht Frei sign, and room after room filled with children’s shoes, women’s hair, suitcases, toys, and any other thing you can think of is heartbreaking. Then they took us to Birkenau, (if you’re thinking of Auschwitz, you’re probably actually thinking of Birkenau, which was the death camp a couple kilometers away). It still smells. You can still smell the ash over 60 years later. I think that is the only way to comprehend the enormity of what happened. How many people do you need to kill, how much ash to generate, that it would still smell 63 years later? I didn’t take many pictures. It didn’t feel right to me.

Krakow, Poland: Krakow was also quite beautiful. I was supposed to meet a fellow CMCer there, but I had run out of cellphone credit and had no way to tell her that our bus had gotten lost. So I showed up a half hour late, and she wasn’t there. Thankfully I was in a fully populated area, and the Krakow taxis were known for being really honest, even if it was painfully obvious you spoke no Polish. Our time in Krakow was brief. We had meetings. I had my “academic session,” where groups of 5 or 6 meet with the IES chaperone, he buys us lunch, and we discuss what we’ve learned in the trip. Pirogi are also really good. Thankfully, I can usually find vegetarian food, I was just really, really sick of potatoes by the end of the trip. Then we took a walking tour. My favorite story of Krakow is about the dragon and it#s slayer. A dragon had hibernated for centuries in a deep cave, and, one day, silly boys awoke it. The city was terrorized, and the king offered his daughter as a reward to anyone who could slay this multi-headed dragon. So Krakus, a very wise shoemaker, fed a sheep a large breakfast of sulfur and tied it up outside the dragon’s cave. The dragon ate it for breakfast, then walked to the river for a drink. The water interacted with the sulfur, and the dragon exploded. The word Krakow means Krakus’ city.

I am getting way too much spam on my blog, so I decided to password protect any post with photo links. I don’t want all the creepers posting comments with links to porn, viagra, xanax, etc to be looking at them. If you are facebook friends with me, you can of course still view the inordinate number of pictures I have posted by heading to my page. If not, e-mail me and I will be happy to send you the password.

In the now protected post below, I announced that I had consolidated links to all my study abroad photo albums in the “Pictures” page (link is on the right.) This page is still up, but is now also password protected.

Yes, I know it’s been a while. I’m sorry. My program is keeping me super busy. So, since my rather long rant about Palin’s interview, I have:

Gone to Geneva! This is now my second visit to the city, and I still don’t feel I’ve seen much of it. We were in Geneva for approximately 26 hours, including 5 meetings, sleeping, a long IES-sponsored meal of fondue, and a search to find lunch at a reasonable price. That last bit was tougher than you might think. A burger at Burger King costs 14 francs, or about $12.50.

I spent much of my time in Geneva at the UN, where we met with a press secretary who gave (or, ahem, tried to) give an overview of the structure, a representative from the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the French ambassador to the UN, a rep from the High Commissioner for Refugees, and a press secretary from the WTO. Meeting with people whose job is to deliver info sessions like these is frustrating. We’re all here because we’re studying the EU, and to only be given basic, easily-googlable information and to not have our specific questions answered defeats the purpose of this program. Our speaker from the HC for Refugees, however, was amazing. He had served in the field for several years and gave us so many specific examples from his personal experiences. I left feeling like I had a better appreciation for the complexity of human rights work and refugees. The sense of lacking, however, might be somewhat indicative of the UN as an institution. It sounds like such a beautiful idea on paper, and, like most people, I want for it to achieve some of its goals. However, reality sets in, and political considerations interfere, and suddenly you have a lot of well-intentioned people who’ve been castrated. This is something I had always heard during the realism vs. liberalism discussions in IR or US Foreign Relations, but I think I really am beginning to experience why realism works (or, I suppose, why liberalism fails… I’m not sure I’ll call realism a huge success at the moment), whereas I was always more inclined to aspire to the lofty ideals of liberalism while reading. (Do you hear that, Palin? You DO learn while abroad.) In any case, I’m still 20, so I naturally still want to try to make the world a more cooperative, friendly environment. Is that not what youth is for?

Gone to the Alps! I signed up for the group trip to go hiking in the Alps, without thinking that maybe it was silly to pay 30 euros to do what I did for free all last semester. This feeling was compounded when they told us to bring an additional 16 euros to take the cable car up. (Have I mentioned Switzerland is expensive??) All my friends were going, however, so I was still excited when I put on all my hiking gear. When we got on the bus, however, they told us that it had snowed, then melted a little, then frozen over, so they were not allowing hikers on the trail we were going to go on. Instead, they took us to Truebsee, an adorable little lake with some trails around it. About 30 20-year-olds then proceeded to have an hour-long snowball fight. I’ve never really been in one before, and I found I really enjoyed it. Except when I got beaned in the head with a huge snowball (thanks, Bradley), or hit in the butt from at least 20 yards behind me- twice! (Thanks, Warren.)

Then they felt bad for not giving us our money’s worth, so they took us to Luzern. That’s Lucerne for all you silly anglophones. Unfortunately, I had NO CAMERA and was dressed in hiking gear. It was a cute, albeit pricey little city that is known for its covered bridges and for having a view of the Matterhorn, which apparently isn’t just a Disneyland ride. Who knew?

I told my German roommate that I felt self-conscious every time well-dressed European women would look me up and down, and she assured me it was ok because I was probably more comfortable. As you probably know, I wasn’t convinced. She then told me, “We actually went hiking today, only it was in a car. That’s my kind of hiking.”

Drowned in a sea of work and otherwise settled in: France taught me the terrible lesson that one need not work while abroad. So when I have classes that give me reading, my reaction is something along the lines of, “Excuse me, I think you must have this course confused with another…” I have no idea how I’m going to react to being back in Claremont when I’m already reluctant to read 60 pages a week for a class. But, to be fair, I do have some reason to complain. For example, I have 3 essays due the week after my Eastern Europe trip…

I still enjoy my roommates. I wish CMC would be more open to the idea of letting students live in apartments with local students where necessary. CMC has the rule that if the program offers homestays, you need to take it. I think I’m starting to feel more of a kinship with Germany, however, because I am in an apartment. When you are with people your own age and who are also in the situation of having been thrown in an apartment together, you’re more likely to forge a substantive connection. While living with a family can be a really worthwhile experience, it could also backfire because families are less permeable than sets of flatmates. I felt oftentimes like I observed France, but I feel like I live here. If only I had less work and could enjoy it more… One roommate passed an import med school exam today, and they’re celebrating. But I’m not because I have work (which means I’m blogging instead.)

Booked two trips to Spain! I’m going to Majorca! And Barcelona! I’m SO excited. Especially since Spain is supposed to be much cheaper, and that is a much welcome break from Switzerland. Though I must say, I could easily see myself living in Geneva if paid appropriately…

To conclude, I am off to Eastern Europe soon. Four countries with four currencies in 9 days. Budapest, Hungary; Bratislava, Slovakia; Prague, Czech Republic; and Krakow, Poland. I love how I am crossing off so many cities from my own Bucket List during this semester. It’s presenting an interesting conundrum though. I’m spending so little time, and I find myself wondering that, if given the opportunity, should I return and try to get a deeper understanding, or should I go somewhere new? In any case, I know I must come back at some point because it’s looking like I won’t make it down to Italy this semester, and Rome-Florence-Venice have always been must-sees. I just have to work on that pesky little money thing, first.

Once again, realism squashes my lofty dreams.

When I started blogging, I told myself I wouldn’t blog about American politics unless I encountered a really interesting perspective from the Germans. However, I’ve naturally still kept up with politics. By now, my preferred candidate would, to quote a beloved CMC professor, “need to commit a major sin with a minor farm animal” to get me to change my mind, but I still want to watch all the debates and generally remain informed.

I just watched Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin. I’ll start by saying that I’ve seen several things this election from both sides that disturb me. Neither side should try to portray their base as fundamentally better or more moral than the other. This is why the culture wars exist. It was not appropriate for Obama to talk about people clinging to guns, religion, and antipathy to those unlike themselves in response to not liking the changing face of the country and the world (although having grown up in Bakersfield, I can’t pretend that people like that don’t exist). It bothers me when Republicans try to portray well-educated city-folk as elitist or pretend that eating arugula and drinking Honest Tea is a crime (especially since I happen to like both, thank you very much!)

What Sarah Palin said to Katie Couric about travelers in response to a question about her passport, however, struck a cord and really disgusted me. I can’t add videos to the blog, so I’ll post a link and a transcript here:

Couric: In preparing for this conversation, a lot of our viewers and internet users wanted to know why you did not get a passport until last year, and they wondered if that indicated a lack of interest and curiosity in the world.

Palin: I’m not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college, and their parents give ‘em a passport and give ‘em a backpack and say, “Go off and travel the world.” Nooo, I’ve worked all my life; in fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture. The way I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me with a lot of perspective of the world.

The link is here. It starts around the 40-second mark. I think it’s important to watch her say this and to hear for yourself the tone in her voice as she talks about those people, that culture.

To put it bluntly, I am incensed on so many levels. Traveling is for spoiled kids? Those who work don’t travel? (Am I to take it that those who travel therefore don’t work?) The world can be understood solely through books? She thinks she is better than people who have made the time and effort to see other parts of the world? Who the hell does she think she is? I shouldn’t be surprised: this is, after all, a woman who will say to Dan Rather with a straight face that she has insight into foreign relations with Russia because you can see part of Siberia from an island in Alaska on a clear day.

Anyways, my disdain for the woman aside, there are some serious issues with this world view. I am an international relations major. Clearly, I place a lot of value on the rest of the world and the experiences you can derive from other nations. My knee-jerk response was to reject her idea that she has a clear perspective of the way the world works solely through books and education. No offense to education nor  to books, but I can tell you as a student completing her third study-abroad experience that no book and no professor (no matter how gifted) can tell you how the world works. You need to see it for yourself.

Before each time abroad, I would go through any book I could find about the country. I wanted to know about their politics, their culture, their table manners, their customs and norms, everything. And each time, I was completely humbled when I found out how little I actually knew. You don’t know what “It is considered normal for French men to stop a woman on the street to ask for a date, and you should not be alarmed if this happens to you” really means until you live for four months in France and have men stop you to ask you to go up to their apartments every day. You don’t know what “The Germans/French are slow to warm to strangers, but once you make a friend, you have one for life” means until you’re trapped in their country and no one will return a smile. You don’t know what it’s like to see a country come to a stand-still and just how ferociously an entitlement will be defended until you’ve passed out after walking to a doctor’s appointment, unable to take the tram because French strikers were blocking all transit routes.

If you have the opportunity to travel, or especially to live abroad, I think you should take it. You’re not a bad person if you can’t, but if you are applying for a job that entails foreign policy, I think you need to have seen the world, or at least recognize the value of doing so. If you can’t muster even that, you can still at least have a minimal amount of respect for those who have. Everything really does come alive before your eyes when you actually see the things you’ve read about. The same is true for everything else. Do you want a surgeon who’s just read a book? A lawyer who’s only sat in on a few classes? We value experience for a reason.

It is because I believe in the value of everything I just mentioned, and because I find while abroad one learns as much, if not more, outside the classroom as inside that I’m so insulted that she would characterize travel as something spoiled children do with daddy’s money. Many people, my parents included, work their behinds off for the ability to travel or to provide their children with that opportunity. Someone please explain to me what is wrong with that?

I believe in the American dream- that people can and should better themselves whenever they have the opportunity. I don’t think that people who do so are snobs, people from some other culture to be disdained. And I especially don’t think that people who have made it to the top are to be automatically smeared or their children dismissed as spoiled brats (emphasis on the word automatically. I know exceptions exist. I’ve been to private school.) This reminded me of her VP acceptance speech when she said that people in small towns are “the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, and run our factories, and fight our wars.” Not that there is anything wrong with that. At all. Get that through your head before you keep reading.

But… why are you better for staying in your small town and never leaving? I grew up in a small agro-industrial town. I have dreams that encompass the entire world, that are too big for Bakersfield, so I got out. I am getting the best education I can, and I heading abroad at every opportunity, and I want to be the best at whatever I end up doing. I want the American dream. Many people I went to high school with took a low-end job, got married, and many have kids at the age of 20. Most are not still there because they are morally better people, but because they didn’t put in the work it takes to leave. And you know what? I’ve seen a lot of hopelessness in a lot of people from back home. What is elitist about trying to leave that? About saying “I want so much more than this” and vowing to never put yourself in the situation where you need to work long hours at menial jobs to just barely scrape by?

Many people, Sarah Palin included, talk about self-creation and being the best you can be. It’s time to stop pretending that those who have reached that goal and can pass on good opportunities to their children are snobs rather than people to be looked up to.

Really, if you can, please see as much of the world- including the US- as you can. I can think of nothing more valuable than understanding as much as you can of the world around you.

I confess I had been getting nervous in the days leading up to Oktoberfest. I had wondered what I was doing. I don’t like beer nor the smell of smoke, huge drunken crowds make me nervous, and was I maybe falling into a tourist trap?

The first few hours were a lot of fun, and most of its awkward moments just make for great stories the next day. A CMC friend and I ended up in a tent with a group of three nice middle-aged Brits to one side, and a Texan Iraq vet coming back to Germany to visit two friends he made while recovering here. The Brits and the Texan were lovely–I find the more I travel, the more I appreciate the general friendliness of anglophones– but one of the German friends kept trying to touch my hair, at one point tried to take a picture down my shirt, asked me to marry him, and kept blowing on me to try to get my attention once I had switched places with someone and was ignoring him.

Then I caused more trouble: when I was scanning the crowd, I caught someone staring at me, looked away, looked back, and saw he was still staring at me. Then I accidentally made eye contact. He waves. Crap. I tell my friend to look after me because I think I’m about to cause trouble again, would he just please look to his right, and watch the guy in the Brazil jersey. He doesn’t hear me. Some idiot lets the Brazilian guy in. He professes his love for me and tells me that I have the most beautiful eyes in the crowd. I tell him my boyfriend loves me and thinks my eyes are beautiful too. Once he figures out the friend I’m traveling with isn’t my boyfriend, he invokes the area codes rule and tells me I am in Europe, at Oktoberfest, and that I needed to seize my youth. Umm, no. I finally convince him that I won’t make out with him and that he needs to leave the table. A few minutes later, I look over and there’s a woman sitting where the Brazilian once was. “You need to forget your boyfriend,” she says. “My friend, he fell in love with you, he wants to marry you, he’s sitting there crying in the toilet because you rejected him.” I look over, and he yells “Marry me.” I tell her he’d have less problems if he didn’t fall in love so quickly, kick her out, and tell the British people not to let any more people over.

Despite the weirdness that’s going on (an obscene amount of people are trying to touch my red hair amidst all of this), I’m still mostly enjoying myself. A band is leading the crowd in a lot of German songs, people are dancing, and singing, and there’s a lot of amusing sights to occupy any perennial people watcher. However, I didn’t realize just how drunk my friend was getting.

We leave the tent because I get hungry and the only vegetarian option in the tent is a pretzel. Because we couldn’t find lodging in Munich, my friend and I had decided to catch the first morning train back to Freiburg, and pulling an all-nighter would require much more sustenance. (And, I might add, NOT getting trashed… AHEM!)

My friend finds a restroom and decides he needs to go in. I tell him I’ll go use the ladies room and to wait for me once he’s done. I come out, and I don’t see him. Since when has a men’s line moved more slowly than a women’s? A few more minutes go by, and I start to wonder if he’s not ok in there. Then I run into someone from my own program. I stop him, he rubs my hair, (what is it with drunk people and red hair?), and then a number of other IESers pop out of the crowd. We talk for a few minutes, I send them into the restroom to check up on my friend, and they don’t find him. Then they leave and tell me to call them once I find my friend. I send my friend an angry text message telling him to go back to where he last saw me because I haven’t moved.

A few minutes later, another IESer, Grant, pops out. He had been separated from his friends, and he couldn’t reach them. We wait together another half an hour. I’m not drunk, so I don’t have the same shelter from the cold that everybody else seems to, so we move to the heated beer garden right across from the restrooms. Despite me popping out every couple minutes to see if my friend’s there, I can’t meet up with him. We’ve been separated for over an hour. And he’s a drunk, obnoxious American who is pretending to be Italian to anybody who’ll listen. Oy. We start looking for him, and I give Grant the very clear rule that he is to hold my hand the entire time and NOT LET GO. One woman did ask whether I was going to keep him all night or if she could have him when I was done, so I did have a moment of comedic relief.

Oktoberfest closes at 11pm. Grant and I head over to the train station, reasoning that would be a pretty standard meeting spot. He was partially right. All the other IESers were there too. Still no sign of my friend. The last time I saw him was around 8:30. I’ve run out of credit trying to call him, and no one else could get through to him either. My friends were on a train leaving at 3:30, but mine wasn’t until 5:30. I decide to go to the police station in the train station to ask if I could sit in there in the time between their train and mine. Being female, red-headed, and by yourself in a train station after Oktoberfest isn’t an intelligent move, and I figure they’d appreciate my trying to be proactive for my safety. No. They refused to talk to me, instead occupying themselves with people who had committed all sorts of drunken debauchery. I cry for a couple minutes, and all the IES boys awkwardly pet my hair and tell me not to. So I stop.

We sit around in the freezing cold station for hours.  Around 2:30 in the morning, my friend shows up. He didn’t remember how we had separated. It hadn’t occurred to him that wandering off from the one person he knew (and the person holding the train tickets) in a country where he doesn’t speak the language wasn’t the smartest move. He had forgotten he wasn’t in Milan anymore and got into some verbal altercations in Italian. I’m not amused, needless to say. He wants to go clubbing. Absolutely not, we’re getting our tickets changed to the 3:30 train (apparently there was an earlier train home!), and that is the most intelligent 25 euros I’ve spent in my life.

Advice on Oktoberfest:

• I know it’s tempting, but really, you can’t get drunk. Drink slowly, get to your happy tipsy state, and stay there.
• On that note, make sure no one in your group gets drunk either.
• If you’re female, make sure you travel with guys. You will need someone to pose as your boyfriend. Trust me.
• Have a meeting spot.
• Charge your $@$%@$% phone. And even if you don’t hear your phone go off, if you’re separated, check it every few minutes.