Adventures in Europe, Part II

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.