I have my first term paper due this coming Wednesday. How prepared am I for this paper, you ask? Nicht soviel. The paper consists of an analysis of two novels (Darkness at Noon and Brave New World), as well as developing a definition of totalitarianism and discussing its prevalence in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. These are essentially four questions that could each, easily, be answered in their own 10-15 page papers.... but we have to find a way to cram concise answers to each question into one cohesive 10-15 page paper. I finished reading both of the books when I got back from Scandinavia, which was two weeks before the paper's due, so I figured I would be good. But then time just happened to sneak up on me! I started a brief outline for it on Wednesday, but couldn't really go into too many specifics because of a lack of materials. And then Thursday just turned into a fail of school productivity, but a success of personal productivity (and those days are always so rewarding). Friday we went to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin. It was one of the FU BEST excursions, and was probably the only time they've actually let us go off on our own. It was wonderful! I got more of an intense feel from Sachsenhausen than I did from Auschwitz purely based on the fact that I was only with two other people, and not crammed into a group of people. So yay for Fu BEST finally letting us explore on our own, and not forcing us into embarrassingly large tour groups! After that, I grabbed some lunch with some people, and took a nap. Then a friend had a party... and I slept in a little too much on Saturday than I should have! I was still able to get a lot of work done on my paper though, and ended up with a 5 page long outline, full of quotes and all sorts of good stuff! I had to go see a movie for my film class that night, and stupid s-bahn construction ended up getting me there late.... which means that I have to see the movie tonight. So, just a brief recap, tomorrow I have due: field report for history, field report for cinema, outline for cinema research paper, and Term paper for totalitarian due Wednesday. And because of some rather stupid personal decisions, I've got to cram this all into today, Sunday. Which means, going to a museum, writing about said museum, writing at least 8 pages of my paper, outlining another paper, going to a movie, and writing about said movie. Oh, and did I mention the museum takes an hour or so to get to and from? This leads me to the point of this procrastinatory blog (yes, that's a word I just made up). I woke up this morning (from a terrifying dream, I might add) to find that it was not 8:45, as I'd set my alarm for, but in fact it was 7:45! Sweet ignorance about day lights saving awarded me with an extra hour to get everything done today! I couldn't have been happier when I figured it out :) Unfortunately... it's now 16:45, the film starts in two hours, and I'm nowhere near as close to being done with my to do list as I should be. In any case, I'm still glad I got that extra hour :)
Post Script: Today is one of those days where I have so much to do that writing 12 pages of a 15 page paper means I don't get to check it off my list, thereby making it seem like I've done absolutely nothing all day.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Shedding Skin
First of all, I'd like to thank my amazing parents for sending me a care package :) For those of you who have actually read most of my posts, you'll remember how distraught I was at the concept of surviving these 4 months with only 7 pairs of socks. Well, my lovely parents heard my passive pleas and sent me not just a few, but 36 pairs of socks! My excitement is indescribable. They also sent me two pairs of gloves (one is the kind that are fingerless and flip into mittens!), a really cute scarf and a hat. And as you'll remember from the Scandinavia posts, I lost Hatty recently, so I was pretty damn excited to get a replacement :)
So before I go onto a more personal, self-reflecting musing, I'd like to share a quote from one of the books I'm reading that has inspired this self-relfection:
"At time I have the feeling that one emerges from what has been written as a snake emerges from its skin. That's it; you cannot write yourself down, you can only cast your skin. But who is going to be interested in this dead skin? The ever-recurring question whether the reader is ever able to read anything other than himself is superfluous: writing is not communication with the readers, not even communication with oneself, but communication with the inexpressible." - I'm Not Stiller - by Max Frisch (pg 284)
This book has, among other things, really gotten me thinking about these blogs. Who am I posting for? And what do I want, or even expect, to get out of it? Why blog when I'm in pretty stable communication with my friends and family back home. They've heard all this stuff before, they don't need to read it in a formal, gossip-less format. Am I just writing to remember the trip? Isn't that what all the pictures are for? Am I writing because it gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment when I see my statistics. It can't be this, because most of the time my statistics just make me wonder why I'm even bothering to write something that hardly anyone is reading. But perhaps it's not important that people read this. Perhaps the important thing is that I am having these experiences, and am growing and changing into a completely different person, and in order for me to be able to continue growing I need to shed the skin of my experiences as they come. This isn't the normal kind of personal growth that comes slowly; this is high-speed personal growth. Almost every experience I have here forces me to question and put into perspective aspects of my life: what I think makes me happy, or sad, what I really want to do with the rest of my life, my commitment to certain people and things, my relationships with everyone around me, and most importantly my own attitude and personality.
I don't know if the people here are also feeling this way, or this is perhaps the result of my own overactive self analysis. I know that this is probably the happiest I've been in a very long time, and that's without any qualifying statements. Usually when I'm incredibly happy, I always have to qualify it with something. Especially in relationships. "He's the best guy I've ever dated, especially because [insert negative quality of an ex-boyfriend here]." But here, I'm just happy. Even when I'm sad. I was thinking about it the other day, and when I'm sad here, my coping mechanisms are completely different than they are back home. I've yet to tell whether this is for better or worse, but it seems to be working well. One thing that I've just been shocked over is how well my friends respond to my depression. When you tell most people (or so has been my experience) that you suffer from depression, they look at you like you are a leper who is going to come into their lives and destroy their happiness. People just don't know how to handle it. They roll their eyes and tell to "get over it." They don't understand that some days you just can't get out of bed. But the people I've met here are so understanding, and don't roll their eyes. I feel comfortable telling them when I'm depressed because they ask me if I'm ok, if I want someone there with me, and to tell them if I need someone to talk to. It's unbelievable.
The men who I hang out with are also having a profound impact on my view of relationships. Hearing them discuss their present and past relationships has made me realize just how much crap I've put up with with former boyfriends because I thought that the things I found fundamental to a relationship, apparently weren't because I never received them. That isn't to say that my relationships have been terrible, most of them have made me incredibly happy, it's just that they've never been how I always imagine relationships were supposed to be. Like the relationships my guy friends have (and yes, I've heard negative sides of their relationships, so I'm not just looking at this through rose colored glasses). I tend to lose myself in relationships, and as a result, end up giving more of myself than I'm willing to give, making concessions and compromises that I don't want to make simply from fear of being left. I compromise who I am to make the other person happy. And that's not how relationships should work.
Some of the books I've been reading, and a few experiences I've had here, have actually been changing my concept of monogamous relationships. I don't even know if they are possible, at least without little hiccups along the road. It's like in 7th grade, when you have two best friends, and everyone tells you that you can't have two, you have to pick one. But you love both people, they just each bring different things to the table that fulfill your personal and emotional needs. There's no way you could ever pick between them because one person could never fulfill all of your needs, and you would never want to ask a person to try to. I think it's the same with relationships. People who try to make their significant other the bearer of all their needs just aren't in healthy relationships. This isn't to say that polygamy is the way to go, just that perhaps it is necessary to have different people to fill different needs. You can't just depend on one person. And you can't ask one person to be your everything. You would never want to feel the weight of the pressure that that puts on a person. And if you spend your life trying to find a single person who can aptly fulfill all of your needs, you will either never be happy, or end up completely remolding a person into the person you want them to be. This is a topic I haven't had too much time to digest, hence the disorganized thought pattern. I'll muse more about this again I'm sure.
Not all of the changes I've been experiencing are as romantic, or outwardly based. I've been seriously reconsidering and debating what I really want to do with my life. The plan has always (for the last 3 years) been to complete my degrees in History and Psychology this Spring, take a year off to work, and then start a PhD program. But I don't know if that's really what I want. Well, I know it's what I want, I just don't know if I'm capable of accomplishing it. If I even want to make the effort for something that I could potentially fail at. It's not just a little bit of effort that goes into getting a PhD, it's one of the biggest commitments I will likely ever make. Speaking with people on this program, I'm beginning to realize how completely ill-prepared for grad school I am. My gpa isn't amazing, I have no extra curricular activities, I've done no internships or jobs that have anything to do with my career path. If I was up against someone in this program for a spot in a PhD program, I can almost guarantee that they would get it and I wouldn't. I think part of this has to do with the school I chose to go to. I picked UCSC because the history and psychology programs were more in tune with what I want to study than UCLA's. I forgot to take into account the environment of students at UCSC. It's not the most serious school, there's no competition, general apathy surrounds the school. It's hard to thrive, or want to thrive, when you are surrounded by so much apathy. I've also got emotional issues that always interfere with my school work. Granted, they usually interfere with the work from courses that don't interest me, but it's still a major concern. You can't get a PhD when every few months or so you experience a huge depressive state that practically immobilizes you. I'm beginning to think that I'm just not cut out for this career path.
Or maybe I'm just too young to want to do it. I'm only 20, I'll be 21 when I graduate, and there's a whole wealth of experiences and things I haven't seen or done. I don't know if I want to lock myself down into a certain school or city for 7-9 years. Maybe I want to work on an archeological dig, or become a journalist, or work for a museum, or take the time to really embrace my photography and try to make something happen with that. I want to do all of those things, but I can't help this nagging feeling that if I don't start my PhD young, it will be too late. I'm also terrified that actually trying to make a career of photography would fail miserably, no matter how badly I want it. I feel like I'm floundering. I always have a plan. Always. And now I just feel lost. I know once I figure this all out, it will be amazing. I'll pick what I really want to do. And if it turns out that that's not what I want to do (like picking UCSC over UCLA, for example), then I'll survive and figure out a way to do what I really want. But until I reach a conclusion, I'm left here floundering. A planner with no plan or direction.
As stressful as these changes are for me right now, I know that once I fully shed the skin of these experiences I'll come out a better person. It may sound from this that I am tremendously depressed and lonesome, but I'm not. I'm just trying to make sure that when I finally do make changes in my life I'll know where they came from, and why I decided to choose that path. Like I said, I have an overactive mind that likes to analyze every aspect of my life. Self reflection is just not something I can avoid. And I'm sharing it here to help me work through it. As the reader, I expect you'll take away what you want from this post, and will likely not grasp what it is I'm really trying to say. But that's ok, this one's for me, not you.
So before I go onto a more personal, self-reflecting musing, I'd like to share a quote from one of the books I'm reading that has inspired this self-relfection:
"At time I have the feeling that one emerges from what has been written as a snake emerges from its skin. That's it; you cannot write yourself down, you can only cast your skin. But who is going to be interested in this dead skin? The ever-recurring question whether the reader is ever able to read anything other than himself is superfluous: writing is not communication with the readers, not even communication with oneself, but communication with the inexpressible." - I'm Not Stiller - by Max Frisch (pg 284)
This book has, among other things, really gotten me thinking about these blogs. Who am I posting for? And what do I want, or even expect, to get out of it? Why blog when I'm in pretty stable communication with my friends and family back home. They've heard all this stuff before, they don't need to read it in a formal, gossip-less format. Am I just writing to remember the trip? Isn't that what all the pictures are for? Am I writing because it gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment when I see my statistics. It can't be this, because most of the time my statistics just make me wonder why I'm even bothering to write something that hardly anyone is reading. But perhaps it's not important that people read this. Perhaps the important thing is that I am having these experiences, and am growing and changing into a completely different person, and in order for me to be able to continue growing I need to shed the skin of my experiences as they come. This isn't the normal kind of personal growth that comes slowly; this is high-speed personal growth. Almost every experience I have here forces me to question and put into perspective aspects of my life: what I think makes me happy, or sad, what I really want to do with the rest of my life, my commitment to certain people and things, my relationships with everyone around me, and most importantly my own attitude and personality.
I don't know if the people here are also feeling this way, or this is perhaps the result of my own overactive self analysis. I know that this is probably the happiest I've been in a very long time, and that's without any qualifying statements. Usually when I'm incredibly happy, I always have to qualify it with something. Especially in relationships. "He's the best guy I've ever dated, especially because [insert negative quality of an ex-boyfriend here]." But here, I'm just happy. Even when I'm sad. I was thinking about it the other day, and when I'm sad here, my coping mechanisms are completely different than they are back home. I've yet to tell whether this is for better or worse, but it seems to be working well. One thing that I've just been shocked over is how well my friends respond to my depression. When you tell most people (or so has been my experience) that you suffer from depression, they look at you like you are a leper who is going to come into their lives and destroy their happiness. People just don't know how to handle it. They roll their eyes and tell to "get over it." They don't understand that some days you just can't get out of bed. But the people I've met here are so understanding, and don't roll their eyes. I feel comfortable telling them when I'm depressed because they ask me if I'm ok, if I want someone there with me, and to tell them if I need someone to talk to. It's unbelievable.
The men who I hang out with are also having a profound impact on my view of relationships. Hearing them discuss their present and past relationships has made me realize just how much crap I've put up with with former boyfriends because I thought that the things I found fundamental to a relationship, apparently weren't because I never received them. That isn't to say that my relationships have been terrible, most of them have made me incredibly happy, it's just that they've never been how I always imagine relationships were supposed to be. Like the relationships my guy friends have (and yes, I've heard negative sides of their relationships, so I'm not just looking at this through rose colored glasses). I tend to lose myself in relationships, and as a result, end up giving more of myself than I'm willing to give, making concessions and compromises that I don't want to make simply from fear of being left. I compromise who I am to make the other person happy. And that's not how relationships should work.
Some of the books I've been reading, and a few experiences I've had here, have actually been changing my concept of monogamous relationships. I don't even know if they are possible, at least without little hiccups along the road. It's like in 7th grade, when you have two best friends, and everyone tells you that you can't have two, you have to pick one. But you love both people, they just each bring different things to the table that fulfill your personal and emotional needs. There's no way you could ever pick between them because one person could never fulfill all of your needs, and you would never want to ask a person to try to. I think it's the same with relationships. People who try to make their significant other the bearer of all their needs just aren't in healthy relationships. This isn't to say that polygamy is the way to go, just that perhaps it is necessary to have different people to fill different needs. You can't just depend on one person. And you can't ask one person to be your everything. You would never want to feel the weight of the pressure that that puts on a person. And if you spend your life trying to find a single person who can aptly fulfill all of your needs, you will either never be happy, or end up completely remolding a person into the person you want them to be. This is a topic I haven't had too much time to digest, hence the disorganized thought pattern. I'll muse more about this again I'm sure.
Not all of the changes I've been experiencing are as romantic, or outwardly based. I've been seriously reconsidering and debating what I really want to do with my life. The plan has always (for the last 3 years) been to complete my degrees in History and Psychology this Spring, take a year off to work, and then start a PhD program. But I don't know if that's really what I want. Well, I know it's what I want, I just don't know if I'm capable of accomplishing it. If I even want to make the effort for something that I could potentially fail at. It's not just a little bit of effort that goes into getting a PhD, it's one of the biggest commitments I will likely ever make. Speaking with people on this program, I'm beginning to realize how completely ill-prepared for grad school I am. My gpa isn't amazing, I have no extra curricular activities, I've done no internships or jobs that have anything to do with my career path. If I was up against someone in this program for a spot in a PhD program, I can almost guarantee that they would get it and I wouldn't. I think part of this has to do with the school I chose to go to. I picked UCSC because the history and psychology programs were more in tune with what I want to study than UCLA's. I forgot to take into account the environment of students at UCSC. It's not the most serious school, there's no competition, general apathy surrounds the school. It's hard to thrive, or want to thrive, when you are surrounded by so much apathy. I've also got emotional issues that always interfere with my school work. Granted, they usually interfere with the work from courses that don't interest me, but it's still a major concern. You can't get a PhD when every few months or so you experience a huge depressive state that practically immobilizes you. I'm beginning to think that I'm just not cut out for this career path.
Or maybe I'm just too young to want to do it. I'm only 20, I'll be 21 when I graduate, and there's a whole wealth of experiences and things I haven't seen or done. I don't know if I want to lock myself down into a certain school or city for 7-9 years. Maybe I want to work on an archeological dig, or become a journalist, or work for a museum, or take the time to really embrace my photography and try to make something happen with that. I want to do all of those things, but I can't help this nagging feeling that if I don't start my PhD young, it will be too late. I'm also terrified that actually trying to make a career of photography would fail miserably, no matter how badly I want it. I feel like I'm floundering. I always have a plan. Always. And now I just feel lost. I know once I figure this all out, it will be amazing. I'll pick what I really want to do. And if it turns out that that's not what I want to do (like picking UCSC over UCLA, for example), then I'll survive and figure out a way to do what I really want. But until I reach a conclusion, I'm left here floundering. A planner with no plan or direction.
As stressful as these changes are for me right now, I know that once I fully shed the skin of these experiences I'll come out a better person. It may sound from this that I am tremendously depressed and lonesome, but I'm not. I'm just trying to make sure that when I finally do make changes in my life I'll know where they came from, and why I decided to choose that path. Like I said, I have an overactive mind that likes to analyze every aspect of my life. Self reflection is just not something I can avoid. And I'm sharing it here to help me work through it. As the reader, I expect you'll take away what you want from this post, and will likely not grasp what it is I'm really trying to say. But that's ok, this one's for me, not you.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Even More Adventures in Scandinavia!
I keep thinking that I'm spelling Scandinavia incorrectly. It's a hard word to type. Anyway, welcome back to the adventures! If you haven't read part one, go do that now. Because I said so. Not because you need it to understand the rest of the trip. Mainly because part one was my favorite part.
Tuesday Oct 19th - Our first (and only) full day in Bergen! There was no real set plan for anything we were doing in Norway or Sweden, so the first day in Bergen started out with trying to figure out what to do. Our Hostel was at the base of a hiking trail that went up to the highest point in Bergen, and we were going to do that, but then it was rainy and gross out, so we decided not to. The rain also made me not take my camera with me (it's not as if I can just put it in my pocket), so no pictures from this day - my apologies! We decided to take this train thingy up to another part of a mountain, and it was awesome. I was still a little moody from the day before, but that quickly subsided! The train was awesome... I can honestly say I never thought I would take a train up a mountain - and I mean up, as in practically vertical! Not just going around the mountain! At the top it was gorgeous, and I was so sad to not have my camera, as it had stopped raining now. We were all running around exploring, and suddenly we'd been hiking around for an hour! I was really enjoying myself and wanted to hike (well follow the paved path) down to the bottom, but apparently it was a 4 hour hike, and other people weren't down. I was totally down, but caved to the peer pressure and we took the train back down. Then we strolled around and found a cool Viking museum, but it closed 15 minutes after we got there, which was a total bummer! We found a restaurant, and decided to treat ourselves to an amazing fish dinner, so we made a reservation for later that night. Then we strolled over to a little pond and hung out there for a bit until we saw an art museum and decided to go there. It was a great museum - it had a Munch exhibit and a few Picasso's. I saw one painting that I've been inspired to recreate, so look forward to that coming soon (look up Trine Folmoe's "Back" to see it)! After the museum we headed back to the hostel to change for dinner - no one got dressed up, we just put more clothes on! The dinner was absolutely delicious! I got Salmon (shocking!) and it was sooo good. Honestly, the best salmon I've had at a restaurant, except for maybe the Teriyaki Salmon from the Elephant Bar, but that was a completely different type of dish. I spent about 20 minutes trying to decide between ice cream or Bailey's and coffee for dessert, and finally decided to get ice cream, then get Bailey's at the bar. It was a great decision. We headed to a little Scottish bar, where we caught the second half of an Arsenal game (yeah, they kicked ass), then headed back to the hostel. On the bus, J and I got the giggles about something silly like vacuums, and then couldn't keep serious while we were playing ping pong... it was a great evening :) (Apparently this post is super long because I don't have any pictures... haha or something like that)
Wednesday Oct 20th - Our last day in Bergen. Our flight to Stockholm wasn't until 9 p.m. so we still pretty much had the whole day to explore, which was good! We checked out of the hostel, and they were kind enough to let up put our bags behind the desk while we went for a hike! We hiked up the mountain that the Hostel was on (the one we couldn't do the day before), and it was intense! I don't think all the hiking I've done in SC had rightly prepared me for this hike. Hiking in SC is really more like taking a stroll through the woods. This involved climbing over rocks, up frozen streams, through marshes, not being sure if you were on the path, slipping on frozen streams, and finally making it to the top. The first 10 minutes I was absolutely miserable. It was freezing (it started snowing about 3 hours after we finished hiking... that cold), it was hard and it was challenging. And we were on the easy trial. After the initial suckiness though, it got a lot better. The view was spectacular, and rumor had it there was a lift at the top that would take us back down! M, D and I got separated from the rest of the group and went around the back. I think we got off the trail for a bit, and ended up hiking through half frozen marshiness. This is when I discovered that my "water proof" boots, were not quite water proof. My toes have never been so cold! When we finally made it to the top we discovered that the lift was not open that day. Cue the 5 stages of grieving.... Finally, one acceptance had set it, and everyone else had made it to the top, we decided to go down the faster, harder and steeper way. Only because it was faster. I'm definitely glad this wasn't the way we came up because there wasn't really anywhere to stop and look out, unlike the slow way. It was so steep that the only way to get down without killing yourself was to hold a rickety pole... only a little terrifying! At one point, we had to hike down through a running stream - again, the whole apparently not water proof shoes thing became an issue. We made it to the bottom completely in tact though, and I have to say it was a great way to start the day. Exhausting, but absolutely amazing! After that we headed back to the Hostel, gathered our stuff and headed into town. We stopped by the fish market, and apparently the plan was to eat there. Br, J and I were not down with this plan because it was absolutely freezing, and we wanted to be inside somewhere! So we split off from the group, and found a cute little restaurant that wasn't too terribly pricey (for Norway...). We ended up staying there for a couple hours, which was a little shocking. When we got there, our conversation was a little stagnant, but after we finished eating we suddenly found ourselves fully enthralled in conversation (we started talking about psychology and I couldn't help myself!). Unfortunately, because we lollygagged so long, the waiter assumed he could take his time with us, and it took forever to get the check, even after we asked for it (we were on of three groups in the entire restaurant). This normally wouldn't be a problem, but we could see that it had started to snow, and really wanted to go out and run around and play in the snow. By the time we paid, the snow had stopped :( It was apparently the first snow of the season too! Anyway, after that, we met up with everyone else, and headed to the airport. Much to all of our satisfaction, it started snowing on the bus to the airport, and we got to play in the snow once we got there! Then we boarded our flight, and were off to Sweden! One of the flight attendants looked like a stripper, and I was completely convinced he was going to start stripping during the emergency procedures presentation. Sadly, this didn't happen :( We landed at about 22:30 or 11, and took a train into central Stockholm, and then wandered the streets until we found our hostel. Once we were settled in, we all promptly passed out (i realize that every time I say that it sounds like I'm sugar coating things and passing over crazy antics, but really, we just went to bed).
Gorgeous view and icy paths
All of us on top of the mountain!
The view from the top of the mountain
Snow!! I was terrified of getting on a plane in the snow...
Thursday Oct 21st - Our first full day in Sweden. And I stayed in bed all day. I initially got up with everyone else, but I was feeling really stressed and exhausted. My money had all but run out, and I felt terrible asking my parents for more. I was also just exhausted from being around people for so long, with almost no alone time. It's kind of hard only talking to the same 8 people for a week straight. I could feel tensions starting to form, and I knew if I went out, I would just be grumpy and a downer, so I headed back to the hostel after checking out the Royal Palace and read and napped until everyone came back a few hours later. The hostel had free pasta, so I didn't have to pay for my dinner, which made me feel a lot better about the money situation, and I decided to go ahead and let myself have a good time - forcing away the depression. We had purchased some alcohol at the airport, so we playing a few drinking games at the Hostel before heading out. This was a good decision because then we couldn't feel how cold it was (and believe me, it was cold)! We ended up going to a couple of bars, and then to a club where Br and I apparently danced for forever. I really do have this problem where whenever I start dancing, I can't stop for hours. I feel like I should warn people who dance with me that it might be a long time before we stop, haha. Apparently for a while we were the only ones on the dance floor too, which is pretty hilarious. I had no idea, I was in my dancing zone :) After the dancing stopped, we headed back to the hostel and promptly passed out. Just kidding! We sat by the docks for a while (where I lost my hat, Hatty, who we found on the last day after he'd been snowed on. We gave him a funeral and buried him in the ocean), and talked and then went back to the hostel, where crazy antics were happening. And then finally, we promptly passed out.
Friday Oct 22nd - Our last full day in Stockholm! We started out by going to the cafe next to the Hostel for breakfast, which was delicious! And then we just sort of meandered around for a bit. We met up with Kr, who was coming to Sweden for two days, and then strolled down a big shopping street. Lh, Br, J and I got distracted by touristy stores and lost the rest of the group (yes parents, I did get you presents!). It was really fun, lots of silly hats, moose memorabilia, candy and scarves. We met up with part of the group, and then got separated again! Br, J and I tried to meet up with them, but for some reason our phones weren't working, so we went off on our own to a little cafe and got the most delicious chicken pesto pasta ever! And it was pretty cheap! After that we decided to just go back to the hostel and hang out for a bit. It really was too cold to really do anything, and it wasn't snowing, so therefore not worth it to be outside. We got some meatballs and rolls for dinner, and made an amazing pasta dinner (seriously, the only things we ate this whole trip - except for the occasional fish dish - were pizza and pasta. Pizza was the cheapest thing in Norway, and pasta was free in Sweden). At this point everyone was pretty haggard from the trip, and so we had a pretty laid back end of the trip. We stayed in and played trivia, which BR was awesome about and made for us! Then we all promptly fell asleep (getting sick of my saying that yet?)
Br & J on a bridge in Stockholm
J, L and Br looking ridiculous in their awesome Sweden hats
Saturday Oct 23rd - The last day! We woke up early.... too early. We had to leave for the train station at 10. People started packing up at 8. I was perplexed, and didn't know the plan, so I got up with everyone else... and then realized I could have slept an extra hour. Not cool. In any case, since I was up, I headed to the cafe and got a sandwich for later that day. Then Br, J and I wandered down to the docks, where we found Hatty, and had a funeral. We ran into M, BR and K, and apparently M had seen Hatty the day before, on the docks, covered in snow, and thought it might be my hat. It was very sad. Anyway, we strolled on over to the train station, and took a bus to our airport. The bus ride was 80 minutes long, and our airport was sketchy as hell. But we made it home alive! The rest of the day wasn't too interesting... we took the S-Bahn home, I randomly ran into a girl I used to work with who was just leaving Berlin after being here for 2 days, and then I took the most glorious shower of my life. Later that night, Br, J and I watched Snatch and drank wine. Twas a nice relaxing way to settle back into live in Berlin.
Tuesday Oct 19th - Our first (and only) full day in Bergen! There was no real set plan for anything we were doing in Norway or Sweden, so the first day in Bergen started out with trying to figure out what to do. Our Hostel was at the base of a hiking trail that went up to the highest point in Bergen, and we were going to do that, but then it was rainy and gross out, so we decided not to. The rain also made me not take my camera with me (it's not as if I can just put it in my pocket), so no pictures from this day - my apologies! We decided to take this train thingy up to another part of a mountain, and it was awesome. I was still a little moody from the day before, but that quickly subsided! The train was awesome... I can honestly say I never thought I would take a train up a mountain - and I mean up, as in practically vertical! Not just going around the mountain! At the top it was gorgeous, and I was so sad to not have my camera, as it had stopped raining now. We were all running around exploring, and suddenly we'd been hiking around for an hour! I was really enjoying myself and wanted to hike (well follow the paved path) down to the bottom, but apparently it was a 4 hour hike, and other people weren't down. I was totally down, but caved to the peer pressure and we took the train back down. Then we strolled around and found a cool Viking museum, but it closed 15 minutes after we got there, which was a total bummer! We found a restaurant, and decided to treat ourselves to an amazing fish dinner, so we made a reservation for later that night. Then we strolled over to a little pond and hung out there for a bit until we saw an art museum and decided to go there. It was a great museum - it had a Munch exhibit and a few Picasso's. I saw one painting that I've been inspired to recreate, so look forward to that coming soon (look up Trine Folmoe's "Back" to see it)! After the museum we headed back to the hostel to change for dinner - no one got dressed up, we just put more clothes on! The dinner was absolutely delicious! I got Salmon (shocking!) and it was sooo good. Honestly, the best salmon I've had at a restaurant, except for maybe the Teriyaki Salmon from the Elephant Bar, but that was a completely different type of dish. I spent about 20 minutes trying to decide between ice cream or Bailey's and coffee for dessert, and finally decided to get ice cream, then get Bailey's at the bar. It was a great decision. We headed to a little Scottish bar, where we caught the second half of an Arsenal game (yeah, they kicked ass), then headed back to the hostel. On the bus, J and I got the giggles about something silly like vacuums, and then couldn't keep serious while we were playing ping pong... it was a great evening :) (Apparently this post is super long because I don't have any pictures... haha or something like that)
I stole this picture from Br's facebook. That's me, Br and J
at the top of the mountain we explored
Me and J chilling with a troll.
The painting I'm planning on recreating
Wednesday Oct 20th - Our last day in Bergen. Our flight to Stockholm wasn't until 9 p.m. so we still pretty much had the whole day to explore, which was good! We checked out of the hostel, and they were kind enough to let up put our bags behind the desk while we went for a hike! We hiked up the mountain that the Hostel was on (the one we couldn't do the day before), and it was intense! I don't think all the hiking I've done in SC had rightly prepared me for this hike. Hiking in SC is really more like taking a stroll through the woods. This involved climbing over rocks, up frozen streams, through marshes, not being sure if you were on the path, slipping on frozen streams, and finally making it to the top. The first 10 minutes I was absolutely miserable. It was freezing (it started snowing about 3 hours after we finished hiking... that cold), it was hard and it was challenging. And we were on the easy trial. After the initial suckiness though, it got a lot better. The view was spectacular, and rumor had it there was a lift at the top that would take us back down! M, D and I got separated from the rest of the group and went around the back. I think we got off the trail for a bit, and ended up hiking through half frozen marshiness. This is when I discovered that my "water proof" boots, were not quite water proof. My toes have never been so cold! When we finally made it to the top we discovered that the lift was not open that day. Cue the 5 stages of grieving.... Finally, one acceptance had set it, and everyone else had made it to the top, we decided to go down the faster, harder and steeper way. Only because it was faster. I'm definitely glad this wasn't the way we came up because there wasn't really anywhere to stop and look out, unlike the slow way. It was so steep that the only way to get down without killing yourself was to hold a rickety pole... only a little terrifying! At one point, we had to hike down through a running stream - again, the whole apparently not water proof shoes thing became an issue. We made it to the bottom completely in tact though, and I have to say it was a great way to start the day. Exhausting, but absolutely amazing! After that we headed back to the Hostel, gathered our stuff and headed into town. We stopped by the fish market, and apparently the plan was to eat there. Br, J and I were not down with this plan because it was absolutely freezing, and we wanted to be inside somewhere! So we split off from the group, and found a cute little restaurant that wasn't too terribly pricey (for Norway...). We ended up staying there for a couple hours, which was a little shocking. When we got there, our conversation was a little stagnant, but after we finished eating we suddenly found ourselves fully enthralled in conversation (we started talking about psychology and I couldn't help myself!). Unfortunately, because we lollygagged so long, the waiter assumed he could take his time with us, and it took forever to get the check, even after we asked for it (we were on of three groups in the entire restaurant). This normally wouldn't be a problem, but we could see that it had started to snow, and really wanted to go out and run around and play in the snow. By the time we paid, the snow had stopped :( It was apparently the first snow of the season too! Anyway, after that, we met up with everyone else, and headed to the airport. Much to all of our satisfaction, it started snowing on the bus to the airport, and we got to play in the snow once we got there! Then we boarded our flight, and were off to Sweden! One of the flight attendants looked like a stripper, and I was completely convinced he was going to start stripping during the emergency procedures presentation. Sadly, this didn't happen :( We landed at about 22:30 or 11, and took a train into central Stockholm, and then wandered the streets until we found our hostel. Once we were settled in, we all promptly passed out (i realize that every time I say that it sounds like I'm sugar coating things and passing over crazy antics, but really, we just went to bed).
Friday Oct 22nd - Our last full day in Stockholm! We started out by going to the cafe next to the Hostel for breakfast, which was delicious! And then we just sort of meandered around for a bit. We met up with Kr, who was coming to Sweden for two days, and then strolled down a big shopping street. Lh, Br, J and I got distracted by touristy stores and lost the rest of the group (yes parents, I did get you presents!). It was really fun, lots of silly hats, moose memorabilia, candy and scarves. We met up with part of the group, and then got separated again! Br, J and I tried to meet up with them, but for some reason our phones weren't working, so we went off on our own to a little cafe and got the most delicious chicken pesto pasta ever! And it was pretty cheap! After that we decided to just go back to the hostel and hang out for a bit. It really was too cold to really do anything, and it wasn't snowing, so therefore not worth it to be outside. We got some meatballs and rolls for dinner, and made an amazing pasta dinner (seriously, the only things we ate this whole trip - except for the occasional fish dish - were pizza and pasta. Pizza was the cheapest thing in Norway, and pasta was free in Sweden). At this point everyone was pretty haggard from the trip, and so we had a pretty laid back end of the trip. We stayed in and played trivia, which BR was awesome about and made for us! Then we all promptly fell asleep (getting sick of my saying that yet?)
Awesome Candy store... and so cheap too :)
Saturday Oct 23rd - The last day! We woke up early.... too early. We had to leave for the train station at 10. People started packing up at 8. I was perplexed, and didn't know the plan, so I got up with everyone else... and then realized I could have slept an extra hour. Not cool. In any case, since I was up, I headed to the cafe and got a sandwich for later that day. Then Br, J and I wandered down to the docks, where we found Hatty, and had a funeral. We ran into M, BR and K, and apparently M had seen Hatty the day before, on the docks, covered in snow, and thought it might be my hat. It was very sad. Anyway, we strolled on over to the train station, and took a bus to our airport. The bus ride was 80 minutes long, and our airport was sketchy as hell. But we made it home alive! The rest of the day wasn't too interesting... we took the S-Bahn home, I randomly ran into a girl I used to work with who was just leaving Berlin after being here for 2 days, and then I took the most glorious shower of my life. Later that night, Br, J and I watched Snatch and drank wine. Twas a nice relaxing way to settle back into live in Berlin.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Adventures in Scandinavia!
Has anyone else noticed that I've just completely stopped being creative with my titles? Oh well, they get the point across. Just a fair warning, this is going to be one hell of a long post. Perhaps I'll split it into 2 posts.... we shall see. Well, let's get started, shall we?
Friday Oct 15th - M, D, Br, L, J and I arrived in Oslo around 14:30 in the afternoon. M and D were supposed to get there a few hours before the rest of us, but they hilariously accidentally booked their tickets for Oct 15th, 2011. Bahaha. Anyway, when we finally made it into the city center, we decided to stroll around for a bit, and grab some lunch/dinner. We found a place that seemed pretty cheap (converting things from Krona is really difficult. 50 kr is a really good price for something, but most places are about 80-140), and had the best waitress ever! She was so helpful, and spoke perfect English. She gave us a big long list of all the things we had to do seeing as we only had 3 days to do it! After our delicious pizza dinner (literally all we ate for the entire week was either pizza or pasta) we headed out to explore a little more before meeting up with Inge, our host. We randomly stumbled upon a royal procession - the King, Queen and Princess were headed to a Hotel where they were having a banquet for the Swiss King/President (I don't know what the Swiss government is). Lady Gaga was having a concert while we were there, and I think we were all secretly hoping that the blocked off road and police were for her entrance, but alas.... Then, we continued walking and stumbled upon a movie premiere! The movie was called Fritt Vill III, the third in a horror movie series (J, Br and I went to see it on our last night), and we were standing right next to the red carpet, a death metal band was playing (the lead singer was playing the cello while screaming into the mic), and they were handing out Batteries - a Norwegian energy drink. It was pretty epic. After that we had to go meet up with Inge. He was so cool! We stayed at his amazing house about 45 minutes from the city, with an absolutely amazing view! He was hardly ever there though, which was a bit of a shame, though getting drunk texts from him in the middle of the night, telling us he wouldn't be coming home was pretty amazing. After we got all the information we needed, we decided to just go to the house and relax for the rest of the night. We got some beers, played Risk and stared out at the view on the balcony. It was an amazing first day.
J and I being stoked about our Batteries!!
The view from the house we stay in
Saturday Oct 16th - So the next morning we all slept in a bit, and made an amazing breakfast with Inge when he rolled in around 11. The night before we'd been joking about him being a serial killer, so it was really nice to actually talk to him and determine that he wasn't a serial killer. He had lots of cool things to tell us about Norway, and has lived one crazy life (sailing to Africa, then South America and finally landing in the Bahamas where he lived for 4 months - badass). Then we headed out into town to explore around before meeting up with the final 3 of our fellowship (Br if you're reading this, yes I totally stole that from you because it's excellent). We found some statues that we, of course, climbed all over, and then strolled down the pier. There were about a billion bra's hanging from the power lines, and we couldn't figure out why until someone pointed out that it was national breast cancer awareness month (and even if it's not, we're just going to say it is). We walked all the way down the pier and found ourselves at an incredible fortress. It was absolutely beautiful! All the orange leaves and the bright sun (even though it was super cold), that's just something you never get in California. Autumn is definitely my favorite time of year, and it was so amazing in Norway! After the fortress, we headed to the Opera House, which Inge had told us about that morning. At first, I was a little ambivalent, but then it turned out to be amazing! You could climb all over it, and we were there at sunset - it was marvelous! After that came a lot of aimless wandering, searching for a place to eat (ok, I guess that doesn't mean it was aimless). Br, J and I split off from the group and got Indian food... it was so good! I got the Lamb Paneer and a honey pudding thing... it was so good. Br and J have been really close this whole trip, so it was nice to get to know them better, and now I've apparently become part of the trio (this is mainly because the rest of the group walks too fast, and we can't/don't want to keep up). And I think after that we just met up with the rest of the group and headed home.
Climbing on statues
The view from on top of the fortress
The Opera House that we climbed all over
Monday Oct 18th - The next morning we had to get up bright and early to catch our 10:30 train to Bergen. Yeah, that's right, we woke up at 8... shocking, I know. We said out farewells to Inge and thanked him for having us, then headed down to the train station. Because I had to change my travel plans for break so suddenly, my train reservation wasn't with the rest of the group. I had to sit in the last car on the train all by my lonesome. It was actually quite nice to be alone for those 8 hours. The whole trip I'd barely had enough time to process everything that had happened, and where my emotions stood, so it was really nice to just sit back and think for a while. I only wish I'd brought my iPod with me. I realized that I need to start taking school more seriously (ok, I know some of you are laughing at me for saying that), and start getting involved with things on campus/start taking classes for fun. Everyone on the program seems to be having a great time at college, and I don't know if it's just that I don't like UCSC or what, but I just can't relate to them about that. So I decided that when I get back to school I'm going to sign up for a dance class and maybe a photography/graphic design class (I'll probably have to take it at Cabrillo though) so that I can have more things to keep me active and meeting people. I also discovered some new thoughts on romantic relationships thanks to two books I've been reading that have really gotten me thinking (Brave New World and I'm Not Stiller, if you were wondering). M joined me in the back for a bit, but when the train stopped and it was snowing, we both ran to take pictures and play in the snow. Then we got yelled at and separated (apparently when they say a "short stop," they mean it). We finally got to Bergen, and headed to our hostel at the top of a mountain - don't worry, we took a bus. Once we checked in and got settled, we headed to the store and got some stuff for dinner, ate dinner, played some games. I need time to adjust from being alone for so long (especially when the me being alone involves me seriously thinking about and analyzing my life), so I got a little anxious and went out for a walk. It was cold and dark, haha. Probably not my best decision ever, but whatever. It was necessary. I don't think anything else too spectacular or noteworthy happened that evening, so I'll just say: and then we went to bed.
Friday Oct 15th - M, D, Br, L, J and I arrived in Oslo around 14:30 in the afternoon. M and D were supposed to get there a few hours before the rest of us, but they hilariously accidentally booked their tickets for Oct 15th, 2011. Bahaha. Anyway, when we finally made it into the city center, we decided to stroll around for a bit, and grab some lunch/dinner. We found a place that seemed pretty cheap (converting things from Krona is really difficult. 50 kr is a really good price for something, but most places are about 80-140), and had the best waitress ever! She was so helpful, and spoke perfect English. She gave us a big long list of all the things we had to do seeing as we only had 3 days to do it! After our delicious pizza dinner (literally all we ate for the entire week was either pizza or pasta) we headed out to explore a little more before meeting up with Inge, our host. We randomly stumbled upon a royal procession - the King, Queen and Princess were headed to a Hotel where they were having a banquet for the Swiss King/President (I don't know what the Swiss government is). Lady Gaga was having a concert while we were there, and I think we were all secretly hoping that the blocked off road and police were for her entrance, but alas.... Then, we continued walking and stumbled upon a movie premiere! The movie was called Fritt Vill III, the third in a horror movie series (J, Br and I went to see it on our last night), and we were standing right next to the red carpet, a death metal band was playing (the lead singer was playing the cello while screaming into the mic), and they were handing out Batteries - a Norwegian energy drink. It was pretty epic. After that we had to go meet up with Inge. He was so cool! We stayed at his amazing house about 45 minutes from the city, with an absolutely amazing view! He was hardly ever there though, which was a bit of a shame, though getting drunk texts from him in the middle of the night, telling us he wouldn't be coming home was pretty amazing. After we got all the information we needed, we decided to just go to the house and relax for the rest of the night. We got some beers, played Risk and stared out at the view on the balcony. It was an amazing first day.
Saturday Oct 16th - So the next morning we all slept in a bit, and made an amazing breakfast with Inge when he rolled in around 11. The night before we'd been joking about him being a serial killer, so it was really nice to actually talk to him and determine that he wasn't a serial killer. He had lots of cool things to tell us about Norway, and has lived one crazy life (sailing to Africa, then South America and finally landing in the Bahamas where he lived for 4 months - badass). Then we headed out into town to explore around before meeting up with the final 3 of our fellowship (Br if you're reading this, yes I totally stole that from you because it's excellent). We found some statues that we, of course, climbed all over, and then strolled down the pier. There were about a billion bra's hanging from the power lines, and we couldn't figure out why until someone pointed out that it was national breast cancer awareness month (and even if it's not, we're just going to say it is). We walked all the way down the pier and found ourselves at an incredible fortress. It was absolutely beautiful! All the orange leaves and the bright sun (even though it was super cold), that's just something you never get in California. Autumn is definitely my favorite time of year, and it was so amazing in Norway! After the fortress, we headed to the Opera House, which Inge had told us about that morning. At first, I was a little ambivalent, but then it turned out to be amazing! You could climb all over it, and we were there at sunset - it was marvelous! After that came a lot of aimless wandering, searching for a place to eat (ok, I guess that doesn't mean it was aimless). Br, J and I split off from the group and got Indian food... it was so good! I got the Lamb Paneer and a honey pudding thing... it was so good. Br and J have been really close this whole trip, so it was nice to get to know them better, and now I've apparently become part of the trio (this is mainly because the rest of the group walks too fast, and we can't/don't want to keep up). And I think after that we just met up with the rest of the group and headed home.
Sunday Oct 17th - Sunday started off our last full day in Oslo, and what better way to start a day than by randomly finding a waterfall right by your bus stop? We had about half an hour before our bus got there, so we played around and took pictures for a while, twas delightful :) When we finally got into town (it was vacation, we weren't about the head into town at 8 am) the other 3 of the fellowship - who were staying somewhere else - had already been around to all the things we had done before they arrived, and went back to their apartment to make lunch, while the 6 of us headed to the statue park (a suggestion from our awesome waitress the first night). It was lovely, the trees were all shedding, the light was gorgeous, and it wasn't even that cold (for Scandinavia). The statues were a little weird... we determined that they were statues of what people would do during the apocalypse. And apparently a large, phallic orgy of people will pile up in the middle of a park. Oh and men will start kicking babies (Don't worry, I'll put pictures of these). D, J, L, and I lost Br and M, so we headed out into a non-statue-y part of the park and compiled a huge pile of leaves to play in! It was great, our pile was huge and everyone was having a great time jumping in and throwing leaves everywhere. M and Br finally showed up, and almost ruined the pile, but then decided to be nice and let us finish it first. After the park we met up with the rest of the group and strolled around town a little more. We got coffee and some food from a little restaurant on the docks, with the worst waiter ever, and sat playing cards under the heat lamps for an hour or so. Then we explored the docks again, only this time at night, and Br, J and I decided to go see Fritt Vill III. It was great. One of those scary movies that scares you while you're watching it, but makes you laugh afterwards. The rest of the group went to an ice bar.... oh wait, no, they did that when we went to Indian the night before, just kidding. I think they just went to a regular bar, and then back to H, BR (yeah, this isn't getting confusing at all...) and K's apartment to make dinner and watch a movie. After our movie, we met up with them, and then we all headed back to Inge's place and promptly passed out.
Checking out the river/waterfall we discovered
Phallic statue of an orgy
Baby-kicking man
Playing with our leaf pile
Monday Oct 18th - The next morning we had to get up bright and early to catch our 10:30 train to Bergen. Yeah, that's right, we woke up at 8... shocking, I know. We said out farewells to Inge and thanked him for having us, then headed down to the train station. Because I had to change my travel plans for break so suddenly, my train reservation wasn't with the rest of the group. I had to sit in the last car on the train all by my lonesome. It was actually quite nice to be alone for those 8 hours. The whole trip I'd barely had enough time to process everything that had happened, and where my emotions stood, so it was really nice to just sit back and think for a while. I only wish I'd brought my iPod with me. I realized that I need to start taking school more seriously (ok, I know some of you are laughing at me for saying that), and start getting involved with things on campus/start taking classes for fun. Everyone on the program seems to be having a great time at college, and I don't know if it's just that I don't like UCSC or what, but I just can't relate to them about that. So I decided that when I get back to school I'm going to sign up for a dance class and maybe a photography/graphic design class (I'll probably have to take it at Cabrillo though) so that I can have more things to keep me active and meeting people. I also discovered some new thoughts on romantic relationships thanks to two books I've been reading that have really gotten me thinking (Brave New World and I'm Not Stiller, if you were wondering). M joined me in the back for a bit, but when the train stopped and it was snowing, we both ran to take pictures and play in the snow. Then we got yelled at and separated (apparently when they say a "short stop," they mean it). We finally got to Bergen, and headed to our hostel at the top of a mountain - don't worry, we took a bus. Once we checked in and got settled, we headed to the store and got some stuff for dinner, ate dinner, played some games. I need time to adjust from being alone for so long (especially when the me being alone involves me seriously thinking about and analyzing my life), so I got a little anxious and went out for a walk. It was cold and dark, haha. Probably not my best decision ever, but whatever. It was necessary. I don't think anything else too spectacular or noteworthy happened that evening, so I'll just say: and then we went to bed.
All of us with Inge
I would have taken a better picture if the stupid people
hadn't yelled at me to get back on the train
hadn't yelled at me to get back on the train
The View of Bergen from the Hostel
Ok, and I've decided that I am going to split this into two posts. Because, really, no one would read something twice this long. I'm surprised anyone has actually made it this far down! :-p
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Blisters On My Fingers
Day one of midterms is over... Thank God. It's now day 2, but I don't have any midterms, so it's a catch up/study/buy warm clothes day! Monday was quite possibly one of the hardest days to get through. I had German from 9-12, which was fun. We reviewed for our midterm, and our absolutely amazing teacher Tanja agreed to cancel our excursion for Tuesday so that we could use the time to study. This worked out so beautifully for me, as I don't have any class on Tuesdays, so canceling the excursion meant I could sleep in after a really rough day! After German, it was off to get Döner for lunch. Delicious! Then coffee and a quick review of my history study guide.
The History midterm was not what I had expected. He had given us 8 questions to study, and was going to ask 4 and have us answer 3. When J, K and I were working on the study guide, we narrowed it down to the four questions we were certain he was going to ask. He ended up only asking one of the ones we thought he would. Fortunately, our little study group worked wonders and I was able to hit on all of the points we had discussed in the group for the three questions I answered. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to finish the three essays. Four pages (A4 pages that is), handwritten, front and back. I quite honestly never want to use the phrases: "Treaty of Versailles," "German Society," "political instability (and other denominations of the phrase)" or "Weimar Republic" ever again. I don't think I've ever written three papers that had so much in common. Also, my pencil has little grippy ribs on it for increased grip-ability (obviously), but after writing for that long, the grip just rubbed against my fingers and made them raw. I guess it's been a while since I've written that much by hand. And so, I now have little blisters on my fingers.
This proved to be a slight disadvantage when I got to my Film midterm 45 minutes later. At that point me brain was completely fried, the coffee had warn off, and apparently I was slightly delirious. These things happen. We watched clips from the four movies we've watched in class, and then were supposed to pick one or more of the movies to analyze in terms of historical context and style. At least I hope we were supposed to discuss historical context because that's all I wrote about. I'm not going to lie, I'm only taking the class pass/no pass, and I absolutely do not care about film analysis. I find it to be far too subjective, and feel that a film has so many people putting so many different things into it, that it is impossible to ever really analyze it to any legitimate extent. But that's just my feeling. I still managed to spit out 2 and a half, hand written, front and back pages, so I'm sure that alone will ensure me a C... which is all I need for a Pass!
It was a pretty rough day, so I was excited to hear that a group of people were going out to dinner, and were potentially playing beer pong after. It sounded perfect. I didn't ask for details and just went out and met the rest of the group. It was a different group of people than the people I normally hang out with; there were two or three normal people, but I'd never really hung out with the other people before. It was really nice going out and getting to know more people. As much as I love my little group, I like to branch out every now and then. We were apparently headed to an American restaurant that had 6 Euro steaks.... sounded fantastic! Until we got there (after a good half an hour of getting lost). Turns out it was 6 Euro per 100 kg. With a 250 kg minimum (ok, not sure if I want to use kg here or g, so my apologies. You catch my drift through). I was so hungry and tired from the day that I was fine with spending a little extra money on dinner... but no one else was. We ended up going to an Indian restaurant down the street. It was delicious! I got Mutton Saag (Spinach Lamb curry) and a Hefeweißen, my new favorite beer. It was probably the most delicious lamb curry I've ever had! And the whole meal only cost 8.50 Euro... a whole lot better than a 15 Euro steak! It was a really great way to spend the evening after midterms from hell!
And now, it's pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of the week. I don't have any midterms today, so I'm using the time to start research on my history research paper (on the nazification of the educational system) and going out to buy some long sleeve shirts (apparently, I only have 2). Then tomorrow I've got a midterm for Authoritarian at 4:30. It should be pretty easy. It's only 10% of my grade for the class, so there's not too much pressure. Plus he said it's going to be a relatively general analysis, and not focus on specific readings, so I'm just going to review the basic concepts tonight and tomorrow, and I should be fine. Then Thursday morning is the German midterm. I'm a little nervous about this one just because it's German, haha. I'm good on vocab and verb conjugation. I still need to study "his," "their," "your," "our," etc. I'm just nervous that I'm going to make a bunch of little mistakes that will add up. Fortunately, Tanja's pretty understanding about the little mistakes and doesn't ever mark us down too much for them.
I think after everyone's done on Thursday, we're going to head over to Grunwald, a forest just outside of Berlin. It should be pretty fun and absolutely gorgeous! The leaves here are turning, and while it's dark and depressing when I get up at 6:45, by 7:15 the morning Golden Hour has come in, and there is just nothing more beautiful than a golden sunrise coming through golden leaves. I tried to take some pictures the other morning, but it was 34 Degrees F and my fingers froze! I will definitely be bringing my camera with me :)
Then Friday it's off to Norway! We're getting to Oslo Friday afternoon, then staying until Monday when we take the train to Bergen. We're in Bergen until Wednesday, when we head over to Stockhom. Then we're staying in Stockholm until Saturday, when we return to Berlin in the afternoon! It should be amazing. I'm going with an incredible group of friends... and if they can make dirty, smelly, expensive Paris amazing, I can only imagine how great this trip will be :) Our hostel in Bergen is at the base of an amazing hiking trail, and we may be able to see the Northern Lights. There's also a really nice, relatively cheap Spa/Sauna/Pool place in Stockholm that I'm going to see if I can convince people to go to. I won't be bringing my computer with me, so hopefully my 17 GB of memory on my camera will be enough!
The History midterm was not what I had expected. He had given us 8 questions to study, and was going to ask 4 and have us answer 3. When J, K and I were working on the study guide, we narrowed it down to the four questions we were certain he was going to ask. He ended up only asking one of the ones we thought he would. Fortunately, our little study group worked wonders and I was able to hit on all of the points we had discussed in the group for the three questions I answered. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to finish the three essays. Four pages (A4 pages that is), handwritten, front and back. I quite honestly never want to use the phrases: "Treaty of Versailles," "German Society," "political instability (and other denominations of the phrase)" or "Weimar Republic" ever again. I don't think I've ever written three papers that had so much in common. Also, my pencil has little grippy ribs on it for increased grip-ability (obviously), but after writing for that long, the grip just rubbed against my fingers and made them raw. I guess it's been a while since I've written that much by hand. And so, I now have little blisters on my fingers.
This proved to be a slight disadvantage when I got to my Film midterm 45 minutes later. At that point me brain was completely fried, the coffee had warn off, and apparently I was slightly delirious. These things happen. We watched clips from the four movies we've watched in class, and then were supposed to pick one or more of the movies to analyze in terms of historical context and style. At least I hope we were supposed to discuss historical context because that's all I wrote about. I'm not going to lie, I'm only taking the class pass/no pass, and I absolutely do not care about film analysis. I find it to be far too subjective, and feel that a film has so many people putting so many different things into it, that it is impossible to ever really analyze it to any legitimate extent. But that's just my feeling. I still managed to spit out 2 and a half, hand written, front and back pages, so I'm sure that alone will ensure me a C... which is all I need for a Pass!
It was a pretty rough day, so I was excited to hear that a group of people were going out to dinner, and were potentially playing beer pong after. It sounded perfect. I didn't ask for details and just went out and met the rest of the group. It was a different group of people than the people I normally hang out with; there were two or three normal people, but I'd never really hung out with the other people before. It was really nice going out and getting to know more people. As much as I love my little group, I like to branch out every now and then. We were apparently headed to an American restaurant that had 6 Euro steaks.... sounded fantastic! Until we got there (after a good half an hour of getting lost). Turns out it was 6 Euro per 100 kg. With a 250 kg minimum (ok, not sure if I want to use kg here or g, so my apologies. You catch my drift through). I was so hungry and tired from the day that I was fine with spending a little extra money on dinner... but no one else was. We ended up going to an Indian restaurant down the street. It was delicious! I got Mutton Saag (Spinach Lamb curry) and a Hefeweißen, my new favorite beer. It was probably the most delicious lamb curry I've ever had! And the whole meal only cost 8.50 Euro... a whole lot better than a 15 Euro steak! It was a really great way to spend the evening after midterms from hell!
And now, it's pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of the week. I don't have any midterms today, so I'm using the time to start research on my history research paper (on the nazification of the educational system) and going out to buy some long sleeve shirts (apparently, I only have 2). Then tomorrow I've got a midterm for Authoritarian at 4:30. It should be pretty easy. It's only 10% of my grade for the class, so there's not too much pressure. Plus he said it's going to be a relatively general analysis, and not focus on specific readings, so I'm just going to review the basic concepts tonight and tomorrow, and I should be fine. Then Thursday morning is the German midterm. I'm a little nervous about this one just because it's German, haha. I'm good on vocab and verb conjugation. I still need to study "his," "their," "your," "our," etc. I'm just nervous that I'm going to make a bunch of little mistakes that will add up. Fortunately, Tanja's pretty understanding about the little mistakes and doesn't ever mark us down too much for them.
I think after everyone's done on Thursday, we're going to head over to Grunwald, a forest just outside of Berlin. It should be pretty fun and absolutely gorgeous! The leaves here are turning, and while it's dark and depressing when I get up at 6:45, by 7:15 the morning Golden Hour has come in, and there is just nothing more beautiful than a golden sunrise coming through golden leaves. I tried to take some pictures the other morning, but it was 34 Degrees F and my fingers froze! I will definitely be bringing my camera with me :)
Then Friday it's off to Norway! We're getting to Oslo Friday afternoon, then staying until Monday when we take the train to Bergen. We're in Bergen until Wednesday, when we head over to Stockhom. Then we're staying in Stockholm until Saturday, when we return to Berlin in the afternoon! It should be amazing. I'm going with an incredible group of friends... and if they can make dirty, smelly, expensive Paris amazing, I can only imagine how great this trip will be :) Our hostel in Bergen is at the base of an amazing hiking trail, and we may be able to see the Northern Lights. There's also a really nice, relatively cheap Spa/Sauna/Pool place in Stockholm that I'm going to see if I can convince people to go to. I won't be bringing my computer with me, so hopefully my 17 GB of memory on my camera will be enough!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
A Great Way to Spend the Day...
...Before being consumed by midterms.
Somehow, it's already time for midterms. I have absolutely no idea where the time has gone! I'd like it to slow down a bit as it's going a too fast (Where's my Dr. Horrible with his freeze ray?). Regardless, just because I want time to slow down, doesn't mean it will, so I have to get cracking on studying for these midterms. Monday will be the worst day as I have German (just class, no midterm), then a midterm in History, followed by a midterm in Cinema! After Monday the week will get easier: an excursion to Kreuzberg with my German class on Tuesday, a midterm in Totalitarian Wednesday afternoon, and my German midterm Thursday morning. Then it's off to Norway on Friday (more on that in an upcoming post)! I'm not too worried about these midterms, but either way, I still need to spend the next two days studying my butt off to make sure I'm ready. I decided to take the day off yesterday, though, and get myself nice and relaxed before becoming a hermit. It was a really great, Berlin-filled day :)
M, D and I started out the day by going to the Museum für Naturekunde, or the Natural History Museum. It was absolutely awesome. They have the world's largest mounted Brachiosaurus brancai skeleton... and it's huge! The first room in the museum is the dinosaur room, and the history nerd in me just got so excited! There are so many cool dinosaur skeletons and fossils, it was amazing. Then we moved into the Earth room, which had a lot of interesting stuff about plate tectonics and rocks and a really cool giant globe that had a TV mounted to it, which would spin around the globe and show how certain parts of the world formed. It was awesome! When we were in that room, we met up with K and two of M's German friends. We also checked out the hominid room, which isn't a permanent exhibit so I was really happy to see it. Human evolution is so cool to look at. Unfortunately, they didn't have a skull of my favorite hominid: Australopithecus Robustus
Somehow, it's already time for midterms. I have absolutely no idea where the time has gone! I'd like it to slow down a bit as it's going a too fast (Where's my Dr. Horrible with his freeze ray?). Regardless, just because I want time to slow down, doesn't mean it will, so I have to get cracking on studying for these midterms. Monday will be the worst day as I have German (just class, no midterm), then a midterm in History, followed by a midterm in Cinema! After Monday the week will get easier: an excursion to Kreuzberg with my German class on Tuesday, a midterm in Totalitarian Wednesday afternoon, and my German midterm Thursday morning. Then it's off to Norway on Friday (more on that in an upcoming post)! I'm not too worried about these midterms, but either way, I still need to spend the next two days studying my butt off to make sure I'm ready. I decided to take the day off yesterday, though, and get myself nice and relaxed before becoming a hermit. It was a really great, Berlin-filled day :)
M, D and I started out the day by going to the Museum für Naturekunde, or the Natural History Museum. It was absolutely awesome. They have the world's largest mounted Brachiosaurus brancai skeleton... and it's huge! The first room in the museum is the dinosaur room, and the history nerd in me just got so excited! There are so many cool dinosaur skeletons and fossils, it was amazing. Then we moved into the Earth room, which had a lot of interesting stuff about plate tectonics and rocks and a really cool giant globe that had a TV mounted to it, which would spin around the globe and show how certain parts of the world formed. It was awesome! When we were in that room, we met up with K and two of M's German friends. We also checked out the hominid room, which isn't a permanent exhibit so I was really happy to see it. Human evolution is so cool to look at. Unfortunately, they didn't have a skull of my favorite hominid: Australopithecus Robustus
These guy's jaws were so large that their chewing muscles were strong
enough for them to eat almost anything. Badass.
We also got to go into this room that was filled with specimen in formaldehyde jars, which was really creepy. There were several jokes made about finding human arms in a jar, or what would happen if the animals all suddenly came to life. It was hilarious, but got that voice in the back of my mind a little scared! There was also a really cool room with a bunch of taxidermy animals, with hippos! And then we watched a video thing on the creation of the universe. It was in German, so we couldn't understand too much, though M did attempt to translate... and failed miserably, but succeeded at being hilarious.
After the museum (which we didn't get a chance to finish, so we will be going back!), we headed down the street to a fro yo place called Yoli (I think). It was so good! I got the regular yoghurt with raspberries and this "brownie" stuff... It was like melted chocolate with little crunchy balls in it. It was absolutely delicious! Then we strolled around town, and made our way to part of the wall. It was where no man's and was, and was right next to a cemetery. We didn't stay too long, which was probably a good thing, as the memorial to those who died trying to cross the wall probably would have brought us all down a bit. We headed towards a park (which we ended up not going to), all the while discussing the implications of the wall, and how the German girls felt about it/what they were taught in school about it. After a while of wondering, we stopped at a coffee shop and warmed up with some coffee and hot chocolate.
A word about the weather: when we left that morning, it was gorgeous out, so I wore a skirt. Turns out this was a terrible idea! The weather stayed nice until about 3 blocks before the coffee shop... and then it suddenly dropped about 4 degrees (Celsius). I was absolutely freezing! Fortunately, M and D were cool with going back to the apartments for a bit before continuing our lovely day. K and the German girls went their separate ways, and we headed back home. About an hour later, we headed back out and went to Alexanderplatz on a mission.
The mission was burritos, and it was a complete success. We went to this place called Dolores (based on the giant map of San Francisco, it was presumably named after Dolores Park), and had delicious burritos and Mexican beer. The restaurant has a Chipotle feel to it, but is nothing like Chipotle at all. I hate Chipotle - I always feel so rushed, and I just don't find the quality that great. I much prefer La Hacienda or Taco V - so I was a little apprehensive when it was described as similar to Chipotle. But I'm so glad I went. The burrito was delicious! And the Guacamole was easily the best I've had in Berlin (or Europe for that matter). Plus, Mexican is sooo good. And so worth the ridiculous price for imported beer.
It's Chipotle-esque because you go down the line picking from a
list of options what you want on your burrito. But it's about
a thousand times fresher and tastier!
After Dolores, we headed out to a bar called Aufsturz. A bar with 100 beers! It's similar to 99 Bottles in Santa Cruz, what with the having an absurd number of beers, but they have way more random beers, and unfortunately no rewards or system for trying each beer. But that's okay... it was still amazing. I got a Mango beer, a Passion fruit beer and a Pear cider (apparently I was in the mood for fruit!). The passion fruit was absolutely delicious, but this is probably only because I love anything passion fruit flavored. We met up with K and the German girls, plus a few more German girls, and stayed there for a few hours trying different types of beer. One of the German girls got a cherry beer, and it was absolutely disgusting! It smelled like cherries, which was nice, but had one of the worst after tastes ever!
Aufsturz Bar. They had some really cool paintings on the walls.
They were very new age meets Picasso in style.
Around midnight, we decided to leave. I was exhausted and didn't want to spend anymore money/be hungover for studying today, so I went home, and the rest of them headed out somewhere. If they'd gone to a club, I would have gone (I can always find energy to go dancing! Plus I never buy drinks at clubs because I'm too busy dancing), but I think they were just going to go to another bar, and I didn't have the energy to sit around (oh sweet irony). The train ride home was relatively uneventful... until I got off and started walking home. A Nigerian man who'd also gotten off the train asked me something, and I thought he was lost, so I decided to try and help him out. Turns out he wasn't lost. He'd lived in Berlin for a few years, and walked me home. He kept asking me for my number, and to go on a date. He walked with me all the way back to the apartments and got incredibly rude and abrasive when I told him that he couldn't come into the apartment building with me, nor would I give him my number or meet him for coffee tomorrow. Needless to say, I think next time I'll just stick it out with the group instead of opting to go home alone at 1:30!
So there you have it, an amazing way to spend a Friday in Berlin. Complete with culture, good food, great company and fruity beers :) And now it's onto the studying.... I'll be posting details about my mid-semester break plans soon!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Another Unexpected Expectation for the Journey
While I was completely mentally prepared to be homesick, and miss random things like my dog, In N Out, and Su Hong to go, there was something I never really considered I would miss: Photography. Sure, I take more pictures than the average person when we go out on excursions, but that's not really the type of photography I like, or am necessarily all that good at. I miss developing a concept, setting up a scene, fiddling and getting frustrated over lighting, posing and shooting. I especially miss the editing process, where the concept usually fully comes to light. Now, there's a huge debate going on in the art photography world right now about whether a manipulated image can truly be considered "art photography." When I first started, I was completely of the opinion that any manipulation completely degraded the essence of photography. But now I see that manipulation can add so many elements to an image, just as long as you don't over do it. Fortunately, I'm not skilled enough at photoshop to be able to manipulate my images to any substantial degree, and therefore hardly ever receive comments about my work not being true photography. But I digress.
Now that I am in Berlin, there are a whole host of reasons and excuses for not focusing on my photography as much. I don't have time, my time would be better spent out exploring the city/world/being with friends who I have a limited time with. I don't have much inspiration because there is so much going on that my mind doesn't have the time to stop and consider the concepts I'm presented with. I don't have a very good location (this was evident in the dorms too, but I still managed to get a few good conceptual shots done there), nor do I have access to as many props as I once had. I also just don't have the energy. I don't think people realize how much work (both mentally, physically, and time wise) goes into the execution of a conceptual self portrait. I prefer to spend my down time relaxing, and while photography is often relaxing... it's not necessarily how I want to spend my free time.
Still, even with all these external factors, I still miss it. If I do find some inspiration, you bet I'd get out and do it, but as it is, the main thing that is holding me back is a total lack of inspiration. Perhaps this will only be temporary. Hopefully a few things about myself will only be temporary and only last my time in Berlin. Don't get me wrong, I'm having an amazing time here, but I can tell that I've become a little selfish lately - which has resulted in hurting some people I really care about. But, I'm in Europe, and will likely never have an opportunity to do whatever makes me happy without fear of repercussion ever again. As much as I don't like how I'm acting towards some people from home, I feel like I need to take this opportunity to do what I want, and what will make me happy, without having to worry about how it will make someone else feel. I'm neglecting people and photography. But, hopefully - and I'll be making a strong effort to change this - it will only last my time here. It's a completely different world, and I need to assimilate to it, which means somethings have to fall by the wayside.
I did not foresee this post turning into something a little existential, but I suppose that's what you get from stream of consciousness writing with no editing :) I have found inspiration once since arriving in Berlin. And I did a shoot that I'm quite proud of. In case you don't follow my flickr, here is the lone conceptual piece I've created in the last month and a half:
Now that I am in Berlin, there are a whole host of reasons and excuses for not focusing on my photography as much. I don't have time, my time would be better spent out exploring the city/world/being with friends who I have a limited time with. I don't have much inspiration because there is so much going on that my mind doesn't have the time to stop and consider the concepts I'm presented with. I don't have a very good location (this was evident in the dorms too, but I still managed to get a few good conceptual shots done there), nor do I have access to as many props as I once had. I also just don't have the energy. I don't think people realize how much work (both mentally, physically, and time wise) goes into the execution of a conceptual self portrait. I prefer to spend my down time relaxing, and while photography is often relaxing... it's not necessarily how I want to spend my free time.
Still, even with all these external factors, I still miss it. If I do find some inspiration, you bet I'd get out and do it, but as it is, the main thing that is holding me back is a total lack of inspiration. Perhaps this will only be temporary. Hopefully a few things about myself will only be temporary and only last my time in Berlin. Don't get me wrong, I'm having an amazing time here, but I can tell that I've become a little selfish lately - which has resulted in hurting some people I really care about. But, I'm in Europe, and will likely never have an opportunity to do whatever makes me happy without fear of repercussion ever again. As much as I don't like how I'm acting towards some people from home, I feel like I need to take this opportunity to do what I want, and what will make me happy, without having to worry about how it will make someone else feel. I'm neglecting people and photography. But, hopefully - and I'll be making a strong effort to change this - it will only last my time here. It's a completely different world, and I need to assimilate to it, which means somethings have to fall by the wayside.
I did not foresee this post turning into something a little existential, but I suppose that's what you get from stream of consciousness writing with no editing :) I have found inspiration once since arriving in Berlin. And I did a shoot that I'm quite proud of. In case you don't follow my flickr, here is the lone conceptual piece I've created in the last month and a half:
Slipping Into Serenity
(Details can be seen here)
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Pictures from Poland
Delicious pastries at this little bakery at Krakow's train station
My super tasty breakfast sammich. Only 5 zl (that's about 1.50 Euro!)
P thoroughly enjoying her breakfast sammich
Nothing says breakfast quite like a delicious cream pastry taco :)
Our van to Auschwitz... it seemed a little sketchy
Walking towards Auschwitz
A map of the camps.
The cell blocks
A memorial urn filled with some of the ashes found by the liberators.
The replication of the extermination process
Glasses taken from the victims
Shaving brushes.
The firing wall. The windows of the surrounding cell blocks were covered
so that the inmates wouldn't know what was happening, but obviously
they were able to hear the screams of the victims as well as the shots.
The crematoria
This is where the depressing pictures end!
Gorgeous sunset over the river at the top of the castle
Castle ruins
The Cathedral at the castle
So many horse drawn carriages!
At the restaurant.
Delicious wine!
Our tasty Georgian dinner... still can't believe it only cost 6 Euro!
At Boogie Cafe for dessert
Creepy ass Warsaw train station, where we froze to death and
were harassed by drunken Polish men.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Crazy Adventure to Poland
And the realization of an important expectation.
My trip to Krakow and Auschwitz can only really be described as an adventure. Some aspects were absolutely delightful, while others were sketchy and terrifying. Still others were depressing, exhausting, and hilarious. It was quite a crazy 44 hours!
We started off Friday with a trip to the Bundeskanzleramt (the Chancellor's office) as part of an excursion with the FU-BEST program. It was pretty interesting, and the architecture of the whole building was amazing. Open and transparent, fully representative of what the German government is trying to accomplish. Then we had about a 4 hour break to prepare for Poland! Our first real train left at 18:30, and arrived in Krakow at 6:36. Yeah.... 12 hours. With 4 train changes. I don't know what we were thinking!
The first train went fine, but then we realized that they weren't announcing the train stops, and the signs on the stations were suddenly in Polish! Apparently, it only takes an hour and a half to get to Poland... We had to go based on our ticket times, and get off the train at the time it said, and just hope it was the right station. And those Polish stations.... The only word to describe them is: SKETCHY. Or, for added emphasis, sketchy as fuck! I didn't get any pictures of them, but trust me... they were sketchy. And this is when we learned that neither P or myself knows a single word of Polish (well now I know that Tak means yes). Also, random fun fact for people going to Poland: you always have to pay to use the bathroom (and they don't take Euros there). And it's not just some machine that you drop a coin into like Germany.... no, in between the two sides of the bathroom there is a little living room set up where one of two people sit and wait for you to finish your business, then harass you in Polish until you hand them money. And I'm not kidding about the living room set up... they legitimately have couches and TVs and microwaves. I don't understand how it's cost effective...
Anyway, moving on (this is going to be a loooong post btw), as me and P are sufficiently freaked out, and wishing we had a big, strong, burly man with us, we board our final train of the night. An 8 hour train from Krzyz to Krakow. It didn't sound too bad, but then we realized that we hadn't made a reservation, so we had to search the whole train for a car to sleep in. We tried so hard to find a car all to ourselves, but this guy and his daughter were following us. He kept being like "where are you staying in Krakow? Come stay in my house with me and my daughter," etc etc. His daughter was so cute, but me and P kept exchanging looks of "Do you think he's kidnapped this girl? Should we alert someone?!" We ended up losing him when he stopped to talk to a conductor, and found ourselves a car to ourselves. Unfortunately some people joined us at the next stop, so not too much sleeping occurred. Also, on the 8 hour train ride, the conductor came around every two hours to check our tickets. Like seriously... you've already stamped it three times... I'm relatively certain it's still valid!
Anyway, after probably only accumulating 2 or 3 hours of sleep on the train (most of the time was spent trying to get this Polish woman to stop sleeping on me), we finally arrived in Krakow! Again, how the hell do these Poles know when to get off the train?? Around the time we were supposed to get off, we were plastered to the window, hopelessly searching for a sign. I finally saw one that said Krakow, and figured we'd be safe getting off there. Let me tell you, Poland at 6:30 in the morning is absolutely freezing!! I think it was about 6 degrees Celsius when we got there! We also discovered that the woman at the Deutsches Bahn ticket office had sold us the wrong return ticket... one that left Krakow at 2:30 in the morning! We struggled in broken English to change the tickets, but ultimately failed. We decided to give it a rest, and grab some breakfast. We both got delicious sandwiches, and P got a tasty pastry thing (pictures will come in a separate post).
We then spent about an hour or two roaming around Krakow train station desperately searching for the PKS (the bus that goes to town where Auschwitz is). We found the GDS or something, and figured we could hopefully find the PKS from there. Needless to say, this was painfully stressful and exhausting (even for someone running on a normal amount of sleep). Eventually we figured out we had to look for a bus headed to the town, and that the sign wouldn't say "bus to Auschwitz" - seems logical, but we just kind of assumed that's what it would say). Finally, we caught a 9:20 bus (well large van), and were able to sleep for about an hour of the hour and 40 minute bus ride. Then we got there. And it was absolutely intense.
We bought our tickets (even though the website said it was free...), and watched a 10 minute movie about the history and liberation of Auschwitz. It was a really good movie and had a lot of really moving clips and pictures that I hadn't seen before, especially about the liberation and discovery of what had been done there. Then we joined a group and started the tour. We went through about 6 blocks where the inmates lived, and each block had different exhibits in it. One on the living conditions, one on the means of deportation, one on extermination, one on the arrivals, one of the prisons, I think there was more, but this is most of what I can remember. I'm not going to go into too many details about it because it's such a sensitive topic, but there were three things that really stood out and affected me.
1) One room was full of the hair that the Nazis shaved off the women and used for textiles for the German army. The room was about 15 feet long, and the exhibit took up the whole wall and probably went about 6 feet back. And the hair almost reached the ceiling. Some of it was still in pony tails that had been cut off the women's heads. It was incredibly moving
2) A sculpture of a representation of the extermination process. It starts with people piling into the "showers," then the gassing, and finally the crematoria. I actually saw this originally at the DHM, but seeing it at the location where it actually occurred was so intense.
3) I didn't realize that this last part was going to be on the tour, and I wish I'd been prepared for it. We actually walked through one of the crematoria. It had 6 ovens, as well as the tracks that were used to transport the bodies. You could feel the death. It made me want to cry.
Anyway... onto less depressing things! We made it back to Krakow, and decided to explore the city for a while. We found these crazy mannequin things in a courtyard - some ING thing about the truth about insurance. Twas weird. Regardless, if we hadn't gone to explore it, we wouldn't have found the second half of Krakow train station, where we were finally able to change our tickets to 10 p.m. ones! It was like a weight had been lifted :) We continued strolling around Krakow and absolutely fell in love! We determined that we no longer hated Poland, ran into a random concert in the town square, saw so many horse drawn carriages and ate amazing gelato. Krakow is pretty much exactly how you imagine a European town will be. It's absolutely adorable. We wandered up a hill and found ourselves at a castle overlooking the river right at sunset. It was tremendous!
Once it started to get dark we decided to grab some dinner. We headed to this Georgian restaurant (mainly because it was the cheapest, but nicest looking, place we could find). It was called Gruzinskie Chaczapuri Restaurant, and it was delicious! We got some wine, and pork steak. I have no idea what pork steak really is, but it was surprisingly tasty - and I hate pork! It was marinated in Georgian spices, which are delicious, and came with this sauce that tasted a whole lot like currywurst sauce. After that, we headed to Boogie Cafe and got some tasty dessert. We had another hour or so until our train, and since it was getting cold, we decided to just head back to the mall/train station for a while. We loaded up on water and bread for the trip, and finally got on our train.
Two really nice Polish girls joined our car, and thank god they did! Apparently the woman who changed our tickets gave us the wrong information. It told us to get off at the third Warsaw station, not the middle one... but our next train left from the middle Warsaw station, and didn't even stop at the third! The Polish girls were headed to Warsaw too, so we just followed their lead! And so commenced our 2 and half hour lay over in Warsaw. From 4 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Warsaw is not a closed train station, so there is no way to avoid the middle of the night freeze. We were sitting at our track about an hour and a half before the train got there reading when three random Polish guys came up to us. One of them took our picture, and we tried to ignore them but they started to harass us. Again, where the hell was our big, strong, burly man?! (Or, you know, a few of them...) One of these guys was actually kind of nice, and spoke English really well. He could tell how uncomfortable we were and tried to get the other guys to leave. The other two were creepy as hell. They were obviously drunk, and as P would put it "one of them looked like Gollum!" They eventually left (after telling us not to be scared because there were cameras everywhere), and we booked it to the McDonald's to wait the rest of the hour for our train.
The final train! From 6:30 to 13:16... and such glorious sleep! We had reservations, and therefore a whole car to ourselves! The conductors still came around quite often, but we were able to lay down and sleep in 2 hour intervals. It was absolutely glorious! We were so happy to be back in Germany where we actually understand some of the language and can make out the sign posts... oh, and where the train announce the stops and the bathrooms are sooo clean and don't have creepy living rooms :) Berlin really has become home to us.
So yeah, that's pretty much Poland in a nutshell! Absolutely insane! The day I got back was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall so a group of us headed over the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag to celebrate with the Berliners! It was a great end to the weekend :) Pictures will come sometime in the next few days! Oh, and everything, including hostels, is now booked for Norway and Sweden in two weeks, so look forward to updates on that!
p.s. sorry for any typos. It's late here, and as you've seen there hasn't been much sleep in the last few days!
My trip to Krakow and Auschwitz can only really be described as an adventure. Some aspects were absolutely delightful, while others were sketchy and terrifying. Still others were depressing, exhausting, and hilarious. It was quite a crazy 44 hours!
We started off Friday with a trip to the Bundeskanzleramt (the Chancellor's office) as part of an excursion with the FU-BEST program. It was pretty interesting, and the architecture of the whole building was amazing. Open and transparent, fully representative of what the German government is trying to accomplish. Then we had about a 4 hour break to prepare for Poland! Our first real train left at 18:30, and arrived in Krakow at 6:36. Yeah.... 12 hours. With 4 train changes. I don't know what we were thinking!
The first train went fine, but then we realized that they weren't announcing the train stops, and the signs on the stations were suddenly in Polish! Apparently, it only takes an hour and a half to get to Poland... We had to go based on our ticket times, and get off the train at the time it said, and just hope it was the right station. And those Polish stations.... The only word to describe them is: SKETCHY. Or, for added emphasis, sketchy as fuck! I didn't get any pictures of them, but trust me... they were sketchy. And this is when we learned that neither P or myself knows a single word of Polish (well now I know that Tak means yes). Also, random fun fact for people going to Poland: you always have to pay to use the bathroom (and they don't take Euros there). And it's not just some machine that you drop a coin into like Germany.... no, in between the two sides of the bathroom there is a little living room set up where one of two people sit and wait for you to finish your business, then harass you in Polish until you hand them money. And I'm not kidding about the living room set up... they legitimately have couches and TVs and microwaves. I don't understand how it's cost effective...
Anyway, moving on (this is going to be a loooong post btw), as me and P are sufficiently freaked out, and wishing we had a big, strong, burly man with us, we board our final train of the night. An 8 hour train from Krzyz to Krakow. It didn't sound too bad, but then we realized that we hadn't made a reservation, so we had to search the whole train for a car to sleep in. We tried so hard to find a car all to ourselves, but this guy and his daughter were following us. He kept being like "where are you staying in Krakow? Come stay in my house with me and my daughter," etc etc. His daughter was so cute, but me and P kept exchanging looks of "Do you think he's kidnapped this girl? Should we alert someone?!" We ended up losing him when he stopped to talk to a conductor, and found ourselves a car to ourselves. Unfortunately some people joined us at the next stop, so not too much sleeping occurred. Also, on the 8 hour train ride, the conductor came around every two hours to check our tickets. Like seriously... you've already stamped it three times... I'm relatively certain it's still valid!
Anyway, after probably only accumulating 2 or 3 hours of sleep on the train (most of the time was spent trying to get this Polish woman to stop sleeping on me), we finally arrived in Krakow! Again, how the hell do these Poles know when to get off the train?? Around the time we were supposed to get off, we were plastered to the window, hopelessly searching for a sign. I finally saw one that said Krakow, and figured we'd be safe getting off there. Let me tell you, Poland at 6:30 in the morning is absolutely freezing!! I think it was about 6 degrees Celsius when we got there! We also discovered that the woman at the Deutsches Bahn ticket office had sold us the wrong return ticket... one that left Krakow at 2:30 in the morning! We struggled in broken English to change the tickets, but ultimately failed. We decided to give it a rest, and grab some breakfast. We both got delicious sandwiches, and P got a tasty pastry thing (pictures will come in a separate post).
We then spent about an hour or two roaming around Krakow train station desperately searching for the PKS (the bus that goes to town where Auschwitz is). We found the GDS or something, and figured we could hopefully find the PKS from there. Needless to say, this was painfully stressful and exhausting (even for someone running on a normal amount of sleep). Eventually we figured out we had to look for a bus headed to the town, and that the sign wouldn't say "bus to Auschwitz" - seems logical, but we just kind of assumed that's what it would say). Finally, we caught a 9:20 bus (well large van), and were able to sleep for about an hour of the hour and 40 minute bus ride. Then we got there. And it was absolutely intense.
We bought our tickets (even though the website said it was free...), and watched a 10 minute movie about the history and liberation of Auschwitz. It was a really good movie and had a lot of really moving clips and pictures that I hadn't seen before, especially about the liberation and discovery of what had been done there. Then we joined a group and started the tour. We went through about 6 blocks where the inmates lived, and each block had different exhibits in it. One on the living conditions, one on the means of deportation, one on extermination, one on the arrivals, one of the prisons, I think there was more, but this is most of what I can remember. I'm not going to go into too many details about it because it's such a sensitive topic, but there were three things that really stood out and affected me.
1) One room was full of the hair that the Nazis shaved off the women and used for textiles for the German army. The room was about 15 feet long, and the exhibit took up the whole wall and probably went about 6 feet back. And the hair almost reached the ceiling. Some of it was still in pony tails that had been cut off the women's heads. It was incredibly moving
2) A sculpture of a representation of the extermination process. It starts with people piling into the "showers," then the gassing, and finally the crematoria. I actually saw this originally at the DHM, but seeing it at the location where it actually occurred was so intense.
3) I didn't realize that this last part was going to be on the tour, and I wish I'd been prepared for it. We actually walked through one of the crematoria. It had 6 ovens, as well as the tracks that were used to transport the bodies. You could feel the death. It made me want to cry.
Anyway... onto less depressing things! We made it back to Krakow, and decided to explore the city for a while. We found these crazy mannequin things in a courtyard - some ING thing about the truth about insurance. Twas weird. Regardless, if we hadn't gone to explore it, we wouldn't have found the second half of Krakow train station, where we were finally able to change our tickets to 10 p.m. ones! It was like a weight had been lifted :) We continued strolling around Krakow and absolutely fell in love! We determined that we no longer hated Poland, ran into a random concert in the town square, saw so many horse drawn carriages and ate amazing gelato. Krakow is pretty much exactly how you imagine a European town will be. It's absolutely adorable. We wandered up a hill and found ourselves at a castle overlooking the river right at sunset. It was tremendous!
Once it started to get dark we decided to grab some dinner. We headed to this Georgian restaurant (mainly because it was the cheapest, but nicest looking, place we could find). It was called Gruzinskie Chaczapuri Restaurant, and it was delicious! We got some wine, and pork steak. I have no idea what pork steak really is, but it was surprisingly tasty - and I hate pork! It was marinated in Georgian spices, which are delicious, and came with this sauce that tasted a whole lot like currywurst sauce. After that, we headed to Boogie Cafe and got some tasty dessert. We had another hour or so until our train, and since it was getting cold, we decided to just head back to the mall/train station for a while. We loaded up on water and bread for the trip, and finally got on our train.
Two really nice Polish girls joined our car, and thank god they did! Apparently the woman who changed our tickets gave us the wrong information. It told us to get off at the third Warsaw station, not the middle one... but our next train left from the middle Warsaw station, and didn't even stop at the third! The Polish girls were headed to Warsaw too, so we just followed their lead! And so commenced our 2 and half hour lay over in Warsaw. From 4 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. Warsaw is not a closed train station, so there is no way to avoid the middle of the night freeze. We were sitting at our track about an hour and a half before the train got there reading when three random Polish guys came up to us. One of them took our picture, and we tried to ignore them but they started to harass us. Again, where the hell was our big, strong, burly man?! (Or, you know, a few of them...) One of these guys was actually kind of nice, and spoke English really well. He could tell how uncomfortable we were and tried to get the other guys to leave. The other two were creepy as hell. They were obviously drunk, and as P would put it "one of them looked like Gollum!" They eventually left (after telling us not to be scared because there were cameras everywhere), and we booked it to the McDonald's to wait the rest of the hour for our train.
The final train! From 6:30 to 13:16... and such glorious sleep! We had reservations, and therefore a whole car to ourselves! The conductors still came around quite often, but we were able to lay down and sleep in 2 hour intervals. It was absolutely glorious! We were so happy to be back in Germany where we actually understand some of the language and can make out the sign posts... oh, and where the train announce the stops and the bathrooms are sooo clean and don't have creepy living rooms :) Berlin really has become home to us.
So yeah, that's pretty much Poland in a nutshell! Absolutely insane! The day I got back was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall so a group of us headed over the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag to celebrate with the Berliners! It was a great end to the weekend :) Pictures will come sometime in the next few days! Oh, and everything, including hostels, is now booked for Norway and Sweden in two weeks, so look forward to updates on that!
p.s. sorry for any typos. It's late here, and as you've seen there hasn't been much sleep in the last few days!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)