i’m brilliant, shhhh!

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I generally think of myself as a pretty smart individual. You know… Sharp. Clever. Intelligent.

However, I have also always been a little bit of an airhead. I have plenty of common sense… but sometimes I really choose to ignore it. Like, REALLY. Once, while on vacation with my family, I put dish soap in the dishwasher, which promptly caused the whole kitchen to be filled with soap bubbles. Pretty sure that story will eventually be told at my wedding… but now it’s on the Internet of my own accord, so I win!

Anyways, yeah… kind of a ditz. This has only been amplified in Germany, where I have promptly shed the “smart” mantle. I’m operating in my second language here, people! It takes away any ounce of intelligence you might appear to possess. Allow me to demonstrate with the following anecdotes from my stay here in Freiburg.

The first time I used the bathroom in my dorm, I locked the door but turned the lock too hard and it got stuck. I was locked in the bathroom for a good 7 minutes and started to fear for my life. At one point I think I was banging on the door hoping that one of my nice hallmates would come let me out. Eventually I was able to get the lock open. A few weeks later, once I had learned to trust the bathroom door lock again, I decided to see what had gone wrong that first time. It turns out, when I was trying to unlock the door, I was trying to turn the lock the wrong way! For 7 whole minutes!

One weekend, a group of my friend’s friends were getting together to watch the Champions League Final at my friend Leonie’s apartment. Leonie called me to invite me. Here’s the thing about phone calls in a foreign language: they are harder than face to face conversations. You can’t pick up on nonverbal cues or body language and it’s a lot harder to ask them to repeat anything. Long story short, Leonie told me to be at her apartment at 7:45. For some reason I thought she said 17:45, or 5:45 in American terms, so I showed up an hour and a half early… How awkward. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been… I just had dinner with Leonie, who was kind enough to take pity on me and my non-native-speaker self.

I couldn’t figure out how to work the light on my bike for about the first two weeks I owned it, and the first time I tried in earnest to turn it on I ended up completely snapping it off. Luckily my friend Hanna was able to salvage it. But the next time I needed to use it, instead of risking it on my own (because I hadn’t been 100% paying attention when Hanna had done it the last time), I just dragged my friend Konstantin over to do it for me. (Sidenote: my German friends have the coolest names ever.)

Yesterday, the Katholische Hochschulgemeinde celebrated St. John the Baptist’s feast day in conjunction with the KHG from across town and also the Evangelische Studierengemeinde (Protestant Student Community). The celebration was to be held at the other KHG (aka the one I had never been to before today), which is, as I found out, pretty far away, so some people were meeting at our KHG to bike-caravan over there, as my trusty friend Leonie told me.

However, that morning, Leonie e-mailed me to say that she wouldn’t be able to meet at the KHG anymore, but she would be at UB1, the library, in time to meet me so she could show me where the building was. So I packed up my stuff and got over to the library in time to meet her… only to find out that the library I’ve always gone to is UB2, not UB1. The two libraries are about 20 minutes apart. And at this point it had begun to rain. So I looked up directions to the KHG online and started pedaling as fast as I could to make it there on time. But the whole area is under construction, so I was detoured a couple different times and had no idea where I was. And it was pouring rain.

At this point the service had started, but I still had to keep calling Leonie every 5 minutes or so so she could give me further instructions. I finally found my destination street, and I heard someone call my name… it turns out Leonie had left the service to come look for me because I was taking so long. We slunk into the service, me soaking wet and with grease on my legs which I guess came from my bike… a good showing, I’d say.

But hey. These are things I can get away with because I’m foreign. If a normal person were to pull some of these stunts, they would be written off as stupid and a waste of time. Me? I’m just an airhead with a funny accent. Much more attractive.

there’s really no way to reach me, ’cause i’m already gone

The International Club here at the University of Freiburg is a pretty big deal. One thing they do is host Studitours, trips around Europe, for students. I decided to join the group going to Vienna, Austria this past weekend. After the initial sticker shock (I had to pay 220 Euro up front), I started to get pretty excited about it, because I hadn’t been to Austria at all yet and didn’t know when I’d have the chance to get there on my own. Then, I started to get scared, because I didn’t know anyone else going… my friend who first suggested the trip had to drop out due to a prior commitment. Ahhh!

Luckily, everything turned out fantastically. The price ended up being way worth it (it covered transportation, hostels, and entrance to a few of the attractions we saw during the course of the weekend), I got to go to one of my favorite cities I’ve visited yet, and I met some pretty awesome people in the process!

(A few of them are Canadians who go to York University in Toronto. I worked with a few Yorkies last summer, and because of this I know their whole fight song. Turns out York students are normally not very school spirited so I actually knew more of the chant than they did… I think I scared them. U U Y-U Y-U! U U Y-U Y-U!!!!)

The one bummer about this trip was the long bus ride. We left at about 7:30 PM on Wednesday night (Thursday was a holiday) and got to Vienna at about 6 the next morning; on the way back we did about the same thing. This is a horrible time for a bus ride, but at least we didn’t waste 24 hours of daylight in a bus.

Some of the highlights of the trip: a walking tour of the city, a (very touristy and probably overpriced) Mozart concert in the hall where young Wolfgang gave his first concert at age 6, Donauinselfest, authentic Wienerschnitzel, Mozart’s grave, a tour of Schönbrunn palace and gardens, Sachentorte at a Viennese coffeehouse, the Austrian National Library, and several delicious Radlers.

The city itself was beautiful, albeit a bit under construction at the present. Of all the cities I’ve seen, it seems to be the most architecturally “together”, if that makes sense… all the buildings have this majestic, imperial feel to them, not just the ones who were actually once imperial. The Opera House was gorgeous, as expected, the palaces (the Hofburg especially) and the “ring” of current government buildings were imposing and grandiose, and the cobblestone streets are filled with horse-drawn carriages.

My first night there, Thursday, some of us decided to try to go to the Opera. Looking back, I think we may have been duped into believing that there weren’t any standing-room tickets left, so we ended up going to a string quartet concert performing pieces by Mozart and Strauss. It was great nonetheless, and a good alternative to the planned amusement-park activity, since it rained the whole evening.

The Schönbrunn tour Friday morning was great. It was smaller than some of the other palaces I’ve been to, but what I really loved about it was how authentically the rooms were decorated and displayed. We were also entertained by this hilarious Asian tourist family who insisted on taking pictures, which was strictly forbidden, and hence got chewed out by the guards several times, responding each time, “I just learned! I just learned!” The gardens were really beautiful, too, and my new friend Ashley and I also ventured up to the top of the Gloriette, a huge arch built by Maria Theresia during her reign, to take in the view and take some goofy pictures.

During some down-time, I decided to walk around a bit by myself, which is always one of my favorite things about traveling… just seeing where the city takes me. I ended up in St. Stephan’s Cathedral, thinking I could catch a 6 PM Mass, only to find that the schedule had been changed because of an ordination! I just happened to walk in right during the laying on of hands, which was pretty awesome. I came back like an hour later just to see the church and caught the end of the Mass, so I was able to see all the new priests processing out and greeting their well-wishers. It was incredible. And the church itself was beautiful.

Friday night, we attended Donauinselfest, a GINORMOUS music festival on the island in the middle of the Danube River (hence the name). I don’t think any of us expected it to be such a big deal. From the information I’d been given about the festival beforehand, I was just expecting some sort of reggae concert. Which would have been cool. But when we got there, we discovered that it was, in fact, a huge deal, with more than 20 stages and carnival food of every sort and SO MANY PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. When I picked up a program and started flipping through it, one of the band names was familiar… Train. I love Train. I have loved train since I was like 10 years old. At first I was like, “Nooo, no way are they here at this random music festival in Vienna,” but decided to go over to Stage 6 anyway. We got there right in time to hear the announcers introduce the next “Grammy award winning” band (at which point I realized that it actually was the correct band) and for me to go completely crazy because they played one of my favorite songs as their opener. I may have scared some of the completely nonchalant Austrians around me. But that’s ok because I got to see Train live. FOR FREE. And I got to hear Pat Monahan try to speak German to the crowd. So awesome.

On Saturday, I went with a few girls from our group to the Austrian National Library, which really was a highlight of my entire trip to Europe. It was absolutely beautiful, and the museum exhibit set up inside, which details the history of the Austrian Empire, was awesome. I really can’t explain what made it so cool. So don’t take my word for it, you should totally go yourself if you ever get the chance.

Mozart’s grave was quite anticlimactic, but walking through such an old cemetery was certainly thought-provoking. The way I see it, the deaths of the people buried there cease to be sad, but rather historic; the overgrown vegetation throughout gave it kind of a romantic, “Secret Garden” type look, too. Seeing the grave triggered some thoughts about the course of history, too–the fact that it’s even possible that a man whom we now regard as a genius was penniless at the time of his death and thrown in a mass pauper’s grave, and now we have to guess whereabouts he was probably buried in order to honor him.

We ended the trip on a tasty note–first, at a Viennese coffee house (not overhyped at all!!! SO AWESOME) partaking in their trademark chocolate cake, Sachertorte, and then dinner: Wienerschnitzel as big as your face. Quite delicious, if I do say so myself.

This was my one of my last big trips during my time in Europe. Kind of bittersweet–but overall I absolutely loved my time in Vienna. I’m in Freiburg for the next 2 weekends, which, frankly, I am stoked about! Tonight I’m headed to a bonfire/barbecue in honor of the Feast of St. John the Baptist (which was a few days ago… but whatevs!) and tomorrow I’m celebrating Canada Day!

priorities

To my rabid followers who have been anxiously awaiting my post about my weekend in Vienna, I need to apologize to both of you for not having updated yet. I have a presentation today in my German class, my room is a mess, and I need to take care of some boring paperwork-type stuff in the next few days, so I haven’t had the time to sit down and give the Vienna post the attention it deserves. Because I had an absolutely fantastic trip and I want to do it justice.

So stay tuned!

krakow day 3

Because we were so tired from our crazy day on Thursday, we took it easy on Friday instead of going to Czestochowa as planned. It was a bummer I didn’t get to make the pilgrimage, but I’ll be back someday. Plus, Niki and I got to spend some more quality time together in Krakow.

That really was one of the best parts of the trip… catching up with one of my best friends! We had lots of long train rides, tram rides, and walks from place to place during which to talk about everything. As we do. This time, because we were in Poland, we ended up talking about our families a lot, but of course then the subject would change to weddings, and then to relationships, and then devolve into our usual gossip and propensity to fixing our friends’ problems. Totally normal.

So yeah. We went and saw the castle, Wewel, up close and personal.

The castle is actually connected to the cathedral, so we got to see that, too. The cathedral is pretty boss… a whole lot of former Polish monarchs are buried there, many of whom are now saints! Including St. Stanislaus. I got to see some relics of his, and also the crucifix which according to legend spoke to St. Hedwig in prayer. I think relics are pretty sweet, and I feel like there is a proportionally greater amount of them in Europe than in the US. I’m sure there are official statistics about that somewhere.

We walked around in the main square again so I could see it in the daylight sans bike race, and also so that I could buy presents that my family had so kindly requested that I bring home to them. At this point, we were pretty tired and thirsty, so we stopped and had a drink on the square. I love Europe.

For the rest of Friday, we spent time with Niki’s family who continued to cook us delicious food, watched YouTube videos, and took part in ridiculous shenanigans which you can now find on Facebook.

Saturday was my last day in Krakow, sadly. There was one more important landmark which I had not yet seen, but fortunately it is relatively close to the airport, so I was able to go shortly before I departed for Prague. Mrs. Demkowicz drove us over to the Divine Mercy sanctuary, which is built around the convent where St. Maria Faustina once lived and the chapel where she had her visions of Christ and wrote her diary on which the Divine Mercy devotion is based.

We were able to enter the chapel, venerate a relic of St. Faustina, and pray for a while there. Then, we got to see the newly-built and very modern basilica and the many chapels therein, and we went up to the top of the attached tower and see a fantastic view of Krakow.

All in all, a great way to end a fantastic week! In continuation of my current trend of barely doing any schoolwork and being generally irresponsible, I am going to Vienna tomorrow. Stay tuned!

die schreckliche deutsche sprache

If you are studying or have ever studied German, you need to read this essay by Mark Twain about The Awful German Language if you never have.

Some things about German truly are awful. Take, for instance, the concept of having a girl- or boyfriend. Even in English, this is the bane of any teenager’s existence. Just try mentioning any “friend” in high school to your parents/brother/aunts and uncles… you are doomed to incessant questions about whether that friend is more than a friend, if you know what I mean.

In German, this awkward adolescent state of being is intensified and can potentially last for one’s entire German-speaking life. Because whoever made up German decided that it would be a WONDERFUL idea to create the word Freund. “Der Freund” means “the friend,” but is exclusively male. For instance, if I were talking about my friend Justin, I would call him “mein Freund Justin,” whereas if I were talking about my (female) friend Bailey I would call her “meine Freundin Bailey.”

However, the creator of German conveniently forgot to create a second word that means boyfriend. Therefore, when talking about the imaginary male with whom I am romantically involved, I would also call him “mein Freund.” This is unnecessarily complicated. If I ever want to talk about a male friend who is not my boyfriend, I have to either use the extremely-wordy construction “ein Freund von mir” (“a friend of mine”) or risk the misconception that my platonic friend is more than a friend at every mention. And, for good measure, every time I talk about a girlfriend of mine, I have to risk people thinking that I have a romantic girlfriend. This is the postmodern world, people.

Not everything about German is bad, though. Some things I actually really like and might just bring back to English with me.

So don’t look at me strange if I answer your question with, “Naturally!” It’s a cognate of “Natürlich!” which I use in German all the time.

If I tell you to save me a “sit place” on the bus, know that I really meant “Sitzplatz.”

Please understand if my response to almost everything you say is “Genau.” There’s really no English translation for this awesome word, which literally means “exactly,” but also serves as “mmhmm” or “okay” in conversations to which you’re barely paying attention.

And just a heads-up… I may start to express every inclination by saying, “I find…” “I find that most people don’t want to go see Super 8. Let’s see Bridesmaids instead.” “I find that that meal was delicious!” “I find that I really miss country dancing.” I mean… I am part Hufflepuff, but this grammatical quirk is just because the verb “finden” in German is so useful.

Im großen und ganzen, I am excited to continue forbettering my German. I just hope one of my languages is ganz deutlich. (Fat chance.)

the krakow beach: poland day 2

In two consecutive Skype conversations, I’ve recounted my trip to Auschwitz on request. I guess that means people want to know about it, huh? Believe me… it’s a crazy story, so here goes.

Since all licensed-to-drive family members were otherwise occupied, Niki and I took the train. Our particular train was really old and rickety, and Oświęcim, the Polish name for Auschwitz, was the final stop, so the train said “Oświęcim”… it is a pretty scary and powerful thing to literally take an old rickety train to Auschwitz.

The trip was 1 and a half sweltering hot hours, and once we dragged our sweat-soaked butts into the train station, Niki asked the woman at the desk how to get to the concentration camp. She was kind enough to give us some simple directions, which we promptly botched and ended up at the Birkenau site instead of the main Auschwitz one. This ended up being good, though, because I got to see the (massive) Birkenau camp, which we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to fit into our day, and we got to take a comfortable bus over to Auschwitz.

At this point, it was almost 3 PM, so we were able to enter the camp (it’s technically called a “museum”) for free without a tour. It’s really surreal to see this sign in person:

But otherwise, besides the barbed wire, the camp just looks at first glance like a particularly-ugly suburban neighborhood. You can see above that all the barracks are basically just brick houses, and they’re lined up tidily in rows and there are trees everywhere. The true power lies inside the barracks, many of which have been converted into museum exhibits that recall the injustice and inhumanity that this place has seen.

The first few exhibits we saw were relatively tame… mostly documents pertaining to the liberation of the camp and prosecution of those responsible. Though there were some recounts of the horrible things done to prisoners, it was all conveyed through documents and forms.

But then, in probably our 3rd or 4th building, we walked down the stairs, turned the corner and were immediately met with probably 25 prisoners’ uniforms, propped up so they looked lifelike–like people were wearing them. It was absolutely insane and really drove home the point–people used to live here, except you would never know that they were actual humans from the way they were treated. We got to see a room in the barracks outfitted like it would have been at the time–some of them just had straw on the floor, or the thinnest blankets, for the prisoners to sleep on. Many of the hallways were lined with pictures of the prisoners, labeled with their names, ages, occupations, and prisoner numbers. If that doesn’t give a sense of humanity to the Holocaust, I don’t know what does. It really struck me how young some of the prisoners were… one of them that I saw was only 19 when he entered the camp and 20 when he was killed. That’s how old I am!

The emotional/traumatic high point of Auschwitz is definitely the Material Evidence of Crime exhibit. It has huge glass cases full of things collected by the guards upon the prisoners’ arrival: shoes, glasses, suitcases, artificial limbs, combs. I’ve never seen so many shoes in one place in my life. I’ll never forget walking into the first room. There’s a huge glass case filled with… something… it takes a little while to figure out what it is you’re actually looking at, and then you realize… it’s a huge mound of human hair. A fraction of the hair collected after shaving all of the female prisoners’ heads. It weighs several thousand kilograms and scientific testing found traces of the chemical gas used in the extermination chambers in it. Not to mention that, in the same room, they had displays of blankets that the Nazis made out of the hair that they collected. It truly was a testament to the cruelty and downright inhumanity that occurred at concentration camps like Auschwitz.

We saw several more exhibits on daily life at the camp, and then we came to the Death Wall, where many prisoners were executed due to things like accountability for escapes. There are little memorials at the wall itself to those who died there, and the very next building was the Death Block, where prisoners were kept in a variety of manners, but all for a common purpose: their eventual death. One of the cells in the Death Block was the one I most anticipated seeing: the starvation chamber. That probably sounds funny, that I looked forward to seeing the starvation chamber, but one of my personal heroes died there in the act of saving another man’s life.

The next room in this building also contained Maximilian Kolbe’s rosary, some of the Communion hosts that he and his fellow priests snuck into the camp so that they could continue to celebrate Mass, and an elaboration of his story. Since this was one of the last buildings we went to, it was really wonderful to see how God works for good in even the most horrific, terrible places.

Once we finished looking around and reflecting on the gravity of this place, we made our way back to the train station, where we were promptly hit on by some (either quite drunk or extremely friendly and delusional) guys who wanted to know if we were going to the beach with them. Considering that there are no beaches anywhere near Krakow (and that these guys were seriously creepy) we got on the train back to the city instead.

Niki took me to a nice restaurant on the main square, where we shared a huge plate of pierogi and each got a Polskie Martini, which combined 2 Polish alcohols, honey, and apple juice to create a drink that, according to Niki, “tastes like Poland.” Delish. Then, we commenced our night tour of Krakow, where we saw…

a castle...

a dragon...

a huge face...

and lots of other cool stuff too! Krakow is a magical city!

When we’d finally had enough of our nighttime wanderings, we headed back to the main train station only to find out that it had closed for the night, so instead we found another tram stop for what we thought was the other appropriate line to get us to where Niki’s parents were supposed to meet us. Turns out the routes change at night, so we shortly found ourselves getting kicked off the train at the end of the line, not knowing where we were and unable to get in touch with anyone but Niki’s sister, Marynia, who was conveniently in Austin. Luckily, through some miracle, they found us and we got home safe and sound… but not before a few moments of anxiety!

Strangely, I think this was my favorite day of the trip. You know… despite the multiple times we got lost, and the fact that it included a concentration camp, and getting stranded in Nowa Huta… but I guess that’s how memories are made.

anything but the tour guide: poland part 1

On Tuesday, I flew through Prague to Krakow. I had a pretty long layover in Prague, which was frustrating, because it wasn’t a long enough time to actually leave the airport and see any of the city, but it was way too long to sit in the airport without getting bored. I settled for having lunch at one of the restaurants in the terminal and window shopping.

Upon my arrival at the tiny Krakow airport, I was greeted by Niki, and we both chilled in the terminal for about an hour while we waited for her mom’s flight to come in. Her aunt picked us all up and took us to Niki’s family’s house, and I was met with my first true language barrier of my trip, because everyone but me spoke Polish! I knew about 3 words. (I did double my vocabulary this trip though, and now know about 6.)

That evening, even though several of our party were suffering from jetlag, Karolina, one of Niki’s cousins, took us on a tour of Nowa Huta, the section of Krakow nearest to the house. This is a neighborhood that was “created” by the communist regime as the “model community.” It’s impeccably organized into blocks of identical apartment complexes, each of which had their own school and all the other amenities needed for a living community. Perhaps because the communist lifestyle and oppression were so apparent here, it was also a place of great unrest during those days: it saw many protests and marches, some of them violent. Now, one of the main streets there is named after the Solidarity movement, which helped to break the iron grip of communism, and another is named after John Paul II, who as archbishop of Krakow was instrumental in the movement.

One of the coolest parts of Nowa Huta is the Catholic church there, which looks like Noah’s Ark from the outside and was built as a joint effort of the universal Church. Since there was such resistance from the regime against the idea of any church being built within the “model” atheistic neighborhood, even after permission to build the church was granted, no materials were supplied by the government. Since the government was really the only source of such materials, Catholics from around the world sent stones and other building supplies to help the Catholics of Nowa Huta build their church.

After a good night’s sleep to kick jetlag and sickness, Niki and I headed to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, one of Krakow’s biggest tourist destinations and historical sites. A tour of the mine takes you to 3 different levels of the mine, up to 100 meters underground, and is about 2 hours long, but the really crazy thing is that the amount of the mine we saw during those 2 hours was only 1% of the mine’s total area. It’s absolutely insane how big it is!

We got to see a lot of art that miners have made out of salt over the years (read: centuries): models of famous visitors to the mine, reflections of miner folklore, chapels… it’s pretty incredible what amazing pieces these amateur artists created in their spare time. Adding to the intrigue was our hilarious tour guide. Here are some direct quotes (all said without cracking a smile):

“Photography is only allowed if you have paid the extra zloty for camera privileges. If you have paid, you may photograph anything on this tour… except the tour guide.”

“If you look around, you will notice that the walls, ceiling, and floor are not white like table salt. That is because the salt contains impurities. But everything you see here is salt. If you don’t believe me, lick it. You may lick anything on this tour… except the tour guide.”

Got 'em!

We wrapped up our tour with a Polish lunch (food was a recurring theme of this trip) and then headed into downtown Krakow to meet up with two of Niki’s cousins. We saw all the sights in old town… well, most of them, and kind of from a distance because of a weird bike race that was going on in the square. But still, I saw Florian’s Gate (one of the old city gates), the Basilica (whose spires don’t match at all), Jagellonian University (where Nicolaus Copernicus studied), St. Ann’s church (where Niki’s parents were married, all her siblings were baptized, and her sister got engaged. Oh and it’s named after a pretty baller saint too), the cloth hall (where all kind of vendors sell their wares daily), and a bunch of other sights on the Main Market Square, the biggest of its kind in Europe! On our way back to the train station, we stopped at this fancy little chocolate store and treated ourselves to drinking chocolate, which I’d never tried before but enjoyed immensely! I had white chocolate with strawberries. Mmmmm.

The legend behind the two differing towers involves family intrigue, betrayal, and the use of a knife that now hangs in the cloth market across the square.

Back at the house, we enjoyed a Polish dinner with the rest of the family, including some more aunts and cousins I hadn’t met yet. Afterwards, we all headed out to the backyard (thanks to the prompting of Dr. Demkowicz) to pick some ripe cherries from the cherry trees. This ended up being a pretty hilarious (and delicious) undertaking. It’s kind of funny to watch how different people pick fruit. Some like to get as many as possible into the basket, without stopping to eat any, while others adopt a “one for the basket, two for me” approach. Either way, the cherries were delicious.

We ended our day appreciating the comedic talents of Amanda Bynes in She’s The Man (which reminded me how much I freaking love that movie), drinking tea, and eating chocolate. Little did we know what the next day had in store for us…

dun

dun

dunnnn

i’ll be me, you’ll be you

First of all, anyone who can name the song gets 50 points!

I just got back from my Pfingstpause trip. I had so much fun this week that my body can’t take it anymore and is going to collapse from exhaustion, but I figured I’d write a little about the first part of my vacation before I let that happen.

On Friday, I took the train to meet my dad in Frankfurt. Because of crazy weather delays and subsequent luggage misplacement, I beat him there. Then, because I’m such a loving daughter, I did my jet-lagged dad the service of keeping him out until 1 AM Friday night by getting us lost on the U-Bahn. Love ya, dad!

Once all bags had been accounted for on Saturday morning, we headed for Würzburg. We stashed our obscene amount of luggage in a locker at the train station and then set out for the Würzburg Residenz, the former home of the Prince-Bishop. My dad insisted that we go on the German tour instead of the English one, so I translated for him.

The Residenz was beautiful and much more manageable than the one in Munich, which was huge! All of the artwork was gorgeous, and it was extra impressive because most of it (including the incredibly ornate Spiegelkabinett) had to be re-furnished after WWII, when the building was largely destroyed. After our tour, we saw the cathedral (which I thought was pretty, but really spastically decorated), the Marktplatz (which was really lively–my dad was super impressed by it), the bridge (filled with people enjoying afternoon cocktails), and the old fortress across the river (from afar).

My engineer father trying to figure out the purpose of the dam

Next stop after Würzburg was Rothenberg ob der Tauber, a little walled-in medieval city that retains all of its charm despite outrageous touristy-ness. We were lucky enough to be there the weekend of the Meistertrunk festival, so it truly felt like we stepped back in time: everywhere we looked, there were locals in period dress riding horses, singing old German songs, and generally being rowdy. It was awesome. We got to walk on the old city walls, explore some “ruins,” see the old castle gardens and beautiful views, and continue my dad’s quest to try a different type of beer in each city.

On Sunday we headed to Heidelberg. I didn’t have high hopes for this one, since my trusty German guidebook gave it a bad rap, saying that it’s overhyped by Americans. But we really enjoyed ourselves! Heidelberg is known as the Birthplace of Romanticism because of all the artists and philosophers who used to hang out there, but now the main attraction of the city is the castle, a good hike up the hill from old town. We weren’t able to tour the inside of the castle, but the outside was quite impressive and the views were gorgeous. We enjoyed a delicious Italian meal, walked along the Rhein, and stumbled upon the prison (whoops…). I also introduced my dad to German pastries and he was immediately hooked. It doesn’t take much!

Monday, my dad flew out of Frankfurt to Austria, so returned to the big city. I said Auf Wiedersehen to dad, who headed for the airport, and checked into my hostel, which was a convenient distance of about 350 meters away from the train station. I spent that afternoon wandering around Frankfurt, which was actually much nicer than I’d expected it to be. I spent a little while on the Main River reading my book, which was quite pleasant, went to Mass at the Cathedral (it turned out that it was actually a holy day of obligation, so score one for the Holy Spirit telling me what to do), and explored some Roman ruins that were actually unearthed by bombs during WWII. I had to get to bed early because I had an early flight to catch the next day… to Poland! More about that later, though!

pfingstpause is upon us!

I just got back from a Wortgottestdienst (prayer service) where we prayed the Pentecost Novena in anticipation of Pfingstensonntag this Sunday. Pentecost is one of the coolest holidays of the year, in my opinion, but this semester it signifies something else totally awesome… PFINGSTPAUSE!!!

We get the week off next week for Pentecost, and even though it feels like we’ve only been in classes for 6.5 seconds, I am extremely excited about my vacation plans!

My dad is flying into Frankfurt tomorrow for business, so on Friday after I’m done with classes I’m taking the train up there to meet him. We’re traveling around central Germany for the next 3 days–seeing Würzburg, Rothenberg, and Heidelberg before Dad flies to Austria (en route to Slovakia–what a random place for a business trip) on Monday.

I’m spending Monday in Frankfurt–hopefully seeing some of my favorites who are currently traipsing through Europe for a month–and then on Tuesday I fly to Krakow, Poland!!!!

I am so. so. so. so. excited.

My mom’s family is Polish… her grandparents immigrated to the US before World War I, where they worked incredibly hard (like, in-the-coal-mines-of-Pennsylvania hard) to give their family a better life. Which they have! We now have the political, religious, and economic freedom to live prosperous American lives… with a good dose of Polish culture thrown in, too, of course. Mostly in the form of pierogies, nut roll, kielbasa, and polka.

Check out that good-looking group of Polacks. Bet you can't find me!

That being said, not too many of my family members have been back to Poland. My grandparents certainly haven’t, and they’re living vicariously through me as I get to experience this next week! Some of my mom’s cousins have been back to visit our remaining family there, bringing back an amusing (but very telling) anecdote about how the whole neighborhood surreptitiously passed their one good drinking glass between houses in order to properly welcome their American guests. My cousin Jesse also made the trip back to the motherland several years ago when she and her now-husband, Craig, spent the year in Italy. They actually got engaged in Krakow.

I will not be getting engaged in Krakow. But I am visiting one of my bestest friends, Niki, known affectionately as my Wifey. So, close enough!

Niki was born in Poland, and even though her family moved to Austin when she was 3, they still have a house in Krakow, and they just happen to be flying in on the same day that I am! What good fortune!

I’m really looking forward to seeing Poland from the perspective of a Krakow native. Unfortunately, I won’t be there long enough to see all the exciting sights in the vicinity of Krakow, but I definitely want to go to Auschwitz, the salt mines, and Czestochowa. Beyond that, we’ll be exploring downtown Krakow, and may or may not make it to John Paul II’s hometown of Wadowice and the Divine Mercy Shrine.

Also, I am looking forward to the food. But what else is new?

ich bin ein berliner

*I have pictures to go with this, but WP is being lame and not letting me upload! I’ll put them up later :)*

Berlin was fantastic!!! To be honest, I think I had so much fun because I wasn’t expecting much. When I was planning my time in Germany, I didn’t put too much of a priority on visiting Berlin because I’d heard it was such a big, international metropolis… what would make it any different from New York or anywhere like that? Luckily, I started hearing great things about Berlin from friends who went earlier in the semester, and I decided to take advantage of the long weekend and head to Germany’s capital.

I had such a great time, y’all. I left Thursday morning and finally got to my hostel after 8 long hours of travel early that evening. It was my first hostel stay, and I was a little nervous, but it really was very nice (and supa supa cheap!). My goal for the weekend was to spend each day exploring until it got dark, and then head back… I wanted to soak up as much of the city as possible, but big, dark cities can be scary places for young women traveling by themselves. Luckily, Berlin is far enough north that the sun doesn’t set till 10, so I was in for a few really long days!

My first evening in Berlin, I (kind of) followed the walking tour of East Berlin laid out by my trusty Rick Steves travel book. (*In case you somehow didn’t know, Berlin was divided in two for about 40 years after World War II, with East Berlin following a Communist Soviet model and West Berlin as a capitalist, US-influenced society.*)

I treated myself to some bratwurst and my first sauerkraut (verdict on the kraut: not bad, but I’d rather use my calories on tastier things) before exploring the Berliner Dom (Protestant Cathedral), Museum Island, the TV Tower, the sights along Unter der Linden, which was the grandest and most stately street until Hitler took over and still has a lot of really important buildings, and finally the Brandenburger Tor and Reichstag. Then, I made my way back along the Spree River to my U-Bahn stop and eventually my hostel.

Finally seeing these things I’ve learned so much about in all my years of studying German and German culture was really incredible. That’s what really swayed me about coming to Berlin… how could I spend half a year in Germany and not see the Berlin Wall remains or the capital of Germany’s government? That would be absurd! I found the buildings in Berlin to be a lot more impressive than those in Munich. Even though, as in Munich, virtually everything you see today in Berlin was destroyed in the war, it sure has bounced back… especially East Berlin! Almost every noteworthy thing in the city is in the East, and it’s so full of life that you’d never think that this was the half of the city ruled by an oppressive regime 20 years ago. (I guess it has been awhile, huh? I’m old.)

On Friday I got up nice and early (thanks to the 4:30 sunrise), ready to hit up my most-anticipated sight of my trip: Checkpoint Charlie. I don’t really know why I was so excited for this, but it ended up being pretty cool nevertheless. Checkpoint Charlie was the third (as in Alpha, Bravo, Charlie) checkpoint through which you could request entrance to East Berlin from West or vice versa. It was the site of lots of violence, given that so many East Germans wanted desperately to escape and were shot or otherwise harmed by the border guards in the process, but also a lot of heroism and ingenuity… reading the stories of the people who came up with amazing ways to smuggle their loved ones across the border was really awesome. One man somehow fit his fiancee inside two conjoined suitcases!

I also saw the Topography of Terror, which had a really cool setup: there’s a huge remaining chunk of the Wall running along the site of a lot of destroyed Nazi-era government buildings, so along the wall there’s a huge exhibit detailing the story of Germany from its unification in the late 19th century, through the economic downturn and Hitler’s rise, to the postwar annexation of Germany by the US, USSR, France, and Britain. It was awesome… but it also resulted in me getting a pretty sick sunburn on my back… whoops!

The rest of the day, I kind of bounced around the city doing things that didn’t really fit together in any kind of geographical, topical, or chronological order: the East Side Gallery, the Ritter Sport flagship store (OMG awesome), one of the Turkish neighborhoods, the Reichstag area again, and this one really cool neighborhood to the northeast that’s filled with lots of artists and young people and cool stores. I had dinner there and enjoyed looking through the stores, and then sat in a park there to plan my next day!

Saturday morning I headed to the Jewish Museum, which was surprisingly close to my hostel. It was fantastic. Now, when I first pictured the “Jewish Museum” I figured it would be mostly a send-up to the Holocaust and its victims. While the first floor, which you have to pass through to get to the permanent exhibit, is a really inventive and reflective tribute to those times–the persecution, violence, and exile of the past century–, the permanent exhibit truly tells the story of Jews in Germany… from the early days when many of them were traveling merchants, to Jewish philosophers’ and scientists’ role in the Enlightenment, to attempts at assimilation, to daily Jewish life in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was great.

(I only went to 2 museums in Berlin… the Checkpoint Charlie one and the Jewish Museum. I’d say this was a good choice… though I guess if you’re an art or Egyptian history buff, Museum Island would be interesting, and I’ve also heard the German History Museum is great but I’ve spent so much time learning that stuff anyway, I didn’t want to pay to re-learn it.)

So it turns out that I wore myself out pretty well during my first 24 hours in Berlin because after I was done in the museum, I was content to just chill out for a few hours… I sat by the Reichstag for a while, bought a pretzel, sat by the river for a while, then explored the Tiergarten for a little bit.

For the rest of the day, I got the chance to hang out and explore more of the city with Andy, a friend of mine from back in Sugar Land. He’s studying in Weimar for a few weeks this summer and just happened to be in Berlin with his program at the same time I was! Andy and I met in 7th grade after he joined the swim team I was on, we were lane mates for a good number of years and spent an ungodly amount of early mornings enduring torture together, and we went to homecoming together senior year. (High school dances are a different kind of torture.)

{You know you’re a swimmer when you and your friend, who haven’t seen each other for a year and a half, can have the following conversation at a U-Bahn station in Berlin: “Hey Annie, remember that time you put a whole bunch of Bengay on your arm after practice?” “…No.” “Oh, well you used so much that it started to burn, so then you jumped in the pool to get rid of it.” “Oh, I think I maybe remember that.” “Well, after you jumped in the pool, the chlorine made it hurt even worse… you basically freaked out.” Good times. I definitely did not remember this occasion whatsoever.}

We basically bopped around the city all afternoon, seeing a bunch of things I’d already seen (though this time I got to be in the pictures! Score!) and venturing into West Berlin for the first time of my trip. We also ate a lot of ice cream. It’s not as good in Berlin as it is in Freiburg.

Sunday morning I got up early to go to Mass at St. Hedwigs and then embarked on the long journey home… 7 hours sitting on the floor of a train. Fun times, my friends. Fun times. Someday I will have sufficient funds to travel through Europe with my own assigned train seat! Such luxury!

In summary, this was a really fantastic trip and everyone should go to Berlin because it is amazing!!!