Firenze

The week or two before I headed out to Florence were fairly rough on me. I was taking far more time getting the same amount of work done and I felt more or less exhausted most of the time. I practically promised myself that, despite all of the beautiful art and incredible architecture, I would spend this vacation sitting back and relaxing. Maybe I would head to the Duomo; perhaps I would look in to the Uffizi, but only if the line wasn't extended to ridiculous proportions. Other than that, I would plant myself in a coffee shop somewhere to read and write and generally try to recover some energy. Needless to say, this plan failed.

I arrived in Florence in the late afternoon. One of the first things I noticed waiting at the bus stop for the shuttle into the city was that no one was speaking Italian. In fact all but three were speaking English. I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me too much; after all, most native Italians would have risked death and drove to the airport. But you would be hard pressed to find an occasion in the other cities I've been to where all of the people traveling by public transport were tourists. This in fact marked one of the twin mainstays of my trip.

Florence is more of a tourist trap than any other city I've been to in Europe. Madrid relies on its tourist income, sure. And London and Paris are flocking with tourists. But in London and Paris, where if you walk through more than one district everything is so heterogeneous anyway, the tourists are just as different as anything else. They don't particularly stand out. Most of the tourists in Madrid spoke Spanish, and even the Americans trying desperately to remember their year of middle school Spanish were trying to adapt to the local culture. In Florence, throughout my entire trip, I heard more English than Italian. In the first three hours I was there, while walking to my hostel and later to stretch my legs after hours of traveling, I encountered more tour groups than I would have expected to find in London, and in a much smaller area. Now, I have an irrational and somewhat hypocritical dislike of tourists, so dealing with this tourist culture while trying to see beautiful things and back at my hostel was the hardest part of the vacation. Once I tuned them out, I was blown away.

Anyone traveling in most European cities will notice that the designers were smart. The streets are small and unplanned, but there is usually a center where some streets intersect. You put the biggest, most grandiose buildings there because everyone looking down those streets will see them. Florence was no exception. I had the experience of having the Duomo grow on me as I walked to my hostel from the coach station. It looked big at the station; it grew to be massive. Apparently St. Paul's is larger, but the Duomo is packed into a smaller area so it looks gigantic. I'm pretty sure it was at that moment, seeing the building which is given as the prototypical example of Renaissance genius and egotism that I decided I wouldn't be able to just stay inside and write. I walked slowly around the Duomo, then turned into a side street, and lo and behold there was my hostel. I was staying about forty five seconds away from it. That also might have been a sign.

The next morning I decided to get up early and head to the Uffizi. I didn't get up early enough. The line was still massive and even though I got there before it opened I had to wait half an hour to get in. It was completely worth it, of course. The Uffizi shows a history of Renaissance art from Giotto's first dabbling into what we would call realism to the Spanish renaissance I had seen plenty of while I was in Madrid. I felt a little off rhythm as I walked past and then was passed by hundreds of people listening to the audio tour or following one of the six guides I saw speaking Chinese, Japanese, or English. About half way through, I walked into a large room which was packed nearly to the brim. This was where the Uffizi's two most famous residents were to be found: Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". I'll give the guy credit, he knows how to paint gorgeous women. The room had nearly a dozen of his works, and seeing that I wasn't getting near those two for a while, I perused the others. I was coming back around to the "Birth of Venus" when I was struck. Botticelli started life painting pagan derived works but then was influenced by Savonarola and started painting more Catholic scenes. One of these later ones was an "Adoration of the Magi". But Botticelli completed the genre for me. It was the most beautiful of its type I've ever seen, and by far the most beautiful thing I saw in the Uffizi. The emotion on the Virgin's face was complex and palpable. She makes Venus look as bland as the Medieval Madonnas. I could look at that painting for hours. After a few minutes, I remembered that I was standing in a crowded room; one of the tours had moved on and distracted me. But as I glanced around I noticed that no one was looking at this painting. Many of them came into Botticelli's room, spent two minutes on the "Primavera" and two on the "Venus" and moved on. I still don't understand this practice. What's the point of going to the museum at all; particularly one where the wait outside, at that pace, is longer than your visit?

Though I went to two other museums, the majority of my trip was spent in churches. Like in Spain, and to a smaller extent London, many of the churches were decorated by some of the best artists in their day. I planned poorly by traveling mostly on Saturday, when many of the churches were closed, and Sunday, when they were obviously celebrating mass. But the ones I saw were incredible. Many of the artists, especially up to the early Renaissance, weren't thinking about doing Art; they were thinking about making the most beautiful altarpiece or chapel dedication they could, ad majorem Dei gloriam. So despite the wealth in the Uffizi and other museums around Florence, probably half of the city's art is in various churches - not to speak of their architecture. A couple I visited were designed and worked on by Brunelleschi. But I didn't get to take a leisurely stroll around Brunelleschi's best work. On the other hand, having mass in the Duomo is something of a good memory to have, right?

That night I had a fantastic surprise. I was wandering down side streets for no reason when I ran into a church. I wondered if it was anything interesting, but it just seemed to be a local neighborhood church. One of the signs caught my eye though; a free concert, that night, in about twenty minutes. The program was an odd mix of a flautist, an organist, and a counter-tenor; hearing a counter-tenor is very odd for someone used to hearing the same songs sung by a woman. It was very impressive, if nothing else. But the organist, who played accompaniment for most of the program, got to stretch his solo muscles once. And that was for Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor, a song that I have loved ever since first hearing it on Fantasia as a kid. It wasn't the best version, but this was the way it was meant to be played. Some of the huge chords rattled the church; people were pressed into the seats by its power before recovering with a beautiful melody. I was in heaven.

I did also see Michelangelo's David, which was overrated since they have a free copy standing in the main plaza which was just as good. While I was there a little girl behind me said, "you look like him." I turned around; she must have been about seven years old, and sure enough she was looking at me while pointing up at the statue. I was obviously flattered. "Really?" I said, kneeling down, "You really think so?" After taking another glance at this angle, she replied: "Well... your hair looks like his. But your arms don't. Really, you only kinda look like him." Ah, but the hair does. I suppose I'll take what I can get.

I think the most pleasant surprise (for me - I can't imagine too many people wildly interested in this) was the way the major players of the Renaissance managed to still be a presence if you managed to find them. Sure, there were lots of people heading to the Medici tombs. But I was twice surprised by recognition. At one church, I was in one of the transepts when I noticed a circle painted on the floor of one of the chapels. I looked at it and tried to decipher the Latin. It turned out to be Botticelli's tomb. At another church I was the only visitor. It was well out of the way, and not too exciting. I was lured by a promise of Giotto paintings, but I found myself looking at a painting called "Madonna and Sponsors: Vespucci". It took me a moment to realize the significance. But in front of me was a portrait of Amerigo Vespucci, one that I had just stumbled upon by accident. That kind of serendipity is reason enough to travel.

I did miss out on something this trip. It was something that only occurred to me while waiting through the three and a half hour delay at the airport, and is something I'm not sure I could have changed given the amount of time I spent there. Every European city is divided into two. The first is the international zone, where everyone speaks English and the lifestyle, if not the decorations, is fairly ubiquitous. Don't get me wrong; it's a good lifestyle, one I sometimes miss not having when I'm in the States. This 'tourist zone' is not particularly marked by wealth, either; look at me. The presence of hostels and hotels is not quite it either, since you'll usually be able to find accommodation in the boonies. It's more a willingness and ability to cater; I mean, think about how unusual is it to go to Spain, Italy, wherever and just expect people to know English? Yet many people do expect just that. As long as they stay in the tourist zone, they're fine, but once they head outside, they might find themselves in a little trouble. But it is the outside which I usually find makes for the best travel, since nothing is the same; Umbria wildly differs from Tuscany just as Suffolk differs wildly from Kent or even Oxfordshire. I think I managed to get a little bit outside everywhere I went except Florence. There might have been one or two times while I was visiting the more obscure churches where I had to buy food in Italian, but I'm undecided whether or not they were just letting me butcher Italian and they actually spoke English.

Perhaps it was something about the fact that I was exhausted and slept like a rock every night, but I have to say that, despite the miles of walking over the course of three museums, thirteen churches and one hike up the nearby hills to get a gorgeous panorama, I think I did a better job in getting rest than had I sat in cafes the whole time.

Istanbul

I was only partly joking when I warned a friend of mine to check the news reports for any crashes for planes on their way to Turkey. My record for making it to Istanbul - or anywhere else, really - has been marred by some record of failure. This time, too, had its pitfalls, but nothing out of the ordinary travel concerns: the coach to the airport broke down, so what would have been a three hour journey turned into a four and a half hour crawl. After that was the obligatory half-hour spent sitting in the plane without moving, but that merely gave me time to figure out how a coach trip from Oxford to the far side of London can take longer than a flight across a whole continent. The resulting headache meant I was grateful for some extra nap time.

I'm pretty sure that my first reaction to Istanbul was to its size. I can deal with big cities. I've gotten quite comfortable with London, but in most parts of London you don't have a sense of unity. Two stops on the tube, and you arrive in a totally alien environment. New York feels massive, but mostly because space is limited and most people live within a very small area. In Istanbul, there aren't really any natural barriers to stop people from spreading the outskirts a little farther outside the city center. It took, on the least crowded travel day over an hour and a half to cover most of the breadth of the city - the shortest measure. And that, of course, was only on the European side of the Bosphorous. The metro trip from the airport to Sara's apartment consisted mostly of me looking out of the windows and watching the city never end. Once I spent several days wandering around, I could sense more of a feel for each of the districts, but until then, it seemed to me that this city just went on forever.

Of course, most of the growth has occurred only recently, and some the biggest reasons to go to Istanbul, the historical monuments, are lumped together in a much smaller area, as the ancients had far less patience to be bothered with commuting. What they did have patience for, on the other hand, were massive fortresses with impressive towers, walls, cannon, and staircases. My first expedition in Istanbul was to one of the siege fortresses built by Mehmed II on the way to cracking open Constantinople like a pinata. Given my interest in history, I felt I had to climb up to the top of each one of the towers in order to appreciate what a fifteenth century Janissary would have experienced. I feel able to conclude that they would have experienced extreme fitness from climbing thousands of stairs every day. The other point of note from this adventure was the entertainment I provided all of the other visitors, who probably, like the guard at the door, instantly pegged me as an American and watched me climbing up and down for an hour.

Once reunited with Sara, I was treated to the promise of my first mosque. It was hard for me to contain the urge to run immediately from the airport to the Aya Sofya, but somehow I was able to contain myself and wait until the afternoon of my first full day. Let me give a little bit of background information. I've heard about this building for most of my life - I remember learning about it while at primary school in England. Being interested in the Byzantines kept the idea alive, but reading the Cambridge Medieval History over the summer and taking a course in Islamic history here really drove it home. For about a thousand years, the Hagia Sophia was one of the most important buildings in the world. The Byzantines knew it to be the sign of their authority, derived in equal parts from God and from the Roman Empire. The Western Medievals considered it with equal parts awe and jealousy, tensions that would drive them to great heights in both architecture and war craft. The Muslims saw it as the symbol of the great oppressor that would always be opposed to them - they had apocalyptic writings showing that the capture of the Hagia Sophia would be a sign of the end times.

The first thought I had upon stepping in was that the place was a wreck. It was falling apart; there was scaffolding throughout the whole center of the church, up to the dome. I shouldn't have been surprised: the place is 1500 years old and this was not the first major reconstruction work done to it. I soon got over it, and was able to be swamped by its beauty. The mosaics, first of all, were stunning. And then the marble-work. But for me, the excitement was mostly from the almost spiritual experience of being connected to the past in such a place.

Though with nearly as much historical renown, it was the beauty of the Sultanahmet Camii, or Blue Mosque, which struck me. Partly it was the novelty of the different architecture of mosques - the Hagia Sophia, though converted to being a mosque before being turned into a museum, is obviously an Orthodox church. But it was also partly the geometric figures which were able, somehow, to be exquisitely delicate but not overly complicated, while being able to fill the massive building but not be overwhelming. I didn't think such a thing could be possible. The only thing that really surpassed it was the Rustem Pasha mosque, but that's slightly unfair. Not every mosque could be built by Sinan.

Moving on from my self-indulgence for writing about history, my second morning brought me to Taksim, an up-scale shopping district. I walked for a very long time on a street which reminded me of Bond street for the crowds and types of stores. Remembering that I could get this where I currently live, I started moving away from the main street and into some of the side alleys. I noticed something which I had first realized in Paris. The farther you walk away from the tourist areas, the more run down the buildings, shops, and people get. In Paris, it took me several city blocks to move from upscale to borderline poverty. In Istanbul it took about a hundred feet. Thirty seconds of walking and I was suddenly the object of great attention from all of the people around me - I had left the tourists behind and was now surrounded by buildings which reminded me of Nairobi or the back parts of Nogales. Impoverished city housing has an odd universal flavor. But the extreme disjunct between rich and poor shook me. I wondered what it must be like to live down one of these back alleys when such wealth is just yards away. It brought home the facade of the upcoming wealth: Budapest had been the same, a city where the extremes are brought very close in the name of modernization.

This trip marked my first visit to Asia, my fourth continent; but, in order to satisfy someone's curiosity, I have to mention that I've still only been on three tectonic plates. I'm not sure it counts, considering I spent perhaps two hours there, but I'm sure someday I'll be able to check it more fully off my list. The more impressive ferry trip led up the golden horn, to the more conservative Eyup district. The local attraction for Eyup is the tomb of one of the companions of the Prophet, something I'd heard about from my Islamic history tutor but was unable to fully appreciate until I got there, bound by tradition not to turn my back on it as I made my way out. After that, the thousands of other graves which line the hillside above Eyup might seem to be somewhat of a letdown; after all, none of them were companions of the prophet. But after the first five minutes of walking up, I began to see the point of the place. The view was wonderful and you would always be very, very close to your family. What more could you ask for?

I believe I mentioned near the beginning that Istanbul is a large city. Having spent three actual days there, I have been assured that I've seen a bare fraction of the place. Along with most of the rest of Europe, Istanbul has made it on the list of places I will have to return to someday. Perhaps in two years, when the Sulemaniye mosque has finished repairs and I'll be able to see Sinan's work at it's largest extant. But there is always the lure of other places: I've heard good things about Tunisia and Egypt, and though I've been to Africa before, never the Maghreb. So many places to go, never enough time. Someday, though, I'm sure.

The start of what I did during my vacation

The start of what I did during my vacation

So, I haven't posted anything on here in forever and so since a lot of time has gone by I have a lot of trips that I've been on, but I'll try not to be excessively long (cause I know this is going to get long).

So, I guess I start back when I went and visited Chris and Molly in Munich. It was weird going out of the country to a place where I really didn't speak the language, but English is so well known everywhere I hoped that it would go well. This was in December and I went with them to their Christmas party for their program. I went site seeing downtown, took some pictures of course. Chris and I tried to go to the opera, but that ended up not working out. Molly and I went to the BMW museum and I wished I had the money to buy the sweet car that I want. We also went to a cool science museum that was enough in German to only make slight sense. Yeah, I also got to watch Molly walk into a glass wall. :P While there I got to experience the difference of feelings of being in a place where there were other Americans, which was somewhat strange considering I only know one other American in Lausanne. I got to eat some authenic food and had a good time.

My family came over for Christmas to come see me (and it was a pretty good excuse to come to Europe). So the first week they were here with me in Lausanne. I took my brothers out with me Friday night, that was pretty funny, cause they don't speak French and didn't feel so inclined to come, but it went okay, although I went home pretty early. So in Lausanne played tour guide for them and basically chilled after finishing up some nasty weeks of tests and school and enjoyed Christmas.

While in Switzerland we went to the chateau de Chillon. Its was a gigantic refridgerator, so it was freezing, but it was really cool to wander through and read about some of the famous prisoners that they kept chained up in the dungeon.

The day after Christmas, we got on the TGV and went to Paris. Paris was fun. It was wet and foggy and cold, but we saw all the cool things like Notre Dame, les Champs Elysses, l'arc de triomphe, le tour eiffel, le Louvre et quelques choses d'autres. Basically it was crazy whirlwind touring and having issues with getting the right tickets for the metro system, but oh well. I will need to go back there at a more relaxed pace to really get a feel for the place, but it was a nice quick overview getting in some important sites.

Umm, well while in Paris, we went to Disneyland, cause the rest of my mom's family at home all went to California to go to Disneyland for Christmas, so not to be left out, we went to EuroDisney. It was typically european aka everything was smaller, but I got to ride some coasters so that was good. We didn't use the fast pass system as effectively as we should of and stood in some pretty long lines, but it was fun and reminded me why theme parks just aren't as good as coaster parks.

So then with the rest of my family sick of hearing French and not having a clue as to what was going on we got on the EuroStar and took the Chunnel to England. My dad enjoyed it cause he loves trains, but for me it's become everyday, I guess now that I think about it, it will be weird to come home and to not have trains or metros or public transportation that actually works. But then again it will be weird to drive a car and have parking lots everywhere too.

So now in London, we rented this sweet apartment that had cellphone looking things for elevator floor devices. (Of course I took a picture so you'll have to see that, but during this whole trip I took over a 1000 pics and thats kinda like a million hundred, so my plan is to go through them and pick a few good ones to post, but if any one feels so inclined to see the million hundred of them, I can send them to you or give you a link to them)

K, so in London, we rode around on the classic double-decker red buses and of course we had to sit up top, cause otherwise you miss half the fun. And we saw a million hundred of the typical red phone booths. And Buckingham Palace and Big Ben and Westminster Abbey and a million hundred things. The sparkly crown jewels and the Tower of London and went to some museums and the one occasion I have been to McDo's, cause seriously they are everywhere along with Starbucks and Claires of all things. Yeah, so I guess about half way through this it was New Year's and they did fireworks for forever and a half. It was crazy, seriously like two hours of fireworks. At some point in here I got sick and slept through a day, but recovered and got out afterwards. I could go into more specifics, but would have to look at my pics to remember everything better.

So then my mom and I finally flew into Rome. And I will have to continue my vacation from there later. So I'll try to finish up soon.

Chris’ Pan-European Christmas Tour: Fit the Last: Oxford and London, England

Wherein Chris gets off at the wrong bus stop in Oxford, wanders through a variety of superbly excellent book and music stores, sees a copy of the Medea with handwritten notes by Milton in the margins, eats Thai food at a Japanese restaurant in London’s Chinatown and walks along the Thames.

The England portion of the tour began well enough, if one considers that portion of the trip to begin with take-off from Istanbul. Otherwise it was a beautiful ending. In either case, we chased the sunset for three hours, and that flurry of brilliance which normally passes in mintues was drawn out for hours above the clouds. Absolutely wonderful. The presence of Stardust as the in-flight movie, only maximized the amount of perfection achievable in economy. Good thing, too because the next few hours were going to be miserable.

The first hint of the problems that lay in waiting came when I finally made it through the line to passport control, and the lady looked disapprovingly at my card and lack of address in England. I told her I would be staying with a friend at Oxford, and she made up some address for me, but the problem remained. I didn't know precisely where Emmett lived. But this shouldn't be a problem. I'll meet Emmett at the bus stop and all will be good because plans never ever go wrong. Then the bus driver asks me where I want to be dropped off. Apparently there is more than a single stop in Oxford. Having forgotten to recheck the message from Emmett before departing, I am at a loss for words. He suggests High Street. It's my only real choice. Unfortunately, upon my departure, there is no Emmett there. I half-heartedly try to follow the bus and those that follow at 30-minute intervals to try and see if there are any further bus stops. Eventually I run out of buses. It is now pushing eleven on New Year's Eve, and I have been wandering Oxford for hours and no idea what to do now since everything is closed. So I pay the police station a visit. After convincing the officer on duty I was not drunk and that going ome was not an option, the patheticness radiating off me finally convinces him to suggest a hostel, and that is where my luck begins to change. By all rights, the hostel should have been locked down, but some guy, completely out of his mind on some artificial chemicals, is propping the door open, flagrantly ignoring the 'Please do not smoke on the stoop' sign. When I discover that the computers in the lobby require a pound and that my last piece was spent on chips, the same guy gives me a coin before going off into the corner to play his acoustic guitar. From a quick check of Facebook and correlation with MapQuest, it is only a hop, skip and twenty minute walk to Emmett's house. I get there some six hours after first finding myself in Oxford.

The rest of the trip proves far more relaxing. The next two days in Oxford include walking the grounds of one of the colleges and passing by and through places of such interest as an exhibition of Milton with early editions of the various works and a copy of the Medea with his notes scribbled in the corner, the place where the Inklings used to meet (Eagle and Child? Lamb and Rod? Something of that sort, anyway.), and the Pitt River Museum, a museum in the style of the Victorian Age where various artifacts that caught the fancy of explorers were thrown together in glass cases and given no more labeling than 'Religion' or 'Transportation.' I liked Oxford. It had Blackwell's, simply the best bookstore I have ever seen. Also, it was comfortably sized and none too busy, though that may simply be a result of the post-New Year's timing.

Then there was London. Unfortunately, London was simply too big and expensive for two days and a student's budget. Too big for a month, come to think of it. The banks of the Thames are great, and we covered a lot of the city, making it into the National Gallery and Tate for a few hours on the second day. The thing is, it was nothing more than a tasting, a quick overview to give me an idea what I would like to do were I to come again. It's frustrating.

Chris’ Pan-European Christmas Tour: Fit the Third: Istanbul, Turkey

Wherein Chris discovers a city entirely unlike any other he has yet visited, partakes of a culinary tradition he was entirely unfamiliar with, and observes multiple aspects of Muslim religious culture firsthand for the first time.

I find it funny to remember the anticipation I was coming into Istanbul with. For a solid week, I had spoken nothing but German except for a few select sentences in English, once to try and demonstrate a Texan accent to my hosts, for a solid week. Istanbul, the farthest I had ever been from the States, was going to be my language break. Mostly that’s true. Very random guys on the street struck up conversations with me in English, and I didn’t need to bother with German at all. However, I did struggle to pronounce anything in Turkish. Literally, I think it took me two days to start pronouncing the name of Sara’s university consistently. Boğaziçi? More like Bowazeechee.

Istanbul, though, is the most interesting city I have encountered in my travels thus far. At first I thought of it as bulging, straining at the seams. Down the main street my hostel (the absolute nicest of all my hostel staying and named Chambers of the Boheme to boot) additions built on the second and third stories of the buildings leaned out into the streets, and at no time, despite staying atop a pretty good hill and taking a bus a fair distance to the airport, did I ever see the edge of the city. Neither was it uncommon to see half-destroyed buildings support the new ones sprouting up, as if the builders were too impatient to wait for proper demolition and just wanted to get on with it.

Now, though, I think a better word is vital, a liveliness propelled by the impressive contrasts at work in the city. On my first evening, Sara and I burned our way through one of the chicer malls I have known. On my last day, the bus took us past the partial ruins of the walls which once surrounded Constantinople. The aforementioned street is in Taksim, one of Istanbul’s trendier districts, one where you can only find chain stores. The streets at midnight were packed to an extent I have seen the main walks in Munich packed only during the height of the holiday season, and the women wearing headscarves were definitely in the minority there. Later during my stay, we took the ferry to Eyüp. In between visiting the tomb of a companion of Muhammad and prowling through the cemetery that dominated the hillside, we walked the market street. There it was not uncommon to see women in the entire no-hands-and-only-the-smallest-part-of-the-face black outfits. It was fascinating.

Then there were those things which were completely new to me. First, the food. Turkish food is amazing, börek fighting for a spot at the top of the list. The street food is more plentiful than any I have known, and they do some tricky wonderful stuff with cheese and yoghurt. Appropriate recipes and ingredients will be found and then cooked.

Besides the tomb, I saw entered my first mosques. Blue Mosque is kind of an impressive one to start with. Seeing the thing from the outside, I was expecting maybe three stories. No, the entire thing was hollow and quite beautiful, especially the calligraphy.

Istanbul is a city to return to, at least in twenty years or so when the subway begins to resemble an actual system instead of two lines that do not connect. Maybe it will have found a way into the European Union by then and be able to fill that nice, little, expectant space above the TR on the license plates with the rings of stars.

Chris’ Pan-European Christmas Tour: Fit the Second: Cadolzburg, Germany

Wherein Chris bums off (very) distant relatives, is treated most generously, enjoys foods which his palate was not sufficient to fully enjoy, and consumes more alcohol in a 24-hour period than he ever partook of in the United States.

Despite this being my first Christmas outside of the United States and away from my parents and sisters, I still manage to spend it with family, albeit family very distantly related through my grandfather. I spent most of my time with his cousin and his family, and visited one of his sisters and her daughters a few times. At least I had met them before, once when I was in seventh grade and my grandparents took me to Germany for the 95th birthday of a great-grandfather and great aunt and again before beginning my semester in Munich.

I am convinced that Moni, the wife of my grandfather’s cousin Georg, was a maid in a previous life but a bad one and her punishment was to shuffle back on to the mortal coil and do the maid duties but this time because she wants to, and she has dragged her family into it. They were incredibly generous and refused to ever believe that I had eaten enough. Quite literally I felt like the fiancé in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “Hast du Hunger?” “Nein.” “Möchtest du dann ein bisschen Tee oder Brot mit Käse?” “Nein, danke. Ich bin sat.” “Lebkuchen? Plätzchen?” At least I could understand their Frankish dialect better this time around and actually keep a conversation in German.

Anyway, the schedule is hectic. I arrive late on the 23rd and basically go straight to bed (after tea, bread and cheese). By the time I get up Christmas Eve morn people are rushing to finish preparing for the many dinners that are coming and still checking to make sure that I am perfectly all right and all possible needs and wants are satisfied. Family and friends come for a visit, and other family and friends are visited by us. Thus begins the drinking. Evening comes up, and we attend a Lutheran service and head out to another relative’s for Christmas Eve dinner. Hang out there for a while, enjoying their Super-Bio, homegrown everything, before tagging along with younger cousins to a club. Have my first Cuba Libre and sips of a Vodka Bull, terrible drinks, and get to bed around 4:30. Wake up on Christmas, and this time we’re serving lunch. In total, the drinking amounted to six glasses of champagne, a glass of 1988 red wine, schnapps, and the aforementioned long drinks. I guess the rum balls count, too, but I don’t remember how many of those I had.

By the end of it all, I’m exhausted. Good thing the general energy level dips then. I wander Cadolzburg some, my grandfather’s hometown, and shoot some pictures. It’s a very cool town, small enough that you can circle it in an hour or two and the streets in the town center, built around a castle dating back to the 30 Years' War are cobblestone.

Funny(ish) story. On the 27th, Moni gives me a ride to Nuremberg, so I can catch a direct train ride back to Munich. Wandering around after buying a ticket, I see that there is a train leaving for Munich a half hour than the one I originally intended on taking. I jump on. Unfortunately, it arrives a half hour later, cutting my already limited schedule to unpack, wash laundry, repack and recheck my flights before leaving to catch the plane to Istanbul down to two hours. It was a rush, of a sort.

Chris’ Pan-European Christmas Tour: Fit the First: Ischgl, Austria

Wherein Chris experiences for the first time true alpine skiing, realizes that the hills of Minnesota did not adequately prepare him, improves and bites it hard enough on the final day to require a trip to the resort doctor.

The invitation to join the family of the foreign-exchange student who lived with my family last year was first extended when I visited them in Dresden in the fall. I declined the invitation at first, unwilling to accept such generosity, but when I finally got around to planning what I would do with my two weeks of Christmas vacation and decided that a full week of my German relatives was too much, I took that answer back.

I am bleeding glad I did. For four days I got to hang out with decent people and speak a lot of German in Ischgl, Austria at a ski resort large enough (300 or so kilometers of piste I believe) to stretch into Switzerland.

Keep in mind now, my only previous skiing experience was at a small ski resort two hours from my house in Minnesota. I’m fairly the height of the building I’m living in here in Munich is comparable to some of the hills there. Also, I think the last time I actually did downhill skiing there was some five years ago.

Fortunately, it appears that skiing resembles riding a bike in that you never forget how, even if the difficulty is a bit more. No ski school for Chris this time around. Of course this means I fell somewhere between five and fifteen times on the first day. I know I fell at least five times earlier in the day, but on the last one, the one which ran from the highest point to the very bottom, I lost track. An these were proper falls too. Not slipping on a flat part. These were bite-it-and-slide-ten-meters-before you-slam-your-elbow-down-to-keep-from-finishing-the-slide-at-the-mountain’s-base falls. Amazed that I somehow came out of it all without any bruises. At least I improved. I don’t think I could have taken many more days of that punishment, and the others, far more accomplished skiers than I, were probably tired of waiting for me. Fell only three times on the second day and once on the third (and that was on the glare ice at the very bottom of the run where everyone had finished their own runs). Only twice on the final day, but that last fall was bad enough to send me to the resort doctor. Even though I was able to walk there, they still sent me to a town doctor to make sure my spine was okay because of the pain I was complaining of. Fortunately it turns out only to be a strained muscle in my neck. I have the X-rays to prove it. Thank God for free European health care.

I would have been happy to simply be there, even if skiing were taken out of the equation. It was absolutely beautiful. It occurs to me that mountains covered in snow should be cold and threatening, but I did not find them so. Cresting that first mountain and catching my first glimpse of the range was a view worthy of taking one’s breath away. The sky, too, was perfectly clear, a relief after the month of overcast in Munich and all the better to see the blue. I hear it’s a different blue, richer and deeper, than that you see from sea level. I believe that.

Last Night!

Here it is--my very last post from Ireland (excepting possible extreme boredom later tonight). I leave for home in about 10 hours to embark on the longest day of travel that ever existed. But it will all be worth it when I get home to family and snow just in time for Christmas! I am very excited to go home, but I absolutely love Ireland, and I hope to someday come back to Cork. If any of you ever get the chance to go there, you should defnitely take it!

What have I been doing for the past few weeks? Surprisingly enough, mostly schoolwork. I had tons of essays to write, and I just finished up the last one yesterday. Two weekends ago, Stephanie came to visit me and we went to Kinsale, which is a very pretty town on the coast. Also, it is supposed to have excellent seafood. I tried some fish, but honestly, it all tastes the same to me.

Last weekend Andrea^2 came to visit, and we had tons of fun. We went shopping around Cork one day, and the next day I made my third trip to Blarney, which was as pretty as usual. Luckily, we visited Blarney on the day that they had their Christmas festival, so we got our picture taken with a terrifyingly huge snowman, drank mulled wine and ate mince pies, and got to hear some quality Christmas music. It was a very good last weekend for me.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone! I am looking forward to seeing most of you in a few weeks at Gonzaga, and for those that I won't see, continue tearing up the globe and come back with some great stories for us!

Much love,
Anna

Ta barbarone gar doula panta plen enos

Hopefully all of you who are interested have had a chance to read what happened to me in Paris. If not, it's the next post down, and you might want to start with that one for some context. From Paris, though, I hopped on a train headed to Strasbourg, which I found absolutely marvelous. It was a beautiful city, filled with lights that I admired during my stroll by the river. It seemed like most of the town was out, walking around and talking despite the cold. I had a strange idea that this was the kind of place I would like to retire to, though I'm not sure what prompted that idea. I spent a good three or four hours just wandering and looking around, before settling down on a bench in the station where I started memorizing my first declension in Greek. This was, though I didn't know it, one of the last tranquil moments of the next few days.

The real story begins, as such stories often do, with a drunk German in the Strasbourg train station.

I was on the platform, trying to get on the train to Vienna, when this big, drunk guy starts ambling into my path. I instinctively try to maneuver out of his way, but with that amazing drunk sense, he manages to run right into me. He instantly starts to lean on me, shifting his weight so that I'm suddenly supporting most of it. He mumbles at me in German while I try to get him to sit down, lay down, or something so that he's no longer on top of me. He, however takes this as an attack. He suddenly goes from eloquent drunk to angry drunk, marking the occasion by punching me right in the gut. It hurt; it hurt a lot, but I did have the satisfaction of seeing him shake off his hand in pain. Anyway, he decides not to mess with me anymore and I make it onto the train.

I was reeling somewhat in pain from being punched, but I at least had a good night's sleep to look forward to. Given the pain caused by the guy's rings, I figured it would be a little difficult for me to just drop off to sleep, but I thought I could make it work. I made it to my compartment, and found I was sharing it with two other men. One, I found out instantly, spoke English and German. The other seemed to speak a little German, but later I heard him talking on a cell phone in what I guessed was Hindi. The first man was very enthusiastic about the trip and was telling both of us all about it. To make sure both of us got the gist of his stories, he translated every sentence between English and German. The other man and I, who couldn't communicate at all, shared a look at one point which clearly said, "Why won't this schmuck just be quiet?" So, both of us, in our respective tongues, told him politely that we needed to sleep. "Sure" he says. "I have some work I have to get done anyway." And he pulls out his laptop. I figure that I've slept next to people typing before, so I relax as much as my bruised stomach will let me. However, I immediately find out that this man is completely insane, as he narrates what he is writing the whole time! I asked him three times to quit talking while typing; each time he apologized and agreed to stop, and each time a moment later he would start it up again. When he got off, the other man and I shared another glance that transcended languages.

The train was late to Vienna. This was bad for many reasons. First, it was bad because I wanted to look around the city, but only had twenty five minutes at the station. It was also bad because this was where I had been planning on withdrawing some Euros to pay for the visa into Turkey, something which I neglected to do, which will cause unfortunate consequences later. Anyway, instead of being able to walk around the city, I rush to reserve a seat on the train to Budapest, and get on without much trouble.

The ride between Vienna and Budapest had no problems. I mention this now because I realize that unique aspect after the fact.

Hungary, I noticed somewhat to my surprise, did not use the Euro. This kept me from simply withdrawing a good amount from an ATM to use in anticipation of the visa for Turkey. No big deal, I thought. I'll just withdraw a certain amount in the local currency and change it. First, though, I decide to take a walk around the city to stretch my legs; given the two train rides and the delay on the first, I had been sitting pretty much for the past fifteen hours.

For the most part, Budapest wasn't bad. I got some food at a very American-like mall. Budapest reminded me, in fact, of an American city more than any European city I have seen. Partly this is because many of the buildings are brand new, while others are falling into disrepair around them. Also, it seemed like there were advertisements for Western products everywhere. I kept seeing advertisements for a Disney movie in Magyar, which is incredibly surreal. I was heartily enjoying myself for a couple of hours, and my stomach wasn't hurting nearly as much, but problems were ahead. I was searching for a certain cathedral I had seen on a map when I was confronted by some guy who was blind in one eye. I'm not sure if that's an important detail about his life, but he was certainly using it to try to intimidate me. He talked at me rapidly in Hungarian, so I just said "no" noncommittally, trying to walk away without even noticing him. He doesn't accept this. He starts to follow me, asking, "English? Deutsch?" and I keep saying no, and am now looking for a place to walk to away from him. I notice, incidentally, that there is a bulge in one of his tight sleeves which looks to me suspiciously like a large knife. So, in a fit of rather desperate genius, I say, "hablo espanol, tu hablas?" which seemed to stop him in his tracks and gave me an exit.

I continued to head around the city, thinking that my problems in Budapest were over. At one crosswalk, though, I saw a reflection in a passing bus: I noticed that the same guy was now following me around. At this point I was slightly worried, so I made my way back to the train station, only stopping to note that the Bureau de Change was closed, and in a creepy area outside the station to boot. I was tired, and figured I'd be better prepared to deal with it in Bucharest. Since I didn't want to go out of the train station, and since Hungary has seemingly not invented public benches, I waited for three hours standing, half asleep, in that cold station because some crazy nut in Budapest disliked me at first sight. I made it onto the train, found my seat, and practically collapsed.

I thought, reasonably, that I would at least get some sleep on this train ride. Not so. For the first five hours some Russians decided they were going to throw a party in their compartment, with music blaring and people conversing loudly in machine gun Russian. I think I could have slept through the noise, but the fact that they came to my compartment every ten minutes or so inviting me to have some cocaine with them was a little distracting. This was especially true because it was the same guy every time; he must have been so high that he forgot that he had just asked me the same thing. At about one in the morning they passed out, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

About this same time a Romanian family came on board and decided to share my compartment. When they came in, I cursed silently, but I figured that this man, woman, and child would want to sleep immediately. What I found out, though, is that Romanians don't sleep. All of them, including the seven (ish) year old kid spent the whole night talking as if I wasn't there. As soon as they found out I couldn't speak any Romanian, they kept chatting away as if they were the only ones in the compartment. They did drop off eventually, around seven in the morning or so, so at least I got some sleep.

Also, my good luck when it comes to weather decided to play its part. While I have hit heavy rain or snow in Ireland, Germany and France, apparently that is not enough to satisfy whoever doesn't like me upstairs. The main route to Bucharest was snowed in, so they had to go around. This meant I would be late, again.

Here comes the good part of my story. I make it to Bucharest station. I find that, being late and with the time zone change, I have fifteen minutes before the train to Istanbul leaves. I've slept three hours maybe in two nights. I don't speak a word of the language. I still need Euros for the visa. I take a deep breath and plan a course of action. First, I get money from the ATM, and change it for Euros. I ran into the Change, pretty much thrust the money in the womans face saying, "Euro. Euro." She looked at me like I was insane, and very casually started the transaction. I felt every second tick by, as she took her time to make sure I received the right amount. Turns out the Romanian currency is worth more than the Hungarian: I pulled out nearly two hundred Euro. Running out of there left me about ten minutes, so I ran to the ticket counters. When I got there I nearly despaired. There were massive lines, no discernible order, no handy sign saying "International Tickets" or its translation, and, if my experience with my fellow passengers and the lady at the Change was correct, no desire to engage in communication with anyone who didn't speak Romanian. Alright, I thought. The train to Istanbul couldn't be very crowded, and I had seen a man on the train to Vienna buy a ticket on the train itself. I figured, I already had a ticket, all I needed to do was pay for a reservation. If anything, they were so lax in these Eastern European countries, they wouldn't care at all. So, I got on board and relaxed thinking that all my problems were over with. I had a ticket, I had money for a reservation and the visa, I didn't have any reason not to sleep; in something like eighteen hours I'd be in Istanbul and would at least have a friend who knew her way around.

The conductor comes nearly immediately. I give him my ticket. He accepts it, but obviously wants more. I offer him money. I believe he thinks I'm offering him a bribe, which I would have done if I thought it would help. He decides, though, to use me as an example to other passengers who want to the bend the rules, and literally pulls me out of my seat (luckily I had the foresight to grab my luggage) and pulls me to the door. I think for a moment that he will just push me out of the train while it is moving, but he kindly waits until the train stops at the next station before pushing me out.

Here I am, then, alone, tired, starving (I didn't have a chance to get breakfast, or indeed much of a dinner) with no reception on my cell phone and still no perceivable language skills in the middle of nowhere, Romania.

I think, as best I can, of what my options are. There is nothing around the station for as far as I could see. The old men sitting on the bench look decidedly sketchy, and since there wasn't a schedule saying when the next train back would be, I decided I was probably better off just walking back to the only place in Romania I knew, following the tracks. My best guess, by how fast I walk, was that it was about three miles. By the time I got there, I made an accounting of what my options were. I could try to find a hostel, food, and a reservation for the next train to Istanbul, but in my condition, I didn't think it was very likely I would succeed at doing any of those things.

Anyway, I called it quits. I grabbed a taxi, got to the airport, noticed that the flight to London Heathrow had been delayed, bought a ticket and the rest, well, you know what they say.

Needless to say, I made it back to Oxford with no problems. By now, I've pretty much recovered, and I've begun second guessing myself. The lines were long at the ticket counter, yes; but they were moving pretty quickly and I probably could have made it back in time. Or maybe finding accommodation wouldn't be hard at all; after all, most places have hostels right near the stations, and from there it wouldn't be that hard to get food, etc...

The gist of this is, I'm really disappointed I didn't make it. On the other hand, despite getting punched in the stomach, being stalked by a crazy guy with a knife, being kept up all night by three sets of crazy people, and getting into a tussle with a railway conductor, I think I made it out of there relatively undamaged. Maybe next time.

The Haunt of Ultime Fauchelevant

This post is admittedly ill-conceived. First, it is late in coming, since it's been nearly two weeks since I first arrived in France. Secondly, Chris has already written about what we did, so this will be derivative at best. Still, since I was there for some time after Chris left, I still think it will be worthwhile to talk about what happened then. Also, as some of you may know, I ran into some adventure on my way to Istanbul, and in the spirit of a good action novel, I'm not going to tell you about it in this post, since I have enough to say about the old home of Fauchelvant and Pontmercy.

Paris, I found after a few days of touring it, is very similar to London. This realization did not hit me all at once; it came upon me slowly as Chris and I saw the various highlights Paris has to offer. I found I kept comparing them to places in London, and as I have a certain affinity for that city, I usually found myself arguing for London's superiority. The metro is nice, I would think, but the Tube is far better; cleaner, more efficient, and more navigable. The Louvre is incomparable, yes, but really, it shouldn't be compared to any one of London's museums; the way it was conceived, it should really be matched by both the National Gallery and the British Museum. So I thought, until I realized London could take care of itself. If the Notre Dame is more grand than St. Paul's Cathedral, so be it; and if the Arc de Triomphe is superior to Nelson's column, well, look who won in the end!

On my first day without Chris, I began by walking from the hostel to Notre Dame. To say I was blown away was an understatement. I knew going in that Gothic architecture was designed to draw one's eyes to the ceiling, the better to draw one's mind to God, but I had no idea that anyone had pulled it off so effectively. Besides, there is a grand difference between knowing that and actually feeling your eyes drawn higher, until your gaze rests upon a magnificent stained glass window, and while your body is cold you find that your mind has just become frozen, and you can only catch your breath and gaze in wonder. Everything about the cathedral, the size, the architecture, inspired to me to be quiet and be still in the same way St Paul's inspired me to want to sing. It was, to be grossly literal, impressive.

From Notre Dame, I wandered. I noticed something interesting, if not fairly obvious: the farther I got from the Notre Dame and the other attractions the shabbier the shops and houses became. I was still in a commercial district, but I thought it showed how reliant Paris is on tourism. I haven't really noticed whether or not this is true in London.

Eventually, my wanderings led me to the Jewish quarter and the Latin quarter, the latter being mainly comprised of students. The surprise I got was not that these two areas so close to each other were so different but that both places could be so intricate and self-absorbed. The fact that I could see three ancient rabbis discussing (I think) Leviticus in Hebrew and not ten minutes later see some students sitting in front of the Pantheon talking about a date one of them had had made me realize that these two groups probably had no need to interact with each other at any moment in their lives.

I considered this at some length while I walked back to my hostel from the quartier latin. On the way, I realized that this was the real similarity between London and Paris; their eclectic giganticism. One cannot really think of either London or Paris as being a single city, but only as a set of unconnected districts within spitting distance of each other. I would grow tired of this quickly, I thought as I passed a random and tourist filled department store. It would be the worst of both worlds: of being in a self-involved small town and being in an anonymous big city filled with tourists that would me feel like an animal in a zoo.

Past the department store, my surroundings gradually changed. I passed out of the (very) commercial district and came into a more residential area. Mothers shepherding children replaced people struggling with shopping bags. It was getting dark, but I could see children walking home in groups of twos and threes. Everyone around me was speaking French rather than German or Japanese or English. I stopped in a grocery store, and I realized that there is something a little strange with speaking a foreign language in such a place. If I had heard someone speak English in that grocery store I would have noticed; I would have raised my head to look at the speaker and we probably would have shared a connection: we don't belong here. Where I was walking, there was none of this.

Turning the corner after the grocery store, I found a main street lit up with Christmas decorations. As I looked at a giant snowflake, I thought to myself, I could live here. This is the true heart of Paris. This place, where children walked at night without fear, with grocery stores and real Christmas decorations twenty minutes and a lifetime outside the Paris of tourists, this could be a place to live. I felt like, if not for me, then for someone, this place could be a home.

Ein Wochenende in Paris, während dessen es viel geregnet hat

Got back to Munich from a weekend in Paris this morning. Almost made class too, but the airport bus took twice as long as normal to get into the city because of morning traffic. Scooting into class a half hour late is not really acceptable, so I had to visit the doctor and make some vague complaints to get a valid excuse for missing class. Kind of pathetic. But this post is not about that. It is about the trip.

Paris is beautiful, and I am not simply speaking of the monuments that get so much (deserved) play on the postcards. Yes, there is a fair amount of graffiti and street cleaners do not manage to keep everything so tidy as those in Munich (though I find it hard to believe any could manage that), but within the central city at least, I do not know where one could find anything ugly, much less plain. There just seems to be this pride in not allowing anything to be common. Every apartment building has wrought iron fences on the balconies or stone designs running along the sides. It is something else and wonderful to walk through.

Only managed to hit up the Louvre this trip, but the four odd hours spent in there were not enough. First was by myself on the free Friday, and the second was with Emmett, just kicking off his Continental Train Tour by arriving in Paris on Saturday evening, on Sunday (first Sunday of the month means free access to all museums). At first we attempted to visit the Musee d'Orsay, but the line was insane and dedicated line workers were trying to organize it a little bit. Popularity probably has something to do with fewer free days than the Louvre, which is always open to those under 18 and the unemployed. Fun fact. Saw the triad of biggies in the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Was more impressed, me at least, by two interpretations of Cupid and Psyche and one marble statue called "Veiled Woman."

Other highlights: walking down the Champs Elysees when all the Christmas lights were on, visiting the Sacré Coeur for the view both inside and out, seeing the Eiffel Tower sparkle, strolling along the quai and considering the best way to break into various wedding parties, working our way past numerous sex shops and live shows to pass the Moulin Rouge, and crossing Pont Neuf, like Jason Bourne at the end of the first movie.

Not sure how many of you know this, but this was not my first trip to Paris. Just after graduating from high school, I went with my French class. Also, the fact that I have four years of high school might be a surprise. What was a surprise to me though was that I actually remembered enough French and could speak with enough of an accent that I did not immediately come off as some idiot tourist. For example, when the doorman at the very nice hotel came to kick Emmett and me out from underneath the awning and back into the torrent, he did not reply in English when I asked "Oú est le Métro?" Until I just stared blankly at his French, that is. Quick point, weather was insane. Constant rain in the evenings, and some major wind gusts that took out more than a few umbrellas. Weather has actually bad enough to deter us from walking back to our hostel and just using the Métro instead.

Now all there is to do is anticipate visits from Stephanie and Sara and plan my Christmas vacation.

Tschüß.

Munich

While last weekend was an adventure in Ireland, this (marginal) weekend I spent perusing Chris and Molly's city of residence. Owing to some scheduling and price hassles, I flew in Sunday morning and left Tuesday, so I managed to come over right in the middle of their classes. While I only have fond memories of having classes every day to remind me what it is like, I understand the amount of hassle it requires to take in a visitor, especially when you have more mundane things to occupy your mind. So thanks again, guys, for all your hospitality despite the circumstances.

Making what seemed to be the best of two bad decisions, I decided to try to stay up to catch my 4 A.M. bus to the airport rather than trying to get some sleep and risk missing the alarm. As a result, my only sleep that first night came from about an hour on the bus to the airport and an hour and a half or so on the plane. Perhaps because of these circumstances, I mistook the directions which had been given to me by Chris and got off at the wrong bus stop: the main train station in Munich. For many people this would be reason to start panicking, but given that I was quite tired, I wasn't too worried about it. Apparently other people were, though. I received a call from Andrea, still in Oxford, relaying Molly's worry about me. Having received this call, I decided it was a better plan to just wait in the train station rather than get on the U-Bahn where I would lose reception and have Molly really worried. So, for about an hour I waited. When Molly finally did call me, she gave me the same instructions I would have followed without her. While I can't speak German, I can navigate underground trains. It's like music and karate: an international language.

Having finally arrived at Molly's apartment, the three of us (with Chris) decided on our next course of action; it was a decidedly somber next step. Visiting the reconstruction of a concentration camp is not supposed to be a light and fun outing. The only thing it made me do was think; admittedly something more difficult having only had two and a half hours sleep. The exhibit in the museum segment was entitled: "How did the Nazi party come to power?" but that is at once nearly trivial and yet beyond a museum's ability to answer; this is especially true when coupled with the companion question of Dachau: "How could a modern nation, with all its benefits, systematically, coldly, cruelly, calculatingly murder millions of people who had not lifted a finger against it?" Even Stalin had (or imagined he had) better reasons for his great purges. The holocaust was simply an absolute and needless destruction. While I do not believe that there can be "no art after Auschwitz" as Adorno maintains, I found the art pieces designed as a memorial at Dachau were repellent to me. I wondered why; then I realized that the form of Dachau matched its function. The camp was lifeless: the buildings all at cold right angles, the grass decaying and dying, the paths open and without scale, the guard towers anonymous and forbidding, the wall blank, the empty expanse open to bitter winds. Adding artwork was like putting perfume in a coffin, in order to mask the smell of death, but more than that: to add scent in order to reanimate the body with a little life. This memorial did not need artwork to display its emotion. The camp was enough, as a kind of anti-art meant to make one dull and to deconstruct the person within. After experiencing that, I can add my voice to those who say, nie wieder! Never again!

The next day, I slept in. After having some more problems with finding places on the U-bahn thanks to Chris, we decided to just take a look around some German bookstores before heading to the primary entertainment of the night. The bookstores, I have to mention, rekindled my desire to learn German after I learn ancient Greek. Chris and I met Molly coming out of class at this point, and we went and had some truly German food: sausages, sauerkraut, and a beer; Bavaria at its finest. After this, Chris and I headed to the Rodrigo y Gabriela concert.

Rodrigo y Gabriela, for those who do not know, are a pair of acoustic guitarists who got sick of their heavy metal band and traded in their electric guitars for nylon stringed guitars when they realized they could do more tricks with them. They are probably most famous for their cover of Stairway to Heaven, something to check out on Youtube if you have not. They are two of the finest and most creative guitarists I have ever heard or heard of. They have created an ideal musical situation, with Gabriela playing rhythm guitar in a style I believe to be truly unmatched (she just as often plays percussion on the side of her guitar as she does her incredible strums on the strings) while Rodrigo plays lead with ample nods to his heavy metal roots. Both of them have invented (as far as I'm aware) techniques; but then they are experts at these techniques as well. While many of their songs are not structurally or harmonically impressive (not that that always produces good musical results) their technique is beyond masterful, and is pulled off with a hint of sprezzatura which can only be found in those who truly love and have invested thousands of hours into their instruments. On the one hand, seeing them was slightly depressing: I have so far to go, still! On the other hand, it was inspiring. I want to be able to play like that someday, in a different style, sure, but with their finesse, confidence, and technical ability. More inspiring, still, was the fact that Rodrigo threw his pick out into the audience after the first set and it practically fell into my hands.

Tuesday came with a trip around Munich's historical and traditional shopping center. The markets were fantastic, but I'm not sure how willing I would be to get on the U-bahn every day to get fresh fruit. Apparently, Molly and Chris need to get on the U-bahn anyway, just to get to the grocery store. Personally, I would prefer smaller and more local shops, but everyone has to live somewhere.

Upon my arrival in England, I got another reason why I'm studying at Oxford. I was at passport control in Heathrow, which has very negative connotations for me, and the young lady at the counter was asking me whether I was a resident studying in England. I replied yes, I was studying at Oxford. As she stamped my passport, she asked me what I was studying, and I replied that I was taking tutorials in philosophy and history. Her eyes went wide for a moment, and she said, under her breath, "wow," before waving me through. I only hope that the grad schools I apply to have the same reaction.

For now, then, I just have one more paper to write before I meet up with Chris again; this time it will be in Paris. From there, I'll be taking the train to Istanbul to visit Sara. I'll be on the road a lot, which always tires me out; but I'm pretty sure it's worth it.

Ein deutsches Thanksgiving

We, being myself, Molly, the other members of JYM and more than a few visitors, celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. Yes, I know that is was a day late, but we were making due. People had classes on Thursday, and the lack of Saturday classes permitted a holiday level of drinking that might otherwise be avoided on a weeknight, helped along by a generous preparation of Glühwein, which is, as far as I can tell, mulled wine.

Amazingly enough for over twenty college students working mostly independently of one another, the dinner was pulled off quite well. Yes, the original plan was to start dinner at 4:30 and was pushed back to past 6 because of the turkey cooking team's realization the morning of Thanksgiving that they the grocery shopping team had bought them two turkeys and there was only one oven, but that worked out. Other people, unprepared for how long some recipes would actually take, came in late and the food still all ended up being warm and tasty. All of the standards were there too. The ingredients for mashed potatoes and and stuffing were easy enough to pull off, but canned cranberries and pumpkin pie mix had to be brought back from the States by a JYM student who went back for a visit this past weekend. Finding a reasonably-priced and sized turkey apparently was a bit of a feat, but Molly was more in on that than I. Otherwise, my contribution was two plates of cornbread (quickly becoming one of my favorite recipes because of its ease, speed and variability) and the gravy. Very happy with my first try at gravy. A little thick, yes, but it looked a lot like gravy. That was helped greatly along by the impartation to me that the secret to a good roux, the butter/flour base of gravy, is to stir in only a single direction.

Personally I most enjoyed the opportunity to share Thanksgiving with our four German visitors and single Estonian, especially since two of them are majoring in American studies. (I hear that over a 1,000 students are enrolled in that institute. Who would have thought?) The whole idea of a holiday is often quite different from its practice, and Thanksgiving does have the distinction of being a very American holiday.

For those returning to Gonzaga, I hope these last fews weeks of the semester do not prove too stressful. Otherwise, I'll be seeing most of you in a little under two months now.

Tschüß.

An Irish Thanksgiving

Hello all,



I see that Emmett has already written about our exciting adventures together last weekend, so I don't need to go into that, except to say, here and now, that Emmett has said he owes me dinner senior year. It's in writing now; it's official, since he is bailing out on his chance to cook for me when I go to Oxford because he is going to Paris with Chris. :-(



I was full of trepidation about spending Thanksgiving away from my family for the first time EVER, but it turned out okay. My favorite roommate left for Amsterdam on Wednesday, so I thought I was going to be doubly lonely, but one of the American guys that lives next door had his parents visiting, and they QUITE generously offered to cook a nice turkey dinner for all of the family-less Americans. All in all, there were 21 people crammed in one apartment. It was intense. I, of course, brought forth the Idaho pride and provided mashed potatoes. So, not a bad Thanksgiving overall. I even found football (U.S. style) on TV! (Ooh, side note. Apparently Irish people also call "European football" soccer. They have their own sport called Gaelic football, and I suppose that 3 versions of football was too much for them to handle.)



Today I wandered downtown to look at the Christmas lights (very pretty, even though they haven't turned all of them on yet) and finally get started on my souvenir shopping for my family. It is officially Christmas season! That, coupled with the fantastic cold and joy that shopping brings me, put me in a good mood, the one I usually associate with Christmas. :-)



Tomorrow my friend Doug is coming to visit for a few days, and I'm very excited about that. Next weekend I am going to visit Andrea at Oxford, and we are going to see Wicked in London!!!! Prediction: Andrea and I will be hard pressed not to sing along to all of the songs.



I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I miss you terribly.

Love,
Anna

On Aqua Vitae and plain Aqua.

Since Chris, Molly, and Anna seemed to have so much fun visiting each other in Cork and Munich, I've decided to join in the excitement. This weekend I visited Anna in Cork, and next weekend I'll go bother Chris and Molly in Munich. Then I'll be traveling pretty much until Christmas break, so I won't be able to really return the favor of having my schedule being disrupted and getting behind on my work. Sorry guys...
I must admit, I had rather romantic expectations for Ireland. I'd never visited before. Looking back, that seems strange, but since the opportunity was there, it was something I couldn't turn down. I had an image in mind of small villages with people speaking in Gaelic, playing violins at the pubs at night, and lots of green rolling hills before you got to the silvery blue sea. Perhaps there are parts of Ireland like that, just like there may be parts of England where people still wear monocles and speak snootily on every subject. Cork, however, seemed to me to be just like England; even the different accent didn't throw me off, since it was about as different as a Cornwall accent.
The flight over was a little exciting. Flying on Ryanair, I have a vague hope that my chances are better for sitting next to someone who is interesting and hygienic, rather than the usual people who seem to take over half my seat and snore the entire flight. This trip, I managed to avoid that problem. Instead, a few minutes after being seated, I found a sharp pounding in the middle of my shin. The source of the pain was a foot attached to a three year old girl, quite precocious and energetic. After a little while, her mother noticed and put an end to this quickly. She apologized, I said it was nothing, and figured that would hopefully be the end of any interaction between us. What I found instead was that she was the source of my cleanliness when her daughter decided to vomit upon landing. I took her wet wipes appreciatively, and again waved off her apologies. She wasn't the one who needed to apologize to me.
Everything was uphill from my arrival. Even the pouring rain which greeted me (thanks again for putting up with that, Anna) was better than the plane. Though it seemed like it would last forever, the rain just meant I had a chance to learn a new card game. After quite a while, the downpour receded. Anna and I decided it would be worth the risk to go visit a couple of the local drinking establishments. The first was large enough so that it didn't seem crowded, but the second place was packed shoulder to shoulder. The drinks, however, was very good. The Guiness was, in my opinion, superior to the export product, and Anna introduced me to a local beer, Murphy's, which is one of the better beers I've ever had in my life. Too bad it's only made in Cork and not likely to be found in England.
The next day we visited the Jameson Distillery. It was an interesting trip. I didn't ever even think about the difference between fermentation and distilling was, but, after the visit, I can even tell you the difference between Irish whiskey, American whiskey, and Scotch. The highlight of the visit was at the end, where they took volunteers to be whiskey tasters. After a slight moment of indecision and fear, I raised my hand and was hustled off to a separate table with three other people away from the rest of the group. There they gave us samples of three different kinds of Irish whiskey, Scotch, and Jack Daniels'. They do indeed have very distinct tastes. After I picked up my certificate labeling me a qualified whiskey taster, Anna and I were both starving, so we found the cheapest fast food place in town and had wings and chips. It was funny going from sophisticated to dirt poor in a matter of minutes.
That evening the rain continued. It was raining when I got back to Oxford as well, so instead of blaming it on the fact that I'm living in the British Isles where it rains a good portion of the year, I'm going to say there's a good chance I'm a rain god, like the Douglas Adams character. Perhaps places with droughts will pay me to visit them; alternatively, perhaps vacation places like Malta will pay me not to visit them. I can see lots of opportunities here. Still, the rain kept us inside for the rest of the evening, so it mean playing more cards and watching The Usual Suspects, a brilliant movie.
My visit was far too short. Someday I'll have to go back to Ireland and take a good tour around the country, but for now, I suppose it's enough to say that I've been to the homeland at last.

Pas de francais

Well, this week was insane. I'm so tired today. I'm definitely not ready to take on another week. I need another weekend. School was long this week. I have a paper for all my classes that was either due this week or is due the next. I hate writing and the fact that it's all in French doesn't help.....

But on a more fun note, I finally went out of my French speaking region. I ventured into Bern and got earfuls of Swiss German which made me feel really lost and confused as to how in the world I was supposed to get food anywhere because my German consists of nothing and even if I could speak haut dutch it wouldn't have made too much difference to the Swiss. Wandering through some of the street markets I'd catch a handful of French every now in then and was glad to hear that 'cause it felt like home. I did manage to somewhat communicate and in buying myself this dang awesome hat. I must say it was funny though because I went with an English speaking friend and we spoke in English to each other, but whenever confronted by the others we would switch into French, although we realized our English would probably be understood more than our French, oh well.

In Bern, we went to the Einstein museum. It was dang sweet and worth the high toll that they exact out of you for entry. I was sad I didn't know German because although the exhibit was in German, French and English all of Einstein's notes and papers were in German. It would have been fun to understand them besides the occasional math formula. My friend (completely non-math orientied) gave me such a strange look when I tried to explain my excitement over the law of sines that I kept the rest of my math and physic joys to myself. It was too bad she didn't want to discuss red shifts and relativity.... Other than that we placed tourist and took a lot of random pictures and saw the other stuff in the city, but it was so dang cold. In feranheit (I'm getting used to Celcius, it's getting hard for me to think of regular temperatures, 1 is just easier than 37) is was 26 degrees out and I've decided winter is not the best season to go exploring, although I'll undoubtably do it some more. But it was an amazing train ride home because seriously all of the country looks like a postcard. And with the alps in the background all covered in snow that look fake because they are too pretty and too perfect (although most of the time there's too many clouds to see them) I don't know what could be better.

Ein Wochenende in Irland

Anna visits Munich last weekend and gets to play tourist in our adopted city. This past weekend Molly and I get to repay the favor for three nights. Head over Friday morning and wake up bleeding early Monday morning, only to wait an additional two hours in the airport because a replacement crew member needed to be flown in from Dublin.

First up, Cork and Ireland and general impressions of such. Cork and Ireland, in their great similarities to Spokane and the United States, provided a break from Munich, Germany and not merely through the language. Yes, I have been greatly enjoying the urbanity and cosmopolitan nature of Munich and the related opportunities to see my first opera and ballet, but it can be overwhelming, too far removed from my past experiences. Getting into Cork and seeing streets lined with stores that I could actually afford to shop at was a relief in some ways. There was such a sense of vitality in the streets too. When we went out in the evenings, whether on a pub crawl (Tried two different stouts over two nights. Absolutely vile drinks that were a struggle to finish. Also the awareness that bars packed to capacity and blaring music that forced you to shout though the person you want to talk with is next to you are not my place was strongly reinforced) or whatever, the sidewalks were full of passing groups families and groups, very rarely plugged into their iPods or talking on cellphones.

Saturday, we went to Killeagh at my request. Hearing that I was going to Ireland for the weekend, a cousin of my mother's sent me a list of names of distant family who still might be around Killeagh, the town my Irish relatives swarmed out from. Looking for the relatives was a bust. Talked to random strangers, visited the post office and looked through the baptism register of the local church, all to no avail. Still, despite that particular failure and Molly and Anna's need to repeat "Kill-a Queen" every half hour, I liked Killeagh. A lot like my hometown in Baudette, small and the people knew each other. In the cemetery, I spoke with a couple, and they pointed me towards some people who knew the O'Neills and McCarthys, general directions and all. After totally missing the turn, I knocked at a random house, and they were able to set us on the right path again. Another benefit of visiting Killeagh? We got to see the countryside. Get to miss that living in Munich coming on two months, and it was the Irish countryside, which has its own undeniable charm.

We made our way over to Blarney Castle and its famed stone on Sunday. It's a huge tourist attraction and has some small notoriety as the "most photographed building in Ireland." Kind of wary of that at the beginning, but I really did enjoy the visit. Avoided kissing the stone because I hear that the locals whiz on it regularly (and a morning washing is definitely not enough to make me want to put my lips on it), but the castle was cool, had a very different feel from those I have visited in Germany. The grounds were absolutely great. Ireland has a pretty strong tradition of mythology, and it is not difficult to understand why after seeing that place. The rock formations and caves and thick brush were something out of a fairytale or Lord of the Rings.

Taking it easier for the rest of the month. Heading over to Heidelberg on Saturday to catch a Bloc Party concert and then remain in Munich for the rest of the month. Gives me time to start up my essays.

Wo ist Anna?

Hey all,

I went to visit Molly and Chris in Munich this weekend, and it was my first venture out of Ireland in over a month. I've been getting kind of used to living in the atmosphere of small-town Ireland (even though Cork is about as big as Spokane) but it was fun to get back into a big city and experience a completely different European experience than I've been having.

I finally found my way to Chrolly (Yes, I really am too lazy to type Chris and Molly) after a terrifying experience involving me missing the airport shuttle, not knowing any German, and my cell phone not working in non-Ireland countries. But I made it, and I didn't even break down crying in the U-Bahn, which is something I'm quite proud of. Friday we went and looked around the university and other cool places in Munich. I'm a big fan. I generally like big cities, because whenever I go to a new one, I think it's my favorite that I've been to, and Munich was no exception. Friday night we went to the opera and saw Marriage of Figaro and I understood none of it, but it was still quality entertainment and I feel more cultured now.

Saturday was the best part--we took a day trip to Salzburg and saw all kinds of cool stuff! I really liked the narrow streets with high buildings on both sides and the cool architecture, but my favorite event of the day was when we found a park based on the Magic Flute and played there for over an hour. The slide was my favorite part. Or maybe the tire swing type things.

Sunday we went to mass (in German!) and then an art museum. That night we watched a movie which I'm pretty sure beats out Hackers for the title of "Worst movie ever". I got back to Cork this morning and Chrolly is coming to visit me this weekend, so I have to make sure my hostessing skills are up to the challenge!

Sadly, I had to write my very first paper since May this week, which was very depressing as it is putting a damper on my 6-month long vacation from hard-core school work, but I know I cannot complain about that when all my Gonzaga buddies just had midterms.

I hope all is well back in Spokane or scattered across the globe, my dear friends.

Love,
Anna

Oxford

This is an account of one of the more surreal days I've had in Oxford.

I was sick, and had been for several days. I was also running out of cash so I thought I would force myself out of the house and to the bank in order to get some. I barely remember the walk down; my head was fuzzy and my breathing was about the same. Every three steps or so I was reduced to hacking coughs. That, plus the fact that I was wearing one of my heavier jackets in order to retain some semblance of warmth, probably was the reason several people stopped me and offered to buy any copies I had of Big Issue, which is the magazine homeless people sell around here.

Most of the walk to my bank is generic English town. There are lots of little grocery stores, cafes, newsagents, and bicyclists. It could even be some place in America, somewhere on the east coast but without the massive snobbishness, and with a far more diverse selection at the farmers market. Still, there is not much that makes you think you're in the city that grew up around the oldest University in the English speaking world.

Oh, except the Clarendon printing house of Oxford University Press (go look at any books you have which are OUP: if they say Clarendon St., then that's the one near me), which is about two minutes walk from my house. But that hardly counts.


About fifteen minutes walk in, I've gotten to the part of the city which actually looks like a University, probably because it is. My bank, however, takes me away from the beautiful Bodleian library and Trinity college, my own. Instead, I turn down the market street, which is typically English. It is the widest street I've seen in Oxford, but it's closed off to traffic. It is full of actual stores: a couple of bookstores, music shops, and a department store, but also several banks. Today, though, it is particularly crowded. There are usually several street musicians plying their trade around this area, including a guy on the bagpipes whom is the best I've ever heard. Today, near the end of the street, by my bank, there is a full salsa band. I cursed the fact that I was sick, because at that moment I had a wild urge to ask the next passing woman for a dance, but it would have taken too much energy.

Actually, perhaps it was just as well I was sick.

I withdraw my money and I start heading back. Instead of pushing through the crowd this time, I stay close to the edges and try to sneak past them. I notice, however, that there are people there set up with stands, looking like they have things to give away. As I never pass down something free to read, I head over there. The first one turns out to be a stand for the local communist party. I laugh, and start to move on, but I notice the title of one of the pamphlets: "Communism: The Only Viable Future." Feeling like I needed some amusement and actually being somewhat interested in how they sweet coated a "Scientific expression of History" I took it and started to move on. I was stopped mid-step by one of the communists taking my arm.

"It's seventy pence," he said.

The wracking coughs that I produced signified for him to repeat his statement.

I was astonished. The communist party was reduced to selling its pamphlets: it was making money on production, it was betraying its proletariat ideals, it was gouging the price of cheap literature. I had to buy it. I would have paid pounds for that experience. As I took out my money, he asked me where I was from, and what I was doing in Oxford. I told him I came from Utah, and he said it was "One of the more exotic parts of the States." I told him I was studying in Oxford for the year, and he insisted that I sign up for their e-mail list. I really couldn't think of any reason to refuse. Now, of course, I think: If I ever run for office in the U.S., this would probably work against me. On the other hand, I'd really like to see one of their meetings.

Anyway, after that, the next stand was a Muslim proselytizing. I didn't get into nearly as long a conversation with him, probably because I mentioned I needed to just pop round the corner and buy some whiskey, but I would love to come back to talk to him. I did take his pamphlet, though, and I'm proud to say that Christian tracts are much, much worse. I don't believe it's an art form meant to be perfected.

After that, I decided that the previous events had cheered me up so much I was up for a little studying, so I went to Trinity college's gardens (absolutely gorgeous, by the way) to read the book I had brought in case of such an eventuality. I read for perhaps an hour when I was overshadowed by two men who were waving a camera at me. I wondered at what kind of shot that would produce before I realized that they wanted me to take a picture of them. I did, they thanked me ("shih-shu, shih-shu") and I got up to leave. On my way out I realized I was at a university, at a college within that University, that regularly had tourists show up and want to see the sights that were the grounds where I am studying. It gave me a little shiver down my spine.

After that, I walked back and took a nap. All in all, a good day.