The pace of life just never slows down...

I'll try and get some pics to add soon...

After our nine days of gallivanting around Eastern Europe, as I settled into my bed Sunday night I desperately hoped that I would be able to get a decent amount of rest and enjoy my first week of classes.  I got about half of what I requested.  Classes were interesting (more to come on that later), but there was certainly no excess rest to make up for all the lost sleep of the previous week and a half.

I’m taking sixteen hours of classes this semester. Davidson College only does credits and not hours, so I’ve never operated on this system before, though it isn’t particularly hard to adjust to.  Monday I didn’t have class until 1:15, so I was looking forward to sleeping in.  My plans changed Sunday evening, however, when I was informed that four Davidson students currently studying in Geneva would be arriving in Vienna around 8:30 a.m. and they would need some assistance finding our place (where they would spend two nights).  Thus, I was up by 8:30 playing host.  They easily found the correct U-bahn (subway) stop and I walked Richard Ruffner, Andrew Brown, William Reigel, and Ben Carey back to my apartment.  After a couple hours of catching up, Pat and I walked them to the Opera House where they started a tour out of a book.  Pat and I returned to our apartment to get our stuff for class (and I took a 20 minute nap) and then headed out ourselves for the day.

My first class was Austrian Art and Architecture at 1:15 with Professor Ottersböck.  She’s a really nice, slightly older lady who grew up in the states.  Through the class I’ll get to see most of the major architectural phenomena in Vienna as well as have guided tours and lectures in most of the major art museums.  On Mondays we meet in the institute for class, and each Wednesday (after the first one) we spend touring a different building or museum.  It should be really interesting.

My second class of the day is at 6:20 in the evening – Cross Cultural Philosophy.  My professor is Geza Kallay and he commutes every week from Budapest.  He teaches my class and one other on Monday evenings, spends one night at a hotel, teaches the same two classes the next morning, and then trains back to Budapest to teach at the university there.  This class as well should be really interesting; there is a lot of discussion (which I love) and we’ll probably just spend most of the time asking deep questions that really aren’t answerable anyway.

By the time we got home (Pat and I share both classes on Mondays) our guests had already eaten and were relaxing down in the Naschmarkt.  After relaxing and letting Pat and I eat a little food, the six of us plus our roommate Tad headed out on the U-bahn for the first district.  We ended up at a local establishment named the Bermuda Brau where we hung out for a few hours.  By the time we left the U-bahn was closed, so we had to walk home.  Fortunately it was a nice night, and this provided the opportunity to stop and get food on the way.  We made it back and set everyone up on a couch with at least something to cover his legs (in Williams case it was a hoody) and we all went to sleep. 

Tuesday morning I have German at 9.  Thus, I was up and out of the house by 8:35, at which point I woke everyone else up so they could start their day.  Our cleaning lady also comes every other Tuesday, so it was a little hectic making sure everyone was out of the apartment.  My German class will be fine; I have a different professor from the intensive course so it will take a little while to feel her out, and I’m not particularly sold on how we take notes in class, but it’ll all be ok.  I’m still in the same class with David so at least I still have someone with whom I can do my work.

At 11:50 I have Cross Cultural Philosophy, which left me enough time in between to go down the street and get a little extra breakfast.  Unfortunately, I also have class at 1:25, so I don’t get to eat lunch until nearly 3.  My 1:25 class is entitled “Europe Beyond the Nation State” and is taught by Professor Gerlich.  So far it has just been about the EU (which I guess is what Europe is besides nation states), and it looks like it may just be a semester long version of the four week briefing on the EU I had in Western Europe at Davidson last year.

My final class of the day is another Poli Sci class – The New European Security Architecture taught by Professor Neuhold.  He is a very serious man who occasionally cracks a joke, but it’s hard to tell when you’re supposed to smile and when you shouldn’t, though he told us he wants everyone to smile at least once per class period.  Anyway, the class focuses on what threats Europe faces now (as opposed to fifty years ago) and how Europe and the U.N. are going to face said problems.  Like the rest of my classes, it should be pretty interesting.

That night our visitors picked a local schnitzel restaurant named Schnitzelwirt and we all went out.  The portions here are huge and the prices are the lowest in the city, so it was a fantastic meal.  Afterwards they went out to try and catch the second half of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino at the Oper and Pat and I went home.  A couple hours later they showed up and we all decided that since they had to get up early and Pat and I were still behind on sleep that it would be best if we all just went to bed. 

Tobi and I at the Rapid game on Saturday

Wednesday morning Rich woke me up about 8:15 to say goodbye.  I made sure they knew where they were going and thanked them for coming.  Once they left I immediately returned to bed.  I got up about 11 because the only class I have on Wednesdays is Austrian Art and Architecture (AAA).  This first Wednesday we met and had class, but from now on we’ll be going on a tour every Wednesday of a different monument or museum in Vienna.

Thursday I have the same schedule as Tuesday except without philosophy around noon.  Also, Patrick left early in the morning to leave and visit his girlfriend Katie in Edinburgh for the weekend (actually until Monday).  Thursday evening I went to a café in the fourth district to meet Felix Petsovits, a young man here with whom my Uncle David connected me.  Felix did an internship with AFS in NYC this summer where he met David, so I was given his contact information when I left to travel to Vienna.  We sat and talked for about an hour at which point I suggested we go to the Pub Quiz IES was hosting.  This is pretty much just a trivia game at a pub.  Felix invited a friend as well.  The questions were bilingual so it was extremely helpful to have him there.  We got fourth out of a dozen teams, so I guess we did all right.  It was pretty fun though and Felix got to meet most of my friends, so we had a good time.

Friday I have German class at 9 and that’s it.  Once again, after class I immediately went back to bed.  I woke up again about 2 and prepared to start my day.  I found I had two Facebook notifications and two emails from Allison Jones, a friend from Davidson, that said she was in town with Kerry Meyer (another Davidson friend) and that they were just walking around and wanted to hang out.  It also turns out that David went to high school with Kerry, so the four of us went and got coffee at the Museumsquartier.  David had to leave so I walked with Allison and Kerry to the Naschmarkt.  We spent some time there and then went to go eat dinner.  They asked for something traditionally Viennese, so I took them to Schnitzelwirt because I liked it so much.  We got one regular schnitzel and one “a la Mexicana” just to see what it would be.  It turned out to be some kind of ham and cheese with paprika combination.  Still, it all tasted great and we couldn’t finish them both (which just meant we had leftovers we could take David. 

The Rapid team after the game

That night we walked down Mariahilferstrasse (the big commercial street near our house) to find a new place or two to hang out.  Allison and Kerry decided to call it quits relatively early due to their long day, and their place wasn’t particularly far, so I walked them home and then went back to find David and our other friends, Roger, Laura, and Aliza.  We found a spot to hang out for a while, but it wasn’t particularly fun, so we ended up going to an area named the Gertle and visiting one of our favorite places, Chelsea.  It was an 80s themed night, and after about an hour and a half of hearing great song after great song I was tired and hungry, so I called it quits.

The next day Allison and Kerry were going on a self-guided bike tour, which worked out great because I was going to a Rapid Wien game with a bunch of IES people and Tobi.  We went to a restaurant for lunch near the stadium and then poured in along with the other 15,000 fans.  There was a really cool “Rapid Zone” (a bunch of connected tents) outside the stadium that was kind of like one big tailgate.  We hung out there for a while and then went into the stadium.  It’s no Arrowhead, but for a smaller European league it’s pretty nice.  We chose to stand at the top instead of sit in our seats, which were already pretty high up.  The game was against KSV Kapfenburg and did not lack excitement: KSV scored in the 10^th minute, Rapid in the 19^th, KSV in the 50-something, Rapid in the 70-something, and then finally Rapid scored again in the 94^th minute (the fourth minute of four minutes of extra time) to seal a 3-2 victory.  The really crazy part was the "Rapid" fan section. In one endzone section behind a goal all of the fanatics sit.  And by sit, I mean they stand the entire game and yell and sing and cheer and clap and wave flags and go nuts.  The opposite endzone is similar - they call it the little brother.  It was honestly so cool to watch, and a little bit scary.  They yelled whatever a guy with the megaphone told them too.  I almost half-way understood how radicalism begins...

Their devotion is unbelievable

By the end of the game it was raining so we all went back to our respective apartments.  Eventually I went out and found Allison and Kerry who were at a café and took them to get Kasekrainers – bratwursts that have cheese in them.  They are so, so good.  Allison did a phenomenal job this weekend; she’s a vegetarian but she was very open to eating the traditional meat dishes in Vienna (apparently she’s doing the same in Florence).  After getting our food we walked back to my apartment where we hung out with David.  Again Allison and Kerry had spent the whole day out, so they were tired, and I was also reasonably exhausted from the game.  They decided just to take a cab back to their place because they had to catch a train at 7 a.m. to Budapest, and out of exhaustion I stayed in and watched college football then went to sleep.

Today has been really relaxing.  The weather still isn’t great so I did a lot of things around the apartment and for classes.  Sorry this was so long and there aren't pictures, but thanks for reading!

Budapest - Our Final Stop

After our second 8+ hour bus trip of the trip, we situated ourselves comfortably in our 4-star Best Western in Budapest, Hungary.  Here the jokes about Pat and I being a couple really came to a climax.  When the sign up sheets went around for rooms in all three cities, the first two were pretty straight forward, but Budapest was more complicated.  There were only three doubles available and the rest of the rooms were triples.  When the sheet got to Patrick and me, couples on our trip had taken two of the doubles, so when Pat and I took the last one it didn’t do our reputations any favors.

The Hero's Square in Budapest 

After relaxing for an hour, we headed to the Trofea Grill restaurant for dinner.  It’s an all you can eat, all you can drink buffet style restaurant, and there were far too many good foods to be tasted.  They limit customers to a three-hour time limit, but our group only made it about two before we were all too full to eat or drink more.  The bus took us back to the hotel where we were left to do our own thing.  There was a Rapid Wien game that evening (for a refresher on who Rapid Wien is, you can revisit this post) so some of us huddled in one room around a computer screen and watched it.  It was our first game in the group stage of the UEFA Champions league, which is pretty much an all-Europe tournament.  Unfortunately we had to play FC Porto who is the top team in Portugal and usually pretty good.  Thus, we lost 3-0, which was kind of a dampener on our evening.  Nevertheless, after the game we decided to try and go find a bar a few of our friends had gone to during the game. 

Me in front of the father and son who held off the Turks
and reestablished control

I was given exact directions, and we followed them perfectly, until for some reason at the last turn it was the consensus of the group that we hadn’t gone the right way, so we didn’t even take the last turn just to go see.  Instead we wandered around for another hour in search of another place that we never found.  Oh well, good bonding experience?  So we just went back to the hotel and slept.

The next morning the bus left at 9:30 for our tours led by Dr. Janos Szirmai who works at the University of Budapest.  Friday morning we took extended tours of the Heroes’ Square and the Museum of Fine Arts.  The Heroes’ Square was really cool – it had about 14-16 statues of important historical figures in a semi-circle around one larger statue.  Each figure was a part of a crucial point in Hungary’s history (WWII, stopping the Turks, etc).

Our view of Budapest from the top of a hill

After standing in the rain and looking at all the statues we went into the Museum of Fine Arts.  Dr. Szirmai helped renovate and restore the museum a number of years ago, so our tour was certainly a privilege.  We saw plenty of famous paintings by a number of different artists over a variety of different periods.  I found the impressionist paintings particularly interesting – there aren’t any clearly defined lines so it presents the appearance that the subject could be moving.  It was all pretty neat stuff.  At the end of our tour we were given about a half hour to walk around the rest of the museum.  There was a Greco-Roman exhibit, some other paintings, and an Egyptian exhibit.  I decided to walk through the Egyptian one just to see what they had.  It was rather comical.  They had one mummified alligator, a few small statuettes, and a sarcophagus or two.  It was funny to think that this was the most, biggest, and coolest Egyptian stuff most people would ever see.  Made me feel pretty lucky.

Our guide explaining something
vigorously

That afternoon it was still raining.  The group split into people who were going back to the hotel and people who were going to one of the natural hot baths.  Patrick and I decided to go back to the hotel under the presumption that we will be going to a hot bath in Istanbul so we won’t be missing much here.  So we went back to the hotel, told ourselves we’d take an hour nap, and go to the sauna in the hotel.  Instead we slept for 3 hours, but ended up going to the sauna anyway which was pretty relaxing for like 45 minutes until one of our student assistants, Katya, came and found us and said they were leaving for dinner soon if we wanted to go.  So we did.

We went to the same restaurant as the night before except it was in a different location (like a chain restaurant).  This time we successfully maxed out the time we are allowed to stay there.  It was Pat and I, two other girls, and then our two student trip leaders and one of their friends.  We had a pretty good time.  Afterwards we went out to find the club Morrison, which happened to be the place we looked for the night earlier and never found.  All of us walked in past the bouncer, and then Pat and I realized we didn’t have enough money to get in so we left to find an ATM.  Katya decided to accompany us.

A Roman amphitheater (coliseum)

First, you should know that the Hungarian currency is the Forint and it runs at a rate of 285 Ft to 1 Euro.  This means in order to take out 10 Euros you have to withdraw nearly 3000 Ft, which is pretty ridiculous and led to us calling their currency things like “funny money” or “Monopoly money.”  Pat and I each got enough to get in so the three of us went back.  By the time we got there the bouncer at the door had changed and he asked us for our IDs.  I have no idea why.  But Pat and I both showed him ours, so he let us through.  Katya, on the other hand, had not brought her ID with her, and despite the fact that she’s 23 he wouldn’t let her in.  Pat and I stopped right inside the door to wait, and at some point Pat commented that there was “no way a girl who looks like Katya doesn’t get into a club.”  And while I agreed with him, he ended up being wrong.  She was pretty mad (especially because she didn’t even need to go get money) and she just stalked off.  Obviously I wasn’t about to just let her go wandering around Budapest by herself, so I left as well and we wandered around and made our way back to the hotel, which ended up not being such a terrible thing because I was actually in kind of early for the night.  (I ended up getting on skype and I didn’t go to bed until really late again…but that isn’t the point.)  Everyone else had tons of fun at the club though (there was karaoke as well), so it all worked out ok.  Except for Katya who is still mad at that guy.

Roman ruins from living quarters

 The next morning we left at 9:30 again to go on more tours with Dr. Szirmai.  We started our day by driving up a big hill outside the city to get a great view of the city.  We also got to see a couple statues that stood for a variety of things as the country changed governments between communism and democracy.  Afterwards we went on a tour of the Roman ruins within the city, of which there were plenty.   Mostly notably we saw an amphitheater (that actually has a greater floor area than the Coliseum in Rome but was much less impressive around the outside) and the remains of a small town or living area.  Dr. Szirmai showed us their heating systems that were used for their houses and especially their baths.  We then went inside a museum and observed a variety of artifacts; the most notable of these were a couple of reasonably sized mosaics.

A Roman mosaic

Lunch that day was served on a boat on the Danube River, which is the same river that runs through Vienna.  This time, however, the boat didn’t leave the dock.  Still, it was nice, and the sun had just come out.  Our program director from IES Chicago had been in Vienna for a few days while we had been gone, and he had to meet with a couple other staff members that were on our trip, so he had taken a train from Vienna to Budapest to join us.  Thus, we were all on our complete best behavior.

One of the Communist statues

After lunch Pat and I went back to the hotel.  I went to look for a jersey (which I didn’t get because the stores in Budapest close at 2) and Pat took a nap.  Eventually I gave up and returned to the hotel to take a brief nap as well.  We woke up about 6 and left for dinner at 6:45.  On the way to dinner Pat and I chatted up the IES Chicago representative.  Needless to say, he loved us.

One of the most impressive Communist statues

Dinner was at a restaurant that was having an Oktobierfest.  This was reasonably deceiving.  It turns out what this meant was simply that they were serving one of the dozen or so beers that are available at Oktoberfest, and that you could order it in ways similar to how it is ordered in Munich (liters and meters, and we tried both).  The food was very good though; I had some sort of grilled fish with vegetable rice.  After dinner we all went back to the hotel and were allowed to do as we please.

Pat and I, along with a group of other students, accompanied a couple of our student assistants to a gigantic club a reasonably distance from our hotel.  When I say gigantic, I mean just massive.  The entrance way was nothing special, but inside it was probably 4 stories high or more and there was just a massive open space.  It was interesting to be there for the whole night – when we arrived we were some of the first people so it looked really empty, but by the time we left the place was completely packed.  The biggest part of the club was the speakers.  For those of you at Davidson, imagine riding in the back of Fish’s car, multiplied by 20.  And that was just the bass.  Unfortunately they only played techno, and I feel like it was the exact same beat for all 5 hours we were there.  But we still had a blast.

Ah, the Fuchs bus. How we loved it, and proceeded to get so
very tired of it after only a week.  But it brought us home
safely, and that's all we can ask.

We tried to keep the fun going in our room after we left, but it only took pat and I about 20 minutes to just completely crash, especially when we realized we had to get up and be on a bus the next morning.  On our way out of Budapest we made one last stop with Dr. Szirmai at a statue garden.  Most of the statues here were from the Communist era in Hungary and were some type of propaganda or fear-inspiring device.  Some of them were just massive.  Still, there weren’t very many so it only took us 40 minutes to walk around the whole place.  We then reboarded the bus and headed home.  We made one pit stop, and then another for lunch.  This was supposed to be a one-hour stop but it took slightly over two, which made everyone very cranky since we were only an hour away from Vienna.  Finally we made it back, and Pat and I settled back into our apartment.

Coming soon: Davidson Geneva visits Vienna!

Krakow - A Much Different Experience

If the pictures aren't big enough on any post here, feel free to click on them and enlarge them!

One of the towers from the old city walls

Monday evening we arrived at our lodging in Krakow after about 10-11 hours of travel on our Fuchs bus.  We stayed at a place named the Hotel Piast and it operates as a hotel in the summer and student dorms during the rest of the year.  Pat and I were in a double that shared a bathroom with another double (I didn’t take any pictures, sorry).  Our entire program was all on the first floor of the hotel except two rooms, which was pretty fun.  That first night we just ate dinner in the hotel and stayed in to catch up on sleep.  I also tried to watch the finals of the US Open, but in the middle of the second set it rained so I ended up going to bed and missing the end of the match and the Chiefs’ first win of the season. Oh well.

The next morning we at breakfast at 8 and boarded the bus to go on a tour of the city.   Our initial visits were to the old city walls.  Inside these walls is now a reasonably sized commercial area and it is the center of the city.  Our guide showed us a variety of churches and monuments.  One of these was a monument dedicated to a massacre somewhere in Poland’s history.  The sad fact was on a large anniversary (100, 150 I don’t remember for sure) of this massacre their president’s plane crashed and he was killed (this happened fairly recently – 2008 maybe?).  Not a fantastic date in the history of Poland.

The center of the city

Eventually we made our way to the main castle inside the walls.  It’s pretty big and situated on the highest hill, which only helps it dominate the landscape.  Inside it there is a gorgeous cathedral, which we weren’t allowed to take pictures of, but there is color everywhere.  Plus, we got there just in time to see them open the altar for the day, and it was spectacular as well.

The castle on a hill

For lunch we went to the Cechowa Restaurant, and despite the service being a little slow, it was still pretty tasty.  Afterwards, we boarded the bus and headed about an hour outside of Krakow to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Warning to all, the following is a description of what we saw and may not be appropriate for some to read, especially young children.  If you want to skip past it, the first sentence of something not about it is completely bolded.

Click to enlarge this one - there is fire
that shoots out of it's mouth every
few minutes

The first sight we visited was Auschwitz I.  It’s comprised of about 30 buildings.  Most of these were living quarters for inmates who were working at what started as an imprisonment/concentration camp.  We walked through a couple of these where there are many facts about how many stayed there and how many were killed, as well as large stockpiles of belongings of all the individuals who came though.  We walked past but did not go in the building (block 10) where Dr. Carl Clauberg conducted experiments on women under the belief he would find a sterilization solution to “the Jewish problem”.   Next was block 11.  This housed a variety of punishment areas.  Outside was the death wall where shootings frequently took place, as well as such punishments as hanging prisoners backwards from their wrists.  Inside there were small cells where as many as 40 people would be put at once to starve to death. There were even tinier cells where 4 people would be put and closed in.  It was such a small room that they could not sit down, and thus were left to die from exhaustion, starvation, or suffocation - whichever came first.

Auschwitz I

 We continued our tour around the camp and eventually saw the gallows.  Our final stop was to walk through a gas chamber.  Disguised as a shower, it is connected directly to the crematorium where the bodies were immediately disposed.  Once in the chamber, a small container of some poisonous crystals would be dropped into the room, and it would slowly release into the air and seep in through the prisoners’ skin, nose, mouth, and the rest of their naked bodies.  The agonizing process generally took about 15 minutes – sometimes more or less depending how much acid was dropped.

The Death Wall decorated with flowers

After our visit to Auschwitz I, we went to Auschwitz II, also named Auschwitz-Birkenau, which also started as a concentration but was also converted to an extermination camp.  This camp was many times the size of the first, and the rail tracks run right through it.  Trains would run right into the middle of the camp.  Believing they are simply being relocated from another Eastern European location, the travelers would disembark with as many of their belongings as they could bring.  In the distance there was a line of trees behind which they believed were more houses than the few they could see in front of them.  In order to keep order, they were told that they would be served food, but first they must shower.  The most efficient way to do that, they were told, was for everyone to strip down and shower together.  Though this was weird, thousands at a time would obey and walk straight into the gas chamber.  Sometimes there was a man acting as a “physician” who would pull a few of the most able-bodied people aside claiming to need to examine them.  These were the people who stayed at the camp and did work for the Nazis.

A gas chamber.  The entrance way used to have much
higher walls so people could undress and walk in.

At Birkenau we saw rooms in which there were 26 triple bunk beds on each side.  That makes approximately 150 beds, though 2 or 3 or more people often shared most.  Regardless of the weather they only had one blanket, and mattresses, if there were any, were made of hay and straw.  We then saw the bathrooms – a bunch of holes in a large cement strip inside a building.  The interesting thing about all of it is that when the Nazis were being pushed back and they knew the camp would be discovered they poured gas on all the buildings and tried to light them all on fire to cover up the evidence.  Over 1.3 million were killed at these camps; 1.1 million of them were Jews.

It all is so puzzling and upsetting.  On the one hand, it’s terribly frightening and upsetting that so many people would follow this kind of ideology.  On the other hand, it made me want to know so bad what was going on in all of their heads that made this all seem right.  There are pictures of guards standing next to the gallows after a hanging and they are all smiling and laughing.  But it was the sterilization that really got me.  They believed that it really was acceptable to discover a final solution that would end the Jewish question.  Not just acceptable.  Rather that it was necessary for the good of the world.  It’s one thing to operate under the belief that you’re part of a superior race, but to attempt to exterminate another?  It’s one of those things that I don’t understand, and I probably never will.  The entire time I was walking around I was thinking of a quote from the Lord of the Rings, and it’s probably the only time I’ll actually be able to use it and have it actually be serious and in context: “So much death.  What can men do against such reckless hate?”  I’m glad I know so many good people in the world.  Without them, people with opinions as strong as these would have little trouble imposing their ill-directed will.

Birkenau. Travelers believed that behind the trees was a much larger settlement for which they were headed.

After a few hours touring both camps, we departed for our restaurant for dinner back in Krakow.  Our dinner was at the Jewish Restaurant Ariel where we ate a fantastic meal and then had a concert from a string trio (I can’t remember the name, but they’ve played some pretty big venues).  Afterwards our guide, Blanca, showed us to a bar that just had a cover and then was all you have once you’re inside.  It was pretty fun, although our program just kind of picked a corner with couches and just camped out, so it was hard to know what the place is actually like.  I left “relatively” early because there was a group of people leaving and most didn’t know where they were going, but I was tired anyways so it worked out.

The next day we had an entirely free day to do with what we chose.  Pat and I slept in and then met the group for lunch at the same place as the day before.  Afterwards we went with a reasonably large group of people the Schindler Factory – a museum dedicated to a man (Mr. Schindler) who helped save a significant number of Jews during WWII.  It retold the story of the outbreak of the war and how it affected Krakow, and then how the Jewish quarters were liquidated in two quick days – first parents and then children and the elderly.  Finally, it talked about how Schindler ran a factory that employed Jewish prisoners, but he paid as much as he could and the conditions were much, much better than at the other factories.  Estimates vary, but Schindler saved thousands of Jews through his factory.  Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is based off of this story.

Dinner that night was at the Polskie Jadło. It was again a nice meal, and tonight Pat and I decided to stay in and rest because we had another long bus ride ahead of us the next day.  I hung out with some friends on our floor of the dorm for a while, did some skyping, and then got a few hours of sleep.  The next day we made great time and arrived in Budapest, Hungary a couple hours early.  IES really splurged here, we’re in a 4 star Best Western that has been amazing so far.

Final thoughts on Krakow: it was a pretty cool city, though I wasn’t as pleased with the nightlife as I was in Prague.  The architecture was really cool though, and of course, the history is complex and difficult.  Unfortunately it was cloudy much of the time we were there.  That, combined with our visit to not particularly happy places, left me feeling as though the city is constantly a little depressed.  It was certainly an experience I won’t soon forget. Sorry the post is so long, though I’m glad I have lots to write about again!

End of the Intensive and Prague

Pics will come soon or just look on facebook...To avoid making this post unbelievably long, I’ll do a massive editing job on the last week of our German Intensive so I can focus on the trip to Prague, because that’s way more exciting than talking about school work.  In this last week we started to cover things like modal verbs, which means we are now actually able to form somewhat normal sentences (like “I want to…” or “I can…”), or at least ones that are more complicated than the very basic Subject-Verb style.  It was generally uneventful, though Wednesday was quite the enjoyable and hysterical night.  Pretty much 4 or 5 of us from the apartment just sat around (Allison joined us as did Ashley a bit later) and hung out and watched tennis (yeah I’m still watching as much as I can).  It was a great bonding experience and produced some fantastic lines and laughs.  Just now realizing I may not have written down whom all I’m living with, I’ll at least tell their names:

A view of Prague from the top of the Castle

Evan is a music major from Denver University.  Jeremy is a music major (tenor) who sings opera and is apparently really good though he hasn’t showed us yet.  Egemen is a composition major from Turkey (though he lives in Minnesota).  Tad is not a music major nor do I know exactly where he’s from.  And then there’s David who I’ve already talked about, and Patrick and I.

The Prague Castle

Friday morning was the Intensive final.  They gave us two hours but after one I had done all I could do and still had to pack so I turned it in to the professor who gave me a wicked look even though I wasn’t even the first one done.  Anyway, I ran home and finished packing, and Pat, Tad and I met the bus for the 9-day tour at about 12:45.  At 1 it pulled out and we began our six-hour bus ride to the Czech Republic and the city of Prague.

One million little pieces in this mosaic on the outside of the castle

We arrived and checked into our hotel – the Hotel Golf.  There are 45 students (out of the 140 here) on our program and three IES staff members – Tobi, Kaja, and Katya (though she’s a student associate and therefore not actually a staff member I was told last night).  Ironically, Kent was supposed to come instead of Kaja, but he couldn’t find his passport (I felt soooooooooo vindicated).  Patrick and I are in a double, and we have a very small tv that allowed me to watch a tiny bit of the Nadal-Youzhny match.  We got about an hour to rest, and then we boarded back onto the bus to go to dinner.  For our first meal we went occupied the entire back room of of the Restaurant U Bilého Iva where we were served bread, soup, and a main course of pork chops and mashed potatoes.  It was all very good.  Afterwards our guide, Michael, led us to a club (Futurum) that was having an 80s and 90s themed night.  It was actually really fun, but it was especially cool because every song was accompanied by a video that was projected onto a large screen above the dance-floor, which added an interesting element.

View across the river from the St. Charles
bridge

Saturday we got up early to eat breakfast and start our sight seeing of the city.  We walked around a similar area to where we had been the night before, except this time we had a guided tour from another one of our guides (David) of the Prague Castle and the Old Town.  The castle was really cool and was built over many centuries so it has plenty of different styles of architecture incorporated into it.  We even did the climb up to the top and had a fantastic view of much of Prague.  There are plenty of other things to describe: coffins in the church, the throne room, the defenestration of Prague…but I have pictures of it all so I wont spend even more time writing about it here.  Before lunch we watched the changing of the guard (way to intense) and then we ate at the Malostranská Beseda where we had chicken and another type of soup.

The group split in the afternoon – about half went to a football match and the other half shopped for a while and then went to an opera.  I went to the football match – AC Sparta Praha (the home team) won on a late goal.  Most impressive, after the guy scored, he did a standing flip.  It was really fun though, even though there weren’t that many people there, though the crowd still managed to be quite loud.

AC Sparta Praha game

That night Michael again took us to a club – Music Club Lávka.  This one was pretty and we ran into some other English speakers/Americans who were also studying abroad in Prague.  After a while a few of us left to go down the street to the “5-Story Club,” which boasts itself as the biggest club in Eastern Europe.  It really does have 5 stories, and each one had a different theme (jazz, laid back hip hop, techno/modern music, oldies, and I can’t remember the last one).  We had a blast there.  Our roommate from Vienna, David, followed the trip to Prague so we knew he was in the area, and we looked for him for a while in this club.  Eventually I left to lead a group of 10 or so people back to our hotel (because no one really knew how to use the public transit system), but Patrick stayed and eventually found him.  Evidently they had a fantastic time because Patrick got back about 4:45 (at which point I was still awake because I had just been sitting on my computer on skype talking to people).

Changing of the Guard at the Palace

Patrick and I decided that we should not get up at 8 on Sunday and go on our tour the next morning.  They weren’t covering a large area and we had free time in the afternoon, so we got up about 12:30 (still only like 7 hours of sleep) and met the group for lunch at the Restaurant Potrefená husa (we weren’t the only ones who didn’t go) and then went exploring ourselves (which was far more efficient).  We saw everything they saw as well as quite a bit of other stuff, plus we were significantly more rested than most everyone else.

The river where we took our boat ride at night

:) I had to take a picture

Dinner was at the Restaurant Kamenny stul and it was delicious, especially the desert that was some kind of ice cream cake with fruit and whipped cream topping.  Afterwards IES funded a boat cruise on the Vltava River that runs through Prague.  It was pretty neat to do at night, although it was a little lame because we only went a certain distance and then turned around – a route we covered 3 or 4 times.  But still, we had a blast just hanging out on a boat.  Afterwards Michael showed us one final club.  David met us again, and this time I actually got to see him.  We hung out there until about 3:30 when we finally made our way back to our hotel.

We had to be up and boarded on the bus by 9, which wasn’t too terrible.  Unfortunately we spent most of the day on a bus, which also wasn’t terrible except I couldn’t fall asleep. So I ended up lying down on the floor and sleeping/just resting for a long time.  Alright, that’s all for now.  We made it safely to Krakow, so I’ll put up a post about it here once I’ve enjoyed my time here.  Thanks for reading all this!

Vienna Week 2

It’s weird. It feels like I’ve been here for so much longer than just two weeks (probably due to the two I spent in Egypt beforehand, but still), yet at the same time I feel like time is just about to start flying by.  Two weeks ago last night I had just moved into our new apartment, yet two weeks from last night I will be returning from a 9-day, 3-city tour of Eastern Europe.  Two weeks after that my mom will be in town, and by the time she leaves my time here will be nearly half gone.  Wow.

This week was pretty nice.  The workload for class started to pick up a little bit but it still hasn’t been anything like Davidson.  My German is certainly progressing.  This week we had to write and perform a short skit about looking for/checking into a hotel.  My partner (and roommate) David and I nailed it, I think.  We didn’t really get to see our grade, but I thought it went really well.  We had another test on Friday for which I have also not received the grade, but I’m pretty sure it went really well too.  All we have left of the intensive is one week, including our final.  Put that way, things seem to already be moving kind of fast.

From left: Casey, Ashley, Sam (it was her birthday) and Taylor

The social nightlife during the week this week was substantially lower than it was last week (which is probably much more normal).  Monday was a friend’s birthday (Samantha) so we took her out to an Italian restaurant.  Afterwards I just went home and watched some of the U.S. Open (which I’ve done a lot of – Fed and Nadal are both looking very strong, this ending could be fun).  Tuesday – Thursday was more of the same except without the birthday dinners.  We pretty much settled into a routine around the institute and class and home, plus the weather wasn’t particularly awesome so it made it easy to just stay in and not do much.

Friday finally rolled around, and after taking the test, our class went to a café to practice ordering and just to have a relaxing end to the week (plus IES was buying, so why not go?).  I then proceeded to go home and clean the majority of the public living space in our house because we were having guests.  David helped me some in the kitchen, which was reasonably gross.  But everything looked nice at least until some people cooked dinner, but I guess that’s bound to happen.  I then took a brief nap and got ready to host and go out.  We ended up having about 20 people at our place, which isn’t actually that many given the size of our apartment, but we’ve discovered that American’s aren’t the greatest at controlling the levels of their voice, so at 10 when quiet hours started we started to get a little worried.  Eventually a friend came down from a few floors up and reported that a lady had complained about their “Schnitzel party” of about 8 people cooking food, so we immediately turned off our music and made everyone be quieter.  We probably still hung out until 11 or so, and then we set out to find a place to spend the rest of the night.

One of the places we tried to go but it was too crowded

This weekend was the first time our U-bahn and public transit system ran 24-hours, so some people thought it would be creative to stay out until the U-bahn would have started running again on a normal weekend, which is 5am.  First we followed our RA to a club we couldn’t get into because it was already too crowded, so we decided to relocate to the Café Leopold.  I don’t really know how to describe this place.  For starters, it’s inside a museum.  You have to walk up stairs to get in, and the first floor has a bar and a non-smoking room where we hung out for quite a while.  There was also a downstairs with a big dance area where a band was playing and they later set up a DJ.  We hung out there until around 4 when a few of us got hungry, so we left and took the U-bahn one stop (because we could).  We got a couple of kebap wraps and sat outside the opera house and ate them.  Eventually we decided it was time to head home (though Patrick and I both found our 8^th wind at like 4:15 but it only lasted 20 minutes and we just crashed).  We got back to our place at about 5 and decided that was good enough.  A few people crashed on our couches because they live another 30 minutes away from where we were.  All in all it was fun, but I woke up the next morning and was just sure I would never stay up late enough that my room would be light when I went to bed again.

 I was almost wrong.  After having such a late Friday, Saturday was a little slow.  I had to do some laundry and Patrick wasn’t feeling 100% so we just lounged around.  Tobi’s team had a soccer game at 7, but we didn’t really get on the road until about 7.  We were told to get off at the Baumgarten stop, and ended up exiting the streetcar a few stops early at the Flaschenbaumgarten stop.  So we walked in a big loop around the 14^th district until we got better directions and took the streetcar to the right stop, just in time to see the last 4 minutes of the game.  We went with Ashley and her roommates back to their place to hang out for a while before going out.

Kind of just lounging around on Saturday before going out.

Tobi suggested we spend our evening at a club named The Loft, so about 10:45 we headed over there.  Though we were some of the first people there, it was still pretty cool, and within an hour plenty more people had showed up – both from IES and Vienna.  Every month the club does a “Different Year in Hip-Hop” and this Saturday was 1994.  The music they played was all right; I’m not sure I ever heard any of the two or three major songs I knew, but that’s ok.  The whole environment was actually really cool, and it will probably be a place I return a few times while I’m here.

I’m not sure of the exact timing, but I think around 2:15 I walked outside with a friend to hang out for a little while and make sure they made it home safely.  They were texting someone so I decided to do the same.  I stood up to get my phone out of my pocket, patted down all of my pants, and came to the awful realization that I had no idea where my phone was.  I decided to make sure my friend got home before going to look for it, which turned out to be a great decision.  We ended up getting relatively lost on the streetcar (where I got checked for a transportation pass for the first time since being here – at 2:30 AM?? But at least I had one…) and ended up having to take about a 12 minute cab ride back to her place, at which point there was a relatively weird man there so I made sure she was safe and locked her door.  At this point I walked to a close U-bahn stop to take it back to the Loft and ran into some of her roommates, whom I told about the guy, which was probably a poor decision, because then they got a little freaked out (obviously) and I ended up going back with them to the same place and making sure they got home safely as well.

The lower room of the Loft.  It was a pretty cool setup.

 By the time I made it back to the Loft, it was well after 4.  They told me it was closed but I asked to look for my phone so they let me walk around (there were still plenty of people in both rooms) and look for it, but I had no success.  Eventually I just went home, and for the second night in a row I went to bed after 5.  At least this time it wasn’t light outside yet.

Sunday dragged on because I was in a perpetual state of frustration about my phone, but fortunately I got to talk to a few people from home some - which was really nice.  Late that evening I got around to doing some of my homework and watching some of the Open (Murray lost, pretty big upset there).  I got up this morning and went into the office and asked what to do.  The Loft is only open Tues-Sat from 6pm to 2am so they just said go in tomorrow evening and ask if they found it. If not, I’ll get a new one on Wednesday and have to pay the 30-euro fee (about 40 dollars).  Which will be not fun.  So I hope they have it.  Also, since writing the first part of this I got my test back in class and did very well, so that’s good news.

This is our friend David. It's the only picture I have of him so far, so if I get another one
where you can actually see what he looks like, I'll make sure to put it up.

Tonight we went to the Schweiserhaus for dinner.  They have their own brewery that claims the “freshest beer in the world” because they make it every day (because they know they will sell so much of it because it is so good, so they don’t put any preservatives in it).  Their feature dish is a pig leg.  Literally.  You can see the pig hoof.  It had so much meat on it that three of us (Patrick, David and I) couldn’t finish the whole thing.  But it was really tasty.  Since then I’ve just spent the night skyping and doing work.  Hopefully I’ll be in bed soon and get more sleep than I did this weekend…