Copenhagen

The weekend of October 8th, three of my classmates and I decided it would be an excellent idea to go to Copenhagen (I have to admit, I was mostly excited about being able to make dip/Robert Earl Keen Jr. jokes at the city's expense). I had just recently bought a Eurail pass (insert Euro rail/ your rail pun here), which gives me 15 travel days on European trains to use any time I want over the course of two months- an excellent deal! Copenhagen seemed like a great way to inaugurate my shiny new pass, so off we went! We left on Thursday afternoon, and having decided ahead of time that it was going to take too long to to get all the way to Copenhagen that night, we decided the stay the night in Hamburg (in north Germany). We got there too late in the evening to do any sightseeing, but we DID manage to accomplish the most touristy feat possible; we ate hamburgers, IN Hamburg! Granted, we did eat them in an American themed diner...and, admittedly, hamburgers don't actually come from Hamburg...but we thought it was pretty awesome all the same! The diner that we ate at had named all of their hamburgers after famous actors/actresses; there was the Humphrey Bogart, the Cary Grant, the Marilyn Monroe. I, of course, got the Jimmy Stewart :). We stayed that night at what we had thought was a hostel, but was really a guest house-thing inside an apartment building...but the beds were warm, and the room was clean, so it ended up being pretty good! Friday morning we took a train to Copenhagen. Having neglected to actually look at a map before we left Germany, I failed to realize that the most direct route to Copenhagen is over water. So I was, of course, very surprised when our train suddenly stopped, and we were all directed (in German AND Danish, neither of which helped my level of confusion very much) to get off the train. It was then that I realized that our train was on a ferry. For whatever reason, being on a train that was ON A BOAT was just amazing to us, and we spent the entire ferry ride completely in awe of modern modes of transportation. We got to Copenhagen late in the afternoon, went to city Information to get all the obligatory touristy maps and pamphlets, withdrew Danish crowns from an ATM, and immediately realized how EXPENSIVE our trips was going to be; lunch at a little cafe was almost 100 crowns, which equals about 15 Euro, which equals about 20 USD. We checked in to our hostel (a very nice, not at all sketchy one this time), immediately set off to find the national history museum, and failed miserably. Having walked in circles for hours, we pretty much gave up, and instead just walked through the city. It was so beautiful! Copenhagen is famous for its canals, and with good reason! The city's streets were lovely, wide, and clean, and the architecture was really quaint and adorable. For some reason, the people matched the city; I've never seen so many beautiful people in one place! The men in particular were absolutely gorgeous....must be something in the water! That night we went to the Copenhagen Ice Bar which is, as the name suggests, a bar. Made of ice. They give you these incredibly warm poncho-coat thingies, and then you go in to the (admittedly tiny) bar, in which the walls, chairs, bar, and even glasses are made of ice. It was, again, ridiculously expensive, but it was well worth it for novelty's sake! On Saturday we tried to pack in as much sight seeing as was humanly possible. We started off the morning with a boat tour through the canals, which turned out to be an excellent idea! It started at Nyhavn, which means New Harbor in Danish, and which is the place with those little narrow colorful buildings on the canal that you always see when you see pictures of Copenhagen...you know what I mean. The boat was hop-on-hop-off, which meant we could get off at whatever stop we wanted around the city, and then just catch the next boat a half hour later. We ended getting off the boat at the place where the statue of the Little Mermaid should have been, only to discover that she was in China in some sort of exchange exhibit. Sad day :(. But we did end up stopping again at the Vor Frelsers Kirke (Church) which, instead of a normal steeple/tower pointy thing with stairs you could climb on the inside, had a gorgeous spiral staircase going up the outside of the steeple! We, of course, took that as a challenge, and, despite the incredibly low clearance of the staircases inside the church, the steep steps, and angry sounding wind, made it to the top with only minor casualties. The view was well worth it! Copenhagen is beautiful from above. That afternoon we again tackled the "where the heck is the national museum" problem, and, armed with two different maps and the advice of local business owners, managed to finally make it after getting lost only twice. Again, it was well worth the trouble it took to get there! The museum was absolutely amazing (and free, which automatically doubles any places' enjoyment value)! They had excellent exhibits on Danish pre-history, archaeology, vikings, medieval artwork and church artifacts, and a really cool exhibit on cultures around the world. All of it was presented in a really amazing way, both displaying their REALLY awesome collection, as well as providing great interpretive information, general enough to make sense to someone with no previous knowledge of the subjects, and interesting and specific enough to make anyone already familiar with the content of the exhibit even more interested and informed! The best part, however, was the exhibit on danish peoples and culture over time, going back from the dark ages to 2010. It did an EXCELLENT job of covering all the major events and changes in danish history, while still focusing on the lives of every day people, including groups not usually represented history until recently (aka, women, the poor, children, anyone other than christians, etc). The best part, though, was the exhibit design work! They did an AMAZING job of grouping items from their collection into meaningful, thematic groups, explaining their significance, and doing it all in an absolutely beautiful way! If I ever get lucky enough to design my own exhibit, I'll definitely be taking notes from the Danish National Museum. Saturday evening we went to Det Kongelige Teater (The Royal Theater) to see the Royal Ballet company perform Swan Lake! I had, very cleverly (or so I thought) managed to get tickets online for only 7 euro a person with a student discount, and was smugly reveling in my deal-finding genius...until we arrived at the theater. Turns out European ballets have a standing room only section. After spending two days walking around (read here: getting lost in) the city, standing for three hours was NOT our idea of a good time. We powered through the first act, though I certainly could have enjoyed it more. We were all set to stand again in the second act, when a man in a suit waved us over, started speaking to us in rapid Danish (though the speed really didn't make a difference- we couldn't have understood him if he was speaking in slow Danish - though I did manage to learn the word for 'thank you' while I was there; it's 'tak'!), and pointed out a row of empty seats to us. Apparently a bunch of people had left at intermission, and we were able to sit for the rest of the performance! I thought the second act was much better than the first (though being able to actually see the whole stage in the second half may have had something to do with my preference). When Sunday finally came around we made our way back to Germany (again, on a train which was on a boat!), and traveled most of the day. We're getting pretty good at figuring out the train system at this point- knock on wood- and we've been having a blast on our adventures. Next post: fall break trip to Italy, including Rome, Florence, and Venice!

Unity Day!

The weekend of October 1st I was actually in Quedlinburg, for once! Seems like I'm always traveling...probably because I always am ;) . But this particular was chock full of stuff to do in town, so I stuck around! On Friday some of the other students, one of our teachers, and I went to visit Falkenstein, which is an honest-to-goodness medieval castle about 45 minutes away from Quedlinburg. Again- an actual medieval castle. Not a palace, not a 18th-century version of what a palace/castle might have been like (ahem, Neuschwanstein), a city walls, castle keep,holes-to-shoot-arrows-and-pour-hot-oil-from castle. Of course there was museum, and of course I thoroughly enjoyed it :)! There were the obligatory cool weapons, suits of armor, treasure, and ornate paintings, but the really REALLY cool part was the letter on display from Queen Elizabeth I of England...just sitting there behind a glass case on the side of the room like it was no big deal! I think I stood there for a good 5 minutes just staring...she is my favorite monarch, after all! (Yes, I have a favorite monarch. Don't judge.) The really cool part of the trip was the Medieval Festival they had going on. Apparently Germany's so lousy with history they skip right past the Renaissance Fairs and go on back a couple hundred years, because, y'know, why not? There were people dressed up, stands with all sorts of interesting foods (I got roasted walnuts and some sort of Hungarian garlic-flatbread-thingy), dudes with bows and arrows, and all sorts of hand-carved nonsense. There was a guy selling woodcut printings of illustrations from old Saxon (Sachsen, for you Germans out there) poetry; of course I bought one! Tristian and Isolde :). More pretty things for my apartment! But the best part about the whole festival; they sold mead. I got to drink hot mead at a medieval castle. (The italics are just there to emphasize how incredibly awesome I feel being able to say that!) Mead is basically hot honey wine, and was pretty much the beverage of choice back in the day. I know it was very silly and touristy of me, but it was just so cool! The whole castle visit experience was just really cool; definitely the most awesome German medieval festival at a medieval castle I've ever been to ;).

On Saturday a bunch of the other students, their host families and I went hiking. We climbed the "Brokenberg", which pretty much means "boulder mountain". I'm used to hiking with my family in Rocky Mountain National Park, so I was pretty sure I knew what to expect; rocks, mountains, streams, small animals, and a great view at the peak that you start at for about 10 minutes before going back down because there's not exactly a lot to do up there. Turns out German mountains are utilized for their tourism factor to the fullest extent possible! About three quarters of the way up the mountain the trail turned in to....a highway. You could drive up there. There were people jogging, biking, driving, etc all around us. Don't get me wrong, it was a steep highway, and I still got my workout going up it, but it was just so...paved. And at the top, there was a gift shop and cafeteria! Completely not what I was expecting. Still really fun though!

Sunday was the main event of the weekend. October 3rd is a geman holiday, celebrating the reunification of East and West Germany and called, appropriately, the German Unity Day. I'm not exactly sure what 'real' Germans do to celebrate, but my school program took all the students and host parents bowling! I proved, once again, how decidedly lackluster my bowling skills are, but I still had a blast! In the afternoon, my school put on an Opera concert as a thank-you to Quedlinburg for hosting us. There were some pretty awesome Mozart pieces! Sunday was also the day a video of me and my roommate came out of us doing tourist-y things around Quedlinburg aired. It made us out to be pretty ditzy, but oh well. Quedlinburg got some good exposure! All in all it was a really awesome, though really tiring, weekend.

I feel like as I'm writing I'm getting more and more boring, so Copenhagen (and if I'm feeling ambitious, Italy) will have to be next post!

Prague!

Goodness, where to start?? There's so much that's been going on since my last post! Which is my not-so-veiled excuse for not posting more often (she says with chagrin). Well, two and a half weeks ago I went with my school group to Prague! I was really excited about going, because everyone always says what a beautiful city it is, aaaaand because a good chunk of my family heritage is centered around the Czech Republic/bohemian/slavic area. We took a chartered bus in to the country, and when we got in to Prague my first reaction was not what I had expected. While there were plenty of pretty, old, buildings, the city also looked run down, graffiti-filled, and, frankly, dirty. The contrast between the wonderful historic buildings and the buildings circa the Iron Curtain was astounding; needless to say, I was a bit disappointed with my first impression of the city. But within about 2 hours of arriving, we went in to the heart of the old city, and I VERY quickly realized what everyone had been talking about! The city was absolutely AMAZING. Amazingly wonderful architecture, wonderfully rich history, and amazing museums! We celebrated the first night of our first trip to a country outside of Germany by going on a ....get ready for it....Pub Crawl. I, of all people, voluntarily went on a Pub Crawl, and had a blast! Our second day there we took a guided tour of the city, which included (of course!) the Charles Bridge! If you're like me and had no idea what that was prior to setting foot on it, it's this incredibly INCREDIBLY beautiful, pretty darn old (1357. 1357!) bridge that connects the old city and the new city (ha! new. it was founded before the people living there knew my continent existed), and it's considered the most beautiful site in a city lousy with beautiful sites; and for good reason! I ended up buying an etching of the bridge to hang in my apartment when I get back to Texas, so I can look at its beautifulness when I walk in the door from the Lubbock dust and dirt! We also saw the 'new' town hall, a bunch of cathedrals, the palace, the president's house, the opera house where Mozart debuted Don Giovanni, and all sorts of other ridiculously amazing things! Prague actually has some pretty juicy history, too. See, there was this thing, called the Protestant Reformation, and some crazy stuff went down. Like in Prague, for instance. Where they threw people out of windows. Three times! Seriously, there was the first, second, and third Defenestration of Prague. All years apart. People apparently just thought it was a good idea. One night we went to the Prague State Opera, where I saw my first ever Opera, Tosca! I really REALLY enjoyed it, and now I'm afraid it's going to become a habit...I've been listening to random arias on YouTube (classy, I know) ever since. I got to go to some pretty darn awesome museums while I was there too, which always makes me happy! We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and though I've always been a modern art hater, the stuff is starting to grow on me! (Well, to a point. I still don't think a canvas with the top half painted gray and the bottom half painted yellow, entitled 'I don't know what to paint' is art. But that Picasso guy has some pretty awesome stuff!) Plus they had a bunch of Monets, which made me smile :) . We also went to a museum that housed medieval church art, which was amazingly beautiful. Think altars, saints, pietas, wooden painted statues, the works. Creepy and gruesome at times (they were really in to the whole suffering of Jesus and the Saints thing), but still incredibly beautiful. One day I got to go on my own (I know! so grown up!) to the Prague National Museum. The building alone was worth it! Quite possibly one of the most detailed, ornate, elaborate, beautiful interiors I've ever seen. The museum itself was really old school- I'm talking Hall of Mammals, Hall of Reptiles, Hall of Geology- they had this immensely huge paleontology collection too- and a really neat archaeology/anthropology exhibit on the prehistory of the people living in Bohemia! But like I said, the museum was really old school- mostly presentation, not a lot of interpretation. In the words of one of my professors, it was like a museum of a museum, which was really awesome to get to experience from a future museum-ist's point of view! There were tons of souvenir shops, and since the Euro to Krone exchange rate is really good (from the Euro end, at least) it was a pretty cheap city to experience. And it was really neat to visit the country/geographical area/ethnic community from which a large part of my heritage stems! Apparently I look Czech enough to pass for a local...and cause some confusion. At one of the souvenir shops, the man working the shop struck up a conversation with us (in English), asking where we were from, our names, etc. He was first confused because we were switching between German and English (it's become a habit none of us can break- automatically wanting to speak in German in a foreign country, regardless of whether or not anyone there actually speaks German); he was then confused because I apparently look very Czech, despite the fact that we come from Texas; and to top it off I have an Arabic name (Sarah). Poor guy stood there scratching his head for a good while before he just decided I was odd! All in all, I absolutely LOVED my time in Prague, and I'd recommend it to anyone traveling in Europe...as long as you take me with you, I want to go back!! 

Next blog, German Unity Day and Copenhagen!

Look, Mom, I'm on TV!...sort of.

A few weeks back my roommate here in Quedlinburg and I were filmed running around the city, doing tourist-y stuff, for a German travel show, and here's the result! We're the next-to-last group, about 19 minutes in. I can't quite figure out how to post the link to this blog, so here's the address:

http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_single_mediaplayer/0,,6071895_type_video_struct_4756_contentId_4471165,00.html

Enjoy!

I can't believe I've almost been in Germany for an entire month! I know I promised cultural observations in my last Blog, but I've taken a few trips since then that I really want to talk about! A week after we got to Quedlinburg, a bunch of us took our first little trip on our own (woo, venturing out!) to the neighboring city of Halberstadt to shop to H&M for the afternoon. We bought our train tickets, navigated the train system, and figured out our way around city. We even made it back in one piece! After our successful day trip we got a little braver, and two weekends ago six of us went to Hannover for the weekend. It's about three-ish hours away from Quedlinburg by train, and we stayed for two nights in a Hostel. We felt so proud of ourselves for getting to and around a strange city all on our own steam! Our Hostel was absolutely adorable, and we were able use the city's subway/train/bus system without teacher help! Last weekend it got even better- I went to go visit Antonia, a German girl that we hosted for an exchange program 9 years ago, in Luebeck...all by myself! My train left on Thursday afternoon, and I got to the train station, successfully switched trains three times, and met Antonia at the Luebeck train station! Travel tends to make me nervous, so I was really happy to accomplish the whole trip (in a foreign country, in a foreign language) all on my own! While I was visiting Antonia we saw the sights of Luebeck, and we spent the entire day on Saturday doing sightseeing stuff in Hamburg, which was so gorgeous! We went on one of those double decker bus tours of the city, and went to the Hamburg Dungeon, which was this really cool theatrical presentation of the creepier aspects of Hamburg's past. I took zillions of pictures! On Sunday we went to the Baltic Sea, which was really cool! The beach/sea were beautiful, and the town around the coast was ridiculously cute. I learned some new words that are unique to Northern Germany; 'Jo', for yes (instead of 'ja'), and, for some reason that I don't understand 'moin moin' as a greeting. I was sad to leave Antonia, but I was looking forward to successfully navigating my second trip on my own. Buuuuuut apparently, some trains split in half, and go to two different destinations. On the very last leg of my trip back to Quedlinburg, I apparently  sat on the wrong half of the train, because I ended up in a town half an hour west of where I was supposed to be....I ended up taking the train back to my last connecting city, and then taking a completely different train to Quedlinburg. I got there eventually though! So yeah, despite small hiccups along the way, my first trip by train in Germany by myself was a success! This weekend my program is taking us to Prague, and I'm so excited!!! Everyone says that it's one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. I'm also really excited to go to the Czech Republic, because part of my family heritage is there. I taking a million pictures and bringing back lots of souvenirs! I have to go work on German homework for now, so I'll write more later!

Quedlinburg!

So I’ve been in Quedlinburg a full week now, and I’m just now getting around to writing about it. First things first- my host family! My friend Brandi and I are living with Sabine and Detlef, who are ridiculously nice and accommodating! Sabine has two grown daughters, and she’s been using their rooms to host Texas Tech students since the program started. Sabine is a Biology and Chemistry teacher at one of the local high schools, and Detlef is a lawyer. Detlef has this booming, huge, deep, GERMAN voice, and speaks very quickly, so it can sometimes be hard to understand him. It seems like I’m always asking people to repeat themselves or speak more slowly! I guess it’s my comeuppance from years of talking a mile a minute myself. Quedlinburg is a sleepy little town, with fewer residents than Texas Tech has students (think about that for a minute)! It’s absolutely adorable!! It’s the cutest, quaintest, sweetest place I have ever seen. My host family lives on the very edge of town, so it takes about 20 minutes to walk to school. Being on the very edge of town, my house overlooks fields and hills and horses other, almost painfully idyllic views. We’re on top of a hill, so when I walk to school I’ve got an AMAZING view of the city. Our school is right next to one of the two market places in the center of the city. There are bunches of cafés, restaurants, shops, etc., and they’re all wonderfully charming!

Best part of Quedlinburg- it’s got a ridiculously rich history! It was the site of the crowning of the first German king (Koernig Heinrich) in 919, and it’s been truckin along ever since! Heinrich had a pretty awesome palace in Quedlinburg, WHICH is still standing (it’s a museum now- lucky me!!!)! After Heinrich died, his widow had a church/abbey built next to the palace. She presided over it as Abbess and established a wonderful (secular) school for girls there, giving them a first rate education. In 900 AD. Heinrich’s widow established a tradition of very powerful Abbesses ruling Quedlinburg, giving Quedlinburg a history of very strong women. Quedlinburg has also, quite amazingly, never been destroyed/set on fire/bombed etc., so there’s an absolutely uninterrupted historical record that everyone just walks around in! Example: the building that I go to school in was built in 1576. As my friend Kevin pointed out, we’re hanging out every day in a building that’s 200 years older than the United States. And that’s nowhere near the oldest building! There are houses/shops/churchs/etc. built in the 1200s still hanging around with people living/shopping/worshipping in them like it’s nothing. I was really excited this summer when I found out that my Uncle’s house was built in the 1920s, and now I walk down cobblestone streets every day that people have been walking down for over a thousand years! Quedlinburg’s history is so well preserved that it’s a UNESCO protected World Heritage site. AMAZING!

So, to recap:

1. I’m living in the sweetest, most adorable town possible.

2. Said adorable town has an amazing history

3. Adorable town has a castle (!)

4. Adorable town has amazing WOMEN’S history

How could I possibly ask for more?!?

Since I got here we’ve had school, tours of the city, etc., and basically been getting to know our way around town. Last night, a bunch of us went to the Stiftskirche (a church built in 1129), and listened to a chamber orchestra perform a few pieces from Handel. This morning some of my friends and I went to church in the Nikolaikirche, built in 1222. I AM IN NERDY HISTORY MAJOR HEAVEN!

Next post: Cultural Anthropology nerd time! Cultural observations/differences between Texas and Quedlinburg.

Well...so much for my ambition to post frequently! I've been in Germany almost an entire week now, and this is my first attempt to sit down and write! It's amazing that I've only been here a week- I feel like I've always lived here!

So here's how the first week went down: I left Houston at noon last Tuesday, flew to Newark, then arrived in Berlin at 8am Wednesday morning. On the Newark-Berlin flight I was surrounded by German speakers, and through my clever use of eavesdropping, I discovered that despite my 4+ years of German instruction, I couldn't understand a word! Silly German teachers for inflating my opinion of my language skills by giving me good grades all these years...Anyway, once all of the other students in my program arrived in Berlin (there are 10 all together), we checked in to Amstel House (my first Hostel!). During our four day stay in Berlin, we went to zillions of churches, museums (!), monuments, old buildings, etc. It's amazing being in a city with so much history! On Thursday we took a bike tour of downtown Berlin and all of the famous sites, which was AMAZING!Thursday night we went to the Pergamon museusm, which is really famous for REALLY good reasons! The museum has fantastic exhibits on Islamic art, painted polychromatic Greco-Roman sculptures (which made ME really happy because far too people know that all those pure white marble statues were brilliantly colored once upon a time!), and Assyrian artifacts. They also have the city gates of Babylon. Let me say that again.... the ACTUAL CITY GATES of the BIBLICAL CITY BABYLON! It was ridiculously amazing! On Friday, we saw a wonderful monument to all of the victims of WWII. It was a sculpture done by a woman from the former Soviet Bloc, and depicted a mother holding her dying child. The sculpture was inside a building with a hole cut directly above it, so rain could get through and cover the statue. It's probably one of the most beautiful and moving pieces of art I've ever seen. Later on Friday, we went to the Deutsches Historisches Muesum, which was probably the highlight of the Berlin trip for me, because now I have a new favorite museum!! It pretty much covers the entire history of Germany...period. Besides being absolutely GINORMOUS, and having an AMAZING set of collections, the chronology was so clear and the exhibits so well themed and arranged that it was an absolute delight to see! There was also a new temporary exhibit on medieval Germany, and they had all sorts suits of armor, which they arranged to look like they were fighting! Brilliant move, museum people! Later on Friday we went to the Neues Museum, which has the bust of Nefertiti and all sorts of fun Egyptian stuff. The exhibits weren't as impressive, but the museum building itself is so old and has so much history that I spent all of the time looking at the architecture and bullet holes! Saturday we went to Sachsenhausen, which was one of the Nazi concentration camp (though not a death camp like  Auschwitz). The exhibition and museum part of the camp was pretty impressive, but the place itself made the biggest impact on me. People placed yellow gerber daisies in random places around the camp in memory of the people who died there, and stacked small rocks on graves as a more permanent act of remembrance. In the evenings we were free to do whatever we wanted, so we went out and explored Berlin most evenings. I got pretty good at navigating the train system! All in all, it was an amazingly wonderful trip and I hope I can go back to Berlin soon!

I think I've rambled enough about Berlin for one post...next post, Quedlinburg!

I'm leaving in 6 days! Wait...I'm leaving in 6 days?!?

        And so begins the saga of my impending 4(ish) month stay in Germany! I'm keeping a blog of my time there for class credit, but I'm secretly thrilled it's required because left to my own devices I would never sit down and write anything about my experiences there. My posts will mostly contain records of the stuff that goes on during my study abroad, but I will also be comparing my stay to the book on Germany I'm currently reading (also for class credit). So, sorry folks, not all fun and games here! Though I will endeavor to minimize my pedantic tendencies while...oh wait. This is going to be harder than I thought.
      
       I'm going to be studying at the Texas Tech center in Quedlinburg, Germany. It's an eensy city of about 25,000 people (I think), and is located in former East Germany about two hours southwest of Berlin by train. I'll be staying with a host family, as well as with one other student from Tech. While I'm there, I'll be studying German language, history and culture, and participating in an internship. The Tech program is taking all 11 participants on a number of trips, including to Berlin, Thale, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig. I'm also counting on taking a bunch of trips with some of my friends in the program!

       So with only 6 days (!!) before I leave the continent for the first time in my life, I'm deep in packing and/or panic mode. I have a list of things that need to get done before I leave, and no matter how much I think I've taken care of in one day, it always seems to grow more than it shrinks! (I'm convinced little elves sneak up in the middle of the night and add things to the list, laughing manically the whole time.) The list is on red Santa Claus 'Ho Ho Ho' paper though, so that tends to mitigate the intimidation factor...it's hard to be scared of something so cheery and Christmas-y!

     And so concludes the rambling incoherency that is my first post. I'll be posting more as departure day (which I inevitably refer to in my mind as D-Day) comes closer. This will hopefully get exponentially more interesting once I'm actually in Germany, but until then I'm afraid the packing woes of an exited (and frankly scared) college kid will have to suffice!