Did someone say Berlin?

Ah Berlin, how excited and giddy we all were to venture into Germany's capitol! Kelsey, Zach, Annie, Paige, Jenny, and I all hopped onto the hardly ever reliable Czesky Drahy train, found random seats after maybe thirty minutes give or take, and just sat in the tight, hot, sweaty, train awaiting our arrival in Berlin. Now let me tell you something about the Czesky Drahy train system for all those back home. There are other great train companies like Leo Express or RegioJet that many of us truly enjoy, and then there is the Czech default company that I hope to never encounter in my life ever again. The company's problem is that it overbooks, which means that many go hours without seats and it isn't unusual to see people packed in between cars or sitting in stairwells. I think it's truly evil to do the whole overbooking thing especially when it's 70 degrees outside, because it's hotter than Mexico inside and if there's A/C it doesn't work. So imagine all of the people cramming next to each other, trying to get past one another, I'm getting a little anxious just thinking about it. All those back home know I have a personal bubble, and it just pops 75 times or more on that train line. The reason I'm droning on and on about trains is because we just had some real bad luck with trains during our trip to Berlin, this next memory being of course the whole cherry on top of our whole train riding experiences! I remember hearing stories of people getting caught on the metro or a train without the proper tickets, and you can get seriously fined for trying to ride illegally. Sometimes we might only need a train for one or two stops and consider just riding the rail for free but I just can't take that chance! I make it a point to get the proper tickets and just make my peace with it. Just as we arrive in Germany, we all flock over to the German ticket kiosk. Many of us have German last names, but that does not mean we speak it by any means! Because we can't read the info on the ticket kiosk we may have appeared to be struggling a bit. This man sees us having a tough time and decides to add to the mess and 'help' us. I don't think he spoke English, to be honest I don't remember.. but I do remember that we had two options: reduced fare or standard fare tickets. Which one would you pick?! So we all rushed to our train, hopped on and waited for our next stop. Next thing we know, here comes the ticket man on one side of the aisle, and Kelsey grabs everyone but my and Zach's ticket and gives them all to him. We hear something about a children's ticket and are instructed to follow him and get off at the next stop. A girl about our age on the train quickly informed us in English to not follow the man because he's about to charge us all 60 Euros each, but it was our stop so Zach and I quickly exited the train car and tried to blend into the shadows as best as we could slightly away from the rest of the group and watched as they paid the hefty fine! Our first night in Berlin emptied some of our pockets but we still had the whole weekend ahead of us!

The following day we chose to start off the weekend right by joining in on a free city tour. Needless to say I LOVE these things. Sandeman's is a company which sponsors free and paid tours around Europe's most well known cities. The guides are fun, personable, knowledgable, and make their living off of tips and trip advisor reviews- so they have to be stellar. Our guide this time explained Berlin's history smoothly and thoroughly to us... starting off at the Brandenburg gate and ending in the square where the major Nazi book burning was held. Somewhere in between she led us to Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and wow was that ever powerful. She explained to us that Peter Eisenman, the Jewish American architectural mind behind it all, created this labyrinth of solid blocks based off of the method of architectural deconstruction. One can only pass through the memorial alone and not side by side, can easily get lost, and only be able to catch glimpses of other people for no longer than a second before they're gone. I think the latter struck me most of all, because that seemed to be what a many experienced during the Holocaust... brief sightings of loved ones or strangers before they were evicted from their homes, torn from their shops, packed into cattle cars, caught up in lines that decided their deaths or a living hell... it was very, very powerful to walk through and learn about. However, the memorial has no plaque, no names of those who perished, they're not headstones, there is zero external explanation - it's up to the beholder to interpret.
 

[Above is the square where the Nazi book burning was held, where books with 'controversial' authors or content were destroyed- valuable thoughts, ideology, and precious knowledge were thrown into the flames to be lost forever.
Today during the warmer months, the square hosts an ever-present reading center that provides books from all over, in many different languages, written by all sorts of authors that encourages humans of all ages to enjoy a book or two. It was very humbling to see how a location that was directly linked to a negative connotation commemorated its past by turning it in into a positive living history experience for all to enjoy!]

Berlin was so rich with history that we all craved more. Our guide was so good that she sold us into purchasing tickets for another tour the following day called Red Berlin that delved into great detail over describing what happened to the city immediately following WWII. For those of you who don't know, shame on you! After the second world war, the Soviet's claimed a communist East Germany while the Allied powers declared a democratic West Germany. Berlin could be considered as a tiny island of a capitol stuck in the communist side and Berlin itself was divided in a similar way of communism v. democracy. All of us soaked up everything about what our guide had to say about all of those who died trying to escape over the wall from the East to the West, and in the beginning of the separation of the city many jumped from their apartment windows from East Berlin into the democratic West. Yes, we did see the wall considering that this all only ended a short 30 or so years ago, and we were all very surprised that this history was so fresh. I'd just like to put in a plug here- WALLS SUCK.



As you know, I want to go on and on but I digress. After our tours we kind of just wandered around the city and stumbled across things like the Reichstag.... you know, the government building that mysteriously burnt down right as Hitler was coming into power and the communists were blamed? Yeah, that one. The DDR museum depicted what life was like in East Berlin/Germany compared to the west and it was very interactive and interesting because rooms were set up to portray to visitors what it might been like in a communist flat... including what each member of the household would possess and yes I even saw the famous Levi's jeans next to the not so famous communist knockoffs! That may be a silly thing to be excited about but I very vividly remember my middle school social studies teacher telling us that if any of us lived in a communist country, we wouldn't be able to wear jeans unless they were smuggled in somehow and that just floored 12 year old me! Rest assured everyone I took pics.
  


The city and it's inhabitants went through quite a bit during the Nazi era and in addition to, the Soviet communist era following immediately after.

For the remainder of the trip we ventured in and out of Berlin's districts, visited a flea market, and ate a lot of bratwursts. Berlin was quite the buzzing city and I would definitely go back in the near future when given the chance for there is just so much more history to become educated about!



(Reichstag & the Brandenburg Gate)

Polska

Poland was definitely one of my favorite places that we've visited so far, in fact it is currently ranked as number two on my top three favorite countries list! Just as we arrived on the outskirts of Krakow, we first ventured deep, deep, down into Krakow's Wieliczka salt mines, which was extraordinary to see to say the least. I was extremely hesitant to go in because I seem to have developed umpteen problems over the years which now include claustrophobia, anxiousness, getting lost underground, running out of air, walls closing in on me, you know, the works! However our instructor Martin, assured and reassured me that the rooms were pretty spacious underneath- and he had me after he mentioned the underground church and chapels. So inhaler in hand, we climbed down an insane number of stairs to reach depth levels that I didn't dare catch or care to know about because the last thing I needed was to start hyperventilating underground. Everything down there was made of either salt or wood, and yes we all licked the walls numerous times. We all seemed very interested to hear what life down in the mines was like, and some of us were rather impressed (or a little heartbroken) to find out that miners transported horses underground for labor. The sad part about that was that because it was so difficult and time consuming to transport these massive animals up or down, stables were built to house the animals throughout their years of life and work down there. Of course in my mind all I could think of was HORSES HAVE RIGHTS! But our guide informed us that somehow because of scientific things that I do not understand, the animals lived quite a bit longer than those above ground because the air has no allergens, pollution, other things I don't remember, and it's especially great for those with asthma. So okay, I could make my peace with he horse thing.
  
The mines were so interesting to visit because it was like an underground colony- did I from time to time think that maybe the whole thing was going to cave in on us?? Maybe three times yes, but I'd still go down again because of how impressive the church and chapels were!



Shortly after the salt mines, we all piled back into our bus for about a twenty minute ride into Krakow's Jewish Quarter were we would be staying. We stumbled across many Jewish cemeteries and synagogues but because it was a Saturday they were all closed off. Most of our group wandered into a hip little beer garden that had delicious ciders and we all just sat and took a load off!



The following day some of us woke up early for mass at St. Mary's Basilica in Krakow's main square, and WOW. wow. wow. wow. It was one of my favorite's for sure (huh fav, every church seems to be your favorite... pick one!) Everyone asked us when we got back "oh was mass in Polish?" which I've just got to say is kind of a silly question considering that we were IN Poland... so yeah it was in Polish. I understand that some churches offer mass in different languages or even Latin, but I'm getting a tad annoyed with others being weird about certain things not being in English... not to mention, the Catholic church is universal, we may not understand the words being said at the masses we attend but we understand what is going on during all parts of the mass. The only differences I've found really are whether people sit, kneel, or stand during different parts of the mass! Nonetheless, yes it was in Polish, yes I understood what was going on, and yes I was gawking at the beautiful church during the homily when I actually couldn't understand what was being said.


After breakfast we all trekked to Schindler's factory, and I guess I expected to see the factory as it had been during the second world war, however it was turned into a very great museum that clearly spelled out a little about what Poland was like briefly before the Germans and Soviets invaded in 1939, all the way until it was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. That's quite a bit of history. I think that we all learned quite a bit in that museum, and it wrapped up a lot of what we've been learning in class as well. I'm not going to go into depth to explain or analyze everything that I learned at Schindler's factory because I'd be here all day, but I must say that I appreciated the setup and information that the museum had to offer. A few examples to backup what I just stated: you could walk through what it might have been like to visit an apartment room within a ghetto, along with the voices and whispers of different families from each corner of the room that might have filled the silence. Earlier on when Poland was fighting off invasion in the 1939 sector of the museum, bomb simulations and machine gun sounds were playing overhead as you walked through the room... a small little cubby filled with weapons, helmets, and family photos made me think of my late grandpa who fought towards the end of WWII. I reflected a lot by that small space because I don't even want to imagine the terrors of warfare, and it's unsettling that so many had to and still have to go through that all for what? Millions of lives lost, so much bloodshed... but I understand that it's the offensive versus the defensive, and it's like a paradox because war can also be used to save many more lives in the long run, but it's just a terrible, horrible, saddening thing that I wish we saw less of.
 

After the museum we all went back to the beautiful main square and broke up into groups to venture on our own, and often ran into other groups to only break off again and just do whatever basically!

Zach, Kelsey, and I church hopped and went in and out to feast our eyes on the beauty that Poland's churches had to offer, JPII staring back at us from nearly every one (haha a lady laughed at me when I said JPII and thought it was a little strange I think, but enjoyed it) and every corner seemed to have a church on it and I'd say "Oh just one more! Oh there's another one we'll turn back after this one! Oh well we'll regret not seeing that one!" Poland was beautiful. (I had not realized that I was not allowed on the castle/cathedral greenery... Kelsey caught the candids)
   

Here however, is where the beauty ends, for we all woke up at 5:30am to shuttle to the hell on earth that was Auschwitz-Birkenau. I could either do one of two things- write an entire 15 page paper on my thoughts around the subject... or describe how my visit has altered what I've felt and thought about the Shoah for so many years. If it wasn't already obvious I'm going with the latter, for it surprised me to my very core.

It's one thing to learn about something that happened in the past thousands of miles away from your own country, it's another thing to step foot on the very places where these horrors took place. All of the life around us (other people, tour groups) were blurs, but the buildings and outside areas were eerily... I'm trying to pick out a good word, stagnant? Or perhaps still... it was as if these buildings- especially the firing wall, where people were persecuted for what the Nazi's deemed as 'crimes'- felt as if they had been locked in the past after the camp's liberation. These areas where I had assumed I would feel utter despair at what happened with millions of people, actually were areas that were completely void of all human reason, which also meant void of all human feelings. Especially when we visited Birkenau and seeing the rows, and rows, and rows of barracks lined as far as the eye could see... my mind reached a level that simply just stopped comprehending things. I'm a history major, I've studied WWII and the Shoah since middle school until now, and I thought that going to this place would help me understand. Understand what? I don't know exactly... the feelings, the hate, the fear... some of what the prisoners might have felt... and how the guards might have acted, but I didn't, I couldn't! After visiting one of the children's barracks... I felt as if this whole thing it did not happen. There is no way on God's green earth that all of this happened! But it did, and I know it did I won't ever deny it... but I just don't understand. I haven't really had the time to sit down and process all of what we all just witnessed, but going back through the few pictures that I took makes my skin crawl. I usually want to touch the walls and floors of everything we've visited everywhere, and I get funny looks because of it but I don't care because I think "wow, how amazing that so much history has taken place here?" or "wow what kinds of historical figures touches this pillar?" But here in Auschwitz and Birkenau, I wanted nothing to do with anything there. I didn't want to touch the concrete, the bricks, the barracks, and especially none of the gas chambers. Our guide was quick, and didn't let us linger in any areas for long perhaps for timely reasons, or maybe her own, perhaps it was even for our own good. Something that I wanted to make sure I documented however was this: two years ago one of my friends named Jessica did this same study abroad trip and also visited the camp. I remember reading her blog and this one particular picture stood out to me so much so that it always comes up whenever I read about the Shoah and death camps. She took a photo in one of the gas chambers in Auschwitz that clearly showed all of the scratch marks that other human beings had made against the walls.
  

The scratch marks were very haunting and it was hard for me to take a picture of because it was somebody's last dose of life... trying to get away from what was slowly and painfully sucking the life out of them. I wanted to stay in the chamber longer just to try and comprehend even a sliver of whatever I felt that I needed to comprehend... however our guide ushered us into the next room where the crematoriums were and holy hell I needed to get out of there. I snapped two pictures only for the sake of this blog and my future classroom but it was extremely haunting to say the least. People need to know, and as much as it pains me that perhaps sharing photos of this terrifying place could be argued as a form of revictimization, I feel that it is also so very important to share with the world about what happened for the very purpose of preventing it from happening again. Our guide ended with the words of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who was imprisoned in Auschwitz and survived- if it has already happened in the world once, it can very easily happen again.


 
 

FIELD TRIP - Austria & Italia

Wow, Vienna and Venice were eons ago it seems, but as I scroll through my pictures the memories come flooding back. All of us were very much looking forward to this class field trip, for we were promised nice weather and we were not disappointed! Jan (one of our professors), his son Damian, and Dr. Biggs would be accompanying us to Austria and Italy. Dr. Biggs rattled off Hapsburg history for us in Vienna while Jan gave us a tour of the beautiful city as his 12 year old son simultaneously was in charge of counting all of us American students because we still can't get our crap together long enough for many of us to not get distracted and fall behind or get lost.

  

We got started with a quick tour shortly after we arrived in Vienna, and holy guacamole it was B-E-A-utiful. Yet another place in Europe with awestruck churches (surprise surprise), and such crisp and clean architectural beauties. I know that Zach is the construction management major here, but WOW even I, a peasant in the CM world, can appreciate the construction management that went on in Europe back in the day!



Jan showed us around all the way to St. Stephen's Cathedral and my eyes were entirely overwhelmed. It might be a good thing that my church back home isn't as elaborate as the ones here in Europe because so far during mass I catch myself with my head hanging back, jaw wide open, pretty much gawking through the homily at our representations of heaven on earth. Saint Stephen's had so much to offer that it was overwhelming- but in the best possible way! As you can see, my pictures suck and capture hardly nothing of what I would have liked them too, but I gotta make due with what I got!


I would like to skip to the following day, where we all dressed our best for the royal treasury and one of two massive museums that we would get to visit. The royal treasury contained items that you only see in history books, movies, and bedtime fairytale stories. Holy cow I wanted to touch EVERYTHING. Jan would explain what everything was, and I then took all of my questions to Dr. Biggs (the expert on all things Hapsburg... and basically everything else) and he did his best to try and explain to me the value or worth of the various relics that were claimed to have belonged to Jesus Christ. I hope I finally understood it after a few explanations and a class lecture later- some of the display items were things like the spear that speared Jesus' side, a piece of the tablecloth from the last supper, and splinters from the cross. During the crusades, people began to bring back many, many items that they claimed had belonged to Jesus or saints or what have you- were these the nails that pierced Christ's hands and feet? Well probably not because there are like, 937,038 nails that were brought back claiming to be just that as well. It was explained that this could be an interpretation of faith... it's hard for me to explain and I'm clearly not doing a very good job at it... but basically these people believed that this piece of cloth was present at the last supper so they cased it and jeweled it up and based on their faith that's what it became. I was concerned as to why like, the pope of all people didn't have this stuff at the Catholic headquarters i.e. the Vatican. So were these original relics of Jesus, most likely not, yet it demonstrated the faith of the people.
                     


The next place we visited was up to us between two massive museums of either arts or natural history. Both were exceptional, but being the hardcore art admirer that I am after my one undergraduate online art appreciation class I chose the art museum. (Jokes, all jokes. I know nothing about anything in art but I did take the class and I do have a newfound appreciation!) Again, I wanted to touch everything and I spent WAY too long in the Egyptian sector because I have this thing for ancient writings so after I went as fast as I could through the wing, I went back to take pictures! Zach now puts time limits as to how long I can spend in museums because I'm crazy and want to read everything.


I am going to skip to Venice before this blog gets to be 2,500 words just about Vienna, however I'm not going to make the same promise about Venice. I am first going to go ahead and preface that about 5 people, IF that, still live on Italy's beautiful Venice. I am a contributor to the bajillion tourists who have overrun the little island so much so, that every Italian that one encounters there takes a water taxi to and from Venice every day to open up shops or restaurants or what have you to serve those who come around the world. Do I blame them, absolutely not I would loathe to live in an area that is heavily concentrated by annoying tourists oh my goodness. Jan explained to us that at one point there apparently was some kind of noise law that restricted the sound levels that rolling baggage made on the cobblestones because it just became that overpopulated with non-Italians.
Once you see Venice for yourself though, it's hard to not blame the multitudes of people who visit the place. Yep, its 20x better and more beautiful than our sophisticated iPhone photography can capture.




Again, Jan and his son Damian took to the city as the bewildered American college students followed in awe with this strikingly beautiful little city! The 12 year old had the map and lead us through endless tiny corridors through the buildings and over many canal bridges towards places I can't even remember the names of BECAUSE EVERYTHING WAS JUST SO PRETTY IT WAS HARD TO CONCENTRATE! I did remember St. Marks basilica, and it was a very different church than I'm used to seeing around Europe because of it's Byzantine influence. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures on the inside because I follow the rules whenever I see a no photo sign! So I'm just going to take some photos from the internet instead :)

We then visited the Basilica of Saint Giovanni e Paolo, where I mentioned in my last blog that had the Marian Chapel and WE SAW THE INCORRUPT FOOT OF SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENNA HOW COOL. It was kinda odd I'll admit that, and I can only imagine what was going through non-Catholic minds as Jan was explaining saint relics in Catholicism... and how many different places have different body parts and all of that jazz. Nonetheless this was one of my favorite churches because it was an escape from the loud buzz of crazed tourists outside, and was a much needed reminder of how I even got to be where I was in the first place.