The Last Days in Hamburg

Wow... I can't believe its been over 2 weeks... and sooo much has happened since I left Hamburg. But the last few days went by like all partings tend to. Too slow, but too fast. Involved lots of hugging cheek kissing... which we all know I love. And Me Tomoko, Demetri, and Paul went out to dinner on Saturday night. Just the pizza place Tomoko and I had ate at during the Germany/Turkey match a month and a half before. I had packed early for a change, and barely slept as I anxiously awaited my early morning taxi to the Trainstation. Public transportation was down... too much construction on the lines, so no way for me to make my train on time. I then rode for 5 hours down to Frankfurt Airport... Checked in, and stored my luggage, all without much of a hitch. Then I was off to Russia...

(I shall be updating this a bit at a time for the next week or so)

Its a hard knock life...

... for somebody else...

I'm usually pretty good about being modest... or at least not purposely bragging... but well... I'm currently staying in the fanciest schwanky hotel I have ever been in.  I'm in Moscow, Russia by the way... To my traveler's irritation, I don't think I'm anywhere near the main part of the city... to my self indulgent side... i'm debating whether to get a russian, turkish, or japanese bath... as my hotel offers all three... I remember being torn about staying here the night before my trip b/c of the cost... but then figured, well, do i really want to be running all around moscow changing hotels etc.  It is worth the money (or at least i keep telling myself that) and i can't help but wonder if this is the kind of place I will be staying during the whole tour?  Should be interesting to see.

On other notes... Russia is big.  Everything in Russia is big.  What i could only describe as "projects" sprout up everywhere randomly, so you don't really know if you are or are not in the city... b/c they just sort of come out of the woods or in the middle of a farm.  I'm guessing just b/c they look like projects, doesn't mean they actually are.  The airport was a bagillion miles away, so i got to see a good deal of country side, cows, projects, nuclear power plants, and a giant gold domed greek orthodox church.

I had to grab a cab as I didn't arrange private transport... and as you are walking into the airport, there is a giant red sign that says, "DO NOT TAKE PRIVATE TAXIS, THEY AREN"T SAFE"... I'm just like... ok... what else shall i do then?  Turns out they have these stands, where you tell them where you are going, prepay, at the stand, a set rate... then a cabbie come gets you and thats that... no overcharging, no fixed meters... its the most brilliant taxi experience i have ever had.

H&M, Ikea, Absolute... Oh my!

This last weekend trip to Stockholm was possibly one of the most stressful flip-flop back and forth decisions I've ever made. It almost made me feel like a politician. Here's the drama: Stockholm is far away. No really, its anywhere between 10-17 hours away by train. Seeing as I invested in a Eurail, I intended to use it for everything. But when you are at the last weekend of your trip, you just came back from Poland, and are heading to Russia in a week... this seems a little bit daunting. I have a Swedish family friend, Andreas, who had offered me a free place to stay and have as a guide through Stockholm. How often does that randomly happen? And initially my Cuban friend, Emil, was going to come with me. But he ended up pulling out. Now being me, I was starting to debate, ok, what is the responsible thing for me to be doing... maybe I will fly. So I looked at airline tickets, and they weren't half bad. Then I said, lets see how I feel post poland. While in Poland there was an air strike in Hamburg. Flights shot up 100 euro... but only the flight there. Reluctantly, I decided to cancel. Made the phone call and everything. I was worried about time, money, etc. So, I went to a going away dinner for my friend Lucio, and on the way home was talking to another friend, Bruno, who, it happened was leaving the institute and heading to Sweden the next day (this is Wednesday, same day I canceled) and I'm like, oh man. So lots of kicking myself the whole night for canceling, then getting to work the next morning to realize most of my friends had left that week or were sick, or stuck doing work b/c their computers crashed, there was no reason for me to be in Hamburg. (There were a couple of people that were just flat out missing... and i didn't learn till this week where there were or anything). So I looked, and during lunch, decided, I would go reserve a seat on the train for the way there, and fly back. This was the best impulsive decision ever... (ok maybe not the best, poland may have stolen that spot, but definitely one I'm very glad I made, or else I would always question whether I should have gone).

The train ride was long. There were two potential trains i could take, late and early... however the second half of the early train was full and the first half of the late train was full... the end result was that i had to split the ride in two and spend a couple of hours in Malmo, Sweden. Which wasn't bad b/c I got to grab food and watch yet another beach volleyball tournament going on in front of the town hall. During the second half of the trip I got the worst seat in a cabin... the middle seat w/ out arm rests or anything... and always in the sun. It was a long, hot trip... And I was quite happy to get to Stockholm.

By the time I got it, it was already pretty late, so we grabbed dinner, chatted and called it an early night. Andreas had another friend staying with him, Lena, who had just gotten a job in the area cataloging crawfish.

The next morning, I set off pretty early on my own. My goal was to grab a boat tour of the archipelago, but I missed the boat by literally seconds. I opted to take the next one, and wandered around the town hall to kill time. The tour was amusing. I learned all about Swedish industries, and how in all these different locations there used to be factories, and are now homes. The tour also played a lot of swedish pop music, including, abba, ace of base, and the cardigans.

I then proceeded to walk through an absolute downpour into the old city. Meandered around a church that housed the tombs of Swedish royalty; it was a lot more... British, and medieval than everything else I had seen during this trip, which I rather enjoyed. Then, I braved the elements and headed towards the castle. Where I saw 3 different museums, all very very nice. And I actually quite loved the inside of the castle.

Here I should point out, that getting around Stockholm for me was no the same as getting around Krakow. My theories for this include: 1) If i go underground (such as via train) i lose any and all sense of direction-- this also happens in Hamburg, 2) I only function directionally when there is sun, 3) I clearly never lived in Stockholm in a past life.

As I was leaving one of the exhibits at the castle, my timing was perfect to see the Changing of the guard, which I thought surely I had missed. For those keeping tabs, thats my second changing of the guard this trip. Its not something ridiculously special, its more just interesting to watch. As my time was winding down, I did not hit the 4th museum in the castle. But as I was leaving I could here the thump and rumble of bass... the distinct sound of... a night club... in the middle of the day in Stockholm. Well, I am a creature of curiosity, so I followed the "um-cha, um-cha, um-cha" and found myself in the middle of a gigantic gay pride parade. It was fantastic. A colorful mixture of people, banners, costumes, and floats... Combining stereotypes, in the best of ways, with serious political messages, and rocking floats that were basically discos on wheels. The whole thing went on for hours, and provided a very fun backdrop for my time in the city.

After getting lost for about the bagillionth time that day, I finally managed to catch up w/ Andreas and Lena, and we wandered around old town a bit, checking out old cafe's built in cellars, and swinging by H&M (this was a must, as i needed to be involved in some way in Swedish consumer culture in some way. Afterwards, though was a major highlight of the trip.

We went to the Absolute Icebar Stockholm. You may have heard of the Ice hotel or at least seen it on the traveling gnome commercials... well, cut from the same glacier and shipped down to Stockholm, is the Icebar... A bar made of Ice. Where they give you special coats, and you are allowed a whole 45 minutes to stay in. Drinks are all made w/ Absolute vodka (another swedish product)... and they are served in glasses made of Ice (also shipped down from glacier). This place was awesome. In the corner there was a statue of a guy doing graffiti and many people had left their marks on the ice. There were some plants frozen in some blocks... and Tv's frozen in others. Fur lined the ice couches. Overall, incredibly awesome.

That night, I got a slice of Swedish culture... a Swedish Fish Party!!! hahaha, ok, not really a Swedish Fish party, but rather a Traditional Swedish Crawfish party. Andreas' friend Jonas came over, as did his cousin and his cousins' wife, who, I apologize to, I can not remember their names to save my life. I got to try all sorts of traditional Swedish foods... I even ate crawfish... yes ladies and gents, I actually ate a new type of seafood, and did become ill from the en devour (well... not from the actual eating of the crawfish i should say). About every 5-10 minutes or so, there would be a drinking song sung, and shots of schnapps. I learned valuable lesson... I do not drink like a Swede. But it was riotous good fun overall.

Next morning involved a large breakfast, and more or less laying low, till it was time to catch my bus, to grab my plane. And then another bus back to Hamburg, which, managed to break down just as we reached the city limits.

While it was a very very very short trip, I have to say I had a ton of fun, and definitely hope to go back at some point in the future.

Up and Away

So as you may have figured out by now, there are a lot of new posts this week. It isn't to say I sat and did them all at once... more that I've been working on them at home... and Poland took a lot of time. I also did something I've never done before... I started editing my pictures... making them better quality etc... or at least thats what I've been telling myself... its rather time consuming... and not something I do at work.

I also did manage to pick up a new adapter, that works for everything including my phone. Which means I'm sitting at home right now doing a lot of writing. I also expanded my Online photo storage, so should be able to post all of Sweden's pictures as well.

But this is just a quick post here. Every so often when I walk out of work there is something new that just pops up in the area. One week it was a circus. During this last week I walked out to what appeared to be a giant bouncy castle... (this wouldn't surprise me at all seeing as earlier i looked out my bedroom window to a giant bouncy castle suddenly in my backyard...) As I approached there were two more structures being blown up... Turns out they were hot air balloons!! Massive ones. One regular, one in the shape of an Ice Cream cone... and one in the shape of a fork lift. It was pretty cool.

Robin Belinsky-- As American as Apple Pie

Which is to say, not as much as you would think… And for those of you who are completely lost on the joke, “Belinsky” is a very very very Polish name… Which, if you happen to be in Poland, people like to point out to you… a lot… and then they believe you should be able to speak polish, then they question why your parent’s didn’t teach you to speak polish, and then they try to guess when your family moved to America… Its all very odd… But even odder is the Polish claim to apple pie… go figure…

Before we even get started, I just want to say, I don’t think there is any way for me to actually portray how awesome Poland really is or how much fun I had traveling there solo… Its not a place you can go into w/ expectations, b/c its not somewhere you’ve seen tons of pictures of (well you hadn’t before you looked at my blog)… you go in relatively clueless, but w/ excitement and high expectations… and are not disappointed.

So riding the overnight train from Berlin to Krakow I met a fabulous girl, Shiva… Shiva is a doctor form LA, also happens to be an Iranian Jew… Making her probably one of the most interesting people I have ever met, particularly since she lived in Iran until she was 16, so she had some very interesting stories to tell. She also contributed to our trip through Auschwitz. And she took me to an orthodox Jewish service on Saturday, which we wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise. I didn’t stay for the whole thing… actually we were there, I ended up leaving for a bit b/c nothing was really going on, until as we were about to leave a bunch of Israeli kids on a trip showed up… apparently the service wasn’t starting till they got there. I wandered about for a bit and met back up w/ Shiva and she took me into the service again, this time it was in full swing. Men and women were separated by different rooms with windows that had lace curtains in between. The Rabbi’s were in full dress… very beautiful to watch, though I Had no idea what was going on… and so we stayed for a few songs, and headed out again.

But as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself…

Krakow—Friday, Saturday

Ok, so at this point, I grabbed a train Thursday night from Berlin, where I met Shiva, and we hit it off, and she hadn’t booked her hostel yet, so she ended up staying w/ me at mine. And we headed to Auschwitz, which you should have already read about… but when we got back we were hungry hungry girls. And went in pursuit of a restaurant that my Polish friend at the institute told me about… unfortunately by the time we got there, it was done serving dinner… so we ended up at a fabulous Italian place… that was incredibly beautiful. Then we wandered about for a little while, and saw that Krakow’s nightlife is actually pretty happening. The whole old quarter just comes to life, full or bars, and late night cafes, and night clubs. We ended up popping into the oldest chocolate maker in Poland’s place, E. Wedel… most delicious chocolate ever… no one got any as souvenirs as I don’t think it would have made it home, so I didn’t even try. We didn’t go out out on Friday… as we were pretty tired to begin with, so we just headed back to our hostel for some sleep.

The Hostel was incredible… possibly the best I have ever stayed at. It was called Goodbye Lenin! Its tucked away in the ally, a little bit far from the main area, but it meant that it was quiet to sleep, and central between old town and the jewish quarter. It had a fantastic bar, (with one free drink, including shots of vodka… and Poland is known for its vodka), excellent breakfast… I now eat lunch meat… this is a great milestone in life… and generally just good atmosphere (free internet as well).

Shiva kept poking fun at me the whole time we were in Krakow b/c it was a lot like I know my way around. Which is really rather true… that’s exactly what it was like. I almost never needed the map except to double check names. I always knew which way to turn, how to get back to places, etc. It was really really really, kind of on the creepy side. Past life? Polish intuition? Who knows?

In the morning I easily navigated us to the Jewish quarter, where we found the Market… too early ironically enough as we were late according to the times we were told. We did the Jewish service, and I wandered around and got myself lost in the neighborhood. I was trying very hard to find a bagel place… apparently bagels are also polish… but no one knew what a bagel was nor had they heard of the bakery I was referred to.

Post Jewish district we did breakfast back at the hostel (free breakfast) then headed out to explore old town during the day. Extremely lovely. Krakow is one city in Poland not destroyed during the War… so everything is old and original… and that is Krakow’s appeal. We did a bit of shopping, and took coffee in the main square, which is the largest market square in Europe… Just behind us a stage suddenly went up, and the next think you knew we were listening to polka music, and it turns out there was a whole polish folk festival going on behind us. There were dancers and bands from all over the world. After watching a few songs, we decided we wanted to do a walking tour of the city.

This was a fabulous idea (at least for me… b/c I love wandering around for hours listening to guides tell stories… no I’m serious… it goes hand in hand with my love of piles of rocks). I can’t remember for the life of me what our guide’s name was… but he was fabulous… though a bit on the enthusiastic side right to the end where he was like… ok, normally the tour ends here, but I want to take you to see this one last thing… I thought it was great. We wandered all around the old town, visited the University, where Copernicus and Pope John Paul studied…we hit up a Franciscan Church, where a wedding was going on, which we actually walked in the middle of a bit… sort of odd, as our guide walked ahead of us, and we all just sort of stood there and stared like, “are we really supposed to follow him????”… Then I got to do some Pope stalkin… for those of you new to my world, I have a reputation for Pope stalking… at least the old pope, not the new one… it just happened to be whenever I show up in Rome, the old pope would be out there blessing people… and I got pictures, etc. so… pope stalker. Seeing as he was from Poland, I got to do a bit more pope stalking… There were memorials and statues set up everywhere. It turns out he even used to teach classes at the Uni. Could you imagine wandering into class one day and the Pope being your professor???? I would have totally studied in Krakow if I got to have the pope as my Prof. We headed up to the castle, though didn’t go inside… It was pretty nice… the king at one point had an Italian wife and built her a court yard in Italian style to make her feel more at home. Oh and while we were there, there were soooooooo many weddings going on, and couples doing pictures, etc. It was very romantic, even for the single women running around.

The tour lasted a little over 3 hours, ending with the old fortress. By that point Shiva was rather tired of walking, and I volunteered to run back to the tour office to grab our jackets and some bags (it had gotten rather hot, and they had a place to keep our stuff)… we had picked up a guy from our tour, Steve, and Aussie that had been living in Scotland. We agreed to meet back up at the restaurant that we had tried to eat at earlier… on the way, I ran into a bunch of break dances… on the way back I ran into a shoe store… We had plans to go out that night, but according to my guidebook… sneakers and sandals were a no no… and as I only brought sneakers, shoes were a necessity… *hush you laughers*… necessity I tell your… and I’ve gotten many compliments on the shoes and their awesomeness since. Dinner was fabulous, traditional polish food… downstairs was unfortunately booked, and set up in the style of 18^th century bourgeoisie, upstairs was styled like a stable… we got to eat in the stable… it worked. We then agreed to meet up w/ Steve later to go Dancing!

And dance we did. We went to a club called Prozac… which had multiple rooms, dug into a cave like basement, a hookah bar, and light up dance floor. Turns out Shiva and Steve are both big into trance music… I just like to dance. Here was a very interesting situation though… it was all guys on the dance floor. Now, this wasn’t a gay bar, it just happened to be guys. And while this might be something every girl going dancing may have dreamed about, the fact is… its really awkward to just have a dance floor of boys… actually dancing… with each other… But we ended up having a fantastic time for most of the evening… though both Shiva and I were harassed a bit by some over enthusiastic guys, but by then it was around 3am, so we decided to call it a night… particularly since I had a train at like 8:30 am to catch.

Warsaw-- Sunday, Monday

And so my great Poland adventure continued on to Warsaw. 3 hours of sleep is not the best way to do this kind of trip, but at the same time led to one of the most interesting nights ever… but as usual, jumping ahead. So after I got to my hostel, I learned check in wasn’t till 3… it was around 10 or 11. So I dropped off my bags, and headed towards old town. Now Warsaw was basically flattened during the war. And Rebuilt afterwards. When you first get off the train you just go… wow, this is big… and it is… the first building you see is a giant soviet sky scraper… the palace of science and technology or something like that is the name… the roads are wide… for soviet parades and tanks. Then in the distance you see the modern skyscrapers… totally glass, springing from the skyline in fabulous modern design. So the last thing I was really expecting as I walked up the road was to find myself in Baroque Europe. But there it was… with bright colors on a bright blue sky… beyond picturesque. I wandered around for a few hours, and ended up at a hole in the wall restaurant specializing in … pirogues. Now I have objected to the existence of pirogues for years… the idea of potato inside noodle is well… unnatural.. real pirogues however is a different story. For instance I had a baked pirogue w/ cheese and pumpkin seeds… mmmmm… and the best beer… it was Honey beer… wow.

I wandered around a little longer, then headed back to the hostel. The Okie Dokie hostel. It is probably one of the more famous hostels… each room is designed by a different Warsaw artist. My room turned out to be the Communist room… woot woot… sigh… I should have brushed up on my commie knowledge before coming out. I used to be so good… Anyway, as I’m standing in line, the girl in front turned around, and it was Tanya, who I met during our Auschwitz tour. Small world. But she was going to see her room and I was in line. After I got settled in I went to look for her with no luck. And then… I made the fatal mistake of lying down for the first time all day… and totally passed out for couple of hours. I awoke to the sound of a new person coming into the room ( I stay in co-ed dorm style rooms… cheapest, best way to meet people). Once coming through a little bit, I had a rare moment of boldness and asked if the new kid wanted to go do dinner. Turns out he had just gotten in, and was also hungry. And he does have a name, Cyril, from Lyon, France… 24… engineer. To my relief he also spoke pretty decent English. So off to dinner we went.

We just randomly picked a little Italian place… and to my overwhelming amusement he ordered my food for me. I’m about 95% sure, no one has ever… I mean ever, ordered me my food… hilarious. So the night goes on, and just as we’re about to head out to find another place to grab drinks, the couple next to us starts talking to us due to the overwhelming slowness of the wait staff. After we paid, they insisted that they buy us drinks. About 5 hours after we went to dinner, we finally rolled back into the hostel. The couple, Stephen and Victoria, nearly got their very own blog post. They are a British couple, who had been living in Poland for some time. Victoria’s daughter was about our age and living in South Africa. They had been married for a few years, and reminded me more of brother/sister-best friends than your normal married couple. Steve had done more or less everything from leading tours for famous people in Italy, to being the economist who brought Ford to Poland. He seemingly had knew everyone in Warsaw, with connections everywhere. They bought us drink after drink, and were incredibly nice. Unfortunately, this might be why you aren’t hearing more about them… When we got back to the hostel we headed to the bar, which has cheese graters for lights… there were a bunch of Canadians there and Tanya… but as we sat for one last drink, they were headed out to the clubs… mind you, its after 1am at this point. So we just chilled out, until it was closing time.

Next morning I woke up early, ate breakfast… Cyril came out as I was near finishing so I opted to stick around for a bit longer. His plan was to pick up a friend at the airport and I wanted to really tour the city and do the castle and museums etc. And so, we parted ways. *side not to Mom—this is debatable as to whether or not I blew him off, its not like we had plans to see things together, and I wasn’t about to sit around the hostel “hanging out” when there was a city to see…*

And see it I did… The castle is free on Mondays, which was awesome. Of course none of the stuff is entirely real… which is amusing, but it was still pretty nice to see people’s ideas of what should have been there. I explored all the churches, Chopin’s old hang outs, etc. Once I was exhausted I jumped on the tourist bus, No guide, just riding around seeing things. This was great, b/c really… Warsaw is huge. By bus you can see the whole contrast of old and new.

I ate more perogies for lunch… and had some fabulous Balkan food for dinner…where all the waiters were like, “you are here alone?” My train didn’t leave until 11:30 pm… and I learned a valuable lesson about checking, double checking, and using visuals such as a calendar when booking tickets in other languages for night trains… as it turns out my ticket was for the next day… but managed to change things around w/ out too much trouble.

And thus ended my grand Poland adventure!

Extreme Technical Difficulties

Ok,
So as things are winding down here, things tend to go wrong. Things such as I have used up the capacity of my online picture storage, so cant upload anymore without paying (which i think is totally lame, especially since they decided to count my asia pictures)... also, today, I managed to blow both my power converter and my adapter... meaning i cant charge any electronics or plug in my computer.

So what this means for the blog... Most of my pictures are uploaded, just not posted yet, except for half of sweden... I plan on emailing myself what i have written in terms of posts later today or tommorrow using what i have left of battery power on my lap top. Seeing as i was working on the blogs at home and trying to wrap up researching here, I wasnt planning on writing much more... mazbe ill just post pictures for now... stories later... its also hard to write using stupid german key board im not used to. our IT people are currently out till monday, so no one can give me another adaptor... i give scowling face to those of zou laughing at me now.

As for work, it looks like ill be handwriting notes, and photocopzing books for two days. I did try the media mart electronics store... thez onlz had european adaptors-converters... so i will trz to pick something up in the frankfurt airport, otherwise ill just have to buy regular battereis for my camera, use my watch as my alarm clock, and live without music and phone for 10 days.

ah well... such is life as a traveler.

Auchwitz-Birkenau

This is one of my more serious posts. Though not as graphic as the one from last year dealing with the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields… The topic of Auschwitz is just as grim, if not more so.

On this day, it rained… it shifted back and forth between thunder showers and a constant drizzle. Appropriate weather for where we were going. We opted to take a private tour, as we figured it would be cheaper and more informative in the end… and faster to get there. Which was very true… as we learned, b/c the driver sped the whole way there. At one point I looked out the window to see a camel. Yes I said a camel… a real one, just sort of chilling out in someone’s back yard. I was there with my friend Shiva that I met the night before (and I’ll talk about more later)… when we got there we had to wait for the English speaking guide, so we had time to take coffee. I took a Turkish coffee, as Shiva said she would read my coffee grains… [ strong woman, married 2 kids, need to leave my past behind, attachment to Egypt]… We met another girl from slovakia I think… I’m not sure, she was a teacher named Tanya. [quasi important later]… then we got our headsets… brilliant idea… give the guide a microphone and everyone a headset, so everyone can hear as you are wandering around. And then we began…

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi death camp. Originally just a concentration and labor camp, where polish intellectuals were sent, the camp was extended to Auschwitz II, where the primary purpose was death, especially towards the end of the war, where it was used for mass exterminations. Something around 1.2 million people died here. 90% of the individuals here were Jews, others included Poles (intellectuals), Soviets, Gypsies, and Homosexuals.

We took a tour through the camp; first the original camp, with its brick barracks… deceptively nice for someone passing by, as they were in fact, originally built as military barracks. But as you go through you hear the history. You see where prisoners lived, their faces staring back at you from the walls where their photos hang. Nazi efficiency, cataloging the people. At least in the beginning… when the camp turned to just an extermination camp, and as the Nazis where pulling out, they destroyed records, and the gas chambers so that people wouldn’t know what they had done.

As you go through the rooms, you see where individuals were tortured, or punished, and where people were experimented upon. The courtyards where executions took place. There are whole individual rooms filled with luggage, shoes, brushes, glasses, hair. Hair is the worse… it has an odor to it. Some still has some color to it, and they are all in braids. They even had an example of what the Nazi’s did with the hair: the sold it to be used as blankets and the lining of uniforms. Tests of these linings showed residue of the gas used during executions.. indicating the hair was shaved afterwards. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the rooms… I don’t really think that anyone would want to.

The Second part of the Camp was huge. There is a video below to show how far it stretched. To my surprise there are houses not all that far off. And I couldn’t help but wonder how people could live and wake up everyday to see this place on the other side of the road. But at the same time, the memory of living just a few blocks from Toul Sleng prison in Cambodia, and eating regularly across the street comes creeping into my head.

Overall, the experience was a bit on the surreal side. Touching, solemn, but definitely worth while.

Berlin part II

So, here are all my pictures from my spontaneous trip to Berlin along with the pics from the Obama rally and video of a very enthusiastic older gentleman.