Hi all! I decided that since I have a computer with free internet in my hotel room I should take advantage of writing some more not only about where I am but where I have been. I haven’t been able to write about certain details about the semester so I just wanted to write more on them so I don’t forget (:
[Prague]
Well, I’m in Prague! And there are so many things to ‘czech’ out here! Har har. Get it?? Anyways… Prague is a very pretty city- I really like how the old architecture is preserved. There are unfortunately a lot of tourists here so that is a bummer. Our group has been so busy with classes since we have gotten here so I felt like today I was finally able to explore. Another bummer is that my right knee has started hurting so walking around has been hard! It’s so mysterious because I have no clue why it hurts. Hopefully it will get better by tomorrow.
This morning we had our first exam! It was for our IS 123 class, The Arts in Europe. I think it went well, but everyone else who I have talked to about it hasn’t been as positive about it! So either I did better than everyone (not likely) or I am not good at gauging how difficult tests are. Hmm…
Yesterday we had an excursion to Terezin, a city just outside of Prague. It was once a Jewish Ghetto from when Germany took control of former Czechoslovakia. It was a sobering visit for sure. Although it wasn’t a concentration camp or other kind of camp, there were still many, many people who died under the terrible conditions there. Terezin had a holding area for Jewish people being transported to places like Auschwitz. We watched a short video about the ghetto and heard terrifying statistics, one after the other that described the number of people who were sent out from Terezin to Auschwitz and then the number who survived. It kept repeating something like of 1,000 people transported at one scheduled time, 2 survived. I’m not sure if I am explaining this in a comprehensible way, but they just kept saying stats over and over again like, out of the 1,500 transported another time 3 survived, then of the 1,200 transported another time 0 survived, etc.
It was strange to go to Terezin and actually walk through the campus and the buildings because I have read about this types of places and seen drawings and photos and even pieces of the bunk beds that were at the ghettos or concentration camps but I had never actually been on site! Our guide told us horrible stories about how the Jewish people were treated at the ghetto… and as horrible as they sounded, I know that it is not even half as bad as the concentration camps or extermination camps like Auschwitz! Our group is leaving the Czech Republic tomorrow for Poland and in less than a week we will visit Auschwitz. I’m kind of nervous because I don’t know what my response to being on that site will be like…
It’s horrible to think that genocide still occurs today. It’s happening in Darfur, it happened in Rwanda, Cambodia, Turkey, Iraq… I mean, we visited Northern Ireland and Bosnia and talked to people who lived through the height of the pure genocide that was occurring all around them- losing family members and friends for the stupid reason of being part of a people group that another people group hated. I mean, who’s to say it couldn’t happen where I live?
[Austria]
I’m kind of glad to have left Austria. I don’t mean this in an offensive way at all but I was having a hard time really appreciating the culture there because I honestly don’t know much about it! I mean, I know the ‘Govenator’ is Austrian, that the Sound of Music is set there in the city of Salzburg, and that Hitler was originally Austrian... but that was it initially. While I was there I did learn that Mozart and Beethoven lived most of their adult lives there and that Vienna is still to this day a great center for music. I also learning that Vienna is one of the only big cities in Europe to have a smaller population today than it did 100 years ago! Vienna used to be a happenin’ place!
I did enjoy visiting the U.N. center while in Vienna. It was actually very cool. I kind of want to work for them someday. I was just struck by how awesome it is that they work to make sure all people have equal access to healthcare, education, and safety. I bet they could use a Medical Anthropologist like little ol’ me. (: While in Vienna I also enjoyed the Opera that we went to. We attended The Barber of Seville. It was interesting because it was sung in German, but it is based in Spain, and everyone there was reading translations of the lyrics in German (except our group of course). The opera was especially interesting considering the fact that we couldn’t actually see the stage or the actors. We managed to see half the stage if we stood up and hung over the side of the boxes we were sitting in although that may have been awkward for the people seated below us… but the music was fantastic! It was fun because I actually recognized many of the songs. My favorite was the “Figaro” song.
While in Vienna we also did some other things like visit the Belvedere Palace (beautiful!) and rode a boat down the Danube river. We did a lot of fun stuff there so I can’t complain about it, but I don’t think it will make my top list of highlights of the semester.
[Bosnia]
Bosnia on the other hand will definitely be one of my favorite highlights from the trip! Not to say it went without its issues…. Speaking of which I have still not completely recovered from the food poisoning incident that occurred there over 2 weeks ago… but I won’t get into that. Oh but Bosnia was awesome! I really liked the people there! I think I just really like Eastern Europe in general which for some reason is surprising… I thought I wouldn’t like it. I think another reason why I liked Bosnia so much was because we had two tour guides, Mu’stafa and Sa’mir, who we got to know pretty well and who took us under their wing. (:
Sarajevo was a great city and I learned so much there. I think its cool how many of the people there are proud of the ethnic and religious diversity there- mostly split into the Croat, Serb, and Bosniak groups who are mostly Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish. It was sad however that there seems to be a lack in integration between the groups… maybe it is too soon since the war for the groups to completely integrate without major problems. Whatever the case, I hope that the healing process will bring them to more integration soon.
It was really interesting to have visited the city of Mostar in Bosnia because it is especially divided between Croats and Bosniaks- they live separated by the river that runs through the city. The city itself is super old and has a great bridge- which is it actually named after. I was surprised by how many Minarets were in that city- a Minaret is a tower at a mosque from which someone calls Muslims for prayer multiple times a day- most Bosniaks are Muslim. Most if not all. I’m actually not sure if someone would be considered a Bosniak if they weren’t Muslim… anyways, we visited the biggest mosque in the city and then visited an old traditional Turkish house. Our tour guide in Mostar was super cute… I’ll have to find a photo to put up of him. (:
We also went river rafting in Neretva- which is where we all ended up with food poisoning. Hmmmmm. But before that I had fun! The river was SO beautiful! It seriously looked like I was in a article of National Geographic. We were told that the water is completely safe to drink because Bosnia has never experienced eColi or other contaminants we have in the US water sources. The river runs through some cool canyons, and I even saw some goats at the top of a cliff near the canyon! I’d like to think they were wild… but maybe they were just the neighbor’s goats. Haha. Oh, and I learned some Bosnian from our cute rafting guide. That was fun. It was pretty funny because at one point the river got rougher and I kind of fell directly backward in the raft and I got stuck! I got stuck on the floor of the boat because I was wearing this huge lifejacket so I couldn’t move. My legs ended up sticking straight up in the air and everyone was laughing at me! It was pretty funny… then over another rougher part of the river I accidentally fell forward into the middle of the boat head first… but straight into the girl on the other side of the boat and she flew out head first into the river! I couldn’t stop laughing! She laughed too. We had fun. (: It was too bad our cute rafting guide was a chain smoker… and didn’t speak a word of English. Haha. Oh. I thought of another reason I might be able to come back to Europe in the future- maybe I can return as Medical Anthropologist to Bosnia to help set up more programs to help people quit smoking- 70% of all Bosnians smoke!
ANOTHER great thing we did in Bosnia was go to this awesome little village in the mountains… I can’t remember what it was called. We went on a short but strenuous hike to a great view of the Serpintine River and we got to meet some cute ladies dressed in kind of traditional kind of peasant outfits. They were a treat for sure! Then we ate some “salty cakes” and some kind of interesting curdling goat milk… that was very sour and had many chunks in it. I’m going to be honest, it was hard to drink it but I at least gave it a chance. Later some of the people living there dressed up in traditional outfits and danced and sang for us. They showed up what a traditional wedding ceremony would be like. Their way of singing was so interesting! I wish I had a CD of it! It’s not like anything I had ever heard before! I don’t think many of my friends would like to listen to it because at first it sounds like what we think of when someone is in pain and is moaning… but then imagine them singing that kind of flat note really loud and for a really long time. Then you can almost start to imagine what their music was like. I liked it. It was definitely unique.
[London, Cambridge, Belfast, Dublin]
I feel like I was in these 4 places so long ago! I was definitely happy to have been able to catch up with my friend Chrissie in London. She was my R.A. (resident assistant) last year at Westmont and now since she has graduated she has returned to her home in London and is attending graduate school there! She is so sweet and so cool. She always dresses in thus uniquely European way but still throws in some fun ethnic accessories. She was kind enough to show me and Yuko around to this cool outdoor market in London. It was awesome because there was seriously no tourist there! It was amazing! It was all artsy college people- all of them were super trendy and too cool for school. Even though they mostly all in college. Haha. It was fun to hang out with Chrissie again!
Um… what can I say about Cambridge? It was very beautiful, serene, and relaxing. Belfast I have already talked about… and it was so great to be able to meet up with my cousin in Dublin! I am so glad that I didn’t miss that opportunity… even though I slept through my alarm clock and didn ‘t wake up until like 3 hours after I was supposed to meet her! I’m so glad we still connected though. I am still really embarrassed about that whole oversleeping thing. That seriously never happens to me! I was just extremely jet-lagged.
Well that’s it for now. All is well over here for me. At least all is well concerning the big things- I’m happy, I’m mostly healthy, and I am not in need of anything. Although to be honest I feel like all this knowledge about horrible things in this world have made me even more of a tortured soul in a lot of respects. I don’t mean that I am depressed or anything but it is so sad and so hard to think about all the terrible suffering that goes on in peoples’ lives all over the world. I think after going to Russia last summer I became… I guess more serious? That’s the only way I can think to describe it. There has been a deep impact on me after learning about and meeting people who have gone through horrific experiences and I just can’t ever be the same after that. Its definitely a good thing although its not something that feels good. Its like I have a new responsibility for the burden of the knowledge. There is a saying in the bible that “With much knowledge comes much responsibility”- and I totally agree with that. I’m not sure what I will do with my knowledge but I have to do something.
With all this new knowledge I am also becoming very sensitive to ignorant remarks I hear. Most of the people on the trip are smart and sensitive as a whole but there are always like one, maybe two people who sometimes just really push my buttons. I just cannot handle it when I hear people laugh at Chrynobl, or think its funny to joke about landmines in Bosnia, or just blurt out that they don’t want to have daughters because they don’t want to worry about ‘rape and stuff’. Today in class we were reflecting on the previous day’s visit to the Jewish Ghetto and one idiot had the nerve to say that with all the advances in technology today he found it comforting that genocide could never happen again because the international community would definitely come to their aide. My blood was boiling after he said that. Seriously, how stupid and self absorbed do you have to be to say that? I mean, even if he doesn’t like to keep up with the news, we freaking went to Northern Ireland and Bosnia and heard first hand accounts of the wars and genocides that happened there! Anyways, I’ll stop there but I am definitely more sensitive to ignorant comments like that. I don’t have any patience for people like that. Luckily, I think there are more people out there who are somewhat concerned with people besides themselves and have at least some knowledge of vulnerable people groups around the world or at least in their own communities. It’s not that hard to identify people who are hurting because of a lack of money, education, respect because of what they look like, disabilities or illnesses…etc. Even if you don’t even do anything about it to help them, most people at least can identify issues that indicate an imperfect world.
