Eastern Europe Review

Well as you all know I spent the last 10 days visiting Eastern and Central Europe and well what would it be if I didn’t make three general comments about the similarities I saw among the four countries I visited. Just to remind you I went to…

1. Krakow, Poland
2. Prague, Czech Republic
3. Bratislava, Slovakia
4. Budapest, Hungary

All in all these countries were amazing and this was the best trip by far that I have taken while being here. But I noticed a number of ‘issues’ or maybe ‘concerns’ that the Eastern and Central counties had.

1. All 4 counties had a fear of loosing their identity by joining the EU. Polish were afraid they would become European instead of Poles. Czechs thought they would be engulfed by the EU with no say to their countries actions and power.
2. The second was the fact that this region has had ever changing boarders for quite some time. Switching occupation between Germany and Russia and having so many arguments in regards to borders these countries want to hold on to what sovereignty they have right now and may are afraid they will lose it by joining the EU.
3. There is an intense inferiority complex among the states. Poland thinks it’s better than Czech, Czech thinks it’s better than Slovakia, Slovakia thinks its better Hungary, and Hungary thinks they’re all better than it. But they consistently struggle to be the ‘best’ eastern European state.

Buda + Pest= BUDAPEST

Fun facts about Budapest:

1. The residents of the city are called Budapesters or Budapestians
2. The largest Synagogue in Europe, the Great Synagogue is located in Budapest.
3. The largest medicinal bath in Europe, Széchenyi Medicinal Bath is also located in the city.
4. the third largest Parliament building in the world is in Budapest
5. It even houses the third largest church in Europe, Esztergom Basilica.
6. The first underground railway in Europe was built in Budapest, which is known as the Millennium Underground railway. (The metro-cars look like they are still the original cars- rather scary!)
7. Budapest is designated as one of the top 100 most livable cities in the world.

While roaming the streets of Budapest I learned a number of interesting facts, the best part of the trip was learning about the history of Budapest. The first thing I noticed is that the city of Budapest is so decentralized, with major landmarks really far apart, and the lack of a true city center. Then I learned this is the reason… Budapest is basically merger of two cities, Buda and Pest, which have always been and still are considered two separate cities that are separated by the river Danube. The right or the west bank is occupied by Buda while the left or the east bank is flanked by Pest.

The next interesting thing I learned about Budapest is that it is the place where the concept of an Avenue came from. The definition of Avenue is: A way or opening for entrance into a place; a passage by which a place may by reached; a way of approach or of exit. In the center of Buda and Pest runs the Danube River. Then the city was created as a circle with the Danube River running straight through it. Then the King created straight ways or openings from the river to the outskirts of the city creating Avenues…

Lastly our last night there we were able to take a city tour and a night boat cruise of the Danube River. While the Danube river is gorgeous the day and acts as the front yard of some of Budapest major landmarks it is an extremely important river for Budapest and Hungary. Acting as a major source of transportation of goods and provides rich soil for Hungary’s farmers. But besides that the river cruise was absolutely gorgeous!

Kraców or Krakow or Cracow

Our first stop was Poland and boy was it interesting. Well I guess the first thing worth mentioning is how scared of the Russians they still are. While there I heard the word Russia(n) closely followed by some sort of curse word almost every hour on the hour. It was shocking how big a role Russia

still plays in Polish politics. One speaker even told us this exact quote “A dead Russian is a good Russian”…. So needless to say that was an interesting aspect!

1. There is an old wives tale about a dragon of Krakow and how the town came to be… (click here to read story)
2. Baltic Amber is extremely important in Poland… Back in the early 1900s there were large portions of Amber found along the shores of the Baltic Sea. About 90% of the world's extractable amber is still located in the Baltic Sea. Pieces of amber are torn from the seafloor are cast up by the waves, and collected at ebb-tide.
3. Pierogi: boiled dumplings of unleavened dough stuffed with varying ingredients. Pierogi were traditionally peasant food, but eventually spread in popularity throughout all social classes, including nobles. At the 2007 Pierogi Festival in Kraków, 30,000 pierogi were consumed daily. Polish pierogi are often filled with fresh white cheese, potatoes, and fried onions.
4. One very interesting aspect of our trip was our first speaker who spoke to us about Poland’s wishes from the US and the fact that they supported McCain as did the rest of Eastern Europe. The first mention was that Poland’s main diplomatic concern is the removal of visas from the United States. They said every Polish citizen needs a visa to go to the states, and furthermore it’s a long and drawn out process that takes much time. Poland expressed its wishes to remove this since they considered the US one of their greatest allies.

All in all Kraców was my favorite city we visited!

Auschwitz

The hardest and by far most touch part of my trip was our day visit to Auschwitz. Seeing the museum and going through the camp was extremely hard and terrifying. It was particular interesting to be in a group with German chaperons and they were not greeted with the best feelings. Furthermore there was a large number of Israelis at the camp that were carrying the Israeli flag and chanting songs in memorium of those who died. Here is some info on Auschwitz, since I didn’t know that much about it before going there…

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Nazi extermination camps. One major difference pointed out was the difference between concentration and extermination camps. Extermination camps were meant to kill people and that is what Auschwitz was. The camp commandant, Rudolf HoB, testified that up to 3 million people had died at Auschwitz.

COMPONENTS: There were three main camps at Auschwitz, Auschwitz I, II, and III.
1. Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp, served as the administrative center for the whole complex, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly Polish and Siveit POWs.
2. Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, and was the site of the deaths of at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Gypsies ..
3. Auschwitz III (Monowitz) served as a labor camp for the Buna-Werke factory.

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS: Nazi doctors at Auschwitz performed a wide variety of "experiments" on helpless prisoners. SS doctors tested the efficacy of X-rays as a sterilization device by administering large doses to female prisoners. Prof. Dr. Carl Clauberg injected chemicals into women's uteruses in an effort to glue them shut. Bayer, then a subsidiary of IG Farben, bought prisoners to use as guinea pigs for testing new drugs. The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was Josef Mengele, who was also known as the “Angel of Death”. Particularly interested in "research" on identical twins, Mengele performed cruel experiments on them, such as inducing diseases in one twin of a pair and killing the other when the first died to perform comparative autopsies. He also took a special interest in dwarves, injecting twins, dwarves and other prisoners with gangrene to "study" the effects.

ESCAPES: About 700 prisoners attempted to escape from the Auschwitz camps during the years of their operation, of which about 300 were successful. A common punishment for escape attempts was death by starvation; the families of successful escapees were sometimes arrested and interned in Auschwitz and prominently displayed to deter others. If someone did manage to escape, the SS would pick ten random people from the prisoner's block and starve them to death.

Rent an American

So the first week I got here I got the chance to sign up for a program called Rent An American…of course it sounds kinda crazy so I signed up!

Basically Rent An American is a program based in Freiburg Germany that allows for schools with in the Baden Württemberg region to ‘rent’ and American for the classroom. So a teacher will pick a subject such as politics, US sports, traveling, etc. The kids here in Germany not only learn English but learn the American/English culture and as a result have ‘speakers or experts (me)’ come in and talk to them.

I will have my first experience on April 24^th and will be talking to three different class rooms. The first is 8-9 year olds and I will be discussing US States and traveling with them. Then the second session is with 12-13 year old and we will discuss traveling and US daily life, then lastly the last session is 15-19 year olds discussing world traveling. Each session is about 1 hour long and is about a 15 minute ‘lecture’ then 45 minutes Q and A!

Should be fun!

Wish me luck!!

Strasbourg!

Today we went to Strasbourg, France which is in the Alsace region of France. The Alsace Region of France has been in and out of French/German/French/ German occupation. But now and since WWII it has been in French control. We went there to tour the European Union Parliament (there is also one in Brussels- they switch off after a couple of months). We were able to see about 15 minutes of chamber debate… each parliament member speaks in their language and it’s all translated to the 24 EU language and broadcast on headphones that the audience listens to.

But to be honest the best part of our trip was the city tour of Strasbourg. My favorite part was the Notre Dome Cathedral de Strasbourg, which was built after the famous in Paris but took 250 years to build for one amazing reason. Since the Alsace region was constantly changing control from country to country they barely ever got any money from whatever country was controlling it at the time. So the Cathedral was paid for by the residents of Strasbourg! So they had to build and take breaks to raise money.

Another fun fact about the Cathedral is the stain glass window behind the alter… depicting the Virgin Mary and Jesus… About the Virgins head there is what some considered a halo but it is actually the European Union flag with the twelve gold stars, since the window was given to the Cathedral as a gift from the EU. (if you click the picuture to enlarge it- you see at the very top 12 gold stars in a circle)

Later we learned that the notion of a stork brings a child to mothers and fathers came from this region. The tradition goes that you put two sugar cubes outside your window and the stork with come and eat them and bring that household a child. It is also said that if you see a stork in the city you should rush home and put sugar our for a that’s a sign that you’re about to get a child from the stork!

Lastly we had an all you can eat Flamkugen meal. Flamkugen is a Southern German and Alsace tradition. It is like a pizza, with very thin dough and sour cream spread on top of it, and then bacon and onions and cheese are spread on top. There are a variety of types but this is the most common and is famous in this region. Lets just say the restaurant was shocked at how much a group of 70 Americans can eat… they almost had to cut us off… lets just say all you can eat in Europe isn’t anything like all you can eat in America!!

HAPPY 21 in Amsterdam

For my birthday weekend I went to Amsterdam with 7 friends of mine. While many people think I went to go crazy in a country where it’s legal too go crazy I actually didn’t… I promise mom and dad :).

But we got there Saturday morning at 7 am and went straight for a city walking tour that we’ve taken in almost every other city, a New Europe tour. We learned a number of awesome traditions and fun facts about Amsterdam!

For instance, it is legal to smoke pot in ‘cafes’ in Amsterdam, however under NO circumstances is it legal to smoke tobacco. So if a police man was to enter a café he could arrest you for smoking a cigarette but not pot!

Another cool fact we learned is that the current mayor of Amsterdam is really working hard to clean up the image of Amsterdam. In fact he has officially outlawed all drugs besides pot and reduced the size of the ‘red light’ district in half.

We also learned a great deal about how the red light district worked. For instance each prostitute has to rent her window from hour to hour, costing about 100 euro per an hour and they work in 6-8 hour shifts costing them 600- 800 euro for each working day. However to ‘rent’ a prostitute it costs about 60-80 euro for ½ hour. But for each ‘special’ request it costs another 60-80 euro, then for each 15 minutes after a half hour the price doubles, triples, etc. So for ½ is 80 euro but for 45 is 160 euro and one hour is 240 euro.

And no I don’t know this from experience I know by asking questions... and no I didn’t ask a prostitute I asked my tour guide!

But moving on the night of my birthday we went to a Comedy club. It was set up in a Whose Line Is It Anyway setting, and was performed by 4 Americans and all done in English! Then of course we went out!

One finally fun fact from Amsterdam is the language they speak is Dutch… which is oddly similar to German. For instance every word I learned in German was the same in Dutch! So parents you’re really paying for me to learn 2 languages!!

Munich, Neuschwanstein Castle, and Ulm

Jessica and I decided to visit Munich for the weekend. So we booked out train tickets and headed out. We took the 5:40 AM train there (since that’s the cheapest tickets and we are college students) and three transfers later we were there at 11:15 AM… like I said really cheap tickets. We decided to take a short nap and then hit the city… well by short I mean 2 hours. Then we hit the city. We walked around explored and conquered the city. Later we went to a nice Donner Kebab restaurant and then went to our hostel’s bar and meet a number or other young travelers. But we decided to venture out and found an ½ Australian Bar and a ½ Irish Bar… we’re not sure how that worked out but we gave it shot. It wasn’t very interesting and we were actually the youngest person by 20 years so we quickly left and made it back to the hostel for a good nights sleep before our adventure packed day.

The next day we went to the Neuschwanstein castle located right outside Munich. It was the inspiration for the Disney Castle at Disneyland and Disneyworld. It was built by King Ludwig. It took approximately 17 years to build and King Ludwig only lived in for a couple of months before he died. This castle was what I would call a little overdone and somewhat His death is considered to be very controversial. Germany was in major debt and could hardly run the country but King Ludwig not only built this castle but 3 others. At the time of his death Germany was 34,000 marks in debt- which was approximately as much as three times the cost of his castles. But his death was suspicious because he was declared insane and put into an institution. So the German government, in order to stop him from spending more money declared him insane and put an end to his spending. Don’t get any ideas mom and dad.

Then finally on Sunday we went to Ulm. The place where Einstein was born and the church that has the highest spire in all of Europe. Obviously we had to climb it! We were victorious but man were we soar!

PARIS!

Like we have in every other city we’ve been to we took the 4 hour New Europe walking tour around Paris. Since a 4 hour tour is hard to fit in a blog I picked the top 5 favorite French stories/facts I learned on the tour.

Top 5 Favorite French Stories…

1. Napoleon Bonaparte was buried in Paris at a prestigious hotel. When entering the hotel you go up a small platform and have to bend over/down to look at his coffin. The idea being everyone is bowing down towards Napoleon. Known to be a memorial to him as well as his great ego. But when Hitler went to visit his grave, he brought a mirror. He placed the mirror at an angle and was therefore able to see Napoleons grave without knelling down to him. But rumor has it later he hat blew off and he had to bend down to pick it up and so Napoleons grave as honored.

2. France isn’t exactly known for its great battle strategy and winning the most wars however they are famous at losing them. In the 100 years war against Britain, France got cocky and thought they would win the battle. So they gathered all the British archers they had and instead of killing them they cut off there middle fingers so they couldn’t shoot their bows and arrows anymore. But France lost, and in return had all the middle fingers pointed at them. Hence the start of the use of the middle finger as an insult.

3. Throughout Paris there are a number of these “graffiti” signs all across the city. There is an actually purpose for them, a stupid reason but nonetheless a reason. There is a man that goes by the name “The Invader” and has put these signs up all over the world. LA, NY, Italy. France, etc. They are supposed to represent the game Space Invaders and he has put these little symbols all across the world http://www.space-invaders.com . My favorite space-invader sign is on the D in the HOLLYWOOD sign in LA… highly illegal.

4. Lastly when Sarkosy became president of France he made a vow to the Parisian people to make the river Seine cleaner. Before president he was the mayor of Paris and had told them all before his presidency was over he would take a piece of his fine crystal stemware and drink for the Seine as a vow that he would work to clean it. He never did…. look at how disgusting that water is!

5. Washington DC is the United States sister city to Paris, France.

European Council

In 2009 the Czech Republic gained the presidency of the European chance to Union Council and as a mark of that achievement they creating their own slogan and logo. Their logo is seen all over the building. But another unique part of their presidency was a piece of artwork they commissioned to put on the inside of the Council building. The artist is David Černý a famous Czech artist. The art is extremely controversial, since it depicts the 27 member states of the EU, but not necessarily in a good light. For instance:

1. UK (empty space): is not on the board but instead there is a large gap in the top left hand quarter, GB is criticized by some for being one of EU's most eurosceptic

2. Netherlands: has disappeared under the sea with only several minarets still visible, suppose to represent the drowning religious identity of the Netherlands

3. Finland: depicted as a wooden floor and a male with a rifle lying down, imagining an elephant and a hippo

4. France: draped in a "GRÈVE!" ("STRIKE!") banner

5. Sweden: does not have an outline, but is represented as a large Ikea-style self-assembly furniture box, containing Gripen fighter planes (as supplied to the Czech Air Force)

6. Germany: the Auto Bohn (hotly contested to be in the shape of a swastika)

7. Belgium: an almost empty box of chocolates

8. Czech Republic: a LED display, which flashes controversial quotations by Czech President Václav Klaus

9. Poland: priests erecting the rainbow flag of the Gay rights movement, in the style of the U.S. Marines raising the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima.

10. Luxembourg: is displayed as a gold nugget with "For Sale" tag

11. Slovenia: shown as a rock engraved with the words first tourists came here 1213

12. Bulgaria: the one with a black sheet over it since it was demanded by the Bulgarian representative to be covered up: but it was a series of connected "Turkish" squat toilets; neon-like lights connect and illuminate them was a giant “eastern restroom” (a hold in the ground)

13. Latvia: shown as covered with mountains, in contrast to its actual flat landscape, to show that no one knows anything about Latvia

14. Italy: depicted as a soccer felid with several players who appear to be masturbating with the balls they each hold.

15. Romania: Dracula-style theme park, which is set up to blink and emit ghostly sounds at intervals.

16. Slovakia: depicted as a Hungarian sausage (or a human body wrapped in Hungarian tricolor)

17. Estonia: presented with a hammer and sickle-styled power tools, the country has considered a ban on Communist symbols

18. Portugal: wooden cutting board with three pieces of meat in the shape of its former colonies of Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique

19. Lithuania: series of dressed Manneken Pis-style figures urinating; the streams of urine are presented by a yellow lighting glass fibers

20. Denmark: built of Lego bricks, and some claim to see in the depiction a face reminiscent of the cartoon controversy

21. Ireland: depicted as a brown bog with bagpipes protruding from Northern Ireland; the bagpipes play music every five minutes

22. Hungary: features an Atomium made of its common agricultural products melons and Hungarian sausages, based on a floor of peppers

23. Greece: is depicted as a forest that is entirely burned, possibly representing the 2007 Greek forest fires and the 2008 civil unrest in Greece.

24. Spain: covered entirely in concrete, with a concrete mixer situated in the northeast to represent Spain always being “under construction”

25. Austria: a known opponent of atomic energy, is a green field dominated by nuclear power plant cooling towers; vapour comes out of them at intervals

26. Cyprus: jigsawed (cut) in half

27. Malta: tiny island with its prehistoric dwarf elephant as its only decoration; there's a magnifying glass in front of the elephant

This was my favorite part of the whole trip- I loved the art thought it was very witty and unique, although I am one of the very few in the whole EU!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/jan/14/politicsandthearts-eu

plans plans plans

Just a heads up...
we have the go ahead from our program that we can start making flight reservations. So I´ve come up with a list of places i would like to go...

1. Iceland
   
2. Croatia
   
3. Bulgaria
   
4. Munich
   
5. Hamburg

so my plan is to hit up these places in the next couple of months. Any advice... ever been to any of them?

As of now a trip to Munich is more or less planned for this weekend after we return from Geneva. Leaving Saturday and coming back Sunday night.
Then the next weekend we are planning a road trip from Freiburg to Sttugart, Ohm, and Baden Baden.

1. Stuggart is the capital of the Baden-Wertemburg region we are in
2. Ohm is where Einstein was born and is also home to the largest church spire in Germany (we plan on climbing it)
3. Baden Baden is the nice casino, ritzy, spa Las Vegas of Germany #

let me know if you have any suggestions!

SKIING AND STEAMING

well i went skiing in the Swiss Alps on Friday... Needless to say the Alps are a little different than Big Bear but i took it like a Champion. First of all The Alps Begginers Ally is more like an intermeidate hill in the States so my first run was definatly my scarriest. Second was the perfect snow- granted throughout the day it transcended into ice from all the people but the powder was georgous and just deep enough. The trails were georgous and made it necessary to stop every 5 meters to take picutres. There were only 3 snowboarders the whole day! Not too bad!!

It took us 2.5 hours to get there by bus, and we left at 5 am getting us there at 7:45 or 8:00 ish. The first step was to pass the "thomas challenge" Thomas, our group leader had to watch each one of us go down begginer's alley and determine if we were able to ski on our own. THen if you passed you could wander off and if you didn't you had to take a mandated beginners class. Luckily i passed and began my day of skiing by stupidly getting myself on an intermidiate slope- but don't worry i managed and made it out to a beautiful trail that soon became my favorite trail!Some of us did better than others- here is my friends Shawn falling after getting cockey and trying to do a jump.

We all jumped on the bus at 5:30 PM and made the long ride ho me. We got back at 7:30 and all immediatly fell asleep and went to bed. The next day we all felt the pain... In our legs and knees. With barely any motivation to get out of bed we had a wonderful idea. Germany is known for its amazing hot springs. So we decided to pack up and let our muscles relax at Bad Bellignan.

Now that my relaxing weekend is over i have to write three papers for this week. But don't worry i head to Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday for the weekend!

Busy Busy Busy

On Wednesday i started classes. With an intense schdule i've been working working working. The classes i'm taking are:

1. European Union and the Muslim World
2. Foreign Policy Analysis
3. Region of the European Union
4. Intensive seminar on the history and Evolution of the EU
5. German

But don't worry i only have classes for two days before i go skiing in the Alps!

Next Stop Berlin!

Then after an exciting 3 days it was off to Berlin, the capital of Germany. Spending 3 days in the capital city was hardly enough to go over the history of the Berlin. But we started on day one and kept learning until the end of day 3. We got the extraordinary chance to meet with the Department of Defense of Germany and discussed the Afghanistan war, and Germany's history with war. Then shortly after we took a three and half hour walking tour of Berlin. Seeing Brandenburg Gate, Holucost Memorial, The Reichstag, The Berlin Wall reminants, Tiergarten, Telivision Tower, etc. etc.

We then went to the Stasi museum. The Stasi's were agents for the The Ministry for State Security. Also known as the secrect police of Eastern Germany.

The MfS was headquartered in East Berlin, and was widely regarded as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies in the world. The MfS motto was "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (Shield and Sword of the Party), showing its connections to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the equivenlent to the USSR communist party. With 1 in every 5 Eastern Germans being a memeber or informant of the Stasi hundreds of thousands of files were kept on members of the state that were negativly discussing Eastern Germany or trying to escape. Our tour guide was a 81 year old woman who was living in Eastern Germany at hte time of hte Stasi. She herself had a file of about 30 pages and was watched and followed very closely.

Then the next day was used to learn about Baden-Wertemburger, or region-state that Freiburg is located in. WE went to the headquarters of Baden- Wertemburger and learned about Freiburg and its neighboring cities and the pros and cons of each and the culture that lies within each city. Then it was off to go site seeing again...

My favorite part of the whole trip was seeing the Berlin wall. With strands of it still up and other portions put around the city with art on it. The whole Berlin wall is outlined on the streets with coble stone and still plays a huge role in Berlin's society today.

Next was a 7 hour train ride back to Freiburg...

Tallinn, Estonia

Well Estonia´s population is about 1.3 million making it about 1\3 the size of San Diego. Tallinn being the capital and biggest city had130,000 people so about the size of Freiburg. Our plane landed at 7 PM and we hit the streets of Tallinn hoping to find a delicious resturant reccomended to us. We arrived at the town square and heard 3 people speaking english- so i rushed over and asked them for directions. One was a young guy from Estonia and the other two were university students from France. So we decdided to all go to dinner together. We talked about everything, and their favorite subject- Obama. We hurried off to go to bed since we had an early morning the next day.
The next day we meet with an assistant professor at Tallinn University and learned about Tallinn and its history. Next we got the chance to visit the singing revolution stadium.
In 1997 in an effort to be freed from Soviet occupation a cycle of mass demonstrations featuring spontaneous singing eventually collected 300,000 Estonians in Tallinn to sing national songs and hymns that were strictly forbidden during the years of the Soviet occupation, as Estonian rock musicians played. This time nearly 300,000 people came together, more than a quarter of all Estonians. On that day political leaders were participating actively, and were for the first time insisting on the restoration of independence. On 16 November the legislative body of Estonia issued the Declaration of Sovereignty.The Singing Revolution lasted over four years, with various protests and acts of defiance. In 1991, as Soviet tanks attempted to stop the progress towards independence, the Estonian Supreme Soviet together with the Congress of Estonia proclaimed the restoration of the independent state of Estonia and repudiated Soviet legislation. Through these actions Estonia regained its independence without any bloodshed.

Then we got a chance to roam around the city for a while. A city so steeped in tradition and constantly working to be Estonia, and not a baltic state or a former soviet territory. constatnly fighting to forget its dark history of soviet occupation and working ot be a leader in eastern europe. But at nightime the city transforms to a hopping young vibrant city. With bars and nightclubs every couple of feet. We went to a Irish Pub- and sang Karaoke. With reuglar singers singing Estonian songs (harder than you think) and then every American song like Summer Lovin, Born to be Wild, and It's Raining Men. Of course the most famous song, sang by a group of 7 americans including yours truely was YMCA...

Fun Facts about Tallinn and Estonia:

1. Tallinn the capital if Estonia is only 70 km away from Helsinki, Finland and can easily be reached by ferry (although when i inquired about it i was told there was no sense in going to Finland- so i didn't)


2. Tallinn was first recorded on a world map in 1154


3. Skype was created in Tallinn, Estonia, aswell as Hotmail


4. Scientists in Tartu (town in Estonia) are having a great success in creating vaccine to fight HIV. The last tests are made in the Republic of South Africa.


5. Estonians have one of the biggest collections of folk songs in the world, with written records of 133,000 folk songs.


6. Estonia was the first country to allow people to vote online in 2008. With hopes to make the 2012 elections the first time in history to allow people to vote by mobile phone.
   

Where has the time gone...

Well its Wednesday (Mitwoch in German) and i have had a crazy week so far. Tuesday night i got to go to the SC Freiburg vs Mainz soccer game. It was the semi-championships to go on for the German Cup. SC Freiburg is a 2nd division team but in the top three (along with Mainz). It was an interesting experience with what seemed like an excuse to get drunk and scream at the players. But it was very heated, packed, and exciting. The first team to score was Mainz, then right after a second goal was made, but no worries Freiburg fought back and scored- but eventually lost 3-1.
But no worries i left early since i had two tests the next day. My first German Test (scary!) and my EU intensive studies test. Now that both are over i feel fairly confident but who knows!

Now for the most exciting part of my week i'm off to Tallinn in Estonia! I leave tomorrow at 8 am and will arrive there at 6 pm. After staying there for 3 days i will fly to Berlin to stay for 2 days. Anyway i need to head off and pack!

FESTIVAL

This festival was like no other i've ever been too. With confeti as the main proponent. Most costumes were scary meant to frighten winter away, and every one represented each groups backgrounds. For instance the pumkin heads are from a local area nearby that is famous for its farms of pumpkins. The best part of the fesitval is the actors! EAch group has 3-4 men whose main job is to scare away guests on the street who are watching. For instance i got attacked by a actor who ran fast towards me and when he got to me slide on the ground and tried to tackle me.

Anyway if anyone wants some confeti no worries i was drenched in it and now have it ALL OVER my room.

Heidelberg...

Yesterday i got to go to Heidleberg for the day. Its about a 2.5 hours bus ride from Freiburg. I went with my German class, we got to tour the Castle, do a walking tour of the city, eat traditional Barvarian food, and shop in the cute little town of Freiburg.

We left Freiburg at 7 am and got there at 9:30-10:00ish. WE first hiked up to the castle, which is situated above the city. By hike i mean we literally went up a 90 degree hill for a good 10 minutes before being greeeted by a number of daunting stairs. The castle is more or less in ruins, having been heavily attacked during the 30 years war. But it still is home to a number of grand German events and still has the best view of heidelberg.

Next was lunch where everyone ate Bulvarian dishes, like liver dumplings (my personal favorite) to brautworst, to mashed pies, and flagueans. But it was delicious, next we geared up for the walking tour of the city. Heidelberg is a university town of 140,000 people and 30,000 students. We visited just about everything there is to see in the whole small city. Ending our tour on the "old bridge" with the most fantastic veiw...

Now it is 12:00 and i am off to Fasnet in Umkirch.

Fasnet is deeply rooted in German culture and is quite different from the carnival celebrated in Cologne. It was originally designed to scare away winter and developed into a celebration before six weeks of lent. Some of the carnival clubs are more than 500 years old.

Don't worry it wouldn't be a German festival without me dressing up and painting my face bright colors! I'll be sure to post pictures and write back soon!

German Bowling revisited!

So German Bowling was a lot different than expected. The source i had before German bowling was wrong on a couple of key issues. So here is how it really was...

It was indoors and looked almost identical to a bowling alley except it was in a resturant and people sit at their tables eating their dinner watching you. So needless to say it was pretty embarassing and nerve racking to play infront of about 50 German people eating their nightly dinner.

The second is that the lanes are long and skinny and not as slippery as American Bowling. The balls are the sizes of Cantalopes and weigh about 2-3 pounds. The balls also either have 2 holes for fingers (for the inexperienced AKA me) or not hole for the experts (AKA the Germans).

Also German bowling is made up of a number of games. My favorite is 3 numbers game. Each person gets three chance to bowl. The first bowl can be placed anywhere in three slots, so the ones place, tens place, or hundreds place. And its up to you to use logic to place the numbers accordingly to get the highest number possible. For instance i rolled a 6 my first time so i placed that in the hundreds spot, second i rolled a 5 i put that in the ones spot and my last roll was a 5 so i put that in the tens spot giving me a score of 655.

Anyway it was great fun!

German Bowling!

Tonight is the inaguration for most folks at home, don't get me wrong its huge here too! you think Europe had a hand in geting him elected, while every bar and resturant is having specials and veiwings of the inaguration. I however thought that i should pick up an activity to get my mind off the inaguration- so tonight i am going German Bowling.
Now its rather odd (and for those of you who know my pure talent at US bowling, i'm afraid my talent is not likely to transfer over) instead of an indoor ally its an outdoor feild thats not waxed hardwood but well i don't really know what the floor is made up of. Then instead of a large heavy bowling ball its a smaller lighter ball, thrown slanted so the ball will curve. Instead of 10 pins there are 9 smaller and more spread out pins.
O well i'll let you know how i do!

As for the inaguration don't worry my German flatmate (HUGE SUPPORTER OF OBAMA) said he would tape it for me so we can watch it together!
I told him great! I'm excited! and hurridly left to go experience some german bowling!

Here is the cute little town of Freiburg. Its basicaly a little a city centre ful of little shops like these.

i'll upload some photos later of Freiburg from the Black Forest Mountain!

All moved in :)

So the last past couple of days has been very interesting. My German is the equivilant to a new born baby (well at least thats what my teacher told me) so i figure that's not too bad the only place to go from here is up. So there we go! Today was suppose to be a nice day in the Black Forest sleding and snow shoeing but my blood sugars didn't allow for it but its okay because tomorrow i think we're trying to go to Munich for the day. Which will be wonderfully exciting.

Freiburg is a fantastic small town (with an IKEA) that has a bunch of small shops and little cafes. So i'm in heaven. Tonights adventure is to go out with some new kids we met on the program and share a meter of beer. A meter of beer is literally a meter long tray with about 11-13 mugs of beer on it. Aparently it's very German so we must try it.

other than that my room is officially moved into. I went to IKEA and bought some personalized items and now my room looks like it does in the states!! Except i have a poster on my wall that's in German, my goal is to translate it by the time i finish here!

We Are Here in Germany

Hallo... (thats German for Hello)
We are here in Germany...We visited the IES center today, and roamed around. We had lunch at a nice Middle Eastern resturant and had falafels. It is funny how we ended up in our Middle Eastern resturant, the story goes....
We went to 900000 resturants and looked at the menus and couldn't understand anything. So we finally stumbled across this resturant that had picture so we decided it looked like our best option. So we went in and pointed to the picture we wanted. And to our suprise she spoke english making our life much more easier. I am slowly wondering whats gonna happen with the whole language barrier here. But something tells me it will all work out.

We move in tomorrow and start orientation. The city we are in is rather small about 100000 people so we are looking forward to getting to know the city pretty well. Out of that population i would say three fourths is probably students who attend Freiburg University.
Another exciting part of our walk around town today was we located the 1 Euro store (the equivilent to our 1 dollar store) so thats were most of my shopping will be taking place!

anyway for now i'll just say Auf Wiedersehen (which is goodbye in German)

What were we thinking

Wow German is a hard language... We arrived in Basel Switzerland last night at around 9 PM. After hauling all our luggage out to the curb it then took us a mere 10 minutes to find someone who spoke english AND had a trunk big enough for all our suitecases. Finally we found one...

now today was our relaxing day, we chose to sleep in and just aimlessly roam around Basel (a population of 170,00). (the whole country of switzerland is about the size of 1.5 San Diego Counties)....We had a number of interesting conversations most ending with the question "Where you from" and us answering "California" all people responded the same way... "What the hell are you doing here!!!!" Haha it was shortly after that we were wondering the same thing. Our adventure to the train station was interesting. We managed to find a nice woman who spoke english and she managed to get us a ticket to Freiburg (or at least we think). After looking for lunch and buying some essential groceries i started to worry and wonder. What made me want to go to GERMANY and study? They can't understand me and i surely can't understand them. But after shopping around, roaming around, speaking my minimal german (very limited to hi, how are you, thank you) i started to feel more at ease. What i learned was Switzerland has 4 official languages and even though English wasn't one of them they know it and are more than wiling to help as they can.

Fun facts about our trip in Switzerland so far.

• The airport we landed in is on the border of France, Switzerland and Germany. By simply walking to three differnt corners of the airport we were in each of those three countries. Jessica and i had fun hopping the boarders. The train station as well as an exit to the left for France and to the right for Switzerland. Which was rather cool we thought!
• Second is that the keyboard here as all the letters mixed up. The Y is where the Z is on our keyboards at home. I don't know thought that was interesting...
• Thirdly Jessica and I are soaking up the prices in Switzerland, while a little more expensive, they use the Swiss Franc which is the frist time our US currency has been stronger and therefore we are able to not cringe at prices!!
• Fourthly (i think i'm making words us now!) the weather here is a chilling 14 F (which is i don't know how cold in C but definetly like negative 4 or so... oh we're going to have fun
  Lastly...We leave Switzerland tomorrow and travel onward to Freiburg Germany where we will finally move in on Wednesday.

P.S. I thought i would share with you some of my very poor German i've learned from the streets of Switzerland.

1. Hello...Hallo
2. Good day....Guten Tag / Morgen
3. Good evening....Guten Abend
4. Good night....Gute Nacht
5. Hi....Hi / Tag ( i opt for Hi its much easier and sounds much nicer)
6. Good bye... Auf Wiedersehen (they also say bye which is nice)
7. See you soon.... Bis bald (dones't sounds anything like it looks)

Change of plans...

This morning was a frantic rush as our alarm finally decided to go off at 6:50 am which was 15 mins after we were suppose to be at the tour company for our all day adventure up the coast of Ireland. But since that clearly wasn't happening we went back to bed. We resechduled for tomorrow hopefuly this go around we get it.
So instead we took a stroll through downtown and went on a three hour walking tour of the city. It was fantastic but our feet hurt. So then jessica and I were on our way to the famous Jameson Whiskey Distillary to relax... before we realized we hated all the other types of whiskey and we weren't sure if it was the best decision to try it for a third time so we opted for a lovely coastal trip for the afternoon.
We got on a bus and got to travel up to an ancient castle and then take a coastal bus trip around the ocean and see the bay of Dublin. It was georgous.
So now we are going to bed to ensure we wake up for our fun 12 hour tour tomorrow...

wish us luck!!

O the comedy!

So Jessica and i have had a very entertaining last few days...

On our way to the airport on the Edinburgh bus (infamously slow and late) we were comidically releieved when we saw two ducks in the pond. Allbeit they were frozen in the pond. The were apparently sleeping (according to a nice scotish woman behind me) and fell asleep and when they woke up- poof they were stuck in the pond which had frozen over.

But it was all good... We were told they would make it. The night before at a live music bar- where Steve n' Allen played the likes of John Mayer, Johnny Cash, and Elvis we met some Amerinan Boys from West Virgina ( I argueed the existance of their state). But before i was done arguing Johny alerted us he was from Carlsbad. Jessica and him at this in common (i did not) so i continued listening ot Steve n' Allen.

Our last day there we took the bus to Glasgow- just in time because it started snowing... ewe.
We got to Dublin and immediatly fell in love. So georgous, so fun, so young, so funny, so nice.

The first thing Jessica and I run into is a comedy club. We immediatly signed up- kinda nervous we wouldn't understand the UK humor. But don't worry. They immediatly spoted us as Americans and made it a point to not only remind the rest of the crowd that we were American but took time to explain every UK joke to the two "stupid Americans". IT was so much fun we decided to do it again!

Tonight (we just got back) we went to another comedy club where Amerinans were apparently normal. Expect for their expectation of John McCain getting elected (his words obviously not mine). Anywho it was fantastic. We are off too bed since tomorrow we have an early start at 6 am to visit the Cliff of Moher and Limerk and finally the Blarny Stone!

Glasgow then Dublin

We just arrived in Glasgow about 2 hours ago after a wonderfly short and pleseant train ride from Edinburgh. We got to our hostel and are heading out to go shopping (since i have so much extra room in my luggage)!

Tomorrow we leave for Dublin and will be going to the Guiness Factory and Jameson Distilary and Trinty College!

famous Scotsmen

So during our fabulous highlands tour we made friends with our tour guide, a dashing Scotsman who liked Whiskey and thats about it. He shocked us about the many famous Scots that have a part in our everyday life. His list went on but some include... All members of AC-DC were born in Scotland and later moved to (in his words) lesser Ireland. Snow Patrol and The Frey- both muscians that are becoming popular in the US. johnny cash is also scotish. He went on to make us feel better saying he loves some American muscians like Katy Perry, Beoncye, Britney Spears, and Avril Levigne (i didn't have the heat to tell him she was Canadian). But he went on to say he liked them un-musically because he fancied then for things other then their horrible music! To go on with the list... Fleming who discoverd penicilin, Alex Grahm Bell who invented the phone was also lucky enough (in his words) to be Scotish... and the one he is most proud of the chip from the I-pod was from a Scottish inventor until the Americans stole it and put an apple on it!

ok ok ok

So now that i've been in edinburgh for a good 4-5 days i think its time for an update. I have received some rather disgrunteled emails for a few people wanting an update (so here it is Mary Anne). The first night we got here we immediately went into the city and had so much fun we couldn't tear ourselves away from the downtown. but we did eventually the next day new years eve, we went to edinburgh castle which was fantastic! so beautiful there was even a bride getting married nad taking photos. Then that night was the official hogomany festival with concerts, bars, and a street party lasting till the wee hours of the mourning- geting home at 5 or 6. To say the least hte next day we took it easy and did some eating and shopping. Then the next day we managed to make it to the national heritage site for whiskey and managed to get a tour and sampling. Eww it was disgusting, but nonetheless it was very entertaining. We also found a free walking tour of the city that was about 3 hours long. it was fantastic a knowlegable tour guide with fantastic sights and such. Finally we get to yesterday- the most fabulous day of our trip so far. we went on a highlands tour visiting the ourlaying smaller towns and wonderful country side. We had a wonderful guide Kenny who make sure to keep us entertained and having fun. Jessica and i immediatly fell in love with Kenny and his good ol' Scottish humor. We once again visited a distilery for whiskey but i still thought it was gross. All in all it was a fantastic tour!
The we get to today. We were lucky enough to go to Saint Giles Cathedral in downtown edinburgh for mass this morning at 10 am. Then to increase our holiness we went ot Roslyn Chapel which was made famous through the Da Vinci Code. The tour was great- actually since we were the only ones to sign up it was a private tour in a private car that was catered to our interests. it was fantastic. now i must hurry off to go to a ghost tour of the old edinburgh with a free pint of beer (which is ok since i've been so holy today!)

ps: i promise i will write more frequently its just been hard getting internet (i promise Mary Anne!!)