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.