This past weekend I traveled to Luxembourg for a conference where around 100 Uni (no one calls it college) students gathered to discuss the future of the EU. There were students from Denmark, Ireland, Romania, Germany, etc. discussing challenges and decisions the EU will face in the next 20 years. As much as I love political discussions of this nature, I wasn’t terribly familiar with some of the topics, but found it immensely interesting to hear lecturers and participants debate the acceptance of Turkey into the EU and whether or the EU should have a standing army. We also toured Luxembourg City and dined on the same boat the Schengen Agreement, which opened the borders of EU countries, was signed. The trip was enlightening and provided a good opportunity to meet European students as well as other EBS students.

This week happens to be the biggest week of the year at EBS. An event called Symposium takes place Wed-Sat and consists of workshops, lectures, firm presentations (EBS students are heavily recruited in Germany) hosted by CEO’s, CFO’s and other hotshots from the biggest German and International companies based in Germany. The ex-chancellor of Germany is even coming. The most bizarre part to me is the Fire and Ice party Fri. night for all students, alumni, lecturers, firm representatives where everyone is dressed according to the theme(Fire and Ice), drinks cocktails all night, but the wildest part is that this is the part of the Symposium when most students receive job offers, internships, etc!

Maybe the Ulmer Center can find inspiration here 😉

Life is good. I found it by bike the other day, a place called Zuiderpark. It’s beautiful, complete with bike paths, running paths, soccer fields, a botanical garden, and a petting zoo. Although Holland is notorious for rain, yesterday was a perfect day. On my way back from the park I got to use the little Dutch that I can speak to ask directions. Thankfully I was enjoying my bike ride, anticipating the challenge of finding my way around this new city. Den Haag is like a mini-Amsterdam, but with an even chiller atmosphere (if you can believe it), friendly neighbors in replace of stumbling tourists, and a great place to call home for the next three and a half months.

I have discovered downtown Den Haag, what is known as the Centrum. I still have much to see in this city. The beach is beautiful as well, and everyone here is exceptionally nice. My apartment is located about 25-30 minutes walking from the school. I suppose you could say we live in a residential area of sorts. Most students are living in a place called Astraat or in the Centrum. At first, I was not sure about being so far away, but after a week or so, I realized this is the perfect place to be. In the bottom of my building, my friend Claus from Egypt runs a local store and always gives me great deals on pineapple…yummy. Three doors down is a bicycle shop, a man from Holland named Peter sold me my bike as well as some fresh fish from the sea this past weekend. I got the most beautiful fresh salmon for about a fourth of the price just by having a desire to get to know the people around me…to say the least, I felt pretty proud about it! I go running most days, enjoying the fact that down the block to either direction are parks, soccer fields, and wildlife.

School is an entirely new experience. I have never seen anything quite like The Hague University. The first week was very uncommon. They sell beer here on tap right outside the front door. On Wednesday of my first week, I watched a break-dance show on a stage set up in the main hall of the school. Each day I ride to school I am even more curious about what I will see next. Classes are very interesting as well. In my EBC course we (4 of us) are creating our own business, complete with a business plan, registration with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, marketing plans, projected financial statements, and a real sense of what entrepreneurs must go through. In my Global Development Policy class I am learning more about African countries living in immense poverty, the role (or lack there of) of organizations such as the WTO, WHO, the World Bank, and learning the complex and political nature of the European Union. It is pretty interesting, as the only American in the classroom, to see how people my age feel about the U.S., as well as China and the EU.

I most definitely miss my family. I miss UofL, my friends, USF and my friends in Tampa, the city of Louisville, and my mentors on campus. I know I am missed back home as well, but I will return soon enough as a more polished, educated, and mature me. I can’t put into words how intense it is to be so far away from everything I know, yet so close to everything I need. I’m learning even more about who I am, learning how easy it is to take things one day at a time, and showing myself that negative circumstances are only that way out of reaction, using the positive in life to look past cracks in the road.

I don’t have any pictures yet of my new city (trying not to feel like a tourist here), but I will sooner or later. What I do know is that Europe is unlike anything I could have imagined. I think it is important to come here not with expectations, but with possibilities. Of course things have rough at times, but this is hands down the greatest journey I have ever taken.

As a side note, I am listening right now to the melodious tones of Alexi Murdoch. Those who know me well will understand this to be an important yet equally random fact. Music connects our lives.

Until next time,
Paige

Paige woke me up at about 4 AM, cold and freaked out to be sleeping on the street. Disoriented, I got up and we decided sleeping in the metro station would be a better, safer idea. Unfortunately, when the metro stopped running (at around midnight) the entrance/exit was blocked by a metal gate. Things were looking bleak, to say the least. Eventually, we flagged down a cab and paid him some inordinant amount to take us back to the train station. It was well worth it, however, because Paige and I were a very long walk away from the train station.

I’ll go ahead and skip over the rest of our stay in Vienna. Suffice it to say that we had a rough go of it pretty much the entire day. We decided to skip the Torture Museum, which was one thing we’d identified as something we really would’ve liked to have done, bought our tickets for Prague, and slept most of the four hours or so that it took to get there.

When we arrived in Prague, we had little difficulty finding our hostel, as they had given us excellent directions. Upon first glance, the hostel was really not in a good area of town at all. It was a little ways outside the center of Prague (a good 10 or 15 minute train ride) and the surrounding buildings appeared to be pretty run down. I reminded myself that this hostel was cheap, offered free internet, free breakfast, had a cheap laundry service, and didn’t have a curfew so it was going to be well worth it. After checking in and meeting one of the six people that we’d be sharing the room with that night, we went out and enjoyed pasta and salad at a local restaurant.

We returned to the hostel for an easy night of surfing on the internet, getting some laundry done, and getting to know a few of the people who were staying in the room. One of the guys, Dustin (an E-5 in the Navy who was stationed in Italy but was taking his leave in Prague), gave us a great tip about a town called Kutna Hora. More on it to follow but suffice it to say, it was a great tip. Paige and I packed it in early for the night since we wanted to get up, take advantage of the free breakfast, and start exploring Prague.

The day took a while to get going. We woke up at 9:00 and ventured down with Brad and Jason to enjoy the complimentary breakfast. What a smorgasbord! Since I do it the “broke college kid way” and stay at Motel 6s, I’m used to getting a small bowl of knock-off Cherios and a cup of four hour old coffee as my complimentary breakfast. The Regina (the hotel) had other plans – there was plentiful and various amounts of sausage, bacon, six or seven different types of cereals, an enormous bowl of all kinds of fruit, several different kinds of yogurt, a dozen different kinds of bread, apple juice, orange juice, coffee, tea…you get the idea. We waited for Brad and Jason to get ready when we’d returned to the room and, after visiting an internet cafe with them so we could take care of booking hostels in our respective next destinations (Munich for them, Prague for us), we said our goodbyes.

The map of the city had around 30 or 40 touristy sites. Paige and I had identified several that we wanted to go to so we started to try and knock them off the list one by one. Choosing what we thought would be the cheapest one first (a hedge maze), we set out on a long walk that eventually led us to some sort of large royal garden. I’m not sure if the maze was supposed to be in there or not but if it was, it was umm…much less cool than it looked on the picture. Fortunately, the garden was quite beautiful so we walked around and took a few pictures.

Trying to find this garden took a significant portion of the day since we had to walk all the way across town so we decided we would save the rest of what we had planned to do for tomorrow. On the way to the train station to buy our tickets, we came across a very cheap internet cafe and decided we’d spend a few hours taking care of some things. After finishing up at the internet cafe and buying our tickets to Prague for the next day, we struggled with what to do next since everything we wanted to do was closed. Paige pulled a flier out of her pocket for a band named KAMIKAZE SPERM that was performing at a bar named the Viper Room – Vienna…the name was interesting and since there was nothing else to do, we figured we’d check it out.

Ah, irresponsibility. That’s all I’ll say about our night with KAMIKAZE SPERM (in which we did end up meeting and hanging out with the band). Long story short, we ended up sleeping in the streets of Vienna – I can elaborate more on this story on a case-by-case basis. What an unexpectedly rough night.

This time last year, I was driving Jenni and Rafael, the 2 German exchange students from EBS to my parents home in Whitesville, Ky to see the country, meet my folks, and eat BBQ. In the past 3 weeks, Jenni took Kartik and me to a culture festival in Frankfurt, I’ve zoomed past 1000 year old castles along the autobahn with Rafael, bumped into Ralph, an exchange student from this past spring, at the grocery and currently have a class with Moritz, the other exchange student from the spring. It’s a little wild to see familiar faces in Germany, but very nice as well!

Oestrich-Winkel, my new home, is situated pleasantly in the middle of wine country. Vineyards surround the town and looking out from campus down a gently sloping hill is a vineyard that leads right up to the Rhine River. Campus though, is only 3 buildings, one of which bears the remains of a 300 year old castle. The temperature has been on average 30 degrees cooler here, so coming from the sauna that Ky is during Aug was a fast-forward of about 3 months.

EBS has a well established exchange program, so there are plenty of resources available to us, but there is also the fact that there are over 100 exchange students. And we’re called Tauschies. This has been a really great way of meeting people because we had 2 weeks of German classes with just exchange students before starting regular classes.

Apparently, since I have a very notoriously American accent, people ask which state I’m from and 4 out 5 times, the reaction is “Kentucky Fried Chicken!” I don’t quite think I like being known as Miss KFC. Everyone is very friendly here, and especially helpful when they know you’re a Tauschie.

I woke up before we arrived in Vienna and did some catching up on my journal while looking out the window at the beautiful Austrian countryside. A dreary sky had given way to feathery cirrus clouds and a brilliant, piercing sun that danced off the still dewy grass. We passed quaint villages that were inset in lush, green rolling hills. I wanted to stop the train, bypass the rest of my education, and retire in one (a town, not a hill).

After surprisingly receiving a complimentary breakfast on the train, we made plans to meet Brad and Jason (our two new Canadian friends) later that night for dinner or a beer. The train rolled into the station where Paige and I stored our bags in lockers and ventured out into Vienna after procuring a map of the city.

Downtown Vienna seemed very Westernized. It was quite different at first glance the other European cities we’d seen in which old buildings lined narrow streets full of small, typical European cars. Vienna was more of a concrete jungle with large streets, large cars, and several SUVs. One thing we noticed about the Austrians that we found rather strange was the fact that they waited for the green walking light at every intersection that had one. No one in any other city we’d been in did this and no one in any other city that we’ve been in since did, either. As we got deeper into the city, the new concrete buildings gave way to some older-looking buildings, slightly similar in architecture to some of the ones in Amsterdam. However, my guess is that the older-looking buildings actually aren’t quite so old (the ones I’m referencing in Amsterdam were built in the 16th and 17th centuries) but were instead built more recently in such a way that they looked old. They just seemed too new and the architecture too precise to be that old…furthermore, the streets were very wide unlike the narrow streets of some of the older sections of the previous cities we’d visited. This would lead me to believe that the invention and adoption of cars had taken place when the buildings were built. However, I’m far from an expert and could very well be wrong.

Anyhow, Paige and I chose to eat a lunch that would’ve been enjoyed by a native Austrian – beer and bratwurst. The bratwurst was especially interesting because it was filled with cheese and then stuffed into a long, hollowed-out roll of bread into which ketchup and mustard were squirted. The meal was phenominal, albeit messy, and the beer cheap and delicious.

After walking around and seeing some of the more popular sites, Paige and I decided to find a park to take a nap before meeting Brad and Jason for dinner. Along the way, we came across an interesting computerized kiosk that rented bikes to those with a credit card, tourist pass, etc to make it easier to see the city. There were approximately 20 bikes locked into racks that would be released upon paying. The computer was able to display all of the other kiosks in town, tell how many bikes the location could hold, how many bikes were available, the aggregate total time ridden on the current day of all the bikes, and the aggregate total distance ridden on the current day of all the bikes. The bikes were rented by the hour and the first hour was free; however, losing a bike resulted in a EU400 fine. Theft was prevented because, as I mentioned, either a credit card was necessary or before getting a tourist card, one would have to volunteer some sort of credit card information.

After the nap, we met Brad and Jason for dinner. Trying to conserve money, Paige and I had decided to sleep in the train station since there was a shower there. Upon learning this, Brad and Jason selflessly offered to share their room with us…we couldn’t believe that we’d lucked into another couch surfing situation without even meaning to! Their room was very nice and more than large enough to accommodate all four of us. Brad and Jason shared with us a few beers that they’d bought as we played some more uecker and watched some strange music channel that played covers of the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, etc. Jason and I teamed up to win the uecker game, as we’d done on the train (though it took surviving a ferocious comeback from Brad and Paige). Since it took us so long to put the game away, we didn’t get to bed until 3:30 AM.

We woke up at 5 AM and escorted Kali to the train station so we could say our goodbyes. Check-out at the hotel wasn’t until 11 so Paige and I went back and slept for a few hours longer. We subsequently took a train into the center of Venice and after buying a ticket for a couchette on the overnight train to Vienna, we ventured out into the city.

The first goal was to find a supermarket since we hadn’t eaten in a while and were starving. Walking around Venice, I quickly noticed that the city was as advertised: there were canals everywhere. In fact, and I didn’t know this until we got there, boats are the primary mode of transportation for the majority of the city. I saw very few cars in Venice. However, there were police boats, ambulance boats, boat taxis, of course the gondolas, and a wide variety of personal boats ranging from small paddle canoes to speed boats. It was quite an interesting and unique city. I was also delighted to find that I was unable to smell the odor for which Venice is infamous.

Since Venice is a series of islands, running internet cables throughout the islands is very expensive; this is reflected in the outrageously high cost of the internet cafes. Riccardo told us that Venice occassionally floods and the water can get up to several feet high. In this scenario, one needs special water-resistant boots (think fly fishing) to walk around the city because doing so barefoot would put the individual at risk of getting bitten by rats (which are apparently everywhere during these floods).

Venice had a nice feel and I’m sure that if one were to go there with a boatload of money and a sweetheart, it would’ve been an amazing place to visit. However, for poor college students whose sweethearts were elsewhere, there didn’t seem to be much beyond old, poorly maintained-looking buildings, high priced restaurants, and shopping. We walked around the city for several hours but ended up getting to the train station with time to spare, dissatisfied with Venice.

Finally, our train arrived and we made our way to the couchette car specified on our ticket. The couchette cars are slightly more expensive than a regular seat but are well worth the money because they afford one an opportunity to actually lay down, turn off the lights, and get a decent night of sleep. For long train rides, I couldn’t imagine traveling any other way. On the way from Madrid to Barcelona, our couchette slept six – three beds on each side of the car. It was pretty crowded and I felt like we were in the sleeping quarters of a Navy ship. However, we were fortunate on this train – only us and two other guys from Canada would be sharing the room. Before the train even got moving, someone had boarded the train who apparently hadn’t washed his feet in weeks. It smelled absolutely terrible. Naturally, he thought it was quite amusing (as he’d probably refrained from washing his feet for weeks in anticipation of this night). Fortunately for us, he wasn’t in our car but it didn’t matter – the odor crept out from the closed door of his room and filled the entire train car. If we kept our door closed, it was enough to keep the odor from penetrating our room but the smell persisted in the hallway literally the entire trip to Vienna. Going to the bathroom was risky business since the train didn’t keep a supply of gasmasks on hand.

The two Canadian guys were very friendly and we got along with them extremely well. They taught us to play uecker, which we did for a few hours to pass the time before calling it a night.

I woke up a little before the girls, took a shower, got packed and ready, and then cooked breakfast for us all so when they got ready, we’d have nothing left to do. Today we were to go to Venice. Unfortunately, there was no direct train from west coast Cinque Terre (or the surrounding areas) to eastern Venice. We took the train south from Riomaggiore for ten minutes or so to La Spezia. From there, we dealt with a very unfriendly desk attendent at the ticket office who, despite us being as polite as possible, got frustrated with our lack of knowledge of Italian and unwillingness to pay EU162 for three train tickets (when we knew we could get them much cheaper) and began openly cussing us in italian. I decided it best not to ask her to repeat herself in english. After we balked at the EU162 ticket package, she found tickets on a train that left twenty minutes later for EU112 (for three tickets).

Since there were no direct trains to Venice, we’d have to change over in several cities (from La Spezia to Bologna, Bologna to Parma, and Parma to Venice). However, there were stops at various stations along the route between La Spezia and Bologna and between Bologna and Parma. Our train from Parma to Venice however, was to be a direct train (Eurostar) and therefore much shorter.

We boarded a glass enclosed room that had four seats (two on each side facing each other) and a sliding glass door for the ride to Bologna. Somewhere along the way, while Paige, Kali, and I were playing cards, a man opened the sliding glass door and started begging for money in some foreign language (I couldn’t quite hear him because he mumbled but I assume it was Italian). By this time, I’d learned to say “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Italian” and we motioned to him that we didn’t have any spare change. Thinking that took care of the situation, we went back to our card game. However, a few minutes later, he returned and began begging for money again. We politely declined and he was off. Relentless, he returned again and after we (admittedly, a little more agitated at this point) declined his request for money, he began begging for a beer that Kali had opened. Only this time, he wouldn’t quit talking and wouldn’t leave the room. I was closest to the door so I took the door handle and forced the door closed. I hated to do that but I felt that at this point, it was necessary. A few peaceful minutes passed and he returned again only this time, I saw him coming and held the door closed. I assume he got off at one of the stops somewhere along the way because we didn’t see him again.

We got off the train and walked to the platform expecting to see our train bound for Parma arriving shortly. However, we were met with a message that informed us our train was delayed by 15 minutes. Shortly thereafter, 15 turned to 20, and 20 to 25. Apparently, delays are quite common in Italy. This was problemmatic though because we were going to be cutting it very close on making our Eurostar connection in Parma. Finally the train came and we were on the way.

Sure enough, as our train rolled into Parma nearly 30 minutes late, our Eurostar connection was just pulling off en route directly to Venice. The next train wouldn’t come for another 45 minutes and it wasn’t a direct train, therefore an extra hour and a half or so was to be added to our trip. Aggravated, we went out into the town and found some dinner before returning to the train. At one of the stops along the way, the train sat much longer than it had at any of the other stops. Curious, I got up and started looking around. Everyone else was looking out the window of the train at some police officers questioning a few teenage boys. I asked a few people what the fuss was about. Apparently, the boys had gotten into an argument with the conductor and one of them broke one of the glass windows on the train. The train sat and waited for everything to get sorted out before continuing on the way to Venice. This delay was about an hour or hour and a half.

We arrived in Venice much later than expected and without accommodation for the night. Kali had to be in Treviso, which is a small airport about 45 minutes outside of Venice, to catch her flight to Rome, where she would fly back to the United States. Aggravated, tired, and hungry, we tried to decide what to do. Should we see the city at night so Kali had an opportunity to see Venice or should we just find a place to sleep and call it a day? After finding out that we were a good 10 or 15 kilometers from the center of Venice and finding that no trains were running at this time, we decided we’d find some food and then a place to stay.

Hotel after hotel was entirely too expensive for our tastes or they were booked. Finally, after meeting up with a Croatian guy named Ivan who was in a similar situation, we found a hotel at 1:30 AM that agreed with our price range. It was going to be EU18 per person for the four of us to split one room or EU20 per person for us to get two rooms. We decided to take the latter and Ivan and I were able to sleep in our own beds instead of on the floor. What a terrible day. By far the worst of the trip. I think being on a train all day was starting to drive us mad.

After waking up late because we slept in, we took the train from Riomaggiore to Vernazza, a short 10 minute ride or so. The pizza the night before was so good and so cheap that we decided to have two more before we got started.

The reviews we’d read about the hike from Vernazza to Monterosso were absolutely true. That was one beast of a hike. The trail twisted up and down and up and down the hillside, seemingly needlessly (but I enjoyed it, it made it interesting!) and the path was so narrow that when someone came from the opposite direction, it was all one could do to get out of the way and keep from bumping them off the path and onto the cliffs and water below. As usual, the scenery was spectacular, making it impossible to take a bad picture. We finally got to Monterosso, which had the only sand beach out of the five cities (the rest were rock beaches that had been smoothed out by the Sea). I got scorched (sunburnt) the day before and was concerned about having to carry around my having pack being sunburnt so Paige and Kali spent a few hours in the water while I wandered the town and tried to catch up on my journal of the trip. We met at a predetermined meeting place/time and went to the grocery store so I could try my hand at cooking “real” Italian pasta back at Mama Rosa’s.

The pasta was pretty good but was no match for Diego’s creation of a few days prior. We did get a chance to talk a set of brothers from Portland, Oregon who were staying in one of the other rooms in the house and backpacking together. After a fruitless attempt at locating some beer for a card game, we decided to hit the sack.