“Ich bin ein Berliner”…

I knew I would love Rome, it would be impossible not to adore the streets of Prague, Budapest was my heritage, and Oktoberfest was its own experience, but I had no idea how much I would enjoy Berlin.  I did not know what to expect in Berlin, besides WWII history, and I am still trying to figure out what about Berlin appealed to me so much.  These are a few factors I have come up with:

 

1.      Museum Mania.  We spent all day Saturday going from museum to museum: one about the history of Germany under communist rule, one that spanned the entire history of Germany, and a contemporary art museum, which was my favorite.  There was so much history to learn about, and Berlin is also a huge hub of contemporary art.  I think I could live there for a while and only scratch the surface of the museums that city had to offer.

2.      Oktober.  The morning of our last day a few of us set out to find a flea market…we spent two hours walking around a park, but never found it.  None of us regretted it though because the leaves were beautiful and the park was full of sculptures, monuments, and even one of the largest instruments in the world—a giant tower full of bells.  Whenever we got frustrated with the fact that we couldn’t find the market, we just kept reminding ourselves “But we are in a park…in the fall…in Berlin.”  We had no complaints after thinking about that. 

3.      Yesterday and Tomorrowland.  Germany was unlike most cities I’ve been to because it has several extremely modern, futuristic-looking buildings juxtaposed with old and historical buildings.  We walked past the Reichstag one afternoon and experienced an eerie feeling of being in some sort of post-apocalyptic world.  We saw the Reichstag, the empty lawn which used to be full of crowds at Hitler’s rallies, and then all sorts of oddly shaped glass and concrete buildings that seemed straight out of Tomorrowland in Disney World—not to mention it was freezing, cloudy, and windy.  The total imagined effect was not far from the reality: something terrible had happened here, something that radically influenced the future and our knowledge of what horrors humanity is capable of.

4.      Love the ones you’re with.  Finally, I think I loved Berlin because of the group I was with.  It is one of our program trips, so the majority of the people in my program were there.  After almost two months we have really gottent o know and like each other.  A visiting friend of mine commented on how surprised she was that all of us seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company, despite the fact that we are a diverse group, and I think it is mostly true.  All of us wanted to make the most of what Berlin had to offer, and we had a good time doing it together—having serious conversations about the history of the city, cracking jokes, and jointly appreciating how it feels to be young and travelling.

I would love to go back to Berlin some day to see more of what it has to offer, but right now I have a full travel schedule ahead of me: Ireland, Florence, Terezin (a concentration camp), Paris, and Vienna!  It’s going to be a busy November!

 

In front of the Reichstag with Stefani, Andy, and Dylan.

 

One of the largest instruments in the world

 

Sculptures in a park

 

Contemporary Art Museum at night

 

 Berlin Wall at night

 

Murals on the Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lennon Lessons

 

Samantha, my former Rockhurst roommate, hates surprises.  She and our other former roommate, Kara, came to visit me in Prague this past weekend, which was wonderful because I have been missing my friends from Rockhurst.  All day Saturday Sam kept trying to get me to tell her what we were going to be doing that night, or at least say what was in my bag of “supplies.”  But I was absolutely not about to ruin one of my favorite Prague sites for her (and I think she would agree that it was worth the wait): the Lennon Wall.

 

The Lennon Wall is a long wall near the river that is covered in graffiti—but not just random vandalism; it has a history behind it.  During the communist regime in Prague, students would stand at that wall and sing songs about love and peace by the Beatles, but they were driven away by the communist authorities.  Students would also paint grievances against the regime on the wall, along with poems, flowers, and messages of love and peace, only to find the wall painted white again the next day.   

The site has definitely become a major tourist attraction, and visitors come armed with brushes or spray paint to graffiti their own messages of love and peace on the symbolic wall.  I couldn’t miss out on this opportunity, and I figured my friends would enjoy it, so I found some paint and brushes and took them to the wall at night when I knew it wouldn’t be crowded.

Judging by the fact that we went through two tubes of paint and then some, I think the venture was a success.  All of us wanted to cover all of our bases with sources of love in our lives, so we had a Rockhurst symbol, an Alpha Sigma Alpha symbol, names of our family members, a quote from a book, a prayer from my high school, and more. 

I love Prague’s unique history.  Love is a universal theme about which you could write any number of quotes on any number of walls, but there is something distinct about this particular wall.  You are more than just a vandal or a tourist with a paintbrush at this wall—you are honoring a tradition of students (who were my age!) who believed in peace and freedom with a passion that someone like me who has been raised in a country has hardly known anything but fr cannot fully understand. 

My next related project: get to the embassy and vote—a great way to honor students in all different places and times who have fought (sometimes with paint) for democracy. 



 

"Sacred heart of Jesus...I place my trust in you" - the best lesson I know about love.  More pics to follow once I can get them from Kara's camera...

How to Properly Go to Munich for Oktoberfest

 

I want to travel everywhere twice: once with a camera and a lot of mistakes, and the second time with no camera—just experiencing everything—and without the mistakes from the first time around.  Oktoberfest in Munich was a really cool experience, but the whole time my roommate and I joked that we could now write a detailed guidebook for how to do Oktoberfest properly.  Here are the Sparknotes:

 

1.      Get a drindle (or lederhosen).  This is the traditional German attire for Oktoberfest, and we have been kicking ourselves since then for not getting our own drindles.  You’d think you would be in the minority putting on a ridiculous dress or some crazy pants and suspenders, but actually everyone wears them—even the little German kids with their families.  So go with the drindle and get some braids going while you’re at it.

2.      See every tent.  The coolest thing about Oktoberfest isn’t necessarily what you do, but what you see, provided you take a good look around.  All of the tents are decorated like nothing I’ve seen in festivals in America—think a giant inflatable chicken turning on a spit on the top of a building.  Definitely worth wandering around for a while to see.

3.      Speaking of chicken…Try it.  An Oktoberfest specialty is half of a roasted chicken, and it is absolutely delicious.  Another favorite is the giant pretzels.  We also saw a lot of people wandering around with decorated heart-shaped cookies wrapped in plastic around their necks, but we couldn’t figure out what they meant, so we never got one.  However, I took the liberty of looking them up…so here is a little background information on this little tradition, and even a recipe! http://www.squidoo.com/lebkuchen-heart

4.      Happy camping.  My roommate Brinda and I decided that we were outdoorsy enough to stay in tents for 4 nights…I spent a week in the woods of the Upper Peninsula, took bucket showers on a farm in West Virginia, and was a dedicated Girl Scout through 8^th grade.  But I wanted the heck out of that tent by night 4.  Cold and crowded, so brace yourself if you think you’re up for it. 

5.      Walk around Munich!  So many people only go to Munich for the festival, but the city itself is beautiful.  We decided to spend our last day exploring the city, and we all agreed that we wished we had more time for that.  We came out of the subway and saw this huge stone building completely covered in statues that we hadn’t seen before—a breathtaking first glimpse of Munich.  Check out all of the old churches, clock towers, and rows of gingerbread-esque houses. 

 

As I study abroad I am working my way through my heritage: first to Hungary, then to Germany…and I am officially booked for Ireland first weekend in November!  No more travelling for October, which is actually fine by me.  I never thought I would call someplace other than Rockhurst or St. Louis home, but “headed home to Prague” rolls off the tongue pretty easily these days.  I had a lot of cities to choose from and have visited quite a few, and have yet to regret picking Prague.  But maybe I’m biased. 

 

 

Out in Munich

 

 

At the Festival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"World Historical" Scars

There are things I will never fully be able to understand about Prague.  In my Kafka class we have been talking about “world historical people,” which are cultures that make a mark on history.  I didn’t know much about the Czech Republic, didn’t know if it had made a mark on world history, but I am learning that world history left marks on the Czech Republic.  Here are some random lessons I have picked up about the Czech Republic, most specifically Prague:

Our Czech film history professor was going over some important dates in the history of Prague on our first day of class.  She asked us what happened in the world in 1938 that involved Czechoslovakia.  None of us could remember, so she asked us if we had ever heard of the Munich Agreement, of the type of politics it represented.  At that moment I think a lot of us flashed back to a 7^th grade history lesson: appeasement.  Oh, it was YOU the rest of the world just gave to Hitler…  It is strange to be living in what was just a footnote of a country to us at the time. 

We watched a movie for film history called The Higher Principle.  It was about a group of students who were arrested for doodling on a newspaper picture of the German Protectorate of Bohemia, who had just been assassinated.  The whole movie we waited for them to be rescued or somehow let go.  They were shot.  Three students killed for an idle joke.  About to graduate—my age.

As punishment for the assassination alluded to in The Higher Principle, the Nazis destroyed an entire Czech town: Lidice.  They killed all of the men, sent the women and children to concentration camps, and burned the town until there was absolutely nothing left of it.

We took a tour of a famous brewery called U Fleku, which has been brewing beer since the 1400s.  Our tour guide told us that there was only one day that the brewery ran out of beer: the day the communist regime changed the value of money—5000 crowns would now be worth only 1 crown.  They Czechs had one day to make their savings count before this change went into effect, and that was the day U Fleku ran out of beer. 

I have noticed a pattern in the speeches of tour guides: if a building is ugly, you can bet the communists built it.  They are so easy to pick out—concrete slabs or an awful tower that looks like a needle, trying hard to ruin a skyline perfectly dotted with red roofs and spires.    

Our Kafka teacher reminds us sometimes that unfortunately the atrocities went both ways.  Mass graves of Germans living in the Czech Republic have been recently found.  Revenge enacted when the Czechs received their independence from the Nazis. 

Jews in the Czech Republic often did not fare well either.  Our Kafka professor told us today that Jews who survived the Holocaust and came back to Prague were labeled as Germans by the Czechs.  These gaunt, recovering people who no longer had to wear yellow stars now had to wear the letter “N” (the Czech word for German is Nemec). 

The history here is incredibly rich, albeit tragic. 

In other daily news, I just got back from a weekend at Oktoberfest (expect a “How To Correctly Do Oktoberfest” guide soon) and I am headed to Rome this weekend to see my former Rockhurst roommates, Sam and Kara!

Can you spot what doesn't belong?