I'm Still Here

This is just a brief update to let everyone know I have not forgotten about my blog in the final days in Freiburg. As soon as I get home to California, I'll write much more to let you all know how things are going. Despite the lingering final essay I must complete, we've all been having so much fun. Talk to you soon and wish me luck on the way home!

Fun in Freiburg

It's been raining almost non-stop in Freiburg for over a week now. You can imagine how nice that is when I have so little time left! I also had the misfortune of getting sick last week. You'd think the rain and sickness would keep me inside, especially in the finals period, but my flatmate asked me if I wanted to go on a quick bike ride around Freiburg yesterday and I of course said yes.

We ended up riding outside of the Freiburg city limits and having a ton of fun. We were riding directly into a storm cloud the whole time, but we wanted to explore the path by the river regardless. Our adventure included taking pictures from our bikes, meeting lots of nice cows, talking to some Germans who also braved the rain, going for a quick dip in the Dreisam, and eating ice cream in the rain. We were soaking wet by the time we got home, but it was so nice to take a break from studying and enjoy Freiburg with one of my favorite flatmates.

The Dreisam

Of course I'M the one who got soaked. Some Germans teased me and asked if I went fishing.

Mike in the ultimate staring contest

I come home a week from tomorrow. If I had the money, I'd stay in Germany longer, possibly forever. I've had the absolute best experience of my life here and I'm not ready for it to end. I'm going to enjoy this last week to the fullest, sick or not, and starting with Das Quiz tonight! Who cares about my two finals tomorrow, right?

Bis spaeter!

Pictures from Friends

Here are a few pictures from our travels:

Meeting at the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry

Below the Acropolis

Our Bulgarian feast! We basically sat there open-mouthed as tray after tray of dessert came out.

The main cathedral in Sofia with my friend photobombing me

Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest

There will be more soon! We have literally hundreds of pictures on our collective cameras.

Castles on the Rhein and Roman Ruins

After getting back from our epic adventure (see details in my last post), I had no desire to leave Germany ever again. This worked out well because the weather was absolutely gorgeous when we got back and there's nothing better than biking to a Biergarten and drinking a local beer in the sun. Last week was our last week of classes, though, so there was also quite a bit of work to do. Now I'm in the finals period, but my first final isn't until Saturday and I don't have to go crazy on the studying front just yet. We decided to take advantage of this time and go on a little German vacation.

We (three friends and me) originally intended to go to the Fairy Tale Road, which is a long route connecting lots of castles and historic towns featured in the Brothers Grimm stories. This would have been lots of fun, but it's also quite expensive since it's not all that close to Freiburg and would be better seen with a rental car. We decided to downgrade a bit to save money, and after talking to my flatmate about his recommendations, we looked into a shorter trip on the Rhein River where we could see some other castles.

Our trip began at the train station in Freiburg on Saturday morning. We had a Schoenes-Wochenende ticket, which is a special saver ticket that allows up to five people to travel anywhere in Germany for 37 Euros. The catch is that you have to take ultra-slow regional trains, but still, that price can't be beat. Our first stop was the city of Sankt Goar, which is a small town on the Rhein with a huge castle called Burg Rheinfels. On our way there on the train, we passed castle after castle overlooking the river. There are dozens in that area of Germany and it was really cool to see them one right after the other as we headed towards our destination.

The Burg Rheinfels

My flatmate lives in that region of Germany and recommended the Burg Rheinfels because it's a great castle for exploring. Not only is it huge and sprawling, it has a gigantic network of tunnels deep underneath it.

Our adventures in the tunnels were alternately fun and terrifying. They ranged from tall and dimly lit to tiny and pitch-black. There were no safety lights or exit signs in these - they were completely original except for a thin white line painted on the ceilings of some of them. We saw an absolutely massive spider above our heads in one. I bolted from that tunnel faster than I've ever run in my life and I can't even bring myself to upload the picture of it. It's too terrifying to know that it could have dropped on us at any time! We fortunately didn't see any more spiders like that, although they could have been there in some of the smaller, pitch-black ones. We crawled along with only two cell phones for light, but we tried to test ourselves and go along in complete darkness. It was really exhilarating, but quite unnerving at the same time. It would be extremely easy to get lost in that labyrinth and there were no guards or anything to make sure that everyone could get out. Regardless, it was definitely the highlight of the trip for me! I think we all lost a few years of our lives with the spider incident, but we emerged at the end relatively unscathed.

Faces of fear/excitement. That tunnel was pitch-black.

We had to crawl quite a bit on this trip...

We stayed in a nice youth hostel right below the castle that night. I had had to write e-mails in German to get us the reservation and I had to speak quite a bit once we got there to figure out how to pay for the room. Even though I was traveling with two good German speakers, they were both conspicuously silent as I tried to explain to the hostel clerk that we didn't want to join the German Youth Hostel Association. It turns out he spoke English, but he seemed to enjoy listening to me mangle his language. Oh well - as long as my German is intelligible, I consider my interactions a success.

The next leg of our trip took place in Trier, which is the oldest city in Germany and has tons of Roman ruins left over from the reign of the Holy Roman Empire. We took the train from St. Goarshausen (right across the river from Sankt Goar - we had to take a ferry) and had an absolutely beautiful scenic trip across the state. I didn't get pictures from the train because they were too blurry and the window was dirty, but we rode through fields and forests that were reminiscent of California. My time in Europe has made me a big fan of train travel. It's so nice to sit back and relax while seeing countryside you wouldn't see otherwise, especially in a beautiful country like Germany. I didn't mind the long ride to Trier at all because of the gorgeous scenery, and even in the more nondescript areas, I had Harry Potter in German to occupy me.

The Roman ruins in Trier were really interesting. We didn't have time to see absolutely everything, but we saw the main city gate (the Porta Nigra), walked to the amphitheater, explored the main cathedral and its grounds, and walked around the remains of a coliseum. It started raining heavily partway through our little tour, but it stopped in time for us to enjoy walking around the high sides of the amphitheater. It's really amazing to see ruins like those in modern cities, especially in a highly developed country. Of course that's commonplace in Europe, but for an American, it's pretty special. Roman ruins in Germany are a little less common, though, which explains the high number of tourists and tourist traps. We avoided that by grabbing a quick lunch of Currywurst and ice cream and eating on the fountain in the main square. The central square reminded me of Prague, which we visited SO long ago...

The Porta Nigra (city gate)

Our disheveled and rain-soaked group at the amphitheater. Love these guys.

The amphitheater (you could walk around in tunnels there too)

We got back around 11:30 last night after a long trip on the regional trains. Regardless, we all had so much fun. The three people I traveled with shared my desire for a budget-friendly German vacation and we all had a great time seeing the castles, exploring the scary tunnels, and then coming back to Freiburg. Most of the people in my program are currently traveling internationally, but I could not be happier to be in Freiburg for the remainder of my time here. There's so little time left and I want to enjoy it as much as possible. I'm really lucky to have found great friends and flatmates to share it with.

Also, here are the links to my photo albums! People reading this who are my friends on Facebook can also see the pictures that other friends have tagged me in. I'll add some of those to the blog as they get posted online.

Romania and Bulgaria: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=171176&id=599810215&l=d7dc681c59

Greece Part 1:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=171190&id=599810215&l=9279756c53

Part 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=171291&id=599810215&l=3f9b543eb0

There will be more pictures as soon as Facebook lets me upload them (from our epic journey back to Germany as well as the Sankt Goar/Trier trip). It basically does things when it wants, not when I want it to...

I've got a nice week of relaxation/finals studying ahead. At least there's plenty of time for both! It's raining back in Freiburg, but I managed to make it to the farmer's market because it started pouring. We're hoping to go to the pool with a water slide as soon as it warms up again. All for now - bis spaeter!

Last Leg: Athens and the Trek Home

We flew from Sofia to Athens on Tuesday. We were a little bummed to not have more time in Sofia, but of course we were all excited to see Greece. After landing at the main airport, we took a 45-minute subway ride downtown. The ultra-nice subway was clearly the result of the 2004 Olympics - it was probably one of the nicest I've been on in Europe. We rode it to Akropoli, which should give you a hint as to where our hotel was located - right by the Acropolis! That's the name for the mountain with ruins, most notably the Parthenon, overlooking Greece.

Our hotel wasn't the nicest I've ever been in, but when we first got there and saw the Acropolis from the street, we were all pretty excited. Zeus' Temple was also a block away. We also had a rooftop terrace that made the whole thing worth it. We were in the Plaka district, which is quite touristy but also really pretty with winding streets and cafes. Everyone dropped off their stuff and got ready to go exploring right away.

Pre-Exploring

We headed up towards the Acropolis with the intention of seeing everything, but unbeknownst to us, all the monuments in Greece close at 3:00! Geez Greece - maybe you'd make more money if you stayed open until reasonable hours! We griped about the situation and teased Greece a bit more (being EU nerds as usual) before moving on to find something else. We ended up walking around the base of the Acropolis and finding a good rock from which to view the city. Athens is absolutely enormous, but we found our bearings a bit and noted some sites we wanted to check out later. The sheer number of preserved ruins in that city is incredible.

We ended up getting some ice cream and wandering around town after that. We checked out the Parliament buildings and took our usual pictures of the Changing of the Guard. The Greek ones definitely had the best shoes compared to guards in the other country. I can't imagine standing for hours in that heat in a woolly suit with big felt balls on the toes of each shoe. What a good life. There was a nice park next to the Parliament where we walked around and viewed some animals in the petting zoo. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were all tired from a nice long day of walking around and enjoying the city.

How many people are in this picture?

The rest of the trip was just as fun. We had academic meetings as usual, but we had plenty of free time to go exploring and to go out at night. My favorite academic meeting was at the Foreign Ministry. We spoke to a knowledgeable and eloquent woman, Ms. Irene Riga, about Greece's position on major EU issues such as enlargement. We had lots of time for questions and I asked one about enlargement in the Balkans (my theme of interest for this trip). Our meetings are almost always better when we have lots of question time and when we discuss policy rather than lofty EU goals. I would consider this one in Greece one of the best academic meetings from the whole semester.

Our entire time in Athens was great, but of course there was a small incident involving Iceland and a rogue volcano. We found out about it on Thursday and weren't too worried initially since we weren't scheduled to leave until Sunday, but when some of the people trying to get back on Friday had their flight cancelled, we started to wonder how bad it was going to get. I'm sure everyone saw the emerging news stories about the thousands of stranded travelers. Little did I know we would be joining them soon...

We put the volcano out of our minds and took a trip to the beach on Saturday. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip - beautiful weather, lovely beach on the Aegean, great friends, and nothing to do except relax and enjoy the experience. The water was a bit cold, but we went swimming anyway. There weren't too many tourists on the beach, but there were quite a few well-oiled Greek men playing some cross between badminton and tennis. It was great to relax on our last (or so we thought) day in Athens with a good group of friends.

One of my favorites of us from the beach

The last thing I'll say about Athens before going into our travel adventures is that the food was DELICIOUS. We ate so much Greek salad, feta cheese, olive oil, lamb, and fresh fish accompanied by good wine at nearly every meal. We also found a local hole-in-the-wall pita shop that sold the absolute best beef pitas we've ever had. An old Greek man told us that they were the best in town and he was completely right. This was off the beaten path, but they were even better than some of the dinners we had in the more touristy parts of town. All in all, we ate well for an entire week and couldn't have been happier about it.

It wasn't really until Sunday that s*** started to hit the proverbial fan. One of my friends and I were scheduled to fly out together around 11:00 am. We knew that wasn't really going to happen, but we had to go to the airport anyway to talk to the ticket desk and figure things out. This entailed getting up at 5:30 a.m. in order to make it on time. Sure enough, our flight was cancelled and we found ourselves in a long line waiting to talk to Aegean airlines. The best offer we could get was a flight to Berlin the following morning which "might take off" or a flight to Frankfurt (our original destination) on Thursday. We took the crappy Berlin option knowing that we wouldn't be able to get anything better before heading back to our hostel to meet the others. We spent a lot of the day on the Internet trying to figure out our rights as travelers under EU law and the like before things really got crazy.

Around 5:00 p.m., when the rest of our friends figured out their flights were all cancelled too, we were all sitting around the computers doing research on potential ways to get back. One friend's dad had recommended that he look into taking a 32-hour ferry ride to Italy and then taking a train back to Germany. We all scoffed at the idea, but he continued to work out the details. Meanwhile, news surfaced about German airspace being closed for longer than initially planned, meaning our flight to Berlin was definitely going to be cancelled. Everyone was starting to get anxious at this point because we really wanted to get back to Freiburg after travelling for nearly two weeks. Finally, our friends figured out all the details for the ferry and asked if anyone wanted to go. Some people said yes right away, but the rest of us were a bit skeptical and asked how long we had to decide. The answer? "We'd have to leave in 15 minutes." WHAT??? That really upped the stress level and people began to frantically weigh their options. No one wanted to be the one person to stay behind and then get stranded for a week, but there was no guarantee whatsoever that we could even get on the ferry or on a train in Italy. We also didn't know if our flights would be cancelled for sure and we didn't want to lose money. Ultimately, most of us decided to go for the ferry and we sprinted upstairs to get our stuff before coming back down to cancel our night in the hostel. Then the epic journey began...

We had to take a three-hour train, bus, train combination to get to Patras, a port town on the other side of Greece. That part was no fun at all as everyone was still super stressed about whether or not the plan would work, but it was also very exhilarating. Our motto was basically, "This will either be the very best or the very worst idea we've ever had." It turned out to be true. We got there and started looking for the ferry office with about fifty other people with the exact same idea. It was basically chaos/Amazing Race as everyone started sprinting towards the office: "There it is! Run! Go go go go go go!" We bolted in and asked for eight tickets and a cabin. We got the tickets (thank God), but we told that there were no cabins available. No matter - we were more than happy to sleep on the floor if it'd get us out of Greece.

We got on the ferry at about 11:00 pm and quickly staked out a corner in the lounge for the eight of us to occupy for the next 32 hours. This turned out to be a smart move as the ferry became more crowded than it had probably ever been. There were literally hundreds of stranded travelers camping on the stairwells, in the hallways, and even on the deck in the rain. Apparently we weren't the only crazy ones after all! We made makeshift pillows, blankets, and eye masks out of our clothes and went to sleep on the carpet.

Our "beds"

Believe it or not, we slept well and had an enjoyable ferry experience. After the craziness of the dash to Patras, it was really nice to sit back and know that we couldn't do anything to change the situation anymore. We just relaxed and read books for the whole next day. My book? The first Harry Potter in German! I read much slower in German than in English, but I was really happy to be able to understand everything. Besides, it wasn't a problem to be reading slowly with so much time to kill.

It was cold and windy outside, but we went out to enjoy the view and take some pictures. It was also a relief to hear that my flight to Berlin was in fact cancelled, meaning that I was guaranteed a refund. Most other travelers on the ferry had theirs cancelled as well. At one point, someone posted a sign near the massive line for the computers saying "If anyone knows how to get back to the UK, write it here!" That sign remained blank for the entire ride.

Just a bit windy...

When we finally got to Venice after a day and two nights on the ferry, we discovered that there were no trains to Germany. They had all been completely booked. We had one option of taking a bus to Karlsruhe, which is farther north then Freiburg, but it would have been quite expensive and inconvenient. We sat there in the train station in Venice, finally feeling utterly defeated. Luckily, IES decided to send a coach to pick up the other people still in Athens, the other trip that was stranded in Rome, and us (we were going to meet them in Bologna). The other people in Athens boarded a ferry to Italy as well and we went to Bologna to get a hostel for the night and wait. We didn't even leave the hostel when we got there - everyone was too burnt out to even consider going out and exploring.

The next day, after about eight hours on the bus from Bologna to Freiburg, I had never been so happy to get home in my life. We started traveling at 6:00 pm on Sunday and got back in Germany at 2:30 a.m on Thursday. We went through Greece, Croatia (territorial waters), Italy, and Switzerland before making it back home. Overall, it was the best rather the worst idea ever. We had an epic journey back, but we made it in one piece and with a little bit of sanity left!

That's all for our adventure. Check soon (as in later today) for my next post about the wonderful weekend I just had exploring Germany! Bis dann!

Lovely Freiburg

It's so nice to be back in Freiburg. The trees all bloomed while we were away, and while that's bad for my allergies, it's absolutely beautiful when biking around town. People spend as much time as possible outside lounging on the grass or at the Biergarten and it's such a nice relaxed atmosphere. Unfortunately, we've still got lots of school work! I'll probably follow the German example and drag some textbooks outside tomorrow.

I'll write about the trip to Athens as soon as I can (probably Friday afternoon). I'm trying to write some essays in the meantime, but it's so hard to concentrate when there is fun to be had. Oh well...bis spaeter!

Bucharest and Sofia

I’m finally back in Freiburg after a long trip, an even longer journey back to Freiburg, and a long silence on this blog. I’ll start at the beginning and end with Bulgaria. Greece and everything that came after it will need their own post later.

We left Freiburg for the airport in Köln/Bonn for our flight to Bucharest over two weeks ago on a Wednesday night. I’m generally not a fan of six-hour bus rides to begin with, but a six-hour bus ride preceding an airplane ride in the middle of the night was arguably worse. It was apparently cheaper to fly out of this out-of-the-way airport. Regardless, we were all super excited to begin our trip. We landed in Bucharest the next morning and took a private coach to our hotel.

I think we were all surprised at how rundown Bucharest is. Some of us, including me, had imagined Eastern Europe as a generally dilapidated post-Communist region, but it turned out to be completely true in Romania’s capital. While there was some older architecture, I was blown away by how many purely utilitarian (read: ugly) buildings dominated the entire city. Romania was especially hard-hit by the Communist era under the brutal leadership of Nicolae Ceauşescu and it really shows in the city’s architecture, run-down status, and enduring poverty. Many buildings were crumbling or in ruins and the sidewalks were nearly all potholed and cracked. That being said, we were staying in a vibrant area with lots of restaurants, bars, and young people enjoying the nice weather. Our hotel was also really nice and centrally located. There seems to be a lot of potential for a revitalized Romania, and in a lot of areas, we could really see the transition occurring in modern buildings and international businesses.

Crazy wires in Bucharest...

On the first day, we enjoyed a city tour led by a local Romanian. As we walked through the dilapidated areas, he told us that many of the communist buildings are currently occupied by squatting Roma (non-PC term: gypsies) people and therefore cannot be demolished. There is apparently a tendency to blame the Roma for all of Romania’s problems and I’m not sure if we can believe our guide, but it was interesting nonetheless. The highlight of our tour was by far the Palace of the Parliament, but not in a good way. This MASSIVE building was built by Ceauşescu in the 1980s as the seat of government despite the fact that the Romania people were suffering growing poverty and food shortages. If there is any symbol of the personal excess of his regime, this building is it. It’s the second largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon.

The "Palace of the People"

We saw many other interesting states on the tour, including the site of the Bloody Revolution in 1989 and other recent historical monuments. We also began our academic meetings. I think the best meeting was with an NGO devoted to anti-corruption. The speaker gave a fascinating presentation about the presence of high-level corruption in the Romanian government and parliament and spoke about the difficulties in stopping it. Some think that Romania and Bulgaria never should have been admitted to the EU given their enormous corruption problems, at least not until the EU’s entry requirements could have been more fully met. Now, they both suffer from an entrenched corruption that originated as a survival strategy during the communist regime. When basic goods and living standards could not be attained, Romanians at all levels of political and home life resorted to corrupt deals just to function. The Romanian parliament also contains leaders from the old regime and is struggling to create a new generation free of the same problems.

The last thing I’ll say about Romania is that we ate some delicious food. We were there for two nights and we went to the same restaurant both times since it was so good. It was highly recommended by the hotel and by our Romanian academic advisor from IES. The interior was traditionally decorated and the evenings were punctuated by folk dance performances. I ate delicious Moldavian stew, the Romanian equivalent of polenta, and some deceptively strong local wine. We all had a great time, especially when the dancers would start a new performance.

The next leg of our trip commenced with another bus ride, but this time to Bulgaria. There is exactly one bridge over the Danube connecting the two countries and we joined all the other vehicles on the journey. We made it through border control and made two stops at bathrooms, one of which was a squat toilet. It was a bit of minor culture shock, but those toilets aren’t common anymore anyway. We made it to downtown Sofia to our hotel around 11 p.m. and headed to bed to rest up for the next day. Our city tour got started bright and early. Our guide was clearly a history student because she exhausted us with details about Bulgaria, Sofia, the Cyrillic alphabet, and everything we could ever want to know about every building we passed. It was interesting, but too much to remember! I’ll sum up by saying I was surprised at how nice Sofia was. The downtown area was bright, lively, and clean, and the historical influences of the Romans and the Ottomans showed in different ruins, churches, and mosques. It was also really cool to see the Cyrillic alphabet everywhere. Luckily, one of our friends is Bulgarian and helped us translate whenever we needed it. The only things I learned how to say were “yes”, “no”, and “I don’t speak Bulgarian”. I would have liked to learn a little more, but it’s hard to remember any of the phrases you’ve practiced when an expectant waiter is standing over you waiting for your order…

Our group in Bulgaria

Our academic meetings in Bulgaria were generally excellent. I especially enjoyed going to the Foreign Ministry, even though we only had half an hour to talk to the deputy foreign minister. At one point, he mentioned the need for stability in the Western Balkans given Bulgaria’s proximity, so I asked a question about potential EU accession for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia given their political problems after the break-up of Yugoslavia. Like many of the politicians we spoke to, he emphasized that the two countries could join as soon as they fulfilled the accession criteria. This will be a struggle for those two in particular, but Croatia (another former Yugoslav state) is poised to join the EU soon. Slovenia already joined in 2004. I wish we had more time for questions, but we unfortunately had to leave before we could get really into it. I really appreciate the fact that IES arranged meetings with high-level politicians throughout our whole trip, even if they don’t always have a lot of time to speak to us.

The best part about our time in Sofia was when we visited our Bulgarian friend’s grandparents after the city tour. They live on the outskirts of the city and we were invited over for “lunch.” Little did we know that lunch actually meant a 7.5 hour feast with more delicious food than we could ever hope to eat. Our friend’s grandfather met us at our hotel and took us on the subway to their house. There, we met the grandmother, an aunt and uncle, and a cousin. We got our first introduction to incredible Bulgarian hospitality on this visit, and I can safely say that it was one of the best afternoons I’ve ever had. We began the meal with traditional Bulgarian liquor (it tasted like vodka but was MUCH stronger) and an assortment of salads, sausages, and pickled vegetables. I’d never had pickled carrots or peppers before, but they were actually really good and complemented the liquor that was a bit too strong for most of us. Next, we ate steaks, bread, devilled eggs made with some type nut filling, and wine. The highlight, though, was definitely dessert. We all sat there open-mouthed as trays of homemade coffeecake and baklava came out of the kitchen accompanied by fig cake, puff pastries with cheese and spinach filling, and the chocolates we brought as a thank-you present. We were already full from the first courses, but the dessert was too delicious to pass up and we had many hours in which to enjoy it. The food was accompanied by good conversation with the family as well as an embarrassing hour where we attempted to demonstrate traditional American songs. The family was expecting old-style drinking songs like most European countries have, but we chose to butcher “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and various children’s songs instead. When we finally realized how horribly wrong our singing was going, we sat back and listened to the Bulgarians sing instead. It was really enjoyable to have a traditional meal with good company and old songs, and we only got up to leave when it was getting really late. I was full until lunch the next day, but even still, I wish I had more of the homemade baklava.

Our flight to Athens was moved up and we didn’t get to spend an additional day in Bulgaria. I was sad to miss the opportunity to see more of the city, but it was great to be there for as long as we were. Bulgaria suffers from many of the same problems as Romania, especially corruption and the Mafia, but Sofia was beautiful and we heartily enjoyed our time there. I’ll write more about the Athens/return trip leg when I can and I'll post links to photo albums ASAP. All I’ll say now is that it involves a rooftop terrace, the beach, the Acropolis, feta cheese, “hit the brakes!”, a volcano named Eyjafjallajoekull, and an 80-hour return trip back to Freiburg. Bis dann!