Weekend in Denmark (Excursion to the land o’ Volvos and H&M)

And were off again!  Around 3AM on Friday morning, I woke up to take a city bus over to Baker Street, where I boarded a pre-booked National Express Coach bus to London Stansted Airport.  This was the FIRST time I had gone to Stanstead, and I was surprised at how easy it was.  This was however, the LAST time I would have to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a flight.  It has been a VERY tiring semester, staying awake in the ultra-AM is not easy sometimes.  The flight was just fine, I am basically an easyJet pro by now, so I arrived smoothly in Copenhagen at 10AM, took the metro into the city, and began touring throughout the day while waiting for my friend Katie to be done with school for the week.

It was a full day!  Danish is quite a hard language to navigate, they have the o with the line through it…haha so I didnt even bother with it when I was walking around.  First, I saw one of the large parks in Copenhagen, where Rosenburg Slot is located (slot is a castle).  It was pretty nice, like a large random mansion in the middle of a public park.  Then on over to a former military fortress which was also very interesting.  Now it is a hybrid public park-military offices area.  It had the most Danish windmill I had ever seen.  I guess I had a pretty strong opinion of Denmark before going, because I found myself seeing lots of things and thinking, haha yes that is very Danish.  After that, I went to go see Denmark’s most over-hyped tourist sight, a statue in their harbour of the “little mermaid”.  I was certain it wouldnt be a giant Ariel from the Disney version, but i was thinking it might be a little more impressive.  Just a bronze, life-sized statue of a mermaid about ten feet out into the water.  LAME, took a photo with it though of COURSE…and I waited in line to do it too.  From there, it was a long walk back into the downtown area, along the way I walked along the water, and saw the brand new State Opera House which is completely modern, and apparently controversial for being a blight on the waterfront of Copenhagen.  I thought it was a tad modern for the other stuff around it.  Copenhagen is built on two sides of a river-thing that also makes a few islands and a harbor.  One one side, is the old city and main downtown, on the other side is the main industrial part of town and where the airport and Christiania is located (I will come back to that last place).  Also along the walk, I discovered the Danish Roya Palace, since Denmark is a constitutional monarchy, and the town’s largest church, the Marble Church, which was a great place to go inside to get warm.  Copenhagen was FREEZING COLD, literally, all weekend, and during my first afternoon-night there, a good amount of snow fell over everything.  I was NOT anticipating this!  I knew it would be cold, but snow??  I went on after the thaw-out to see the main square in Copenhagen, around which is located the “Magasin du Nord” which is like a giant Macys Department Store, the old State Opera House, and other hotels and impressive buildings.  All of the streets were being decked out in Christmas decorations and they were constructiong a large ice skating ring around the square itself.  Just next to this, is the postcard-famous Nyhavn, which is a long and narrow port, around which are very small and unique houses painted in bright colors.  They were drapped with garland and lit up, because at this point it was becoming evening, and with the snow, it was pretty special.  It reminded me a lot of a town we visited in France in High School, Le Havre.  I worked my way up toward Copenhagen’s “latin quarter” which is where the university is located.  In one of the larger squares, there was an international food market being put on, where everything from Crepes, to cheese, to balsamic, to sausages, to paella was being sold.  I was walking though it all, smelling what I could through my frozen nose, and came across the “Australian exotic burger” stand…for about $7 I was able to purchase my very own Kangaroo burger!  Haha yes, it was weird eating a marsupial.  After that, for some warmth and a chance to sit, I went into a guide book recommended cafe , ordered carrot soup, and worked out what the rest of the day and weekend would be like.  After paying, I went to the National Museum to meet up with Katie.  After we caught up a bit, I went off to explore the “Denmark through the decades” exhibit which was really interesting, and then we left to go back to her house before dinner. 

She is living this semester with a Danish host family, and when we arrived I got to meet them all.  There were the parents, and three children from 10-16 who all were quite nice, and curious about another American in their midst.  We hurried off to dinner back in town, and met up with some of her program friends at an international restaurant.  It was a nice dinner, and it was good to hang out with some non-NYU students.  Afterwards, we had already planned out night out at a large American-filled club in the center of town.  We were able to take a night bus home after this, but it took forever since Katie’s home was located about 50 minutes outside of the city.  During the day time, this is no big deal since the entire country of Denmark (which is made up of about 400 different islands) is perfectly connected by above ground light-rail trains.  The ticket system is a little confusing though, especially after a long night out at the club! 

On Saturday, we slept in and then took a quick bus over to the local grocery store, to stock up on ingredients for Sunday dinner.  We planned to cook “breakfast for dinner” for the host family who had so kindly allowed me to sleep over with them.  We had some success at the store, and on the way back to the bus stop I convinced Katie to come into a bakery with me to check out what they had (whatever it was had a delicious smell that was being pumped out into the street).  I bought a flanky pastry, filled with an almond glaze, and topped with chocolate glaze….I wish I knew what it was called because I could eat it for every meal for the rest of my life.  I couldnt finish it all though, and saved it for breakfast the next day.  After unpacking, we headed into town to finish doing the sights I had overlooked the day before.  The largest of which was the island of Christiania.  This is hard to describe, so jsut try to picture some of this.  Christiania is an area of Copenhagen, it was once a military barracks, but was abandoned in the 1950s.  In the 1960s, a group of squatters broke into the site, and took up residence, declaring the island to be a seperate entity from Denmark.  They believed in anarchy and freedom from laws and government which they saw as failing their former state, Denmark.  They turned the barracks into a commune, where wages were minimal, a strict moral code was enforced purely by the people….etc.  Today, it remains legally in Denmark, but its own independent area within the city.  The barracks have all been modified so to speak, and new houses have all been built hap-hazardly (one is made compltely of windows stacked like cubes on top of each other?).  In the 1980s and 90s, Christiania became known for is largest street (Pusher Street, where tourists are NOT allowed to take photos), which is where many drug dealers and street vendors operate from.  Denmark police are allowed to take action within Christiania, and have cracked down on hard drugs, but more benign ones are all over still.  There is no heat in any of the buildings, there is a communal kitchen and shower house, little electricity or other utilities.  Over a thousand people live there however, and Katie told me that there is a committee who decides if you can join the commune or not.  Because of the increasing value of the land these squatters are living on, Christiania may not be around for much longer, but it was certainly an experience.  My favorite part was a sign next to the exit back onto the streets of Copenhagen: “Now entering the EU.”

After this, we took the metro over to Nyhavn too see the harbor by day.  A row of vendors had been set up along one side of the portside, selling Christmas items and foods.  I tried a Fransk hotdog, which is essentially a baguette with a hole drilled down the center of it, they fill it with hot dog toppings, and then ram the hotdog into the tube.  It was pretty delicious, Germanic people know their cased meats very well.  We bumped into one of Katie’s friends who was out with her own host family.  The daughter in the family ran off to buy a small package of what looked like bent french fries, and while we were all talking she came back up and insisted we all try this “traditional Danish food”.  I took one, ate it, and as I was debating how much like bacon it tasted/felt, the father told me it was deep fried pig skin…I refused another kindly.  From there, we took shelter from the cold in Magasin du Nord, while looking around at vastly expensive clothing and Chrtistmas items.  From there, in the spirit of looking at things we couldnt afford, we exited onto Copenhagens pedestrian only, ATM-void, large shopping street, Stogert.  Many many european clothing shops lined the street, and as it was getting dark, the Christmas decorations came on and the street musicians played, it was a very nice hour or so walking around.  I bought souvenirs, and then we headed towards Town Hall Square which is described in LonelyPlanet as “Times Square as Copenhagen, but dont expect too much”.  The book was right, the square was very large and surrounded by some old, some new buildings, covered in neon blinking signage.  However, I did not feel as if I were in the center of the universe.  The themometer on the side of the Carlsburg beer building told us it was time to go indoors for a while, so we headed into a pub.  Katie insisted I order Copenhagen’s famous “Christmas ale” made by Carlsburg and Tuborg.  Julebeer was not that impressive, it was pretty bitter, but it was GREAT to be indoors.  We decided that since it was getting dark, we would go over to “Tivoli” which was right nearby. 

During the summer, Tivoli is a very large themepark right in the center of Copenhagen.  Famous since the 1800s, it is similar to Lake Compounce with one roller coaster, kids rides, swings, a lake, themed areas and many many vendors.  For Christmas, the turn it into a large “winter wonderland” with all of the cafes and vendors selling moulded wine, crepes, hot cocoa, and many other Chrtistmas foods.  The whole park is covered in garland and lights, it is truely a Christmas world.  It was SO SO SO cold out, we made our way into as many of the little huts selling ornaments and food as possible, just to get warm but also to look at some of the Danish Christmas stuff.  At 8PM, there was a light show around the lake that we went to see…surprisingly it was not Christmas themed?  It was all techno music, lazers, smoke, and stobe lights, but still cool I guess.  We wandered through the rest of the park, taking in the extensive decorations…and then we saw it.  COLDSTONE.  In the middle of a Danish theme park, there was a formidable American ice cream standard shop.  I just had to have some, I ordered a love it sized “Cookie Doughn’t you want some…as if it werent cold enough out.  The one advantage, no line!  Katie opted for some Spanish chueros with soft serve instead.  Everyone who saw us with our food was so jealous, asking us where we got it!  After that, our bodies had no more feeling left in them, so we opted to take the train back home for some dinner and sleep.  We cooked dinner at the house, vegetarian tacos and pasta with pesto…odd but tasty. 

Sunday was an early call for me, because I had decided to go to Sweden for the day!  Rather glamorously, Sweden for lunch!  It was a little complicated, taking 3 different types of Denmark public transportation to get to the ferry in a small town called Helsingor.  The ferry only took 20 minutes, and claims to be the “Worlds most frequently running ferry”…mostly because it is entirely funded by Swedes who are crossing over to Denmark to buy cheap alcohol because taxes on alcohol in Sweden are very high.  After arriving in Helsingor’s sister town in Sweden, Helsingborg, I decided that coming on a Sunday was maybe a bad idea because pretty much EVERYTHING was closed.  There were a few cafes open, having sunday brunch, but other than that, not much else.  I visited the main attraction in town, a former castle that is at the top of the main shopping avanue in town, build in red brick Danish style.  Now would be a good time to mention that at one point, Denmark owned Sweden, Norway, Greenland, and part of Germany in a very large and powerful empire.  They lost it all however, except for Greenland (did you know Denmark owns Greenland??? I didnt) by 1850 and turned towards isolationism after that, remaining neutral in both World Wars.  This isolationism explains why Denmark has kept its own currency, and is extremely socialist and pretty much a welfare state.  I wound up eating lunch at one of the only cafes open in town, mostly because I had taken out Swedish currency and had nothing ot spend it on.  I chose the one cafe in town that was hosting a 15 person birthday party, for a 9 year old girl.  They sang Happy Birthday in Swedish however, so that made it worth all the racket.  I had intended on visiting H&M which Katie told me is originally Swedish, but unfortunately they were closed for sunday…there was no obvious way to get to an IKEA either.  However, there WERE a lot of Saabs and Volvos….not as many as West Hartford however. 

I took the ferry back to Denmark, and spent about an hour or so wandering the small town of Helsingor.  The most famous thing in the place was a very large castle, which is the castle Shakespeare used to create the world in his play, “Hamlet”.  The castle was closed by the time I got back, but it was cool to walk around because it had actually been a very important part of Danish medival history, it had a moat and everything!  The town itself was cool too, but it was getting dark and cold again, so I got back on the train to head home.  We cooked a pretty sorry excuse for “breakfast for dinner” that night.  Omlettes are MUCH harder than I had ever thought they would be, but the breakfast potatoes and fruit salad came out good.  The kids all thanked us, so I thought the effort we put in was more important overall.  It was nice sitting down for a family dinner too, with everyone talking about their days and how their weekends had been.  We had an extensive discussion about Thanksgiving too, which it sounded like they would be celebrating for the first time with Katie this week.  I spent the rest of the night writing thank yous for people who had written me recommendations for internships next semester, and then went to bed. 

The flight home was really easy, and I spent the rest of the day resting and responding to emails till just now!  This week is looking like another busy one, with SHINE, classes, and homework.  Friday afternoon, I am scheduled to take a train up to the Eastmidlands area of England, for my HOST weekend with a British Family.  Their names are Steve and Janet Oatway, and they have three children.  We will be cooking, hopefully, a Thanksgivng feast all together.  I am very excited, and I think that the thing I am most thankful for is to remaining in the UK, and not having to fly on easyJet for a while.  Hahaha hope you all are well, almost December!

Prague- The City of a Hundred Spires

I think that is Prague’s nickname…anyways.  What can I say about this trip, all or nothing I guess.  In the wee hours of Friday morning, a very weary traveller walked to St. Pancras International to buy tickets for yet another journey to Luton Airport.  Seriously, I have made this trek too many times.  I recognize security officials, I have been processed by the same Boarder Control person multiple times, and I have even started running out of books that interest me in WHSmith in-terminal book store.  Hahaha, yet, this flight to Prague in about 2 hours was pretty painless.  The weather in Prague, getting off the plane, was significantly colder than what I had left in London so I was glad I had brought my new Bratislava scarf and winter coat.  I took the bus to the metro into town and wound up at my friend Amanda’s stop, which is just outside of Prague’s “Old City” and center of town.  We went to her dorm and started catching up after over a month of not seeing each other.  We had to put some thoguht into how to spend the rest of the day too.  It got dark so early in Prague, so days were shortened sightseeing wise too.  We walked through Old Town Prague, where we saw the central square (which contains numerous restaurants, a famous fountain, and an even more famous “Astronomical Clock” which I will tell you more about later).  We also saw many other newly restored Renaissance and older buildings.  In spite of how grey and spartan most of the Czech Republic is, many of the buildings downtown are painted pastel happy colors, and contain elaborate mouldings and design patterns that cheer people up.  We went the new giant shopping mall in town, where we went into many westen shops to look at stuff.  This is one of the many examples the communism is officially dead and EU/Western Capitalism is on the upswing in the former communist state.  I took photos and beamed with pride.  We bumped into one of Amanda’s friend’s friend in the mall (he was visiting one of her friends in Prague), and as it turned out it was aslo his birthday!  Later on, she and I were invited to a birthday dinner with his family who were also in town, at the restaurant in their hotel which solve the perpetual problem that is “dinner, where?”  We went to a cafe called “Bohemian Bagel” for lunch, where I had some delicious carrot soup and a sunflower seed bagel that really hit the spot after not eating all day.  We stopped at a grocery store on the way home to stock up for breakfasts over the weekend…the Czech Republic has 24 hour supermarkets, but the UK doesnt which was baffeling to me.  We took a cab from her dorm to Mark, the birthday boy’s hotel, which cost about 200 czech whatevers.  We arrived at the hotel, which was extremely posh, and took the elevator to the top floor to a reserved table for 7 people.  Dinner was NUTS, I got the “Roast goose” which is a special dish that was only being served because it was a holiday week in the Czech Repubic (the week before the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, or the day Czechloslovakia broke up into Slovakia and the Czech Republic).  Mark’s parents are from LA, and must do something very lucrative, because we all were continuously topped up on Dom Perignon champagne, and all ordered very lavish dinners.  Also, the view over Prague center, with the castle and cathedral up on the hill, was like someone at the table said, “just like a movie or studio set” because it was that incredible.  After dinner, and MANY thank to Mark’s parents, we split up in two cabs to go back to the NYU dorm. 

Here is a good story for you all:  We took two cabs back to the dorm, both were four door nothing-special cars marked TAXI.  My taxi took the same route as the other one, and the ride back took about 10 minutes, same as on the way to the hotel earlier that day.  We pulled up in front of the dorm, and the driver told us 1100 czech whatevers.  Since the ride on the way there was 200, we were immediately offended and protested, since in USD that is about $60.  60 bucks for a 10 minute cab ride is obviously highway robbery, so we tried telling him that the other cab, which he literally FOLLOWED only cost 200.  He didnt know english very well, so he kept insisting on 1100, we put 200 in his hand and started to walk away.  He started saying he was going to call the police, so we stopped, and started talking with him again, explaining that 1100 was ridiculous and we were only paying 200.  He started calling someone on his phone, and we debated about what to do, and the official plan became to claim we only HAD 200 on us collectively, and that he would have to settle for that.  After arguing for about 5 minutes more, it was clear the police werent coming, and we started to walk away again…when he said to us in very broken english that he was Russian, and he was going to call a “bodyguard”.  We walked back again, and started arguing again, no one really knew Russian, and very little Czech.  We said again, that 200 was all that we had, and he either had to take it, or we would walk away.  He got back on his phonee, and at this point one of the girls ran inside to get an RA in the dorm who spoke Czech…it was so cold, and the entire street was desserted outside of the dorm.  We started to walk away again in frustration, when he started shouting, and a black Mercedes with tinted windows and high-intensity lights pulled up about two blocks away from us.  Hahahaha now what would you do in this situation?  We literally didnt have 1100 on us, but we also had more than 200, so we offered him all the Czech money we had, and he insisted it wasnt enough.  The Mercedes blinked its lights, and thats when Mark offered him part of his bithday money he had just gotten from his parents at dinner.  It was American money, and the Russian taxi driver opened his wallet and showed us he had about 20 different typed of currency to give us change in.  We paid him, and went inside just as the RA was coming down the stairs.  Needless to say, we al had a lot to talk about for the next hour or so, as we regrouped in the kitchen.  
I was pretty ready to call it a night after that experience, but apparently that is not how the Czechs do it, because everyone else was ready to go out again for the night.  The plan was to go to ”The largest night club in central Europe” and so we caught a tram to the other side of town to check it out.  5 floors of dancing, bars, and different types of music wound up being REALLY crazy, but also made it easy to forget about our near-death experience.  We left around 4AM and took the tram home to fall into bed.

We woke up on Saturday around 10AM…6 short hours later…and ate breakfast and talked about what was on the agenda for the day.  We decided to do a walking tour in my Lonely Planet guide book, that would take us through famous Prague old town, along the river that runs through Prague, and across the river where other famous landmarks are.  We decided to leave the largest tourist trap for Sunday, Prague castle and cathedral.  It was a long walk, but we spent our time quickly by talking and snapping photos of some of the more attractive parts of Prague.  Charles Bridge is also very famous, and a ridiculous number of peddlers line the roads around it, and even over it, trying to sell post cards, paintings, etc.  Marrionettes are a big thing in Prague, that I didnt even realize…so sorry I didnt take orders for those before leaving.  We walked across the bridge, and wound up travelling around the other side of Prague, seeing things like the “most photographed water wheel in Prague” and more imporantly, the “Lenin Wall”.  The Lenin Wall is a wall in a residential neighborhood that is heavily graffitied.  During communism, authorities painted over the graffiti regularly to prevent self expression against the state, but every week or so someone would paint peace signs and lyrics from John Lenin’s “Imagine” all over  the wall.  After communism fell, the wall has become a mecca for Lenin fans, and just plain people with Sharpie Markers.  We walked up to the wall to take photos like all the other good tourists, when all of a sudden a car came speeding around the corner blarring its horn very loudly.  It slammed on its breaks just in front of the wall, and the tourist/sheep all turned their heads to see what the problem was.  Just then, a bride and groom jumped out of the can, and an entire wedding procession pulled up in a van behind them.  The minister walked in front of the wall with a boom box, pumping “Imagine” by Lenin and the bride and groom assembled to be married in front of the wall, and all of the tourist, and presumidly a few family members.  We watched the entire wedding, in Czech, but that was how I went to my first wedding ever.  Hahaha.  

We grabbed lunch at a nice cafe afterwards, where I ordered traditional Czech food and a Pilsner beer…very Czech to do this, so I gave in.  After THAT, it started to get dark, so we took the tram to the other side of the river, and began walking along the river bank down to Prague’s “second castle”.  Situated up on top of a tall hill, this is where S+S Peter and Paul Cathedral is located, as well as the old city fort.  The walk was long and cold, but the views out over Prague at night were very cool.  We took the metro home in time for a quick but nice dinner at a local international restaurant by Amandas apartment.   Now, I was ready for a nice, quite, and early evening in after all of this….but NOPE, out we went again!  This time, to a different bar with live music and an upstairs dance floor.  This place was hot, dark, smoky, and full of real Czech people.  We got home late, and again fell into bed for less time than I would have liked.  I woke up around 10AM again to have breakfast, and while Amanda slept later I went online to read email and figure out how busy I would be the following week. 

After I was able to get Amanda out of bed, I convinced her to go do more sightseeing.  She was sick with a cold when I arrived, so she was in less condition than I to go bounding around the city she had already seen.    We took another walking tour of the guide book, and used the metro to get over to Prague Castle and Cathedral.  This is the big mother of all tourist sights for  Prague visitors, so I was glad we didnt miss it.  We didnt go into anything, but we walked up and down the narrow streets in the walled in royal palace…former Hapsburg territory, when Prage was under Austrian control.  We had a great sandwich lunch as a small cafe, and continued out tour outside of the castle.  We saw some of the other aristocratic palaces built on the hill.  Around Prague, there were lot of locations used in the famous movie Amideus, the story about Mozart.  We saw many of them, but I didnt recognize many since its been a while since Ive seen the film.  We also went to the top of “Petrin Hill” which is where, in 1890 the “Prague Exhibition” was held.  They built a funicular to access the site, and the feature attraction was an Eiffel Tower-like steel tower, which is still there today.  As it was already closed, we didnt go up it, but we did take the funicular down to the river bank again.  We also visited the “Prague Miniature Museum” which is almost too bizarre for me to describe.  After paying about $1.50, we entered a small two room museum there were several microscopes set up on tables.  In each one, were things like grains of rice with words written on them, figures small enough to fit inside the thread hole of a pin, or post-stamp sized copies of famous paintings.  Hahaha bewildered, we continued our tour. 

Back to Old Town, we visited TESCO grocery store to buy ingredients for our dinner that evening, which we planned to make ourselves back at the dorm.  In Old Town Square, I blew a few extra czech currency units on a venti Starbucks hot chocolate which was wonderful, just as it started to rain and get cold out.  Also back in Old Town Square, we were lucky enough to be standing below the famed “Astronomical Clock” at the top of the 6PM hour.  With great anticipation, and about 2,000 of our closest tourist friends, we waited for the mini-show start around the clock as the hour hand hit the 6.  Bang, it chimed 6PM, and then pretty much NOTHING happened, like some puppets came out of their holes, giggled around a bit, and then it was all over.  I had never felt more robbed in my life…it was like making one of those volcanos in elementary school with baking soda.  At least the Astronomical Clock didnt spew chunky junk all over my kitchen table.  Speaking of kitchen tables, Amanada and I went back to her dorm and put on our chefs hats to cook up some of the best gnocchi and pasta sauce we had EVER eaten, before settlign in for an evening of Arrested Development and OC episodes and finally bed time.  I had to leave for the airport around 4:30AM and made it back to London and my dorm by around 10AM.  WHEW what a weekend….for more about read the next blog….

What I do when Im NOT traveling

It occurred to me recently that most of my blogs are always about me travelling outside of the UK into Europe of the Middle East.  If this is getting tedious for some of you frequent readers, then this blog is for YOU.  I hope though, that no one really is getting tired of my excursion blogs, because right after this I am going to write one about Prague, and then I Copenhagen/Sweden is this weekend so expect that up on Monday night. 

Anyways, I want to take us back to before Fall Break, that whirlwind experience, to the week before.  This was the last week of October, and includes many interesting London moments that I had.  ON Monday night, as a part of our Lecture Series, a man came to talk with us about the British Museum and its place in the world’s conception of Britain.  He emphasized what comes to mind when non-British people think about Britain, and how that is changing as Britain modernizes and becomes a center of culture again.  Not too interesting, but worth mentioning since he was a Lord in British Parliament!  On Tuesday night, something just as remarkable occurred here in London: it snowed.  People went CRAZY in Nido, you would have thought Obama had already won the election.  Wednesday I didnt have to go to SHINE, because British kids get the last week of October off…I have no idea why, but I got to sleep in which was sweet.  I spent the day getting ahead on homework, and that night was Halloween Eve!  A bunch of friends and I decided to dress up and go out on the town…first to an American Aparrel (clothing store) Halloween Party which was actually pretty lame.  We then made our way over to Shoreditch which is the “club” part of east London.  Everything is cheap, and there wasnt even a cover charge at the one we decided to go in!  What a night!!  On Thursday, I woke up to prepare for Fall Break, which included a haircut at the local barber shop (where a very Italian man gave me a haircut), and also giving blood with the National Blood Service.  That experience was similar to the one in Italy, so nothing big there.  The next day we left for fall break!! 

The week we got back, I spent Sunday and Monday pretty sleeping, and doing a bit of homework to prepare for our require lecture on Monday night.  This week, the speaker was a Conservative Journalist who had worked under David Cameron, who is the likely Conservative candidate for the Prime Ministerelections in Britain in 2010.  He is also likely to win, so listening to this speaker talk about London’s history of Conservative government and policy was interesting because it is becoming increasingly relevant in Britain again, after over 10 years of Labour government.  On Wednesday night, many people from the Required class (around 75  or so) had signed up to go on a Field Trip through NYU.  In the theme of Contemporary British Politic and Society, we all travelled by bus (very slowly, due to Kings Cross rush-hour nightmare traffic) up to Hampstead which is a norther bourough of London.  We started with a *free* dinner at an American diner-themed restaurant, including delicious Reeses milkshakes and burgers.  You know you go to NYU when the majority of burgers ordered do not contain cow or any other animals.  Afterwards, we walked around the block to see a play about American Elections.   I have to say, it was not what I was expecting, and I was not impressed.  We got to stay after though and talk the director/producers though, which was interesting.  Friday, I left arly in the morning for PRAGUE!  (see next blog entry!)

This past week, after returning from Prague around 10AM on Monday morning, I fell into bed (with my earplugs) and slept for an additional 5 hours to catch up on the sleep lost over the course of the weekend.  This was probably not the most productive choice, but I think it was necessary.  Monday night, we had yet another Lecturer, this time the speaker was a polar opposite from the last week’s speaker.  He warmed the crowd up with some anecdotes from the popular adult cartoon, Family Guy.  Everyone was laughing, having a good time, and then he revealed he was a Socialist politician. GASSP said the crowd paying around $40,000 each to be in the room to listen to him.  The rest of the hour long talk was spent, by most in the room, either in denile that they were there, or on the edge of their seats waiting to rip him a new one.  The Q&A session at the end was particulaly fun for me, watching many outspoken medical students trying to change a 50 year old socialist’s mind about his political views.  Pretty futile, but luckily it didnt last long and I went home to some delicious Spaghetti carbonera.  Wednesday morning, it took a LOT of stigma to get out of bed for SHINE with the little kids.  I had caught a cold in Prague and was feeling very sick.  We spent the morning, before or typical swim lesson, at a bullying workshop. It was really interesting to see how bullying is a problem for British kids too, and the workshop included an hour-long skit by a British theater troop that included a lot of modern British language and customs I was not aware of.  Wednesday night was another culture-full night, as NYU offered tickets to a large group of students to go see the extremely British musical Billy Elliot.  It was put on at the spectacular Victoria Palace theater, and the seats were actually good.  Thats all I can say positively about the musical…and maybe that the lighting was pretty awesome.  Other than that, it wound up being a show about a town in Northern England during the 1980’s, when Prime Minister Margaret ”Maggie” Thatcher brought about economic reforms that basically closed all of the steel, coal, and manufacturing businesses in the country.  So, a bunch of miners were on strike over these reforms, and one of the miners had a son who decided he wanted to learn ballet (balley, as they say in the coarse British accent).  BALLET?!?!  In a poor mining town, revolting over the British government?  I think the contrast is the spectacle…most dance scenes had around 40 miners shouting and singing in deep baritone voices, surrounded by 40 little girls and Billy Elliot in ballet clothes, dancing.  Hahaha too bizarre for me.  I was again, expecting something different.  Today, Thursday, I didn’t have my usual morning class, so I spent the morning working on a PPT presentation for my afternoon class on the Boer War in South Africa that I delivered later that day…successfully I think.  I am pretty surprised at how much of my curriculum this semester is about the Boer War in South Africa…I guess its a big part of British history, but I feel really silly spending so much time and effort on Britain’s “vietnam”.  Before class however, I had my first phone interview for the internships I have applied to in Washington for next semester.  This one was with the National Republican Congressional Committee, I think it went decently.  I will have more of these coming up.  These past two weeks have been infinitely more stressful due to the application process to these internships, I think Ive applied to about 9 so far.  Also, sigining up for classes at GWU next semester has been more difficult than I anticipated, since I also have to have them cleared with NYU for credit.  URGH winter break better be coming soon, I am running out of energy!! 

In a few hours, I will be flying off to Copenhagen for the weekend, where I will be meeting up with my friend from home, Katie.  She is studying in Copenhagen, and is living with a Danish family (no, they arent all doughnuts, ha ha ha).  We will be able to see things toether like the National Gallery, Christiana (which is a rogue state and full of hippies who protest Denmark and have created their own “independent anarchy based state”), Sweden, a Christmas market, and possibly the Castle where multiple versions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet have been based.  Very exciting!  I return on Monday, and intend to leave London immediately for a day trip out to Hampton Court Palace…more next time!

Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest Post.

Well it is sure going to be a long post, so strap in! I am sitting here in my room in London, all rested from an awesome nights sleep last night, and feeling very distant from the trip I just got back from.  Berlin feels like years ago, and so I hope I can remember what we did for the rest of the trip! 

I believe I left off after our day in Dresden, so i will start with our extremely long train ride to Vienna on Tuesday, coincidently election day!  The train right took about 6 hours, we transfered in Prague once which made me laugh because I thought about how I will be going back to Prague in about a week to visit Amanda.  But, we only stayed there for an hour in the station before boarding the second train which was four hours long ot Vienna.  It was a very nice train, with comfortable seats.  I thought it would be the ideal interval in the trip to do some of the reading I had brought along with me, but as soon as I had settled in, I realized that would be harder than I thought.  The train car was almost empty, however in the middle about 5 rows ahead of me, like high schoolers all huddled around kneeling backwards and standing in their seats, was a group ofadults talking extremely loudly.  I listened to their conversation for about 10 minutes, simply because I couldnt help it.  For 10 minutes, and in fact for the entire train trip, they talked about how much they hate America, Americans, Americans abroad, and George Bush, the US Army, NATO, the West, “Brtish Puppets of America” and on it went.  Like I said, after about 10 minutes, I stood up and walked over to them, one was a woman from Morocco, one was a man from Belarus, and two were a couple from Croatia, all talking to each other in their only common denominator: broken english.  I said to them, standing in my jeans and American Eagle polo, that it is a very long ride to Vienna, and that I would ask them to please hold their voices down because I was trying to read.  However, as Dane Cook would say, I said it in a tone and manor that was more “Screw all of you, you are more ignorant than any American I have ever heard speak.”  They quickly realized who I was, and even the black Moroccan woman blushed which brought so much pleasure to me, I cant even tell you.  As an American abroad, I often feel targetted for who I am and where I am from.  However, no country’s boarder patrol has ever turned me away because of the nationality on my passport, and not a single european waitor, hotel clerk, grocery store, fruit market, airline, begger, souvenir shop, museum, bus, or barber has EVER turned down my American dollars converted into whatever silly currency the country I am uses.  I paid to sit in that train in peace, without a 4 hour long Mock-UN Debate going on in front of me. 

The frustration continued throughout the rest of our first day in Vienna, as once we arrived it took much effort to find our way to the Hostel.  Once we checked into the hostel, which was called Wombat’s City Hostel, we decided to head into Vienna and find out about seeing a concert at night, since Vienna is the city of Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven, and a whole bunch of other classical artists.  Since they speak German in Austria, it was difficult to find our way into town, and even harder to find tickets to a concert that were affordable.  Anne decided to see a 29 euro show which seemed a little touristy to me so I held off. We went back to the Hostel where I took a nap to avoid feeling angry at all the stupid stuff that had been happening during the day.  I woke up after about two hours and decided to take a different path for the rest of the night, since it was election night!  Staying up to watch the results seemed to be an event that my life has been directed towards for years now, like a destiny, co-anchored by Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Coopper on CNN.  I also decided that to have the most fun, I would be better off making some friends at the Hostel!  Wombats was a very social hostel, which usually I dont like, but this time it was good because I immediately met some very friendly Austrailians, Canadians, and Americans, who were interested in the election and were already all hanging out.  We watched some TV in between flipping back to CNN, and ate dinner together in the lounge.  The hostel also had a lounge/bar downstairs which was stuffed with people staying at the hostel and so we moved downstairs once the music started and the night go going!  Around 12AM or so most people started going out for the night or going to bed, so the Americans all went back upstairs to begin settling in for what seemed like it was going to be a very long night.  We were 6 hours ahead of the east coast, so at 12AM our time Alaskans were just about 10 hours behind us!  However, mercifully, the election was wrapped up in about 6 hours, and once we had heard the two big speeches at the end of the night, it was off to bed…for 2 hours. 

Yes, after just another short nap, I was ready to go again after the hostel breakfast with the large group.  The whole breakfast room was abuzz with the results, and all of the Aussies and Canadians were asking us questions about how our crazy election system works, etc.  We thought that the Hostel would be the last mention of Obama’s victory for the day, as we headed out to conquer Viennas many sights and museums.  However, all throughout the day all we heard were people babbling away in their non-english languages, with their conversations punctuatued by “Obama”s and “McCain”s.  Every single publication being read had Obama’s photo on it, and the man I bought my Wienner Schnitzel from even asked me about the election!  Like I said to the Aussies at breakfast (or brekkie, as they called it, what???), the world changed overnight, now we just have to see for better or for worse.  Most Austrians however seem to believe for the better tho! 

I took the metro into town and popped up right in the center of Vienna at St. Stevens Cathedral which is the most famous church in town.  Of course, it was covered in schafolding, so Vienna must be participating in that EU mandate program that requires at least 75% of every historical place in Europe to be schafolded on any given day, hahaha.  Whatever, at this point one of the kids from the Hostel also appeared from the subway entrance, so we joined up and went on a walking tour of Vienna city center.  We saw many famous music houses, including the National Opera.  Vienna used to be a walled in city, so now the “ring road” encircles the city where the walls used to be, and makes for a very picturesque boulevard travelled by cars and above ground trams alike.  The trams were everywhere in fact, and I nearly was hit by them many times because I would nominate Vienna for one of the least pedestrian-friendly cities ever.  We also saw the many Habsburg Palaces around town and also the many famous museums built by Franz Josef before the end of the Habsburg Dynesty in WWI.  We didnt stop in any of them, since the day was already flying by.  We saw City Hall and Parliament, both very impressive buildings.  They were setting up  Christmas Market outside of city hall which included a very large tree, and the windows of City Hall becoming a larger-than-life advent calendar, how cool is that!  I have photos.  We then took in a large lunch at an Indian Buffet restaurant recommended by our hostel, and then quickly took the metro back outside of town to visit the Habsburg’s summer palace, of Palace Schobrunn.  It was in fact like a mini-Versailles and well worth the 10 euro to visit.  The Palace gardens were very autumn inspired, and the grounds extended all the way up a hill to catch a view over Vienna which was larger than I thought it would be, and included a few skyscrapers. 

We went back to the Hostel at this point, where I met up again with the Aussies and Canadaians for dinner and wine.  We then decided it would be a great idea to see an Opera in town at the Opera House for just 4 euros standing room only.  Hahaha so we went, and it was lots of fun, and afterwards we came back to hang out at the hostel and talk.  I am so flad I met them all, hopefully we will stay in touch online.

The following day was a hectic one, since Anne decided (and wisely so, since she brought a rolling suitcase and a backpack) to go directly to Budapest which was where our next hotel was.  I on the other hand had just a duffle bag, so I went alone on a train to Bratislava in Slovakia!   It was a really nice day, I visited a castle up on a hill, saw the main church in town, walked down many clean and well maintained streets, saw the music houses, and learned about how communism impacted Czechloslovakia before the velvet revolution.  I am excited to compare my experience in Slovakia with the one I will have in the Czech Republic in a weeks time, since for about 2 decades the Czech Republic has been much more adherent to capitalism and Western governments than Slovakia has.  They still use a non-euro currency so everything was so cheap (bought a scarf for $4).  I would have liked to spend more time here, but my bag was so heavy I left around 4PM on a 3 hour train ride to Budapest.  Upon arriving in Budapest, the train station is a little ways outside of town, so I had to take a long metro ride into the city and then find the Marriott.  I was looking forward to staying there so much!  Anne had already checked in and had mastered the TV situation, so I simply took a shower, got soem take-away Thai food from downstairs, and lounged around the extremely comfortable room all night watching HBO and looking out across the Danube River view our room had, towards Buda! 

The next day, I woke up early to do a full day walking tour of Pest, or the part of the city on the eastern side of the Danube.  Pest is a much more modern city, both in near and distant historical terms.  Buda and Pest used to be two cities which grew together physically long before they were municiapally united in the 1800s under Habsburg rule of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire.  Pest was really nice, but you could definitely tell it is still up and coming.  They are also not on the euro, and use the Hungarian Forint which means everything is very cheap.  I ate extremely well all day long for about $10 a meal, and museum admissions, subway rides, and even a very large Gloria Jeans Coffee were very cheap (why Gloria Jeans has locations in Istanbul, Budapest, and Westfarms Mall is yet to be discovered). 

I started my day by walking through or past some of Pest’s main sights, like the St. Stevens Cahedral (coicidenty the same as Vienna, not sure?) which was build only recently in the 1800s and was really magnficant inside.  It also contrasted with the large cahedral in Buda which was from a much earlier time, like the middle ages or something.  I saw Parliament, which was also an impressive building from the outside, modeled on the Westminster Parliament here in London!  Before lunch, I visited the Hunagry history museum which took me on a very interesting adventure from around 1000 all the way through to 1990.  The modern history was the most interesting of course, and it is always neat to see how a people tell their own history.  This museum seemed to indicate that Hungary wanted WWI to start, and used the killing of the apparent heir to the Austrian throne to commence the World War.  They wanted the war however, because they were pretty confident the Austrio-Hungarian empire would lose, and that in the aftermath of the war, Hungary could gain independence from Austria because they didnt want to be associated any longer.  Interesting, because that is NOT how the Austrians saw it on Tuesday when I was there!  The museum at the Schobrunn Palace made it very clear that they went to war because they were defending their territory in Serbia and trying to flex their power in greater Europe.  Hahaha. 

Well, whatever the case was, Hungary will never be completely free from its neighbor and onetime co-ruling body.  Austrian influence is clear in Hungarian city planning, food, and customs (german mostly).  I visited the large central market in Pest for lunch, and was disappointed that it was mostly fresh fruit, meats, and vegetables rather than prepared foods like Mercato Centrale in Florence, so I visited a cafe for lunch and ordered stuffed cabbage!!  It was delicious, I havent had that in years.  After, I made the lng way up Ambassay Ter which is the main street in Pest and was refered to as the “5th Avenue” of Budapest.   Alright, I have been to 5th Avenue many times, and trust me, the guide book lied.  The buildings, like many in Hungary, were all blacked from smoke of cars and bombs during the world wars.  Some buildings were still boarded up in fact all the way before Soviet Communism took over and ignored them.  Some were very nice though, and you could tell that in 10-20 years, it really will be a great place, with small trees being planted as I was walking down the boulevard.  I tried to get tickets to a performance at the State Opera House, since they would be so cheap, but there were no performances that evening and I was almost glad because at this point, I was getting tired of culture and feeling obligated to experience it.  I walked to the end of what I started calling “Third Avenue” since I remember how crappy my freshmen year dorm was on Third Avenue in NYC, and came ot the city’s central park.  In the park was a bunch of Museums, for about $3, I went to Hungary’s greatest Fine Arts museum and took a poke around.  After, inside the park, was a castle that was built in many different styles of architecture and bizarre to look at.  The trees here in Budapest were changing as well, so lots of colors to look at, but I was comfortable here in just a teeshirt unlike in Germany.  After grabbing a coffee at Gloria Jeans and again chatting with the help about Obama, I took Europe’s oldest underground train line back to the Marriott.  Anne didnt want to go out for dinner, so I went alone to a cool pub restaurant where I ordered more traditional Hungarian food like guylos soup (goulash soup) and paprika chicken which is like Hunagry’s national dish.  I walked across the bridges between Buga and Pest after dinner for some nighttime shots of the cities!  Back at the Marriott, the Number 23 with Jim Carrey was playing on HBO. 

LAST DAY!!  Once again, I got up early to visit the Buda side of the city.  I walked outdoors, and it was so much cooler out than the day before I had to go bck up to get a sweatshirt!  But only after laying down a bunch of foreign currencies on the track of the tram that ran along the river to have them be squashed by the train.  As I was picking them all up, Slovik money, Forints, and Euros, a homeless man yelled at me in Hungarian, but I thought he was pretty clear.  I squashed about $2 and I couldnt spare any change for him……awkward!  Buda was a much different city than Pest, it is still a walled in city on a very tall hill that was built hundreds of years ago.  It has small houses along cobblestone streets.  There is a large cathedral and a giant palace where the old Hungarian King used to live.  Today it houses the Budapest History Museum which I visited quickly.  That was all I had time for however, since it was of to the airport at around 2:30PM to catch our plane back to London. 

I am very glad everything worked out, and that I have finally seen these five places.  I am also glad I did them all together, as intense at it was.  These five place’s are much better when seen together because they have related with each other for thousands of years.  German food is so much like Austrian food, which Budapest is influenced by Austria in many ways, it is distinctly Hungarian and influenced by the Ottomans long before the Germans ever arrived.  Berlin and Dresden, Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest are places I would recommend to everyone for seperate reasons, but I have always wanted to see them, and now I have! 

Next week, Prague.

Dresden Post November 3, 2008

Hello from Dresden Germany! I am on a better computer tonight so this should be more coherent and interesting.

First, the play by play. We woke up early today, and that will not be unique to just today as we are learning. Took the subway to the bus station and then took a very nice, but very late bus (30 min) to Dresden which took 3 hours. We arrived and immediately found it warmer out, which hey, well take right?! The hostel is right near the train station so after a short walk, we arrived at a much nicer hostel than our Berlin one, again well take it. Walked back to the train station to buy our tickets for tomorrows train ride to Vienna, and then took the above ground tram into old Dresden, or alt stadt. We first took a look at this large palace which is one of the only things to make it through WWII in town, and even it didnt fair so well. It is called the Zwinger and it holds many museums. I could not believe how ornate it was, Baroque style straight up. It is a HUGE place, surrounding a courtyard full of green grass. The most remarkable part was that most of the stone has been blackened from bombs going off during the war, which makes the restored portions all the more obvious.

We then walked through one side of the Ywinger to enter Museum Platz which is where the Straatstoper (sp?) is, or the city’s opera house, where I caught the Dresden’s Philharmonics performance later in the day for just 10€. The opera house is the only other structure that made it through the war in a salvageable condition. That symbol is on this keyboard, so might as well use it! After that, we explored the rest of the Alt Stadt which is full of reconstructions of the buildings which once stood there. Most of them incorporate original stones into the modern structures, so the buildings all look spotted. We saw the main church in town, which stood as a pile of rubble all through the GDR Cold War years, and in fact most of the city did as well untill unification in 1990. Funding has been a serious problem, as well as deciding what to rebuild from before the war and what to modernize.

Like I said, I saw an extremely cool orchestra performance at night, while Anne went back to our room. Before that however I took the time to go around the city and capture some of the coolest contrasting images I have ever seen in one place. On one side of the Elbe River is the Alt Stadt which contains much of the old buildings and recreations, but on the north side is Neu Stadt and that is where the Soviets poured lots of money into modernizing the city to make it inhabitable again. 35,000 people were killed during the Allied bombing, and nearly all of the city center, which was once described as the “Florence of the Elbe” was destroyed. Now, in Neu Stadt, there is a large avenue I walked up that is lined with what I could only describe as a long strip mall on both sides. Just beyond this, on the streets that run parallel to the avenue, much more fashionable streets the try to recreate a small town feeling to shopping and restaurant districts. It was hear that I ate in a fairly isolated restaurant that I felt might be good eats. I was right! I has venison, with what I could not tell you since everything was in German and the waitress responded better to pointing than questions. It was good though, and I am glad I went!

Dresden is like no other place I have ever seen, which seems so boring to say after seeing some of the other “truly unique” places during the semester. One could say that about Istanbul, Croatia, London, etc, and I think I actually did. However, Dresden is in fact now on that list too. A city that has been through a modern day sacking, that only the likes of which Rome and Athens can compete with. It didnt fall into the pages of history however, because today it is a small collage of busy streets lined with buildings designed in every style. The opera and Zwinger, built in the 1800s and in Baroque style Enlightenment era. There are renaissance buildings of pastel colors with white trim, built in the 1990s. There is a Soviet designed culture center made mostly of concrete, on the same square as “Alt Markt” which is pretty much a copy of the mall in Providence plunked down in this formerly medieval, walled in city. Walking around Dresden, you simply can not tell how it came to be, but it also doesnt matter because it is so active and appealing to watch. I however, can not imagine living in such a crazy place.

Tomorrow morning, we leave for Vienna and another Hostel! Happy Election Day!! We will be following along with all of you in spirit.

Berlin Post

Hey  everyone!  This is being written on the crapiest computer ever in the Berlin Hostel were staying at.  I have 17 min to type this on a keyboard where the letters are all mixed up too!  Haha.  We have been having a great time here in Berlin, some of the basics we saw include Potsdam Platz, Alexander Platz, the Reichstag, Tiergarten, Berliner Dom, the TV Tower, Checkpoint Charlie, and more.  We took a bike tour today even though it is freezing cold here, but it was a lot of fun.  We met up with other NYU kids yesturday, went to see part of the Berlin Wall which is still standing.  Of course the first thing wedid upon arriving was get DUNKINDONUTS!  After that, we went to the “Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe” and the Holocaust Memorial underneath it.  It was surprisingly less well done than the one in London.  From there, we went to an outdoor market, and saw the largest Protestant church in Berlin (Berliner Dom).  At night, we met up with our NYU friends again, had dinner in the Sony Center outside (google image this, its crazy).  Then, in Potsdam Platz, there was the first night of an outdoor Christmas Market which included a giant snow tubeslide which of course we did!  Then we drank moulded wine (Glunwin) while they lit off fireworks over the square, and took the metro to an outdoor marketplace to see Berlin night life.

Today we did the bike tour, which was tons of fun, same company I went through in Barcelona.  We saw so much in just a few hours along with an historical background and comentary to go alongwith it.  Afterwards, we went out to the bus station to buy our tickets for tomorrows trip to Dresden.  Then, I went to the top of the Reichstag for a foggz view over Berlin, and by now it was dark. 

I would say Berlin was not what I was expected, this is very much still a city still in transition from division to unification.  The east and west sides, although not physically divided, arestill very much different.  Also, I have never seen as manz cranes lining the skzline as I have in Berlin.  Behind Dubai and Shanghai, Berlin has the third most construction within a mucipality in the world.  However, it is BIG and IMPRESSIVE like nothing I have seen before.  WWII irreversably changed Berlin and for good or bad, they seem to be moving on quickly. 

Hopefully more from Dresden, and a large post about more details when I get back to London.