So now that I’ve been back from
spring break for a week, I finally have time to blog about it. I was going to break it up into parts, but I
haven’t blogged for a week or two, so I think this is ok. We (and by we I mean Stevie Fields and I)
started off by going to Florence and taking a night train to Zürich,
Switzerland, which was kind of crazy because we realized we were at the wrong
train station about 20 minutes before our train left. So we grabbed a taxi, and he sped to make
sure we made it. Yikes! When we got on the train, we had little mini
couch type things to sleep on, so we tried to lie down and sleep until the next
morning. Upon waking, we were in Switzerland! The pointy roofed houses and green hills were
beautiful, and we were woken up with an offer of coffee and a muffin, which was
kind of nice. When we made it to the
Zürich train station, we got off and went to find our hostel, which ended up
being really nice and clean.
A little too excited before my trip...
Penguins!
We got settled
into our room before going to the Zürich Zoo, which was really fun. We saw penguins, sloths, elephants, wolves,
tigers, lions, and lots of crazy amphibians and reptiles that you don’t
ordinarily see in zoos. We also saw
seals and all types of birds flying around everywhere, which was really neat. The thing that made it different from a lot
of zoos I’ve been to was the closeness of the animals. I felt like I was right there, which made it
much more fun then looking at animals behind mile thick glass. After the zoo, we went and saw the three main
churches of Zürich: St. Peter’s, Fraumünster, and Grossmünster. St. Peter’s has the largest clock in Europe, and either Fraümunster or Grossmünster has stain
glass windows by Chagall – I think it’s Fraumünster though. The churches were beautiful, and we enjoyed
walking down the water towards Lake Zurich because the view
was beautiful. The Alps
rise up behind the lake, and on a sunny day, it’s just perfect.
St. Peter's
Fraumünster
Grossmünster
The next
day we were going to go outside of Zürich to see a monastery and the supposedly
biggest falls in Europe, but it didn’t end up
working out. Instead we went down to Lake Zurich
and just sat with all of the other people, basking in the sun and looking at
the Alps, which were beautiful. The one thing about the lake that was kind of
distracting was that people decided to change clothes right and left without
much warning. While they didn’t just
take off all their clothes and run around, some people weren’t so sly about
switching from clothes into a bathing suit or something, which was kind of
awkward for people who turned to look down the lakeside and saw things they
didn’t want to see: myself included! We
also went to the Chinese Gardens and Botanical
Gardens, which were beautiful. There
were all different types of crazy flowers and biomes represented at the
Botanical Gardens, and we enjoyed seeing some exotic stuff. We basically took it easy and spent the day
relaxing and just taking in the city.
When it was time to catch our train, we grabbed some sushi and salad
(which we have not had in months) and hopped on the 14 hour train to Prague.
Chinese Gardens
Lake Zurich surrounded by Alps
Our seats for Prague
The best
part of this train was that the seats (pictured below) were what we had to
spend 14 hours in – not comfortable. It
was fine, but we were exhausted when we got to Prague.
We dropped our backpacks off at the hostel before heading towards Prague Castle. We ended up being pretty good navigators and
got ourselves all the way to Old Town, which was one of my favorite parts of
Prague. There are little old fashioned
booths with blacksmiths and people making all types of food everywhere, and the
smell that drifts through the air is one of sausage and doughnuts, yum. We walked through Old Town,
seeing a few churches on the way across it before getting to see the
Astronomical Clock, which is quite impressive.
We went on to the Charles Bridge, which was beautiful but covered with
people and eventually made our way across to the Prague Castle, which in all
honesty was somewhat of a disappointment.
I guess I expected it to be more of an actual castle that we think of in
novels or something, but it was very modern looking, even though the guards
were cool and didn’t move or smile at all.
We went to St. Vitus’s Cathedral, which was beautiful, the Old Royal Palace, St.
George’s Basilica, and the Golden Lane, all of which were neat, just
not what I expected. We headed back
towards Old Town and grabbed some sausages on the
way through before going back to the hostel and going to bed.
Old Town
Astronomical Clock
Charles Bridge
St. Vitus Cathedral
Castle Guard
The next
day we started off with the Communist Museum and proceeded on to the Jewish Quarter of
Prague, which is supposedly one of the coolest and most educational Jewish
memorials throughout Europe. It was really neat, but I think the amount of
people who were there somewhat ruined the atmosphere. We started in Pinkas Synagogue, which is
extremely touching because the names of over 77,000 Czech Jews who were
deported and exterminated are written all along the walls, and a voice slowly
reads them out over a speaker system.
Upstairs is a children’s exhibit of art that children who were sent to
concentration camps did while there. It
was very moving, and seeing all those names was kind of hard to swallow. We moved on to the Jewish Cemetery, which
supposedly inspired the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which we went
to in Berlin. The graveyard was beautiful and had a certain
peace about it. There were so many
graves that they were piled up on one another inscribed in Hebrew; it was
shocking to see how many there were and how old everything looked. It was certainly a moving experience. After those two things, we continued to a
series of other synagogues that educated visitors to the customs, texts, dress,
holidays, persecution, etc. of the Jewish culture and religion, which was
interesting to see.
Jewish Cemetery
After the
Jewish Quarter, we headed toward the Lennon Wall, which was a lot of fun. I took lots of goofy pictures in front of it,
and a crowd eventually formed to watch me make dumb faces, strike silly poses,
or jump into the air as Stevie took pictures.
We had a lot of fun there, and we sat in a park near the water
afterwards for a while before walking back across the Charles Bridge,
which was much prettier and less crowded in the evening. I ate a chicken kabob for dinner, and we
wandered the streets of Prague for a while,
exploring some of the touristy shops and more of Old Town
before calling it a night. We had to get
up early to catch our train the next morning, so we got some sleep.
Lennon Wall
The next
morning we headed to Berlin, but we didn’t get
there and get settled in until late, so we just walked around East
Berlin and used Rick Steves to get us around. We saw the Berliner Dome and several other
churches as well as important buildings.
The best part of getting to Berlin
though was our hostel, which was called the Generator. It catered to like high school kids and maybe
some college, but there were also lots of teams and groups of younger kids,
which was funny. There was a large bar
connected to the hostel, and they had like different events every night like
karaoke and stuff. It was funny. The hostel itself was HUGE. It had like over 800 beds, which was quite
different from Prague. Anyway, everything was neon green, blue, and
yellow, which was extremely funny; it was a nice hostel and dirt cheap though,
which was nice.
The Generator
The Berlin Dome
The next
morning, we decided to go on a free walking tour of Berlin in which we saw the
Brandenburg Gate, the hotel where Michael Jackson held his baby out of the
window, the remnants of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, an old important
SS building, the Reichstag, the Book Burning Memorial, Gendarmenmarkt,
Potsdamer Platz, Bebelplatz, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of
Europe. We also stood over the filled in
bunker where Hitler committed suicide which was pretty cool. The Berlin Wall was also neat to see because
for some reason I had forgotten the date and story that went behind its tearing
down. The night that it was announced
and torn down (well the start of its destruction) I turned 2 years old, which I
think is so cool. It happened on my
birthday, November 9, 1989! We got to
see a lot in not an extremely long period of time, which was good and much
better than us just wandering around. We
also managed to hit a museum before the tour too, the Jewish Museum, but we
didn’t have a lot of time there.
Brandenburg Gate
Berlin Wall
Standing on Both Sides
Checkpoint Charlie
After the
tour was over, we went to the Altes Museum and saw a lot of really cool stuff from
ancient Greece and Egypt. The museum has the bust of Nephertiti, which
is probably what it is most known for.
Her bust is beautiful, and while the rest of the museum is interesting,
that was the best part. We finished that
museum quickly because it was closing, and we went to find food. We ended up eating Vietnamese because
apparently authentic German food is hard to find in Berlin because it is so huge and is fairly
commercialized. We ate dinner and walked
along Under den Linden at sunset, which was beautiful.
Ishtar Gate
The next
day we went on a tour of the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. Before we left for that though, we went to
the Pergamon Museum, which has many ancient
structures like the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and other crazy old things. It was really interesting, but a lot of it is
restored monuments with pieces or parts of the originals obviously. After that, it took around 45 minutes to get
to Sachsenhausen, but once we got there we walked to the camp. On the way, we passed old SS guard homes that
were a cover up to disguise what was going on in the camp and separate the
people in the city from the prisoners.
The camp was very touching and hard to see because we heard so many
horror stories and saw where people became animals and were treated as
such. We saw the main gate and guard
tower, the roll call square, reconstructed barracks, the kitchen and laundry
facilities, several memorials, solitary confinement and punishment chambers,
the psychiatric ward and experiment facilities, and Sector Z, which was where
they murdered thousands of people. It
was hard to swallow the techniques that human beings used on other human beings
and how people could be so cruel. At
times the visit was overwhelming, but I’m glad that we went because it gave me
an even deeper appreciation and sense of connection with what happened. We learned all about the history of the camp
and all of the things they did there. It
was mainly a work camp, but they did murder quite a lot of people there, mostly
through shooting, but also through gas chambers. We learned a lot but because of blog length
and the weight of some of it, I’ll leave that out for others to discover on
their own.
Guard Tower
Work Will Set You Free
Memorial
We were
exhausted when we came back, but we went back to the Jewish Museum because it
was really cool. We grabbed some fast
food off the street first to rest our feet, then headed back over to see the
museum. The museum was really
interesting but also very sad. We got a
chance to hear and see all kinds of things about Jewish culture as well as play
some interactive games to learn more. We
also learned a lot about the Jews before and during WWII and what all
happened. It’s the type of museum that
makes you sad, but it is not graphic and seems to focus more on Jewish life
than Jewish death. It was all very
interesting, and it was our last stop before the train station to take our midnight
train to Amsterdam.
My Pancake
The
ride to Amsterdam
was kind of cramped but not horrible. We
got a few hours of sleep before arriving in Amsterdam to meet my roommate, Tonni
Wickline, who is also blogging for Wofford.
We stayed on her floor while in Amsterdam,
which was really fun. She spent two days
showing us around and getting us to eat food like falafels and pancakes that
are typical of Amsterdam. We saw the market and the canals, while also
taking a quick walk through the Red Light District. Tonni rides a bike everywhere, so we got to
experience that, which was both fun and kind of scary at times because we
didn’t know the traffic rules and regulations, plus the bike paths were small
sometimes. Amsterdam was really beautiful, but it’s
weird to think that right in its heart is the Red Light District. Postcards are dirty and pornographic in many
stores too, not to mention the sex shops and shows that go on. Then there are the “coffee shops” which sell
and allow pot; we never went in one, but they are all around. All of these things are obviously very
different from a town like Siena
and made the contrast even greater.
Amsterdam
and really all of the cities we went to over spring break were very different
from Siena and really all of Italy. The cities were larger obviously, meaning
there were more people. Also, the cities
were much more open to English speakers and made it easier for them to get
around and find the things they need. I
didn’t have to speak German, French, Dutch, or Italian to get someone to
understand me. I could speak English,
which is a totally new experience when you’re not used to it. It made traveling more relaxing because we
didn’t have to worry about switching languages.
It was also eye opening because Siena is
a very clean, pristine little town with people who might look down on you if
you’re not Sienese, while in Amsterdam,
according to Tonni, they love Americans.
People were so friendly and talkative, which while not completely
abnormal, is not always the case in Siena or
really Italy
in general. It was neat to see how
different of an experience it could be living in a different place.
Famous Fountain in Brussels
Our last
stop was Brussels,
but we were only there for the day. The
train ride there might have been the best part because it was gorgeous. There were fields of differently colored
tulips and windmills, which were amazing.
The ride was almost better than the city itself. When we got there, we just wandered, ate
Belgian waffles, and had a fair amount of Belgian chocolate, which was
delicious. There were so many different
kinds!! Other than that, there wasn’t
much to say about Brussels,
but we flew from near there and stopped to take pictures with the Leaning Tower
of Pisa on our way home.
I think
overall, I really enjoyed the cities that we visited, but I was really thankful
to get home to Siena. I missed Piera’s cooking and all of the
people in my program, whom I’ve really grown to enjoy because they are so
different from me. Our group interacts
well together, and there isn’t a single person I couldn’t sit down beside and
not have a conversation with. Everyone
is agreeable and has gotten along tremendously well, which is kind of
extraordinary when you think about placing 31 students from all over the country
together. I also saw just how much Italy is
different from other places. In Italy, the people are very Italian, or at least
in Siena, the
people are members of their contrada first, Sienese second, Tuscan third, and
Italian fourth. It’s fascinating because
in Siena, there
is not a variety of food, and the Sienese people pride themselves on being
Sienese. While there are people of other
origins in Siena,
most of the population consists of either tourists or the Sienese
themselves. The Sienese are also
decently friendly, but in reality, they don’t LOVE Americans or really
foreigners in general it seems. This
trip really made me see how different countries are from one another and how Italy is completely
in a league of its own. While I only got
a small taste, I really enjoyed seeing other cultures and other types of people
and dress because here, in Siena,
things are somewhat limited.
I know this
has been long, but we did a lot in a short period of time. The best part is that my sense of direction
is horrible, but somehow we managed to guide ourselves everywhere, and we only
really got lost once, realizing it immediately and going back to the right
turn. We also only took our little
school backpacks, packing extremely light.
We got everything done that we needed to, and along the way, we actually
felt like travelers, not tourists. It
was nice because while we saw what we wanted to see, we also did a fair amount
of wandering and just experiencing each culture and each city, which made our
trip much more pleasant. I absolutely
love traveling, and I really hope I get a chance to do more later on and come
back to Europe because there is so much I’ve
left untouched or barely scratched the surface of. Right now, my mom’s here, so we’ve just been
to Venice and are going to Rome in a few days!! I can’t wait, and I’ll
definitely blog about it when I get back!
