Table for One

Originally, when I had scheduled my flights back from Malaga to Munich, I realized a nighttime layover in Pisa was less than ideal, but for the sake of saving money, it was fine. But, when I was waiting at the airport in Malaga, I met some Americans whose book I borrowed only to find out that the Pisa airport is fifteen minutes out of the city center. Therefore, I figured, since I’m getting into Pisa at 9:30 pm and southern Europeans stay up ridiculously late, why the heck not go in and see that most famous leaning tower?! Little did I know exactly what I was getting into…

When I got into Pisa, I got on the only bus that was going in and out of the airport, which everyone else was also getting on… Without a map, any information on the city for that matter, or any background in Italian, I decided I would simply get off where everyone with suitcases and cameras got off, thinking that that would probably lead me to the exact area I would want to be. Unsurprisingly, I was right. I got off when everyone else did to find myself right outside the gates of the area where the leaning tower is. Par to what I’ve heard about the tower, it’s much smaller than one would think, but it was definitely cool because it was gorgeously lit up AND you could see the cables that were holding it up connected to another building.

After admiring the tower along with the other buildings in the plaza. I walked over to a restaurant to enjoy a pizza in Pisa. I sat down and when my non-English speaking waiter came to get my drink order, he looked at me strangely and said, “only one?” I smiled with a “si” and ordered a wonderful white pizza with a glass of red wine. In the hour that I sat there, not only did I get to write in my journal with a great view of the tower and people watch, but I had quite the interaction with the waiting staff at this restaurant; with usually a shocked you’re all by yourself question, when needing an extra chair from my table, or putting the centerpieces from tables they were clearing on mine because they needed space to clean. By the time I decided to leave it was around midnight, I had acquired three floral pieces, two candles and two sets of salt and pepper, and they were closing for the evening.

I then decided to lie down in the grassy area by the tower and close my eyes for a few in between people watching, which was mostly couples (which made me want to vomit). But, at one o’clock, they cleared the square and I found myself, yet again, wandering around the small area looking for the bus stop where I learned the busses stopped running at midnight. And when I say cleared, I mean eerily empty. There were no peddlers, beggars, workers, no one, except the occasional tourist like myself. So, I figured I would just get a taxi, which I also could not find. I went to a café, asked where I could pick up a taxi and he told me he’d call me one. While I was waiting for my taxi to come get me, I sat at the café highly entertained because a man was leaning over to a girl at the next table trying to get her to come back to his hotel with him after their meal. Each of them was with a friend, each of them was drunk and apparently each of them already had a significant other. Sadly, my taxi came before I could find out who was going home with whom. Fifteen minutes later, I found myself back at the airport where I slept for a few hours before boarding to go back to Germany.

As much as my mother might argue that she’s glad she didn’t know about my little adventure until I was back in Germany safely, there was never a time in which I felt unsafe. But, in this short time in Pisa, I learned something I feel like I’ve been trying to understand for a while now, something my oldest brother, Matt, learned a while ago: the art of traveling alone.

I remember the first time I drove all by myself after I got my license, and my first road trip all by myself to Washington D.C. to meet my dad, Kate and Will. I even remember exactly what I ate and where I ate my first meal all by myself on that road trip. And, until this point, traveling alone has never ever been what I prefer. Not to mention, I’ve been away from my family and friends for how many weeks by this point? There were points while I’ve been away here in Europe when, if multiple waiters asked me surprisingly that I was all by myself in such a beautiful place, I would have broken down into tears over it. Now, I find something rather peaceful about it.

Honestly, there aren’t too many things in this world that frighten me, but being alone is one of them. And, in the past couple years I’ve been dealt many challenges, which led me to believe that being alone was possibly the worst thing I could ever experience because I lost a few different people who were a part of an important time in my life. But, as I grew up and away from these hurdles, I realized that I’m not alone, and will never be alone. That people come and go in your life, but ultimately there’s a core of people who will always be there, whether you like it or not. Because of that, I now see the beauty in being able to enjoy things all by myself and because of that, I know when I’m done with this ridiculous and crazy adventure, those people will be waiting for me at home.

Yes, Emily Mueller the extrovert can’t stand not having someone to go to lunch with in Butler or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And yes, Emily Mueller misses everyone at home dearly. But yes, Emily Mueller finally feels confident and happy with only sitting at a table for one.

Picasso

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? - Picasso

Málaga, Spain – the birthplace of Picasso and a city once ruled by the Romans, the Arabs, the Catholics and eventually the Spaniards. It’s on the most southern tip of Spain about as close to Morocco as you can get and can be described in two words: beach city… or so I thought. With a cheap flight from Munich, Málaga was the only summer like summer vacation I was really going to get, and I definitely was anticipating some solid beach time with a sunburn to follow.

We arrived in Málaga, figured our way through public transportation and made it to our beach side hostel, which was perfect. We were literally a four-lane road away from sand and beach bars/restaurants and the warm Mediterranean water. We set out for some lunch and soon realized that, yet again, we were in a city where English wasn’t terribly known, unless in a highly touristy area. Trying to get butter to put on our bread was ridiculously difficult. But, after a meal in a little café where only locals really eat, we made it back to our hostel and eventually to the beach. The sand was a little rocky and the water wasn’t particularly warm or even that turquoise color, but I couldn’t really complain about our seemingly family friendly beach. Dinner at an ocean side restaurant was seafood, and my eyes were opened to the wonderful tasting swordfish that Brooke ordered. I continued on for an evening walk along the beach, something that I’ve always done since we would go down to my aunt and uncle’s in Charleston. It was a beautiful night and lots of different kinds of people were around, with BBQs and bon fires, fishing poles and friends. The moon was full and out and the air was warm. Yes, no complaints here.

The next day I was determined to go into the city (about a ten minute bus ride) and see some of the sites within the city. I got off the bus and went straight to the tourist information office where they are doing everything they can to boost the appeal to tourists as their goal is to be the European Culture Capital in the year 2014. This included handing me an iPod with different tour routes and maps that I could take to see different parts of the city.

I started out by seeing La Alcazaba, which is one of the largest Muslim military buildings preserved in Spain. It was beautiful, but frankly a little confusing. Confusing how to get in, confusing where all I was walking and what I was seeing.... so truthfully, I appreciated it for its architecture and the fact that I could see the entire city and ocean after climbing to the top of it. According to travel sources, La Alcazaba was not only a fortress designed by the Moors, but also was the location of the first mass in the city following the Christian victory of the city. There is the Christ Arch and Arab gardens and everything in between. At the bottom of the fortress lies the Roman Theatre, which I walked by, but it was under renovation so I didn’t get to walk through it.

My next stop was the Cathedral. Taking 250 years to be built, this structure stands on the grounds of a former mosque. The choir stall was exquisite with 40 carved figures of the saints. Naturally, all I could think about was how much I wished my brother were there… how the only reason I felt it necessary to go into these massive churches was because he taught me how to travel, and that meant looking at every single religious relic each place had to offer. I took my time walking around the church, looking at all of its chapels, lecterns, and altars, but mostly, I just thought about my brother.

When I left my fellow tourists and devout Catholics and Nuns, I took a brief walk to Museo Picasso. Where I waited in line to be admitted. This is a new museum that was only built here because it is Picasso’s hometown. At first, what I loved most about the museum was the air condition. But truly, it was a beautiful museum. Displays of every kind of media of art Picasso dabbled in accompanied lots of his quirky quotes about life and art. The collection was given from the widow of Picasso’s oldest son, including not only those he gave as gifts to his family, or pieces Picasso decided to keep from himself which they inherited. I also hadn’t realized how recently he lived, I somehow always had him living like 140 years ago, not 40. This museum lies within the old Jewish quarter of the city, and the basement of the museum still had the outlines of the Buenavista Palace (Spanish)/Nasrid Palace (Arabic), which was also very cool to see.

For the rest of the day, I wandered around, saw some important things, I’m sure, but really just enjoyed being in a different kind of place. I shopped a little, and then enjoyed some lunch… a lunch which was interrupted by a beggar coming up and wanting money and/or food. Thankfully, this time, my waiter shooed him away. Later on I saw him pestering others at a different restaurant. This is something that I have experienced in very few other places – Wroclaw and Buenos Aires, to be exact. It really startles me, and truthfully makes me sick to my stomach, but we can talk about my emotional problems with homeless people another time.

By mid-afternoon I realized that most of the little stores were closed, and then it hit me Siesta is REAL and that is where all the locals are!! So before heading back to the hostel for my own siesta, I found my way to a post office and department store to find a floaty for the ocean.

Later that night I wanted to go out and Brooke appeased me, but we never really found someplace to be. I think because we went too early. It all really made sense as to why Spaniards near the siestas, it’s because they stay up all night! The party doesn’t even BEGIN to start until 1 am at the earliest! We kind of failed epically and came back and crashed.

The next day, I acquired the sunburn I was expecting, as I laid out on the beach with Brooke and two other girls we met at the hostel. Then I made my way back to the airport to embark on my next adventure.

Málaga surprised me. We picked it because it was warm and cheap to get to… Little did I know it was the vacation hotspot for a lot of Europeans (primarily the English, French and Germans), and at first I didn’t even understand why. Here I was, yet again, on my first day in the city, trying to order a meal, and unable to communicate with anyone. But truthfully, there is so much depth to this city, of which I saw very little, and had no problem realizing its true beauty. I find it appropriate that Picasso was born here, like it makes sense… Picasso was about using art to portray real life things in a different light. That there is no ONE WAY something MUST be. I wouldn’t say that this city is a Spanish city – nothing is clearly rooted in Spain. Some things are rooted in the ancient Romans, some the Arabs/Moors, and some the Catholics until finally it became Spanish. The layers are visible all throughout the city if you know what you’re looking at; but this is something I’ve been learning all summer.

On this leg of the trip I didn’t just travel to the classic beach city in Spain where every city has a bull fighting arena and sangria to drink, I traveled to Ancient Rome, Morocco and the beginnings of Europe. But ultimately, in places like this… you can make it be whatever kind of city you want it to be.

Here's To Uncle George

My excitement for our next stop after Budapest, if you can imagine, was endless, as we were heading to someplace that I have once called home: Munich. On top of making it to Munich for the fourth time in my life, I was able to not only meet up with my German friends who I hadn’t seen in four years, but one of my very good friends from high school, Matt would also be there. Matt did the exchange with me in 2006 through our high school, where a group of German students came and lived with us in the fall and then we went and lived with them in Munich the following summer. Mr. Kenderes, our German teacher, did an exchange with an English teacher in Germany eons ago, and since then have just been exchanging groups of students. Unfortunately, we were unable to track down Mr. Kenderes while we were there… he’s always been a man of mystery. But honestly, after being away for seven weeks and some days, nothing sounded better than being someplace so familiar.

We arrived in Munich in the early evening after a long ride on a beautiful and very comfortable air-conditioned Austrian train. In the lobby of our hostel, I immediately ran into Matt, his friend from school, and Morgan, who took an earlier train than us. We checked in, changed our clothes and headed straight for Germering – the town I lived in way back when. Every July they have a festival called Volksfest (folk’s festival) right in the town. The best way I know how to describe it is a mini Oktoberfest with a huge tent under which you buy beer by the liter, eat pretzels and wurst and anything else good and German, along with many rides and food stands outside of the tent. We, fortunately, got to Munich just in time for the last night of Volksfest.

We were greeted at the S-Bahn station in Berlin by Matt’s exchange partner, Oliver, and walked into the tents, only to find everything exactly how we left it. All of our friends we spent time with at school were there, sitting at the same tables, drinking beer and singing and dancing to the live band on the stage in the front. I greeted my long lost friends with a smile probably as wide as the tent. We joined them for as long as the festival would allow us before it shut down. Interestingly, not only did we get to see and talk with our old German friends, but we also ran into the exchange students through Mr. Kenderes’ program that were here this summer; one of whom is Matt’s roommate’s little brother! Truly this was a fantastic night, but all good things must come to an end, so we headed back by S-Bahn into the city. I, knowing everything shut down earlier in Munich, headed back to the hostel, while everyone else went looking for someplace to continue their party. It’s such a stark contrast between Berlin and Munich – Berlin’s clubs and parties shutting down for breakfast, Munich’s for bed. Munich is known to be far more conservative than the North and therefore, the lifestyle’s are much different.

The next day, we slept in and decided to just walk around and talk and enjoy the city.  Matt, and the other guy I graduated with, Matt McCarrier (who I will refer to as McCarrier), were traveling together and had already spent some time walking around the city, so I thought for something different we could head to the BMW headquarters right by the Olympic Park. What a good decision. We literally just barely made it into the tour of the factory five minutes before the tour started because some people didn’t show up and paid five Euros to walk around the ENTIRE assembly line. There we got see cars being painted, welded, stored, tested, etc. for two hours before they were ready to be sold. Here in Munich they put together the 3 series. I had actually never done this before, in all my times in Munich and was 100% impressed with everything that we got to see. We got done just in time to look around the Olympic Park and head back to the hostel to get ready for another evening in Germering.

This time, it was only Matt, McCarrier and I meeting our friends Hunor, Chris, Oli, Verena and some of Hunor’s Spanish friends to get some dinner. It was most definitely a good time, and as McCarrier said, it was interesting to talk to people our age from Germany about issues relevant to all of us in the world – to hear their point of view. I, of course, agree completely, but when we got done with dinner, in true German fashion, we had to get ice cream. So, we went to the same ice cream place that I went to when I lived here, right by the S-Bahn station and sat and talked some more. But that wasn’t really enough either, when we got done, so we just walked around Germering, talking some more; reminiscing about when we lived there and all the crazy stuff we did. Finally, I felt like I wasn’t traveling, that I was just being (if that makes sense).  We headed back for yet another restful night, waking up late, having no agenda for the next day.

So, Matt, McCarrier and I, yet again just walked around, this time mostly with a mission to do some souvenier shopping for them and then to enjoy a beer and pretzel in the Englischer Garten. We successfully did both, and then yet again met our German friends at the beer hall across the street from our hostel for beer and dessert for Matt’s birthday! That night, I didn’t really go to bed because Brooke and I were leaving so early for airport to go to Malaga, Spain. But, I was kept company by everyone coming in and out of the lobby, which was also a great time.

A week later, I came back by myself to Munich to stay with Hunor in Germering. Upon my arrival at the train station, I was greeted by Hunor and Chris, my two dearest German friends. Surprised that both came, we ended up getting some sushi in the city then heading back to Germering for a “junior” game of English Scrabble. Admittedly, Chris was the master at English words that night… The next day, we didn’t really do much except shop and clean for a house party we told Chris he should have the week before. It was quite an event, and we really had a great time, starting with BBQ and dancing and ending with watching Sweeney Todd and only two casualties: Hunor’s (now broken) arm and Chris’ car keys… After cleaning up and searching for the (still) long lost keys, Hunor and I headed back to his house, where I took a nap, enjoyed a fantastic Hungarian meal, and then headed on our way to Seefest with Daniela and Megan (who also did the exchange from Butler and was visiting, too). Seefest is a one-day outdoor version of Volksfest by the lake in Germering, and was honestly kind of boring. So, Hunor and I came back early and settled in for the evening by watching The Last Samurai - naturally a classic. And now, I’m on the train to Berlin, to grab my suitcase and head to London to meet Michael.

After typing all of that, I feel like I regurgitated that without any charm, that I didn’t convey how exciting and fun it was to be in Munich and Germering. Understand, for four years, I have facebooked, emailed, chatted with these people, always talking about how someday we might see each other again. But, it happened. And, when you have someone on the other side of the world to chat with all the time, there are a lot of things you feel like you talk to them about because they are so removed from your life and the issues within it. I told Hunor that coming back and just being with them, helping to clean a house, or to play late night scrabble with, to confide in things in person, it made me feel like the friend to them that I am to my friends at home. I finally just got to be there, and to be a normal someone their age just in a different place on the planet. All of a sudden, everything felt twenty million times more real.

It was also quite the experience linguistically. Hunor, first of all, amazes me. His family is Hungarian, like speaks Hungarian at home, his friends are German and he speaks German with them, but then someone like me comes around, or his Spanish friends come and stay and he automatically switches to English or Spanish. Not to mention, he can also speak French. Literally, He can be on the phone with someone speaking German, telling me what’s going on in English and then hollering back to his family in Hungarian all at the same time. It was actually really funny because a couple of times, Hunor and his brothers would be talking in Hungarian and I would interject something into it, without thinking and without knowing Hungarian. It was really crazy, actually. I was also so relieved to be back in Germering the second time, because I had just come from Austria where the German is DEFINITELY different, and where I felt majorly discouraged because of it. But, when I got back into Germering, I felt so much better because all of a sudden I could understand the German again… and didn’t feel as if I had regressed. Not to mention, especially between Chris, Hunor and I, we did a very funny dance of German and English, or Germlish! For instance, there are words for me in German that now come out easier/faster than they would have had in English even if I had started my sentence in English. There is no doubt, that it was a fun learning experience for all of us that way.

Anyways, thus far, my time in Germering was probably the best I’ve had since I’ve been in Europe, because I felt at home. I felt like, sure I was visiting, but that I was just doing what I would be doing if I were home in Butler this summer: watching movies, going to house parties, playing scrabble, eating sushi, all that good stuff. And without Mr. Kenderes (and my mom, too), I would never have had these connections for the rest of my life. Sometimes, I think teachers don’t realize what kind of impact they can TRULY have on a student’s life. But ultimately, without him, this world would be much bigger. And ultimately, it’s clear now, that when I say I’ll be seeing you to my friends in Germany, that, because it’s happened once, it WILL happen again. 

What are you Hungary for?

Our next stop was to Budapest, and unsurprisingly the train we took from Prague to Budapest was just about the same as that of what we took before... perhaps a little nicer, a little cleaner. But, we made our way to Budapest not really anticipating anything spectacular when we first arrive because Brooke's friend told us not to judge the city by its train station... Fair enough. We got there and couldn't find an ATM because, we later found out, the banks stopped putting their ATMs in the station because they city kept cutting the lines or something. So, after searching high and low with a small group of Americans for an ATM across the street from the station that would accept our cards (without a microchip, that is), we got ourselves a cab and headed to our hostel in Pest, the European Union Culture Capital of 2010. 

For those of you who are not familiar, Budapest used to be two different cities, Buda and Pest. Actually, I think there was a third, but they just took that name out of the equation when unifying the cities. Anyways, this divide is very clear in the city even today, because Buda and Pest are divided by the Danube river. The Pest part is known for its more advanced architecture, settlements and businesses, and is also very flat. The Buda part is very hilly, known for the Castle Hill and all of the homes of the aristocracy of the city in huge houses among the hills. 

After settling into our hostel, where we were actually put in a room with only two other people and no bunk beds, instead of like a ten person room (which was awesome), I recognized a restaurant that is also in Berlin, Vapiano's, that I suggested we go to for dinner. Good choice. It's basically fresh Italian food made to order, and just so yummy and filling. Often times, and I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but, when I'm traveling and finally get to some place, I'm not usually in the mood to try new things immediately - I want something familiar and satisfying. After a fantastic dinner, we walked around the pedestrian/shopping square in Pest, enjoying some ice cream, as well. 

Later we decided to hit up something called a Ruins Pub - something very unique to Budapest, even though we found out everyone else in the world was going to see a very famous DJ at a club in the city. Regardless, these Ruins Pubs are set in old houses that were abandoned. We were definitely among a lot of Hungarians, rather than tourists, which was also a nice change of pace from Prague. One of the rooms' ceilings was gone and it was just open to the warm night. We enjoyed a drink, mostly just people watching while we were there, and then headed back for the night. We didn't really get to go to bed until after meeting a couple Scottish guys, who we talked to for a while. That's something I've really enjoyed about hostels - meeting lots of people from all over. Anyways, we were exhausted and called it a night fairly early. 

The next day, we started off by going on a boat tour of the city on the Danube. Ever since Copenhagen, I've been a huge fan of the whole boat tour thing. You can see so much and gain a lot of perspective of a city by taking a boat tour, especially if you do it before you set out to walk around. One of the biggest, greatest architectural features of Budapest is their parliamentary building on the Pest side... Funny enough, I was sitting in front of a group of Brits, and all they had to say about it was: after we built Big Ben, everyone wanted to copy us just bigger and better, but we came first. I laughed to myself, naturally the Brits have to be the best. 

Once we were done with our boat tour, we found Morgan, enjoyed a coffee, and set out to actually walk around the city, heading to Castle Hill in Buda, first. After quite a hike, we got to the top, where honestly, there wasn't tons to do, but lots to see. There, the president of Hungary still lives, and so we saw his house and mostly just walked around some of the beautiful buildings. Not to mention, the view of the entire city below us. We walked through the Fisherman's Bastion, which was primarily built for decoration, and rightfully so, with roman columns, lots of steps and seven towers, each representing Magyar tribe that came to Hungary in the first century. After walking through a market, we then found our way into the the Matthias Church, where I, naturally, needed to peak inside. Budapest's first parish church, this is where many of the Hapsburgs were crowned throughout the years, among a lot of other landmarks throughout history for the area. 

We made our way down the hill and back to Pest to tour the opera house, which was probably one of the highlights for me. Our tour guide was so much fun and super animated. She was definitely around my age, and was so knowledgeable, though, with the third largest opera house in Europe being your subject, that can also be a little easy. It was amazing to hear about all the thoughts and details behind this ornate building. One being: the architect was so mad when he realized that he designed the room where royalty would come in and walk up the stairs to the theater so beautifully and they wouldn't even notice because protocol meant that they couldn't look around... to solve this, he put a huge mirror at the top of this great staircase, so that even looking forward the whole time, they could still observe the whole room. That staircase now, by the way, is used for children to come and sit on and watch miniature operas performed at the bottom - neat. Also, the royal box still exists and now is only for Heads of State, with one exception. Can you guess who it was? Who on this earth defies all rules to exactly what royalty means, so much so, they get to sit where so few have ever been allowed? Okay, well I'll tell you... Madonna! Apparently, part of Evita was filmed here, and Madonna wanted to come see an opera and naturally demanded she get to sit in the best seats in the house... After much prying, she got her way. God Bless America.

Food was afterwards in order, so we enjoyed a bagel in a Jewish cafe (yet again), as we were on our way to see the Great Synagogue - the largest functioning synagogue in Europe. It was very Cathedral like, and extremely ornate, particularly for a synagogue. There was a Jewish museum that we opted out of, but saw some pretty cool old grave stones and a couple awesome memorials... This area is actually, also, where a mass grave for Jews who died from an awful winter, while taking refuge in the synagogue because of the Nazi regime is located. The more moving memorial, to me, was a steel weeping willow with inscriptions on each leaf of a Hungarian Jew or family that died in the Holocaust. The inscription for the memorial reads, "Whose agony is greater than mine." Definitely something to think about... In German the word for memorial is denkmal - a combination of two words, denk (to think) and mal (time). When I was walking around the weeping willow, I didn't think of it as a memorial, but a denkmal. For some reason, I think the German expression describes the purpose and meaning more than the English word. 

Anyways, we stopped by our hostel for a few after this, before heading out to a park in Pest, which is the location of a castle from the "divided" times and also one of the famous baths. Not routed from the Romans, but the Turks, these baths have many different purposes. In this particular one, there is a huge swimming pool, thermal baths, and is also used for some sort of medicinal/therapy purpose. It was definitely something gorgeous to see, and very popular among the Hungarians, primarily the young. Then, we headed on our way to meet the girl from Morgan's school, who she was staying with and is interning in Budapest all summer, for dinner. 

While waiting, we had a little incident, and when I say we, I mean Brooke. We were standing outside of the designated Burger King, when a gypsy came up to Brooke, mad that the group of people she just asked for for money denied her, and drew her fist up to Brooke's face. Now, before I finish this story, there are a few things I would like to preface it with. First, everyone in Budapest, and probably Hungary, hates gypsies. Two, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what defines someone as a gypsy other than possibly being nomadic? Three, this woman was not even five feet tall, and not imposing physically beyond her ready fist. Okay, so literally this was happening less than a foot from my face, and even though it felt like slow motion, before I could make a decision on whether or not, or what the best help would be from me, intervention wise, Brooke ran. And when I say ran, she booked it toward a VERY busy street while screaming. While the gypsy began to chase her laughing, I looked at Morgan, asked her why this stuff always happens to Brooke, and immediately made my way around to meet Brooke and the gypsy on the other side of the circle they were making. Brooke ran straight into a small and close liquor shop, and we followed her in there, not knowing where the gypsy disappeared to. After calming down from everything, and talking to some already drunk American grad students who were in the store to buy some more, we waited outside only for a couple minutes more before Morgan's friend came. Thankfully, later, we were able to laugh ourselves silly about the whole incident. Honestly, it was so surreal.

Alisia, Morgan's friend, took us to a restaurant she knew well, that served some traditional Hungarian food. Though, not brave enough to get one of my own, I did try some of the goulash (pronounced gooey-ash), which was excellent! It was nice to talk to Alisia, because, having lived there, she was more familiar with the people and the scene in Budapest... Apparently, just about any restaurant you go to in the area, is truly geared toward tourists, because most Hungarians could not afford to eat there. The meals, though, were relatively inexpensive. She told us about how corrupt the aristocracy is of Budapest, down to the public transportation system, where they'll overcharge people who are caught without a pass, especially tourists. This is something that we heard about from our Scottish friends, too, as they got caught without tickets and were charged ridiculous amounts of money for it. 

The next morning, we did a little running around before heading on our train to Munich... But, not without, once again, a minor incident, that I myself experienced. When at the post office, wanting to send a postcard, I pulled out one of my 1000 Hungarian Forints (equal to approx. $5) to pay for the stamps. All of a sudden, an already unhappy looking woman working the register looks at me with an even angrier tone and says, "NO GOOD." I looked at her so confused, thinking that maybe the bill was too big and that she didn't have the right change for it, or something. But she just kept saying no good and pulled out another 1000 Forint bill showing me the differences proving that mine was fake. All of a sudden it made sense why she was so angry with me, and I pulled out another bill, that was, in fact, real. Immediately, all I could think about was where that bill had come from... where I had given a bigger bill and gotten change. I believe it to be a touristy shop, where I got a magnet for my grandma (by the way, Grandma, you're going to have a nice handful of additions to your collection). I didn't even find myself angry! I was mostly just irritated because I had planned the amount of cash that I withdrew to the T. 

Emily a few years ago probably would have been VERY angry... Emily now, truly wasn't. Why? Well, when I think of money being stolen, I automatically think of a story Gwil told me during our confirmation classes, way back when. Apparently, his daughter had money stolen in a gym locker room, and, having worked for a long time with juvenile court cases in Butler as a judge, he told her not to worry, because for whatever reason, that person probably needed the money more than her. Probably, the store owner knew I wouldn't catch the fake money when she handed it to me, and planned it after realizing it was fake, as the signs were very clear. Or perhaps, she never caught it. Either way, two other people benefited from my stupid $5. And just like Gwil told us, they probably need it more than I. 

Hungary is on the right path toward full "development," but it still has a way to go. The Hungarians are known for looking sad, following right behind their national anthem, possibly the only one written in a minor key. Their history consists constantly being taken over and/or ruled by so may different groups of people, it's amazing the people can all identify with themselves. Knowing that, as well, brings so much sense to the fact that there is practically no relative to the language they speak there... Not to mention, the common people who live there can't even afford to go out and eat? Or that counterfeit money is so easily circulated?

Budapest was certainly a great break from the more museum-like Prague, and I wish I had had more time there. Yes, there were tourists there, but not like Prague, and the whole city didn't seem like an exhibit - it felt real. But part of that reality is things like low income life and begging and criminal activity. Despite all of its down trodden-ness, Budapest is possibly my most favorite city that we've been to so far. Why? Because it's real, because every human has to struggle for something at some point in their life. Some people struggle for more necessary things like food and money, while others struggle to merely gain comforts that are only actually wants. If my $5 went to some Hungarian who actually spent it on food, then how I could I possibly be mad? Traveling has definitely allowed me to gain a lot of perspective about people, where they come from, and why they are who they are, which is all I really wanted out of traveling around; Hungary only enhanced this.  Just like we all struggle, we all are looking for something in life... so, what are you hungry for? Is it food? Is it companionship? Happiness? Nice things? Or, in honor of where my eyes were opened even more: what are you Hungary for?

Finding Your Spot

Prague, called and spelled Praha, was immediately a relief from our time in more primitive Poland. Actually, the first stop our train made in the Czech Republic came as a huge relief as we heard an announcement made in English out the window. When we arrived in the train station in Prague after a very hot eight hour train ride, we were relieved to find everything user friendly to anyone who can speak Czech, English, French or German – finally. I accredit a lot of this to the fact that the Czech Republic is the only former nation of the USSR that has officially been declared a “developed” nation, with a plan to adopt the Euro in 2012. We did the usual dance of trying to find an ATM, our way out, etc., with the understanding that taxis that pick up travelers from the station tend to be running a scam on prices. Brooke was highly impressive after we finally landed ourselves in a cab with a set price of 200 Czech crowns equaling about $10. The first cab we tried wanted to charge us 800, and the second cab started at 400 and Brooke haggled our way down. Purely entertained, I just sat back and watched her do her magic on these guys. On our way back to the train station, we found out the actual metered fair was only 89 – that’s traveling for you! 

Morgan, our other friend from Berlin, had already been at the hostel for a couple hours, so we had talked to her before we arrived getting the details and understanding what to expect. Honestly, this was probably my favorite hostel we’ve been to… maybe because it was a lot more quiet? Again, we trudged our way up three flights of stairs to get to our room which was a little more apartment style: 12 in our room, a kitchen, our own bathroom, and a living area within our room with a nice balcony, as well.  There was a common room upstairs, but we really didn’t have a need to go up there, as everything we wanted was all in one place. This hostel seemed geared more toward someplace to live rather than someplace to party. A nice change of pace, regardless. 

The three of us headed out for dinner, which ended up being a fantastic simple, yet comforting pasta dish of spaghetti and meat sauce. And once again, we found ourselves in a place where a meal like that costs under $10. Then we headed back to the hostel to get ready to go out for the night. Before we headed out, though, we had a good time getting to know some of the people in our room and played cards with them in our little living area… We ended up in a club that was recommended by a friend, yet was not really alive on Wednesday nights. Not to mention, most of the people there were either middle-aged men or 18 year olds from America and Germany. Needless to say, we called it a night early and went back to crash. Thankfully, our hostel was in such a great location, that it was only a two-minute walk away. 

The next morning we rose pretty early, got ourselves some breakfast food at the nearby grocery store and headed out for a day of mostly just walking around. We started out walking around the old town square, and then over to the Jewish Quarter, called Josefov. There, with one ticket, we were able to go in and out of many different synagogues with various exhibits within them. There was also a Jewish Cemetery, which has 12,000 graves, some dating back to the middle of the 15^th century; and because of how full it is, the burials are sometimes twelve layers deep. Also, ironically, we ran into a couple from Brooke’s synagogue back in Philadelphia, twice. It is a small, small world. It was amazing to see how dense this area is with synagogues and other Jewish institutions. Something I guess we’re just not used to. But, it’s almost as ridiculous as two beautiful Catholic cathedrals sitting right next to each other because the grandson of one king, who then became king, wanted a bigger and better one built. Who knows what the rationale was.

We found our way to the river and settled for a nice lunch right on the bank, where I enjoyed a $5 chicken marsala. After another good meal, we walked down the riverbank more, passing the Kafka museum as well as lots of washed up dead fish on the shore. I feel that kind of thing would make Franz Kafka happy to hear. That is, the romanticism be taken away from the river bank by the reality of dead carp lying in the path of those who walk along it. Good ol’ Franz Kafka. Anyways, we crossed the famous Charles’ Bridge, which was built in the 14^th century and witness to at least one murder (the only one I’ve read about because of a priest and his ties to the royalty). Now a pedestrian bridge, it is possibly the most ornate bridge I have ever seen with thirty 18^th century statues among other decoration. With lots of venders and tourists we walked back toward the Old Town Square after passing by many huge old ornate churches practically positioned on top of each other, apparently a lot like Italy.

Finding our way, again, to our hostel for some down time before we went out for the night, Morgan and I got food from the grocery store for a light dinner costing us a grand $3 - what a contrast to my grocery experience in Copenhagen! We got ready again for a (hopefully) more promising night than the one before, by deciding to go on the pub-crawl my new friend from Krakow used to run. After meeting outside the famous astronomical clock in the Old Town Square, which wasn’t really anything to write home about (even though I just did), we followed our guide from Chicago, who graduated as an Art History major from Tufts University last year and moved to Europe to teach English, up a clock tower to the room we were in for the first hour and a half. When we got there, they asked us how we heard about the crawl, and we said that Dylan recommended us to it, not knowing that such name-dropping in Prague would get us a discount. Yeah, we’re that cool. At that point, I almost felt badly for my underlying dislike of him.

While up there for the first hour and half I got to know some pretty cool people. Two of whom were from Illinois and had just graduated from Northwestern. I talked to them for a while about one going off to med school and the other not really sure what he was going to do after not being accepted into any of the law schools he applied to. Brooke, unfortunately, did not have such luck with her new acquaintances, and therefore our night was cut a little short. We had a lot of time to talk about it and were more than relieved to get home and go to bed. Ultimately, sleep was all we truly needed.

For that reason, we started out kind of late the next day with a main goal of our afternoon being to see the great Prague Castle. This was not without a lunch full of familiar comfort food with a chocolate milkshake on the side in the Hard Rock Café first. After a solid pulled pork bbq sandwich and fries, we set off to hike of the very large and somewhat steep hill toward the palace grounds. There we went into St. Vitus Cathedral, home of St. Wenceslas’ tomb, as in Good King Wenceslas and patron saint of Czech Republic. Also, there was the tomb of St. John of Nepomuk., who I have no idea who that actually is, but his tomb was ridiculously ornate. We also walked through the Old Royal Palace, the Rosenbourg Palace and the Basilica of St. George. None of which were terribly exquisite and only being able to see a few different rooms in each one; the first being where the stately affairs took place, the second being the gentlewomen’s quarters and the third being a basilica. Honestly, there’s so much history and buildings all having to do with Catholicism… I just don’t understand it all. Maybe someday my brother will teach me, in a way where I would not lose attention after 5 seconds. 

Because it was just so ridiculously hot we headed back to our hostel for a break, yet again, and had a regrouping of ourselves… the heat just takes so much out of us, and has at times put a damper on our trip to a continent that doesn’t believe in air conditioning. Determined that it wouldn’t keep me from doing all I wanted to, I headed to a fortress I read about called Vysehrad, which is suppose to give you a great vantage of the city.

It was kind of a hike, partly the reason I ended up going by myself, but I stopped on my way for some sustenance (an apple and ice cream, obviously), and made my hike up the hill toward the fortress. I got to the top and I feel there’s no way to describe it but perfect. All I could think about was how I found MY spot in Prague. It was quiet and breezy and there were families on bikes, dogs running around in the park, couples drinking wine on blankets - you know everything wonderful and romantic for such a city. There is also a beautiful church with two towers called the SS Peter and Paul Church, which at 9 o’clock played three songs from its bell towers. This was only after I had time to walk around and find a place to sit on the hillside of the fortress to watch the sunset over the city and Prague Castle. There was a small area growing grapes, almost like a mini vineyard next for a restaurant that was only a ten second walk away from a beer garden. Life was good for me on top of the Vysehrad. I was so glad I went, and make it back to my hostel as it was getting dark.

Without my evening at Vysehrad, I don’t think I would have really liked Prague much. It’s a beautiful city architecturally, in fact it was almost an overload; but, it is, in my opinion, overrated. It was the first country where I felt like I always had to be looking back, knowing where people were at all times in my surroundings because, even though there were so many, I felt like a target as a tourist. We saw a lot of cool things, and met some fun people, but nothing was AMAZING… until Vysehrad. Which is why I feel like finding your spot when visiting someplace is so important. It can be kind of hard when you’re touring with other people, because sometimes I feel like finding your spot is a private thing. Someplace that you cherish simply because it makes you feel good; a place where you don’t have to be talking to anyone or walking with anyone to be having fun. My spot in Berlin was actually a bookstore on Friedrichstraße, in London, Notting Hill. Since we started our “Eurotrip,” as everyone calls it, I haven’t really had my spot. But Prague gave that to me, as well as many other learning experiences I couldn’t have anticipated.

Honestly, though, even when you’re in your hometown, you need a spot. It’s just harder to find when you’re traveling between countries with only two or three days in each city. But, I feel without this spot, you never actually feel comfortable, you never really picture yourself belonging. And ultimately, that’s all that we as humans ever really want. To have our place, and to belong.

The Power of 20 Minutes

Before you begin to read this, I ask that you check the clock to see what time you started reading this. I promise this isn’t anything stupid, but you’ll find out why in the end I ask you to do so.

Brooke and I left Wroclaw heading for Krakow after only one night there, anxiously wondering what kind of city it was going to be after making our first stop in Polski. We got to Krakow after a 5 hour train ride, and found ourselves a taxi, who we found out later charged us double the price of what it should cost to get from the train station to our hostel… still, only $10. Mama’s Hostel is located right in the city center and as we were driving up to it, we were more and more excited as we saw the hustle and bustle of Poland’s second largest city. We again were three floors up from the main level to find our clean, comfy and very fresh hostel.

We settled in for a bit before looking for someplace to eat and found ourselves at a restaurant serving both pizza and traditional Polish food. I, guiltily, had pizza not pierogies, but I smelled pizza before we sat down and couldn’t resist. After enjoying that, we really just walked around, gathering our bearing and enjoying a cooler evening with ice cream. Krakow is a beautiful city full of young people and lots of things going on. It finally felt like we were back in Europe again. Being exhausted from our trip, we headed in for the night. Our seemingly fun hostel, full of promising young people from everywhere, did not let us down, by any means, as we were up for most of the night listening to our neighbors come in and out after experiencing the great nightlife Krakow has to offer. Feeling fairly boring, we promised each other we would go out the next night.

After waking up from a not-so-restful rest, we made our way to the Wawel Castle located very close to the city center. Not really wanting to do everything the attraction had to offer, we felt no sense of disappointment when we found out the one thing we actually wanted to do was, of course, closed on Mondays. It was still enjoyable to walk around the grounds, as well as walk through the Wawel Cathedral, which boasts the tombs of four centuries worth of Polish royalty. Interestingly, Brooke and I were both wearing summer dresses, neither of which covered our shoulders, and instead of not permitting us to go in and visit (like Sacre Couer in Paris) they provide you with a shawl that you pay a deposit on. After this, in order to exit the grounds, we made our way out of the castle via the Dragon’s Cave. For as little as it was, it was pretty cool – climbing down a spiral staircase of the hill into a dank cave, coming out by the river where there is a statue of a dragon that bursts fire every few minutes.

The Dragon’s Cave led us (sort of) in the direction we wanted to go to visit Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter, before the Jews were moved even farther out of the city into the ghetto. There we found many synagogues, some of which you could go in to. This being the first time I had ever stepped into an active synagogue, I appreciated the fact that Brooke is Jewish. I think the experienced was enhanced by the fact that she could explain to me what I was looking at… kind of bringing the whole scene home in my mind, rather than just a beautiful building where Jews once or still do worship. We also went into a museum located in one of the inactive synagogues, which was a little disappointing; there were photographs of Jews in the area in the 1920s. As interesting as the pictures were, it wasn’t as extensive as I’d hoped it would be.  After finishing the “Jewish Heritage Walk” we wanted to see if we could find remnants of the ghetto wall but weren’t terribly successful. We passed a very tall, older looking building that possibly could have been part of it, but nothing was marked. Krakow is also the location of Schindler’s Factory (as in the movie), which we also didn’t choose to visit, along with the Plaszow Concentration Camp. I think it says a lot that within the close vicinity of the city, there are pieces of just about every step/aspect of the relatively recent horrific history of the Jews – they were truly a huge part of the city until their annihilation in 1944.

Part of experiencing this Jewish culture was most definitely, for us, the need to experience Jewish food. Naturally this only means one thing: bagels. No, really. Brooke read in her book about this place called Bagel Mama, which we couldn’t find at first and happened upon it when we weren’t looking (it changed locations). The bagel was FANTASTIC and the cream cheese was even better. Nothing looked more natural than a Jew and her schmear. Just kidding, sort of. We really enjoyed our little break at Bagel Mama and met an American sitting there was well, who had just come to Europe after touring Southeast Asia. After a nice conversation, we bid him farewell and headed back to the city center to do a little shopping.

On our way we stopped at a few big Catholic churches, typically with nuns and priests bustling about. Honestly, I don’t even know how I’m going to label my pictures, they were all just so beautiful and there were so many. Never once, though, did we find a church that was not Catholic… As we walked right into the middle of the city center, we approached an arcade, Cloth Hall, full of shopping, particularly for tourists. One of Poland’s greatest goods is Amber, so we enjoyed looking at all the different kinds of jewelry, along with fur, leather and hand carved wooden goods. We bought our postcards and ate some dessert before heading back to relax before our friend, Morgan, who we met in Berlin, arrived to join us for some of this journey.

When she did come, we got ready and headed out for dinner and enjoyed a very tasty Mexican meal, then came back to get ready and go out. We tried some true Polish vodka (a must according to anything about traveling to Poland) and headed out to find a club to dance. After many failed attempts at locating one that was recommended to us by our hostel receptionist, we found one called Carpe Diem II and decide to try it. Located in the basement of a building, people were swarming us the second we got there, knowing we were Americans, and just wanting to talk. Two American guys found us wanting to play fussball, but someone had already taken the table before we got there, so we ended up talking to them for a bit. The one guy I ended up talking with was from New Jersey, but went to school at USC as a Russian major and moved to Prague right after, helping to run a pub crawl business… he then moved to Krakow to start one there. Our conversation started out light getting into how stupid USC is for losing their titles because of NCAA regulations and how stupid Philly is, to the importance of Russian vs. German language and history to the War in Afghanistan. By the time Morgan had finally rescued me from the “conversation” I was being yelled at by two different American guys about how it’s probably not true that the outcome is worth the cost. Let me tell you u how many other things I wished I could have been doing at that moment than be cornered by a drunk American who hates Corporate America so much he decided to move to undeveloped Europe in order to run pub crawls, in a club, in the middle of Krakow, Poland, because I don’t have all the answers to war.

By the time I had finally gotten away, Brooke had convinced our Metallica t-shirt wearing, long haired, grungy DJ that if he played Single Ladies by Beyonce, she would do the entire dance on the stage. While waiting, and after he finally played the song for her, we enjoyed dancing to some fun and kind of old American music. Once Linkin Park came on, we headed out, only to walk in the wrong direction, but finally arriving back at our hostel.

Our next morning was a little early as it was devoted to going to Auschwitz, which is about an hour and a half outside of Krakow. I have been to two other camps before, Dachau, not far from Munich, twice and Sachsenhausen, right outside Berlin, once. But, they were primarily prison camps, with gas chambers that were barely if ever used. Auschwitz, as most of you probably know, was an extermination camp where at least 1.1 million people were killed.

Our tour took us to two different places, Auschwitz I and Birkenau. Auschwitz I was more of a museum within the buildings where the prisoners once stayed, as it was the first installment in the area, and wasn’t really where the mass exterminations happened. There we saw over 80,000 shoes that were taken from the adults and children who were brought there, and two tons of hair that had been shaved from their heads. We also saw all the suitcases with the victims’ names on them and brushes, shoe polish – all the belongings they brought with them. These were all kept because the idea was that all these goods would be re-circulated into German society, and the hair was used for German textiles. We also walked around the basement of one of these buildings that was used for standing and starvation cells. As punishment, a prisoner would sometimes have to stand all night in one of these cells and then go back out to work in the morning for 11 hours. Starvation cells are pretty self-explanatory; the biggest story coming from a Catholic priest who chose to starve for another prisoner who was to be punished. He lasted 2 weeks in the cell before they killed him, since the starvation hadn’t.  It was all so sickening, and it hit me the hardest when someone was passing me in the hall and I brushed up against the wall. Then, I started thinking about all the people who were up against that wall less than a hundred years ago and what they were going through. I felt so dirty.

As we were walking around, we were basically walking around with a very large group of Israeli military officers. They were obviously there for a special trip, with permission to take pictures where most did not, from all of the different branches of the military. I found it kind of crazy because of what some of those guys are still dealing with today in their own country, which was suppose to be a safe place for them to settle. I also was just really intimidated by them, because who knows what all they’ve done and seen. I would NEVER want to mess with someone from the Israeli military… I was nervous enough just looking at them.

  One very intimate area we were in with these soldiers was one of the gas chambers at Auschwitz I, where 2,000 people were killed in twenty minutes. This happened more so at Birkenau than Auschwitz I, but the only one we could tour was there because the ones at Birkenau were burned down. Birkenau was more of what most would picture as a concentration camp. With huts that held more people than they should have all built over a vast space… It wasn’t at all like the stone cottage looking barracks at Auschwitz I. And, although most of the huts are no longer there, we were able to walk into a couple that were reconstructed and get a feel for what they were like. This is also where (if you have this picture in your mind) the Jews were brought by train directly into the camp. Their selection process took place immediately, and 75% were sent directly to the gas chambers. Others were kept to either work, or be used for medical experiments. I also learned that Auschwitz was the only camp that tattooed numbers on the Jews arms after they stopped actually keeping photographic records of them because there were too many coming in all at once.

  All I ever think about when I think about tattooed numbers is an old old French man who had numbers on his arm and his wife who I sat next to on an airplane flight a long time ago – I don’t even know from or to where my trip was that time. For the few survivors there still are today, and how many haven’t died simply of age later on, the chances of meeting someone like that are so slim. What stories he must have had… I can’t even imagine.

We finally got back to Krakow after a long, emotional, hot day and decided tonight would be the night for some pierogi action. It was better than any pierogi I had ever had before… What a good decision. We got some ice cream and walked around, really just taking in the city square on the beautiful night where you know it’s the top of an hour because you hear a bugle being played from the highest tower of St. Mary’s Church, reminiscing the warning calls from medieval times; which ends abruptly, representing the story of when a trumpeter was killed by an arrow during his warning by an approaching intruder.

After getting to relax and some late night pizza, we settled in and called it a night. And now, I’m on the train to our next destination.

Honestly, Polski was good to us. And by the way, we only called it Polski because Brooke wanted to - the proper term is Polska. It was way different than anything I’d ever experienced before and I’m glad we went. There was talk when we arrived in exciting Krakow if we would have enough time to see everything, rather than having two full days for the city, like we would have had had we not gone to Wroclaw. But we most definitely got to see everything that we wanted to.

When chatting with my brother, Matt, about Poland and its history, there was no question that no country has really been through more than Poland, having been taken over MANY times. But, what a testament to time that is… Poland is still standing now, gaining more and more development, enough for us to be able to visit. We walk around cathedrals, shop in stores, visit castles, eat bagels and do even minor things like shower all in about 20 minutes each. But, the most horrific things that anyone could ever imagine can also happen within twenty minutes, like the annihilation of 2,000 people. In seven and a half days, Brooke and I will have left Berlin, traveled to Wroclaw, traveled to Krakow, traveled to Prague and be on our way to Budapest. In a total of seven and a half days 1.1 million people were killed in one camp. Time is a powerful thing, and traveling allows you to appreciate it, as you go around trying to grasp where other people have come from, what they’ve experienced and how it affects their every day lives. Some people have it far easier than others, for sure.

  This part of Europe has had quite a history, and even though it sounds fantastic and fun (which it is), there’s a part of it that’s very taxing. Even when talking to the American at the club, and trying to explain to him, that assuring the freedom for the future of children in Afghanistan is worth fighting for for so many people, he just didn’t get it. We come from different places, have different histories, different languages, money, but we’re humans, with the same wants and needs. Morgan, Brooke and I had an interesting conversation after Auschwitz about who should feel guilty about the Holocaust, if anyone. My opinion? No one should bare the absolute guilt of it, because for many of us, it’s beyond our very existence. But the weight of how awful humans are capable of being should be on every single person’s shoulders. I believe that in remembering the past, we need to pay it forward to the people who still suffer today. So, traveling to a place like Polski was certainly fun, but as we saw the communist housing and run down factories, along with the devastation upon anything good and Jewish, so it’s also very humbling, as Poland still seeks to be designated as a developed country.

After writing about my couple days in Krakow for two hours, I understand this has become pretty lengthy. But, I’m sure it didn’t take you a whole 20 minutes to read, so I challenge you to spend the rest of the twenty minutes thinking about it all… What do you do in twenty minutes? My usual answer would probably be: facebook. In this short amount of time, we as humans allowed someone else to and are capable of killing 2,000 people. I sure hope it frightens you as much as it does me. Then, try thinking about all the good things humans are capable of doing within 20 minutes, for instance, which is all it took for me to distribute a couple hundred bags of rice to people in Haiti, each containing enough rice to feed a family for a week.

I hate to end this on such a harsh note. I loved Polski and everything we saw and experienced. It also makes me love America even more and makes me miss everyone I’m writing this for…  So stay tuned for what Prague can bring to the table!

The Wedding Crashers

The adventures of Brooke and Emily have begun, and our first stop was Wroclaw, Poland, or should I say, third world Europe (pronounced vrost-waf). I have never been to Poland before, since Germany is a safe haven for me on this continent, and I surely was in for a shock. Leaving from Berlin on bus, there was no question when we entered into Poland because the roads immediately turned from great to worse, as our bus bumped up and down for the rest of the ride. When we finally got to Wroclaw, we had ridden on a bus for almost 5 hours with a few questionable stops…

I’m almost positive, unless you’ve been in Poland before, that you’ve never heard of Wroclaw, but don’t feel badly, neither had I until Brooke showed me an article her dad gave her about the city from the New York Times. It raved of beautiful buildings in a new up and coming cultural, university centered city not too far from Berlin. (It was actually German territory at one point, going by the name Breslau). Listening to Brooke swear by the New York Times, I said ok when she said let’s go and for the first twenty minutes of our time in the city, all I could think about was how stupid I was for my complacency. Just like they say never judge a book by its cover, I’ll say, never judge a city by its bus station.

We got off the bus, with only a map in my Lonely Planet book, which was not terribly descript. Immediately we searched for aid from various people around the station, including those at information desks, but the only person who seemed to want to talk to us was a small boy begging to give him money for a loaf of bread. All Brooke could really say was, “we’re not in Kansas, anymore.” What a shock that no one spoke English, no one would smile at us, and when we were looking for help we were generally just snubbed. When we finally found a taxi stand, more than willing to pay whatever we needed (though, we knew it wouldn’t be much) to get to our hostel which we knew couldn’t have been that far, the driver assured us that it was 100 meters away and pointed us in the right direction, still not in English, but in German.

Following his instructions and what we had from the hostel, we found our way there in no time, only to find a HUGE door with a buzzing system. Once buzzed in by our hostel, we walked into a big, big foyer that was a little sketchy, only to walk up an even more sketchy two flights of stairs. But, when we got into Babel Hostel, we were pleasantly surprised. It was clean, safe and pretty homey, to be honest. Definitely one of the better hostels I’ve stayed in, and we were able to check in when we got there, which was also a blessing. Realizing how hungry we were and that the wireless was not compatible with our Macs because apparently no one in Poland has them, we set out for dinner.

On our way there, we were really just laughing about how questionable our visit to this city was going to be. With trams that look like they will just collapse into pieces if it stops too fast, and dank gray cement apartments buildings with parts crumbling off, we were just in awe. After a not so long walk we found ourselves in what was more like what we had signed up for… A BEAUTIFUL old town square called Rynek, with pedestrians, old gothic style buildings, shops and restaurants. Also, right there was an outdoor viewing for the World Cup, not unlike some in Germany, and a mini-soccer arena where it looked as if beer leagues were playing each other, posing as the different countries in the WM.  We decided on a Spanish restaurant, hoping the menu might have been more navigable, but were totally wrong, yet settled on some pretty good and filling food. But, as we were finishing a man came up, kind of behind me and started talking to us. From the angle I was sitting, and the state of his clothes I had initially thought he was like a bus boy for the restaurant and was telling us eat everything on our plates. I was SADLY mistaken, as he actually was wanting to eat whatever was left of our food. Good, Mueller, mistaking a homeless Polish beggar for a Spanish restaurant bus boy; he even tried begging in German to us, which lasted almost 5 minutes. Finally, a VERY kind couple sitting a table from us, shooed him away, but why didn’t our waitress do that for us?! The couple told us, that it’s pretty common, and after reading about Poland in my Lonely Planet book, it made more sense they’d approach us… 98% of the Polish population is ethnically Polish, and apparently it’s pretty easy to tell that we were not, and are automatically targets.

We, however, recovered from a semi-traumatic experience and went on our merry way to walk around, what Brooke affectionately calls, Polski. Primarily, the goal was to see the university and churches, as there are so many, churches not universities, that is. Little did we know that Saturday July 10, 2010 was a very popular day for Poles to get married. With a few stops in between, we managed to enter or pass by at least a half dozen GORGEOUS cathedral style churches (random fact: 80% of Poles are devout Catholics, and the line between church and state within the country is practically invisible), three of which had weddings going on that day. After we sat in on our third wedding, we walked around enough to find the location of the reception as well! We decidedly chose not to also crash the reception, considering we were certainly not dressed for the occasion, and we were sweating like creeps. Literally, we’re talking mid-90s with exactly zero clouds in the sky.

This is exactly why our three stops in between walking around were for ice cream, wading in the city moat, and a nice cold drink. The first and last are fairly self-explanatory, but I’ll elaborate on the second a little. Dating back to the old, old days of Wroclaw, the city was surrounded by a moat, for protection. It is mostly still there, though I believe it’s dried up in a few places, and Brooke and I found a little mini-beach among a park. We probably spent almost a half hour just wading in the nice cool and relatively clean water, which was exactly what we needed among all the heat.

On our way back to our hostel for the evening, we made a stop in a shopping center, where we wanted to buy a couple groceries for our travels the next day. We literally waited in the check out line for about 25 minutes and when we got to the front, the lady told us she couldn’t check out the fruit we wanted because you are suppose to weigh it in the fruit area. Oh. One of those things that you just have to learn as you go, I guess. But all was not lost because we still managed to get gum and cheerios… clearly staples in any good American’s diet. Getting back to the hostel, we just crashed, too hot and tired to do just about anything. But, made a game plan for the next day to make sure we were going to see what we wanted.

First we started off by heading to the train station where we bought our tickets to take a train from Wroclaw to Krakow, which is where I am right now. Thanks to the receptionist at our hostel, we were able to easily get our ticket, because she wrote down everything for us to just hand to the person at the counter. Great. The only creepy thing about that whole experience was the old man standing 5 inches behind me waiting in line. Apparently Poles have a very different idea of personal space, and we were really freaked out by how close he was standing… Something you never really think about in America, that is, how much space we like for our own. Then, we walked over to the old Jewish quarter (though, no more) looking for a synagogue, which we never found; we did find a couple other Jewish institutions. Then, we went to St. Mary Magdalene’s Church to climb one of the two towers with a bridge connecting them, to gain a grand scope of the city. It was most definitely a gorgeous site. After this, we grabbed an ice coffee and went toward a famously large indoor 360-degree mural, but got there too late for the tour that we could have and wanted to take. Oh, well.

This tardiness was partially due to our stopping to bond with a couple gnomes (or dwarves) that are placed throughout the city. The reason I say it could be either, is because we have read in a couple different places that there are 70 tiny gnomes and 150 tiny dwarf statuettes throughout the city. We hadn’t seen any our first day, but found a couple the next, and naturally needed pictures with them. Once I have some better access to the internet, I’ll figure out which they were…

And now, we’re sitting on our train to Krakow lasting a little over 5 hours. We are mostly comfortable sitting in a first class car, which cost a whooping $15. Yes, that’s right, $15. Now, when I say first class, I am not talking about fancy swivel chairs with constant customer service, I’m talking about, by our standards, just a little below our second class. But, anyways, Poland is CHEAP, which is a nice break. For instance, as we were trying to figure out where to go for dinner yesterday, we asked the opinion of the receptionist and he told us where the students eat, called the milk bar; it’s basically cafeteria style, from the Soviet era. But, then he said the most expensive meals were in the center where we did end up eating, and when we asked how much expensive was, he said around 10 Euros. Let me be clear about something, 10 Euro is NOT expensive for a meal here in Europe when you include drinks. Even then, I think mine was under $10. Needless to say, even though it’s gaining strength, the Polish economy has a long way to go before the EU allows them to adopt the Euro.

All in all, I’m really glad we went to Wroclaw. It’s a little different than what I feel Krakow is going to be like, for a lot of different reasons. This city is certainly someplace people live more than visit.  My first impression of Poland was not the greatest, but I’m starting to realize that that’s how I start in most cities: apprehensive. Once we got more into the heart of it, and gained familiarity, I was truly enjoying myself. This does not go without saying that there definitely seemed to be more run down places than not, especially after being able to get up high and see the scope of the area more. And we’ve certainly had encounters with strangers who try talking to us, or get money or food from us. Only people our age seem to be able to speak English, which is probably what makes me the most uncomfortable… I’m not used to not being able to pick up anything from the local language, which is what I use to try and break barriers. And I feel, with the people here, we certainly need SOMETHING to help break the barrier. Ultimately, I don’t feel like we just crashed weddings for our visit, but that we kind of crashed the city, not encountering any other Americans. What an experience to see a Pittsburgh kind of city rather than a Philadelphia kind of city. 

Anyways, more to come from Polski… we’re here for three more days!