Four Countries, One Day (And Our Semester is Just Beginning!)

This blog post wraps up my pre-Madrid travels and introduces you to my life in España!

LOVE YOU!

On one of our last days with the Liberti’s in Kandern, Steve took us to Colmar, a cute little touristy town in France.  It rained for most of the ride there, but as soon as we pulled into the town, the sun came out.  It was a beautiful couple of hours just walking around Colmar.  We spent some time inside the Catholic Church in the middle of the city, but we spent most of our day exploring little antique shops and open markets in search for a cross.  Theresa wants to buy a cross from each country that she visits this semester so she can have a cross wall at her next apartment.  I can’t tell you how many time I said, “Theresa, I’m feeling good about this store,” or “Theresa, this store has a cross…I can feel it.”  Toward the end of our day, after countless letdowns, I was finally right!  She found a cross! Steve also snapped this incredible picture of us!  I think it may be one of my favorite pictures of us! 

The next day, Theresa and I attended the first half of a church service with the Liberti’s.  I can’t think of a better way to have ended the beginning of our semester than worshiping with our wonderful new friends!  It was way more difficult than I thought it would be to say goodbye to Steve, Dawn, Bianca, and Sofia.  Their hospitality helped us through what could have been an extremely difficult transition.  We felt so welcomed, so loved, and so taken care of during our time with the Liberti’s.  Theresa said this in her blog and I’m going to echo it here…I definitely left a piece of my heart in Kandern with them!

We woke up that morning in Germany.  We drove through France to get to the airport.  We boarded our plane in Switzerland.  We landed in Spain.  Four countries, one day.  Life is crazy.

It was a pretty easy flight, especially compared to our last flight, the 8-hour monster flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt.  As we were about to land, I looked out my window and couldn’t believe how brown and barren Spain looked!  Theresa and I had just spent a week and a half in the Black Forest in Germany and in the green hills of Switzerland and we were flying into a desert!?  It was not what I was expecting at all.  Once we landed, Theresa and I gathered our luggage (Woohoo!  Everything made it!) and walked outside to grab a taxi. 

SO HOT.  It was around 95 degrees when we landed in Madrid and I was wearing a maxi skirt, a cardigan, AND a jacket because it was 60 degrees when we boarded the plane in Basel!  The taxi ride was miserable because there was no air conditioning in the backseat and I didn’t know how to say “Please turn on the air conditioning or roll down the windows because we are dying back here” in Spanish.  Next thing we knew, Theresa and I were standing in front of our apartment building.  We had no idea what to do next, so Theresa just rang the bell next to “el conserjería” which we both [correctly] assumed meant concierge.  When a woman answered speaking very fast Spanish, Theresa and I together said something like “Hola…Sarah y Theresa…Here for Maria…Bautista…students de la universidad San Luís…”  We must have said something right because the woman responded, “Ahhh! Sí!  Sí!” and quickly came and opened the door for us.  She pointed to Maria’s door and Theresa and I nervously approached and knocked.

The door opened and this sweet, older woman named Maria Bautista opened the door.  I smiled and laughed when she surprised Theresa by kissing both of her cheeks.  I was more prepared having watched Theresa, and successfully completed my first Spanish greeting.  Maria and I had Skyped one time last semester because Hannah, my friend and first roommate, stayed with Maria last semester while she was studying abroad in Madrid.  Hannah had told me many Maria stories and had given me a lot of Maria advice including, “just smile and nod…I never knew what she was saying to me, but she loves to talk to you.”  After unpacking all of my belongings for the entire semester and spending some time just laying on my bed, Theresa and I were called to the kitchen for dinner.  Maria cooked us this delicious meal of spaghetti, freshly fried chicken, and fresh bread from the bakery.  Maria is a phenomenal cook.  I have been here for almost three weeks now and have absolutely loved every meal Maria has cooked.  Well, except for maybe the Spanish ham, but she told us that most United States American students don’t like it.

After dinner, we met up with our wonderful friends and adventure buddies Erik Hoaglund and John Ketzner.  Erik and John’s host family lives just two blocks away from Maria’s apartment.  This is incredible because we can all walk to and from classes together since campus is about a 25-minute walk away.  That first night, we explored Parque Oeste, the park that is just a few blocks away from our apartment.  We walked around for a little bit until we found the perfect spot on a hill to sit/lay down.  Theresa and I told John and Erik about our German adventures and we all talked about everything that we wanted to do this semester.  After walking for a little bit longer, we stumbled upon a basketball court.  I couldn't believe that John brought a basketball with him from the U.S., but he did.   We all walked back to their apartment so he could grab the ball to play a little 2-on-2.  We played for a couple of hours in the Madrid heat and I am proud to say that John and I took game 1.  We got back to the apartment around 12:30, and because I wasn’t thinking, I decided to take a shower.  While I was trying to figure out how to get hot water, (you can’t that late at night, the hot water gets turned off) Maria woke up and started “talking to” Theresa about how we can’t take showers that late.  (I put the “talked to” in quotations because Theresa was basically getting yelled at, but Hannah warned us that Maria doesn’t yell, it’s just how she communicates.)  This was the first of a couple of times when Theresa got “talked to” about something that I did.  Once I heard Maria and Theresa talking outside of the bathroom, I turned off the water and just crawled into bed for the night.

The next morning, I woke up early to take the shower that I didn’t take the night before and Theresa got “talked to” again because we are only allowed to take one shower, at night or in the morning.  Maria was under the impression that I had showered twice, so at breakfast I had to try and communicate to Maria that I didn't actually shower the night before.  My Spanish is definitely improving very quickly since Maria doesn't speak any English!  I think we are also getting pretty good at guessing what the other person is trying saying. 

One of my favorite stories with Maria so far is that one night, Theresa and I were going to go watch the sunset at the park.  I was trying to tell Maria what we were going to do, but I had no idea how to say “sunset” in Spanish.  My Spanish professors in high school and college always encouraged us to use the words that we knew in Spanish to describe the word that we didn’t know.  Perfect!  So this is what I said…

“Theresa y yo vamos a ir al parque para mirar el sun salir el mundo.”

Theresa and I are going to go to the park to watch the sun leave the world.

Maria’s response was, “You are going to watch a movie?”  Apparently my description was so artistically phrased that Maria thought it was a movie title!  We all laughed together and then Theresa looked up how to say “sunset” in her dictionary.

Another fantastic Maria story is that one morning at breakfast, I started quietly singing the traditional Spanish song “Maria Isabel” to Theresa.  It’s a song that I learned during my junior year of high school and for some reason, it has stayed with me.  Anyways, apparently I was not singing it as softly as I thought I was because a huge smile spread across Maria’s face and she joined me.  So on my second morning in Spain, I was singing a traditional Spanish song with my host mom.  It was a beautiful moment and Theresa couldn’t stop laughing.

Another really awesome way that Theresa and I communicate with Maria is through prayer before dinner.  Theresa and I always try to remember to pray before dinner and one time, we invited Maria to join us.  Since then, Maria has joined us almost every night to bless our food before we eat it.  We all hold hands and take turns offering words of thanksgiving.  It is a really special moment that I enjoy sharing with Theresa and Maria each night.

The day after we arrived in Madrid, we had orientation at SLU-Madrid.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the day was relatively uninformative.  I did get to meet some non-SLU students that were going to be studying abroad at SLU-Madrid which was cool!

Here's our first day of school picture!  John's a 4 your old and gave Theresa bunny ears!

Here’s a rundown of my classes this semester:

Cultural Anthropology of Spain

I think that this is the class that I am most excited about.  The professor is incredible and super knowledgeable about Spain.  She believes it is necessary to know the history of a place before you can know its present, so we are going to spend a large portion of the semester learning about the history of Spain, which seems super interesting because of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Franco.

Intro to Anthropology

This class is taught by the same professor of my cultural class, and she is still awesome.  She’s actually an archaeologist and an anthropologist, so I think the material of this class is closer to her interests.  It will be interesting for me to learn more about the field of anthropology since my major is sociology and they are in the same department at SLU.  The readings so far in this class have been super interesting and informative.

Art History: Modern Art

I only signed up for this class because SLU requires each student to take an art class in order to fulfil a core requirement.  I am SO glad that I signed up for this particular art history class because it seeks to analyze twentieth century art through the lens of the political and social movements of the time.  It’s basically an art history class about race, class, gender, revolutions, capitalism, communism, etc.  It’s fantastic.

Philosophy of Karl Marx

I had really, really high expectations for this class and I am afraid that they might have been too high.  I have LOVED the opportunity to read Marx’s actually writings instead of just broad overgeneralizations in sociology classes, but the class discussions thus far have been sub-par.  It seems like most of the other students just took this class to fulfill an upper-level philosophy requirement instead of having a genuine interest in Marx, which is a bummer.

Theresa and I enjoyed our first sangrias on the 2^nd or 3^rd night here!  Our fantastic friend Maria Bednar gave us her last 10 euros from her semester in Europe to buy our first sangrias for our semester in Europe.  It was a MASSIVE sangria and by the time we both finished ours, I was definitely feeling looser and was talking a lot faster and Theresa was very aware of her limbs.

Our first weekend in Madrid was wonderful.  We visited the Prado for the first of many trips to come because it’s FREE with our international student ID!  We spent about two hours walking around and only scratched the surface.  I spent quite a few minutes just staring at Las Meninas by Velázquez.  I have studied and given presentations in Spanish about this painting in both high school and college so it was super surreal to be standing in front of the real painting.

After the Prado, we went to a grocery store and grabbed fresh bread and cheese for lunch.  Theresa and I eat this same meal for lunch at least 5 times a week because a) it’s delicious and b) it’s super cheap.

That night, we headed to Puerta del Sol, the center of nightlife in Madrid.  Madrid is an interesting city because people don’t really start going out until 10pm and don’t usually head home until 3am or later.  Theresa and I were fashionably early, arriving in Sol around 6pm.  Because we were meeting up with Erik and John at 8pm to go out to dinner, Theresa and I decided to explore Sol in search of a great restaurant.  Theresa found this restaurant called Taberna Pompeyana that she wanted to try because “the menu looked reasonable.”  AKA: The sangria was super cheap.  After meeting up with the guys, we all decided that we would trust Theresa’s judgment and try Taberna Pompeyana.

Well, I think we've learned our lesson about letting Theresa pick a restaurant!  Just kidding, I just think we won’t base our restaurant choice solely on the price of sangria anymore.  We walked in, sat down, and looked at the menu.  I don’t know who looked up first, maybe John, but as soon as one of us did, we all did.  The restaurant was decorated with skulls and skeletons, Greek statues draped with the old Spanish Republic flag, torture devices hung from the ceiling, and frescos on the walls with detailed images of different sex scenes and positions.  All I could do was laugh and my laughter only increased as Theresa’s face got redder.  My favorite discovery of the night was this classy painting sequence right next to Theresa’s face.  Erik, John, and I have taken a vow to NEVER let Theresa forget that she picked this restaurant.

Thanks John! (;

YUM!

After our super unique dinner experience, the four of us went to San Ginés, the oldest and most famous chocolatería in Madrid.  There, we indulged ourselves in churros and chocolate.  They were incredible!  John even bought me this beautiful rose!  Just kidding, he got suckered into buying it from a street vendor for 3 euros!

The Temple of Debod!

The next morning, Theresa and I had big plans to go to the Palacio Real, but on our way there, we stumbled upon the Egyptian Temple of Debod which just so happened to be in the middle of a beautiful park.  We ended up just sitting in the park for hours reading (me), painting (Theresa), and talking.  It was so incredibly peaceful and life-giving.  

I'm not convinced I got what I ordered...

Eventually, we decided to save the Palacio Real for another day and found a nearby coffee shop to continue our semester-long UNO tournament.  I don’t want happened, but what we thought we ordered and what we received were completely different.  Theresa got some expensive Bailey’s coffee drink when she just ordered a coffee and my “coffee” was microscopic and ridiculously strong.  I also received a donut when I ordered churros and chocolate!  Oh well.  We are slowly learning that our days here in Europe will often not go as we had planned and that the best way to receive this is with open hands and smiles on our faces.

Sending peace and love from España!

Sarah

"Wait...What Part of Switzerland?"

A few weeks before I left for Europe, I was on the phone with my beautiful friend Merette who is currently spending a semester in Tanzania.  We were talking about all of the things that we both needed to do before we boarded a plane for a semester abroad.  Merette had decided that before flying to Tanzania, she would visit one of her good friends from high school who currently lives in Switzerland.

“Wait, wait, wait.  You’re going to be in Switzerland?  When?”

“I’m not totally sure.  Sometime at the end of August.”

“Merette…I’m going to be in Switzerland at the end of August.  Wait…What part of Switzerland?”  I asked this question only knowing one Swiss city, the city where I would be.

“Basel.”

“WHAT!?  NO WAY!  WE ARE GOING TO BE IN BASEL, SWITZERLAND AT THE SAME TIME!?”

For the rest of the summer, Merette and I would regularly send each other text messages with just two words: “Basel. LOL.”  I don’t think either of us actually thought that we would see each other in Basel.  She was only going to be there for a day and a half.  I was only going to be there for 3 hours.  Could our unintentional timing be that perfect?

Yes, yes it could.  Because there was Wi-Fi on our train from Berlin to Basel, Merette and I were able to text each other about when and where we wanted to meet up.  The original plan was to meet up somewhere near the Basel SBB train station because a) that’s where Theresa and I were arriving at 4, b) Merette had to be there at 7 to catch a train to Zurich, and c) that’s where Steve was going us up at 7.

Well, plans changed.  Pris, Merette’s high school friend, invited Theresa and I over to her apartment for dinner.  Great!  So I texted Merette for directions from the train station and she just gave me an address.  Because I did not happen to have a map of Basel in my back pocket, I Google-mapped the address and screen-shot the directions on my phone while I still had Wi-Fi on the train.  We exited the train, disconnecting us from the Wi-Fi, and made our way outside to buy a ticket for the bus.

NEWSFLASH: Public transportation in Europe is 1000000x better, bigger, and more efficient than public transportation in the U.S.  I approached the kiosk with confidence.  I selected English as my language.  I selected a single-ride ticket and I selected that I wanted 2, one for me and one for Theresa.  “Pick Your Zone” suddenly popped up on the screen.  There were TWELVE different zones I could choose from.  I panicked.  I canceled the order and I stepped back to talk it through with Theresa.  Neither of us knew what to do.  Feeling a sudden surge of confidence, I stepped up to the kiosk again and selected zone 1.  Why?  I have no idea.  I just did it.  I will probably never know if I chose the right zone, but we hopped on the next bus and said a quick prayer.

1 successful transfer and a few stops later, Theresa and I were standing at the right bus stop according to google maps.  When I pulled out my phone to see what the next step was, I laughed out loud because it literally just said “walk.”  Even though it didn't give us a particular direction to walk in, it said we only had to walk for 1 minute before reaching our destination.  We were standing at an intersection so we decided that we would walk down each street for about a minute until we found it.

45 minutes later, Theresa and I were standing at the same bus stop where we had started, exhausted from carrying around our 30ish pound bags on our backs.  I checked the directions on my phone again and to my horror, the ending location was not the same address that Merette had given me.  “Theresa…I think I put the wrong address into my phone…I think we are just in a random neighborhood in the middle of Switzerland…”

The look that she gave almost made me cry on the spot.  I was exhausted, annoyed, and completely frustrated at myself for not double checking the address.  All I could do was laugh, sit on the curb, and stare at my phone.  We had no way of contacting Merette and no way to figure out where we were or where we were supposed to go because we didn't have a map or the internet.  Suddenly, Theresa pointed out a large purple sign a couple blocks away that sort of looked like a map.  We made our way toward the sign and sure enough, it was a map of the neighborhood.  I looked at the original text from Merette with her friend’s address and I almost fell to the ground in relief when I saw the same street name on the map. 

Three minutes later, Theresa and I were standing in front of a six-story apartment building.  We high-fived each other as we approached the door.  “What’s her friend’s last name?” Theresa asked me.  “I have no idea,” I responded as we both stared in disbelief at the 20 different doorbells in front of us.  Theresa was starting the process of elimination when the front doors opened and Merette appeared.  A sigh of relief and a loud laugh escaped my lips as we embraced each other.  The crazy and stressful journey was definitely worth it to spend almost 2 with Merette before we departed for 4 months.

We returned to the Basel SBB train station a little before 7 and said our see-you-laters to Merette.  After a long day of travel, Theresa and I couldn’t wait to see Steve’s familiar face and to return to the Liberti’s house in Kandern.  Earlier in the day, when Steve and I were touching base about meeting up in Basel, he stressed the importance of going to the Basel SBB train station, not the downtown station.  I asked if the Basel SBB was the same train station that he dropped us off at and he assured me that it was.  Perfect!  So all Theresa and I had to do was find the same entrance where Steve dropped us off.

Theresa and I power walked around the Basel SBB train station for an hour looking for the right entrance.  We tried retracing our steps from the original platform.  We tried walking around the entire exterior of the building.  Nothing looked remotely familiar.  We were sweaty, we were frustrated, and we were worried that Steve was worried because it was quickly approaching 8 and we told him we would meet him at 7.  We tried calling him using a payphone, but it just ate our euros.  Theresa laughed as I flipped off the payphone on my way out of the booth.  It was not one of my best moments, but it gave us a little bit of comic relief in the middle of a pretty stressful situation.

Suddenly, everything made sense.  We were at Basel SBB. (I took a lot of pictures to prove this to myself).  Basel SBB was the downtown train station.  This was not the same train station that Steve dropped us off at.  Steve did not drop us off at Basel SBB.  Steve dropped us off at Basel Bad. 

With no way to contact Steve, Theresa and I decided to trust our instincts and hopped on the next train from Basel SBB to Basel Bad.  We are nearly positive that this train ride was illegal because our Eurail passes didn't cover travel in Switzerland, but we were desperate.  Right before the train departed, Theresa and I looked at each other and absolutely lost it.  The absurdity of the last hour hit us like a ton of bricks and we laughed until we were both crying. 

The moment we arrived in Basel Bad, everything looked familiar.  We quickly found the right entrance and rushed out to explain the situation and to apologize to Steve. 

As if the situation couldn’t get more ridiculous, Steve had left minutes before we arrived.  I was able to get free Wi-Fi at the Basel Bad train station and I immediately sent Steve a text and explained what happened.

Apparently, the whole situation was just a gigantic miscommunication.  Steve was under the impression that Basel Bad was actually Basel SBB and they had never had any mix-ups before.  Theresa and I happily ate an entire loaf of bread and a jar of Nutella as we sat outside and waited for Steve to return to Basel Bad to pick us up.

Two days later, Theresa and I returned to Switzerland, this time with the excelled guidance of Steve, Bianca, and Sofia Liberti and their friends Yvonne, Dave, Andy, and Amanda.  Our first stop was the Cailler chocolate factory.  There was a super interesting audio tour that consisted of nine different rooms, each with an automated voice explaining some part of the history of chocolate or more specifically, of the Cailler factory.  There were probably around 15 other people going through the tour at the same time as us.  After explaining how chocolate was embraced in Europe after it was originally imported, the voice announced that the Catholic Church condemned hot chocolate, declaring it a sinful because “it ensnared the senses.”  Theresa and I gave each other a side-glance and she whispered, “classic Catholic Church…getting involved…” 

  As I nodded my head in agreement, the voice continued, “But the Jesuits saved the day…”  I don’t even know what the rest of the sentence was because Theresa and I turned instantly and gave each other the loudest and most enthusiastic high-five of our entire lives.  The noise reverberated through the silent room as the pain in my hand and the redness of my face intensified. We tried to suppress our embarrassed laughter as EVERYONE in the room turned to look at us.  I guess we have another reason to LOVE those Jesuits!  At the end of the tour, we got to sample 20 different kinds of chocolate.  While they were all delicious (minus one with raisin flavored crap in the middle), my favorite was the white chocolate.

The next stop on our Switzerland adventure was the Gruyere cheese factory.  For those of you who know me well, you know that cheese is my favorite food.  For Buddy the Elf, the four main food groups are candy, candy canes, candy corn, and sugar.  For me, they are grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, cheese pizza, and Cheetos.  (Cited from my pre-school days when I was asked, “What are your favorite foods?”)  So. Much. Cheese.  YUM.

 

Last thing about Switzerland: The drive was gorgeous.  If I’m being honest, it was probably my favorite part.  I couldn't stop saying “WOW!” every time we turned a corner and I saw a new landscape.  Just look at these pictures!  And they don’t even do it justice!

Overall, Switzerland was fantastic.  Even though the first adventure in Basel produced a lot of frustration and anxiety, it has continued to bring both Theresa and I a lot of joy every time we think about how utterly lost we were and how much we walked.  And how can you get much better than Chocolate and Cheese!?

France and Spain up next!

Peace,

Sarah

Ulm, Munich, and Berlin, Oh My! (Part 3)

When I first started blogging about my travel abroad experience, I promised myself that I would keep it up-to-date.  Well, I have been in Europe for a little over three weeks now and guess what...I'm behind.  So here is the final installment of my German adventures before I start blogging about my life in Madrid!

At the end of the last blog post, Theresa and I had spent a few days in Munich and were on our way to Berlin.  The train ride to Berlin was about six hours total.  I spent the majority of the ride sleeping, reading The Long Loneliness, (which will get its own blog post when I'm done reading it because it is absolutely mind-blowing), or playing UNO with Theresa.  Toward the end of the trip, we started playing Heads Up, a game app that I bought on my phone after playing it with my coworkers on retreat.  The game is basically a combination of charades/Catch Phrase/Taboo and it is absolutely hysterical.  Player 1 holds the iPhone on their forehead and depending on the category chosen, words, names, songs, or actions will pop up on the screen.  Player 2 has to try to get Player 1 to say what appears on the screen without saying the word itself.  Each round is 1 minute long and you try to get as many points as you can by correctly guessing what is on the screen.

Because we were sitting next to each other on a fairly crowded train, Theresa and I opted for the "Hey Mr. DJ" category.  For this category, a song and its artist appear on the screen and Player 1 must guess the song from Player 2's humming.  Perfect!  Except that it wasn't.  For those of you who know Theresa, you know that she only recently discovered popular music.  For those of you who know me, you know that I am tone deaf.  I think between the both of us, we scored a whopping 6 or 7 points in 10 rounds.  Theresa had no idea what the songs were, but even if she did, I couldn't hum the right tune for her to guess.  We couldn't stop laughing at how horrible my humming was and how many songs Theresa had never heard of before.  After recovering from one of our craughing
(laughing and crying) fits, we looked up to see an old man watching and laughing with (at) us.

After arriving in Berlin, we made our way to our Hostel, CityStay.  For our first hostel booking this semester, I must say, we did a fantastic job.  It was cheap, clean, had free wifi, and was literally in the perfect location.  We claimed our beds, squeezed our backpacks into the little red lockers, and grabbed our Rick Steves Germany book to figure out how we would spend our evening.  A biergarten!  We decided that we had to visit a biergarten in Berlin and the book mentioned a very specific one named Georgbraeu Brauhaus.

Guided by our map of Berlin, we left our hostel and followed the road closest to the river.  A few blocks into our journey, the road was completely blocked for construction.  There were metal fences and pink pipes everywhere, so we decided to abandon our original route and try a different, more indirect way.  We came across this random statue right in the middle of the construction.  We walked around it for a solid 5 minutes trying to find a sign that explained the statue and told us who it was, but there was nothing.  I didn't think anything about it until my first day of philosophy class when my professor googled Marx and Engles one of the first images that
popped up was that statue!




After wandering around for thirty more minutes, Theresa, who was feeling quite hungry, tried to talk me into just eating at one of the many restaurants that we had already passed.  I was determine however to find the Georgbraeu Brauhaus, and let me just tell you, it was so worth it.








We sat down at a table outside and both ordered a beer because, well, we were in Germany.  Theresa went with the light house brew and I, feeling a little more adventurous, got the dark house brew.  I'm not a huge fan of beer, but it was good.  The shot of schnapps on the other hand, the clear stuff seen in the picture, was the worst.  So miserable.  Just thinking about it makes me cringe.

Enough about the drinks though because the food was the real highlight of the night...or my life.  Theresa and I had not eaten since breakfast so we were ready...

She ordered the special that was featured in our Germany travel book and I ordered a bratwurst.  Per usual, we were going to do "halfsies" so we could try more food.  I'm not even sure I have the words to describe what we ate, so here's the picture..

So. Delicious. Happy. Belly.

Walking back to the hostel that night, Theresa and I came across a picture of us in 60 years.  I'm the one with the map confident that we are going the right direction and Theresa is the one with with her hand on her hip not trusting me.








Because we were exhausted from our day of travel, Theresa and I decided we would call it a night and wake up semi-early in the morning to begin our first full day in Berlin.  We were the first ones back to our 10-person dorm room for the night and I was enjoying a little bit of quiet time in the room alone when my life intersected the life of Josh, a fine bloke from Australia.  Unsure of how you are supposed to greet a stranger that you will be sharing the same living space with for the night, I said "hello!"  His response, in what ended up being classic Josh form, was to utter an f-bomb before announcing that I was the first English speaker who had been in the room for a couple of nights.  He was so excited to be around another English speaker that he literally talked AT me (and Theresa when she returned) for a solid 45 minutes.  He had been traveling around Europe alone since April and quite a few hilarious/fascinating/bizarre/insert-any-adjective-here stories to tell.  My favorite Josh story of the night was that he went on a graffiti tour of Berlin and at the end had the opportunity to create his own graffiti.  He chose an image of Obama.  He was so excited to show us the image because he thought "Obama is sooooo dreamy."  He even hung it up directly across from our bunk beds so we could "wake up to the face of [our] fearless leader."  I can't say that I am a better person for meeting Josh, but I am positive that he brought a lot of joy and laughs into my life that night.




First Full Day:

We began our day with breakfast at a super cute little coffee shop called Tee Haus where we ate delicious baked goods, drank yummy coffee, and planned our day.

We walked a few miles to our first stop of the day, Checkpoint Charlie, probably the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War.  There was a historical timeline on the fence that surrounded the museum that Theresa and I read for about half and hour.  I loved reading about U.S. war policy from an outside perspective because there wasn't the underlying tone of justification throughout the information.

It was so strange to stand in the exact place where a wall that separated humanity existed 25 years ago.  It was incredibly challenging for me to me to witness thousands of tourists smiling in front of sections of the Berlin Wall or saluting with paid actors dressed as U.S. soldiers for a photo.  For me, this was not a place of joy and laughter, although I rejoice that the wall finally came down in 1989.  For me, this was a place to remember the abuse of power by governments, the denial of basic human rights, the fear of the other, and the unnecessary military spending that led to a physical barrier being built literally overnight.  All of the factors that led to the construction of the Berlin Wall are still present and influencing policies today.  As I write this, children and parents, brothers and sisters, friends and friends, are separated by an apartheid wall in Palestine, built with funding by the U.S. government.  Standing where the Berlin Wall stood, I realized that humanity still has a lot more work to do before each and every human person can live in a world which uplifts their inherent human dignity.  We must learn about and remember the horrors of our past so that we may work towards a more just future.


Our next stop was the Jewish Museum of Germany, a museum that had been recommended by friends and travel books alike.  We spent around 4 hours walking through the entire museum and there were countless things that impacted me, but I will only list a few.

1) The Holocaust Tower.  Daniel Libeskind, the architect of the museum, built the museum with five memory voids to refer to "that which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish Berlin history: humanity reduced to ashes" (Libeskind).  The Holocaust tower was one of these memory voids.  It was an empty, triangular, concrete room with a ceiling height of 92 feet.  The only light entered the room through a thin window at the very top.  It was dark, cold, and quite.  As I stood in the empty room, I prayed for peace; peace in our hearts, peace on our streets, peace in our world.

3) The Garden of Exile.  This exhibit represented all of the countries that Jews fled to from Germany.  The Garden of Exile consisted of 49 stone pillars with soil and an olive tree on top, forming a canopy.  Walking through the maze of pillars, I felt aimless and lost and couldn't even begin to imagine the feelings that so many men, women, and children felt having to flee their homes and leave their possessions behind.






3) Fallen Leaves.  This was the last exhibit that Theresa and I saw before we left the museum.  This was another memory void, but this one was different from the rest because artist Menashe Kadishman covered the floor with over 10,000 iron faces to symbolize the irretrievable loss of the Jews murdered in Europe.  10,000ish identical faces on the floor.  12,000,000 beautiful and unique lives lost.  Each with a story.  Each with a promising future that was forcibly ended.  How can we best remember so that history can stop repeating itself?








After the museum, Theresa and I ate a delicious lunch of bread, cheese, chocolate, and wine in a park.  For the next few hours, we slowly wandered back to our hostel, purposely getting lost in the streets of Berlin just so we could see whatever we could see.  We ended up walking by the cathedral which, as you can see from this picture, is gigantic.






We went back to the hostel to relax and freshen up before dinner.  We played some UNO, did some journaling, and I continued to read my book.  Because we followed Rick Steves' advice the night before for dinner and he did not lead us astray, we thought we would take his advice again.  This time, he recommended a Turkish restaurant that seemed to be pretty close to our hostel.  Per usual, we couldn't find it and just when Theresa and I turned to each other to announce our defeat, I turned to my right to realizde that we were standing directly in front of the archway that led us down an alley to the Turkish restaurant of our dreams.  We split and incredible humus appetizer and a lamb kebab and rice main entree.  It was my first time eating lamb and it was incredible.  I'm sure I feel asleep with a smile upon my face that night.

Second Full Day:

New coffee shop, same routine; coffee, baked goods, planning.



Our first stop was the historic Brandenburg Gate.  It was a ginormous structure with an even more ginormous history.  The chariot on top holds the goddess of peace, but when Hitler came to power in Germany, he distorted the goddess as a symbol of peace she became viewed as the goddess of victory.  This interpretation remained for many decades as the Berlin Wall was built feet away from the Gate.  Today however, the focus on peace has returned to the Brandenburg Gate.  While visiting, Theresa and I stumbled upon a non-denominational Room of Silence tucked inside the Gate.  According to the informational brochure that I received, the Room of Silence was created after Germany’s reunification in 1990 “in the center of Berlin near the former frontier between opposing military forces and hostile ideologies.”  We sat together in silence praying for healing and peace for a world where there are so many divisions and injustices.

The Room of Silence

From the Brandenburg Gate, we walked a couple of blocks to the Memorial for the Murdered Jew of Europe.  This was another difficult and challenging experience.  The memorial consists an entire city block of over 2,700 columns of different heights, evenly spaced over a hilly surface.  Theresa did the math and determined that to have one pillar for every murdered Jew, there would need to be 44 square miles of pillars.  It's hard to wrap my mind around the extraordinary loss of human lives.

After the memorial, Theresa and I found our way to a beautiful plaza with two cathedrals: a French one and a German one.  Neither of us could figure out why they were called Cathedrals because bishops were never actually seated at either, but they had extremely impressive exteriors.  To our disappointment however, the interiors of both were unimpressive.  The French cathedral just had a small chapel with minimal decoration and the German cathedral had been transformed into a museum for the Parliament.  Everything was in German, so we literally walked in, made a quick circle around the first floor, and walked out.  Our disappointment quickly faded however because just across the street from the plaza was a big, famous chocolate store called Fassbender & Rausch.



We bought a box of truffles to share and we walked back over to the German "cathedral" to sit on the grass, enjoy the beautiful day, and destroy our chocolates.  There are many reasons why I think Theresa and I are compatible in friendship, but if I were to make a list of the reasons why, reason number 1 would be that she loves dark chocolate and I love white chocolate.  Reason number 2 would be that we can talk about anything, anywhere, whenever.  And that's exactly what happened.  For nearly two hours, we laid in the grass and talked about life.  She's such a beautiful soul and I am so blessed to walk this journey of life with her by
my side.  LOVE YOU!



That night, we once again used our Rick Steves book to find a restaurant for dinner.  Could it be a trifecta of great dinner places in Berlin!?  Nope.  For the first time during the whole trip, our trusted travel companion let us down.  It instructed us to just walk around the "cool" neighborhood and pick out one of the many restaurants that it assured us would be there.  We walked up the main street of the neighborhood...nothing.  We turned right and walked down a side street in the neighborhood...nothing.  Whatever cool/trendy restaurants the book thought were there, were not there (or at least Theresa and I couldn't find them.)  We ended up at a small, very American restaurant called Muse, which definitely did have a very hipster atmosphere.  There, I learned the painful lesson that water is not free in Europe.  I was so thirsty from walking around looking for a restaurant that I quickly downed two glasses of water...for 4 euros!

After our meal, we took a tram back to the hostel to get some good sleep before our early morning train back to Kandern.

THE END.  Thanks for reading this blog post-turned-novel.  I'm slowly catching back up!  Soon I'll post one about Switzerland and France and then I'll finally get to Madrid!

Peace,
Sarah