Croatian Blizzards

Here I am in Croatia. The past weekend was indubitably one of the strangest on record. My friends Danika and Julia plus two others rented a car and drove from Pula to Split….most of the length of the country. First of, we are in Croatia at a truly bizarre time of year. Everyone we talk to is utterly perplexed at our presence here…and when we say we’re with a study abroad program based in Geneva that doesn’t really clarify the issue. Croatia IS gorgeous but this time of year the weather is highly unpredictable – sometimes you get those postcard blue-sky days but often it’s grey and rainy. And since no tourists are here this time of year none of the

touristy things are open really. I love it.

View of Split from above

I’m enjoying getting a flavor of Eastern Europe. The longer I spend in Europe the more I see the stark Eastern/Western European divide. The European narrative from the Western perspective essentially leaves out the countries and cultures east of Austria. I have heard numerous Europeans have speak of how proud they are of the fact that Europe hasn’t seen a war since World War Two and the increased multilateral diplomacy that came in the aftermath of that devastation. Then they may pause and say, “Well, that’s not counting the Balkans, but that’s different”. Or they don’t even acknowledge/remember the Balkans. In contrast, Eastern Europeans don’t seem to have the luxury to forget Western Europe when they speak of Europe. Typical socioeconomic dynamics.Friday we drive from Pula to Split and got stuck in a blizzard on the main highway (which just opened 3-4 years ago). We were SO lucky to have my friend Danika there who drives stick shift really well and is from Vermont so is used to snow. It was so bizarre. I never thought I’d be driving through a Croatian blizzard. But that’s what happened. We didn’t have the firmest directions to our hostel in Split because I google-mapped it but you can only get so far with little meandering streets and Old Town squares built before there were cars…. So when we got there we bumbled around for a bit and found some friendly cops who helped us along. They entered our address into their GPS and everything… unfortunately the Hostel was called “Hostel Split: Booze and Snooze”. Not what we planned to do but…still a slightly awkward place to talk about with a cop. He laughed at us though so that was nice.

Split is nuts. Croatia is nuts. So much beauty and culture. We saw some thousand year old ruins, wandered up an got fantastic views of the city and drink Croatian coffee… wandered gorgeous markets in a beautiful coastal city. What? How did I get this lucky? It poured for a bit but then cleared up again for a splendid sunset.

We left fairly early on Sunday morning because we wanted to see Plitz Vich National Park – beautiful waterfalls and lakes – in the middle of the country. For a Croatian it’s probably not “on the way” to Pula…. but to us it seemed just dandy. If we thought we were in a blizzard before we were in for an education. When we eventually got to the park there was about 1-2 feet of powder snow in the parking lot and absolutely no one there. The info hut was, however, inexplicably well staffed. We got a little confused and took a path on a stairway/bridge over the road that was in three feet of snow… so dumb, so hilarious. We got to the other side of road and realized we could have just, you know, walked across the road that gets a car every fifteen minutes or so. All the staff in the inexplicably well-staffed info hut laughed quite unabashedly at us and told us we were free to look at the viewpoint but they weren’t going to charge us because we couldn’t see anything. UMMM false. Danika and I romped around in the snow and saw winter beauty crazier than I could have imagined. Words don’t do justice. The photo below is in color, not black and white....

The NEXT blizzard was even more bizarre and extreme. Danika is unbelievable, seriously. SO MUCH DRIVING. We sat still on the Croatian highway for three hours in a blizzard because some stupid cars blocked the highway. Croatian drivers were pretty unnecessarily rude. A lot of cutting each other off and honking when there are no lanes and no one is moving fast than 10 km/hour anyway…. Luckily Danika doesn’t have road rage and she DOES have common sense and a desire to stay alive and in one piece so we let the cars pass and hang out ten feet in front of us. With plenty of car games and stories we made it back…. at 12:30 after having left at 8:45. Danika is a TANK!

Today I walked along the Croatian coast with the waves CRASHING and blinding sunlight. SUPER windy and a little cold – so beautiful. Quite an impressive storm. I love oceans.

LOVE to you all!

Bye bye Geneva :(

I am in Croatia. At a resort on the beach. This is a major – WHAT is going on with my life situation. As I think I mentioned at the start of my blog we got deported after 90 days in Switzerland because it is in the schengen visa zone and our program was unable to get student visas since SIT is not run through one specific university. SO – off we go to Croatia because it’s the closest place not in the schengen zones. As a side note – the various intersections of European supranational bodies are remarkably complex… the closest I’ve come to understanding the way it all fits together is with the help of this diagram:


I’d like to bid a little farewell to Suisse! I had a fantastic time in that beautiful country – the last couple of weeks predictably went by far too quickly so there is far too much I could say at this point.

Alice as a Diplomat!
In the past week I had the chance to meet with diplomats from South Africa, Mexico, the UK, and Egypt. I also have a phone interview scheduled with the highest-ranking diplomat from South Korea in New York. I am still surprised that I managed to finagle this interviews… all of these countries have a strategic interest in the debate surrounding Security Council reform and all were able to give me wildly different perspectives on the debate. I spoke with Counsellor Combrink, the South African representative on disarmament for three hours! He was insightful beyond belief and willing to have a real dialogue with me. Overall I was continually impressed with the respect shown me by these diplomats. I had coffee with the highest-ranking diplomat from the UK! What? It gave me a surge of optimism about international relations… I’m not suggesting that my experience indicates that all diplomats everywhere are actively listening to each other and willing to collaborate it was encouraging to find that the kind of people holding these important positions were interested in talking to a random American student just because they are interested in the topic and willing to share their expertise. I had to be security checked at the UK Mission! On my way out I overheard a man say something along the lines of, “Have you spoken to France in regards to the upcoming Security Council decision?” That was surreal.

My Swiss contradictions:
• I love chaos, the Swiss love order and stability
• I love unpredictability and spontaneity, the Swiss positively THRIVE off creating a good, solid plan
• My host mom once told me that unless I cleaned the drain in a certain way (specific soap/rag/water combo that had been totally out of my cleaning league) I was never going to find love.
• I don’t like worrying and complaining about details… that was one of my host family’s favorite activities
• I am against stress, my host family was always fairly edgy/stressed about time, cleanliness, plans, etc…

I am going to miss the clear blue skies and mountains everywhere – even though the northwest will always be paradise to me there is an unrivaled beauty going on in Switzerland. The cheese, chocolate and wine… I’m sure I’ll return a snob after this trip! I also am so used to eating cheese – I hadn’t really thought about it but it’s now totally normal for me to have a small block of cheese as a snack or dessert after dinner. I doubt my college budget will support that sort of behavior.

As sad as I am to say goodbye, I am also glad to be connected to another part of the world. I’ve heard people say “travel makes your world bigger” but had never fully interpreted that phrase for myself until now. I agree. My world gets bigger every time I drop roots in another part of the globe. I care deeply about South Asia – to me the people there are real, vital beings. They aren’t news. I now feel an affinity for Switzerland specifically and even Europe generally – especially in relation to politics.

I love you all and I’m getting excited about the upcoming weeks in Croatia… and then traveling with my DADDY in December! That will be spectacular.

Love to you,
Alice

PRAGUE!

Prague may be my favorite place yet this semester. It is simultaneously gorgeous and gritty. Rare combination indeed. Like Vienna the enchanting streets go on and on and on – people live in work in buildings that, to me, are veritable works of art. It does not, however, have the money of Austria, emerging as it did from the grip of the Soviet Union after the Cold War. This made it a particularly fascinating border to cross – nothing about the train or natural landscape changes, but immediately one can observe more potholes, less efficiency, crumbling structures, less industry. Government and money matter! (In contrast, I had to be told by the train conductor when we crossed back into Switzerland from Austria. About the only difference was a slight increase in those typically Swiss window shutters…and yes the Swiss are more on time than anyone else, but one can hardly fault the Austrians for that.)

I have rarely been to a place as saturated in completely divergent histories as Prague. Ancient and powerful Prague and the modern Prague devastated by communism and revived by activism are layered over each other wherever you look. Danika and I started our first day in Prague with a confused wander through town… definitionof winding, confusing streets – the squares either extend further than you expect or are dotted with random buildings splitting them down the middle, further turning you around.It wasa great place to be lost. We spent some time in St. Wenceslas Square, the site of much activism in 1968 Prague spring and the 1989 Velvet Revolution towards shedding the yoke of oppression. Eventually we reached our target – the Museum of Communism. WOW. Truly well done exhibit replete with video footage of the Velvet Revolution and Prague Spring, speeches by communist figures and dissidents who held power between 1945 and 1989. Also plenty of interesting artifacts and signs for history nerds to read (in six languages, obviously).

Here comes the RANDOM. We went on a segway tour. It was hilarious – I mean, how could we take it seriously, right? But actually quite informative! A great way to see a bunch of the city without getting lost for a change. We zoomed around the Jewish quarter, up to the highest lookout point, over to the ancient Prague Castle, around the Charles bridge area, and all around the Old Town. I couldn’t stop laughing, it was fantastic. Danika and I even reenacted “Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway” – it’s a Youtube video… Highlight = I tried to twirl around too quickly on my segway at very low speed and… I fell off. In front of the house of the President of the Czech Republic. WIN. The sun set in the middle of our segway tour so we were able to watch the city light up from above:

The river picture on the right is a morning run along the Danube! Love having my jock friend to travel with.

Another Prague highlight was certainly the

Prague Castle which we explored in full the next day….. super! History nerd that I am, I thoroughly enjoyed the audio guide, one of the more in depth I’ve ever listened to. Beautiful Prague Views! Later we got a drink at a restaurant just to have the excuse to go down the narrowest road in Prague, which leads to it.

Prague was fantastic. I definitely want to return at some point in my life. I’m now in the middle of wrapping up my final research paper so a bit busy…. I will be better about blogging once I get through the paper J

Welcome to Ostrich (part one)

I was just traveling through Austria and the Czech Republic for over a week with my awesome friend Danika (of the bollywood dance on the Eiffel Tower and amazing weekend hiking in the Alps). Kelvin of Lakeside joined us for the first half of Salzburg/Vienna! The title of this blog post comes from the fact that Danika kept telling her host mom that she was really excited to go to Ostrich… the French word for Austria is Autriche….ostrich is autruche. Shoot. I can’t possibly fit SalzburgViennaPragueInnsbruck all in one post so I’m going to do this in installments.

Abnormal Tourism Hours: Salzburg

Kelvin determined that we experienced Salzburg in12 phases… just go with it, I’ll explain.

1. The overnight: We wanted to stop in Salzburg and we wanted to take an overnight train to save time/money sooooo that meant that we trained from Zurich to Salzburg Haupbanhof (train station, get used to it, I find German endlessly amusing) from 11:00pm to 4:12 am. Sweet! My compartment-mates included an incredibly earnest Chinese guy who spoke English and German and a Macedonian man who thought I understood German. No matter of blank stares and “no sphreichens” could convince him otherwise. Then he chugged red bull just before we turned to lights off.

2. Delirious Indecision: We get off the train at 4:12. We follow signs for the Salzburg Congress thinking it might be pretty and lit up at night. It is an average office building. We proceed to pathetically meander through a park scouting nap spots. Eventually we decide that before we give in and sleep in public we should catch a peak at the river. I call our hostel and determine that check-in time is 5 hours in the future….”See you THEN!!!” I tell the tired Austrian man, a little too enthusiastically.

3. Church Nap Time and the Creepiest Graveyard Ever: We found the river! And all the pretty buildings. Danika had the bright idea to try to get into the massive cathedral called Erzabtei St. Peter and lo and behold it was open! Awe-inspiring in the pre-dawn darkness. If you know much about me you know that I LOVE hanging out in beautiful cathedrals so I was having a grand old time. Everyone else slept. Kelvin reported some of his most vivid dreams in months! We then decided to head up the hill to get a view of Salzburg for sunrise. This decision took us through one of the creepier places any of us had ever seen. I recognized it right away! The graveyard that inspired graveyard where the Von Trapp family hid from the Nazis and Rolf saw them. So I guess seeing it 6:30 am in complete darkness was true to form… On the right you'll find Kelvin deep in slee - I mean prayer.

4. The Largest Fortress in Europe: Clearly no one was at the ticket counter so we just stumbled into the largest fortress in Europe, up quite a solid hill… turns out it was one of the best views I’ve ever seen! ALPS. Adorable Austrian Salzburg in the foreground and ALPS ALPS ALPS in the background. It was frigid so we swaddled ourselves in every available article of clothing and huddled penguin style… of course Kelvin and I sang the Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music. Except, problem – those are not HILLS, excuse me. They are ALPS.

5. Church nap 2 and Horse pictures: Another round of napping in a (different) epic cathedral. We then started to try to move towards breakfast but literally made it no further than ten yards at a time without getting distracted – mostly by taking pictures of horses from various angles but also of Austrian cow bells on sale, a sculpture of a man standing on a giant gold ball and a man who insisted on giving Kelvin a mystery morning pick-me-up beverage.

6. Breakfast: After collapsing into the first breakfast establishment we found we began to systematically terrorize the wait staff and other patrons. No intentionally! We could hardly be help responsible for our actions at that point. It took a REALLY long time to feed ourselves… we composed some rather revealing poems:

Two hours I slept

Before the hills were alive

Kelvin and I sang

Macedonia

Fell asleep in my breakfast

As cold as penguins

Walk ten steps then stop

Lost control of our fingers

Pictures of horses

For a complete compilation, inquire to the artist! (me….)

7. Nap time! Finally got into the hostel, glorious sleep (except Kelvin, weirdo). Sadly things got a little less funny after this since we weren’t delirious. But it was also nice that I no longer felt like a shell of a human wandering the dark streets of Salzburg.

8. Sound of music musical recreations: Normal tourism hours! How dull. Just kidding, I skipped through the trellis where Maria and the children run around singing “Do a Deer” and squealing with delight. Kelvin and I had plenty more musical reenacting to do… Stay tuned for a compilation video.

9. Mozart! Highly recommended Mozart museum – his adolescent household filled with artifacts, pianos he played on, lots of music on the audio guide, and – as seems to be the case all over Europe – an interactive audiovisual spectacular.

10. Trespassing on Sound of Music Properties: We saw the nunnery! Didn’t actually trespass there but stood at the gate and wandered around the outside, sang a little How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria and looked at some more Alps. The Sound of Music family compound in the movie is actually a compilation of two houses in Salzburg – we saw the one that includes the house and the lake: We then realized we weren’t strictly speaking welcome there (the gate had been so pleasantly open!) so we hid behind some bushes and watched the sunset over the lake. I’m fairly certain I saw Maria’s room from the outside! I certainly saw the place from which Rolf threw rocks at the window J

11. Bach concert: Impressive Cello concert. Very well attended by locals…. We learned about it while hanging out in the first nap-cathedral of the day. Kelvin's friend who was traveling with us knows a lot about classical music so offered some colored commentary before and after.

12. Dinner: Weiner Schnitzel and a traditional Austrian Beer! Our roommates were fairly confused by our schedule:

Tourism 4am – noon

Sleep 12 – 2:30

Tourism 2:30 – 10:30 pm

Sleep 10:30 pm – 6:30 am (up for another train…to Vienna! Stay tuned)