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)

The Swiss Life

Here's a short compilation of some videos I've taken around the house in Switzerland! Hope you enjoy. My host parents got a little camera shy which prevented them from being as extreeeemely talkative as they usually are but I think you'll get a little sense of them :)

Above = me and some friends about to each fondue in a Chalet....isn't my life tragic?

I'm done with all my scheduled classes now so I have a lot of unstructured time! Yesterday I spent all afternoon in the UN library finding sources for my research project. Today I'm in Geneva working in a cafe with my friend Dan. It's been incredibly windy today and yesterday in Geneva so the Lac Leman is quite in a stir! I went to the top of the Cathedral Saint Pierre this morning and the views were unbelievable - you can see all of Geneva, the lake, the Jura mountains in the distance on one side and the Alps on the other. Talk about picturesque.

The hike down from the Chalet where we had out fondue! Snow!!! One of my friends on the hike had never been in falling snow before - he's from Texas. I took SO many pictures of him dancing about in the snow.

This past Sunday I went on a gorgeous little hike with some friends in the Jura Alps to the West of Geneva/Lac Leman. It started to snow in the middle and it was SO BEAUTIFUL.

Bongiorno Cinque Terre

Unbelievable weekend. I left early Friday morning for Cinque Terre (five gorgeous fishing villages connected by footpath along the northwestern coast of Italy just south of Genova. This was another trip with Kelvin Bates from Lakeside and a couple of his friends – we realized that we seem to have a tendency to go to Italian speaking places together! Although with Italy itself and Ticino, Switzerland we may have already exhausted our options…

I would like to THANK MY MOM for encouraging to go on this jaunt. I have the research paper about the legacy of Calvinism due on Monday and a big test later this week. I was going to have out and study in Geneva but when I talked to my mom on the phone she said – and I quote – “work shmerk!”. I was quite diligent last week getting all my interviews and research done before I left and I’m SO GLAD that I minded my mother and made it to Italy!

Making friends with an Italian Magician

First off, I love trains. They’re pricey, but part of the joy! I did work all during the Geneva-Milano train but on the train from Milano to Cinque Terre I had an unbelievable time making friends with Italians. Have I mentioned how much I love random encounters of people? Well this certainly qualified.

Kelvin and my other friends were in a different compartment because we made our reservations separately, but I didn’t mind at all because I find that trains can be a really fun way to make friends. (Note – the border crossing into Italy was literally just two Italian policemen glancing at our passports. They saw I was American and hardly even opened it but they examined every page of the passports of the two Russian ladies next to me…). Anywho – my Italian train compartment was me, a middle aged lady, and a guy in his mid/late twenties. We got to talking because I ordered a little espresso from the train man and they looked really worried. After a moment he blurted out – “Please do not judge the Italian coffee from this coffee! This is the train coffee!” From there I saw that the guy was reading an English book so I asked him about it…. turns out he’s trying to learn English for – wait for it – his Magic career.

Yes, I shared my train compartment with the official magician for the Italian branch of the Kinder Chocolate company. He does magic shows for kids all over Italy and even on TV sometimes! He was incredibly warm and kind and basically facilitated a conversation between the three of us because the lady didn’t speak any English. I could follow the gist of very basica conversation because it’s so similar to Spanish. They wanted to tell me all about the right foods to eat in Cinque Terre (seafood of course, a special kind of noodle made with pounded chestnuts, a pizza that involves chickpeas, ficcacia bread – this is where it comes from, and pesto – this is the homeland of pesto!!!). They also explained that though both of them live in the north now, they have “Southern Italy in their hearts”. The young guy, Scizzo, went, “I am from Sicilia, bang-bang Mafia, you know?” Yes… I have heard of the Mafia. In the 1940s many Southern Italians moved north for jobs and remain to this day but still maintain their separate identity. They explained to me that the reason they wanted to make friends with me is because they have Southern Italy in their hearts so they are warm and loving (yay stereotypes!). The lady told us all about her life – she was really amazing. She lost her husband when she was fairly young with a small daughter who is about my age now but has some health problems.... but she has a very warm view on life. In just a three hour train ride she gained quite a fondness for me – she wanted my address in Geneva to send me postcards from her hometown. Then she gave me a bracelet that she had in her purse – so I gave her a pair of earrings that I made last year at Whitman. This is really my favorite bit of traveling – meeting people, exchanging ideas. The other favorite travel experience would be seeing beautiful things…. which is basically all of Cinque Terre so I was in luck!

Cinque Terre!

You never thought I’d get to the five seaside villages, did you? We got to Riomaggiore in the mid afternoon – time enough to check into an AWESOME private apartment for the five of us that was cheaper than communal hostels in Switzerland….oh Switzerland and your devilishly strong currency. The villages are built into little valleys leading to the sea, so the houses are all jumbled on top of each other which makes an artistic array of angles. An artisit must have designed these villages – the building are all painted warm shades of yellow, pink, and orange and the occasional purple with green or amber or some other lovely color windows…. then there are the sandstone or peach churches, bright blue water, lush green hills, and sheer cliffs into the Sea. SO ugly. We wandered into a church service and around the beautiful town, had an Italian coffee overlooking the Sea, and later a divine meal. That night we went down to the beach and Kelvin and I swam in the Mediterranean Sea! It wasn’t too cold but apparently only the Pacific North Westerners could muster it J. Beautiful moonlight, gentle rocking Sea….wow.

On Saturday we hiked between the towns and took in some more beauty, and of course, local cuisine. Gelato! Ficcacia bread! Interesting spinach-egg – pizza-like thing! At points it felt like the jungle… there are palm trees and cacti all over the place. An extremely mercurial climate. Pictures are really the only way to describe it, so:

It started to rain in the afternoon….and rain HARD. But even that gave a different kind of beauty to the landscape. So we were soaked and had to get another Italian Cappucino to recoup. That night after we’d finally warmed up and the rain had let up we took a jaunt down the pathway that connects Riomaggiore (where we stayed) with Manarola. It’s called “Via delle Amore” – pathway of love – because it was the first path between any of the villages – built just before WW1. It opened up all sorts of social and romantic possibilities for the young people of the two towns. Before that everyone had only ever married people from their tiny villages. A tradition began of meeting along the pathway and fastening a lock with you sweetheart in, as Rick Steves describes it in his guidebook, “a lovey-dovey spot”. People still do it so the path looks like a modern-art display in spots.

I’m not in Levanto waiting for my train to Milano. It’s almost an hour late…that’s fine. I’m not in Switzerland anymore! The entire time I’ve been writing this two older men have been playing the slots in this little Train Station café. Something I would NEVER see in Switzerland. The Swiss like their stability. It’s pretty incredible how different two nations that share a huge border like this can be. And I’m in Northern Italy!

Life, life, you are fascinating. So once again, a thanks to my marvelous mommy who encouraged me to go on this jaunt. And a shout out to Mae Rice who LOVES Italy. I can’t wait for you to explore here, you will love it in person as much as in concept.

Things about me that I contemplated a lot this weekend:

1. I need to live near the ocean

2. I need to have a dog in my life

3. I love chaos and adventure but above all I prefer the comfort of home

I hade a couple hours layover between trains in Milano so I jaunted through town. Mostly wandered around the Duomo for a very long time. Duomo is the fourth largest Cathedral in Europe (after the Cathedrals in Rome, Seville, and London). The Milanese started building it in the 1400s…and completed construction in 1810. They wanted to get some respect from the Italians down South in the Vatican….they certainly put in the time! And it shows. The Cathedral just keeps going. It was built to hold 40,000 people – the population of Milan when construction started. Breathtaking. I then wandered around the Galleria where there are a bunch of incredibly famous Milanese fashion stores like Prada…. for a mall it’s gorgeous. For anything it’s gorgeous, actually. I thought I was headed for a museum but I was going the exact wrong direction so instead I bought a cheap street snack that tasted sort of like a nut but also seemed like a fruit…. and talked to the old men hanging out at the stand in Italian for a while. Communication was minimal but good intentions were maximal.

Love! Arreviderci!

~Alice

Reveling in the Random!

Hello friends. As you likely know I'm a fairly open and outgoing person. This often results in me making friends in the most unlikely places. Switzerland is SUCH a fantastic place for this because it's so, so SAFE here. Don't worry, "je fais attention!" - I'm careful - but I've got to recount some recent friends I've made.

Last Thursday I took the tram across town to visit the Cathedral Saint-Pierre (the church where Jean Calvin preached). I was also visiting the fantastic International Museum of the Reformation which is right next door. I highly recommend this museum to anyone visiting Geneva - not only are there some fascinating artifacts, but every guest gets the recorded guide - in English or almost any other language as you please - and they do a fantastic job of tying the whole history together. THere are two interactive audiovisual performances. I think I've said this before - the Swiss are DOWN for interactive audiovisuals... it's pretty hilarious. ANYWAY! As I believe I mentioned before I met an elderly lady on the bus on the way there and we chattered away in French for ten fifteen minutes. She gave me her name and number and insisted I call her for a tour of the area at some point. Well I did, of course, and it was unbelievable!

This lady is a kook in the best way. She's from Bretagne but has lived in Geneva for 50 years. She collects all sorts of little "truks" - things - and is pleasantly disorganized. After hanging out with unbelievably regimented Swiss people for a month and a half it was really fun to laugh with her about how we both find them absurd. She made me a magnificent chicken dish, vegetable pure, great red wine and an apple tart. She wanted to hear ALL about my family and studies etcetera. Then she took me to Le Chateau de Madame Staul in Coppet - near her home. Madame Staul was a revolutionary thinker of her time - she was completely opposed to Napoleon's tyrannical philosophy and managed to keep her Barony out of his control. The tour was just us two and another older lady.

So of course I made friends with her too. I'm doing a project on the legacy of John Calvin in Geneva... and I struck up a conversation with her about Protestantism - she's Calvinist. So we shared a coffee and talked Calvinism for an hour! I love older people. They are so rich with life.

The final older person that I have befriended lately was a Pastor... I called him because I found a course online about Protestantism that I thought I could sit in on.... Turns out it's a two year cycle. And spealing a foreign language on the phone is much more difficult than in person so it was quite awkward. After all that I just straight up asked him for an interview and he's like, "Oh! Okay!" Before we hung up he said, "So for you can know to me I am an old, fat man. Actually I am very huge." He was such a sweet person. And he had some fantastic insights - about the origins of Geneva as an international city stemming from it's history of welcoming Protestant refugees from all over Europe - particularly France (Hugenots), Spain, Italy, the Balkans. It was the ONLY place in Latin Europe where people could freely worship and study Protestantism. Even John Knox, founder of Presbyterianism, came to Geneva to study! It was THE center of learning. That's also in part because Calvin insisted on universal primary education. Truly universal - for girls too! THAT was a step ahead of the times. His motivation was that he believed all people should be able to read so they could study the Bible and thus have a direct relationship with God and not rely on others to translate God's message. The result was that Geneva grew and grew as an intellectual powerhouse. Voltaire came here when he was expelled from Paris and of course Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a native Genevois.

Geneva was a nothing town before Calvin - fewer than 10,000 people lived here and it was very, very poor. With the unifying influence of Calvin and Reform Christianity people flocked to the city - it more than doubled in population in ten of Jean Calvin's first years here. Additionally because Geneva is located in the heart of Europe - at the Cross-roads both of north and south and east/central and west - almost all flows of religious refugees naturally stopped through Geneva for a time even if they continued on because there wasn't room for them. Thus the influence of Calvinism spread north through the Swiss cities of Lausanne, Neuchatel, Biel, Berne, Basel and into Germany all the way to Berlin! Geneva obviously remains an international city to this day! Like I know I've said before nearly half of the citizens of Geneva proper are not Swiss. It is still a city of compromise, thought, and multiculturalism...

Of course the migration patterns how changed considerably... but that's something to talk about another time. We also talked quite a bit about how the actual religious doctrine preached by the Reform Church has changed over the centuries. I think I'll hold off on talking about that until I know more. It was particularly intriguing to me because my family is Presbyterian and Lutheran so the Reformation is a part of my history - it's always exciting to feel such a connection to a place, to know that a place shaped your family's history and culture.

A tout a l'heure! Must do some homework now. Love to you all,

~Alice

Yodeling and handicrafts

This week my friend and I decided that we wanted to go to a Swiss folk festival. So we looked online on "myswitzerland.com" and found a festival. And thus began a wonderfully random trip to Kleine Scheidegg in the Bernese Oberland. I'm fairly certain we were the only people who came to Kleine Scheidegg expressly for the festival. Kleine Scheidegg (yup, I like repeating that word) is at about 2900 meters (my ears are still in pain...) and there are beautiful alps all around. And we had an odd native dish involving pasta, beef, apple sauce, and fried/dried onions... super good. The lady in the video below let me try to make lace - not on the one she was working on obviously - but she had a little "starter" lace set up that I learned on. Funnnn. After soaking up the festival we went on a nice little hike towards the Alps.

Now I have a lot of homework to do. Yes, I do have that too! I AM still in school :)

Suisse-land again

I feel like every time I update the blog there’s always some huge “must-blog” event or trip that’s taken place. So I wanted to take the time to talk about “normal” life for me here – my studies, my neighborhood, French!, and Swiss culture in general!

French!

Well let me just go ahead and brag to start this off – I have improved SO MUCH at French in the past month and a half. I have come from haltingly stringing words together to full-fledged conversations with native speakers! Today I took the city-tram to Geneva Old Town to go visit Saint-Peter’s Cathedral and the International Museum of the Reformation. I asked a sweet looking old lady on the bus which stop I should get off. We proceeded to have a real conversation for 10-15 minutes! She even spoke English but we stayed in French because my French was good enough and I told her I’d prefer that. She was so concerned about me – wanted me to really love Switzerland – so she’s invited me over for coffee at her house so she can give me a tour of the Roman Ruins near her house. Wonderful moment. Then at the Museum I spoke with the curator about the reformation! It as exciting to be able to express myself about things besides “I’ve like to order a crepe” or “one ticket to Bellinzona, please”. The reformation quite beats those topics for interest and complexity. Which brings me to the next topic….

School!

Everyone in my program must complete a “culture drop off” which translates to – short report on some issue related to Swiss culture. I have chosen to write about the legacy of John Calvin in Geneva today. Is his message still alive? Where to we see it? How do the actual people of Geneva perceive him, his teachings, and their place in the history of Protestantism. I’m enjoying it thus far! Being raised Lutheran/Prebyterian I already know quite a bit about the Reformation but learning about it in Calvinism’s birthplace is a whole new thing altogether. More later once I actually have my interviews…

The SIT seminar:

The seminars we’ve had with SIT have been often fabulous but also sometimes awful. On the whole I feel that I have learned A LOT – some of it via observing the various biases of our lecturers. I knew precious little about European politics and WOW has this been an education in that! Though the stereotype goes that Americans are ignorant about international affairs, I have personally found that Europeans are fairly ignorant about international affairs that aren’t European. Yes, they are inherently more geopolitically connected with the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.... but I’ve personally found that Euro-centrism is possibly even stronger than American-centrism. In some cases we students have felt that Swiss lecturers have talked down to us as Americans, which is deeply frustrating.

The subjects our “briefings” have covered include a huge range: Geopolitics, International Security, conflict management and peacekeeping, UN humanitarian work (briefings at the UN with UNAIDS, UN High Commission for Human Rights, etc.), European integration, how the EU works/flounders, European trade and economics, US-European trade relations, International political economy, Swiss politics, French politics. It’s fascinating stuff! And given that I had no international relations background…. I have had a lot to learn. Some of the other students have complained that some of the lectures are far too rudimentary. I frankly agree with them given the potential high level of discussion we could have about the same subjects – but this hasn’t negatively affected me as much as other students since I knew so little to begin with.

Travel Buggin!

I am LOVING how centrally located Geneva is. Last weekend I was in Paris, this weekend – tomorrow! – I’m going back to the Alps with a friend. There’s a folk festival in Interlaken called “Interfolken” I mean…. I can’t say no to that! It’s in the German bit of Suisse. Schweiz I should say J. Then next weekend I’m planning to go to Italy! I am very aware that this is an exceptionally special time of my life to be able to pack up and go like this. So many other travel plans to unfold in the coming months…!

For now, a bien tot! Miss you, family and friends. Sorry if I’m not keeping in personal touch as well as I should. I’m quite busy but I love and miss you lots and am very excited to see you again.