EuroTrip, 2k11 (and 2k12)!!!

January 9, 2012

Well, Christmas break is over. It was 2 ½ weeks, but it felt like a lot less than that. As I mentioned already, I went to Germany, Czech Republic, France, and we even found some time to swing down to Austria. Here are the details of my trip:

I left on Friday, December 16^th, from Prishtina, in the afternoon. I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany around 6 or 7 pm, where I met my friends Blake and Andrea. They both taught at my former school in Guatemala. I told them that if they came to Europe for their Christmas break, that I would meet them wherever they wanted to. Andrea really didn’t mind where we went, and Blake said Germany would be cool, so that’s where most of our trip revolved around. They had arrived earlier that day, so I just met them at the hostel.

I didn’t know much about Frankfurt, but my fellow social studies teacher at ASK here, Scott, told me that it’s a pretty boring town. He was right. Saturday morning we got up and walked around town. We soon realized that Frankfurt is neat, but it’s not a city that we’d want to spend more than a day or 2 in. The three of us decided that we would leave tomorrow (Sunday) and that way we’d get an extra day in Berlin, a place where there surely were more things to do. One of the nice things we saw in Frankfurt was a really neat Christmas market. There were Christmas markets in EVERY city we went to. They usually are little shops set up that sell food, drinks (LOTS of beer and gluewein (pronounced “glue vine”) gifts, and other various things that you’d find at shops). Some of these markets even had rides like at a fair. Oh, and gluewein is a popular hot wine that we saw in almost every city we went to. We had a few cups of it, and it was pretty good—especially at warming us up in the cold German winter.

We basically just walked around town all day, and soon realized that there really isn’t much to do here. We saw the big “Euro” sign, because the European Central Bank is there, which is the headquarters of the Euro. For those of you that have been living in a cave the last year, the Euro isn’t doing so well right now. There was a “Occupy Frankfurt” thing going on there, with about 50 tents or so set up right next to the big Euro sign out in front of the ECB building. That was kind of interesting to see. There was a neat church there too.

So we hopped on a train early on Sunday morning and headed to Berlin. I think that ride was only like 4 or 5 hours—can’t remember exactly, since we went on so many train rides. But the train ride was really cool! We had to buy our EURail pass for first class, since we’re all over 25 years old, but that was ok, since 1^st class was almost completely empty every time we were on a train.

The EURail pass can be used for any train in the select countries we picked (Germany, Czech, and France). It was about $400 for each of us, which may sound like a lot, but when you consider that some of the single train rides are over 100 euro (roughly $130), and we rode on 5 trains, we got a pretty good deal. Plus, we didn’t have to reserve any trains (well, one…), and we could ride on ANY train in the country. There are trains coming and going all the time from each city. That was one thing that was really cool in Germany—the train stations. I have never seen anything like them. They reminded me of a huge football stadium, because they all had huge dome-like ceilings. They all had restaurants and stores, and one we went to even had a mall attached to it. Anyway, we might have been able to save money if we reserved all of our trains in advance, but this way we could come and go whenever we wanted to. Plus, we could ride as many trains in one day as we wanted. Our ticket was good for any 5 days within 2 months, and since we were planning on taking 5 trips, it was perfect.

So back to the story… we arrived in Berlin and went walking around that first afternoon. We usually picked hostels or hotels that were close to the city center and that were less than 25-30 bucks per person. Most of the places we stayed during our trip were 3-4 person rooms, so it was nice to have some privacy. We went and visited the DDR Museum once we got there. No, not the “Dance Dance Revolution” museum. DDR stands for Deutschland Democratic Republic, or German Democratic Republic. This was the name of Germany between 1945 and 1989, when the Soviets had control of it and made it Communist.

Quick history lesson: after WWII, the allies decided to divide Germany up into 4 parts among the 4 major countries that won the war, and each country would control a part, putting their own type of government into power there. The US, France, and Britain all control parts in Western Germany and made them capitalist/democratic, while the USSR took control of the Eastern part, and of course, made it communist. They did the same thing to Berlin, since Berlin was the main industrial and economic city in Germany. So Berlin was divided into 4 parts, with only the Soviet part becoming communist. Well, after a few years, the US, Britain, and France let their parts govern themselves and essentially they became “Germany” again (at the time it was called Western Germany). The Soviets soon realized that people in their communist part didn’t want to stay there, so they built this little wall around the Western (democratic/capitalist) part of Berlin, as well as put up a wall along the border in the middle part of the country. Anyway, that’s how the Berlin Wall came to be—cuz no one wanted to live in the communist part, so the Soviets tried to keep them in with a wall. More about the wall later.

Anyway, this museum was built to show what it was like living in East Germany during the communist era. Being a communist country, it was a self-sufficient country, meaning that they don’t rely on products or help from other countries (except from other communist countries). Therefore, their culture was much different than the rest of the world—heck, it was even much different than that of West Germany. Music, movies, media, food—you name it, it was limited and controlled by the government. They had only 3 cars to pick from and from what I know, they were all pretty crappy. They had one of these cars there. It was a pretty cool museum since it was interactive, so you could touch everything, and there were a lot of videos and audio samples as well.

I can’t remember what we did each day (and I’m sure none of you really care what each day consisted of), so I’ll just tell you what we did for the 4 days we were in Berlin. One of the days we went on a “Third Reich Tour,” which was Hitler’s Nazi Empire from 1933-1945. It was a walking tour, and it was pretty cold, but we were bundled up pretty good, plus this was probably the best and most interesting thing I did on the entire trip, so I was ok putting up with the cold. We went to so many important places during WWII. We saw the Riechstag, the building that was burnt down and essentially helped put Hitler into power (he said he needed more power to stop the communists from destroying their country—although many  historians believe Hitler was responsible for the fire). We saw the place where Hitler and Goebbels had killed themselves (although the bunker is gone, we stood on the ground where it was located). We saw the place where the men were killed that unsuccessfully plotted to kill Hitler (if you’ve seen the movie “Valkyrie” with Tom Cruise, you know what I’m talking about). We went to a small portion of the Berlin Wall that was still left. Next to it there was a really big (free) museum about WWII. Almost all of the museums about WWII in Germany are free, because they want as many people as possible to see what happened during this terrible time. Some people still get mad at German people today for what Hitler did, but that was like 75 years ago. They DO feel bad about it. And there is nothing they can do about it but inform people about it and hope that it never happens again—which is why they don’t charge to get into the museums. In some places (like Munich), it’s illegal to write a swastika or even to do the Hitler salute, unless they’re for educational purposes.

Another night we went and saw the Brandenburg Gate, a famous gate that used to mark the city walls, and was famous during the cold war when the Berlin Wall was built right next to it. We saw a few churches, a Christmas market, and we went up in the TV Tower one night too, and got a nice view of the city. Another day we went to the Holocaust Memorial—a full city block full of concrete blocks that look like graves or coffins. Quite an interesting and unique memorial. Another day we went to the Jewish Museum. Now, I love history, but this museum was the biggest waste of time and money on this entire trip. Unless you’re Jewish, this museum isn’t really that exciting. I thought most of it would be about the Holocaust, but there was a very small part of it that was. Most of it was just Jewish history stuff. There were things to read about famous Jews, there were object s, clothes, and artifacts that were owned by famous Jews, and there were a few artistic memorials that were dedicated to Jews during the Holocaust. Either way, it was a nice museum, but not interesting for me at all. I think Blake and Andrea felt the same way as I did about this place… but hey, not every place can be interesting, right?

We also went to Checkpoint Charlie, a famous Berlin Wall gate, that once had a very famous standoff between the US and the USSR involving tanks. Other than that, Berlin was really awesome. It’s always fun just to walk around and see stuff, and we did plenty of that in Berlin. We even started eating what has since become Blake’s new favorite food—a doner kabab. You put meat (chicken, beef, etc) in a piece of Turkish flat bread, which is kind of like a big pita, and you add cabbage, lettuce, onions, and any other veggies or spices that you want. They are soooo good! I think on this trip Blake and I must’ve had about 5 or 6 of these things. I see them in Kosova sometimes here and there, but Blake had never seen them.

Anyway, our next city was Prague, but we figured since it was only a 4 hour train ride, we’d stop ½ way in Dresden for a few hours. Dresden was a very beautiful city, and I wish we could’ve spent more time there, but we didn’t even plan on stopping there in the first place, so to see it was just extra anyway. Dresden was a city almost completely destroyed by the Allied bombers during WWII, but now it looks beautiful! There were some really huge churches and a lot of really old looking buildings. While we were there, we went to an old city fort, which I guess was called a “medieval castle.” It was pretty neat. Andrea and I went up to the top of a really huge church and saw the whole city from up there. So then we hopped on the next train and headed to Prague.

We arrived in Prague later that evening (Thursday night I think). We found a hotel there for only like $35 a night. And that was for all 3 of us! So that was really nice, especially since Germany is so darn expensive. Prague was such a wonderful and lively city. First of all, I loved it because it was CHEAP! Beers there were only like 2-3 euro, whereas in Germany it was hard to find a beer under 4 or 5 euro. Even food was cheap in Prague. The city is very confusing, with the downtown having roads that run in all directions, and the buildings are so high that you can’t tell where any big churches or monuments are, so it’s easy to get lost there.

The first night we got there, we walked around town to get a feel for it (like every city). We found a huge statue of Saint Wenceslas, the person that “Good King Wenceslas” is written about. Around his statue there were 1,000’s of candles. The reason why is because one of the Czech Republic’s former leaders had just died a day before we arrived. He was very important in helping Czechoslovakia become democratic, so a lot of people were mourning his death. The funeral was 2 days later, which we tried to see, but we couldn’t really get in or close. We found the road that was closed off for his hearse was supposed to drive down, but we waited awhile by it and it never came, so we gave up. We were in Prague for 3 days, until Christmas day, when we left and went to Munich. Here are some of the highlights of the city:

-Charles Bridge—really cool, old bridge that connect the Old Town and New Town. Has a bunch of statues of famous religious people on it.

-Huge castle—not sure what it was called, but I believe that it’s the largest castle in the world (area-wise). We walked around here, saw some cool medieval weapons and suits of armor, that was about it.

-Torture Museum—coolest thing ever! Tons of crazy stuff here! I felt kind of sick at times after seeing some of these exhibits, but nonetheless, it was pretty interesting to see all these forms of torture

-Astronomical Clock—biggest waste of time to see the “show” here everyday at noon. All we saw was a little owl turn its head and apparently there was a skelton next to the clock that moved too, but I didn’t see it. It was pretty funny seeing 100s of people filming this event that a lot of books will tell you to go see. We didn’t see it on purpose—we were walking by and I asked a lady why there were so many people looking at the clock—she said that it puts on a show everyday at noon. Like I said, huge waste of time.

We also went to the top of a clock tower and saw the entire city. I think I went up on top of a tall structure in every city we went to, except Frankfurt. But that would’ve been a waste of time, since there was nothing there to see anyway.

On New Year’s Eve, I found a church for Andrea to go to (it was even in Spanish), and she found it, but apparently they were having the mass in a different part of the church than where she was, so she missed most of it. Blake and I just sat at a bar and drank a few beers. We even took some shots of absinthe… when I had absinthe about 10 years ago for the first time it seemed to taste a lot better than this shot… yucky! It tasted like tequila and black licorice. Mikey no likely.

When we entered the Czech Republic, you could tell that it was much poorer than Germany. It wasn’t like “Kosova-poor,” but it was significantly worse looking than Germany. When we were in Prague, prices were much cheaper, like I said, but the town was a little bit dirtier than most that we saw in Germany. Either way, it was still a really awesome city, and after Berlin, it was probably my 2^nd favorite city that we visited on our trip.

So on Christmas day we took a train to Munich. Probably the boringest Christmas I’ve ever had. But hey, that’s ok. We arrived in Munich and just hung out at our hostel the rest of the night. I tried to call my family, but they were too busy in the middle of a gift exchange, so they didn’t talk to me. Hey, at least I tried—they can’t be mad at me because I didn’t call them, because I did…

Since the idiot train conductor guy insisted that we were traveling on the 26^th (and not the 25^th), he marked our tickets with a 26, even after we told him it’s the 25^th. What that meant was that we could travel on the 26^th without getting our train ticket stamped again, since he already stamped it. So we decided to take a day trip to this big castle in the Alps near the Austrian border. It took about 2 hours to get there. When we got there, we had to wait in a huge line to buy tickets, then finally when we walked up the hill and go to the castle, we saw that half of the castle had scaffolding around it, which made it quite an eyesore. I was really excited to see this castle since it’s HUGE and the pictures of it are beautiful! It was the same castle that was featured in the Disney movie “Sleeping Beauty.” Also, when we were kids, Laura, Matt and I had a Puzz-3D of this castle, so I knew every nook and cranny of this place. So as we toured it, I knew EVERYTHING about this castle… well not really. And to be honest, the 35-minute tour was a huge waste of time. The best part of being at this castle was just seeing it, in front of the beautiful, snow-covered mountains. The tour was quick (only 35 minutes? C’mon…) and the tour guide was very rude. Also, we couldn’t take pictures on the inside, but that wasn’t a problem since the inside wasn’t really that exciting anyway. We could only see part of the castle anyway. Ah well. So all-in-all, I was a little disappointed by the castle, but it was still neat to be there and see it.

We went back that night and just chilled out in Munich. The next day we went to Dachau, the first concentration camp that Hitler built, in 1933, the year he took power. This wasn’t a death camp, like Auschwitz (probably the most famous camp from the Holocaust), but a work or labor camp. Granted, a lot of the people there were killed eventually, but its goal wasn’t to kill people—it was to get as much work out of them as possible, then kill them. Early on, this camp mainly had people that were against Hitler and communists, but eventually it filled up with Jews. The camp today doesn’t have many of the same buildings left. The barracks that the prisoners lived in were rebuilt to show what the living conditions would look like. The main entrance was still there, along with the shower building, the building where new prisoners would come in, and the crematorium. The crematorium wasn’t used to burn people alive, but to burn all the dead bodies. They didn’t want to take the time to bury them. Ashes are much easier to get rid of. Plus, a lot of the dead people had diseases that could spread very easily, so by burning them they got rid of some of that. There was a gas chamber there, but it wasn’t used for massive killings like you’d think. Eventually it was probably going to be used for massive killings, but it was built closer to 1945, and that’s when the war ended and the camp was liberated. The whole thing was really interesting to be at—to think that 1,000’s of people that might’ve said one bad thing about Hitler were there, or 1,000’s of people that did absolutely nothing wrong, but they had the “wrong” ethnicity according to Hitler. Pretty sad to think about…

Anyway, let’s move on. The next day in Munich we walked around town, got a feel for the city. We even went on a walking tour which kind of turned out to be another “3^rd Reich Tour”—well, most of it was, but that’s ok because Blake and I really liked it. The Nazi party started in Munich, so there were a lot of important events that happened there that we got to see where they took place. We learned all about Hitler’s rise to power and how he became a powerful leader of the Nazi party. We also went to a famous brewhouse, called the Hofbrauhaus. The only served beer there (along with some food) and it was only served in .5 liters or 1 liter mugs. Blake and I had 4 liters each, which is roughly 12 or 13 beers. I was pretty proud of myself. We really didn’t drink much on this trip, so I felt ok going all out one night here, especially in Munich, Germany—this is the beer capital of the world.

We realized that we didn’t have a lot of other stuff that we wanted to do in Munich, and since our stupid Czech train conductor stamped our EU Rail passes with the wrong day, we technically had an extra day. Therefore, we decided to head to Salzburg, Austria. Even though our passes only covered France, Czech Republic, and Germany, since Salzburg is a city right on the border of Germany and Austria, it was ok to travel there. So we did. Unfortunately it was a really rainy and cloudy day though. The pictures make it look like a really beautiful town, but we didn’t really get that impression, because of the clouds. There was a huge castle on this big hill in the middle of town, so we checked that out. We walked around for awhile. Mozart was born in Salzburg and lived most of his life here, so there was Mozart stuff everywhere. Also, the movie “The Sound of Music” takes place in Salzburg, so there was tons of stuff about that there, like “Sound of Music” tours. None of us had seen the movie so we didn’t waste our time on that. We spent about 4-5 hours here, then decided that Salzburg didn’t have much else to offer us. There are some cave hikes in the area, but they were closed for the winter. Also, there’s a gondola that you can ride to the top of a nearby mountain and see the entire countryside, but once again, it was cloudy, so we didn’t waste our time doing that. Just as we left it started to clear up so we could see the snowy white peaks, but unfortunately this was kind of a waste of a trip. I guess in the end I can now say I’ve been to Austria though.

The last night before we left we went to the big soccer stadium in Munich. This was built for the 2006 World Cup, which was hosted by Germany. Today, there are 2 local Munich teams that call this stadium home. You’ll have to see the facebook pictures of it, but it’s pretty neat, because it changes colors from red, to white, to blue, depending on which team is playing there.

We had to kill some more time on Friday night (Dec 30^th), because the only train we could find that went to Paris before New Year’s Eve was a night train, and we had to pay about $30 extra for this. It was ok though, because at least we had a ride to Paris. It left at 11 pm from Munich and arrived in Paris after 9 am. Fortunately, we rented out bunks in a 6-person room. Even though it was pretty crammed in there, I slept for most of the night. The beds were pretty comfortable, and they were plenty long enough so I didn’t have to curl up in order to fit. I was lucky and got the bottom bunk—I felt bad for the Mexican couple that had to sleep on the top, since there was a ladder that you had to climb to get up there, and once you got up there, it wasn’t very easy to get back down. But then after I felt sorry for them, I remember how when we were getting on the train and looking for our compartment, Andrea overheard them talking in Spanish, saying something like “I hope we’re not staying with these stupid….” and I can’t remember the word she used, but it was some sort of derogatory term for an American. Serves them right… I would’ve liked to have seen their faces when they realized that Andrea was from Guatemala and understood every word they said (in the morning they were having some small talk in Spanish, so they definitely realized at that point that Andrea knew Spanish).

We arrived in Paris on New Year’s Eve day. We found our hotel, then walked around the city. We figured the lines at all the tourist places would be huge, so we decided just to check out the Cathedral of Notre Dame. As we were waiting in line there, Blake wasn’t feeling good, so he walked over to the bushes and puked. I didn’t quite see it, but he said there were a lot of people laughing at him. Would’ve been funny to see that. Anyway, Notre Dame was cool—really big inside, but it wasn’t any better than some of the other churches we saw. I’m not really sure why this church gets so much recognition. Anyway, we went back to the hotel and I took a short nap. Blake was still feeling really sick, so he decided not to go out that night. I felt bad for him, especially since this was New Year’s Eve, in PARIS of all places, but he just didn’t feel good. So Andrea and I went out.

We decided to go by the Eiffel Tower, since I had read that there would be some fireworks there. So we went out to eat, then found some beers and champagne, and sat by the tower for about an hour. The crowd was pretty rowdy. There were a lot of people with their own small fireworks, and I’m pretty sure everyone there was drinking. All of a sudden, when it turned midnight, the Eiffel Tower started flashing with many lights. It was neat, but it wasn’t that suspenseful. I was hoping for some sort of countdown, especially since there were 1,000’s of people here. I was also confused as to why there wasn’t a big fireworks show. I later talked to my students about it, and they said they read in the news that for security or safety reasons, they decided not to have a fireworks show. Dang.

Anyway, we left the Eiffel Tower, and went to the Champs-Elysees, one of the most popular shopping streets in all of Europe. On one end of it is the Arc de Triumph, while on the other end was some Place de la Concorde. There were TONS of people walking around on this street—they had closed it off for New Years. I don’t know if there was any sort of show here, but I had read that this street was also a great place to be for New Years. I heard it was kind of crowded though, so I didn’t wanna go there. We walked around even more, and before we knew it, it was past 1 am. So we decided to head back. However, the problem was that the subway and lightrails shut down at 1:15 am, so we ended up having to walk back to our hotel. I think it was about 3:30 am by the time we got back. Andrea wasn’t too happy about this walk (I didn’t mind), but we made it back eventually. We decided to sleep in the next day since we got back so late.

The next day was New Year’s Day, and I only had 2 more days here in Paris. So in the afternoon we went to see the underground catacombs, where there are 1,000’s of bodies buried, but unfortunately it was a holiday, so it was closed. Then we checked out the Arc de Triumph, the Champs-Elysees, and the Army Museum. The Army Museum is where Napoleon is buried, but once again, it was a holiday, so that was closed too. We then checked out the Moulin Rouge, but that wasn’t nearly as big or as exciting as I thought it would be. We decided to save the Eiffel Tower until the 2^nd, the last day I was in Paris.

So the next day we got up, moved to another hotel (ours didn’t have any more availability for this night) and then in the afternoon we went to the tower. The lines were long, but this was the only thing we had left to do this day, so I didn’t mind. We walked up the first 2 levels, which I think was something like 700 steps. When we got to the 2^nd level, it was just about to start raining. We saw some amazing rainbows over the city. If you haven’t seen my facebook pictures yet (I will get them up shortly), you gotta check out the pictures of the rainbows. There were 2 rainbows. And not only were there 2 of them, but from up high, the rainbows weren’t a half-arc like you usually see, but they were complete circles! I had never seen anything like it. Well, while this rainstorm was destroying us with rain, we noticed that the line to take the elevator to the top was tiny, mainly because it was on the side with all the rain, and no one wanted to stand there. So we braved it out for a few more minutes. The top was closed, because of the wind and the rain, but that was fine with us—we only had to wait like 10 minutes in this line. They only allow so many people at the top of the tower. The only way up is to take the elevator for like 5 euro. I imagine a lot of people left the top because of the weather, so by the time the rain had stopped, the line we were in was HUGE again and when the ticket booth opened back up, we were basically ready to head to the top.

The view from the top was awesome! I think the Eiffel Tower was probably my favorite thing that we saw in Paris. Part of the reason I liked it so much was because of the rainbows and the clouds, and the sun popped out just for a few minutes too, which made the city look amazing. We stayed at the top for about 30 minutes, then headed back down—it was FREEZING cold! The wind was terrible up there. We headed back to our hotel, but not before we stopped and had some crepes.

The rest of that evening we just hung out at the hotel. I decided to stay up until 2:45 am and watch the Badgers lose the stupid Rose Bowl, and because I had to get up at 4:15 am, I didn’t get much sleep. My flight left at 7 am, so I wanted to be the airport by 5 am, since I’ve heard that Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris is notorious for long lines and inefficiency. Since there were no buses or subways open at 4:30 am, I had to pay 50 stupid euro for a stupid cab. Ugh… that’s like $70 US. Not cool. But I had to do it, or else I wouldn’t have got to the airport. And I wasn’t too keen on sleeping at the airport, although looking back now I really could’ve done that… Blake and Andrea didn’t fly out until the next day, so they went to the Palace of Versailles on the day that I flew home.

To make matters worse, my flight schedule on that day was from Paris to Zurich, Zurich to Slovenia, Slovenia to Prishtina. So what really should’ve only been like a 4 hour plane ride turned into an 8-hour day. I didn’t get back to Prishtina until about 3 pm, but that was ok, since I had time to do laundry and just kick back for a few hours. So that’s what I did. Oh, and I got my 2^nd carepackage from mom and dad, so I spent some time playing my new Modern Warfare 3 video game (thanks again for all the goodies!).

Looking back, it was a great trip. I saw so much stuff that I’ve always wanted to see. However, I don’t think I’ll ever go to Germany or France again. Well, I should get back to Paris when more stuff is open.

And I guess being in Germany especially made me feel like being back at home. Things were so much more efficient, clean, and organized. So maybe I’d go back there again someday too. I guess the biggest thing that I didn’t like was the prices. SOOOO much just for small things that shouldn’t really cost anything. I’ve been pampered my whole life I guess though, since the Midwestern US isn’t that expensive to live in. And Guatemala and Kosova are pretty darn cheap too. Either way, if I get another vacation, unless my family wants to go to Germany or France, I’ll probably use my future vacations to go to new places. I don’t want to keep visiting the same areas that I’ve already seen. There’s so much more out there in Europe for me to see. I haven’t even been to Italy yet—flight there are less than 100 euro, so I’m sure I’ll be heading there sometime soon. Alright, well, I’ll update all you guys in a few more weeks probably. Nothing really exciting happening at school. We’ve got finals week coming up. The weather here has been cold and snowy. Not much snow on the ground, but most of the ground is white, so that’s kinda neat. I guess I have my b-day coming up in another 2 weeks, and I’m thinking about having a small party for that, since I haven’t really had any guests over to my apartment since I moved in here. We’ll see though. Ta ta for now!

Turkey on Turkey Day!

Monday, December 05, 2011

So it’s been about 2 weeks since I last blogged. Not much has happened in the meantime, except for last weekend, when a group of 10 of us went to Istanbul, Turkey. It originally started out with Joe always saying how fun it would be to go to “Turkey on Turkey Day,” but then we all thought that that might be a good idea, and it’s a pretty nice city. Plus, we found tickets for less than $200, round trip. So we went for it.

The characters in this story will be me, Joe and his wife Courtney, Ben (no Allison—she went to England to see her sister), Danny and Janelle, their friend Chris, Natalie, Kristen, and Krista (all 3 teachers at ASK). We arrived on Thanksgiving afternoon around 4 pm—it was a direct flight from Prishtina to Istanbul. After getting stuff taken care of at the airport, we finally got to our hostel around 6:30 pm. The hostel was a typical hostel. We stayed in an 8-person room with bunk beds, while Natalie and Kristen staying in a different room. We didn’t do much this night, since it was getting kind of late. We were staying in a really good location in the city—just a few minute walk from the big mosques and REALLY close to the light-rail that they have.

Now, I know I talk about mosques a lot, mainly because they’re such a new and different thing for me. I think I’m safe in saying that most Americans have not been in a mosque, or let alone have even seen one. They are all over Kosova, even though no one really is Muslim. However, 99% of Turkey is considered Muslim. Granted, this is not the type of Muslim that you typically think of. Not many women were covered. There are bars all over the place (alcohol is a no-no if you’re Muslim). Istanbul is quite the “international” city though. There were McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, Kohls, Starbucks, etc. everywhere! It felt nice to be around these stores again. Granted, I didn’t eat at any of them, but it was still neat to see them. I’m going to try not to eat at a McDonalds until I come back home next summer. Just a personal goal I made—just to see if I can do it. Obviously it’s not healthy, but maybe when I come home I won’t want to eat McDonalds anymore. We’ll see…

Anyway, back to Turkey. Istanbul is pretty much located between 3 continents—Africa, Europe, and Asia. It’s almost the midway point from Western Europe to India, so historically this has been an important trade center. Plus, it’s located right on the water, the Bosphorus Straight, which is between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. Anyway, it was the first time in a long time I felt like I was in a real international city. There were many ethnicities of people there, and the stores/restaurants were very diverse too.

So anyway, our first night we just walked around by the mosques, did some shopping, exchanged some money (the Turkish Lira is roughly 2:1 to the US dollar), and went out to eat. The next day we got up and most people wanted to go shopping, since we were in a “real” city finally, which meant they would have real shopping centers and you can buy a variety of items. So that day (Friday) we went to a mall or 2, a few other small stores, then on our way back we stopped by the Grand Bazaar. Let me tell you a little bit about this bazaar…

First off, a bazaar is a shopping area. I’ve been to a few of them so far, but none this big. Pretty sure I read that this one is the largest in the world. There are over 30,000 people that work here, in over 4,000 different stores/shops. It used to be just a bunch of streets and stores, but they since have covered the streets so it was all indoors. There are an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 people that visit this bazaar—everyday! None of you can complain about lines and crowds on Black Friday—I was at a place with possibly ½ million people at it! : - )

I really liked this place. I didn’t buy much—most of it was just touristy souvenirs, but I did buy a Turkish soccer jersey, something I’ve been trying to do for every country I visit. After this, we walked back to the hostel, went out to eat, and pretty much just chilled out for the rest of the night. The next day we got up early and decided to hit up the mosques. The first one, called the Blue Mosque, was built about 500 years ago. It’s really pretty from the outside, but the inside… meh, not that exciting. That’s probably why it was free to visit.  These mosques, and some of you will see from my facebook pictures, make the mosques in Kosova seem like nothing. These are some of the biggest mosques in the world.

The next mosque we went to was called the Hagia Sophia (pronounced “ay-ah so-fee-ah”). This was was very dull looking from the outside, but of course, since the Turks like to pretend it’s opposite day every day, the inside was beautiful! Hagia Sophia originally was built as a Christian church, sometime in the 300s. For over 1000 years it was like this, until about 500 years ago, when it was converted into a mosque. They had to add the minarets, or tall pointy towers you see on all mosques, which is the reason why it’s not so pleasing on the eyes from the outside. The inside was very colorful and had signs of both Islam and Christianity. In the 1920s, it was turned into a museum, so that’s what it’s still like today.

After this, we decided to go check out the big spice market they have in Istanbul. Right away, we saw tons of animals being sold—dogs, cats, birds, leeches, etc. It was kind of strange, but I guess that’s the kind of stuff you expect to see at a spice market. Some of the other people bought some spices and stuff, but I just mainly walked around. It was late afternoon now, so we decided we were going to go to Asia for the rest of the evening. “Asia,” you’re thinking? Yes, Asia. Turkey is one of the few countries that claims to be part of 2 continents—Europe and Asia. The small part where most of the city of Istanbul is located, and that’s located in Europe, while most of the country is located in Asia.

So we took a $1 ferry ride across the straight. That only took like 10 minutes. We really had no plans for Asia—basically we went just to say we’ve been to Asia. I was looking for my brother, Matt, since he lives in Asia, but I never found him. We were looking really hard too. We walked around a bit, grabbed a beer, then we decided we were going to walk back to Europe across the big bridge that connected to 2 continents. Well, after riding around aimlessly on 2 free buses (we didn’t have bus passes so the guy just let us on for free), we found out that you couldn’t walk across it. So we went back to the ferry and headed back to Europe. By this time it was dark, so we just headed back to the hostel for the rest of the evening.

The next day, Sunday, was our last full day in the city. We got up early again, and visited this huge palace, called Topkapi Palace. It’s palace where all the Ottoman Sultans, or kings, used to live, until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and it became Turkey. I think they had Sultans for like 500 years or something like that. Anyway, there were a lot of really cool artifacts here—crowns, thrones, rings, jewelry, clothes, etc. But you couldn’t take any pictures, so that made me mad. Also, they had a religious relics room. Quick history lesson: Muhammad was the founder/prophet of the religion of Islam. He was around in the late 500s/early 600s. In other words, he was like the “Jesus” of Islam. Anyway, they had things that belonged to him at this museum—his cane, clothes, swords/knives, beard hair, and even his tooth.

Now, call me skeptical, but I have a hard time believing that people saved Muhammad’s beard hair, let alone his tooth. The story of the tooth is that his mouth and cheek were injured in a battle, and that’s how his tooth broke off. Not sure why someone would have had the foresight  to save this thing. But even so, you couldn’t actually see the tooth—it was in a small container. They also had things there like the sword of David (from David vs. Goliath) and the walking cane of Moses (which by the way was over 3,200 years old and looked like it was in perfect condition). Both of these guys are apparently important to the Islamic religion, which is why their stuff was there. I don’t doubt that all these people existed—I just have a hard time believing that these things are still around. I think the museum is not being completely honest here, just to make a few extra bucks… but that’s just my opinion (along with many of the other teachers we were with).

After the Topkapi Palace, we went across town to Taksim Square. Apparently this is where the night life in Istanbul is. Well, we were there on a Sunday afternoon, so we weren’t planning on it being too lively. However, it was NUTS! They had this one walking street completely decked out in winter decorations, something that reminded me of the US. We walked around a bunch here, did some shopping, grabbed some food and drinks. There was a tower here too, called Galata Tower. No one else wanted to go to the top of it for 5 euro, so I did. There were some really awesome views of the city, especially since it was night. I think that it was totally worth it.

We then began walking back towards the light rail to go back to the hostel. I was getting hungry, so we stopped at a restaurant underneath a bridge. We negotiated beer prices (like we did everywhere) and I ordered my food. Well, the food never came. After like 30 minutes, we asked the waiter. He said I didn’t order it. Whatever. There was obviously a miscommunication, so we asked for our bill. Now, we went to a few other places in Istanbul that offered us nuts to eat while having beers, and we were not charged anywhere for them. This place was the same—they offered us nuts and we ate them. However, when we got our bill back, it was like $6 higher than we expected. We asked why and the waiter said it was for the nuts. We all INSTANTLY just EXPLODED in fury at this guy. We had a feeling he was going to do that. It was partially our fault, since we didn’t ask how much they were. I could feel myself getting more angry as the argument continued. Fortunately, Ben took over and saved me a lot of yelling. He was very calm, yet very strict. He first asked to see where the nuts were listed on the menu. Of course, the waiter said they weren’t, which was the first suspicious thing. Second, Ben demanded to talk to his boss. At first he wouldn’t respond to this, but then eventually he said that he was the manager and he didn’t have a boss. At this point, we just gave up. The waiter tried to tell us that he was giving us a good deal—that normally these tiny bowls of nuts are $5 each. Baloney! So we stopped arguing and paid the bill—just the drinks that we ordered. We started to walk away, and sure enough the waiter started yelling at us, that we didn’t pay enough. Ben told us all just to walk ahead of him and get away. So we did. I didn’t see it, but apparently the guy tried to grab and hold Ben by the hand, but Ben shook him off and just kept walking. Eventually we got to the other side of the bridge, partially nervous that a mob of Turkish waiters were going to attack us, but partially excited because we just “stuck it to the man.” We think that maybe this guy was trying to make some extra money on his own, hence the reason why the nuts were not on the menu and hence the reason why he didn’t want to get his manager involved. The nuts were probably free, but once again, we were in a touristy town, and I read a lot of stories while in Istanbul about the locals trying to rip off foreigners.

We ended up settling for some fresh fish sandwiches, right off the boat—literally, we walked up to the dock where a boat had a grill on it and bought them. They were excellent. The rest of this night we just went back to the hostel and chilled again. Then next day, Monday, we got up, hopped on a shuttle, and got to the airport. Our flight was delayed like an hour, but I didn’t mind. We ended up getting back into Prishtina around 3 pm rather than 2 pm, but this was a national holiday, Albanian Flag Day, so we didn’t have school. I didn’t get a chance to go walk around the city, but apparently everyone dresses up in red and black (the Albanian flag’s colors) and walks around. I did see a fair amount of flags flying however, on our ride back from the airport.

So that’s the Istanbul trip. It was pretty awesome. Got to see a lot of really old, neat, historical things. Plus, our group was really fun to travel with. Sometimes traveling with 10 people sucks, but we had a good balance of people that didn’t seem to mind what we did, so we were never arguing about where to go or what to see. Last weekend we had a Christmas party at Natalie’s house. We played the most ghetto-version of Twister every, but it was pretty fun regardless. We just cut out circles from construction paper. But of course, we didn’t have the 4 normal colors—we had to settle on pink, white, orange, and red. We spun a bottle for which body part to move and drew from a bowl on which color to put it on. I got 2^nd cuz Natalie cheated, but it was still fun. The party ended around 2 am, so I came home and watched the Big Ten Championship between Wisconsin and Michigan State. I ended up staying up until almost 7 am, but Wisconsin won, so it was totally worth it. Yesterday I just went to school, did some work. Today I woke up and (as Winnie the Pooh would say) “There was a rumbly in my tumbly.” I tried to see how long I could go, but I decided to leave during first period. I made my sub plans pretty simple. I must’ve ate something bad yesterday. I slept pretty much all day, and haven’t eaten anything, which is where I am at right now. 7:16 pm on Monday night. I’m going to go make some food since I’m getting a little big hungry. This weekend we’re having a white elephant gift party at Joe and Courtney’s. Other than that, I’ve gotta start planning my Germany/France trip with Andrea and Blake. Andrea and I have been doing most of the planning, so we should be good to go in a week and a half when I meet them in Germany. Getting really excited for that. Anyway, talk to you all later, and if I don’t talk to any of you before Christmas, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Albania

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

One and a half weeks ago, we had a 3-day weekend for a Muslim holiday (basically it was their Thanksgiving). So 10 of us decided to take a trip to Albania. We rented 2 cars and drove the 4 hour trek on Saturday morning, and came back on Monday evening. Here are the details of that trip.

Like I said, we left on Saturday morning, the 10 of us. There was Joe and Courtney, Ben and Allison, and me of course. But we had a few new people. Danny and Janelle came with us. Not sure how we met them; Ben met them somewhere. Anyway, they’re both from Ohio I believe, and Danny is over here working for some law project. He just passed the BAR recently, so he’s really excited about that. Janelle just got a job at ASK, my school, as a teaching assistant. Anyway, they’re both in their mid-20s. Both really fun and nice people. Fellanza, our school’s ESL teacher came along as well. David, a middle-aged middle school Social Studies teacher came. Then Joe and Courtney had a friend who was in the area, Chris, so he came too.

We arrived in Tirana, the capital city, in the afternoon, around 3 or 4 pm. It’s been getting dark early, now that we just set our clocks back an hour. So we didn’t have much time to see the city. So we walked to this gondola/cable car thing that takes you up the mountain. It was only like $5, and it was an amazing view of the city. So we did that, and when we got to the top we ate dinner. There was a revolving bar on top of the hotel up there, but it wasn’t open. Yeah, Saturday night’s are pretty slow nights—better not open the revolving bar… jeez.

Anyway, that night we took it easy, walked around the city, went to the square in the middle of downtown (pictures will be up on facebook, hopefully later tonight, if the power ever turns back on…). Then we went to this really awesome bar/dance club at the top of a hotel or something like that. It was circular, and had a revolving/moveable dance floor. It didn’t move much, but still, it was pretty neat. They only played Albanian stuff—the old stuff, that none of us except Fellanza knew, so that was kinda a bummer. But we got out and danced a little bit.

The next day we walked around the city some more, and then headed for Durres, a city on the coast. It’s on the Adriatic Sea, and when we got there the water was pretty cold, but being from the Midwest, most of us weren’t going to turn down this opportunity. Since I had my Frisbee along, we just threw that thing around in the water. It was a blast! All the locals were looking at us funny, and one guy was even taking pictures of us. The air temp was like low 70s, which was nice enough for me to wear shorts that day, but the water temp was probably way colder than is comfortable. Either way, it was really fun.

We hung out along the beach the rest of the day and eveing. We saw a beautiful sunset too! So colorful! The pictures will be on facebook for that as well. That night we ate dinner there in Durres, then headed back to Tirana. It was only like a 30 minute drive, so it wasn’t far at all. It was Joe’s birthday on that Monday, and since Tuesday was a school day again, we decided to party it up on Sunday night. So we bought a bunch of beer. Allison and his wife Courtney made him a cake from his favorite snack cakes, called Pop-Keks. Someone even brought party blowers and hats! Since our hostel didn’t have anyone else staying at it, we owned that place this night! Someone got the wild idea to start playing some Flip Cup. If you don’t know what Flip Cup is, ask someone to explain it. To put it simply, you fill up a cup with some beer in it, when it’s your turn you chug it, then you have to flip your cup over. So you let a little bit of it hang over the edge of the table, and flip it with your finger. If the cup lands perfectly upside down, you move on to the next person. Sounds really simple and primitive, but I like it for 2 reasons: it gets you really drunk really fast, and also because it can get VERY competitive! I LOVE trash talking and chanting and yelling at the other team. It’s pretty much encouraged. Anyway, we found ourselves later on that night in a boys vs. girls situation. Most of us had played before, but Danny, Janelle, David, and Fellanza hadn’t. But they all did really really well! Well, except the time Danny got skunked. And we definitely let him know he got skunked, by starting a “Danny got skunked” chant on our own teammate. Someone even started a “Yohnk, Yohnk, Yohnk-a-delphia” chant (obviously one of the people that watches “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” If you don’t know it, you gotta watch that show). That kind of became our official chant for the rest of the night. Everytime we won we’d start yelling something obnoxious and crazy. In all honesty, I think the girls won more games than us, but we definitely would’ve won the “Team Spirit” award. Later on, the hostel turned into a dance party, of course (what kind of party would it be without one?). Then the night wrapped up around 2 am, since we all had to get up and leave the next day. This night was probably the best night I’ve had since I’ve moved to Kosova.

The next day we got up, went to a mall (some people wanted to buy some things that you can’t buy in Prishtina), then we decided to go to this city up along the mountains with some museum in it. The museum was for this man named Skanderbeg or Skanderbeau or something like that. If you don’t know much about him, let me give the quick story. He was an Albanian that successfully defended Europe from the Ottoman Empire. If not for him and his armies, the Turks would have easily moved on to Italy and would’ve been fighting the Roman Empire for control of Europe. Who knows… without Skanderwhateverhisnameis, Europe’s main religion might be Islam. Anyway, the museum for him was closed, but either way, this small city was really neat to walk around and check out. We left around 4 or 5 pm, much later than I wanted to. We were still about 4 hours from home, AND it was a school night. But we ended up making it back around 9 pm, just enough time to unpack and fall asleep.

So there you have it. That was my Albania trip. There were many differences between these 2 countries. First of all, the roads. Once we crossed the border, the roads were AWESOME. 2 lanes wide, up-to-date guard rails. We even rode through a 6-km long tunnel. I can’t believe that Albania is the 2^nd poorest country in Europe (obviously Kosova being the poorest). There is a WORLD of difference between these 2 countries. I really like Albania, and I’d like to go back again sometime, hopefully when it’s greener and nicer.

Speaking of nicer… the weather here has been COLD! Today, November 15, was the day where they finally turned on the city-wide heat. I have an electric heater in my apartment, but our school has been SOOOOO cold lately! Most students and teachers wear their winter jackets while teaching and learning (another joke at our school…). I’m pretty cold-blooded, so I usually don’t, but somedays I have to. Today when I woke up it was 25’ F, which is one of the coldest days we’ve had so far. Usually it’s in the 30’s, sometimes upper 20s, but I think they finally realized it’s damn cold out, and people need their heat. Some other teacher’s apartments only have the city-provided heat, so they have been freezing their butts of so far. The days are pretty chilly—usually in the 40’s. Sometimes in the 50s, sometimes in the 30s. Either way, this place is going to be pretty similar to Wisconsin, which kinda sucks, but at the same time, I haven’t really experienced a full winter in over 2 years. I don’t wanna get too “soft” so it’s probably for the better, right? : - )

Anyway, that’s about all I have for now. This weekend we’re having a Thanksgiving feast at our school, for all teachers and their families. Then for Thanksgiving, a bunch of us (mainly the same people that went to Albania) are going to Istanbul, Turkey! Nothing like going to Turkey for Turkey-day… ahahahahaha!

Oh, and my friends Andrea and Blake, from my Guatemala school, have decided to come to Europe over Christmas Break! So we’re planning out our trip right now. Pretty sure it’s going to be a German-heavy trip, but we’re also planning on going to Paris (for New Years) and hopefully Prague, Czech Republic, and Vienna, Austria (if time). I’ll keep you guys posted on that though. We have off from December 17^th until January 4^th, so that should be plenty of time to see a lot of cool stuff. Well, it’s been one hour and no power on yet. Hopefully it turns on in the next 30 minutes so I can eat. Otherwise I might just go to a restaurant with a generator. Oh well… talk to you all soon!

Mitrovica

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Before I say anything, Mom, just be clear that even though the place I went to today is considered one of the most dangerous place in Kosova, it’s not NEARLY as dangerous as walking down the street on an average day in Guatemala City. So don’t freak out when I say all this stuff. Some of it may not be all that true, but I’ll just tell you all what I know about it.

This week, one of the 10^th grade students, Muhammad, invited a bunch of us teachers up to visit him in this city in the North near Serbia called Mitrovica. Muhammad lives there with his family and travels about 45 minutes every day to come to school. Now, US citizens are warned not to go there, but heck, they’re warned not to go anywhere it seems nowadays. So we weren’t too worried (more about this in a minute...).

We arrived in town by bus (only 1.30 euros) and met Muhammad and had a coffee. He showed us around town for a bit. Took us to some shops, showed us some statues, and then brought us to the bridge. Everyone in Kosova knows about “the bridge” in Mitrovica. Let me give you a short history lesson here on Mitrovica:

Since it’s close to Serbia, there are many Serbs in this region. Somehow, over time, and I don’t know how, the Serbs have all moved to the north side of the river, and the Albanians/Kosovars moved to the south. We, obviously, were on the south side. Now, a few years ago, you used to be able to cross from one side to the other just by showing your passport. Not sure if Kosovars could cross, mainly because I don’t think they would want to. Anyway, since earlier this summer there were some conflicts near Serbia, they have added more soldiers to the bridge to guard it. On the north side of the bridge there is a 10-15 foot high barrier of rock and dirt, created to stop anyone from crossing. I believe it was the Serbs that built it to stop the Kosovars from “invading,” but I could be wrong.

Back to my story… so Muhammad had talked to his dad about visiting the bridge, and he made it sound like his dad said it was safe and we could go out on it. Still, we were a little nervous. Muhammad had told me that if he were to go across the bridge, he would have been shot by someone on the other side. Now, I don’t know if that’s just a biased, Kosovar belief, or if it’s true, but I wasn’t going to risk anything. We approached the bridge and could see tons of Serbian flags flying in the background—they obviously wanted to show their “best face” to the Albanian side, the side we were on. At first we were very cautious and didn’t really know how far to go. We walked up to the first set of guards—these guys were from Italy. Well, Ben, being the worldly guy he is, wanted to practice his Italian, so he talked to the guards. They said that it was a quiet day, nothing bad happening. Not sure if the guy told Ben this or not, but Ben came back and said we could go forward on the bridge more, but he told us to speak English quietly, since we’re not on the best of terms with Serbia, since we bombed them and saved the Kosovars ‘n all back in 1999.

We got closer to the next set of guards and spoke to them for a minute. They were very nice and one even posed for a picture with us. Muhammad and I posed for a picture, and then Muhammad asked if we could go back. He didn’t say this, but Ben and I think he was a little bit nervous being out on the bridge. I don’t blame him. No point of endangering himself just to go stand on a bridge.  So we walked back to where the girls were standing (they didn’t want to go out on the bridge I guess). It was a unique feeling being out on that bridge—I can’t really describe it. Part of me was nervous, part of me was excited, part of me felt bad that this bridge even had to be like this. That one group of people can hate the other ones so much. And I’m not just talking about the Serbs—the Albanians do NOT like the Serbs either. The animosity is shared, no doubt. I’ve read a story that a Serb was killed while on the south side (the Albanian side) many years ago, just for speaking Serbian. Obviously there was probably more to it than that, but either way, it’s too bad that such a beautiful place has to be a war zone with such high tensions. I don’t think this area will ever change—these people have such a strong passion and desire for their own kind. I don’t know where/how it started, but I don’t anticipate Serbia and Kosova coming to any sort of peace agreement anytime soon. But who knows… I can be kind of pessimistic sometimes… :-)

I’d like to go back to Mitrovica someday, maybe in the spring, when it’s more green and nicer out. Or maybe if they were to ever open up the other side, I’d like to go check out some things on the Serbian side. I heard that their side of the city is in much nicer shape, but who knows. There also is a huge castle up on a nearby hill, but that’s on the Serb side, so I can’t go there. The rest of the day we walked around a little more, Muhammad and his dad (who later met up with us) took us to this really nice restaurant. Muhammad’s dad paid for it all, which was so nice of him. I guess that’s the Albanian thing to do. Muhammad earlier in the day bought our coffees/drinks at a café, and he told us “this is how we do it here---you are my guests, you came to visit me at my home, so I will take care of you and pay for you.” In the US we definitely have some people like that, but I don’t think most people would do that in the US. We went to a small mall, did some shopping, then were going to go to the bus station to get a ride home, but Muhammad’s dad decided he’d drive us all back to Prishtina. Once again, what a great family! The drive back took about 45 minutes. And that’s where my story ends. Probably one of the more exciting days I’ve had here in Kosova, mainly because of the “fear” factor that went into it, but like I said right away, I was probably much safer on this bridge than I was told. There’s no way these guards would’ve let us go out there if it wasn’t safe. We even saw a few people go from one side to the other, so I was kind of confused as to whether we can cross it or not.

I think next weekend we’re planning on renting a car or 2 for like 30 or 40 euro/day, and driving to Tirana, the capital of Albania. We have a 3-day weekend because of some Muslim holiday, so we’re going to find somewhere fun to go. I’ll probably update you all on that trip after it takes place. Until then, go Pack go, and hopefully Bucky can pull out the win tonight (well, 2 am here in Prishtina) vs. Ohio State. I’ll probably stay up and watch it, just cuz I’ve got nothing else to do tomorrow. Ta ta for now!