Hello all, and I apologize for not having updated in FOREVER! Here's a few bullet points to show what I've been up to:
-My professors were on strike for 8, count 'em 8 WEEKS! And after about 6, the students joined in too, and thus there was a blockade of my university. I guess that's what I get for studying at a somewhat liberal Poli Sci school!
-Classes mostly started up again at the beginning of April, but there are still "Days of Mobilization" every so often to show continuing support of the movement against the proposed reforms (I finally got a grasp of what those were, but they are quite complicated to explain quickly)
-Everyone is also very unhappy with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and the whole economic crisis. There have been 2 national strikes, where all the workers in the country strike for a day. One of these was on the day I left for Amsterdam, which posed a problem because I was leaving from Geneva and the national train conglomerate was on strike as well. Eventually, I made it!
-This past week and a half was our Easter break, and since I haven't visited much of France yet (and money is running low), I decided to do just that. I took advantage by going to Marseille for the first weekend with my friend Celine (which I absolutely LOVED!), then I spent a day in Bordeaux, Couch Surfed in Toulouse for a couple of days, and spent another day in Montpellier, all with my friend Alli, before returning to Lyon on Thursday. This trip will definitely get a full update!
-In other news, we booked the flight for my return to the US: JUNE 4TH! Every time I go downtown, I find myself getting weepy and saying things like "I'm going to miss this soooo much"...however, every time I talk to my friends in Sacramento and Santa Barbara, I can't help but exclaim, "I CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU!". I guess we'll have to wait until June to see which sentiment comes through stronger.
-On that note, I am planning on working in Santa Barbara this summer on campus at UCSB. I am subleasing from a friend, living quite literally on the ocean (the backyard is a balcony overlooking the ocean) and hopefully nicely easing my way back into California life, starting Summer School in August.
I don't quite have too much time to post pictures, but I want to try to update you all photographically as well- First off, here is my album from my visit to BARCELONA in February!
Sorry once again for the delay! I have 3 (maybe 4) big updates I'm planning to tackle, the first of which is from a little over a month ago, when I went to little French lake town east of Lyon (and just south of Geneva), Annecy.
So me and 5 California friends set out early one Saturday morning to take the train to Annecy, a town that's been dubbed by some as the "Venice of France". Our Study Abroad director, Christine, had sent out an e-mail saying that there would be a Venetian style Carnivale in Annecy the 4th, 5th, and 6th of February. My roommate had already visited the town and loved it, so I had been planning on visiting anyway.First off, after getting on the train at 7:30 am (those of you who know me know how much I love being up early...NOT), we were in the train for about an hour before it stopped, stayed on the track at a station for half an hour, and then they announced to us that there were technical difficulties, so we'd be getting off and onto a different train. Our originally scheduled train ride of about 2-2 1/2 hours was now extended to about 4 hours.
After roaming around and admiring the beautiful little rainy town for a while, we decided to figure out when and where the carnivale was. Unfortunately, Christine had mixed up the dates, and the carnivale was actually the 4th, 5th, and 6th of MARCH! Some of my friends were really pissed off, but I didn't mind too much - I really liked the city anyway, carnival or not! So we went to check out the few big sites there are in Annecy - le Palais de l'Isle (palace of the island) which is a tiny museum/former prison that is literally squished into the middle of one of the canals. It's one of the most photographed sites in France (behind the Eiffel Tower of course!) and then the Chateau d'Annecy. To stay on the day's theme of everything going wrong, of course, the Chateau was closed.
However, it was still a very lovely trip, despite our setbacks. Good first "inter-France" day trip, hopefully there will be more to come!
Palais de l'Île Me and Ora in the middle of old town, with Lake Annecy in the background! My friend Alexix ready to jump into the lake...or not Side view of Palais de l'Île In front of the Chateau, since we couldn't get in!
That's it for update number 1! However, I am leaving tomorrow (despite a national strike which will prove to make the journey a bit difficult) for Amsterdam to meet up with my ex coworker, part time roommate from June, slash very good friend Marja!! We will be in Amsterdam Thursday night, Bruges on Friday, Brussels on Saturday, and back to Amsterdam on Sunday!
I apologize for the time gap between this one and the previous entries...I've started classes, but barely have gone at all because there are professor strikes every day at IEP. So everything's been a little confusing, and I've been spending most of my time at home doing nothing! Haha.
Anyway, so I left you all in Munich. I went to the train station the next morning and hopped on a train to Salzburg, Austria, for 1 day and 1 night. My only plans were to go on a Sound of Music tour, then to meet up with Hannes, a guy I had found on couchsurfing.com, and hang out/stay the night with him and his friends. Couch surfing is a website where you can post up a profile and search the profiles of others who are willing to host visitors, or "surfers". Hannes had told me he could host me, but unfortunately I hadn't heard from him since I was in Prague, so I wasn't really sure if it would work out...
So, I arrive in Salzburg and everything is covered in snow! (Even more so than in Munich). I walked to Mirabellplatz (Mirabell Plaza) and got my ticket for my Sound of Music tour, then walked around for a while and checked out the city. In addition to being the setting for The Sound of Music, Salzburg is also the birthplace of Mozart, which was kind of cool. I wish I had had more time to check out his birthplace or home (I got to see both, but I didn't have time to go in and do the museums), but it was nice to walk around the city, which was absolutely beautiful!! It reminded me of a germanic Lyon, except with the Alps in the background!
Eventually, I went back to start my tour. I'm pretty sure this was the first tour that I've paid to go on since I've been in Europe....and it was CRAZY! We had an extremely chipper British woman as our guide, and she drove us all around Salzburg and the beauuuuutiful Lake District while singing Sound of Music songs and describing in freakishily vivid detail all the scenes from the movie. It was definitely interesting though, and the whole area was just beautiful! Really really cold, though.
After the tour, I still hadn't heard from Hannes, so I decided to forget that idea and hope that the hostel marked on my map had open beds for that night. I walked to the hostel and sure enough, it did! It was also insanely nice for the price, and I ended up squirreling my way into a couple of hours of internet, then meeting a couple of super fun Australian girls in my room. Us and a few others ended up having a few drinks in the hostel's bar, and I headed back to Munich the next morning to go to the airport and fly to Stockholm! the river!
there were lots and lots of snowy hills mozart's birthplace this was a week or so after the invasion of gaza, however i hadn't been up to date on current events and i had NO clue what these people were demonstrating against! first stop on our Sound of Music tour...the back of the mansion and the lake! which was frozen over. the fortress. not part of sound of music, but still pretty majestic. me and the GAZEBO!!! "i am 16, going on 17"....remember? this is wolfgang lake, part of the lake district outside of salzburg. honestly one of the most beautiful landscapes i've ever seen in person. i look a little bit uncomfortable..probably because it was soo COLD! the end of our tour left us with some free time in a little town called Mondsee...it was quite festive, as you can see..
SOOO then, I flew Munich - Berlin and Berlin - Stockholm. As I was flying in to Stockholm, the captain comes on and tells us that the electricity had just gone out at Skavsta (the airport we were supposed to land at), so we proceeded to circle around for a while. Our original landing time was already late as it was, like 11pm. So we circle around for 25 minutes and the captain announces that we're going to go to Arlanda airport instead...Everyone in the plane applauded and at the time I didn't know this, but it was because Arlanda is actually much closer to Stockholm, whereas our original airport was like 1.5 hours away.
So we finally land at around 11:30pm, after the captain announces that the current temperature is -17° CELSIUS!!! This is about 1° Fahrenheit. Luckily, when we got outside it was only -10°, or in the teens. So after about 20 minutes of confusion, we get to the terminal to wait for our baggage...which took another 30 minutes....and we get on the bus into town, which took ANOTHER 40 minutes. So basically I finally got to my hostel's street in the middle of the night and I realize I don't have the address. Of course, I ended up finding it 2 days later, but it sucked at the time. Luckily, my friend Brett was already there so I called and woke him up to help me out.
The next day, Brett and I braved the cold and explored a little bit! By the time we saw a couple of sites, sat down and had a meal, and started walking back, it was 3:30pm and the sun was already setting. Craziness! We definitely immediately regretted the time of year that we decided to visit Sweden. Hahaha. We spent a lot of time hanging out in our hostel, which was actually a neat little hostel that made it easy to make friends, because there was a lot of common space.
The rest of the time, we did a lot more walking around, but decided that our time might be better spent inside museums than outside suffering in the 20ish degree temperature. So our 2nd day, we went to the Vasa Museum, knowing only that there was a big ship inside. And man, was that right! The entire museum was about a ship that sank in the harbor of Stockholm in the 1600s, and was LIFTED out of the harbor and completely restored 300 years later!! The ship was on display in the museum, along with tons of artifacts. It was pretty neat. When we got out of the museum, though, it was about sunset again and there was basically a snow storm outside! That night, we attempted to find a bar to go hang out at with some new Midwestern friends from our hostel, but mostly failed (either because the bars were closed, even at 10pm, they only accepted 23 and older, or what have you).
During our last day, we decided on the Nobel Museum for our museum of choice. It was a bit boring, actually, but cool because Stockholm is where the Nobel Prize is awarded each year. The sun finally came out that day, although it never was above freezing temperature (from the moment I got to Prague until the moment I got back to Lyon, I never saw above 32 degrees). So we got a lovely meal of falafel/kebap and went home to try and force ourselves to sleep early, as we called a cab for 4am the next morning to get to the airport for our 7am flight!
So our travel day went something like this: 4am taxi to the train station. 4:15am bus (hour and a half long) to the airport. 7am flight to london. 12pm flight to grenoble (where it was just as snowy as in stockholm). 3pm train to lyon. and for me, another hour of metros and the bus from the train station to my house. finally putting me home at about 7 pm!
Crazy steamy Stockholm! Stockholm actually consists of like 9 islands...This is one of them.
We think that this building is City Hall....But we are not sure.
At about 3:30pm! Hello sunset!
Me and the Vasa...An old, old wooden ship
Snow!!! The weather difference was real difficult for me and Brett (also from UCSB, also studying in Lyon). Most of our conversation while walking the streets of Stockholm was like this : "Hey Brett, remember the last time it was freezing in Santa Barbara?" "Yes, I wore a Tshirt and jeans that night."
The Palace
More harbors This is about Mr. Nobel, the guy who created the prize. "The death of his brother Emil in an explosion in 1864 was a difficult blow." Funny pun, or coincidental translation???
At 9am at London Stansted....the best Burger King of my life (I hadn't had it in months!!! Doesn't exist in France!)
And as we begin our descent into the cloud cover over Grenoble, we see that the weather may not be much better in France...
Well, that's finally it for my euro trip! Next up, Barcelona and Amsterdam this month and next...Yay!
Hellooooo again! So I just had my first 3 days of classes (although Tuesday there was a strike, and Monday I only had 1 class....so I guess I should say I just finished my only day of class this week!), and I don't have class tomorrow or Friday this week, so I figured I'd kill some time and write more about my vacation before I forget it all! So I woke up early on New Years Eve day to catch a 9AM train from Prague to Munich. It was supposed to take 6 hours...keep this in mind. Thus, at 9am began my horrible plunge into the world of inaccurate, undependable Czech trains! First off, I had trouble finding the train station because I was walking and didn't have my map. I got there and was quite happy to see that NOTHING was written in English except for "Entrance" and "Exit". So I finally find the platforms and the status screens, with my train toward "München Hbf" (Munich central) on the screen. Then, before they post which platform my train is on, they post the number 15 next to it. I assume this means how many minutes delayed it will be......I am correct. This number grew every 5 minutes, until it was about 9:15am and the screen read "45". So I was about to give up when the 45 turns into something that looks like "vÿn". Do I know what this means? No way.
So I ask a man next to me who I heard speaking English with his sons, and he went to ask someone. He comes back, running, and says that we need to go to Platform 1, hop on, and get off at the first stop. I asked no questions and ran to the platform with what I later found out was a family from the Bay Area! Small world! So we get on the train, get off at the first stop, and eventually find our original train. By this time, it's an hour and a half late. As soon as we crossed the German border, a conductor came into my compartment blabbering in German, and the sweet old Czech lady in my compartment said that we would be getting off, waiting an hour, and getting on another train. And that's what we did.
Eventually, I arrived in Munich, but rather than taking 6 hours, it took closer to 9! My friend Laura, who studies in Lyon with me who normally studies in Munich (she went just to spend the holiday with her school friends) met me at the train station and we went to Hofbräuhaus, a famous beer hall in Munich. We ate what Laura told me was a traditional German meal, and sat at a table full of Italians (who were shocked to see a German and American speaking to each other in French!) Then, we went to Laura's friend's apartment where we were staying for the night. We had a little bit of wine and champagne while playing SingStar (you have NEVER lived until you've seen foreigners doing karaoke to American songs. SO funny!!) and headed out to their friend's New Years party.
Basically, my New Years Eve was full of confusion, shiny fireworks flying everywhere, French speaking with Laura, and people speaking German all around me. It was like nothing I have ever seen, there was no official fireworks "show", it was basically just people lighting bottle rockets out of champagne bottles in the streets! I made a few videos and put them together...I dont know if you can really tell how crazy all the fireworks are, but its a good try:
The next day, we woke up to a fresh, beautiful blanket of SNOW!!! It was so fun! Laura and I spent the day sight seeing, she took me to a palace, the English Gardens, then we went up into the tower of a church downtown and got a great view of downtown Munich at nighttime. Laura was a great tour guide, and I had a good 24 hours of speaking nothing but French when I was with her! She left that night to go back to her home in Innsbruck (Austria), so I called it an early night and went to my hostel.
So at this point, it's January 2nd, just to keep things in perspective! Haha. So the next day I spent the majority of the day en route to or at Dachau. Dachau is technically its own city, and it is the site of the first Nazi Concentration Camp. I still think it's hardly hit me, the gravity of what I saw when I was there. And to add to the experience, it was cold and there was snow on the ground as I stood (somewhat warm with my huge jacket, scarf & many layers) in the same place that the prisoners were forced to stand out in the cold for hours doing "Roll Call" wearing nothing but rags.
Although everything that I saw was very striking, the most impressionable of everything had to have been the Crematorium. It was there that I myself walked through the Gas chambers, and the next room with the ovens. A close second had to be the barracks, where the evolution of the inhumane conditions were clearly demonstrated with 3 different types of "bed" arrangements.
There was also a museum at the site that had a lot of background info on what led to the rise of the Nazis, about prisoners in the camps, and about its liberation. In addition, there were religious memorials from the Jewish church, the Protestant, and I believe the Catholic church which were all very impressive. It was such a great experience and I am very glad I had the chance to see a concentration camp. It's something everyone learns about, but it is just so SO different to see it in person.
After I got back from Dachau, I went back downtown to see a few sites that I hadn't yet seen. One was the Deutsches Museum, which I defnitely didn't have time to go in and view, but it was a neat building complex. Then, I went to the Olympic Stadium. Unfortunately it was really dark and there wasn't too much to see, but I've never seen an Olympic stadium before and I absolutely LOVE the Olympics so that was neat for me!
That's about it for Munich...the next day, I took the train to Salzburg, but I think you've all read enough already...I'll keep that for the next installment!!!
Me and Laura shortly after Midnight, dodging fireworks!
The crazy scene in the streets
Schloss Nymphenburg, or Nymphenburg Palace
The view from above of Rathaus, or city hall
The entrance to Dachau...same that the prisoners saw. The text translates to "Work Makes You Free". Irony much?
Dachau was the first major concentration to open up in 1933. At that time, it was mostly just for political prisoners (aka those who opposed the Nazis)
Watchtower.
The latest, and most uncomfortable and inhumane living conditions that were imposed toward the end. There aren't separated sleeping spaces, and it was at this point that there was a huge epidemic in the camp and most people just died of disease before starvation/torture/etc.
The Crematorium
The ovens =(
Gas Chamber
Ok, ok, I know this one is silly. But I wanted a picture at Dachau and I didn't think smiling was appropriate! Deutsches Museum
Hello all and welcome to Part 1 of my epic winter break blog updates. Prague was definitely my favorite city, so I'm sure this update will be longer (and with better pictures!) than the others.
So early in the morning the day after Christmas (I spent Christmas Eve and morning with my landlady and her family, where I found myself in a huge cloud of confusion and French...and Christmas night had dinner with some other California students!), I left my apartment and took the train to Paris, where I headed to Disneyland Paris for the day! I met up with my friend Celine from UCSD who studies in Lyon with me, her childhood french friend Alice (Celine lived in Paris until she was 10) and Mimosa, Celine's friend from UCSD who studies in England. We got access to both parks (Disneyland & Walt Disney Studios) and it was REALLY fun! It was obviously pretty Americanized, but isn't that the charm of Disneyland anyway? It was also still decorated for Christmas, which was lovely!
And in case anyone had heard, the rumor is true, the rides ARE way crazier in Europe! There were upside down loops in at least 3 or 4 rides! It was awesome!
So our day was winding down and we decided to go on 2 rides for a second time before the park closed - Indiana Jones (which is actually a crazy wooden roller coaster here!) and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. To start things off, as we hurried through the queue at Indiana Jones, my clumsy self tripped up the stairs and got quite the bump on my knee. You can imagine this made it quite difficult to maneuver my way in the Métro back to Paris with a heavy suitcase!
And then, as we exited the train at Big Thunder, I looked behind me because i thought I had seen a glimmer of something that fell out of my purse. It seemed to be nothing, though, so I moved along towards the exit. I had a sinking feeling that I had dropped or forgotten something, so I searched my purse for my camera.......to no avail. The good ol' Canon Powershot now lays at the bottom of Big Thunder Mountain, with a good 50 pictures of us, the Christmas decorations, and Cinderella's castle inside of it!
So me being me, first thing the next day we went camera shopping. It was slim pickin's, since Christmas had just passed, but I found a new Canon and was good to go for the rest of my trip!
That night at about 9pm our plane set off for Prague, and me, Celine and Mimosa were on our way to Bohemia! The next day, we wandered around trying to find the Old Town Square for an hour or two, and saw a few Christmas Markets, shopping streets, and cool buildings. When we finally found the Old Town square, we realized that it was literally only a 2 minute walk from our hostel! D'oh! At this point we were all frozen to death and on the verge of sickness (this describes quite well the first 2 days that we were there). That night, we had a delicious "traditional" Czech meal of Goulash and Bread dumplings, accompanied by Pilsner Urquell, one of the cheapest most delicious beers I've ever tasted!
The next day, we planned on taking a big 5 hour tour of all of Prague, which included a meal and boat ride, but we couldn't find the meeting place in time so we took ourselves on a tour! We crossed the river and went up to Prague Castle. What I really liked was the quaint little city streets that we walked along to get there. Prague was SO beautiful, I really can't wait to go back some day! That evening we got a nice view of the city from up at the castle, and we headed back to our hostel where we convinced our new room mates who were Taiwanese students studying in the US and an Egyptian to come out with us to the Pub Crawl. So we had our first Pub Crawl and man was it fun!! We met tons of people, none of whom were Czech, ha ha, but all of whom were really fun...from French to South African to Australian and a couple of others...we tried Absinthe for the first time and saw some pretty famous bars in Prague. But all in all it was really fun, and Celine and I amazingly woke up the next morning no longer feeling sick! Go figure!
We spent that day seeing whatever it was we hadn't already seen, like Charles Bridge.. And that evening, after a fatty nap, I actually went on what could probably be considered a date with Emmanuel, one of the french boys we met on the pub crawl the night before. Normally I wouldn't blab this part of the story for all of my family to read, but I thought it was quite a milestone in my experience, finally going on a date with a french boy, in Prague of all places! But it was nice, and we are keeping in touch so hopefully if I play my cards right I'll be able to visit him in the south of France once the weather gets warm!! Oh yes, that sounds nice...
And the next morning at about 8am, I had to wake up and catch my train to Munich. This train ride is another story in itself, as it ended up taking nearly 3 hours longer than it was supposed to....however, just enjoy my beautiful Prague pictures for now!!
Me and the famous Astronomical clock at Old Town Square
Mimosa, me and Celine at the big ol' church up at Prague Castle
Beauuuuuutiful rooftops of Prague!!!!
Cool shot I got of Celine at Charles Bridge at night
Old Town Square. The christmas tree and Tyn Church
Prague by night, view from the Castle
Mimosa, me, Celine, and our hostel friend Zoe (Taiwanese studying at Michigan state!)
Lots of birds as we crossed Charles bridge
Another cool shot on Charles Bridge Me and Celine being silly in our hostel (and accidentally reverse matching! oops!)
Stay tuned for the rest of my stories and pictures!
