To sum up

Okay. I realize this is a little belated, but I just felt I couldn't leave this unfinished, so here goes.


The Jeffs let us stay with them in Berlin, and to show our appreciation we cooked them schnitzel and they, in turn, made popcorn and cookies whose salt-content was perfect, despite what their creator had to say. Elise, Ed, Catrina and I visited the Berlin Wall. It was amazing to see the planned artwork as well as the graffiti. Elise, Ed, and I then got lost in the Memorial for the Holocaust Jews. Ed also got some great pictures of the sun setting on the slabs of rock before we were yelled at for standing on them.

The next day, Elise and I parted company with Catrina, who was headed to Rosenheim to meet up with the family. While trying to leave Berlin, Elise and I learned that German efficiency is all a lie. The city train we were supposed to take to the station was closed. The next one was late, and then delayed to let another train pass. We were ten minutes late when we sprinted from the top of the Hauptbahnhof to the bottom where our platform was. Luckily that train was 40 minutes late. We couldn't get to our seats since the train was so packed, so we ended up sitting in the aisle. When we had to switch trains, we just grabbed the first seats we could see. We hadn't eaten anything all day, but the nice people next to us took pity and fed us three of their delicious cookies. Thank you strangers.


In Prague we had great difficulty in getting a map and finding our Hostel since we had forgotten to write down what street it was on. The nice rail ticket guy helped us find our Apple Hostel, which ended up being in a great location. At dinner we tried Czech beer, not its biggest fans. On our adventure to see the dancing house, we passed by this great fountain and lo and behold, out comes a perfect rainbow. We also found a great hollow tree to play in.

The next day we traveled to Prague Castle, which is always surrounded by ominous looked clouds, fyi. While the hike there had us panting for breath, the view was spectacular. Elise made friends with a suit of armor and took pictures pretending I was in a cage. In response, I dragged her to the Jewish Quarter to look for the Golem that guards it. We didn’t find him, but I did get a tiny little clay statue of him. That night, since we’re failures, instead of going out, we ate gelato and went to bed. The next day we hung out in the square where we of course heard “Pokerface.” That Lady Gaga just wouldn’t leave us alone. After great difficulty checking the internet (we had to beg some internet café man to let us use the internet for real cheap), we headed to the station to wait for our train to Rosenheim. While napping in the grass, we made friends with a little Czech girl, about two. Her mother gave us each an apricot to say thank you.


Rosenheim was sweet. We hung out with Catrina’s family, especially Carina. We bought dirndls, ate delicious German food, drank some sort of local Wheat beer that was amazing, and even climbed the Alps. Okay, so we drove up most of it but still. AND I almost touched a mountain cow. Almost.

We also went to Munich, where oddly enough, we bumped back into Kevin. After visiting the English Gardens and seeing a really complicated coo coo clock, we had dinner and giant steins full of radler (half lemonade, half wheat beer) at the original Hofbrauhaus. Trina’s family was great; when it was time to leave, Uncle Tom and Carina met us at the train station with our luggage and a bag full of goodies (cookies, apples, beer). Saying goodbye to Catrina, Elise and I got on the night train to Florence. We shared some of our snacks with the two British boys who we shared our cabin. One was a Leonard Cohen boy.


We woke up in Italy, and were immediately told there were no trains leaving for Paris for the next four days. Not good since, out plane flew out in three. After my previous trouble with Italian trains, you’d think I would have been prepared. In desperation, we booked a train to Nice the next morning, figuring it was best to just try and get into France. However, this ruined our plans to go to Pisa.

When we got to our hostel we found out it didn’t open for another four hours. We ate our breakfast of cookies and apples in the Piazza (thank goodness for Tom) and spent out time wandering around with our heavy bags looking for a green space to lie down. Little known fact: there is no green space in Florence.

When we returned to the hostel no one was there and when the girl finally showed up, she didn’t have our reservation. After much confusion (she only spoke Italian and Spanish to go with our French and English), we got it settled and headed out to find the Duomo. It was so hot that as soon as we got inside the cool Duomo, we collapsed on a bench. Nice architecture, Italy, no air conditioning, but cool as could be. Chilling in the Duomo, we came to the pathetic conclusion that since we didn’t know where the David was and that it was 20 Euro to get in, our time would be better spent napping and our money towards wine and limoncello at dinner. Sad, I know, but we were so tired of museums and we’d never tried limoncello before.

After we visited a great open air market, we took a nap and then had a delicious dinner. The house wine was great, the bread sadly quite bland. Perhaps that is why they invented bruschetta. For my dinner I had this pizza with ham, pesto, porcini mushrooms and truffle sauce evenly spaced on it. To die for. Elise enjoyed her gnocchi and then it was time for our limoncello. Not at ALL what we thought it was going to be. Maybe the quantity of three shots, it was the most bitter, sharp and yet sweet thing I’ve ever tasted. The faces we made while drinking it were pathetic.

The next morning we somehow ended up at the wrong train station. Waiting in line at the help desk, there was some sort of Italian verbal brawl concerning the slowness of the woman in front of me. As it was all in Italian, the curse words were a bit above me, but I think I got the gist of the fight. Luckily, we made it to the correct station just in time to jump on the slowest moving train ever to get to Nice.


After bonding with the nice people from New Zealand, we hopped off the train in Nice and promptly bought night train tickets to Paris. Thank god. However, we then had several hours to kill, not enough time to venture out (sad), so we spent a significant amount of the time having a leisurely lunch at this café showing weird music videos on the TV. The trip to Paris was fine. We shared a room with a Parisian girl and her tiny, surprisingly well-behaved dog. We were delayed for a little while because some kids had apparently been on the train sans tickets and were quickly being arrested.

In Paris, after realizing we had acquired more bug bites in a sealed cabin, we quickly deduced that we had picked up fleas from the hostel in Florence. Damn that hostel. At our hotel, I had the concierge throw out my blanket right away. He asked if it was stolen. Really dude? I know I looked a bit of a wreck by then, but jeez.

Elise and I loved out hotel room. There were clean sheets and towels, a big bed, a beautiful bathroom, and a TV showing CNN. It was love at first sight. After throwing out my jeans and pillow and quarantining everything that had been exposed in Italy, I jumped in the shower and then headed to Versailles. My god. It was the most ornate, gaudy piece of architecture I’ve ever seen. In one room I spotted a bust of Jean Racine. Go me and my ancestors. I strolled around the gardens and watched the fountains, before filling up my bottle of water and heading back to meet up with Elise by Notre Dame. We then got ice cream and free back massages before going to pick up our suitcases.

Once in the suburbs, we stopped to eat dinner and buy wine. When we showed up at Elise’s friend’s house, they were just getting back from Provence. They drove us back to our hotel and we joined them for one last glass of wine before bed.


At the airport the next morning, there was a bomb scare. Just our luck. They had also overbooked our flight, but no way in hell was I delaying my flight back home. Reaching Chicago was awesome. We understood everything that was going on around us. Home sweet America.

We parted company then, Elise to Columbus and me to Cincinnati. My family was late to pick me up, and I was fiddling with the pay phone when they finally arrived. Oh the way home, I calmly informed my mother I might have fleas in my luggage and that maybe we should deal with that when we got home. I stayed up until 10 o’clock, pretty good as that is 4 am in Paris, and when I passed out in my comfortable, flea-less, clean bed in my solitary room, I was glad to finally be back home.

there's no place like home

so here i am, finally sitting at a desk that i know, using a keyboard that makes sense. my travels through europe were not about achieving any list of must-see or must-do things. for me, travelling was a chance to eat, drink and basque in a different kind of life for a short while. i hope i let the few cities i visited open themselves up to me, and i am certain that for a short while, i opened myself up to a different kind of life.

when i first was applying for this trip i was seeking an adventure. i wanted time away from so many things that were making me tired and anxious. i wanted something for me. i have come back a little more stable and hungry for time with my family and friends who have been residing in two cities very close to my heart for the last few months.

attempting to sum up my last two weeks in europe would only fall short of the extreme emotions i felt while i was there. there are not words to accurately describe a misty paris morning, eating a crepe on the steps of the pantheon and looking down a street that leads to the eiffel tower. and, i can't possibly express how emotional it was for my rosenheim family to meet my cleveland family for the first time. even through an icam, you can see family resemblances and language barriers are nothing when there is love involved. watching my oma see her sister for the first time in 20 years is a memory i will have forever.

so, like dorthy, i have escaped the dulldrums of the midwest for a little while and visited a fantasy world, only to come back. lots of people thought i would stay there forever, transfer to some london university and set up a whole new life. but, as much as i loved my time there, each little adventure only served to remind me of the people at home that i wish i was sharing it with. and believe me, i have a situation where i wished everyone of you were there.

so my last entry is a bit of a cop out. instead of telling you all about everything i did, i am choosing not to. at least not here. instead, i am going to post pictures from the last few weeks on my flickr. and i promise, if you ever want to know what it's like to be stuck in berlin sans hostel at 2 am, i'll tell you all about it, complete with catrina hand motions and everything. come up to the braumeister and over a beer you can tell me all about your last 2 months of adventure i will tell you about mine, and then we will knobel. and i will win.

so i promise i'll have pictures up in the next few days, and i'll keep putting up pictures of my adventures here at home with the people i missed for so long. but for now, my real life is calling me and i have to go feed the cat, and take out atti and spend some time with a few of you in real life instead of through typed words and rapid skype phone calls.

goodbye england, hello europe

So, we're currently in Berlin. We've hit Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam so far, and tomorrow Elise and I are heading to Prague while Catrina heads to Rosenheim.

I was actually kind of sad to say goodbye to London. Andrew and company got me a keychain, pair of earrings, and a purse/shoulder bag as going away gifts. It was stressful writing my feature piece at the end (I actually went in to work although the internship was officially over) but I think I left it in pretty decent shape. Saying goodbye to the flatmates was especially sad. Caitlyn, Amanda and we had a pretty good run together. We're already planning to roadtrip out to Penn State to visit them. Hopefully Julie can pop down from NJ to visit at the same time.

Leaving London was of course a hassle, with me on a different train from Catrina and her friend Kevin. I also just barely made my train as I hadn't really taken into account the long walk to the tube avec my stupid suitcase, having to buy a tube ticket since my card had run out, delays on the Picadilly and just basic slowness in general. However I made it to Paris and finally got to see Elise again. YAY.

Paris was nice, but the London weather seemed to follow us, but the sun appeared while we were in Montmartre and I even managed to burn my nose again. A quick tour of the Louvre, climb up Notre Dame, journey up la Tour Eiffel (which I abstained from, once was enough), some bread and cheese, and we were saying goodbye to Kevin and heading to Brussels.

Due to some train issues, we had to nix Bruges from the plans, but Brussels turned out to be beautiful. Catrina and I were amazed by the wide selection and cheapness of the beers at the supermarket and might have bought six while Elise's back was turned. After consuming several, we ventured out to find delicious chocolate-covered waffles and the Delirium Bar. Once again we were overwhelmed with choices. There might also have been a glass theft involved, but I'm not saying anything. The next morning we woke up wondering what all the excitement was about. Turns out by freak chance, we managed to end up in the capital of Belgium for their national holiday. Go us. After hanging out in the park full of little booths, we bought some chocolates and headed to Amsterdam.

Once there we decided we should get our tickets to Germany sorted out. We attempted to queue but were told we had to take a number to wait instead (and we had gotten so good at queueing too). I was standing under the tv showing the list of numbers up next. My balloon from Brussels attached to my backpack happened to float in front of the screen and just as Elise was about to move it, some trainstationman came over and told me "maybe you should go away now." I, of course, had no idea what was going on but finally figured out the balloon problem. Due to the time it took waiting, the tourist info closed and we had no idea how to get to our hostel. With the help of three different guys and a map the actual size of Amsterdam, we managed to make it there. Late as it was, all we managed to do was find food and fall into bed. The next morning we headed to the Anne Frank house, where we of course had to queue. After that, Elise and Catrina went on a wandering around trip that resulted in bagels and coffee and parks and happiness. I jumped on a waterbus and got a tour of the canals on my way to the Van Gogh museum. It was fascinating seeing how his work changed as he moved from Antwerp to Paris to the south of France. After a little more canal busing, I met up with C and E and we jumped on the train to Berlin.

We got in pretty late, so we were thrilled that our friend Ed met us at the station and took us to our hostel. There was some confusion with the room and with the bedding, but we eventually got it worked out. The next morning we walked to the train station to get out tickets worked out and then lay in the Tiergarten before heading to the Brandenburg Gate to meet up with Ed. However, there was some timing issues and we missed each other, so we got bizarre Mexican lunch and then lay in the Lustgarten. We're big fans of napping in parks. We met up with Ed later and ate some delicious Turkish food. After stopping by the apartment Ed is staying at, we headed back to the hostel. Again confusion with the room and the beds, but we thought it was all figured out and sent Ed on his way. FALSE. It was not worked out; they tried to put us in a room that was already occupied. We got our money back and headed out to try and make our way back to Ed's. We thought we might be able to make it, but by thankful freak chance, we ended up on the same tram as Ed. We crashed on his floor and got to meet the actual flatmates the next morning. Both Jeffs were really nice. We're not quite sure where we're staying tonight, maybe here again.

Anyway, tomorrow it's Praha and then Elise and I are joining back up with Catrina in Rosenheim. Yay the south of Germany!

another travelin' song

today i am mailing my things to germany. this means, that after a quick skype to my mother, i won't have access to the internet on a daily basis. my macbook is making the journey to germany buried deep within my suitcase, cushioned by towels and a combination of clean and dirty clothes....hopefully it will be safe.

we are leaving for paris on friday to be reunited with our dear miss elise. kevin has decided to tag along.

once we are in paris, we are going to make reservations at hostels in brussels, bruges, amsterdam and berlin. we will leave for belgium on sunday. on the 25, i'll head to rosenheim and claire and elise are going to prague for a few days, then they'll come to bavaria too. i know this is just a rough outline, but we will be on a pretty tight schedule and moving around pretty rapidly. we'll post a clearer outline when we get some internet access in france.

there is a crack in everything...

that's how the light gets in

of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings

so it is my last day at iwpr, and i am sitting at my desk doing nothing, which is par for the course really. i can't believe that time has gone by so quickly. it seems like only last week, i was interviewing with Caroline and being assigned my projects. now, i am getting a going away party of my own and i have made headway on the afghanistan elections pages. i am going to finish my articles from the states and continue freelancing for iwpr from home. i'm lucky to be able to continue working on my projects from the states. i have really become invested in the elections and it will be a nice portfolio boost to continue working with this organization.

it's also our last weekend here in london. last night, julie, amanda, cait and i went out to this fabulous irish pub in picadilly circus. it was one of the most amazing pubs i have ever been in. it was mammoth, although from the outside you would never guess the maze of stairs, floors and woodwork awaiting you. there was a giant tree carved into a pillar that appeared to be holding up the entire pub. (waxyoconnors.co.uk)

today, while eating my lunch of vegetarian quiche and blueberry tea at what has become my favorite lunchtime haunt near work, i realized just how short of a time i have here. it is going to be a week full of 'lasts'. as excited as i am to continue my journey through europe, to bavaria and finally home, it's sad to thing that i wont see amanda, caitlyn and julie for a while. we've all grown so close and thinking that i can't just go grab dinner or a cider with them will be so strange. luckily, we don't live that far from each other and are already planning visits for the fall.

really, the only thing that has been a damper on this entire trip is Arcadia University (who orchestrated the program). the class was completely useless, the paper was rushed and unorganized and they haven't been helpful in the least. my intership placement was perfect and their random roommate assignment worked out amazingly, but i feel as though the latter part of that equation was a complete accident and not at all based on research of any kind. i love my intership. i hate that i gave Arcadia an exhorbent amount of money to complete it.

our trip to italy was hectic and wonderful. it's something i am really unable to describe in words, a first for me, i know. but as ansel adams once said : "When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence". i hope that you check out the photos i have posted on the flickr site. they are just a small sampling of the 300+ pictures i took on our trip, but i feel as though they represent it well and they are the ones i like the most. i threw them up kind of hastily, so they are unedited and are exactly as i took them, no photoshopping present. (i ask that if you are going to use the photos in any way to please let me know via email: otonoga.1@gmail.com)

this weekend, claire and i are headed to surrey to see leonard cohen. amanda, cait, julie, kevin and i are going to high tea at thelanesborough (thelanesborough.com). and we are going to try to hit up harrods and portobello road again for some last minute gift shopping. i'm excited to see what london holds for my last few days here.

a picture is worth 1000 words

pictures of maida are now on the flickr site

www.flickr.com/photos/edelweissandforgetmenots

enjoy!