Beer.....that is all

Oh Munich, where do I begin. This was my favorite city in Germany. There are palaces for Bavarian Kings, monuments to the Bavarian Kings, large parks with great beer gartens, museums for all interests, an amazing soccer stadium, and more importantly, excellent Bavarian Beer. The first beer hall we went to was the hofbrauhaus. It was a massive building full of drunk Australians and Asian tourists where they served beer by the liter. Which for you Americans out there is roughly three bottles of beer in one mug. So needless to say, I was in heaven. I love beer. And the fact that I got to enjoy a copious amount of beer in one mug made me happier than anything in the world. But the beer journey didn't stop there. The next day I had weisbier at the Schneider and a couple days after that I went to the Augistiner. Apparently, the Augustiner serves the best beer in Europe. Thinking back on it now, it was probably the best beer I've had in my entire life, which isn't saying much since I've only been alive for 20 years, and that's probably why I got 2 liters of the stuff. Needless to say I was feelin' it! But I guess drinking beer wasn't the only fun thing we did in Munich. We went to the BMW museum and got to see how such a big company started from building innovative and superior airplane engines to developing motorcycles and eventually high performance cars. We took a day trip to Neuschwanstein which is the castle that inspired the Cinderella Castle in Disney World. The surrounding area was extremely scenic and it was snowing while we were there so it was especially fun, seeing that I've only been in snow once before and that was just over 2 months ago. We visited the Nymphenburg palace and the Residence where the Bavarian Kings and Queens lived with their families. We saw the allianz arena where Bayern Munchen plays and got to take a tour of the inner workings of it. And apparently you can surf in Munich, who knew! In this English Garten next to the art museum there is a man made river that flows and for whatever reason, there's a nice constant wave near a bridge. People stand around waiting for their turn to show their skills on this German wave, and I have to say, watching these guys surf in the middle of a city where there are no beaches around for thousands of kilometers was pretty sweet. My four days in Munich were some of the best on this trip.

Czeching out Prague

Prague was such an amazing city. I think my favorite thing in Prague had to be the Jewish Quarter and the Jewish Cemetery. So one thing I've discovered on this trip is that nobody likes the Jews. They have been persecuted since the dawn of time and in Prague, the Jewish cemetery is a huge representation of how poorly this group of people was treated. The Jews were only allowed to live in the Jewish quarter of the city and they were given only one area to bury their dead. For religious reasons they cannot cremate their deceased which means eventually, the space they were given for their cemetery filled up. When they asked for more land, the government just gave them more dirt so they could bury more bodies on top. It's estimated that there are 100,000 people buried stacked into about 12 layers. The museums around the cemetery provided a lot of insight into the Jewish faith. I got to learn a lot about the types of ceremonies they have for weddings, births, burials, and the Sabbath. The most interesting thing being why the men are circumcised. I always thought it was for cleanliness but they are actually marking their bodies as a testament to their devotion to god and morality. Overall, a very educational experience in a beautiful city. Oh, and the astronomical clock show was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I am so glad that I stood there in a giant tourist filled crowd waiting for the show to begin. no regrets.

Poor But Sexy

Travelling to Berlin for the first time was truly an amazing experience. Everywhere you walked there was some historical event that happened there and because of Germany's history, it was usually something unpleasant. It was amazing to me how many memorial sites they had in the city. Each memorial served as a reminder to the people in Berlin about what occurred during WWII and the Holocaust. The city itself was not all that beautiful, and at first this surprised me considering that it is once again the capital of Germany. However, I had to understand that Germany was reunified only 26 years ago. This may seem like a long time, but the city is in a state of reconstruction because of the destruction that occurred during the war and the inability of Russia to rebuild and maintain East Berlin. I also got the opportunity to visit my first concentration camp which was one of many somber places we visited on our trip here. It is still unfathomable to me how someone could do what the Nazi regime did to the Jews, homosexuals, disabled, and gypsies. We learn about the holocaust in our history classes but because we learn in the US we don't get the opportunity to actually visit a camp. Visiting Sachsenhausen was a sobering experience. I stood on the same ground as thousands of people who had been persecuted and made to suffer. I walked on the foundation of the crematorium where people were systematically murdered and burned. I learned about the different ways guards in this certain camp treated the victims and just how terrible the situation was. Learning about it is one thing, but to actually go to a place where these atrocities occurred is something that I will never forget.

Panic Posting Part 2: Amsterdam

 The weekend of Karneval, a small group of us went to see Amsterdam. Because of Karneval, travel was kind of crazy. The trip there went perfectly fine. There's a Subway (the sandwich place) next to the Hauptbahnhof (main station for whoever in my vast collection of readers didn't know). There's also a subway (public transportation) there too. Anyway, I ate my Subway sandwich and then went and got on the train to Amsterdam. It was indirect, and one of the stops was in Cologne (using the American spelling because I can't find the two little dots that go above the o in Koln). We transferred across only a few platforms, and it really wasn't bad at this point (yes I'm foreshadowing). The travels continued just fine, and I thoroughly enjoyed it because I absolutely love trains. We arrived in Amsterdam around 10 at night, found the public transportation ticket booth, managed to purchase our tickets after a short ordeal because the machine was apparently not wanting to do any work that night. We took the tram to the hostel. We went to the room. We slept.The next morning, our group woke up, traveled over to downtown, and proceeded to walk around. We saw the Body Works museum exhibit, with the plasticized cadaver parts. Not really a traditional Amsterdam landmark, but it was interesting. Then we ate some really good pancakes (mine had ham, brie and honey, and yes it was as good as it sounds). We met up with the others, walked around a lot more, had dinner, then retreated home. It wasn't a particularly eventful day, and I didn't see the Anne Frank house, but there was a huge line and I was content wandering around and just looking at buildings/ the water. Maybe I'm just easily amused. The next day, we saw the big Amsterdam letters that everyone takes pictures by, walked by some very pretty museums but didn't go in, and did a little bit of souvenir perusing. Again, not particularly interesting, but I enjoyed myself. It was then time to go home. The trip was fine, until Cologne. Oh Cologne. Remember 1/3 of a paragraph ago I said it was fine on the way there? Well it was definitely not fine on the way back. Our train to Bonn was delayed by 90 minutes (or 70, I can't remember). It was around 11pm at this point. There's vomit and other questionable fluids all around. There's people everywhere who are clearly having way more fun than me. We tried to read the time tables to find another train home but the ones that we thought would be there were not. We went outside and tried to flag a taxi, but they wouldn't even slow down. After 90 (or 70) minutes of this nonsense, the original train finally came. It was so crowded on the platform trying to get through the doors, I was sure somebody would fall in the gap or there would be some kind of horrible incident. I somehow managed to get a seat, but the train was completely packed. After one stop we stayed for around 15 minutes because the conductor was saying over the speaker that we were too full but nobody got off. I guess he gave up, because we eventually arrived in Bonn. I would rate that as my second least favorite transportation story (yes, foreshadowing again).

 Overall, I'm glad I went to Amsterdam. I really liked walking around it, but again, I didn't really do anything noteworthy. I guess that's just the way trips go sometimes. 

Panic Posting Part 1: Karneval

 Because I have not succeeded in sitting down and writing a blog since early February, for the next few days I will be writing a lot. The week after the Vienna trip, Karneval happened. Yes, it was everything they said it would be. On the first day, I wound up having a beer in front of a church at 10am on a Thursday while members of a huge parade had a great time throwing candy at my head. It was fun and interesting, and everyone seemed to be having a really good time. It was interesting to witness this crazy huge party over a holiday that I didn't know existed. It was loud, fun, cold, and I got tired very quickly. I seem to have very low stamina when it comes to large, crowded events. The rest of the day was spent inside in the silent warmth of Netflix. Do I regret not spending more time among the festivities? Yes, because I think it would have provided some interesting stories aside form the ones from that morning, and I would've probably met a lot of new people. But also, no, because I fundamentally dislike standing around in a loud, crowded environment while a cold beer slowly depletes my hand of what little warmth wasn't lost to the weather. Does this make me lame? Probably, but I think I got enough of a taste as I needed in order to be satisfied. The theme of my being lame and the ramifications of that will continue to be prevalent in the rest of the posts I write. It's not that I dislike adventure or people or Germany, it's just that there are very few things that I will willingly be in an uncomfortable (to me) situation for an extended period of time. Anyway, to sum up: Karneval is great, but not really my cup of tea (or beer).

Because sometimes you just can not do it on your own...

So this will be my second post in one night, the last week as had two major things for me...the trip to Paris and another doctor's visit. So this is on a very personal level but I don't really care who knows and maybe it might just help someone else on this trip, or the next program that stumbles across this random post on the Biosciences blog. I'm a really stubborn person and being older than the rest of the students, I'm pretty set in my ways and the hardest thing for me is to ask for help. Finally I had to. There's the point where the stress of both the major and minor things happening at home along with the travels and classwork can get too much. For me the major stress was big stress..my husband's heart attack, my cousin's death, my son's appendectomy and my father's cancer diagnosis. I can honestly say although my grades really suck right now in terms of where they usually are, it would probably be worse if I wasn't here because there is time for extra help and flexibility that comes with a study abroad program that you just don't get at home in classes of 100+ students. Even though I can get help on an academic level easily it's much harder to ask for help on a personal level but I did so last week I made my first (and probably not my last) visit to a psychologist. I've done family counseling before for behavior management with my children, but never have I been the one to directly sit across from the doctor and talk about just me. Truthfully at home when I have spells of anxiety and depression I call my general practice doctor and she just prescribes a pill, which I haven't had to take in years but I was at that point again.

So in my one hour visit there was a lot to talk about and actually a lot to learn. One thing he did say to me that kinda really hit home was that when we go through major stressors in life many times we forget to take the time to heal. We forget to grieve and we just keep moving and that many times depression or anxiety can be the psyche's way of telling us to slow down and deal with things. While if you had major surgery you would take the time off work or school to allow your body to heal but when have emotional stress or trauma, like loosing a loved one, many times as humans we sweep things under the rug and keep going. Sometimes the mind needs time to rest and heal too. My next weekend will be about taking some personal time to just breathe and rest and deal with everything that's happened this semester.

There were so many other things talked about aside from the big things and I discovered a lot about myself and what I'm going through. Much more than expected really. Study abroad can be wonderful, and stressful and exciting and exhausting and such a crazy roller coaster of emotions all by itself which is why study abroad is a life-altering experience. Extra stress from home makes that harder but even if you don't have extra stress and things are a more overwhelming than usual and you have depression or anxiety issues there's no shame in asking for help. Hey, even if you don't think going to a psychologist will help, it's just an hour of your time to find out. For me it was an hour well worth it because sometimes you just can not do it on your own, you need someone standing on the outside to show you what's obviously there to work your way through things.

Paris!!!

So with Easter came a four day weekend and finally the one city I said at the beginning I HAD to see before returning home...Paris.

It was truly an amazing thing to be in the city for which my hometown is named and to see and go up into the real Eiffel Tower. The weather wasn't the greatest our first two days there, but it could have been far worse. We made the best of the rainiest day by spending the entire day in the Louvre. I really could have spent days or weeks wandering through the Louvre as there is just so much to see!! We did a usual historical walking tour of the city that we do in most, enjoyed some wonderful food, a morning in Versailles, and Easter Mass at Notre Dame to name a few. I think the highlight for my trip was probably a boat tour the last night we were there...to see Paris from the water lit up along with the beauty of a full moon was absolutely breathtaking. The weekend wasn't long enough. I don't know when I'll be back in Europe, but one thing is for sure, I will be and I will be spending much more time in Paris!!!