Dream experience?

So I'm safe in the US now, back in the same house I've lived in for 4 years. Walking to front door, my hands began shaking, not because I was nervous about how things had changed since I left, but because so little has changed that I'm afraid the past 2 months will turn out to be a dream. I walked into my apartment, turned the key the wrong way like I always have, opened the door, and smelled the mustiness that I've grown accustomed to in the last year. My bathroom towel still hung in the same place I left it 10 weeks ago.

As I walked through the door, scenes from the summer flashed through my mind. Watching the Hungarian symphony in a a gilded opera house, watching the alps zoom past the train window in the superfast train, walking through the streets of Goslar with my long lost German sister. I have to wonder, did all of this really happen? Did I really spend 10 amazing weeks roaming the streets of 7 European countries? Did I really meet people from 30 different countries? Well, this blog, unless I can write blog entries in my sleep, proves that I did in fact do all these amazing things, and much more.

I still have so much to write about. So much happened on this trip that the blog hasn't even begun to explain all the memories in my mind. Hopefully I can catch up on some of the amazing experiences later this week as I wake up 2-3 hours before everyone else (I made it to 5:30am this morning. But until I can write again, I leave you with the last picture I took in Marbug, which really makes me think that this trip was a dream.

MIA for a while

Just so you know, I will probably be MIA for the next few days as I travel from Marburg to Frankfurt to Geneva to Amsterdam to Chicago and finally Champaign. Pray that no air traffic controllers strike in Switzerland, the Netherlands, or Chicago and that I make all my trains (I have 4 tomorrow alone) :-/

As much as Reuti wants me to have an eventful trip...I hope its plain boring.

Tata for now!

Caught unawares....but at least I had my towel

I leave for the US on Wednesday but I had to check out of my dorm today. However, I didn't know that I had to check out of my dorm today. I got up around 8:45...headed to the shower. I share a shower with 15 other people...which you might think is gross, but people keep the shower clean so its really not that bad. But I have to walk down the hall to use the shower.

Anyways, I'm down the hall, taking a shower, shampooing my hair, when someone bangs really loud on the door. I wonder if the door is going to crash in. Then I hear a female voice yelling "drei hundert neunzehn"....which is my room number. I turn off the shower, get soap in my eyes and yell back. "Ya, drei hundert neunzehn" . She then bangs on the door again and yells something in German...I have no idea what she said....I listen...I pause...and I reply "Ich verstehe nicht"....(I don't understand) to which she says another 30 words in German of which the only part I understand is "aus".....which ussually comes paired with questions that ask about travel. I then realize that someone was coming to see me....and apparantly they wanted to know when I'm leaving. I reply...with my very limited German "Dienstag!" (Tuesday)....she then says .aa/s.mdf/.amdsf;lasjksdf;ljsa or something....I have no idea....and walks away. Thinking that the exchange was over...I finish my shower....get the soap out of my eyes...and wrap up in a towel for the 5 meter walk back to my room.

I step into the hallway, wearing just a towel (I time my escape so no one sees me) and rush to my door...only to be blocked by a large woman dressed in white with hair the color of a coke bottle. She clutched what looked to be 2 folders, one with my name emblazoned across the top. Before letting me into my room, she proceeds to pester me with questions in very fast german....questions that I only catch one or two words of before becoming completely lost. I listen and listen..and eventually figure out that she wanted to know when I was leaving and if I paid my deposit. I say yes, and then say that I'm going to pay my rent that very day. During this time she grabs a tall Arabic guy and asks him to translate for us....even though I'm standing in the hallway wearing nothing but a towel!!!!

We then finish our conversation outside, after which she explains that she needs to see my room, but she doesn't give me the option to dress beforehand. So I open the door to my room, dreading her expression. I had just started packing and entire closet now lay between my floor and bed...sorted into piles that only I understood. I had not cleaned the sink (a task I saved for tonight) and my desk was covered in piles of dead moths (another task for this evening). She quickly walked through the room, with me hurriedly throwing things into a suitcase with one hand and grasping my towel with the other. She then told me that I would be charged a cleaning fee....(not surprised considering the state of my room). And then she left, leaving the door open so everyone could see me in my towel. :-/

I closed the door, quickly dressed, and then began cleaning the room. However, damage had been done, I would now be charged a cleaning fee, all because I had no idea that I had to check out one day before I left. :-/

Thus ends my story.

The Moral: Never leave without your towel.

Success!!!`

As the title suggests...I achieved success today as the 11th person in Marburg to obtain a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The evening started around 10pm when Amir and I walked to the city center (busses stopped running so we had to walk.


After wandering around for a bit, we finally found the bookstore that sold the book at this hour.

Around 12:30, a line began to form, so we decided to get in line.

By 1am, the line stretched around the block.

But at 1:01, the doors opened and we all walked in to obtain our copy of the book, which was even gift wrapped for us. :-)


So here I am with the bag...and the book...



I'm happy to report that the ending is...........

addendum to Harry Potter post

I should also add that I was able to watch the fourth movie in Germany this week...in English even. I'm beginning to wonder why I need to go back to the states...I can get all the books and watch all the movies I want.

Exciting plans for the weekend

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last year, you know that Harry Potter book 7 is released at midnight tonight. Well, the book is released at midnight in great Britain, which means it will be released at 1am in central Europe. Even so, 1am in Germany is still 5 hours ahead of midnight in the states, so if I go to a book store at 1am, I will have my hands on a copy at least 4 hours before my friends in the states. :-) But I will also have the original British version instead of the "translated" American version.

I figure, I'm in Europe, I might as well take advantage of the timezone change. :-) Yesterday Reuti, a labmate, found the only bookstore in Marburg that will actually open at 1am to sell the book. So this morning I set out to the Altstadt (old marburg) to reserve my own copy of the book.

Thanks to Reuti's excellent map, I quickly found the bookstore and went in to order my copy. The bookstore owner laughed when he heard my american accent and said "you traveled a long way to get one book!" I successfully ordered my own copy of the book, so keep you eyes open for an exciting picture to appear around 1:30am my time, (6:30pm CST). Perhaps I'll even open the last page for you. :-)

Highlights from Krakow

This past weekend I traveled to Poland, specifically Warsaw and Krakow, to meet with CESRI fellows and IIE staff for a debrief.

If I had to pick out my favorite thing about Krakow, I would pick hanging out with all the CESRI fellows and IIE staff. It was really nice to see everyone again after 7 weeks in our seperate countries and to hear all about the various projects and experiences of each of the other scholars. It was also great to see Chris and Agi from Budapest and to meet Vijay (with whom I had many phone conversations with) and Mark, the creator of the CESRI program. Chris had impeccable dining taste (he really should write a guidebook) and took us to the most fantastic restaurants in Krakow where we tried dishes such as roast duck, grilled pheasant, blueberry peirogies, and delightful borsh (beet soup). We also took advantage of the large number of people (one table for one shot means just trying a sip of each drink) to sample a large variety of polish vodkas including the incredibly smooth Zubrowka, herbal Wodka Zoladkow Gorzka, and hot honey vodka. We also tried freshly squeezed bison grass (green but rather tasty) and mint apple juice. Needless to say, the weekend was a culinary treat.

But I also experienced a lovely culture and two beautiful cities. Since it was cheaper to fly to Warsaw than Krakow, Cau (CESRI scholar in Marburg) and I flew to Warsaw to stay with Mike, another CESRI fellow who studied in Warsaw this summer. Mike lived in Warsaw until he was 14, so he spoke fluent Polish and could show us around town. We visited the palace of culture and discovered yummy polish pastries. We then took the express train from Warsaw to Krakow (under 3 hours on a track devoted to high speed trains, excellent). In Krakow, we stayed in a hotel jut outside the Floridian gate of the old city. Since we were so close we spent time exploring the lovely inner city. In my own opinion, Krakow ranks far above Prague. Prague was lovely but incredibly crowded and seemed quite dirty (unwashed buildings, dirty streets, etc). Krakow on the other hand contained a lot of tourists, but the wide medievel walkways and large marketplace could handle the large crowd of tourists (one guidebook said that restaurants on the main square could easily hold over 1000 people at one time, which I think was a low number). The main square contained the cloth hall which still served as a marketplace where shopkeepers sold traditional Polish boxes, amber, embroidery, and leathergoods in stalls over 500 years old. Krakow also seemed to host more street entertainment with Polish quartets, Klesmer bands, marionette puppets, and even an elaborate puppet opera could be found on evenings. One never tired of things to see in Krakow. Even after three solid days of touring, including a guided tour of the Nicolas Copernicus Museum with our Polish guide, I found myself yearning for a monthlong stay.

On Sunday, after Chris and Agi left and we finished our powerpoint presentations, we had to fend for ourself gastonomically. However, since krakow is the culinary capital of Poland, we had no trouble finding lovely cafes for a sit down meal and even found yummy snacks on the main square. I tasted my first sheep cheese (squeaky) and fried apple pancakes. We even found restaurants with complimentary pig lard (no joke). To get out of the city on a hot day, we traveled to the Weiczocka salt mines, where 600 years of rock salt mining and artists produced spectacular caves full of statues and chapels. The cool salty air helped clear out our lungs to the point that we all began coughing once we emerged from the mine 3 hours later. After the mine, we grabbed some more sheep's cheese and black current juice and headed to a concert in a recently restored Baroque cathedral. After relishing the amazing accoustics and gilded altars, we traveled to a polish cafe where we all "shared a bed" together as we tried the soup parade of traditional polish soups or dined on 10 different types of meat (I didn't know there were that many). After dinner, the night was still young, so we headed off towards the jewish quarter where Eric showed us his superpowers. After a round of drinks, we began a rousing rendition of Big Booty (video here) with small breaks of zoom and piffle. The calm atmosphere of the jewish quarter was a welcome difference to crazy fireworks displays of the city center. Then around 2am in the morning...we finally headed back to the hotel for a short nap, before some of use arose early to visit the state apartments of Wawel castle and cathedral and the ornate cathedral of St. Mary's (no pictures allowed inside but here is a link to the websites).

I finished off Monday with a final visit to the cloth hall and a leather shop down the street. Then Mike and I met at the train station (see previous post) and I returned safely back to Marburg.

I don't have a whole lot of pictures from this trip, but Mike just posted some excellent photos with his blog post.

You can read the post here.


My photos can be seen here

Poland