Updates; Bratislava and Vienna

Life here has been the kind of life where having time to sit by myself on the computer for longer periods of time is practically non-existent. Once I leave my apartment, there's no practical reason not to stay out - it just takes so long to come home, I end up exploring somewhere else or having dinner with some friends. By the time I return home, it's time to sleep so that I can make the one hour transport to school again.

Specifically, the past few days have been the Will Trip to Bratislava and Vienna. It was a tightly packed schedule for all four days, and because of the recent volcanic eruptions and subsequent shutdowns of all European airports, we instead took a nine-hour train ride direct to Bratislava, Slovakia.

 There's much I can say and nearly 1000 photographs as testament to my excitement, but I'd like to point out some highlights of the trip. We had a series of lectures over the course of four days, and it was very interesting to learn about Slovakia, which to be honest, has never really been high on my radar. Mixed in there was also a lot of information about the EU and later Austria.

My first impressions of Bratislava; it's beautiful! It has that charm of the old city dotted with buildings that recall the older Baroque and Rococo (as our tour guide kept happily telling us), the cobble-stone streets, and many clock towers, but there's also the new, modern buildings. The Danube runs through the center, splitting an "Old Bratislava" from "New Bratislava" where most of its citizens actually live.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of the kid :) It was so cute to see him curiously poking around the sculpture.

We later went up to the castle and parliament, and there was a spectacular view from there.

We also had the privilege of being allowed to visit the inside of the building, as well as sit ourselves in the room of raging debates - including in the seat of the president.

On the way back down from our high lookout point, there was just so much more to see.

By the way, if you look closely at this photograph of the castle, currently undergoing renovations, you can see two miscellaneous-looking windows hanging out on the side. According to our wonderful guide (who walked with the few of us who lagged behind the rest of the group, I suppose to make sure we didn't get lost), they simply built the new castle over on the old, and left vestiges of the old like these windows.

On the other side of the Danube, across the gorgeous bridge I kept taking photos of, lay a modern complex of shopping centers and more that we did not have the time to explore.

Also, this way of going up a floor mesmerized me. It's not an escalator with stairs... !

As for meals, we had some fun eating in this slide/escalator mall, as well as lunch at the top of a rotating TV tower. The view kept changing, and every hour we would return to our original position.

One dinner we visited the "Slovakia Pub," in which it took one hour for us to order, and another two for our food to arrive. I'd say most people were past sober by the time food came :) I think the best instruction I've ever received from someone is when Karen told us all, "You get 15 Euros on food, and please spend more of it on food than on beer."

It was wonderful to have Slovakian students sitting among us; I had a great chat with Theresa (I hope that's how you spell her name, though of course she pronounced it differently from how we would) about daily life, impressions of Americans, music, dancing, and on and on. I think it was extremely interesting to hear her say that she actually preferred the American accent over the British! That was probably the first time I'd ever heard so. I was also happy to hear that every time she saw a foreigner in Slovakia, including a group of "silly Americans" as I called us, she felt excited to know that there were people actually visiting Slovakia and knowing of its existence. I only felt a little sad that her impression of Slovakia was that not many people knew about the country.

At some point on Tuesday, I believe, we somehow ended up crossing a border into Hungary and visiting the old ruins of a castle. It was completely unexpected and unscheduled - but of course, our itinerary barely stayed according to schedule during the entire Sunday through Wednesday.

Returning to Bratislava, we had the rest of the evening to ourselves. At some point later in the night, perhaps around 10pm or so, four of us went out for a nighttime excursion to photograph the night, before we left the next morning for Austria. (Speaking of which, in a few of the previous landscape photographs, you can actually see Austria and on a good day, Vienna).

So, I leave with some last photos of Bratislava. I have so much more to share, but as it's already a long post, I'll leave Vienna for tomorrow. You'll just have to ask me more about Slovakia and Bratislava on your own...

Ich bin ein Berliner

As the saying goes, I am now officially a registered resident of Berlin, with a bank account that I do not yet have access to and a lovely room in a generous host family's flat in Kreuzberg. It's refreshing how well-lit my room is through two windows, the thin blue curtains giving the light a delicate coloration.

Since arrival at the Tegel airport on Monday, after worrying about all my extra luggage and whether it would make it through Frankfurt properly or not, I have been utterly bombarded by all sorts of German and Germany. Seriously.

The Stanford Center, Haus Cramer, is absolutely gorgeous. There are hammocks in the reading room at the top of the building, a beautiful grand piano in a dramatically lit room, and a floor decorated by crushed coke cans in the basement library, just to mention a few.

The sun has also been very playful, coming out strong on some days and refusing to show itself properly on others. The cold temperature remains consistent throughout the day though, chilling even further when nighttime hits.

Classes have begun, but you almost forget you're in school here. One of my classes, "Berlin Vor Ort," is a field-trip based course, in which our professor takes around the city and explains history to us as we pause at each location. Our first tour of course began at the Brandenburger Tor, and eventually circled around the Reichstag, the Holocaust Museum, and a few other notable spots.

There has also been already several opportunities of nighttime journeys around the city, including our first introductions to Berlin clubs pumping American music. Yes, pumping American music, which should not be surprising, but somehow still was. I'm afraid I don't recall the first club's name (not that I ever knew what it was, actually), but last night we took a dance through the various floors of the well-known Havannah, from its Salsa dances down to the Hip Hop darkness.

What more to say in an already long blog post? Only that I can't believe it has been a week; it has already felt so long.