Lights, Camera, Milano

Last week was a whirlwind! The week seemed to just drag on forever.

On Wednesday, I became a legally recognized temporary resident of the country, completing the steps of my permesso di soggiorno (finally). I had to report to the immigration office and have my fingerprints taken at 9:00 in the morning with two other classmates whose paperwork had been misplaced the first time. But when we got there, the officer at the front didn't let us in. We had to wait another 30 minutes for our times to be called - long past the times we had scheduled. As I walked past the officer, I saw that my name wasn't actually next to my time - they had scheduled someone else in my slot!

I went up to the window to talk to an officer, and everything was running smoothly - until he couldn't find my packet in the pile. Which, of course, made me panic. Apparently, my packet had been placed in the wrong pile, however, and as he walked back, I collapsed and said a little prayer of thanksgiving. The officer noticed and asked me if I was okay. When I said I'd been worried, he shook his head at me and, waving his hand, said, "Don't be worried." It went pretty smoothly from there.

All three of us were given sheets telling us when to complete our third step, and I was told that I needed to do mine before 12:30 on Wednesday. The other two didn't, so one left to go to Italian class, and the other came with me to find the police station we needed to go to, since her appointment was the next day. When we arrived, I saw a woman who had spoken with us at the immigration office, so I was more comfortable and knew we were definitely in the right place. My classmate left, and I waited in line to be fingerprinted more fully.

This time, the government (instead of taking copies of just my fingerprints) copied my thumbprint, palm print, and full handprint. They also measured my height. Then I was free to go.

Walking back from the center of town, I realized that I had 15 minutes until my Italian class started. So, thanks to the Italian government, I was late to Italian class.

Thursday, my art history class went to visit a church a few minutes walk from Poggeschi that contains a copy of a Raphael painting, The Ecstasy of St. Cecelia. The original, painted in 1514, is kept in the Bologna National Gallery, but at the moment is on display in Torino. For a copy, the painting managed to capture the gracefulness of Raphael's work perfectly. I can't imagine what the original looks like.

On Saturday, I needed a break. So my roommate and I headed off to Milan, a two and a half hour train ride from Bologna. We left early in the morning, taking a 7:00 train and arriving in Milan at 9:50. Once we got to the city, we had to make our way to the very bottom of the station, where we needed to buy tickets to the Metro for the day. Once we had tickets, I had to teach my roommate how to use the Metro, since she had never used one before. We took the Metro to the Duomo stop, and came out into the Piazza del Duomo, the heart of the city.

Piazza del Duomo

Immediately, we were faced with two things: the Duomo and people. The Duomo dominates the piazza, its Gothic facade looking with an imposing glare down its length. Around it were so many people - many more than we've seen anywhere else we've gone this entire semester, even in Venice. Vendors kept coming up to us, hawking selfie sticks (when did this become a thing for street vendors? the only people I've seen with them here are Japanese tourists, not Americans or any Europeans) and trying to grab our wrists and "give" us bracelets. One man actually did this to my roommate, who tried to fight him off, but he grabbed her wrist and tied a bracelet to it anyway. A friend of his came up to me, trying to give me one, too, and grabbing at my wrist, but I crossed my arms and refused. I'm not sure I could have made myself more clear - I only said "No, grazie," to him, and despite him trying to force one onto me - literally trying to tuck it into my hand - and telling me it was his birthday and it was very much for free, I continued to say no and walk away from him (while staying near my roommate, who was fighting her own battle). I even dropped the one he tried to force on me on the ground and he wouldn't stop. If my roommate hadn't finished with her guy any faster, I would have been forced to call the police over.

Il Duomo

The ticket booth had this handy map sketched on it

Once that ordeal was over, the two of us walked into the Duomo, passing by the stage for an outdoor concert being hosted by the MTV European Music Awards. As we entered the church, everything became very quiet - and both of us were awed by the beauty inside.

The Duomo is gorgeous. It's so chockfull of art that I can't even begin to explain it all. My roommate and I just wandered around, trying to analyze the pieces (since we're both in art history) and talking about what everything was used for (since she's not Catholic, and was a little confused). Then, after taking a long last look, we left.

Il Duomo

Il Duomo

And turned into the oldest shopping mall in the world, Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II. It's absolutely  awe-inspiring. We wandered into shops that I never in my life would walk into - except, since Milan is the fashion capital of Italy, it made sense for me to walk into Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and Versace within minutes of each other. I still managed to see things that I was interested in, too, though - we walked into the oldest bookstore in Milan, an art book store, which sadly had a (very) limited English selection, and one of the largest, Liberia Rizzoli, a three floor bookstore with beautiful books and a great selection of bookish accessories (tote bags, notebooks, and pens, among other things).

Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II - Prada on the left and Louis Vuitton on the right

We made a stop for lunch outside of the Galleria, at a place called Granaio - which my roommate termed "an Italian Cracker Barrel." The restaurant was decorated with the store's homemade pasta and biscotti, and they specialized in Milanese comfort food. I managed to try both the risotto alla Milanese and the pork ribs with beans, which were delicious. We topped it all off with a pot of tea, which was nice after all the coffee we've been served here.

After lunch, we walked into a chocolate store, where we bought chocolates for ourselves and for friends, and then made our way towards the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, about ten minutes away. The Pinacoteca houses art by Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Caravaggio, and when we went to visit, was hosting a special exhibit of Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus, the largest collection of his scientific drawings. The art was beautiful (and they let us in with a student discount!), but I don't think I've ever been so excited to see documents before - especially the picture of Leonardo's first flying machine, which was practically just a boat with wings. That image definitely made my day.

Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

As we wandered back, we stopped in a gelateria and tried chestnut gelato - which was amazing - and popped into a few more shops, before deciding that we needed to make our way back to the Metro and the train station. However, all the stops for Duomo were closed off.

What we didn't know was that, due to the MTV Music Awards, all of the stops for Piazza del Duomo had been closed for the evening, and we would now have to find an alternate route back to the train station. We ran completely around the Piazza, looking for an open station, and when we couldn't find one, we stopped a security guard and asked him where to go. He pointed to a station down the road that was open, and we ran to it.

Once we got on the train, we knew we needed to switch onto the yellow line - and the only way to do that was at Duomo. But we had forgotten that it was closed, so when we passed the Duomo stop, we had to get off and do a complete recalculation. We wound up going down another four stops, switching to the green line, and then taking THAT train back four stops to the stop for the train station. Once we got there, we took off down the platform at a flat-out run, realizing at the last minute that we had twenty minutes to spare. We bought some water, walked onto the train, and collapsed.

But then our train had technical problems, and our conductor told us that it had been cancelled.

We now had two options: wait for the 10:15 train to Bologna, or take the 8:50 to Lecce, which stopped in Bologna and was completely sold out - which meant we would have to stand in the hallway for two and a half hours.

We took the train to Lecce.

At first, the train was very crowded - my roommate was squished against the door, and I was up against the bathroom - but an hour into the ride, practically everyone was off the train. We had about 45 minutes left into the ride, and only myself, my roommate, and another man were in the hallway in our car, when we stopped and let other people off. As soon as we started moving again, the man asked us if we were professional singers (we had been playing music to pass the time, because we were bored and it was too bumpy to do homework). When we said no, he began to ask us if we were married or in some other way attached to someone back home, because we were "too beautiful" to be single - and then, when my roommate said no, he proposed to us both. At this point, I had the creeps - it also didn't help that when we asked where he was from, he had told us that he lived in the Como train station - and I stopped talking to him completely. But my roommate kept talking to him - she even told him her first name, which was more than I would have done - and I didn't even notice that she was uncomfortable, too, until he got up to walk down the hall and she turned to me and said, "We need to move."

And so we switched cars, just in time to run into the conductor, who checked our tickets. As we stood in the hallway (checking anxiously to see if the guy got off when he said he would - we didn't want him following us to Camplus), we met two people from Bologna who overheard us talking and asked where we were from. When we said we were students, they started asking us what we thought of Milan and Bologna, and we wound up having a very nice conversation with them about places to go and things to do in Bologna.

Once we arrived in Bologna (random homeless guy from Como didn't follow us, thank goodness), we walked right back to Camplus and curled up in bed. It was a relief to be back.

Milan was definitely an adventure, but it was worth all of the stress and craziness. I'd definitely go back again.

Standing Among the Ashes of the Dead

Walking onto the property, you'd never know that over a million men, women, and children died here.  Instead, you would see the coffee shop, the children running around and laughing, the parents and teachers trying to corral the school groups together, the eager tourists looking forward to their chance to walk onto the hallowed grounds - and maybe buy a souvenir postcard and take a cute selfie in the process.

Taking your first footsteps onto the grounds, you'd still never recognize it as the place where men and women were brutally beaten and systematically murdered. Everything is lush and green - trees line the walkways, grass grows in the areas between the buildings, and if you didn't know what had happened there, you might think that you had just wandered into a small town built of bricks.

But then you see the sign.

And you walk under the sign that tells you that "Work will set you free."

And from that point on, your visit will never be the same.

Because, no matter how often you try to justify it in your mind - no matter how many times you try to look at your surroundings and say that they're too beautiful for so many horrible things to have occurred there - you cannot shake the sense of doom and evil lurking around every corner.

You cannot look out of the windows of the brick buildings without seeing a watchtower and feeling a trapped sensation.

You cannot look at the numbers printed on the walls without feeling a sickening tightening in your gut.

You cannot walk down the tree-lined avenues without wondering why.

You cannot step into the rooms filled with hair without thinking about the people that it all once belonged to.

You cannot walk down the corridor of shoes without smelling the stench of slowly rotting leather and wanting to vomit - and then, when you reach the window at the end, before you turn back, you are filled with despair as your gaze is met by the watchtower again.

The baby toys and infant clothing make you want to cry.

You want to scream at the tourists taking pictures of the sight where men and women were first murdered with Cyclone B that this is a place where people died, and can you not document your vacation for just one minute, please, and respect the dead.

You pass the cell where Maximilian Kolbe died, and cross yourself, and say a prayer, because you're starting to get claustrophobic in this prison and want to get out as soon as you can.

You see the wall where men and women were executed, turned into a memorial with flowers, and wonder why people can't just treat the whole place as a memorial, instead of only a single spot.

And then, just when you think you're about to be free, you walk into the gas chamber.

And now you really want to scream, because everyone around you is taking photos of the walls, the floor, the ceiling. And you can't bear to be in there, standing among the ashes of the dead (not literal ashes, because every surface has long since been wiped clean) with people who cannot fully grasp the enormity of what they're witnessing. The crematorium is a distant image for you because you just walk straight past it to get outside - the stench of death is too strong inside.

And again, you think, you're free - but you're not.

You take a fifteen minute drive to another place, just like it.

Except this one looks like it was meant to kill.

All of the structures are wood. And cattle cars and railway tracks still line the middle, dividing everything.

Half of the structures are just chimneys, because they were burned.

The ones that still stand are horrible to see.

Everyone has a need to see inside. But you can't. You've seen enough.

Enough for a lifetime.

_________________________________________________________________________________

I wasn't completely sure how I could put my experience into words, so I chose to use the second person.

The experience at Auschwitz and Auschwitz II - Birkenau is not something that I ever thought I would have, nor is it something that I ever want to experience again.

Standing on the site where so many died, I never thought I would experience so much ignorance from those around me about what they were witnessing. I heard one person ask why the Jews didn't know that they were going to prison and death camps, and why more of them didn't try to escape. I saw so many people taking selfies outside the walls, and running around laughing as if they didn't know what had happened there 70 years before. I also saw people taking photographs of the prison cells where the first tests of Cyclone B were done.

But I also saw some people who were as affected as I was. Classmates who wrote incredibly moving stories on their social media to share with their families back home once we returned, and who were incredibly solemn throughout the entire trip (and for most of the rest of the day after). The fact that other people my age realized what was going on at that site, seeing the need for the remembrance, and passed on the word to others makes me incredibly - not happy, but sort of proud of my generation.

I don't think I can ever go back to Auschwitz. The sensory overload was too great, the images too powerful, for me to undertake a return journey. I barely made it out of the first camp in one piece - adding the second camp atop that was almost too much.

The most important thing, I think, that I can bring from this experience, is to never forget the human aspect of history.

Never forget that men and women died.

It's not just the dates, the major figures, and the places on the exams - although all of those are important, too.

Remember that things like the Holocaust happened. Remember the victims.

Don't let them be forgotten.

Human Rights and a Fun Fall Break: Visiting Poland

This past five days has been our fall break, and, instead of whiling away my time soaking up the last rays of sun on the Amalfi Coast or curling up with a coffee and a good book in a cafe in Paris or Vienna, I participated in my school's offered trip to Poland to visit a symposium on Human Rights and a Just Society.

I know, you're thinking: this is totally what a college student in Europe wants to do for their fall break. Human rights is obviously the most exciting conference topic that I've ever heard of. And if you were thinking that (or saying that) sarcastically, you'd be wrong.

However, because it was a trip that I was involved with, nothing could go smoothly.

Our itinerary called for us to fly out of Bologna Airport at 3:30 (15:30, European time) and arrive in Krakow, Poland, with time to drop our bags off at our hostel, explore for a while, and then reconvene for dinner. Instead, Air France decided that that particular Thursday seemed like an excellent day to hold a strike. And their strike shut down the entire airport. My roommate and a friend of ours took a taxi from Camplus to Bologna Airport around 1:30 - and arrived at the departures sign to discover that our flight was delayed until 11:30 that night.

Our director had yet to arrive at the airport, and so we sat around, trying to figure out what we were doing. Our first attempt at going through security was a failure - we were told that we would not be allowed through until we had two hours before our departure. Resigned to our fates, we bought some waters and sat around some more - until we learned that some of our classmates, inexplicably, had made it through. Without further ado, about half of us stood up and made the trek through security.

After making it through security, I looked down at my ticket, and realized that there was fine print at the top - because we were not EU citizens, we needed our tickets stamped at the check-in gate downstairs - BEFORE security - or the airline had the right to throw us off of the plane. I attempted to round up as many of my classmates as I could gather, and we turned around and walked out of the secured area, annoyed that no one had mentioned this to us before we arrived at the airport.

We walked downstairs to the check-in counter, only to discover our director (who had just arrived) and the other adults who were joining us for the conference. One student was already in the line, and was being used as the test subject as to whether we would be allowed to stamp our tickets at the moment or not. After a 15 minute wait (the test student had been waiting for 45 minutes because of the lack of staff at the airport - the strike was slowly killing everyone), we learned that they wouldn't even consider stamping our tickets until 7 PM that night. All of us split up, and began to wander the airport, killing time until 7.

My roommate and I wandered into the bookstore, looking at English language books (because, let's face it, neither one of us is that fluent in Italian yet). I picked up a copy of Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer to read on the flight (and while sitting in the airport) for two reasons: 1) it had been on my to-read list for years, and 2) it was the first copy that I had seen of the novel that didn't involve a nude woman on it (not something I really want to be carrying around with me). We then wandered down towards the other end of the ground floor, looking at what there was to offer, and wound up at a coffee shop, where I got a macchiato (my roommate had a cappuccino) and sat down to avail ourselves of the wifi (which was pretty bad on the ground floor) and to read for a little while.

Chilling in the Bologna Airport

After sitting got boring, we walked back towards the escalators, and stopped into a makeup store on the way because my roommate had forgotten to pack her lipstick. There, I bought a cute color for a little less than 2 euro, but my roommate and I both had an issue with our colors: the ones that we grabbed (that were stocked in the row of the color that we liked) were not the ones that we wanted. Instead, we had to switch the colors out. Mine was switched out, no problem - I caught the mistake, checked the number, and informed the woman at the counter. My roommate's, however, became more complicated, as both she and the woman at the counter became increasingly upset over the issue - and their combined lack of language (not enough Italian or English between them to make them understand what was happening) only compounded the problem. Finally, we both had our purchases and left, with my roommate slightly more upset than before, and me wishing to be anywhere but the Bologna Airport.

After we got up to the first floor, we killed the rest of the time until 7 checking wifi and chatting with family and friends. Once our tickets were stamped, we were able to get a free dinner (mortadella sandwiches and a bottle of water) from a restaurant near the check-in, and then go through security. After security, we wandered through some shops and bought some gelato (it had been a stressful evening already, and it was only 8 PM). We then proceeded to kill time until 9, when another restaurant (this time inside security) provided free food for us in compensation (yet another mortadella sandwich, but with a Coke this time - which was amazing, even if it was flat). Finally, around 10:55, we began to queue for our flight, and we took off for Krakow on time.

We landed into Krakow at 1:15 AM, and wound up at our hotel around 1:30. None of us had money, because Poland (we had found out the day before) is not on the euro. Instead, it uses the zloty (one euro is 4.23 zloty and one dollar is 3.72, to give you an idea of just how bad the zloty is as a currency). We walked into our hostel - The Goodbye Lenin - and, as soon as we were checked in, put on pajamas and went to bed.

The sign greeting us in our hostel

We woke up early and got on the bus for Auschwitz the next morning, the vast majority of us sleep-deprived, moneyless, and very cold. We spent an hour and a half on the bus, most of which was spent sleeping (we'd gone to bed around 2:30 and woken up at 7 for our bus at 8:45). Once we arrived at Auschwitz, we were able to pull cash from the ATM there, and then we went on a tour of both Auschwitz I and the nearby Auschwitz II - Birkenau.

In order to fully capture my thoughts about the experience, I will be posting a separate blog on Auschwitz. Suffice to say that I was in a pretty crummy mood for the rest of the day from what I saw.

When we returned to the hostel that afternoon, my roommate and I immediately jumped at the chance to explore a little bit of Krakow. We wandered into a coffeehouse nearby (because we were both freezing and very tired), and discovered the wonders that is Columbus Coffee. A national chain in Poland, Columbus, we both decided, is better than Starbucks (and with the conversion rate, much cheaper). I got a caramel macchiato and was very happy indeed.

The best caramel macchiato you will ever have (sorry, Starbucks)

From the coffeehouse, we wandered along the way to the Old Town and main square, stopping to pick up more things that my roommate had forgotten in Bologna. We made it to the market just as the sun was setting, and found all sorts of beautiful artisan booths set up. Ignoring the food (we were going back to meet up for dinner in an hour), we wandered around, looking for gifts. I found book earrings with the cover art for The Great Gatsby and a pair of wooden earring that were carved to look like the city's horse drawn carriages, and my roommate picked up a metal rose.

When we arrived at the hostel for dinner, our director said that we were splitting into three groups and going to three different restaurants because of our late arrival the night before. After a very tense bidding war, I wound up at the modern Polish restaurant Mamas, along with eleven other students and our director. Given 60 zloty to spend, we managed to all feast. I had a small bottle of water, a bowl of onion soup, gnocchi with pan-seared beef tenderloin and Asian spices and a dessert of "unbaked cheesecake," and still came in 4 under. Everything was delicious, and I got to know my classmates better.

Afterwards, I walked back to the hostel with another girl who didn't want to go out drinking (which was the general consensus from the rest of my classmates), and so I caught up on the hostel wifi and then went to bed.

 We woke up early again the next morning to get on the bus and drive to Warsaw. We were assured that it would only be a 3-4 hour bus ride, and we would be in the city by 3 at the latest. It turned into a disaster. Our bus driver was not from Warsaw, and so he didn't know where he was going. He also didn't speak a lick of English. And the air conditioning was broken, so the bus was sweltering for the entire ride. Our only break, besides two for the bathroom, was because the driver was legally obligated to stop for 45 minutes, and so we finally managed to eat lunch.

Needless to say, we didn't get into Warsaw until 5:30. And we didn't really get to see much of the city.

At 7, we boarded the bus to head to dinner. And that's when our director hit us with more bad news.

Our restaurant - which had been reserved months in advance, had a planned menu, and was completely ready to go - had cancelled our reservation. The only reason that our director could think of as to why the restaurant would cancel (because he had contacted the person helping him set up the trip, who happened to be a Polish lawyer) was the fact that he had asked to select the soups upon arrival at the restaurant. But instead of a delicious meal as a group, we were sent in pairs into the Old Town of Warsaw with 100 zloty to split equally.

Old Town Warsaw

My roommate and I joined some friends in wandering into the Old Town, where (after considerable debate, involving miscommunication and lots of walking up and down stairs) we chose a restaurant. We wound up spending the next two and a half hours at the restaurant because the waitstaff were incredibly slow and spoke very little English. The food was decent, but not the best food we had on the trip (Mamas was by far much better than the place we stopped at), and, if there had been fewer than 8 in our party, I'm sure we would have been able to get in anywhere we wanted.

After dinner, I took a taxi back to the hotel with a friend and then got ready for bed.

In the morning, we woke up early and got on the bus (there was definitely a theme of getting up early and climbing on the bus) to drive to the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising. Our director gave us an hour and a half to see the museum and buy souvenirs.

It was not nearly enough time.

The Museum is set up similarly to The National World War II Museum's Road to Berlin and the International Spy Museum, in that it is interactive and set up to be a sort of "immersive history" museum. When a new part of the timeline started, a flyer was available (in Polish and English) giving background details on the time discussed. Little pieces of paper with the date and important events hung on the walls for visitors to take. Planes soared overhead, bullets could be heard clashing, and, in one memorable part, visitors walked down a sewer tunnel while hearing whispers in Polish (this was too terrifying for me - in part because I was by myself, and in part because I know literally one word in Polish - the word for gingerbread - and I didn't want to find out if there was someone at the other end with a gun. It was really scary).

That being said, however, I wish that the layout was better, because it was difficult to follow the story of the Warsaw Uprising once I left the first floor (and the time restriction didn't help here). At one point, the Germans had just entered Warsaw; the next, there were Poles in the RAF; suddenly, the Uprising was over and people were dead. There was no real flow to the museum, and I found it confusing. I also wished that the date pages were in English as well, because I would have loved to take quotes and information pages back with me on more than just the general background.

Because I was so confused, I wound up finishing the museum a half hour early. I walked out to the bookstore, bought some gifts, and then wandered over to the memorial garden in back.

The Memorial Wall

Roses growing over a colorized photograph taken during the 1944 Uprising

The Memorial Garden

Surrounding the entire museum is a memorial wall, with the names of those who died fighting for the Polish Resistance - called the Home Army, or Armia Krakow - and other insurgent groups in 1944 to free Poland from German control. Behind it is a small garden, with murals and photographs alongside rose bushes and other flowers. I was the only one back there, and so I spent a quiet fifteen minutes walking among the flowers before I got too cold and went back to the bus.

After we got back on the bus, we headed out to Torun, the location of our conference. The drive was supposed to be 3-4 hours, and this time it was - we got into Torun exactly on time. We had a good hour and a half to explore the city before the first night of the conference, which was a film about how Italy has dealt with the migrant crisis, and so I wandered around the streets of Torun with some friends, chasing pigeons and taking lots of pictures.

The main square of Torun

The Church of Saint James - the only Gothic style building in Torun

Statue of Nicolas Copernicus in the main square - Torun was the home of the famous astronomer

The film that night was difficult to watch (not just because I was having to crane my neck to read subtitles). It made me realize just how little I actually had heard about the migrant crisis in Europe before I got here, and how little information we are given about world affairs in the states. The discussion from students was really good, and we left via taxi to go to dinner.

Mixed among the Polish students and students from the Loyola University of Chicago program in Rome, I got the chance to talk over what I had seen and also meet new people. Dinner was pizza - which seemed a little unusual in Poland, especially when the vast majority of us at the conference were at school in Italy - but we enjoyed it immensely.

The next morning, we sat through the rest of the symposium, which discussed who the refugees are, where they are from, and why they are fleeing, and what we can do to fix the issue. We heard about the conditions on the front lines in Sicily now and the story of a man who had made the journey 8 years prior. We also heard from one of the representatives of Human Rights Watch as to what they recommend the EU do in order to fix the issues. Finally, the symposium closed with a mock panel, choosing whether or not to grant refugee status to a migrant.

What I took from the symposium was this: I know practically nothing outside of the news provided to me in the states. I knew nothing about the crisis except for the views presented on national television and in national papers, and I don't think that this is acceptable. Although the presentations (with the exception of HRW's) attempted to play to our emotions rather than our rationality, they did make me realize that something momentous is happening and nothing is really being done about it. And our country is one of the ones saying that it isn't really our problem.

After a packed morning, my roommate and I dropped our things at the hotel and spent the afternoon wandering Torun. We wanted to go to the Gingerbread Museum, but the only tour in English was at 4, and we didn't feel like waiting that long. Instead, we walked to a tea room that I had spotted the other day and spent an hour drinking tea and relaxing. After buying the teas we had (they were both amazing), we walked around looking for a store that would have t-shirts (for my roommate). Instead, we wound up in a coffeehouse buying cakes (we were starving) and then in a gingerbread store - which, incidentally, Torun is famous for making. We finally found a shop that had exactly what we wanted, and, after leaving, went back to the hotel, where we devoured some gingerbread within the warmth of the lobby.

The best little tea shop  

The view from our lobby

Not long after, we met our director to walk to dinner with the students from the Loyola Program, which was a multi-course Polish meal, complete with a toast of vodka in the middle. After dinner, we walked to a brewery, where we met the Polish students and shared some beers with them.

This morning, we had to be up very early - 6:45 - and on the bus to drive to Warsaw Airport. This time, our bus was actually on schedule, with no issues. And today, I made it safely back to my dorm.

Overall, I had a great time in Poland, despite the setbacks. I really loved Torun and Krakow, and I wish we'd spent more time there. Warsaw wasn't my favorite, but I think I would've liked it more if there had been more to do around our hotel.

Honestly, it just means that someday I'll have to go back and visit everything that I missed.

Not Throwing Away My Shot: Week Two and Hamilton

So, week two of classes... not much different than week one.

On Thursday, I went to the Mass of the Holy Spirit, and got to spend some time with Italian students (and learned that one should never come between a massive group of hungry Italians and a table full of food).

Cultural Friday (our Friday morning Italian class), I wandered out to the Mercato delle Erbe with some classmates and attempted to converse with locals, buying a white peach (last of the season!) and a bouquet of flowers for my dorm room.

This weekend passed uneventfully, with one exception: I discovered the musical Hamilton.

This might seem like a strange thing to be the highlight of a pretty decent week, but let me explain:

Hamilton tells the story of one of our Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, from his birth on Saint Croix in the Caribbean to his death at the end of Aaron Burr's gun. In between, it manages to make both Hamilton and Burr convincing, appealing narrators of their combined, intertwined story.

And it does this through a combination of hip-hop, rap, R&B, and pop music.

That's right, our Founding Fathers can spit rhymes like nobody's business.

Right before the Battle of Yorktown, the Marquis de Lafayette and Hamilton turn to each other and say, "Immigrants - we get the job done." And this is truly the heart of Hamilton's genius - reminding Americans that their country was built by men and women who were not native to the land, and who owed as much to the country as we owe to them. Hamilton was an immigrant from the Caribbean; Lafayette, a temporary immigrant from France; Baron von Steuben, an immigrant from Prussia, where he had been exiled. The show also capitalizes on this as well, by casting a racially diverse cast to, as playwright and lead actor Lin-Manuel Miranda says, "...Tommy [Thomas Kail, the director]'s genius in casting was he said, 'This is a story of America then told by America now...'" (article here). And that's exactly what the musical is - America then, told by America now.

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton: An American Musical

What draws me even more to Hamilton is the clear passion that Miranda has brought to telling the story of Alexander Hamilton, "the ten dollar Founding Father without a father." The love that Miranda has for his subject is clear in the little details that appear throughout the lyrics and his own tweets about the difficulties of translating Hamilton's language (especially his "comma sexts" with his sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler Church). This passion for a subject is something that I relate to - that's something that I also have, for Camille Desmoulins, the person that I want to study.

And I also see this musical as a new way to open up teaching history to students in the future. Having students listen to "The Ten Duel Commandments" to teach them about dueling, or to play them the opening song "Alexander Hamilton" or "Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)" to talk about the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers? That's a great new way to engage students in the classroom. Have a rap battle cabinet session, like Hamilton does. Or just use the musical as a way to remind students that history can come in many forms - books, films, and now the hottest ticket on Broadway.

(l-r): Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson, and Anthony Ramos as John Laurens in Hamilton: An American Musical

Thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda, for reminding people that history can be cool.