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.

Surviving the First Week of Classes

After Greece, I wanted to collapse (especially after that insane ferry ride back). But I had to wake up and go to classes in the morning.

And so began my first week of classes here in Bologna.

Three days of the week, we have class in central Bologna, at the Jesuit center, Poggeschi. It's about a 30 minute walk from where our dorms are - we have to cross over a major bridge and walk through the heart of town in order to make it to classes. And, despite what many people say about Europe being more lax about classes here, we have to be on time to every single class. 

Monday was my first class in Environmental Ethics. However, I had overestimated the time I needed to walk to class, and found myself almost to Poggeschi that morning with two hours before class started. So I wandered off towards the Towers to find the international book store. There, I whiled away a happy hour looking at their (sadly small) English book selection, eventually purchasing copies of Fight Club and a Penguin Classics edition of The Great Gatsby. I continued walking towards Poggeschi, and met some classmates for a lunch of pizza, before class started.

Penguin Great Gatsby - because you can never have too many copies of your favorite book

Our professor for Ethics is extremely energetic - she specializes in Ancient Greek philosophy, and she hasn't taught with our program before, but she's excited to work with us all. And so she went over our assignments for the semester and told us what to expect. 

After class, my roommate and I wandered around Bologna, looking for school supplies. I then returned to Camplus, while she went back to Poggeschi for two more classes. 

Tuesday was my first day for my other two classes, Italian and Art History. Walking into Italian, I didn't really know what to expect. If anything, I was assuming that we would have a core curriculum that would match between each section, so that we would all match up for tests and other group events. What I was not expecting was the sudden influx of Italian and the random words scribbled on the board at a pace so rapid that I couldn't write them down without missing the meaning of another five. The best way to explain the method that they've been using to teach us is this: there's an old way to test if pasta is done by taking it out of the water and throwing at the wall. If the pasta sticks, then it's done. It's almost as if our professors are throwing the words at us to see if they stick, and when they do, they throw more. 

It's slightly overwhelming.

Art history, though, is probably my favorite class. Our professor started the course off by showing us clips from the film Monuments Men, which tells the story of a group of men who worked to save art in Europe before it was stolen by the Nazis during World War II. After the war ended, the men also helped to return the art to its proper place in society. Our reading for the course covers the Renaissance greats and the influence the Renaissance had in Northern Italy and France - because our two trips this semester are to Parma and to Paris. 

Throughout the rest of the week, we trekked back and forth between Camplus and Poggeschi, for classes and events. Friday, however, we had the second step of our permesso di soggiorno scheduled, and so I, along with a large chunk of my classmates, wandered off through town to find the immigration office.

After finding the immigration office (the marker on the map we were given was wrong), we had no idea what to do. We had been told nothing. Two students finally walked into a few doors and asked the people working there if that was where we needed to go. They finally got lucky, but it turned out that the post office had failed to send over some peoples' documents, and so some of us needed to have our appointments rescheduled.

I was one of those people. 

I now have to wait another month before I can complete this step. By the time my final paperwork comes in (which takes a month after my third step), I'll be leaving the country. 

After that disappointment, I needed to do something nice. And my roommate and I managed to do that. Together, we spent our first Saturday in Europe traveling to Venice. We had intended to wander through Murano, Burano, St. Mark's, and the Rialto, and take an evening train home. But we became fascinated by the brightly colored buildings of Burano and the gorgeous lace they sold, and spent longer there than anticipated. So instead of going inside the Basilica, we wandered around the outside, looking at the exterior, and watching the bells chime. We made it back to the train station with enough time to peacefully sit on the steps outside and enjoy some gelato and chit chat.

The piazza on Burano where my roommate and I ate lunch

The exterior of the Doge's Palace in Piazza San Marco

The view from the steps of Stazione Santa Lucia

Luckily for both of us, we already know that we're going back.

Yesterday, I spent a relaxing Sunday sleeping in and catching up on the sleep I didn't get in Greece. After waking up, I did some laundry and homework, and then went with some classmates to Mass at a local parish near Poggeschi. The service was beautiful - run by the Jesuits who live at Poggeschi - and, while it was said in Italian, the songs were in Italian, English, and Spanish. And, for our first Mass in Italy, we also had the chance to witness a baptism - just as moving in Italian as it is in English.

Although it did throw us all off because the order of Mass was a little different than usual.

After dinner with friends last night, and a busy day of classes today, I'm ready to see what happens this upcoming week. Whatever it is, I think I might be ready.

Getting to Know You: Visiting Greece

Part of the way that the study abroad program works is that, before classes begin, all of the students enrolled spend ten days in another country together to learn more about each other and to find out about other cultures.

Our ten day program was in Greece.

Before I went on this trip, I never, in a million years, thought I would be spending time in Greece. Never. I thought the Acropolis would just be a childhood dream, that Delphi would just be a picture in my mind.

But it isn't anymore.

Our trip began with a twenty minute walk to the train station in Bologna, led by our fearless director. That was followed by a two and a half hour train ride, and a ten minute bus to the port. We then boarded a twenty-four hour ferry from Ancona, Italy, bound for Patras, Greece.

The nicely packed backpack, before I boarded the ferry

There are many unkind things that I could say about traveling via ferry - it certainly is not the most glamorous way to travel, and sleeping in an airline chair in a sleeping bag is not my idea of fun. But I appreciated spending time with my classmates learning card games and walking around deck. As the sun set, I was standing on the deck with one classmate, taking photos, and realized finally why Homer referred to the waters in his epics as the "wine-dark sea."

The wine-dark sea

After disembarking from the ferry, we took a longer bus ride to Kilini, where we boarded a second (and much nicer) ferry for the island of Zakynthos. Once we arrived on the island, we took a third bus to our accommodations - the No Name Apartments, run by Polyna and Arsen.

The rooms weren't plush and fancy - the water smelled, the wifi was in and out, and mosquitos were prevalent - but of all the places that we stayed, it felt the most like home. Our hosts made sure to show us the island that they know and love, and they did not disappoint. Our first day on the island, we were taken to a vineyard in the mountains, run by Mika and her husband the same way it has been since the 1600s. They made us breakfast (probably the most delicious breakfast I have had since being in Europe) and showed us around the cellar and winemaking process. Mika also showed us her artwork, which she has been making and selling since she studied at the University in Athens. We were then given the opportunity to purchase some wine from our hosts, which we all took advantage of. Based on the look of surprise on their faces, I don't believe they were expecting all thirty-nine of us to buy wine from them - but how else could we thank them for keeping the traditions alive?

A view of the vineyard and taverna

The original taverna from the 1600s

We walked back into town, where we visited a locally owned co-op, and then bused back down the mountain to an olive oil processing plant, where we learned how olive oil was made on Zakynthos. The company we visited participates in a movement to make olive oil in a more environmentally friendly manner, and so we learned about the differences between former practices and current ones.

Afterwards, we were taken to the highest point in Zakynthos, where we ate lunch and took pictures of the island, before we went into the main town and bought towels for a dip into the ocean at the National Marine Preserve. We had dinner at a local restaurant, where they also brought out two dancers to demonstrate (and teach) Greek dancing.

Zakynthos from its highest point

Our second day, we had a brisk walk to our breakfast through an olive grove, which we stopped for a moment to talk with Polyna and Arsen about their thoughts on the area and the changes occurring in Greece. Both are incredibly hopeful for Greece, although Arsen pointed out that all change must start within one person - and maybe that person is himself.

After breakfast at a local cafe, we visited a local pottery shop and then spent two hours on another beach. We then boarded a turtle boat and sailed off into the beautiful waters for the rest of the afternoon.

Zakythnos is the home of the endangered Caretta caretta sea turtle, and we had the chance to see two of them on the boat ride. We also had the chance to swim in a secluded alcove and on "Turtle Island," where many turtles lay their eggs. We then returned for a Greek barbecue of souvlaki and steak with our hosts.

Caretta caretta sea turtle

The cove that we swam in

As we wrapped up our time on Zakynthos, we circled up into a Socratic seminar circle, and discussed what we loved and what we hadn't liked as much. One classmate put it best when he said that he loved our hosts, but his low point was the roosters that crowed every morning outside our windows.

Early the next morning, we took the ferry back to Kilini, where we met our new guide, Iohanna, and got on a second bus to Arahova, a mountain town that is known for skiing in the winter. We stopped at a local taverna for lunch, and then, after a brief refresher at our hotel (with some of the most gorgeous views I have ever seen in my life), we prepared to hike through the ruins of Delphi.

Know Thyself

I had never expected to go to Delphi in my life. I had thought that it would always simply be an idea, or something that I saw in pictures in textbooks. So when I walked onto the site, I wasn't expecting the feeling of power that covered the area. I might not believe in the Greek pantheon, but they knew something was up when they built their temple. There is definitely something about Delphi, and the longer I stood at the site, the more I felt it.

Of all the areas of Delphi, the one that spoke the most to me was the Theatre of Dionysus. Maybe it's just because I do theatre back on my home campus, maybe it's just because there's something so reminiscent of every gym or stage I've ever seen in its structure, but I felt the need to linger there while the rest of the group hiked up to see the Stadium. I stepped onto the stage itself, standing center, and was completely lost for words. Realizing how close the audience was on this stage is terrifying - they would've been even closer than they are in the black box stage we use back home. And there would have been more, in a ring set up so high that it would almost seem suffocating. I believe my final words as I stepped off the stage was the opening of the Odyssey - "Tell me, O Muse, of the storm-toss'd man." But I might be making that up.

Center stage at the Theatre of Dionysus

After the ruins themselves, we wandered through the museum attached to Delphi. There, I remember turning a corner and gasping because I saw something that (once again) I had only seen in photographs in art history books: The Twins, Cleobis and Biton. These giant statues were perfectly framed by the doorway, and seeing them made me, quite literally, gasp and murmur, "Oh wow." My roommate, standing next to me, shook her head at me.

Cleobis and Biton, The Twins

I proceeded to act in such a dumbfounded manner for the rest of our time in the museum.

Afterwards, we returned to the hotel, and then went into Arahova for dinner, where we walked up an interminable number of steps until we reached our taverna, a local restaurant located near a church dedicated to St. George and famous for its treatments of the local goat cheese. We ate very well that evening (it was worth the steps, believe me) - fried cheese, grilled chicken, meatballs, roasted cheese, zucchini balls, pasta, lamb, French fries and more made their way onto our plates and into our mouths.

The day after we hiked up Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses, companions of Apollo. Halfway up our hike, we met with some shepherds, who fed us a small meal of homemade feta, bread, olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers, along with a yogurt/cheese spread, and showed us how they live with their herd of goats. We continued onward, down the mountain, and spent twenty minutes of the hike down the mountain in silence, contemplating the beauty of the nature around us. At one point, we rounded the bend of the path (which wove back and forth along the mountain), and, although my legs were shaking from walking on uneven ground, and I was ready to collapse, I could not believe the view.

The way up Mount Parnassus

With the shepherds

From the top

After hiking the mountain (and making it safely to the bus), we were rewarded with a lamb roast, hosted by the family of our guide. It was much more than just lamb - they practically prepared us a feast. Tomatoes and cucumbers, feta, spanakopita, dolmades made with stuffed cabbage leaves, and probably the best yogurt I've ever tasted graced the table that day. Filled to the brim, we returned to the hotel, and had the evening to do what we wished. I spent the evening catching up with family back home, taking advantage of the wifi that didn't go in and out and the warm shower and soft bed.

The next morning, we left for Athens. Along the way, we stopped at the small town of Distomo. There, we visited the memorial museum, built to commemorate the people of the village during World War II, who were systematically murdered by the Nazis in 1944. Having worked at The National World War II Museum in New Orleans this summer, I was shocked to hear about this brutal murder of Greek men and women - this was not something I had seen covered in the Museum's archival material when I entered data for them. And so I went into the exhibit completely mind-blown. I left with tears in my eyes and physically shaken. Two images from the exhibit stick in my mind: one, an image of the Nazi soldiers, taken just after the massacre, in which they are all smiling for the camera; the other, an image of a seventeen-year-old girl taken by a TIME magazine writer documenting the event a few years later, prematurely aged by what she has witnessed. How can humanity be so cruel, it makes me ask? How could people do such a thing? Were there any Germans that regretted what they did? And if they truly did, would any of the Greeks truly forgive them?

After Distomo, we visited the monastery of Hosios Lukas. Named a UNESCO World Heritage site, the monastery is absolutely gorgeous. It is home to the first octagonal dome in Western architecture, and holds many priceless mosaics and icons. What I loved about it the most, besides its aesthetic beauty, was the peace the site held. After Distomo, which still feels sad after so much time, a place with such peace was a welcome relief.

Hosios Lukas

Mosaic within the church

From Hosios Lukas, we traveled to Athens, stopping at our hotel and then walking through the historic city to the new Parthenon Museum. The Museum was built in 2004, to coincide with the Olympic Games, and to help expand the original museum, which was inadequately small. The site of the museum is atop a Hellenistic city that is currently being excavated, and visitors can see through the floors of the museum down to where archaeologists are working to preserve new elements of the past.

The Parthenon Museum is filled with items from the Parthenon, but underneath many of them is a simmering sense that the Greeks were robbed by past visitors. Especially painful for the Greeks is the story of the Elgin Marbles, which currently reside in the British Museum in London. Iohanna refers to them as the Parthenon Marbles, and reminded us that they were stolen from Greece. She told us that she is on the committee to have them returned to the Parthenon Museum. Having visited the British Museum (and seen the Elgin Marbles on display there - they were one of the two items I chose to go visit in my short time there), I feel that both museums do justice to the items that they preserve. However, attempting to repatriate ancient marbles seems to bring up the same angry feelings as museums requesting the return of mummies and sarcophagi, for example. I don't think that the issue will ever be fully settled. For the moment, I am content to know that I have now viewed the full set of marbles and that I am a very lucky person to have been able to do so.

We left the Parthenon Museum to walk to our dinner, and passed by the government square. When we arrived, it was filled with a Communist Party rally, holding a peaceful protest for the upcoming presidential election. After a quick discussion, we walked quickly through the crowd and continued on to dinner - another feast, but this time with a view of the Parthenon. During dinner, I had the chance to discuss what we had seen with our director. He took rather a positive view of the protests, but (and I think this is because of my background with French Rev and Russian Rev) I took a more wary approach. I told him that the colors and symbols brought up a lot of negative connotations, and were worrisome because of what they could turn into - and what past experience told me they could become. Not all of those past experiences were positive outcomes. Some were, but not all. I think he was surprised to hear me say that, but he nodded, and we wound up having a conversation about the French Revolution.

The Acropolis, from our restaurant

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel, and I chatted with some friends on Skype and prepared for the next day - the Acropolis.

Unfortunately, I woke up sick the next morning. I had a bad runny nose, a sore throat, and - at one point - a fever. I did manage, however, to make it to our morning meeting with a worker from an NGO and a government official about the immigration and refugee crisis in Greece. Afterwards, however, at lunch, I wanted to curl up on the table and die. One of the other members of the group also felt under the weather, and so we both returned to the hotel while the rest of the group mounted the Acropolis - my dream since childhood. I spent the rest of the day in bed, coughing, sneezing, and keeping my fever down.

The next day, we packed up and left Athens, but not before we stopped at the National Archaeological Museum, which houses the gold dug by Heinrich Schliemann from Mycenae. Schliemann also famously excavated Troy, decorating his wife with gold necklaces he believed belonged to Helen of Troy. We also viewed some famous pieces of statuary, including a bronze statue, the Artemision Bronze, of a man poised to throw either a lightning bolt or a trident - making it either Poseidon or Zeus.

The Artemision Bronze

After leaving the museum, we journeyed on to Mycenae itself, climbing the citadel to view just how perfectly positioned it was in the ancient world.

Mycenae Burial Sites - Schliemann's Dig Site

We left Mycenae, passing over the Isthmus canal designed by Nero, and entering the town of Nafplio, where we spent our last night in Greece. We climbed up to the top of Nafplio's old town walls, looking out at the city below us. Then, along with some classmates, I walked back into town and got some gelato (the best in Greece, made by Italians - of course) and purchased a set of worry beads, for which the city is known. After returning to the hotel, we went to dinner as a group, walking to our final large feast of cheeses, salads, moussaka, and meats together in Greece. The next morning, as others took the late morning to shop and swim in the rocky waters, I took the chance to get some much needed rest (since I was still sick). Not long after, we packed up and boarded our bus for Patras, to board our ferry for Ancona - and Italy.

Nafplio

Our ferry ride back home was not nearly as smooth and easy going as our first. Due to a mistake by the travel agent, we had all been booked for deck seats - meaning we would have to sleep outside - instead of airline seats. The crew of the ship were incredibly unkind to us for the entirety of the trip, scolding us for sitting in areas without buying anything (simply because it was air-conditioned) and telling us not to sleep on the floors or anywhere we had not been ticketed for.

In other words, if we were not outside, we were not to be seen on ship.

By the time we landed in Ancona, the entire group had written horrible review cards for the ship and crew, and were incredibly grateful to be close to Bologna again.

After an uneventful train ride, and a quick walk back, we all returned to Camplus. All that's left for me to do now is catch up on my laundry (which will take a while, sadly).

Mainly, what I got from this trip was a new closeness to my classmates. Not only did I get a chance to put names with faces, I received the opportunity to chat with everyone and learn who they were. I got to really know people who both go to school with me and those who don't. In fact, I spent more time with students who go to other schools than I did with my own classmates from back home. Each night, there was engaging conversation, laughter, and smiles.

But I'm not sure that I've summed up Greece properly. Because, you see, you really can't summarize what I saw with words. Or with images.

There is a quote from Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History that best summarizes the emotions I have coming back from Greece: "...it had the quality of a memory; there it was, before my eyes, and yet too beautiful to believe."

αποχαιρετισμός, Greece. ευχαριστώ.

Farewell, Greece. Thank you.

Sunset in Nafplio

New Climes, New Times: The First Few Days in Bologna

It has been a wild couple of days so far here in Bologna! Unlike some of my classmates, my flights over to Europe were uneventful (except for the guy on the flight from Atlanta who wanted to get off, decided not to, and was forcefully evicted from the plane with a police escort along with his baggage who kindly delayed us twenty minutes from departure and caused us to have to return to our gate). All of the airports were nicely run and clean (especially Amsterdam - everything looked so nice and pretty there, except the dark rain clouds that were gathering on the horizon!), and, along with my three other classmates, we made it to Bologna right on schedule.

Amsterdam Airport from my seat at the gate

Taking my first taxi to the Camplus, where I'll be living for the next three months, I was really excited to start off my time here. However, after an entire day of not sleeping (I was only able to catch a few winks on the flight from Amsterdam to Bologna - the flight over the Atlantic was probably the most uncomfortable airplane that I have ever tried to sleep on) I was in desperate need of sleep and a decent meal. Despite my jet lag, I soldiered on, and followed our director, Dr. Waller, on a tour of Bologna, visiting the downtown portion of our campus (at the Jesuit center) and the main piazzas, along with the symbolic heart of the city, the two bell towers. We had an hour break upon our return to the Camplus, during which I chatted with some friends and wondered whether I should take a nap to alleviate my jet lag (I didn't). And so, after a meeting about everything that we would need to know for the semester about living on Camplus (which I unfortunately mostly slept through, due to my jet lag finally hitting me), I ate my first meal in the cafeteria, or mensa. I have never had such delicious pasta before in my life (although that's probably due to the fact that I was exhausted and would've eaten anything set in front of me). Afterwards, I unpacked my clothes, and took a well-deserved rest.

The Two Bell Towers at the heart of Bologna

Waking up the next morning, I realized that I had a combination of a dehydration headache and a migraine from lack of sleep. I was nauseous, and spent the time that I should've been going downstairs and eating breakfast curled up on my bed and trying not to cry. My roommate came back in, and together we walked downstairs to fill out our paperwork for our permesso di soggiorno.

In order to remain legally in the country for the next three months, all of the students here not only must carry visas, but also have a permesso, or a permit to stay. This pretty much entails filling out a lot of paperwork telling the government in Italy that we are not, in fact, going to be sleeping on park benches while we live here, and that we will be doing something productive with our time. It also makes us legal (temporary) residents - and if we lose it, we have to report its loss, and go through the entire process again.

What we did yesterday was only the first step of the process - we took the paperwork to the post office, paid a boatload of euros, and received an appointment for the next step (getting fingerprinted) and our document that we must carry everywhere.

After getting my permesso done, I came back to my room and slept until 5:15. I was so dead tired and thirsty that I didn't mind that I was missing lunch. I just needed the sleep, and I'm glad that I took the chance. We had a second meeting that evening, at the Jesuit center, about travel planning, school organized trips, and our ten day trip coming up, which will take us to Greece. We were also fed pizza, made by a friend of the school's, who owns a pizza restaurant right across from the Jesuit center. I may not enjoy eggplant normally, but the eggplant pizza I had was absolutely delicious - and so was the sausage, cheese, and zucchini pizzas that we also tried. One table also had the American style pizza - French fries and hot dog slices on top of a cheese pizza. That seems a little unusual for me, but I'm sure I'll find myself eating it before my time in Europe ends.

After the meeting, I joined some students from Santa Clara University as they wandered through downtown Bologna. We split momentarily, some of us to get gelato and others to get drinks, but we joined back up and wandered past the towers and into Piazza del Nettuno and Piazza Maggiore. After chatting for a while, we meandered back towards the central piazza of the University of Bologna campus, Piazza Verdi, and split off - the guys to go out towards a bar, and the girls to head back towards the Camplus. After getting back to the dorm, I got the chance to talk to my mom, and then got into bed (after making the horribly sad discovery that our once clean water was now extremely metallic and reeked of rust and pipes).

The Fountain of Neptune, Piazza del Nettuno

This morning, I've made it down to breakfast (the coffee is incredibly strong - we're pretty sure that the machine is broken, because the cappuccinos had no milk in them whatsoever) and down to the Co-op, our nearby grocery store. I'm now waiting to take my Italian placement test, and then, once some other friends take theirs and others get back from their permesso work, we'll be going out to get some lunch and go shopping. Time to take Bologna by storm.

Next stop: Greece.

Cattedrale de San Pietro, Piazza Maggiore, Bologna

A Brief Announcement

Hello, readers!

This brief announcement is to inform you all that I will be adding a new layer to my blog for this upcoming semester: I will be using this blog as a place to record my experiences studying abroad.

I'm looking forward to my time in Europe with my classmates, and I can't wait to share my time abroad with everyone!

If you are merely looking for my book reviews, historical nonsense, or literary madness, fear not - those will also continue. The posts about study abroad will all be tagged "study abroad," so feel free to ignore them if you are uninterested.

Thanks!

Your friendly blogger