Number Crunching

Number of politics courses taken: 4

Number of postcards bought: 23

Number of people living in my host family’s house: 7

Number of new facebook friends from Syracuse University: 24 (and yes, that is enough to make the majority of posts in your news feed be related to Syracuse, and particularly SU basketball during March Madness)

Number of American movies dubbed in French watched: 12 (including Lord of the Rings)

Number of French pastries eaten: too many to count

Number of hours spent at the dinner table: average 1.5 a night

Number of cities visited: 27

Number of passport stamps: 6

Number of trains taken: 32

Number of photos taken: 1063

Number of hours it will take before I want to come back: 0.000000001

Every Breath You Take

It all feels a bit surreal. 

The clock on the dashboard reads 6:08am. I’m sitting in the backseat of a taxi watching green farmland dotted with small French houses out my window, as we drive down a nearly deserted highway road, the driver bobbing his head along to “Every Breath You Take,” which streams out softly from the radio.

I didn’t cry when I said goodbye to my host parents, but it’s here, in this anonymous taxi with American 80s music playing, that it suddenly sinks in: I’m leaving Europe. This trip is over. This will be my last memory of the 5 months I spent in Europe (cause airports don’t count) and the soundtrack is a Police song. My vision starts to blur just a little, and I blink, fighting the water behind my eyes. 

I’m not so much sad as I am in disbelief. I’ve reached the end of my semester; I traveled for three weeks after, came back and said my goodbyes to Strasbourg, but I’m not ready to be done. It’s a bittersweet, private moment of reflection I have in the back of that taxi (the driver was happily staring out the window, tapping his hand to the music), and by the time we reach the airport at the end of the 15 minute ride, my eyes are dry again and I know that I’l be back in Europe, sooner rather than later. The thought brings a slight smile to my lips. As we pull up to the departures terminal the song switches to “Disturbia.” 

Yep, I’m headed home.

Things I’ve Learned While Traveling Through Europe pt3

Lessons and rules from my three week trip at the end of the semester to London, Dublin, Prague, Berlin, Tuscany, Rome, Naples and Pompeii.

48. When eating lunch at a giant open air market, stand near the funny guy selling bags and make friends with him.

49. If you have to share a twin bed with a friend, just sleep with your heads on the same end of the bed. Logistically it’s much harder to sleep with your heads at opposite ends, and you need more pillows.

50. Bring multiple sweatshirts. Especially if you’re going to both warmer and cooler places. And one should always be waterproof.

51. If people describe a place as magical, expect magic things. Like seeing full rainbows and people proposing on pretty bridges at night.

52. When a friend tells (not asks) you that you are going to an amazing concert with them the night before they have an exam, and you end up walking up some crazy hill in the rain out on the edge of town to get to a kinda dingy looking community center thing, don’t be skeptical. It could turn out to be one of the coolest shows you’ve ever been to.

53. Note that it’s a small world. You might even run into some of your friends from your school back home on a random alternative art walking tour in Berlin.

Oh hi guys. What are you doing here?

54. Taking public transit home at 3am on the weekend might not actually be sketchy. Depending on where you are, don’t be surprised if it’s as crowded as rush hour and every other person has an open beer in their hands.

55. Some of the coolest cities tend to have some of the dreariest weather.

56. Make buddies, and if possible meet up with them again later on your trip.

57. Keep your travel plans flexible. You don’t need to plan everything. Really.

58. Always be prepared for an awesome surprise day hike, and keep your camera charged.

59. Try the local drink, but be prepared for strange tastes.

60. If the place you’re staying at has a rooftop terrace, you absolutely should go hang out there--read a book, eat dinner, drink, whatever. It’s also always a great place to make new friends.

61. When in Tuscany, go on a wine tour.

62. Don’t let bad (or just plain crazy) roommates ruin a fun hostel for you. Just go with it and laugh about it later.

63. If there is an Irish pub in town, it’s usually worth checking out. *Note: in Ireland, it is generally not feasible to check out every Irish pub in town*

64. Never underestimate the gastronomic quality a simple 3 euro sandwich can have if you know where to go.

65. Get lunch from the cheap hole in the wall sandwich shops in Italy.

66. Ask the locals where to go.

67. If someone invites you to come with them to their favorite bar in the world later that night, you must go, regardless of any other plans you may have had.

68. Find a place you like staying in and do some day trips from it to cool places nearby.

69. Go to couch surfing meetups.

70. Sit on the steps of a church in Florence to watch the sunset and drink good (though incredibly cheap) Tuscan wine out of plastic cups with the locals and enjoy what a wonderful thing it is not to have an open container law.

71. Pay for a tour of the colosseum, it’s worth it.

72. Go on a quest for the best gelato in every Italian city you visit and try a new flavor every time you get gelato. You might wander around lost for a little while, trying to find some of the places, but you won’t be disappointed.

73. Build a fort.

74. Always brush your teeth after a night of drinking red wine; don’t wait till morning.

75.Go see the Pope give his weekly public address. Expect people there to be cheering and waving signs like it’s a rock concert.

76. Bring sunscreen.

77. Make friends with hostel bartenders. They’re cool. And often crazy. And sometimes climb on the bar and make up sports in hallways using ping pong balls.

78. Give yourself some extra time in case you wake up late for the one connection you cant miss--your flight out.

79. Get the contact info of the friends you made; you’ll want to stay in touch.

80. Sometimes it’s more important to have fun than it is to sleep.

Goodbye Strasbourg...Hello World

I hate packing up. Absolutely hate it. It’s one of the most stressful things in the world for me. Within the first 30 minutes I inevitably reach a point of panic, convinced there is no way I will ever be able to make it all fit and how the hell did I end up with this much stuff anyway? It eventually always subsides and I find a way to make it all fit, but god do I hate packing. 

The thing is, I’ve been doing it a lot lately. There’s a certain skill in being able to pack up and move all of your stuff from one place to another with efficiency. You get pretty good at it being a college student. I think I’ve moved five times during college so far, and every time sees me melting down briefly into a little puddle of stress and exasperation. But it has become almost a ritual, like I’m just turning the page onto a new chapter.

And now I find myself staring at yet another empty room. I’ve lived here for a semester, but now that I’m packed you would never know, save for the 2 suitcases and backpack I have stacked in the corner. It’s weird to think that the semester is now over. In truth, I haven’t really thought about it much. Because even though classes are done and I’m leaving Strasbourg tomorrow, it doesn’t feel over. I dont feel like my semester in Europe is done yet. It's probably because I'm coming back to Strasbourg for a day in three weeks before I finally go home, so it's not really the final goodbye. 

Tomorrow starts my three week travel bonanza. I'm not going home yet, instead I'll spend the next 23 days tracing an itinerary through five countries and winding my way through the cities of London, Dublin, Prague, Berlin, Florence, Rome and several other to-be-determined places in Italy. And I’m doing it all on my own.

I’m both equal parts nervous and excited, with hints of exhaustion mixed in. I’m meeting friends in the first three cities, but after that it’s gonna be a solo adventure. And that’s what makes me nervous. But also excited. I’ve traveled to places before on my own, without knowing anyone, but I’ve never gone traveling on my own, and there has always been some sort of plan waiting for me at my destination. This feels a little more daunting.

Looking around the empty room though, it does start to sink in a little. A lot of different thoughts swirl around my head. Fears about finally being a senior and no longer being able to ignore the real world. Fears about traveling on my own and being completely self-reliant. But I realize, it’s all really the same thing. It’s all just about being independent. What it comes down to is, I’m afraid of growing up. I’m not ready yet. Or at least, I don’t want to be. But regardless of if I'm ready or not, I’ve got a very expensive train ticket in my pocket for tomorrow morning and I’m not about to let it go to waste.


Stay tuned...

Crossing Cultures

What do you get when a three generation French family, two Palestinians, and an American student sit down to dinner together?

It’s not a bad joke, the answer is a 3 to 4 hour meal of good food and wine, conversations in multiple languages, and a wonderful time had by all.

****************

Last weekend, one of my host family’s former students came to visit. When my host mother told me that Dahlia was coming with her husband and daughter, my first thought was there’s gonna be a lot of people in the house. And there were—10 in total, including two 2-year-old children. But to my surprise, it didn’t feel cramped; instead it was cozy. The house was alive with people. And I realized that Dahlia wasn’t just an old student who came to visit often, she was family. And by the end of the weekend, I felt like a part of the family too.

Dahlia and her husband Gabriel grew up in Bethlehem, Palestine, went to college in the United States and now live in Boston. They’ve lived and traveled all over the place, and are the type of friendly, worldly travelers you’d hope to bump into on the road. They both speak English, French and Arabic fluently, and their 2-year-old daughter can already understand and speak a little of all three.

The arrival of this little family marked an unexpected turning-point in my time here. With almost exactly one month left in Strasbourg, I’d been focusing more on what was exciting about leaving, rather than what I still had left to enjoy. Seeing Dahlia come into the house, full of joy and appreciation for these people and their culture after so many years, gave me pause to think and reexamine what it was that I was excited to leave behind. And I found there was a lot to appreciate.

Dahlia and Gabriel proved to be a sort of bridge between my host family and I, over a gap I hadn’t even realized was there. As Dahlia explained many of the little things my host mother does and all the reasons behind the way they live—things I might have noticed before but never really picked up on or fully understood—, I began to truly appreciate what a unique cultural experience I am having.

My family still lives a very traditional Alsacian lifestyle, and their house has not changed one bit in the 15 years since Dahlia was a student there. My host parents spend most of the day working in their garden, which provides many of the vegetables we eat, they watch the same dubbed American soap opera every day which they’ve been watching for at least the last 15 years, they can still speak the dying Alsacian language, and my host mother prepares traditional Alsacian meals all the time (trust me, it’s quite different from normal french food). Their house has no internet, and their TV’s are several decades old at least, but it all just adds to the charm of their lifestyle.

I realized that I am really lucky to be living where I am. Most of the host families in Strasbourg today are totally modernized, and the traditional culture is disappearing. The experience of living with them is a modern European one, rather than a traditional uniquely regional one. But with my host family, it’s almost like time is at a standstill, lost somewhere in Alsace between the 1960’s and 90’s. I may live further away than most people, and have less internet access than everyone else on my program, but I’m getting a very authentic experience with an incredibly nice family. But it took the arrival of Dahlia and her family for me to fully realize that.

Having them here put things in perspective and shifted my view of my family, even how I interacted with them. With Dahlia and Gabriel at the table, conversations were more lively, and when I didn’t know how to say something, they could serve as translator. Even when we were speaking in English, it was mostly about other cultures, be they French, Palestinian, Japanese or whatever.

What amazed me most was how easily everything meshed. It just worked. Dahlia and Gabriel really are family to them. Every night there was a big dinner with everyone and my host family would pull out all the stops, because there’s only five days a year they get to spend with Dahlia and Gabriel, which means every dinner must be celebrated. One night after we’d finished eating, Dahlia explained to me that it had taken her 10 years to earn the right to help do the dishes after dinner, and my host mother still won’t let Gabriel help with anything. 

In fact, the only time I’ve ever heard her raise her voice was at him. After pretty much every meal, Gabriel would get up and try to start taking dishes into the kitchen, but as soon as my host mother noticed what he was doing, she would yell at him in French, saying “No! You are in my house, therefore you will do nothing!” to which Gabriel responded with a smile and a hapless gesture, retreating back to his chair until after the next course, when he would diligently try again.

There was lots of joking, of course too much eating, and plenty of scenes just like that between various family members. It was during all this that it dawned on me that family really is the same across cultures. You talk, you joke, you yell, you eat, you get told by the mother in charge to eat more, you enjoy each other’s’ company, and you have a good time. 

It might have been one of the stranger combinations for a family gathering, but in this house, where you come from doesn’t matter, only that you become a part of the family. I think it says something that with a Jewish American college student, a Palestinian couple, and a large French family all gathered around the same table, the biggest conflicts weren’t cultural, but over who would get the slice of tart with the most cinnamon on it and who was allowed to help with the dishes.

Around the table from left to right: Rene (my host father), Suzanne (my host mother), Philippe (their son), Valerie (Philippe's wife), Marilyn (their daughter), Gabriel, and Dahlia

Moments and Reflections from the Road

In 10 days, from February 23rd to March 4th, 2012, my friend Veronica and I embarked on a journey to 5 cities; taking 7 buses, 6 trains, and 4 planes in the process. Our whole trip can't be captured in one short description, but what follows are a few excerpts and highlights from my journal. Note: all quotes are at least slightly wrong.

3:05pm, 2/23/12, Strasbourg, France. Transit to go: 17/17

There is a man playing accordion on our tram to the Strasbourg train station. He’s the first accordionist I’ve seen in 2 months in Europe. Veronica and I decide he is a good omen for the start of our trip. I snap a photo by pretending to take one of Veronica’s head, to be seriously cropped later.

6:57am, 2/24/12, Baden-Baden, Germany. Transit to go: 15/17

We’re sitting on a cold concrete bench, waiting at the bus station. It looks like the sun will start to come up in a few minutes, but for now the German bus station is cast in the glow of half-morning twilight. We sit, munching on a breakfast of home-made mini-sandwiches on local german bread that the hostel staff left for us by the door for on our way out. I’m only half awake, but feeling mostly excited, though slightly nervous that we’ll miss our first plane.

1:34pm, 2/25/12, Barcelona, Spain. Transit to go: 13/17

Dunc, our excellent Irish architect/ free walking tour guide is explaining to us the significance of the plaza we are standing in. 

“Those steps over there were where Columbus walked up to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and triumphantly proclaimed, ‘I have found a new world!’ then showed off all the great things he brought back. However, he also brought back syphilis, and was the first European to die from it. Little known fact though, is that Queen Isabella was the second.”

This becomes my new favorite fun fact.

10:46pm, 2/25/12, Barcelona, Spain. Transit to go: 13/17

“I’m probably not going to remember your name, how bout I just call you America?”

“Then do I get to call you Australia Jack?”

“Sure”

This was the start of my friendship with Jack, a very interesting 20-something year old man from Australia. We were walking in a herd of other young travelers through the narrow cobblestone alleys in Barcelona’s gothic district, heading towards some bar. 

“So what are you doing in Barcelona, Australia Jack?”

“Well...” then he launched into a story of 6 months of travel, mostly in South East Asia, with breaks in between traveling to work as a waiter or chef for a month or two in fine dining establishments all over the world, and plans to continue doing so for the next 2 years. I was fascinated and pelted him with questions. By the time we got to the bar, I had been just as thoroughly bombarded, but with reasons for why I needed to go Laos.

Australia Jack and I were friends for only about 4 hours, then I never saw him again after that night. But I have some fond memories of Australia Jack. And hey, I’d consider going to Laos.

9:32am 2/27/12 Barcelona, Spain. Transit to go: 13/17

Walking to the train station to go to Madrid:

“Ok, one of the guys who was in our room at that hostel snores louder than anything I’ve ever heard!”

“Yeah, I know. If he was asleep before I was, there was no way I was falling asleep. I actually had no idea that it was humanly possible to snore that loud!”

“I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night last night. You could hear him from the bathroom...”

“It’s pretty impressive.”

“Yeah, it sounded like a trumpet...only less melodic.”

“Mhmn.”

Ahhhhhh, adventures in hosteling.

11:08am 2/27/12 Between Barcelona and Madrid, Spain. Transit to go: 12.5/17

Sitting on the nicest train I’ve ever seen, I’m idly making notes in my journal, but mostly staring out the window, watching the Spanish countryside stream by. Veronica is watching our in-train movie, “Captain America.” (Since when have in-train movies been a thing?)

“Oh no! They just switched it to Spanish! And the subtitles are still in Spanish. Aw, I can’t watch now.”

“Really? Ooh! Now I wanna watch.”

I grab my headphones and plug in to the train’s audio system, then proceed to thoroughly enjoy the rest of my train ride. I pass the next hour and a half watching Captain America dubbed in Spanish and letting my dormant Spanish speaking skills slowly start to resurface themselves. To my left, the Spanish countryside continues to zip by, bringing us steadily closer to city #2.

5:03am 2/28/12 Madrid, Spain. Transit to go: 12/17

“Wow. The streets are actually completely empty.”

“Uh, well, except for that guy up ahead who is cleaning the sidewalks with a giant fire hose or something...Can we make it our goal not to get covered in water on our way to the airport at 5am?”

“Hmm, yeah. Good plan. Let’s go around him.”

3:22pm 2/29/12 Venice, Italy. Transit to go: 8/17

“I love you! I love you!”

We’re standing on the Rialto bridge in Venice and a gondolier passing below (with a full boat of tourists) is shouting up at us.

“Come, jump in my boat! Jump in my boat! We will have a party in my boat. I’ll bring the champagne!” 

We laugh. I briefly consider the jump. It’s about 40 feet. Something tells me the frame of a gondola may not support that kind of landing. The gondola passes under the bridge.

10:19pm 2/29/12 Somewhere between Venice, Italy and Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7.5/17

I’m laughing and snapping photos as one of our Japanese train-car-mates tries to give Veronica a back massage in the awkwardly cramped space. We’re sharing an overnight train car on an 11 hour ride with four very excited and friendly 25-year-old Japanese guys, who all graduated one month earlier from medical school and are on a celebratory trip through Europe. 

After chatting a while, one of them asked, “You have health problems? We can help.” We said not really, but with one small mention by Veronica that her back had been hurting earlier, a back massage immediately became top priority. Within a few minutes I was pulling my camera out, unwilling to miss documenting this bizarre and hilarious event.

12:34pm 3/1/12, Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7/17

“You went to Moshava? No way, I went to Miriam.”

We’re taking a walking tour of Vienna, and for some reason or other I start talking with the guy next to me, and soon discover he went to the same summer camps as I did and knows many of the same people, as he was in the year above me. His travel buddy and Veronica also started talking, though their conversation quickly became part conversation, part scrabble game (yes, of course there’s an app for that). We exchange travel stories, and he and his friend spend the better part of the next two hours convincing us why we should go with them to Budapest for a day. I must have heard “Come to Budapest!” a dozen times. And the thing is, we almost went.

1:27am 3/2/12 Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7/17

Facebook conversation between my friend Ksenia and I:

Me: Yo! Guess what? I just was in a four-way water gun fight in the hostel bar!

Ksenia: what???

Me: It was awesome! Now I’m soaked. And sitting in the lobby on facebook.

Ksenia: good job. How did that happen?

Me: They use water guns to knock shots into jaggerbombs (they balance them on top first and make you shoot them in)

I guess they had a few extra guns and people just started keeping them, and then using them. My friend Matt the funeral home director handed me one, so I joined in.

Ksenia: wait, what?! funeral home director?

Me: one of the guys in my room is a 26-year-old funeral home director from New York. He majored in creative writing at Tulane. Go figure.

Ksenia: hunh.

Me: right?

...

i think my hair is dripping onto this chair.

Ksenia: dude, go to bed.

Me: :P

6:58am 3/3/12, Vienna, Austria. Transit to go: 7/17

The door to our room clicks shut behind us and we start walking down to the lobby to check out.

“Is this real life?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to Rome right now.”

“Like I said, is this real life? You realize we went to bed less than 2 hours ago after spending half the night talking to a Canadian banker who got recruited to be the hockey goalie for the German national hockey team and a New Zealand golf course lawn manager who’s worked all over the world--which apparently you can actually go to school for and its actually a highly in demand field of work.”

“Yeah, that was ridiculous. A well spent night. Let’s go to Rome. We’ll nap on the plane.”

4:27pm 3/3/12, Rome, Italy. Transit to go: 4/17

“Don’t marry! Never marry!”

We’re wandering around the old city of Rome, when we pass by a middle-aged Italian man playing the guitar. Or at least, he would be playing the guitar if he wasn’t so preoccupied shouting advice to the American man walking by him. He strums disconnected cords intermittently between phrases.

“Go, go back to your wife and be a slave! Be a slave...for free!”

We continue walking, hiding our snickers, lest he choose to give us some advice as well. Behind us, the strumming begins to take the form of something that resembles more of a song.

3:52pm 3/4/12, a small train station near the French border, Germany. Transit to go: 1/17

We have a 1 hour wait for our final train, which will return us to Strasbourg. We kill the time by writing down all our favorite quotes from the last 10 days.

“What was it she said? You must go to the Famada Sangria?”

“Do you mean go to the Sagrada Familla? Cause that’s what she actually said.”

“Oh...yeah.”

“Freudian slip?”

“Yeah. It’s been a long trip.”

5:06pm 3/4/12, Strasbourg, France. Transit to go: 0/17

I’m greeted by my host family as I enter the house, and to my surprise I am still relatively coherent at speaking French. Exhausted and in need of a shower, I give them a brief explanation of how the trip was, assuring them of how much fun I had and how tired I am. They ask if I’ll be joining them for dinner. 

My response? “Si, si, si!”

I immediately caught myself and switched back from Spanish to French, this time saying “oui.” A few minutes later, as I finally went up the stairs to my room, I thanked my host mom for something she had just said.

“Grazie!” I said.

The funny thing is, I don’t even speak Italian.

Train Travel

Taking the train has a sense of calm to it. There’s something about a long train ride that's almost soothing. When going by train, I find myself in a state of peaceful reflection, staring out the window, lost in thought as the hours wind by. 

On the train, you see the most interesting parts of cities. The neglected and run-down parts; long forgotten corners and neighborhoods too poor to be further from the tracks. It’s the “other side of the city” tour, the one you cant request, but comes complimentary with any train journey. In TrenItalia, SNCF, Renfe, Deutsch Bahn, and OBB cars you speed through city after city--some whose names you know, others you will forget within the hour--catching flashes of graffitied buildings that have seen better days, overcrowded housing developments, and a glimpse of the more industrial side of town.

In these stretches, I’m not a tourist, but an anthropologist. I pay careful attention as the train wooshes by the parts of the city people like so much to forget. Because here is where the contrast is most interesting. Here I search for the differences between each city and the last. Is there more industry? Less housing developments? Has the style of graffiti changed? It all gives a raw picture of life in the city, coloring my understanding of where I’m going to and coming from.

And then there are the in between periods, when the view out my window opens up to a sweeping rural landscape. Mostly it’s just barren winter farmland on these trips. But sometimes, there are mountains and the occasional treat of an old castle or pristine lake in the distance. Generally though, I see flat plains or rolling hills dotted by small villages that seem to go on forever, eventually merging with the grey sky somewhere in the distance. I let my mind wander on these stretches, losing myself to my thoughts somewhere in that grey landscape. 

Sometimes my mind wanders to what it would be like to grow up in one of those many small towns we pass; so far from everything, so quaint and comfortable-looking. How different would life have been?

But most of the time my mind goes to its reflective place. Something about settling in for a long bus or train ride is a cue for me to start reflecting on the bigger things in life. Train rides more than bus rides--the view from the train tracks is always more interesting that the highway. Staring out that window, I mull over the big questions: what I want to do with my life, where I want to be, what makes me happy, and how to do it all.

The funny thing is though, when we pull into the station and I step off that train, I’m usually burdened with more new questions than answers to old ones. But somehow, I step off each time with a feeling of relaxed contentment. 

Maybe it’s because I always have one good answer. When I ask myself what makes me happy, of all the answers, one always comes to mind. Traveling. So when I step off that train, in a new place, ready for new adventures, I can’t help but feel content on some level. I’m doing something that makes me happy, and as long as I keep doing that, I’ve got all the train rides I could want to figure out the rest.