Ciao, Roma

From Laura:

So once again we’re several days behind in posting, and it’s even worse now because we’re actually home! We got in late Monday evening, 24 hours after waking up in Rome one last morning. A two-hour bus ride to the airport (mind you, that was to the Rome airport FROM ROME) and three flights later … well, it was good to get home.

The Eternal City was a perfect final stop on this whirlwind of a European tour. For me it was the epitome of blended old and new – ancient ruins fenced off as scooters raced by. Scaffolding surrounding beautiful old buildings as they’re being made new again. The feel of small, cobbled, winding streets mixed with the noise of a busy metropolis.

And Rome is definitely one busy, busy place. Of all the cities we’ve been to, this one was the most terrifying to move through on a big motor coach bus, and the hardest to navigate on foot. (At least for us. It went something like this: walk a block that doesn’t go straight in any one direction, emerge into a piazza, stop and look at the map again. Repeat.) Adding to our confusion and unease with navigation and movement is the general hustle and bustle of the place. Lots of scooters ready to take you out if you step into the wrong part of the street at the wrong time, lots of honking cars (even rivaling Chicago!), and a lot of yelling. You feel very much like a tourist in Rome!

But with its history and beauty, it’s easy to forgive any faults the city has. We visited the incredible Colloseum, walked on ancient Roman roads dating back to the time of Christ, saw the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain, and (of course) ate a lot of gelato. ;) We also made a pilgrimage to Vatican City and, although the line was too long for the Basilica, we did go through the Vatican Museum and see the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling and painting of The Last Judgment is easily one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen, on this trip or ever. I’ve read about it, of course, and even did an analysis paper in college about The Last Judgment, but that still didn’t prepare me for the beauty of those paintings – their aliveness and they way they reach out and pull you in. My only wish is that we could have stood in the Chapel alone, in silence, with all the time in the world to soak it in. Needless to say, a *few* other people in Rome that day wanted to see the Sistine Chapel as well.

When making arrangements we opted for an extra day in Rome. As it turns out, we spent much of that day with the other stragglers outside of Rome, dipping our toes in the (quite chilly) Mediterranean Sea and going to Tivoli, where the 16th century Villa d’Este is located. The Villa d’Este has over 1,000 fountains in its gardens, and was spectacular to behold.

… You know, even as I type this I’m very aware of not doing these sites justice. When we were traveling we were unable to upload photos, but now that we’re home we’ll get those posted to a site you can take a look at, if you wish.

The day after we got back Franco and I started trying to recap the trip, day-by-day. We only made it to Berlin, our second stop, before realizing we’d seen too much to justly describe it in one sitting.

Thank you for coming along with us as we tried to share a bit of the trip with you. It’s been a most wonderful adventure!

From Florence, the Birthplace of the Renaissance

From Franco:

After we walked back down from the top of the Neuschwantsein Castle (and the way down was much easier and faster than going up!), we headed for a "beautiful taste of the Alps" called Garmisch-Parktenkirchen.

The Alps. Holy cow, we were driving around mountains! Our window at Garmisch looked at an Alp. Walking down the street looking for dinner, we saw another Alp. It's like you couldn't throw a stone more than a few feet without hitting the Alps!

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant. It's funny to hear Germans say "Buon appetite!" and "Buona sera!" I ordered the margharita pizza, and Laura ordered a four cheese pizza, which had bleu cheese, oddly.

Walking back at night, you couldn't even tell that there were mountains nearby.

And then it was off to Verona to see Romeo and Juliet!

No, wait. We never made it to Verona. After we crossed the border into Italy, which was marked with vineyards in the mountainside and baby apple trees near the road, we stopped in a small town for a quick meal. We almost walked past what seemed like a little alley, but my nose indicated that there was some good food, so I led our little group into this little pizza place. Laura and I had our fill of pizza in Garmisch, so we decided on salads, which were HUGE!

On that note, most of the Europeans I've encountered before this trip led me to believe that American portion sizes are monstrous, but almost every meal I've had on this trip is super-sized by default. Maybe we just happen to eat at places that cater to Americans, but I find it hard to believe.

Anyway, after eating at the small town, we got on the bus and learned we had to pass Verona due to time constraints. We drove straight to Hombre Farm, which is an organic cheese factory founded by Matteo Panini, who is apparently famous for racing cars. We had a short tour of the factory, pet the cows and the company cat, and saw a warehouse full of cheese wheels that extended so far down the aisle that it reminded me of the scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The tour ended in a museum. We expected a museum dedicated to cheese and its production. What we actually entered was a Maserati museum full of racing cars, sports cars, motorcycles, and trophies. It was the surprise of the trip. I walked in and felt like Vin Diesel or James Bond. I even picked out the Maserati I wanted.

The bus ride to Florence included cheese and wine purchased at Hombre's shop.

Florence is not an easy city to enter. First, we had to pay an entrance fee for the bus. Then, driving to the hotel was an exercise in patience. Scooters and cars and even a Lamborghini were weaving around us, and Luggi the driver did a fantastic job finding a way to inch the big green monster of a bus into the narrow streets we needed to drive through.

We had pizza for dinner, but this time it was wood-burning-oven-baked pizza. Laura ordered tortelloni stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a truffle sauce, which was delicious.

The next day, we saw David at the Galleria del Accademia, then had some gelato before heading to the Uffizi to see art.

Lots of art.

We saw paintings and drawings and sketches by Rafael, Bottecelli, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and a lot of other names I've only ever read in art history books before! We saw the "Birth of Venus," lots of variations on "Madonna with Child" and "The Annunciation," and many other religious paintings. I should add that many of the portrayals of baby Jesus were quite ugly.

Seriously. They can paint so many adults to look so attractive, but baby Jesus almost always looked like they made a mistake and couldn't figure out how to paint over it.

By the 27th iteration of "Madonna with child", Laura and I were art-ed out. The Uffizi is not an easy place to leave. They put seven gift shops on the way to the exit.

We walked along the river, admiring the view, window shopping, and dodging scooters. Dinner was more pizza after the original restaurant we wanted to attend informed us that they didn't have enough seats for our group. Gusto Pizza was busy, inexpensive, and delicious, and the wine was delicious. Salut!

We found some more gelato before turning in for the night. Tomorrow, we're off to the final leg of our trip in Rome, the eternal city!

Quickly catching up on several days

From Laura. Written the morning of Wednesday, March 23.

Greetings from the German/Austrian Alps! Actually, by the time we get to an internet connection to post this, we should be in Florence, Italy. I'm writing this on the bus to get us a little caught up. The last few days we've only spent one night in each town, which makes for a lot of seeing and moving, but not a lot of time for sitting and writing.

After visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau, we really didn't feel like doing much. We focused on a necessary task: doing some laundry. After hauling a suitcase of dirty clothes to the shopping centre next to the hotel on the promise of a laundry facility there, only to find out that it was more of a dry cleaner that would charge per sock, we returned to the room and washed clothes in the tub of our four-star hotel. We returned to the shopping centre to eat in the food court and just be surrounded by people and noise. We spent a lot of time talking about what we'd seen and experienced that day, and also a fair amount of time distracting ourselves by looking for gifts to use up the rest of our Polish Zloty, which Franco affectionately called "Poland Bucks."

The next morning we departed for Prague in the Czech Republic. Poland was snowy, but as we entered the Czech Republic the snow disappeared and we saw more and more green. That evening we had a group dinner at the hotel with a guest speaker, one of the youngest members of the Czech Republic Assembly. I wish I could remember (or pronounce) her name, but she spoke to us about food policy in her country. Later that night we had a fire alarm at the Jury's Inn that caused us to evacuate from the 8th floor. After a long day of traveling that's all the excitement we were up for, and we turned in early that night.

On Sunday we had a whole free day in Prague (our motorcoach driver, Ludwig, needs a day off after so many hours of driving, quite understandably). We were only too happy to spend the day in Prague. We started the day leisurely, and then did one of those "hop on, hop off" bus tours -- with a tour guide from Chicago, actually! We toured the Prague Castle and ate lunch at Olympia, supposedly the original home of a special pilsner beer. We saw a lot of other sites as well, and spent a lot of time walking around Prague's charming Old Town Square, where the astronomical clock is. It's a gorgeous city, and just walking through an old city with so many beautiful buildings was ... well, it was amazing. And now I'm realizing we actually spent two nights in Prague (how quickly it gets muddled), because that night we went with a group from our tour to an Italian restaurant (of all things!), but it sits right on the river with a spectacular view of Prague Castle and St. Charles Bridge, lit up at night.

The next morning, then, we left for Munich, stopping at the medieval walled town of Dinkelbuhl along the way. Dinkelsbuhl was just adorable. I seriously think I could live there, though I think it's more of a tourist town now. We had lunch sitting outside at a little cafe (the weather's finally getting warm!), and wandering around the little town with cobblestone streets and old buildings painted in bright colors. Then it was back on the bus to get to Munchen (Munich), with just enough time to put our suitcases in the room before we left for the famous German beer hall, the Hofbrauhaus. Franco and I each had 1 liter mugs of beer -- more than either of us had ever ordered at once, for ourselves, before. (And that was plenty). We were sitting next to a table of men, some in traditional German garb, who we found out were friends of the old owner, so they had a reserved table starting at 4 p.m. every day, and their own beer steins that they kept behind lock and key in special cages behind us. There was much polka music and rowdiness by the huge crowd, and Dr. Meyer even got up to conduct the polka band at one point, much to the delight of the Drake paparazzi.

The next morning, Tuesday, we visited a fabulous farmers' market run by the city of Munchen. The only unfortunate thing of that stop was, of course, that we couldn't take much of the produce or flowers with us. Then it was back on the bus to head into the Alps and visit the castle Neuschwanstein, which was built for King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 1800s. Franco was especially exciting because although we toured the Prague Castle it was more of a complex of buildings, and not a "castle" in the sense of turrets and spiraling staircases. Neuschwanstein (or "The Swan Palace") was built by Ludwig as an homage to the operas of Wagner, so there are spectacular murals and artwork throughout, depicting some of his favorite stories. Ludwig died before the castle was completed, though, so only 17 rooms (of a planned 55 or so) were done, and it was a rather short tour! At the end, though, they leave you on one of the top floors to take in the view and then take the spiral staircase down (to the gift shop, of course), but Franco and I spent a lot of time out on the balcony, just soaking in the view. The castle is nestled into the side of a mountain, so you're suurrounded by the Alps. Ludwig had a second castle built nearby, which was also in view, as well as a lake and the village below. It was one of the most beautiful, picturesque scenes, and it felt like looking into forever ...

Auschwitz

From Gianfranco:

When I was younger, I learned about the Holocaust and Auschwitz in school, or from history programs on TV, or in books. I knew about the millions of Jews and thousands of others who were killed in concentration camps by the Nazis during World War II.

It was always something I learned about many years after the fact, safe at home in the United States. Maybe I might have seen a movie about the terror of the SS, or maybe I was told about Anne Frank and her family's attempts to hide from the Germans, but if I learned anything about the actual systematic extermination of an entire people, it was always at a high level. There was gas and cremations, death and ashes. Lots of people died. Then the Americans saved the day, and World War II was over. Now we can study the Marshall Plan and move on to mathematics and art.

So when we took a trip to visit Auschwitz, I didn't know what to expect.

At first glance, it's a giant military camp. Barracks, buildings, logistics. Barbed wires and gates. Rules and regulations.

We had a guide take us through the gate and into a few of the buildings, which had been converted into exhibits. There were many photos and documents since the Nazis kept very good records. We saw images of people arriving by train car, being separated into the able and the useless, and wearing their prison garb. We saw statues. We saw cases and rooms which held piles of hairbrushes, eyeglasses, shoes, suitcases, prosthetics...basically, anything of value that the Nazis could take from the arriving prisoners. The stacks of baby shoes were some of the most depressing images I've ever seen.

And then, shortly before we were to leave to see Auschwitz II, which is the larger nearby camp known as Birkenau, we were taken inside a large, dark room with a few points of light in the ceiling. We were told that those holes were where the Nazis dropped the Zyklon-B poison gas into the room once the Jews were locked in.

And that's when I remembered that I wasn't at a mere museum. I wasn't seeing exhibits made to look authentic. I wasn't seen props created by experts who knew how to make things look real. I was standing in the room where people died, hour after hour, systematically and efficiently. I was actually in a gas chamber in Auschwitz. I was actually seeing where bodies were burnt once they were cleared out of the chamber to make room for the next victims.

I once read that the human mind is naturally inclined to solve problems. The entire time I was there and the bus ride back, I was constantly trying to solve the Holocaust: how could something so horrible on such a large scale have been possible? With so many people involved at so many junctions, how is it possible that resistance wasn't strong enough to prevent it, slow it down, stop it? How could the Nazis working the camp live with themselves knowing what they were doing?

How does a Holocaust happen in this world? I kept thinking that there were so many moving parts that had to be working perfectly in order for it to occur. Surely there must have been at least a key person or two who realized not only what was happening but also could do something about it? Surely there had to be someone who successfully fought back and inspired others to do so? Surely it was unthinkable to so many people?

But then I think about how different things are, living decades after the fact. Today we know a Holocaust happened, and so humanity on the whole is probably more capable of knowing how to prevent it or stop it. Back then, who knew it was possible? Who thought that keeping their heads down and keeping quiet wasn't the best thing to do?

Today if terrorists tried to use a plane as a weapon, passengers wouldn't let them succeed in their plans because we have the example of at least one set of passengers on September 11th. On that day, however, the attacks were not expected and there was no precedent for what to do about such an attempt in recent memory.

So I guess it's easy to ask accusatorily in hindsight "Humanity, how can you let something like this happen?" when referring to the Holocaust, but back then, in a time when phone calls were expensive, when the closest thing to the Internet was a set of cables for transmitting short text messages, when a multi-front war was being fought on a scale larger than anyone has ever seen, it was a different, more innocent time. After all, the people back then didn't have a Holocaust-like event, on such a scale, to refer back to.

It's still difficult, though, to not ask those questions as you walk along the train tracks that brought so many people to their death, as you touch the wooden slats where so many slept and cried and suffered and died, as you pass the evenly spaced, oh-so-intentional buildings. How did this happen? And what is happening today that we're not seeing, or refusing to see?

Few final thoughts on Berlin (though we're in Prague now)

Hallo, everyone! There's been a bit of a pause in our postings, sorry. We had a full day in Berlin on Wednesday, then on Thursday drove 600 km to Krakow, Poland (which took about 10 hours because of construction we hit coming into Krakow), and yesterday we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. It's been a busy few days.

But let's start with the end of our time in Berlin. On Wednesday morning we had a program with representatives from the World Food Programme and the Global Public Policy Institute. The subject was food aid and food assistance, and a look at how the U.S. and the European Union handles such a massive challenge. I won't go into all the details here, but surmise it to say that the desire by people working in these programs is to move toward empowering people to becoming more self-sufficient, but what tends to happen is food is given as a stop-gap measure to prevent starvation, or in cases of disasters and emergencies. For me it was a topic I care very much about and the presentations, even when gently critical of current U.S. policy at times, were very interesting.

After the morning's program we were given an option of going to the Russian War Memorial in Berlin's Tiergarten. There simply wasn't enough time in Berlin for us because we also wanted to visit Museum Island and see the wonderful artwork they have there, but in the end we decided to view the memorial. I'm going to turn it over to Gianfranco to talk about the memorial ...

When we arrived, there was a large stone gate we passed through. The path was made of cobblestones, and trees lined the path towards a statue of a grieving mother. As we entered the main area, the ground changed to tiles of stone, and we could see a large reddish passage with Soviet symbols on it. It framed the way forward, and we could see two large Soviet soldiers on either side, kneeling to honor those who had fallen.

Passing the soldiers, we could see giant wreaths in the center leading towards the far end of the memorial. The walkways on either side used giant mosaic tiles now, and each side had relief sculptures depicting scenes from the war and the sacrifices Soviet families made. One side had quotes from Stalin in German and the other in Russian.

At the end of the monument is a staircase leading up to a dome topped with one of the most impressive statues I've ever seen in real life. A larger-than-life, caped Soviet soldier stares into the distance while standing over a destroyed Nazi swastika. He is wielding a sword and carrying a rescued child. There is no mistaking how proud the Soviets are of their accomplishments during World War II and their fight against German forces.

When you reach the top of the stairs, you can see into a small circular room decorated with mosaics depicting the war effort and victory. In the center was what could have been a small altar or fountain, but the gate prevented us from entering and seeing it up close.

The long walk back through the monument and to the exit leaves you time to contemplate and revisit the depictions with a clearer sense of what happened during and immediately after the war.

It was an impressive memorial and he describes it perfectly. I'm glad we were able to see it.

After that trip, the larger group gathered again to drive about an hour out of Berlin to the Oder-March region near the border with Poland. This gave us an opportunity to see some of the German countryside on our way to a restaurant for that evening's meal. The restaurant was the Briers Krautergarten und Hofcafe. It was charming. The restaurant is part of a food cooperative, and they prepared a traditional German meal for us: pork, mashed potatoes and red cabbage for the meat-eaters in the group; and a savory dish of shaved cabbage, onion, zucchini and almonds for the vegetarians. Everyone, even the non-cabbage lovers, agreed it was an amazing meal.

This might also be a good time to point out that the beer in Germany is cheap. Really cheap.

We all had an evening of good food and a lot of laughs at Briers. After driving back into the city a handful of us, because it was our last night in Berlin, decided to go out. We ended up closing two German pubs. ;)

The next day, Thursday, March 17, we spent on that long trek to Krakow. There was a lot of sleeping on the bus, despite some ambitious plans to party for St. Patrick's Day. ;) Upon arriving at the amazing Andel's Hotel, however, we all decided to go out for food and many stayed out to celebrate the holiday a bit! We'll have to talk more about that next time, though. This post is already plenty long and my battery is just about dead.

So, today we leave Poland for Prague. Our love to everyone and we'll write more soon!

Post note: the computer DID actually die right before we were able to post this this morning. It's now about 7:30 p.m. here and we're at the Jury's Inn in Prague. It was another long drive, but the countryside was beautiful and Franco and I got a lot of reading (and a little napping) in on the bus.

Ich bin Berliner

(Sometimes a jelly doughnut, but today a Berliner.)

So, I was going to try & post some photos of St. Petersburg before we moved on to Berlin, but the limits on the hotel's free WiFi won't allow me to do that, so the pictures will have to come later. "Peter" (as we found out the locals call it) has many beautiful buildings, but I'm not missing the five-foot snow drifts or sidewalks with three inches of ice. ;) Berlin has neither!

Berlin also has many beautiful buildings, and its an interesting mix of old and new due, of course, to the war. The history here is amazing. Franco and I both expected references to WWII and the Holocaust to be subdued but it's quite the opposite. We saw the official Holocaust Memorial, which is quite new, but the tour guide explained that there were many other small memorials throughout the city. (We've seen a few of those as well.) We also stood on the spot where Hitler's bunker had been. It's now a parking lot, with just a simple sign marking the historical significance of the spot.

We had a three-hour city bus tour on our private coach this morning with a wonderful tour guide, originally from Canada but has been living in Berlin for 20 years. This afternoon we spent several hours at the DDR museum, which has many, many hands-on exhibits depicting life in East Berlin when the Wall was up. (We saw part of the Wall that is still standing as a memorial this morning as well.) The tour guide, who is my age, remembers visiting family in East Berlin and how, when they talked of her cousin trying to escape, would have to turn up the TV and move away from shared walls for fear of being overheard and jailed.

There are many sobering moments as you visit these sites, but they've done a beautiful and commendable job of handling the subject. Tomorrow we have a couple of class-related programs, but there will be time in the afternoon for a little more sightseeing. There's plenty of that to do!

Bis dann,
Laura

Good-bye, Russia!

Laura and I are sitting in the airport waiting to board our flight to Berlin. It's been fun, but we're both pretty much ready to get out of the country. B-)

St. Petersburg is a city of museums. You can't throw a rock without bouncing it off of five museums before it falls into the river next to a ship which is also a museum.

We went to the Hermitage, saw a Michealangelo statue and two DaVinci paintings, as well as hundreds and hundreds of paintings, vases, statues, and all sorts of art. Heck, the entire set of buildings that make up the Hermitage was a work of art!

We also went to the museum of "curiosities", which had all sorts of interesting anthropological artifacts, and then a room full of fetuses and body parts and skeletons. Curious is an understatement. Laura was as happy as I was that there was only one room of teratology.

It's also a city of palaces. We must have seen 50 of them around the city, and we took a trip to see Catherine's Summer Palace. I told Laura that I wanted one.

The food is amazing...or not. We had some great "pie" at one restaurant, and borscht and beef stroganoff at another. That latter restaurant had these crafty menus and boardgames and toys. I had a bear pat me on the back at the hotel's restaurant. And sushi must be a Russian thing because you see this one restaurant chain as often as you see Starbucks in America. McDonald's, KFC, and Subway are also in abundance.

The city can get very cold, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the locals. Short skirts, no hats, and shorts?

Oops, time to board the plane. Stay tuned next time when Laura and I talk Berlinese.