If we had blogs in 1997: In which the student whines about being poorer than the other students

In this installment from my 1997 European journal, I lament the fact that I have such a tight budget. It should be noted that it's about a month into our semester. The newness of it all has worn off and people are starting to get a bit homesick. These are pretty pathetic entries, but they do show how extended trips can cloud your view of a situation. Sometimes when people go abroad, they leave at the time when they are feeling homesick and don't get to know the joy that comes to you once you get past that point. Once again, spelling, grammatical, and factual errors have been preserved.

22 Sept 1997 written with a European 1, as are the rest of the dates of the entries

I feel so at peace right now. I've been away from the problems of the world for a month now. I saw a USA Today for the first time in two weeks today. The Yankees clinched the wild card birth. I hope to see a few games on NBC here. It seems like there are no problems in this country. I do have a problem with the cliques. People seem to be getting on each others nerves now. That's probably normal; I hope it goes away soon or people start hanging out with different people. Yesterday evening was cool. Robert came back after skydiving. Kristine & I ate Mac & cheese then our family made salad and bread and pepperoni for us. We talked for awhile. Our dwelling is almost finished. It's like an apartment. Yellow m&m's here are a different color yellow than American m&m's. Absolutely brilliant insight...

26 Sept 1997

It's Friday night and I feel so incredibly alone. Everyone left for the weekend. I really feel like crying. I'm really sick of the people here.They're so shallow and all they want to do is drink. It's not fun. We've been here for three weeks now, and I bet 50% of the people have drank every night. I just wish one person felt the same way I do about the whole thing.

Last night at Scott's was not fun. I felt totally fine until the Miami students got there. They're all snotty and obnoxious, and I am ashamed to be an American when I'm around them. I think the people of Differdange hate us. They're always so unfriendly. I said bonjour to a man and woman today and they just mumbled and looked away. And the lady at the desk at the polyclinique today basically told me I was rude for not going to the reception desk to register first, saying "It's ettiquette." I didn't know; how was I supposed to? And last night on the train Craig said, "all of us are spoiled - we're in Europe so we have to be spoiled." It made me so mad. They don't have to worry about how much money they spend, and I can't even go anywhere this weekend because I can't afford to. I can't afford to go out every night like they do. It's not fair. Aww...poor baby...

27 Sept 1997

I love writing numbers the European way, for some reason. Today I walked around Luxville for about five hours. I found many cool things. I found Mesa Verde - it looks pretty cool. I saw a disco ball in the window. There is no sign outside for Subterranid. It must be a cool place. I found a discotheque called the Black Diamond, a cinema, a very cool shopping district, and some souvenir shops. I saw the Grand Ducal Palace, and also found a cool CD store down the street from Mesa Verde. I wanted to get back before dark, so there is still a lot of the city I haven't seen. Maybe I can go on Wednesday after we get back from field study.

Now I am trying to keep my mind off the fact that I am totally alone. Actually the family just got back. Too bad I can't watch t.v. with them, since I have no idea what the people are saying. U2 is helping to conquer my lonliness. I wish I had my guitar. I hope study tour goes well. I'm tired of this shell - I hope I can break it this week in time for Berlin. Berlin - techno capital of the world. I hope we can find a cool techno club. I'm just full of hope. The world turns, and we get dizzy. It's making me go in the wrong direction.

Eventually, I did feel better about things, about the students, about my money situation, about staying home. Sometimes I had to go on trips alone because I was on such a tight budget and had to plan around such a budget, which meant cutting things out or doing something uncomfortable like taking an overnight train to save the cost of a hotel or hostel, measures that didn't appeal to other students. I rarely went to restaurants, instead surviving on cheese and bread and salami and sausages from the grocery. And I learned Luxembourg, its capital city and some smaller towns, when so many students went away every weekend and rarely spent time in the country.

Yes, I dug up every one of these rocks from the ground and washed them individually

Yep, that's our garden, taken on Saturday.

If we had blogs in 1997: In which the student discovers the wonders of socialized medicine

The sun is setting in Washington, DC on a night in mid-June when I write this. I stare out over red brick buildings, surrounded by fireflies, looking out at the garden with our tomato plants and pepper plants and herbs and flowers and all the trees and kind of forget that I'm in the city right now. The journal is on my lap, the one with the old maps on the cover, the one my mom gave me to write about my stay in Luxembourg prior to my departure, now full of the words of a naive 20 year old who was leaving Southwest Ohio for the first real length of time and seeing that those little green and yellow and orange spots on maps were full of real people. The next entry is pretty pathetic, being the unextraordinary lamentations of a kid who had to miss out on things because of lack of money. However, I will stay true to the journal and publish it anyway, because the entries get better. Just look at what happened in Munich when the school paid for a bus to take any student who wanted to go to  Oktoberfest. With apologies to the people who are mentioned in these entries.

17 Sept 1997

Today is the first day I've really felt lonely. I wasn't around many people today since I didn't have class until 6pm, but still, I didn't talk to many people. I didn't feel like going dancing with April & Kate & whoever else, though I probably should have. I just don't want to spend any money. And I didn't want to feel like a dumbass or a tag along. Everyone else is becoming good friends fast, but not me. I feel invisible. Lame! I never have any interesting to say. I don't feel like this is real life and I want to go back to my comfort zone. Am I destined to always feel like this? I have God, but He doesn't talk back. Ha! This is hilarious! I don't feel real.  Lame! I miss Lynn who always takes me for who I am, but here I feel like I need to be somebody else because who I am is not good enough. Lame! Tomorrow may be totally different, but it always returns to a feeling of being invisible. Lame! I hate cliques; I believe they are immature, and maybe that inhibits me. I don't know; I can't figure things out. I'm sick of feeling worthless. Lame!

Everyone seemed to have more money than I did. I had to rake leaves at the chateau to earn money for the work study program, and that was barely $50 a week. I stayed home frequently because I had a budget and couldn't afford to go to many things if I was to travel on the weekends. I blamed the rich kids. I worked in a factory the previous summer manufacturing bus windows while they were going to the beach and I resented them. In the end it didn't matter; I've been able to do a lot in my life, getting to travel and live in four countries outside of the US and work in international development and have an office overlooking the Mediterranean and the entirety of downtown Beirut and all the other stuff I've experienced, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't still harbor some resentment.

27 Sept 1997

Oktoberfest was quite an experience. We left Friday at midnight from Luxville. I had been drinking Mousel Luxembourgish brand of beer at Pub 13 so I had no problem sleeping. We arrived in Munich at 6:45am, and nothing was open yet. So we walked around in the cold for an hour and a half. We went through the Marienplatz district and saw the Glockenspiel (sp?) building. There weren't a lot of old buildings. Most of them were destroyed during the war. I feel this is probably true even though I'm making an uninformed assumption here. Munich as some Americanization to it. I feel this is not true, as the word Americanization is idiotic and I can't believe I ever thought this way! The buildings are pretty modern. I would have liked to go shopping there, but alas, no dinero.

We went to Dachau concentration camp in the morning. It took us 3 trains to get there because we didn't know which exactly to get on. Dachau was depressing and chilling. Usually I try to imagine a place at the time it was in use, like at the castles when I try to picture a bustling place full of dukes and knights and nobility and peasants, but here I didn't want to imagine what it was like. All of the barracks had been torn down but there were two rebuilt to show us what it was like. It made you feel disgust and contempt for human beings and their capacity for evil. We spent an hour there before heading back to Munich. I'm glad I went. I think it's something everyone should have to experience in their lifetimes.

Then we went to the Munich Olympic Park. The Olympics were held there in 1972. It was the year when the Israeli athletes were killed. I saw no memorial for them. This isn't true. Here is a picture of the memorial. In fact-checking this claim, I read the wiki entry for the Munich massacre. I was reminded that Mossad tracked down most of the surviving murderers and killed them in a vengeance-laden name Operation Wrath of God. One of the perpetrators was named Mohammed Safady from Lebanon, the same name of the Economy Minister for whose NGO I worked (who is generally a good guy.) Sometimes my love affair with Beirut makes me forget how involved Lebanon was in international terrorism. It still is, mostly through Hezbollah, which is more like a state within a state or an Iranian proxy organization. The Park was strange. The architecture was amazing. Only pictures can describe what it looked like, no words. We went up the tower and could see the whole city of Munchen. Except we couldn't find Oktoberfest up there. The BMW building is cool. After the Olympic Park, we went to Marienplatz again. This time is was bustling with people. The Glockenspiel dancers were out. We walked for awhile and then went to Oktoberfest. Outside the beer halls, it seems just like a fair, except they had rollercoasters, and most of the rides there are illegal in the U.S. Said with no proof whatsoever. We walked around and got bratwurst. I had kraut on mine. It was the best kraut I've ever had. April and Valerie both got pretzels at least a foot across. I had to help them eat it. We ran into Justina and Liza or whatever her name is. I think she is quiet girl from the train to Cinque Terre. I wonder what she's doing now. I bet she's a doctor or a research scientist or something. I was glad when they chose not to go with us around. What an awful comment! Then we went to Hofbrauhaus. We peeked in at the Lowenbrauhaus earlier. It was cool. The Germans were dressed up in their Oktoberfest outfits and drinking huge steins of Lowenbrau. The waitresses carried out a dozen of those steins at a time. It was amazing. One is difficult enough, but those women also had to fight the crowds. We went to Hofbrauhaus and had the best beer I have had. I got beer dumped on my head. Dusty and Katie and Grant and Klont drank piss. It was hilarious. Then they toasted and crashed their glasses together and I had to get stitches and was at the hospital for about four hours and the day was ruined.

We did go back about 9:00pm and rode the ferris wheel, bought souvenirs, and went back to Hofbrauhaus to find les Americains de Miami. I bought a t-shirt to cover my blood stained shirt that's kind of ugly but oh well.  I wonder what happened to that Hofbrau shirt. I still have all the others that I bought that year. Must have gotten rid of it in one of my purges of possessions. We then walked back to the train station, got something to drink and walked back to the buses at 12am and didn't leave till 1:15am. I couldn't sleep because I was so uncomfortable. Shawn was obnoxious and I got mad at him. I hope he doesn't remember. I don't remember who he is. He passed out in the stairwell. We got home about 8am and I slept until almost 1pm and then Mme Dupays fixed us spaghetti for lunch. Oktoberfest was a good experience despite the accident and I'm glad I went.

I don't know why I skipped the part about the hospital. I waited four hours in the emergency room, which looked like a war zone. Drunken idiots were coming in with all sorts of injuries, including one guy whose head was split open. April was great - she came with me to the hospital and missed her Oktoberfest, too. I still have the scar on my left breast, but it has faded with age. I remember how gross it was to see the inside of my boob. The cost of the trip to the emergency room and the stitches was $50. Yes, $50. Because of my experiences with it, I am perplexed that certain Americans have an aversion to socialized medicine. Why would you choose to spend $1000 over $50? It just doesn't make any sense. In a way, I'm glad I had this experience because I saw an alternative way of health care, one that makes much more sense than to what us Americans subject ourselves. It cost $25 to get the stitches removed a couple of weeks later. On a related note, I received weekly allergy injections as a kid that continued through college. I brought my serum to Luxembourg and a clinic gave me the injections free of charge. I didn't even have to pay for the syringes. 

Maga, our housing coordinator, made Grant and Dusty pay me for the accident when we got back to Luxembourg and she found out about it. (I didn't tell her - she always knew everything that was going on.) I was embarrassed to take their money; it was, after all, an accident, but I needed every bit of it. They didn't know I had gone to the hospital - instead of touring Munich, they went straight to the beer tents and were already drunk by 2pm when the accident happened. I had the best story of anyone on that trip.

If we had blogs in 1997: The Five Lands

The latest installment from my 1997-1998 study abroad journal reveals the trip to Cinque Terre, Italy with what had to be at least twenty other students. We took an overnight train on Friday night down to the area and hiked as what was probably an obnoxious group. But it was one of my favorite weekends during the whole year in Luxembourg. Grammatical, spelling, and factual errors have been preserved.

10 Sept 1997 

Ok, so Kristine is cool. We went to a place called Scott's in the Grund District. It was cool. Outside there was the most beautiful scenery. Some people said it reminded them of Venice. I met Dan, who was really cool. I hope it wasn't just a drunken conversation. I had a lot of fun. I also talked to JJ, who was suprised to find out I was tired of the cliques. After a week?!? He was really cool. I got a letter from Lynn today that made my day. Ok, I couldn't spell surprised, I used "cool" twice in one paragraph, and this is a lot of nonsense from a dumb college kid.

15 Sept 1997

Cinque Terre was great. It was the most difficult hike I ever encountered. Perhaps because I didn't exchange money before we started and it was hot and I couldn't buy water and I was dehydrated. Also because I rarely hiked, and Ohio is pretty flat, whereas these trails were on mountains. And I was fat and out of shape. It was beautiful. The train ride was long. I had to ride with the quiet girl and she slept the whole ride to Milan. I have no idea who this is. I was quite bored and disappointed. I got two or three hours of sleep, but I wasn't tired all day. We got to Riomaggiore about 10am and started hiking. I was starved but had no lire. That would be lira. The first hike, after finally finding the start of the path, was about 45 min. It was easy because it was a flat path made for tourists. The second part was more difficult, but it wasn't bad, except for the steps at the end. The town was Corniglia, but there was nothing there but a few houses and a couple of restaurants (one with a bathroom). The next hike was hard. We kept going up and up the mountain. The air was getting thinner, and breathing was harder. The path was very narrow, and it was a long, long way to fall. It took about an hour and a half to get to Vernazza, where we stayed overnight.

It was an interesting night, one not soon to be forgotten. We sat on the rocks on the coast forever and watched the waves hit the rocks and the lightning flash over the sea. It was incredible. Everyone was drinking Italian wine. As if we'd drink something from Napa Valley in Italy? We ended up sleeping on/in a porch or something in front of a winery. We left for Montoroso the next morning. There was a half hour of continuous stairclimbing - I thought I would die; it was so hard. But it was worth every breath (or lack thereof). The other hour and a half was spent hiking extremely narrow trails, looking down at the most incredible scenery I have ever seen. Pictures do not do the place justice. We encountered a lot of Americans - it was difficult and scary when you had to pass people - but I was really suprised and glad to talk to Americans. Every person we encountered thought Miami was in Florida. Miami was a university before Florida was a state! I guess that's to be expected, but it's kind of annoying.

When we finally got to Monterosso, we bought some fruit and a sandwich and went to the beach. As soon as we bought chairs, dark clouds came creeping out from behind the mountains. Within minutes it was pouring and everyone was standing under the train bridge. The rain felt wonderful, as I had sweat out a 2 Liter bottle of water. We were all so disgusting, having not taken a shower since Friday morning left, and then sweating the Meditteranean. I was really tired of people complaining about everything. Fun times are what you make of them - why couldn't they just have fun in the situation they were in? Besides, we didn't smell any worse than the Italiens. This sentiment interests me greatly, because I say the same thing all the time now. (Not the thing about the Italians.) Some of the kids who did the Luxembourg program had wealthy parents and they slept in nice hotels and stayed away from the locals. A lack of a shower and sweat never kept me away from experience, but I often wondered why some of them even bothered going to Europe because they lived as if they were in the US and complained when anything wasn't comfortable. I suppose they're doing well now, and they enjoyed themselves, but I wonder if Europe is just something they did or if they got something out of it.

We left Monterosso at 4:30, but it was a waste. We went down to La Spezia with intentions of catching the train straight to Milano. We took off from La Spezia, heading towards Milano, and one of the stops was Monterosso. We spent an hour and a half riding a train we didn't need to spend. It was ok, though. We switched trains in Milano, the most Americanized city in Italy. Americanized? Really? Good grief. We went across the street to McDonald's before we took off for Lux. Again with the American fast food. Don't worry, I come to despise it during this year. We left at 9:30pm and arrived in Lux at 6:50am this morning, caught a train back to Differdange, took showers, and headed for class at 8:45am.

For whatever reason, I failed to write about many details about the trip, including the best moments, the ones that stand out the most to this day, the ones I remember down to the smallest detail. I also avoided the rumors and the "college moments" that happened, the who-kissed-who and who-hooked-up-with-who moments. My favorite moment of the whole trip was the dinner we ate the evening of the storm at a small restaurant with an outdoor terrace. I ate pesto in the land where it was invented, drank locally-made Chianti, and sat up the hill from the Mediterranean Sea across from Matt Heitzman, who ate gnocchi (and who has seemingly disappeared from the Earth), when a downpour forced us to grab our plates and our glasses and run inside. An out-of-tune guitar sat in the corner of the restaurant; John P. picked it up and played Pearl Jam's "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" as we tried to dry off and the waiters looked at us with a mix of annoyance and appreciation for the business. I did mention the storm over the Med, but I failed to capture the transcendent moment with the right words, the way all of history seemed to be at peace with itself at that moment and how I thought about the ancient Greek ships crossing the sea with prayers to Poseidon, many of them finding their final resting place at its bottom. I didn't write about scrambling to find more wine that night or the unlabeled two dollar bottles of Chianti we found in what appeared to be the only remaining store open after 10pm or the Turkish toilets (holes in the ground surrounded by porcelain) we had to use at the train station bathroom because there was nothing else open and we had no hotel. I neglected to elaborate on sleeping on the ground in that enclosed area, all of us sprawled out on the concrete using our backpacks for pillows, or the confused looks on the faces of those who passed us in the morning. I didn't mention the beach in Vernazza or the fears of Portuguese Man-O-Wars that had been spotted in the area.

But I remember it all. I remember it as much as I remember the trip to the Amalfi Coast I took a mere three months ago. It's not a moment in the past; it lives within me. It was my first "unsupervised" trip anywhere. It was my first real travel adventure. I fell in love with the Mediterranean on that trip, and it altered the course of my life.

If we had blogs in 1997: Orientation

The latest installation in the series "If we had blogs in 1997," taken from my journal from my year abroad in 1997. I was 20 years old. Spelling, grammatical, and factual errors remain uncorrected. Today's comments are in red italics.

In this post, we are taken on a weekend-long tour through Luxembourg, including a couple of castles and the capital city. We didn't realize at the time that it was intentional, but at the end of the tour we were dropped off at the National Museum, and the bus drove away, leaving us to get home on our own.
 
7 Sept 1997

We have just returned from our weekend excursion through Lux. It was an ok time. We saw some cool castles. Yesterday we went to the military museum. It was incredibly interesting. I didn't realize that Lux. had so much history. Ugh, this is painful to read. The Battle of the Bulge was fought in Lux, and General Patton is buried here. I saw his grave at the American Military Cemetary yesterday. We also went to the German military cemetary. I still can't spell cemetery without auto-correct. Ohio accent, I guess. It was strange because the Germans were so hated during WWII, but Lux still has a nice memorial for them. This statement may seem naive, but it was a breakthrough for me. We had been taught so much about Hitler and World War II during childhood schooling that all Germans seemed evil. Here, though, was a cemetery for German soldiers. I had a sort of awakening during this year, a sort of wow! enemy soldiers are human beings too! and this realization began in that German cemetery. There are so many reminders of the war around here. One can see how unification of Europe is now possible. People here will never forget what it was like. Not so sure these days...

The first castle we saw was the best. It was like a playground for us. We could climb anywhere we wanted throughout the castle. The view was incredible from the top. The second castle was too tourist oriented for my liking. Already I was learning! The hostile experience (really awful spelling error) in Beaufort was ok. We went to a discotheque. I think everyone was there. It's wierd again I can't spell weird to be able to go to a bar and order whatever you want. I chose to go to Lux in the fall semester because I was 20 and could drink in Europe but not the US. I turned 21 in January. I loved Europe so much I chose to stay a second semester.

Friday night we went to Pub 13, the bar that Miami students go to every year. It's above a Pizza Hut in Lux. City. Pub 13 was a bar in Luxembourg City with a Portuguese bartender named Maria who loved us and a dartboard where I played darts for the first time in my life. It had a dumbwaiter system where we could order pizza from downstairs and it would be pulled upstairs, though I don't remember ever ordering pizza. We frequently went there. I was sad to hear it had closed down. We went there after a fair in which I ate my first crepe. It was raspberry (frambois) and it was awesome. Wow, never had a crepe before? I also had a German hamburger, which was more of a sausage, and I won't be having another. German food is really gross - all the sausages and grease. That may be bad for me. But all the french food that I have had so far has been wonderful - all the bread and cheese and crepes. Wow, this floors me. German food gross? So funny to me now! Now I try everything and love everything! Except blue cheese. And sweets. And food products that come in a box. No doubt I learned about good food during this year in Europe, though I guess it took some tasting to change my mind. This morning for breakfast at the hostel (corrected with heavy pen from hostile) (auberge) they gave us bread. There was salami & cheese for breakfast, but I don't think anyone ate any. But I filled up on bread. Last night for dinner at the hostel yay! spelling! we had soup, then des pommes frites, salad (served with main course), and a beef mixed with mushrooms. I was so angry because a lot of people won't even try the food here. There are a lot of ethnocentric people here. For lunch Friday they gave us these great sandwiches, but many people picked off a lot of the things and wouldn't even try them. It's sickening. After reading my commentary on German food, I'd have to say this is somewhat hypocritical. We had to do the dishes last night after dinner, and I bet some of those girls had never done dishes in their lives. Then they complained about the beds and the bathrooms and everything. I guess they're not used to anything less than Hilton.

It took me about two seconds to fall asleep last night. Dr. Stiller came and woke us up at 7:30 this morning, but it was hilarious and everyone was laughing. It made it a lot easier to get out of bed. We went and saw a castle and then went on a 45 minute hike before we came home. I went to the Lux. - Cyprus World Cup qualifying match today. Lux lost 3-1. It was fun, but the teams were horrible. Then we all went to Chi-Chis. We all had strawberry margaritas. They're awesome. It's strange to be able to order drinks.

8 Sept 1997

The shallowness and rudeness of Miami students never ceases to amaze me. I can't wait until people start studying, if they ever do. I don't know what brought about these sentiments on this day, but I know it was the start of some negative sentiments towards a certain group of students - the ones with money - who treated their time in Europe as a vacation rather than a learning experience.

Actually I only felt that way earlier today. This evening we went to the fair again with some really cool people. We went to a karaoke bar. A bunch of drunk Miami students were dancing up on the stage. It was a good time. Us Differdangers almost missed the 11:59 train back. We powerwalked and jogged a 20 minute walk to the train station. The train was waiting to leave. Kristine missed the train and there won't be another till 4pm. Too bad for her irresponsible self. But tonight was fun.

The 11:59 train was the last one from Luxembourg City to Differdange, which was about 60km, quite an expensive taxi ride if you missed that train. I think I only missed it once, though I can remember running to the train station on multiple occasions. 

If we had blogs in 1997: Arrival in Luxembourg

The latest installation in the series "If we had blogs in 1997," taken from my journal from my year abroad in 1997. I was 20 years old. Spelling, grammatical, and factual errors remain uncorrected. Today's comments are in red italics.

In this post, I arrive to Luxembourg after a week in Ireland, meet my host family and roommates for the first time, and marvel at the idea that I will be going to school in a castle.

3 Sept 1997

Arrived in Differdange last night by train/car/plane. Differdange is a small town in southwest Luxembourg where the Miami University John E. Dolibois European Center is located. As I was sitting on the plane awaiting take-off at Dublin airport, I realized I was going to miss Dublin. I may never get to go back. Ended up going back a couple of times that year, spending two weeks there in the next summer, and doing my first internship near Dublin two and a half years later. I guess it's just like any other city, except older, and it's the home of the coolest guy on earth and his band. This is very groupie-like. Ugh. I never did find out where he lives. I think I'll miss walking down O'Connell street & taking the DART to Landsdowne Stadium & hearing U2 in every store & seeing Guinness keg trucks driving all over town. I think it'd be a fun place to hang out with Lynn. (A good friend from high school.) We could go to The Kitchen on weekends (Bono's techno club) or hang out in the Temple Bar District. You can tell that Dublin is the up and coming tourist hot spot of Europe. Good god, this is stupid. Too bad - it's great the way it is.

I flew to Brussells. The flight was bumpy and it hurt my ears. The "flight attendents" were unfriendly. I don't know why I put flight attendants in quotes, but this was Ryan Air, one of Europe's first low-cost airlines, so maybe they weren't attentive. Then I had to get to the train station. I missed the bus and the next one wasn't coming for an hour. So I had to ride in a taxi with a guy who spoke no English. He tried to rip me off by taking me to the Bruxelles station but I made him go to Charleroi. That's the airport where I landed. The taxi driver smelled of BO and swindle. I learned earlier on how to be tough with taxi drivers. I bought a train ticket to Lux. for only $21 (630BF). I couldn't figure out where to go because the lady at the ticket window spoke no English and I had to change trains at a city, but I didn't know which city. This was my first of many experiences with European train strikes. I had only taken two years of French at the time so I couldn't communicate very well, which made it worse. So finally this guy came up to me who spoke some English and asked if I needed help, probably because I was about ready to cry. Then this other guy told me which train to take and the other guy carried one of my suitcases. He was so nice. When I had to change trains I had to go up some stairs and another guy (who was sitting with his girlfriend) carried one for me. Then I had to change trains again in Arlon and some kids, probably 15-16, helped me find my train and carried my suitcases. They spoke English, too. I doubt many Americans would help European travelers in the US like that.

I finally got to Lux. city about 9:20 and had to buy a phone card which I couldn't figure out (but actually the whole time I was putting it in backwards.) Finally my family came to pick me up. They're so nice. I was so glad that they speak good English. When we got back I ate some good french cheese and bread. Today I got up at 9:30 even though I was still tired because I didn't want Olivier to tell his parents I was lazy. He doesn't start school again for two weeks. I played with Legos and played football with his little friends. Then we went to his grandmother's and she fixed us lunch. "Fixed." Yes, I was from Ohio. We watched cartoons, then I went to the chateau. (Olivier est 11). It's cool. Geesh, again with that word! I like the student lounge. I can tell I'll be there a lot. I have to do my laundry tomorrow. I live so close to the school - I'm lucky. It only takes two minutes. Two minutes to walk to the school, that is. I really was lucky. It was the best place to live. Other students were scattered across the country. There will be two other students staying here. The Dupays redid their upstairs to accommodate us. They could have a B&B in the summer. They even made a bathroom up there.

At the chateau today, I talked to three other students. Paul had travelled with his dad through Europe for the past two weeks. Julie and Emily went on a Greece trip. It was so nice to see Americans. After only a week away from the US? Really? And I have seen Paul around campus, so he was familiar. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. Maybe I'll go to Lux. city.

4 Sept 1997

I'm really picking up on French. This makes me laugh for so many reasons. I can understand a little of what the Dupays family says. April and Kristine arrived today. Our bedrooms are still not completely done, but that's ok, because we probably have the nicest place of all the students. And our family completes it. Today M. Dupays cooked us lunch and dinner. I normally don't like sausage, but for lunch we had a good sausage and mustard that she cooked, and rice. For dinner we had ham and other cold meat, a good salad, papas fritas, and a wonderful chocolate moose for desert. The Dupays made fun of us Americans for not eating with both fork & knife in hand. I now eat like this because of my European experiences. It's just practical. Robert is so funny. His birthday is Sept 28. We should bake him a cake. He'll be 49. I didn't think he was that old. Now THIS is funny to me, too. Forties are old? I had to do my laundry today. It's $6.00 a load, wash $ dry. I usually do my laundry every two weeks, but for $6.00 a load, I guess I'll be wearing a lot of dirty things.

I met some more students. The chateau was chaos today. I was trying to talk to Maga (the do everything housing coordinator) but I could only talk to her in 30 second intervals before her phone rang or someone came in. She was trying to get everyone to their families. Tomorrow we have orientation. It should be interesting. I hope they don't make us do any cheesy get-to-know-each-other things. Those are so stupid. We're old enough to know how to meet people. I mean, I went and saw a movie with two Italian guys I had known for a few hours. How hard can it be to meet American people?

April and I went for a walk after dinner around Differdange. Olivier went with us. He's as active as Patrick, (my young cousin) but he's Ryan's age (his older brother). The MTV video awards are on tonight, and I'm hoping to get to watch them. Really?!? Good lord, we're stupid when we're young! I can't wait to discover new European bands. I'm so sick of American pop music. I bought an Ash CD - they're the Irish band who warmed up for U2. There's an old OJ (Simpson, probably Roots) movie on tv that Olivier is watching, but he's speaking German. It's pretty funny. They have NBC here in English, so we can watch Friends, Seinfeld, & ER. That would be a fun time in the cave. (the student lounge, pronounced cAAHve) Friends is such a great show to watch with a bunch of people. Kristine goes to Ohio State. Hers is the room still not finished. I got to the house first, so I got to choose the first room. She had the spiral staircase of death to ascend every night. Not easy after imbibing certain European beverages. I got the biggest room. It's great. Everything up there is new. There is a sink in each room and a shower and toilet off the kitchenette which is also new and incomplete. There is a wicker couch and chair in my room. I have a double bed. It is so incredibly nice. Robert has worked so hard on it. All of them have.

If we had blogs in 1997: Trip is ruined

Here is the latest installment in my series from my journal from my year abroad in 1997. I was a 20 year old from Southwest Ohio alone in a foreign country, so yeah, it's pretty poorly written and my thoughts are naive. Spelling, grammatical, and factual errors have been preserved. 

In this post, I am in Ireland, where I spent the week before I went to school in Luxembourg. I went because I wanted to see U2, my favorite band, play in their hometown of Dublin. This post is over-the-top fangirl, but if you dig deeper you can find seeds of awareness planted within me. Today's comments are in red italics.

31 Aug 1997

My trip is ruined - it's all downhill from here, unless I can get tickets again tonight. U2 in Dublin last night was incredible. Bono's voice sounded better than it did in the other two concerts, and he looked better too. He had shaved, and his hair is back to its natural brown color. Even the lines on his face seemed to have disappeared. Maybe he was just glad to be home. They did the same songs as in Chicago, except Bono sang some Irish pub song that everyone sang along with, and Edge sang some Irish song karaoke instead of Daydream Believer. I was uncomfortable when Bono was singing "Bullet the Blue Sky" and I felt like liking "Please" was none of my business. This is because "Bullet the Blue Sky" is a criticism of American military involvement in other countries' conflicts and "Please" is about the Irish conflict and at the time they were having problems with the peace process. The song was emotionally charged, really angry but also transcendent, pleading, desperate. The performance of that song was an early encounter with conflict, which has influenced the path of my life. It was the first time I had been in a country where warring factions played a big role in the lives of citizens, and that song gave me insight, even understanding, about how people's lives are affected by the stupidity of war. It affected the crowd that night; I'll never forget that feeling. The whole thing was so emotionally intense that I was crying when they did "One." So were the girls behind me. Then I experienced the reason those people died at those soccer games in England. I wanted to buy a Dublin t-shirt but I guess the Irish don't understand what a line is. It was crushing, with everyone trying to push up to the front. Linejumping must be a sporting event in Europe.

Most of the day yesterday I spent looking for a hostel to stay at and looking for tickets. I found both. I had to stay in a room with three English guys who had also gone to the concert. This morning some other English guy came pounding on the door and he told them that Princess Di was dead. He told me that the Americans probably didn't care and the others joked about how we would because there would be nothing to read about. I told them I was glad there would be no more magazine covers. The whole thing was dreamlike. I went downstairs to the t.v. room where a bunch of British people were sitting in shock. It was really strange. If I experienced an event of this magnitude today I would write a couple of pages on it - the looks on the faces, more of the conversation, the names of those involved, etc. At least I recognized its noteworthiness back then.

I'm glad to be back in this hostel. This one is more homier. Plus there's a shower in the room. I'm waiting for the Italian guys to get back to see if they want to go to tonight's concert. I found out there were people who couldn't give their tickets away last night, much to my dismay, since I paid 75 pounds. It was worth every pence. I had $500 set aside for this week and have yet to spend $400, so all is good. Today I took a train to Dun Laoghaire but it was the same as Bray. I walked around for ten minutes then took a train back to the stadium. I got off and stopped at the little snack store to get a sandwich (it was a 'ham salad' sandwich - ham, coleslaw, lettuce on a fresh seseme seed bun - freshly made - good stuff.) I talked to the guy about the concert last night. We both agreed it was great. He doesn't like Bono at all. Said he was too opinionated. He said that half of Dublin loves Bono and the other half hates him. He said that U2 doesn't play in Dublin very often. He had a picture of him and Garth Brooks standing at the spot I was standing. He said Garth sold out the 70,000 seat stadium across town for a week straight. Tonight they're having a hurling final at that stadium, and U2 will have 40,000, so most of Dublin will be out tonight at only two events. It really is U2 crazy here, signs, tape in car windows, Pop playing in every store, and I love it. It's like heaven. The only bad thing is the Oasis displays in all the record stores. I guess Oasis is the most popular group in Europe at the moment. Oh well, we can't all be perfect.

I have a sore throat right now. People looked at me funny all day because I had my hood on. Some drunk guy thought I was Bono. I dug my hat out of my suitcases in storage so I can have something covering my ears. The infamous red hat made its first of many appearances. The dampness of European weather and the way they keep their heating low so as to not waste energy was something I had never experienced. I live like that now, with open windows and low heat and no AC unless it's a sustained 90 degrees. That hat kept me healthy; cold weather gives me ear aches and sore throats even now.

1 Sept 1997

I walked from 12:30-5:30 non-stop. Surely I've lost some weight this week. I'm leaving tomorrow. Today I walked from 12:30-5:30. I'm dead tired. I got to see Popmart again last night. It wasn't as good as the first night, but it was still awesome. Anyway, I guess I'm suffering form post-U2 depression. I realized it was likely the last time I would ever get to see them. This is funny to me now, since I've seen them 11 times on three other tours since, including once in Paris. They've said it was their last tour, & somebody reminded me of that today. I need to leave this city. I need to get away from U2 everything. It'd be cool if they were at the airport when I left tomorrow. Fat chance.

I tried to call my family today to let them know I was leaving Ireland tomorrow, but I couldn't figure out the stupid phone or the calling card. I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm starting to wonder if all of this was a good idea or not. I'm sick of people with accents. I can't wait to be around some Americans. Maybe that will make me feel better. It's amazing I wrote that. Now I seek out the places where Americans aren't!

What's incredible when I think about it now is how the "phone" I carry with me everywhere works nearly every place on the planet. The hostel people yelled at me because I slammed the receiver down on the payphone in frustration because I couldn't figure out how to use the calling card my parents had given me for use during the semester.

If we had blogs in 1997: Slainte!

Back when we had to walk to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways, I used to write in a journal with a pen. No one ever saw it. I've combined my old blogs with this one and have been going through some old ones. It occurred to me that I said some stupid stuff when I was younger. I was learning how to live in Washington, learning how to be political, learning about the Middle East, and a lot of what I wrote was garbage. So I decided to pick up my journals from college, starting with the one from my junior year abroad in Luxembourg.  I'm going to be posting excerpts from it on a regular basis. I'll keep spelling and grammatical errors as I wrote them. This will either be fun or horrifying. I'll write Mystery Science Theater 3000-like comments in red and italics.

This post could be subtitled "Learning about public transportation."

27 Aug - 28 Aug 1997

Feelings of panic as I boarded the plane in Cincinnati turned to feelings of excitement as I touched down in Atlanta. My plane was late arriving but so was my plane to Dublin due to a high speed car chase in which helicopters were hogging up air space. So I didn't touch down in Dublin until 10am Dublin time.

Right away I could tell Dublin was a different city than what I've been used to. Because my cities were Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio! The airport was small but crowded, mostly with the 300 passengers from my flight. My suitcases were extremely difficult to carry through the airport where a bus awaited my 2.50 pounds. I talked to an Irish guy not much older than me, mostly about Irish & American politics. Like I knew anything about Irish politics! At the busstop I had to maneuver my suitcases through a crowd to a taxi. The guy was really nice and gave me a brief historical tour of the city. I sat in the front on the wrong side of the car. I found the hostel I was staying in and checked in. That guy was also very nice - he even carried my bags downstairs to storage. (Unfortunately he knew of no one with an extra U2 ticket.) Then I was off to explore the city (but stupid I had my backpack on - big mistake. I walked all over the city - it was probably almost ten miles, and every muscle in my body hurts.) Dublin is a strange city. I've never seen architecture so old - it's haunting. My mission was to get a plane or rail ticket to Lux. so I wouldn't have to worry about it. On the way I found many sites I had wanted to see and finally got to O'Connell Street. I found a Burger King to eat at Oh the horror! just because I hadn't studied up on the good places to go. The reality is I was too afraid to go into places alone. Don't know why I lied in my journal. I got chicken "pick-em ups" and a d. coke w/o ice. This was for "take away." When I finally got back I was sitting in the lobby with others my age. I heard three different languages. It was cool; we're all so much the same. Groan. Now I finally get to go to bed.

29 Aug 1997

Wow. I thought I did a lot of walking yesterday, but today I walked into the next county, Dun Laoghire. I walked to the town of Blackfoot and ate at McDonald's just so I could sit down. Again with this excuse. Then I decided to take the train back, but I ended up in Bray. This is how I ended up there.

I had to mail my post cards so I went to the post office, which was confusing. It was huge. Then I decided to find Windmill Lane Studio, which was quite a walk. Windmill Lane is U2's studio. It was a pilgrimage, of sorts.  It was so cool. Graffiti in all languages was all over all the buildings down the street, almost all of it proclaiming a love for U2. I was not the only one there. Some guy even told me Edge was inside, which wouldn't surprise me. There was a security guard there that wouldn't let anyone through. When I finished taking my pictures and reading all the writing, I decided to walk to Dublin port. I walked forever down an industrial road full of dirty Irish guys. I probably walked 1.5-2 miles then I realized the port was a couple kilometers farther. By then my knees and ankles hurt so bad I could hardly walk. I was going to take a bus back but couldn't figure the sign out. I thought it would be awhile before a bus came, but as soon as I left the bus stop, one came and I missed it. Good thing though, because I saw the first Popmart '97 signs. I started to follow them. They led me to a football stadium that took me an hour to walk to. They weren't very far along with the stage, but the concert is tomorrow. I passed many cool houses, but no single family dwellings - everything was attached together, even an occasional meat market stuck in between. Again, I had not spent much time in a big city. The doors were cool - they were all different colors. Cool again? Did I have zero vocabulary? The stadium is right in the center of a housing division. They must have no zoning codes. The stadium even has a train running under it. *rolls eyes* I wanted to see if there were any single family homes, so I kept walking. I found a couple, but you could tell they were well-to-do. I guess the entire middle class live in apartments or doubles.

For some reason I kept walking, even though my knees were beginning to hurt. Perhaps you shouldn't have been so fat and out-of-shape back then! I was hungry and I thought I would come to a restaurant. I finally came to a McDonald's - honestly the first restaurant in miles. Good grief. (Quarter pounders are still quarter pounders and fries are still fries.) I could hardly walk so I decided to take the train back but then decided to go South. I told the guy at the ticket window to give me a ticket someplace south, so I went to Bray.

The train ride was beautiful - down the coast of Dublin Bay. I spent an hour there going in shops and sitting at the beach. When I took the train back, I rode all the way to the other end of the line, mostly because I didn't feel like walking again. When I got back to Dublin, I was ready to take a bus back to the hostel, only I couldn't figure out which way the bus was going, so I got on anyway. Dumb idea. It took me in totally the opposite direction I wanted to go. I started to see familiar things, but they were things I had seen while walking away from the city earlier. So I hopped off the bus and started walking. I passed the stadium again. (I forgot to mention that you could see the top of the arch from the other side of Dublin.) The U2 Popmart arch in the stadium. I'd been walking a ways then I saw a sign "City Centre - 2km." Another mile. When I finally got to my street, I went to a grocery store and found my favourite OJ - tropicana pure premium (imported from florida), some french bread, and some wierd potato stuff I haven't eaten yet but it smells bad.

When I got to the hostel some Italian guys asked me to write the words to the Star Spangled banner for them. I went out to dinner with them to this restaurant was supposed to be like an American diner. Simon wondered what coleslaw is and he didn't like it when he tried it. They asked me to go to museums with them tomorrow, but I need to look for U2 tickets and a place to stay tomorrow night.

Give me a break - I was from small town Ohio and was on my own in a foreign country at age 20. Haha. I had gone to Ireland the week before school was to begin to see U2 perform in their hometown of Dublin. I had no tickets, so I relied on scalpers. My wandering around the city became the typical way I'd see new places.

Sultan of S.W.A.T.

Nearly three months have passed since our whirlwind tour of three countries in ten days, my ever growing need to quench my wanderlust stymied by the cost of flights to Europe. The trip grew from two countries to three for precisely the same reason – airfare was cheaper through Turkey. Of course, what we didn’t pay for in money we spent in time – long layovers that really cut into our vacation time. One layover, however, gave us the opportunity to walk around Istanbul for an evening, though we never got to Taksim Square.

Turkey has recently entered the global fray of the malcontent. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogen has been the PM for as long as I have been cognizant of Turkish affairs. The country was a punchline in childhood jokes, more often than not paired with Hungary. In reality, Erdogen took office in 2003, but ten years (and counting) is certainly a long time for a leader to be in power, long enough for his administration to step into the realm of authoritarianism. Police are attacking Turkish citizens at Taksim Square as I type this.

I had been to Istanbul a few years ago in a whimsical trip from Bulgaria, so I knew the general layout of the tourist areas, which is all we had time for during the layover. Unfortunately, the bulk of our time would be spent sleeping, as we arrived from Rome in the afternoon and Europe had yet to switch to daylight savings time. I hadn’t made hotel reservations, assuming the plethora of budget hotels and hostels would have an available room. I wanted to stay in the same place as the last time but couldn’t find it because, well, I don’t know. I’ve always been adept in the biological art of mapping (indeed, we have special neurons that help us find our way in the world). And though I could get to the area easily without a map more than five years later, the exact location of the hotel was elusive. We stopped in several places with no vacancy and that same feeling about bad hotel luck that we had experienced under the duress of food poisoning in Rome. That’s why we followed a shady stranger with a business card that seemed to indicate he was a proprietor of a budget hotel he said was “just around the corner.”

Istanbul is an ancient city. I mean ancient, the kind of it’s-always-been-there city that I like. Born around 660 BC as Byzantium and known as Constantinople for a time, Istanbul has survived nearly twenty-seven centuries, though ruins of a settlement dating back to 6700 BC were discovered during construction of a subway station. Even the rocks are priceless, because you never know what archaeological treasure they could have been chipped from. The Greeks founded Byzantium and settled all over Turkey. The sites of Troy (Trojan horse) and Rhodes (Colossus of Rhodes) are located in present-day Turkey. Wars, wars, Romans, wars, Persians, wars… Then came the split of the Roman Empire in the fourth century under Emperor Constantine (the guy who converted to Christianity from Roman paganism, moved the imperial city from Rome to Byzantium, and ordered the creation of the Bible from various sectarian religious texts), creating the Byzantine Empire. More wars, wars, Crusades, Saladin, wars, more wars…Then the Ottoman Turks took over the area in the mid-fifteenth century and ruled until they were defeated in World War I. Brutal at times, tolerant at others, the Ottoman Empire oversaw extensive development in many parts of the region; some areas were given autonomy or semi-autonomy, and municipalities were modernized and expanded.  Upon defeat in World War I, Ottoman lands were divided among the victors. Turkish nationalists fought a war for independence against Britain, France, Italy, and Greece, eventually gaining it with the Treaty of Lausanne. It’s been a secular democracy ever since, aside from a coup here and there.

I’ve spent a lot of my adult life traveling in other countries, so I know when to be wary of such shady characters as the man who said he had a hotel room for us. But we were also weary – the time change, three days in Lebanon, food poisoning, five days in Italy, five airports, and several trains and buses will do that to you – so we took a chance and followed him around the corner, where the hotel was supposedly located. These were busy streets, mind you; we weren’t going to follow the shady stranger into a dark alley. The hotel wasn’t around that corner or the next or the next – we winded our way through the ancient streets of Istanbul, descending a hill into the Zeyrek quarter with its derelict wooden houses that are barely standing 160-200 years after they were constructed. I pointed them out to Chris as objects of beauty without wondering why I thought they were beautiful. They reeked of poverty; many of their inhabitants are migrants from southeast Turkey who don’t have the money to maintain them. UNESCO finds them worthy of preserving, as its World Heritage Committee has undertaken restoration projects in an attempt to save a piece of history. The dark boards lend a certain harmony to the twisting streets; I tried to get Chris to notice them but he was too tired or busy worrying about where the stranger was taking us to listen to my history lesson.

We hadn’t really noticed we were descending a hill. The winding was intense, and when the liar had taken us around enough corners with no hotel around any of them, we turned to head back to the area from where we had started. But we didn’t know how to get back. Too many curves and corners had been turned. We’d have to get back by sense of direction and periodic glimpses of the towering minarets of the famed Blue Mosque. Eventually we got there and found a budget hotel with a vacancy as well, but we were now in the waning hours of daylight – the shady stranger had robbed us of an hour of precious sun on our last day of vacation. We’d have to see the sites under the cover of darkness.

Darkness. These are dark days in Turkey. Erdogen seemed to be good for the country when he was first elected. Per capita income has tripled and exports have increased nearly tenfold since he took office. Economically, people are better off than they were a decade ago. But his conservative views have increasingly encroached upon the secular state. He and his political party, AKP, want to force their religious views upon the country, just like American Republicans want to do to us. Erdogen is of the same mold as them – an ardent capitalist with little concern for anything but economic development. He’s an adherent to the international profitmonger ideology that views the world solely through economics. Indeed, I once saw him speak at the American Enterprise Institute, that capitalist propaganda organization whose board members include such luminous assholes as Dick Cheney and Daniel A. D'Aniello, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group. They’re all part of the cult of economic growth that is responsible for turning so much of the world into stripmall hell. They care nothing for historic sites, for parks, for libraries, or for the residencies of human beings if they stand in the way of another shopping mall. These depositories of drudgery strip the soul from our lives. But it goes on because people just don’t get that going to these malls and buying their products allow it to continue.

We unloaded our bags in a tiny room in the budget hotel near the Blue Mosque and set out to see some of the city. I wanted to take Chris down to the water, where the Sea of Marmara met the Bosporus Strait, one of the busiest waterways in the world. (Indeed, the strait is so important that a Bond villain tried to nuke Istanbul to kill off traffic in The World Is Not Enough.) We descended the hill down to Kennedy Avenue, beneath the glow of Topkapi, the Ottoman palace that overlooked the water, and stopped to watch commuters drive their cars onto ferries after getting off work for the day.

Then we made our way to the Galata Bridge, with its fish restaurants and fishermen and the harassing merchants so characteristic of Istanbul. “Excuse me, excuse me, what’s your name? Can I ask you a question? Deal for you.” We just wanted to sit down for a beer, not a twenty dollar piece of mackerel.

In my previous trip I had eaten fresh mackerel sandwiches from street vendors for four dollars. Chris seems to have an aversion to street food; we had our first argument on a trip to New York over eating it. (I bought gyros from a truck and he realized I was right!) Instead of four dollar fresh mackerel sandwiches, we chose a restaurant on the bridge and overpaid for beers and appetizers, though the spicy mussels were delicious. We marveled at the giant shrimp and the fresh fish and then continued our wandering.

Tourism is a huge industry in Istanbul, and they milk you for every last penny. Everything costs ten bucks to enter, even the churches (though the mosques are free to enter, which makes the church entry fees feel like a modern-day dhimmi tax.) It was dark outside and everything was closed for the evening, but the plan was to get up early enough in the morning to visit the Hagia Sophia, which I had been unable to visit during my last trip. However, I was with Chris, so that never happened. Instead, we stopped in a bar where he showed a lack of understanding about the cultural differences of nations. Though we enjoyed our conversation with the bartender about various socio-political topics, Chris seemed to think the bartender would give us free beers because they were fellow "industry guys" and kept ordering them even though I told him not to. Thus went our Hagia Sophia budget!

As we walked back, we peeked into a hookah café, where some kids let Chris smoke a hookah for the first time in his life. It was the last good experience of our vacation. We slept late and hurried to the airport on Istanbul’s wonderfully efficient public transportation system. They’ve made great improvements in that regard, largely driven by the city’s desire to host the 2020 Olympics. I wonder if Taksim events have hurt that cause. (Right now the Olympic Committee says it does not.)

The trip seems like it was so long ago and the city seems like a bizarro version of itself. The events in Taksim have been characterized as anti-government protests, but that isn’t accurate. While the protests have certainly moved on to more general actions of the government itself, it essentially goes back to the shopping mall. "Economic growth" at any cost. That’s what makes governments go bad, and that’s how Erdogen and American Republicans can get away with legislating religion into our lives. (Funny how so many conservative religious types are adherents to the free market ideology, isn't it?) Those who get rich off these profit-at-all-costs economic policies stop at nothing to keep these types in power, and the people, who forget their anger and shop in the malls anyway, don’t do much to try to stop them. Taksim protests and others like them have to happen if we are to save what's left of the soul of us.

Occupy Istanbul. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Humanity.