Education as commodity

Ezra Klein has published a column entitled, "Why a college degree shouldn't be a commodity" in today's Wapo.

It's sad that an article like this even has to be written. A university is called a "university" because the whole purpose is universal knowledge. That someone would think a liberal arts degree is worthless is indicative of the economic brainwashing this country has undergone in the last few decades, where money is all that matters.

I've said it before and I'll say it over and over again - majors like business, journalism, and education should be taught in trade schools separate from a university or should be part of a degree in economics (an actual science) or perhaps psychology for "management" for business majors or the subject which one is writing about or teaching about for journalists and teachers. If you are employed to write about politics, you should have a degree in political science so you know what the hell you are writing about. If you're teaching math at any level, you should have a degree in some form of mathematics.

I wouldn't hire a person who has a "degree" from a for-profit "university." It says a lot about your character that you wouldn't go to a real college.

We've discarded the science of thinking for the pursuit of "things." It's why people don't care that they're destroying the planet, or that we've come to outlaw feeding the homeless and we call poor people "lazy" or we think that health care is a privilege or why religious nuttery is taking over our politics. It's the reason that ideology is triumphing over ideas, why our government is in gridlock and our nation divided. As we discard the humanities, we discard our humanity.

Study what you want in school, not what will make you the most money. The value of life is in how you experience it and the bonds you have with others, not the house you live in or the car that you drive.

Commute thy sentence

Yesterday I turned on a space heater and made soup.

These seemingly mundane tasks tell a story. While most people would dismiss them as soon as they happened, I am dwelling on them. Outside, the sky is dull, the kind of dull that hides the earth from airplanes, and though the trees are still green and flowers still grow, they, too, show signs of listlessness. Inside, I am hiding from October.

I do not like the time when death comes to the world around me. Once, it meant back-to-school and Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now it only means cold and drear and barren trees and thick clothing and being imprisoned indoors. Right now, before the real cold has even arrived, I feel like Spring will never come, that this is how life will always be - covered skin, false heat, the drear, oh, the drear.

I had a back-to-school of sorts a few weeks ago when I started a new job. The firm is out in Herndon, Virginia, technically a suburb of DC but way the hell out there. Now, I am one who always said, "Live where you work." I would if I could. I didn't choose this; it chose me. Finding a job in DC was proving rather difficult for several reasons, and anyway, Chris and I love our neighborhood, though not so much the actual dwelling place, and the rent we pay will allow for me to save some money. He works downtown, so moving closer to my office isn't fair to him, either.

It's an hour and a half each way. I'm spending three hours a day on trains and buses, and it's already getting to me. Now, the morning commute I don't mind so much, although it's getting up so early that is the biggest problem of the entire commuting business. I'm not a morning person. I never have been. It's scientific fact that some people don't function well in the morning, and that some need more sleep than others. At least the length of the commute gives me enough time to wake up a bit. I take my coffee on the train and try to stimulate my brain, first with the commuter paper crossword puzzle, then a book. By the time I've reached the Wiehle stop to catch the bus to my office, I'm ready for my daily Lumosity games. (Seriously, these work. I've seen marked changes in my concentration level and quicker thinking. I'm going to purchase a subscription, I think.)

In the beginning of commuting, I created an Instagram account. It started as an attempt to make fun of hipsters and the crappy images that people post on Instagram. I even wrote "Commuter chronicles on Hipstergram" in my profile description. But it's turned into something else, a challenge to find something unique in a quotidian ritual, a commentary on the way we organize our society. It really is a challenge. But there is something oddly appealing about many of the photos I've been taking, something that captures the essence of life in Western society. A sunset on the Metro, for example, seen at the right. This was one of the earlier images I captured, when I was still intent on doing the hipster thing. But when I took it, it was a real moment. I felt a bit of awe, even amidst the suburban sprawl. There was another time when the moon was as big as The Ritz and it jumped from side to side as the train twisted and turned through the modern Virginian landscape. That was really something. 

Most of the shots are in or around the Metro system, obviously. It really is a gorgeous system, if you're into aesthetics. I like to play with the reflections while inside the train. This is when the Instagram filters become useful rather than just a way for hipsters to make a bad photo seem "artsy." 

The captions are important to me, too. I'm not just going to take a photo for the sake of taking a photo. A photo is a story, and, unlike when I initially started using Instagram, the images I am capturing are taken for a reason. Stuck on the tracks. Waiting to transfer. Where I used to live. Just wanting to get home. Then there are the societal things - the McDonald's Citibank, the warnings of underground dangers, the endless advertisements, the ugliness of concrete. 

I don't see the world like most people. I see more of it. I see the details. It's going to be a challenge to find something new as the commute becomes just a part of my day, but I think I can keep it up. Finding the sacred in the profane. The unique in the mundane.

But back to the space heater and soup. I went to the farmers market and bought seemingly one of everything to put into the soup. It wasn't that cold, but as soon as I opened the door to go to the market, the chill put soup into my mind. That was my Saturday. Soup and sleep. Boy did I need the sleep. And the soup.

Hey, look, the sun just came out!

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Kangaroo Boxing Club - Pigs and Cows Eaten with Pleasure

Chris and I ate out last night.

You probably don't think this is a big deal. It is. We've been on such a tight budget for so long that to be able to go out to dinner represented a major change in our lives. Even when I was at the political research firm, the salary was such a pittance that our nights out were limited. Now we can go out to dinner without having to rearrange something else in our lives.

We ate at a place called the Kangaroo Boxing Club, located a mere three or four blocks from our house. We had neither visited before nor knew of its existence, because we tend to forget that a world exists if we turn left from our house instead of right. The 11th Street corridor of Columbia Heights has changed drastically in a short time, and KBC was just one of many options from which to choose. I suppose we'll have to try them all.

The night was exceedingly pleasant, so the streets were packed as if it were the weekend. All of the restaurants along the corridor have outdoor seating; we walked by looking at what people were eating to make our decision. In the end, BBQ won.

As soon as we sat down, I liked the place. We sat inside where there was no wait. The BBQ sauces on the table reminded me of Burbank's in Cincinnati, a restaurant I had loved to visit on the way home from Reds baseball games. The pulled pork there at one time had been spectacular, and I always chose the tangy sauce to smother it with. KBC had a similar tangy sauce, and the pulled pork was of the old Burbank's quality. There was a lot of it, too. Chris had the pastrami. We both were so happy with our food that we continued to eat even after we were full, and then we realized that we had left too little on our plates to take home, so we resolved to eat it all and did. It was too good to leave.

It was a simple place, small, with the bar taking up half of it and the tables close together. We chatted with the guys at the table next to us as if we had gone out to dinner together. Old photos of Washington hung on the walls, some with images of KBC's owners photoshopped in. They had some etchings on the light fixtures that were of interest, and a picture of SNL's Pat hung on the bathroom doors to indicate gender. Ha!

I was pretty shocked when our check came and it was under $50. We'd eaten enough food for four people and had some beers and I just kind of figured we were splurging for once. 

I watched two men with interest sitting at one table. They didn't talk to each other - they were too engaged in their phones. One had a beard in the trendy style of gross - rather unkempt and stating "look at me" - and his morose, disinterested demeanor made me wonder what bands he had discovered and discarded during the week. Everything about him screamed hipster, and I feared KBC was a hipster joint. But the guys next to one side of our table weren't hipsters, and the gay couple with the visiting parents on the other side weren't hipsters, and I didn't see any hipsters sitting at the bar, so everything checked out. Whew. We will return.

Oddly enough, I had watched that viral video of the two kangaroos boxing in front of a guy's street early in the day.

If we had blogs in 1999: Waffles, apologies, and Guinness - Belgium

Here's the latest installment of my 1999 travel journal from the Transatlantic Seminar on the European Union. We go to Brussels, which, for some reason back then, I didn't like as a city (I'd go there in a heartbeat now), though I claimed to love Flanders above all else in continental Europe. On the weekend we went to Leuven, a place Brad and I had loved on a previous visit I wrote about here.

The publication of these travel journals is an exercise in self reflection. Not only did I want to revel in nostalgia and use these memories as stand-ins for actual travel, but I wanted to revisit how I'd come to think and write the way I do. Self improvement is not found in a self help book, religious doctrine, or a yoga class. It comes from observation, awareness, research, and reflection. Ask yourself what you can do to make yourself a better person who contributes something valuable to society. I don't want to be that person who just sucks up resources and leaves waste all over the planet. Life is a learning process. I will continue to seek knowledge, hone my writing skills, and search for answers as to why human beings make living such a tragedy when just breathing is cause for celebration.

As always, spelling, grammatical, and factual errors have been preserved, and today's comments are in red. Special apologies go out to Michelle, whom I wronged in a moment of the shallowness of youth.

Begin journal entry

Dinner for the evening was held at Le Grand Cafe, translated conviniently by Dr. Mason as The Grand Cafe. I enjoyed some Leffe and a decent dinner for a change. We ate there every night. Brussels was not fun. Our hotel was in a shitty part of town. My roommate was Eva, which would have been great had Brad not been in our room every night, especially after he'd smoked up and was really annoying. See, he was ecstatic because the "cool" crowd had been paying some attention to him because he had hooked up on the trip. He acted like the quarterback of the high school football team had invited him, the class nerd, to a party. No longer were his nerd friends (me) good enough for him. They didn't dress right or treat people like dirt, so they weren't good enough anymore. He was like a 14 year old boy who'd just visited a prostitute; she would never think of him again, but he thought he was in love. I think I hated him at this time. Imagine spending 24 hours a day every day over the course of (at this point) four weeks with the same person with little sleep and constant travel. That's all this was, pure fatigue. Nowhere did I mention what I bear I was at times or how I dragged Brad to bar after bar because I wanted to go out and meet people and have "grand conversations" about life and blah blah blah. Brad just wanted to stay at the hotels and read. He was probably just tired. I, on the other hand, would save sleep for Ohio. You spend that much time with a person, and you're going to have disagreements. We left the seminar with our friendship still intact.

It was pretty cool getting to visit all of the government buildings of the EU. Brussels was backwards. I enjoyed the seminars immensely but detested the free time. It was thrilling to sit at the table of the Council of Ministers behind the Luxembourg sign. It was thrilling to sit in the chamber of parliament and to steal the water glasses and the posters from there. Perhaps I enjoyed them more because I didn't go out at night and I got some sleep, but I don't think that was the reason. It was kind of like going to Congress or the White House and getting to do special things that no one else gets to do. Only a lot of people got to do stuff like this because the EU uses all propaganda tools possible. We even had an Irish guy sit in on the Council seminar with us. I think this means that you can arrange to visit EU institutions, sort of like you have to arrange to see Congress now. But I still felt special, like all of it was arranged just for us. However, I was much relieved when the Brussels session was over. There was one particularly odd moment at SHAPE when we were having lunch in the base cafeteria. It was amazing seeing all of the different officers from different countries eating together. But that wasn't the odd part. What struck me was a faint glimpse of something in the past, a quick flashback to something similar that I had experienced when I was 4 or 5 years old, sitting in a Marine officers' mess. I don't recall any details, and it is probably something I saw quite often at that age, but it was a glimpse of a blocked out portion of my life. My father was a Marine (though not an officer.) Seeing all of those people in military uniforms must have triggered an early memory of being at the base.

One evening at the Grand Cafe, Michelle invited herself to come along for the upcoming Leuven weekend. Brad and I had already planned on going, since Oxford, and I invited Eva along. Michelle was sitting next to me and she said she was going. Now I had not the courage to say no - then. She was really getting on our nerves. So anyway, we finished our last seminar of the week, and we were leaving the building when I handed her a note saying she was unwelcome. I was scared to say something, but I was left with the dirty work. Eva later denied to her face that she was unwelcome, which kind of pissed me off, because we all three had made the decision but I was the only one who'd say anything. So I handed her the note & ran away because I felt so guilty and she almost cried. But Brad, Eva, & I left for Leuven while she went with Bill to Normandy & fucked him, the lesbian did. This sounds incredibly mean and juvenile, and I did it in a very cowardly manner. I'm sorry I did it, but she did invite herself and her travel style didn't mesh with ours, though I don't recall what she had been doing that irritated us then. As for her "issues," it was college. Many people had them. Leuven was more of a personal excursion for Brad and I, as we had fallen in love with the city when we had visited on our MUDEC study tour, and we had decided early on back at Miami that we would revisit the place. Eva would come along because she and Brad were, as one would say, an item. Also, I just liked her. We got along well. But sorry for this, Michelle. Come to DC and I'll show you around. I'll take you to L'enfant Cafe or the Brasserie Beck and we can drink some Belgian beers.

All I wanted to do was get trashed in the Leuven square but it was summer and a lot of the university students were not there. We visited a couple of places that night including a gay friendly bar where Brad tried to pick up the bartender and Eva got pissed and left and got lost for an hour. It was all quite fun, really. I'd been in both of those bars on Tony tour. Our hotel was like a dormitory. I had my own room and Brad & Eva shared a room. It was across from the train station.

Saturday morning I awoke around 10 and went for a walk through the town. A Kosovo refugee came up to me and asked for money, but I only had 1000F bills and couldn't give him any. He spoke English and I fretted about it all day. I ate a great Belgian Waffle despite the food crisis in Belgium. I'd gone into Match before I came back to the hotel and it was a madhouse. The shelves were bare,as things had either been bought or pulled. I bought some Bailey's Hagen Daas. Anyway, waffles had been on the forbidden list because they had eggs in them. But I didn't die. Belgium had had an outbreak of salmonella or something, and so many food items had been taken off the shelves that there was a shortage. I have a vague recollection of being startled by the empty Match grocery store. The juxtaposition of the refugee from war torn Kosovo and the panic over food in peaceful Belgium must have been lost on me as I wrote this. If he really was a refugee and not a scammer. The story made an impression on me, because here was an actual person who had been affected by a current war rather than something I'd just read in history books. It was a dose of reality. I'd been following the Balkan conflicts more closely because the topic of my research paper was European defense integration, and wars on European soil would influence the integration process (or lack thereof.)

We ate a late lunch on the square. An Irish guy sat by us and invited us to a birthday party at an Irish pub. We went. Brad threw one of his fits. He just wanted to "go back and read." I don't know what his problem was but he was a real jerk, even to Eva. So we stayed. I'm glad we did. 7 or 8 rounds went by, and we were having a great time. We stayed out till 4 or 5 talking to some Irish & English guys about 10 years older (actually, I think the guy Eva was talking to was 40.) It was great craic. There was a great girl who was wearing this blue wig that was hilarious as was she. She even let us eat sandwiches from the party. The guys kept buying us rounds, the black stuff for me, Kilkenny for Eva. We were the last ones to leave the pub. Eva stopped to call her dad and I passed out in a bus stop shelter until she hung up. We slept for two hours and then had to catch a train to Ostende. We were taking a ferry to London. This was one of the best nights of the entire trip. Funny, because we went to Leuven to drink the great Belgian beer and ended up drinking with a bunch of Irish expats who were quite generous. These are the kind of travel experiences I live for - it's about the people. If you're traveling just to "see the sights," you're doing it wrong.

End journal entry

If we had blogs in 1999: Trains and homecomings...Luxembourg

The latest installment of my 1999 journal from the Transatlantic Seminar on the European Union takes us back to Luxembourg. It felt like a homecoming. This portion of the trip was different for Brad and I, having spent the 1997-1998 year at the Miami University Dolibois European Center in Luxembourg. The other students on the seminar had no connection to the tiny country and didn't pay it much attention. Having lived there, though, we gleefully visited our old bars, restaurants, and grocery stores, and we even led the students to those places we had loved.

As usual, all spelling, grammatical, and factual errors have been preserved, and today's comments are in red italics.

Begin journal entry

Any animosity I had felt during the week disipated with the thoughts of going home to Lux. Brad & I had been overwhelmed with excitement when we had thought we'd go through Lux from Paris to Prague, earlier in the trip but we were in the Frankfurt cars and not the Lux cars, and we were a bit disappointed then. The train leaving Paris pulled cars to Lux and Frankfurt but split them somewhere in France. Metz, maybe. Speaking of Metz, it was merely 45 minutes from Differdange, where I had lived, but I never got there. Strange to think about. But now, we actually were going there. We'd take that same Rhine route as we had before, cutting through Koblenz, Trier, setting sights on Wasserbillig, and then, in all its splendor, the fortress city itself. This is still my favorite train ride of all the routes in Europe. Someday I want to bike that route, as there are bike paths all along the rivers. I'll never forget the sight of so many old castles standing on the hilltops overlooking the Rhine and Mosel. This is wine country, too, white wine, mostly, with Riesling being the top product, if I'm not mistaken.

Adam and Tim were on the same overnight train as Brad and I, but they were getting off earlier, somewhere in Germany. The train was crowded - we had to sit in seats - but I got more sleep that night than ever on an overnight. We had to change that morning in Koln, and I freaked because I thought for a minute we had to change in Frankfurt, but it doesn't matter. It was the first time I'd ever seen Koln, a train's window view like a snapshot. I always remember trains' window views, for some reason. So we get on another train bound for Trier. I could feel the excitement rushing through my veins. In a few hours we'd be in Trier! So close to home, it was like a dream. Would I really sit in the dreary Trier station on this freezing day? This was late May, early June, mind you. The whole train ride had left me in a Siberian trance, and the outside air wasn't any warmer. But who cares? I'm really going to Lux. I dozed a little on the way to Trier while listening to the new Francis Cabrel CD I had purchased in Paris. Which, in this moment of nostalgia, I am listening to again. Cabrel is a great artist - I have several of his albums. I purchased his latest one (at the time) at the Beirut Virgin Megastore. Maybe he's the reason my French isn't as bad as it probably should be after years of disuse. How those songs matched the emotion exerted in this homecoming! I felt a tear at my eye, a tear of utter Joy that trickled down my face like the rain that falls on Lux most days. Rain that is bearable, rain that is breatheable. The train pulled into Trier and left us with a wait to attend to. What a stupid sentence, unless I was playing with the French word for "to wait," which is "attendre." I'm not sure I was that clever back then. What biting cold! And no Deutschemarks left to purchase liquid warmth or nourishment from the station's concessions. Time was beating us, beating our bones, but finally it was time to embark upon the last leg of the day's journey. First Wasserbillig, the first city after crossing the border into Luxembourg from Germany, after traversing the Moselle (or Mosel, in Andreaspeak German), through the luscious green of the rolling hills of the countryside, through pastures of sunny mustard fields, right into the station which had been a third home to us over a year before. Third? I'm guessing Miami U. was second, and parents' house was first? Just as I had suspected, the thrill of seeing the large "LUXEMBOURG" overwhelmed my senses, bringing tears of remembrance as I stepped onto the well-worn platform. It was a sense of homecoming new to me, and never again will it be repeated. This isn't true. Years later when I had moved on to the Middle East and had been assigned to Beirut, I felt that way every time I flew back. I'm at a point now - a year and a half from my last trip to Beirut - where the longing to be there has faded. I took all of my vacations - at least parts of them - to Lebanon over the last few years, but I find myself no longer pining to go, just as my longing for Luxembourg faded years ago. How sad. Truth be told, though, I bet I'd feel a sort of homecoming if I did return to Luxembourg, which I do hope to do in the near future, if I can just think of a reason to go.

Brad and I pranced through the station, marvelling at its new monitors overhead, but the rest of the station, save for the departure/arrival board, was the same. It stunk of cigarette smoke and beggars, though the guy who designed the red bridge was not there. It was said that one of the homeless guys who lived in the train station was the architect of Luxembourg's most famous modern bridge. In hindsight, that probably wasn't true. I immediately wondered if he were dead. What a sad and inglorious sight he had been, forcing people to realize it could happen to anyone. Success is no guarentee. Sadness remembered, but quickly forgotten as we headed over to Hotel Carlton. Cheap hotel across from the train station. It was the same, except they took credit cards now. Good thing, because later in the evening I would have to call my mom to ask for money. I was flat broke, and still fuming at that Abby incident. She wouldn't stay at budget hotels so I paid three times as much as I wanted for a hotel in Krakow. The room was decent. It could have been shit but it wouldn't have mattered; we were in Lux. I could have been awake for days, but I wouldn't have slept. Uh, yeah, that's what "awake" means. WTF? We unloaded our stuff and headed to Differdange. No outsider will ever understand what it felt like to go through Bettembourg, Berchem, [large space to list the cities whose order I had already forgotten at that time] Oberkorn, and finally, Differdange, to get off at the same stop as we had done so many times before, to walk down that street, up through the playground, up the steps, past the broken gate, around to the front, up through the courtyard, to the door of the chateau, pressing [password] to open it, through it, and entering into a world which had served as a real life fantasy for those of us who had chosen to grasp it. We ran through its corridors, looking for changes - an extra row of computers, a new photograph collage in the lobby, a rearrangement of couches in the cave, extra mailboxes, and the worst, new names under those boxes. This was our chateau - life did not contrive that word does not mean what I thought it meant then, obviously in our absence of it. In it we were the kings and queens and court and servants and jesters. Rosemary an influential professor who'd undergone chemo was the court wizard. She was there - she'd just gotten there the day before. Brad and I saw her without her hair, and we said we'd try to get together with her and Matt Osborne, but that never worked. We talked to Claudine and Madame Dumont, & I talked to the new housing coordinator about the Dupays. The Dupays had been my host family. They weren't providing adequate breakfast to us, though we paid them to. This was more of a cultural misunderstanding, as Americans eat big breakfasts and Europeans do not, although part of the problem was the non working stove on our floor that they swore worked, so we couldn't cook it ourselves. Same old problems, except Julia had a kidney transplant. I was afraid to go visit, and I turned back after walking halfway up the road. The house was in my favorite state - no car parked in front. What Joy and unease at the sight of the house, still looking the same as it did when I had resided in it. As if a house could change drastically in a year. Thrill, thrill, I am in Differdange, I am walking the same streets, staring at the same buildings, eating at San Marino for lunch, first waiting in Parc de Gerlache for it to open, going to Match and stocking up on wine and Brad stocked up on Leffe. Leffe was not something you could get in the United States at the time, or at least not in Ohio. It was just before the uber-monopolies were created, with Anheuser-Busch InBev buying up most of the world's big brews, at least the ones that Heineken and Diageo didn't get. Everybody looked at us and half smiled! Luxembourgers smiling at American kids - what is this world coming to? Luxembourgers - and Europeans in general - on the surface come across as cold to us smiley, howdy doody Americans. The reality is that us "friendly" Americans are often unfriendly once the artificial layers come off, while Europeans - especially those from the northwestern countries - are often generous to a fault, once you get to know them and earn their trust. It took me awhile to learn that, that first impressions should not be your only impression.

Yeah, these are actually scanned film photos from around the Grand Ducal Palace

We lugged that stuff to San Marino and back to the city, dropping it off at Hotel Carlton before going to the centre and walking around the area. I'd never seen the statue of the muses, nor had I been by Yesterday's, now a pub of yesterday. I'd never seen the actual true entrance to the grund, so that was a great medival experience. It was a lovely day capped by an evening at Pub 13. Marie bartender/manager remembered us. She'd had her baby, and I was glad she was back. Earlier in the day Brad had stolen a Leffe poster from one of the walls. It was a riot. I drank grande mousels and it was like drinking from the fountain of my own youth. Really? Less than two months after graduating from university, I'm looking back on my "youth?" A lovely day indeed. The only thing wrong was the absense of the people who had made Lux what it was. At least Brad was there.

We slept in the next morning. After all, we had been on an overnighter the night before, a detail forgotten in the midst of our homecoming. Hotel Carlton smelled of paint as there was an attempt to disguise its age. We were going to do laundry at the chateau, but that didn't work out, so Brad found a laundry mat and did it while I walked through the grund. The greatest city park stands beneath the bridges of Luxembourg. Only I wouldn't want to be there at night. I'd have loved to ride a bike through it. Anyway, I walked through it, past the minature golf, until I came to the flag pole. Well, I was hundreds of feet below it and had to scale the wall to get to it. Ok, not really, but I did have to climb a bunch of stairs to the top. Then I got this idea that I was going to go to Pub 13 to work on homework, only when I started to walk back, a downpour came upon me, and I had to stand under a busstop shelter until it quit. Only it never quit, so I just started walking and was drenched. I stopped in Pizza Hut to get out of the rain. I wasn't hungry but I couldn't just sit there, so I order a personal pizza. They stuck me in a corner in the back. I don't know if that was supposed to be a statement to me or what. As soon as I ordered, the rain stopped. I thought about just leaving, but that'd be the American thing to do. Anyway, it was kind of awkward, and I was glad when I left. I gathered my work back at Hotel Carlton, then went back to Pizza Hut/Pub 13. Then I noticed they were having a Mexican soiree or something to that effect and the sign said you needed to make reservations. I debated about whether to go in or not, and I ended up going back to the hotel saying I forgot something. I told Brad about the soiree. We both went up there and it was fine. I actually got some work done. Mostly post cards. Drinking Mousel again. After a couple of hours, American Miami kids started coming in. It was, no wait, that was the next day. This day we talked to Marie. She gave Brad a Pub 13 glass. It was nice. We were going to go out that night, got dressed and got to the centre, then decided not to go. I had a bit of a buzz from the Mousel. Or was it Pina Coladas. We just went back to the hotel and awaited the seminar the next day.

That's when we discovered that the Big Chicken had moved to across from the gare. The Big Chicken had been in the red light district and was open late after the pubs had closed, so we'd been there on more than one occasion. Our hotel was a few doors down. Excellent place. Great breakfast buffet. My roommate was Melissa. She flooded our room with the shower. I thought she was Jen because their last names both start with Flan and I only saw the last name on our guestcard and I was dreading it because Jen smoked in the room even if you asked her not to. But it was Melissa and it was fine because she was never there. That's where I left my alarm clock. 5pm came too soon, and once again we were listening (or not) to Mason. The only interesting thing I learned was that the hotel had been Eisenhower's headquarters during the Battle of the Bulge. Everything else had been crammed down our throats by MUDEC staff, the fortress city, the Charles IV Prague-Lux connection (except I forget which number it was), etc. But then we ate dinner and went to Scott's and Brad and I were arguing. He sure was a jerk at this time; I don't know what his problem was. This night started late because we had to keep waiting for people. But we finally go there and walked down the hill instead of the elevator. The city sat on top of very high fortress walls; the Grund was the valley below, and you could take an elevator to get to the bottom. I drank Guinness for the first time on the trip because it was Lux and that's what I did then. My rules for sticking to culture did not apply in Lux - that's why I ate Pizza Hut. Everyone left except Brad, Eva, Michelle, and I, then just Michelle and I then we went home and I was pretty toasted by now. Then I slept. Then I awoke wishing I had slept more. Oh, dinner on Sunday had been at Bella Napoli with a bunch of Mason's friends, including Dumonts. It was all pretty uninteresting but we had wine and since no one was leaving, Bailey's. That was before Scott's. But then Monday arrived and with it came our trip to the European Investment Bank. Just the word "bank" should be enough to imply how that seminar was. But we did get coffee and cookies halfway through, which made it all bearable. Plus we were going to be having lunch at the chateau, MUDEC - yes, I had gone to school in a castle and we got to ride an Emile Weber bus. What a glorious trip to the chateau, once again. Lunch was a typical lunch, bread, all the chocolate milk was gone, stringy fries, and Lucy had cooked it all. I went around the place like I knew everything about it, like it was my home and I had a bunch of guests. I walked around the now passable pathway outside. We had been the first class in the chateau at Differdange. Before then, MUDEC had been located in Luxembourg City. They had not yet renovated the grounds when we were there in 1997. It was a beautiful walk on a beautiful day. I wanted to replace all of these students with people who belonged, and to replace Brad with the old B. Miller. I saw Dr. Hey and her husband Dr. Strange. Oh, to sit down with that tray of unhealthy food as I had day after day so many times before! The seminar students mostly wasted their food, but I had been used to the slop so many other times that I did not mind it at all. It ranks as one of my favorite meals of all times, not because the food was good, but because I was eating in the chateau once again.

The Muses, an old man on a house, and the flagpole

We didn't have enough time there, but we had to go to Deutsche Bank-Lux. Bank, again. That was the point where I couldn't stand Michelle any longer. The frantic "help me" in my notebook was a stress induced demonstration of her sitting next to me and driving me insane. When that torture was over, Brad, Eva, & I went to Auchen then to see "The Opposite of Sex" at Utopolis. It was a grand return, and they finally had buttered popcorn. Then we went to Pub 13 with a bunch of business students and some of the seminar students and Matt Osborne was there and we were buzzing like the swarm of bees that we were to the conservative town of Luxembourg. It was our last night in Lux. The next day would see us sleeping through a European Court of Justice session, then a session in the hotel on Tax Harmonization before departing by bus for Brussells, Europe's worst city. We took the route we had taken to begin Tony tour, a really boring highway with little scenery. I slept.


End journal entry

The flagpole up close, burnt down Pub Gerlache in Differdange (can't believe I didn't mention that anywhere in this entry), and view from the Grund on the rainy day

That's a lot of bar visits...but we were college students. I find it pretty incredible that we found regular hangouts in the first place and made them ours. Between Pub 13, Scott's, and Pub Gerlache (pictured burnt down above), Miami students brought a lot of revenue to them. Gerlache was so lucrative that the rumor is the owner burnt the place down himself to cash in on the much higher value of the place. Differdange was a sleepy town until 100 American students overran it when the school moved from the capital in 1997. Imagine the sudden spike in revenue being the closest and most welcoming bar to us students.

This was also about the midpoint of the seminar. We spent half a week in Luxembourg before moving on to Brussels and then to London. Going "home" was very welcome at the time. I mention in my comments above that I thought I'd never feel that sort of "homecoming" feeling again, and that my longing for Luxembourg has faded. I'm not sure it's completely absent. Luxembourg was where I came to life, of age, recognized that there was an entire world out there full of culture and history and knowledge and wonder, lost my naivety about the United States, realized the fairytale version of America did not match reality. We all would, if we lived on the outside for a time. We tend to have this idea that ours is the only way to live - the correct way. While Western Europe is not far off from our own way of life, it is different, especially when you've never been too far out of Southwest Ohio. You can't claim to love America if you've never left it, because you can't understand what America is unless you've seen it from the outside. Only then can you truly appreciate it, warts and all.

That's why Luxembourg was a sort of homecoming, not only because I had lived there or had experienced the best year of my young life there, but because it's where I had opened my eyes and saw the colors of the world for the first time.

Of course, Western Europe is hardly the right classroom for learning about "the rest of the world," especially in Luxembourg, which is the second or third richest country on the planet, depending who you ask. That lesson would come later, on the dusty streets of Cairo, in the poverty-stricken Akkar region of Lebanon and the violence-plagued neighborhoods of Tripoli, in the last vestiges of communism visible in Eastern Europe, in the Palestinian or Syrian refugee camps, on one of the mandatory electricity breaks of Beirut. And I've seen nothing in the grand scheme of things, having never been to Africa (Egypt excluded), South America, or further east in Asia than Jordan. That will all be rectified in due time.

If we had blogs in 1999: Berliner communist spies

Berlin. What a city. When I had gone to MUDEC the year before the 1999 Transatlantic Seminar on the European Union, I had imagined spending most of my travel time in France, the Benelux countries, the British Isles, and Italy. For whatever reason I hadn't been drawn to Germany. But that was before I visited, and my introduction, aside from our class trip to Munich for Oktoberfest, had been forced by our week long study tour in the autumn of 1997. One of our scheduled stops had been University of Göttingen. From there, a few of us went to Berlin. I loved it before I even stepped off the train at the Zoo Station.

This is the latest entry into my 1999 Transatlantic Seminar journal, and it is, as are most of the other ones, written by a kid who was learning to write. This journal entry is lengthy. Much of it is tabloid fodder and a student complaining about school work. As always, spelling, grammatical, and factual errors have been preserved. Today's comments are in red italics.

Begin journal entry

That same day we left Poland for its WWII oppressor (one of them). We originally were supposed to go to Wittenburg and Dresden - the whole situation is confusing & difficult to remember but at any rate it was another overnight train - no couchettes - and much crowding. We all had squeezed into one cabin; apparently JAB John, Abby, and Bill didn't get the concept of overnight trains. I had no room for my clausterphobic self and sat in misery most of the night. Bill had been on the floor - I had nowhere to put my feet. I was pissed, but somehow either I moved or he moved during the night to make the cramping less torturous. Guilt should flood me for not giving thanks for the space I had instead of the cattle cars of the Nazi victims. We had just visited Auschwitz.

Needless to say, I was a bear when the sun arose. We arrived in Dresden, I believe, but all I wanted to do was sleep. I had some Deutsche Marks I had exchanged in Frankfurt on the journey to Prague so I was able to grab some food. No con men on the trains had tried to get us to exchange money here in Germany like they had upon our Prague arrival. I wish I could have seen Dresden, though not at the time I was there. I decided that I was going to Berlin that day to sleep. Bill was livid. I was getting on the train no matter what - I would go by myself if I had to. Bill didn't understand that we didn't have to do everything together. It was a last second decision to leave Bill behind, the four of us did, as he went to Wittenberg. I didn't care, I was sick of American Bill. Abby was really concerned. Brad was angry we left Krakow. John said nothing as usual. We had to switch in Leipzig. The train was crowded. We sat in seats that were supposed to be for bar service people. The train conductor was nice enough to let us keep the seats. I tried not to crash as I wanted to see as much of this great country as I could, but physical limitations got the best of me. It was a drooling sleep, but much necessary. However, the debate wasn't over - it had just been delayed by the train ride. When we got to the Zoo Station (I love to say that), we had to find a place to stay. I wanted to stay in a hostel. Brad did too. JA wouldn't except anything less than good quality. John made it known to us that he was too good for a hostel.We walked forever looking for this particular place until Brad got sick of it and told them they could find their own place. We got out a map and found a great hostel with a private room and a balcony - that was the best. I sat out there trying to write in my journal or read Ulyssess but I couldn't do it. Brad was out. I went to sleep. Wait, that didn't happen yet. First we checked in, relieved to get those packs off our backs. Then we showered and went to the zoo. It's a great zoo, huge, really, for a zoo in the middle of a city such as Berlin. What'd they do with the animals during the war? Anyway, back up. We ate first, before the zoo, at the Hard Rock Cafe. As fate would have it, our table was right next to the U2 wall. And the place had been pretty much empty at 2 in the afternoon. I had a hamburger. Then we went to the zoo. Then we went back to the hotel room and played cards and took a nap and said we'd go out later. We never did. Sleep was plentiful that night, as we both had at least 12 hours. We unloaded our gear at Hotel Berlin, awesome, then headed for Potsdam, a place I will return to someday to further explore. What a marvelous city, despite anti NATO spray painted slogans to greet us. (There were fewer here than in Prague, whose slavic ingredients complimented Serbian interests.) The many palaces of Potsdam did not...  (continued in "Other stuff I'd like to remember) 

...have our presence, as we had little time to add depth to our journey. It was a cool place, but we had to be back by 5pm for our Sunday seminar. I wish we'd skipped it. Sunday evening was our first encounter with the commie bar. I hadn't realized, even with the big picture of Mao in the back, that we were surrounded by communists. There were about 15 of us capitalist americans, each more desperate than the other to get as drunk as possible. The beer, Jever, was shit, but the bar's specialty was mixed drinks, as I later found out. Many seemingly uneventful things began to unfold at this time. The first was Brad & Eva. The second was beer for beer with Bill. The third happened when I staggered back to the hotel to get my U-bahn ticket and had to ride the elevator up with Dr. Mason in my state of intoxication.

Angela Merkel, before she was the most powerful person in Europe. And before I knew who she was. She looks so young!

Let's start with the first: Brad & Eva. Brad had been determined to hook up with someone on the trip. Abby was his first try, but she had a boyfriend back home. (This is interesting considering the events yet to come this evening.) Kate was next. He was really turning it on the night of Guy's birthday party in Prague. (This night was strike two of Bill's nightlife ideas. Actually, it was strike three - there'd been a failed night in Paris, too. He had no idea how to walk into a local bar - he always had to have recommendations and could never find the recommended places. But he was enthusiastic, and enthusiastically loud, so other students followed him anyway. After Guy's party, we went in search of a dance club. Bill had "talked to some people" to find a good place to go. He led us through somewhat sketchy Prague park at night, across a bridge which Brad puked over and I had to help it look like nothing was going on, to this place called Rock Cafe or something. We went in, maybe 8 of us, and there were only two people dancing and two people at the bar, and they played the shittiest hard music. It wasn't even a good time. I remember this place. I hadn't spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe, but as I later came to discover, many of these types of hard rock/heavy metal bars can be found scattered throughout the region. They're like something out of the 1980s, and the people dress as such. Their countries were opening up to the West in the age of hair bands; perhaps this has something to do with the existence of so many of these kinds of establishments? This is all relevent to future events of this Commie bar evening.) So Brad had found out in Prague that Kate had a boyfriend back home and then turned to Eva. More to come.

The second beginning was "beer for beer." I had been consuming so much alcohol over the previous 3 weeks that my tolerance was unreal. I could match 7 foot Bill beer for beer (but not hard liquor). The third event was when Dr. Mason found out how much of a drinker I was which may have changed his whole view of me. (He later made a comment about how much I enjoy my beer.) We certainly did a lot of drinking over these weeks. We'd spend all day going to, sitting through, and leaving seminars in various parts of the cities we visited, so when we had free time in the evenings, museums and tourist sites were usually closed. Brad and I wanted to be among the locals; although we did go out with other students, we often spent our evenings in local bars. But bars are a part of American college culture, aren't they?

So, we're at the commie bar, I now have my U-bahn pass (as the hotel is right across the street), and then Bill wants to go find this "Blue Note Cafe" someone told him about. So we take the U2 to Fredrickstrasse and begin searching. We walk, and we walk, and we give up, and Bill leads us into some Mexican bar and everyone's doing Tequilla shots except me, who's totally sober and pissed because the buzz is gone and the bar sucks, and Eva, who was sitting by herself, and Brad, who's pissed off. I'm observing numerous body shots initiated by Bill, watching Abby kissing some stranger, watching sober Jen pick up strangers, eating nachos, watched Michelle do a body shot off of some strange girl, watched her do one off of Bill, came to the conclusion that she claims to be a lesbian to get attention, watched her do another one off of Bill (significant), was glad to get in a taxi that I didn't pay for to go back (after Brad left and Eva left, separately, and both pissed off, not at each other), saw Michelle holding Bill's hand, went to sleep, woke up the next morning wishing I had more sleep.

Now it's time to go listen to the Turkish Consil General with the hair growing in his ears, and I tell you there's not a single student in the room listening. Our eyes are drawn to that hair; it's disgusting. I've never seen anything like it. Next is the EU Commission in Berlin, but that's after Brad, Eva, Michelle, and I eat at this Italian restaurant. It is cold - I wear a skirt and a sleeveless shirt because yesterday was 90 and tomorrow is 90 but today it rains and is cold. We sit outside with an umbrella to protect us from wet. Tonight I will go with Bridget, Guy, Amanda, and Megan to an American deli so that they may see Checkpoint Charlie. I wander around a bit while they're at the museum even though it's closed, but then I realize it may not be smart to walk alone around East Berlin, being an american female and all. So we all go back and I sleep and wake up the next morning wishing I had more sleep, and then we go to the Berliner Rathaus, after a wonderful breakfast, of course. No one paid attention in that seminar. It's not that it was uninteresting - it's that everyone's so tired, and the juices on the table don't have enough sugar to keep us alive. The building is cool, and I can tell everyone I was inside. We had to cram in some lunch after the seminar - literally - before we were rushed to Humbolt University. The rushing cannot be emphasized enough. We were always late, on account of people waking up late, walking extremely slow (so annyoying!), and having to ride public transport - all 30 of us. One time in Paris only half of us made the metro and we had to wait for the others to catch the next one.

Anyway, at Humbolt there was no student discussion panel which I had been looking forward to, sort of like a Nitra experience. On our spring study tour at MUDEC, one of our stops had been at a university in Nitra, Slovakia, where we interacted with students there, something I had really enjoyed. For some reason, though we'd had something similar scheduled at Humbolt, it was cancelled. No one paid an ounce of attention. I was getting burnt out. Then there was the whole where's the U-bahn stop experience where our idiot students had to wait for Dr. Mason, who was talking to his professor friend, before they could go back even though we were free for the evening. I was fed up with the group. Brad was too. We left with Eva despite warnings from the group that only Dr. Mason knew how to get back. It was about the time people realized that we didn't really fit the group, and right before it was common knowledge that we were experienced travelers. Berlin was the city where Brad and I learned we were thought to be spies by the group, a semi-frightening thought that the whole group had made up this spy story about us. This U-bahn stop incident was a breaking point. We had entered our third week in Europe, and most of the students still needed their hands held by Dr. Mason. Brad and I had spent our junior year at our Luxembourg campus (MUDEC.) These students were different than the MUDEC types - they were spending their summer in Europe rather than committing themselves to a regular semester. They had no interest in immersing themselves in culture. Berlin really was the point where Brad and I divorced ourselves from the group.

After construction rerouted Brad, Eva, & I, we finally arrived at our hotel stop & headed for the Commie Bar for a five hour long happy hour. The waiter was awesome, the weather beautiful. What a thrill, to be sipping cocktails in the summer sun after a hard day after "work", sitting in business attire conversing about everything and nothing. Drinks gradually loosened the lips, revealing personal stories I hadn't thought about for years. I even showed them my Oktoberfest scar.

At one point I began to feel like a third wheel (what's new?) and also like I was sick. I can't remember if I took the walk before or after puking; however, I had gotten up, walked a bit, sat back down, got back up, and stumbled blindly around the block with the sun still scintilating like a golden coin. I reached for it but couldn't grab it. Frankly, I can't tell you my thoughts or actions as I walked around that block, nor could I tell you how long it took, though Brad says it took awhile for me to return. I only remember the coolness of that sun, a blurred vision at which I looked with clear eyes and a weak smile. I don't recall coming back. I don't recall the Greek philosopher coming to sit with us. I don't recall Eva leaving. I don't recall the sun going down. I do remember having a lovely anti-American discussion on world politics and the Greek guy asking why American girls were fat. I don't remember leaving but I do remember having a beer with Jen & Giovana and trying to have another great conversation with some guy, but that didn't take off. I do remember giving Eva 40DM ($20) the next day to pay her back from the night before (and those were half price drinks!) It was a lovely day. I still remember walking around that block and the way the sun hung in Berlin's summer sky in those early evening hours. I had felt a moment of utter joy, a sort of freedom of the soul, a gratefulness that I was walking the streets of Europe, of Berlin. Too rare and fleeting are these moments in life, this joy and freedom and desire to wrap your arms around the whole world.

The next morning wasn't so lovely. It would have been horrible even if the last evening had not taken place. At least we had a lengthy train ride to Potsdam when I could sleep. And they gave us cool stuff. If I'd had Siemens in the morning I'd never have made it through. What a wretched and treacherous morning traversing the streets and suburbs of Berlin, an existance that dulled the joy of the European air and spirit which filled my pining lungs. The pounding - that terrible pounding - like an implosive mass turning inside-out, how it pains my thoughts! Take me from this place...no, no, not to - SIEMENS! The torture was almost too much. At least they provided Cokes. But for two hours a guy read from a paper about SIEMEN's operations - at least, that's what I could gather from the bits I heard. I was sitting in another white room; the usually pleasant sunlight was beating through the glass making it extremely difficult to feel any sensation of comfort. I imagined myself standing outside in that sunlight, looking through the windows much like I would look at animals in...  (continued on Things I Plan To See & Do)

...a zoo. The neckties are like leashes on guys; the women looked as if they were attending the funerals of their own personalities. The posture and body language of each young professional told me that free will was slowly being tortured to death. German, French, American - the accent changes, but the story remains the same. As I sat at the conference table of Siemens, I realized that I had thrown myself into a corporate nightmare.

I continued to sit there, becoming anxious. Physical existence began to struggle with my rapidly increasing mental insanity that had crept into my head, at the insistance of the monotonous essay that was being read to us from the head of the table. Slowly my arms and legs began to tingle from disuse until I was a mass of shaking apendages combatting the boredom and sleepiness that I had been dealing with all day. This was Berlin, city of the next millenneum, but even the kinetic air of its new existance could not excite my sleeping brain. If any positive energy had been floating around the room, it had swarmed the professor, and to the students' good fortune, he was sitting miles down the table and had to make an effort to set his eyes on the attention spans which had left the building. Empty Coca-Cola bottles lined the tables, teasing the consciousness which had been surviving on the periodic intaking of the liquid sugar of the american champagne. The sunlight showed the dullness of the glasses, covered with wanting fingerprints. Pens danced in hands, some of  them making their ways up to the mouths that were beginning to whisper to neighboring ears.

Now I didn't say it before, but Siemen's is a city within Berlin, complete with U-bahn stop. The headquarters is still in Munich, but since Berlin has been recalled to life, I wouldn't be suprised if an increasing number of its operations are conducted from Berlin. What Joy to escape this corporate prison and the eyes of Big Brother! The evening brought Adam, Tim, Brad, Eva, and I to a restaurant near the hotel, one which I had stumbled by the night before but hadn't noticed. I ordered pork, kraut, and dumplings, but it was a shoulder, dark meat, and too much. My night ended after a trip to the Reichstag, and the next morning I had to meet with Eric and Dr. Mason to discuss some theories. Eric and I were the only students taking the course for post-graduate credit, so we had additional work we had to do. Eric didn't show up. I was a half hour late. I had only glanced at the reading - I hadn't a clue what I was talking about, and for once I couldn't bullshit through something. It was quite frustrating and I felt stupid. But I had Berlin for the day - Brad & I were going to Lux at 11pm. I was supposed to meet them at the Pergamon, but I went to Potsdamer Platz and felt the excitement of watching a new city being built before my eyes. In a moment of awe I was determined to reside in Berlin in the near future. The thought has yet to escape me. Fifteen years later, it still hasn't.

I did meet Adam & Brad at the Pergamon, but Tim didn't show. I decided not to go in. There was too much of Berlin to breathe, and my lungs had no desire for the stuffy air of a museum. The previous night's trip to the Reichstag had served as a catalyst for the excitement I felt on this last day in Berlin. We had climbed to the top for a spectacular view of Berlin's cranium. (Might I add this word choice is excellent to describe the sight that stood before us. We stood with the cranes, on top of the infant city with the knowledge that it will mature into a fine speciman, a leader in the free world and also of the enslaved.)

Upon departing the Pergamon, Brad & I went to Fredrickstrasse for lunch. We left Adam at the museum; Eva had to depart for wherever she was going for the weekend. The restaurant we chose was excellent, but skeptism abounded upon entrance. It took quite awhile to be served, though it was worth the wait. Thirst had seized us, Cokes were all important. The food was good, too. We had found the arts district of Berlin; by sight one could tell this area once was glamorous, tuxedos and evening gowns had adorned the streets, motorcars of the prosperous parked in front of dazzling hotels, now hollowed by a century of evil. Despite the deterioration of these buildings, a symphonic air still lingers as a reminder of glory days passed and hope for the future.

I can't remember the rest of the day, only the waiting in line for train tickets, for which we were too late to make reservations, Brad being upset by that (probably because he wouldn't get his beauty sleep.), and the actual waiting on the train with Adam, Tim, and Brad, listening to my Dancemaxx CD that I had bought at a CD shop by the Kaiser Wilhelm Kirke earlier in the day. We had split up after the failed reservation episode, though Adam sort of followed. I looked at a junk market and went back to the hotel. Here I find a five hour gap; I remember not dinner, only waiting around for Tim and the bus ride to the Zoo Station.

End journal entry

Potsdamer Platz is finished now; I wonder what it looks like without the towering cranes and skeletons of skyscrapers. I really want to see Berlin again.

If we had blogs in 1999: Evil lives

In this entry from my 1999 Transatlantic Seminar journal, we spent half a day in Oświęcim, Poland, forever to be known by its German name that became a synonym for evil. We were treated to a beautiful spring day; I couldn't get over the irony of blues skies and mountains on the site of one of the most heinous chapters of human history. I tried to imagine the terror of the camps' prisoners. I tried to feel the souls of those who had perished. I tried to picture a snow of human ashes falling from that same sky, gaunt faces peering out from crowded bunks, stolid guards in clean, pressed uniforms performing the work of the damned. Instead, I had sunshine and chirping birds.

I still remember how I felt that day, the otherworldly pain, a profound connection to the communion of souls that is humanity. Is it possible to understand how the homo sapiens sapiens species can implement the systematic eradication of a group of people based on the coincidence of their birth, having come into this world with Jewish genes, or gay ones, or having had the grand misfortune of natality on the European continent at a time when it was trying to annihilate itself? I don't know. I don't know if there is any explanation, if there is any reason, any at all. What is it about human beings that drives us to such destruction, that lets it happen over and over again? It's no wonder people believe in the devil. The devil is real, and he is us.

As always, spelling, grammatical, and factual errors have been preserved. Today's comments are in red italics.

Begin journal entry

We took the bus to Auschwitz the next day, a beautiful day which shouted the absense of clouds from across the mountain tops that stood at a majestic distance. Like I said, I was learning to write. It wasn't always pretty, but at least I had gotten past the "It was incredible" phrase I had used to describe everything I saw during my year in Luxembourg.  Bus rides are such a wonderful way to see a country. The thing that stands out in my mind more than anything about the trip is the people with their hoes and shovels, working their small plots of land without a machine in site. Poland was very poor and the land still divided into plots, having suffered communism a mere decade earlier. Our arrival to Auschwitz was not what I had anticipated. I hadn't been aware that there were two camps, and I didn't feel the impact of being there until we got to Birkenau. When we first got to Auschwitz I, Bill wanted to take a guided tour. Guided tours are disgusting at a place such as this; I'm glad we didn't take one. I don't like guided tours as it is - they don't permit time or silence for reflection. We watched a film before going out. At the entrance to the camp were the infamous words "Arbeit Macht Frei." Posted above every concentration camp, "Work makes you free" is a chilling sight. Bill chose to clear phlegm from his throat about this point, leaving a large puddle of mucus on the ground. Long live America. Disgusting. We looked around the camp for awhile, went to a few but not half of the exhibitions. I grabbed some pastries and a Coke before departing for Birkenau and the lingering horrors of the extermination camp. These horrors woke up within me upon seeing the same sight that was the last sight from outside the camp's barbed wire that most Auschwitz Jews ever saw. The experience was frightening as I searched for an emotion within the same ballpark that could imitate what those brought here felt as they awaited their doom. It proved to be impossible as life's ironic sunshine tanned my skin and birds provided sweet music, perhaps as part of a calming peace that seemed to hang over the green pastures of the cemetary for the living. The picturesque mountains and the breezy trees took my sense of historical reality time and time again, but I only had to step into a bunk room in solitude to remind myself that the tales I had heard so many times had actually happened. The most telling and fascinating remenent of the ordeal was a painting on the ceiling by an unknown artists. "Konigsgraben" was its title. It will forever remain in my mind as strong and vibrant as it did the first time I saw it. And it has.

The most important lesson I received from the visit was the realization that the more I know, the less I understand. Perhaps it's not meant to be understood. But the sheer existance of such an idea is enough to make me wish I hadn't the capacity to contemplate it.

Krakow pics on left, Auschwitz on right

End of journal entry 
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The serenity of the day was a statement: that this is what our beautiful planet would be like without the scourge of human parasites who collectively have no qualms about its destruction.

The Jewish Holocaust is not the first of its kind of tragedy, nor has it been the last. Did we learn anything from it? I don't think we did. Sadly, genocide is a common theme throughout history, and there have been many genocides since World War II. After the war the global powers created the state of Israel and the world war moved to the Middle East, where it continues to persist, as rockets rain down on Israel and Palestine, both sides intent on obliterating each other in the name of something they can't even remember anymore. ISIS is currently destroying everything in its path in the name of some ideology, erasing Iraqi culture, history, and people. Assad has used chemical weapons and mass destruction against Syrians who aren't of his ideology. Capitalist ideologues are destroying everything, too, but that is for some reason permissible, no matter the human price, no matter how many sweatshops are built or how many miners die over conflict minerals so we can have the latest iGadget, no matter how many people suffer cancer from unbridled pollution and chemical contamination or how many terrorists are created in our lust for oil, no matter how many Americans die because we refuse to limit guns or because we permit pharmaceutical companies to sell whatever they wish because it's making someone rich. Why? Why why why?

Ideology is a dangerous disease, the most dangerous of all diseases, of all harms. Nazism was one of a seemingly unlimited number of ideologies that have plagued human existence since our supposed evolution from inferior beings, but the horrors of the Holocaust are greater because it happened so swiftly, wiping out a significant percentage of an entire group of people. Everyone should have to stand on the soil of Auschwitz and think about what happened there and why it happened. Everyone should realize his role in it happening, even if he weren't born yet, because how it happened then is how it is happening now and how it will happen again.

If we had blogs in 1999: Kraked out on Poland

I continue the journal of my 1999 Transatlantic Seminar on the European Union. Our time in Prague was short, so we had an extended weekend to travel on our own. Some of us went to Krakow and Auschwitz in Poland before heading to Berlin, where our seminar continued on Monday.

As always, spelling, grammatical, and factual errors have been preserved. Today's comments in red italics.

Days of the same speech passed, and we were to quit Prague for Krakow. Meaning all of the seminars in Prague seemed to be the same speech on the idea that joining the European Union would solve all of the country's problems. Bill, Abby, and John came along for the ride but really were noisome tag-alongs, sucking all of the adventure from Brad's and my weekend. Brad's and my. Really? At first it was ok; I was glad to have people come along. They just ended up being the wrong people. The train ride from Krakow that's supposed to say "to Krakow" was spent in couchettes. All five of us were in one cabin. Once again, at first, I thought it'd be cool. I'd never been in a couchette before. Brad & I were going to get them from Paris-Prague, but we waited too long to make reservations. All worked out, as we got a cabin to ourselves to catch a couple hours of sleep. The couchette was different. You could only lay down - there were no options. We couldn't play cards, have wine, or even talk. It was very uncomfortable, but Brad's vanity would except oops nothing less. It was about this time that I noticed the vanity; however, at this point it had not yet become a problem. Brad acted differently than he had been at MUDEC. At this point, I can't say what it was that was different, but I remember he didn't have as much patience for the budget travel we had enjoyed before. Maybe it was because the program booked us in four star hotels, and spending the weekends in hostels was just not as appealing. To be honest, though, any tension between Brad and I was simply the result of being together 24/7 over eight weeks of a very exhausting trip across Europe.

We arrived in Krakow and immediately began searching for a hotel. John, Abby, and Bill, henceforth known as JAB collectively, didn't mind paying for a hotel with four shimmering stars giving their light from within. Brad & I would have settled for a hostel. We settled for an overpriced two star for $30/night, breakfast not included, no bathrooms in the rooms. It was across from the train station. I hadn't slept on the train. We all wanted to shower & crash, but it was 7am - our rooms wouldn't be ready until after 2pm. Set out to explore Krakow is what we did - JAB convinced that nobody could be apart. I was cranky already, bad news for the other weary explorers. We searched for a place to eat breakfast. They wanted McDonalds. I think I threw a fit. I had vowed to abstain from fast food for the duration of the trip. See my If we had blogs in 1997 and 1998 series on eating American fast food in Europe. I don't remember where we ate. I just wanted to get away from Bill's obnoxious American behavior. He was so loud, so loud, SO loud and already I was tired of him. I remember now. We ate breafast in the hotel. It was a European buffet. We had a little trouble with the guy with the tickets, since we had none, but the breakfast was good. I ate fifty rolls. We sat at a table that was reserved for someone else. Oh well.

I so wished we could go up and nap. This huge group of Asian males, I think they were Japanese, had been drunk in the cabin next to ours and stayed up all night. That was a reason, one of several, for the lack of sleep that we all shared. My main reason was that transportation and sleep do not mix. I can't sleep on trains. That's why we crashed in the park after we went to Wawel. That's the castle in Krakow. We all went. Every child in Poland was there on the field trip. We took pictures with them, though they didn't know it. It was great fun. The actual exploration of the fortress was not as interesting. The climb up the bell tower was quite frightening, as I tripped up the worn, narrow, old, old passage way. The view was quite breath taking, as all views are forced to be upon ascent of a dangerous trip to the top. Ugh. That sentence. Or perhaps it was that exact climb that took my breath rather than the rooftops of an old Polish city. At any rate, the climb was worth it. The bell was cool, too. I only had a moment to enjoy my solitude at the top before a group of school children crowded the room.

The other big adventure in Krakow came after a brief nap in a park. The park was packed with sunbathers by the river. I couldn't sleep long; there was much to explore. I walked the river's edge as the sun scintillated across the calm of the water's flow. Scintillated. I had taken the GRE in April. My vocab had greatly expanded, but I was still struggling to use it without sounding awkward. And I thought it was pronounced "skintillated." I just wanted to see what was around the bend. The bend kept bending and I kept walking. I walked for 20 minutes and decided to turn back, but wait - what's this? I had to explore a picture of serenity that passed before my eyes. As I was looking through a large yard of grass to a church across the way, I noticed a bunch of men in white robes who were running and came to the conclusion that I was standing at a seminary and these guys were late to class. Further down the way I saw the corpse of an old church, no doubt the victim of a murderous Soviet regime. What I meant by this is the communist rulers of Poland who had taken their orders from Soviet Moscow. Even now I'm still fascinated by the effects the Soviet Union has had on the satellite countries, especially in the post-World War II rebuilding phase. We were a mere decade removed from Solidarity and the collapse of the Iron Curtain; the Communists had neglected so much. Buildings that had been damaged in World War II often went unrepaired or were patched up with cheap concrete. Although the new communist government gave the Catholic Church more room to operate than you saw in other countries, rebuilding churches and repossessing church properties that had been confiscated by the Nazis was costly. Many were never rebuilt. Post-war Poland was a drastically different country than it had been before the war, and communism ensured it would never resemble what it had been.  I tried to go up to the church, but large fences kept me out. I walked through a residential area and was saddened by the obvious economic problems of a crumpled nation. I felt at the time as if something had called me to this area for a reason, though I never found what reason that was. I was halted in my quest to find an answer by my urgent need to find a restroom. Always the same ending. I headed back to try to find the others. Even Bill, who had skipped Wawel to sleep in some grass by a road, was gone. I wondered if he had been arrested. I walked up and down the street for some time, finally deciding to go to the hotel. It was 2pm. It was time for a nap. The others were there when I returned. I fell asleep. I was awakened for dinner. I was grouchy. We, or should I say JAB, were discussing plans for the rest of the weekend. I wanted to stay, but I thought Brad wanted to go, so I didn't say anything. I later found out that he did want to stay. At any rate, we were going to Auschwitz the next day, even if it was to be our last in Poland. Bill had found a place to eat lunch and brought us back there for dinner. It was good. I had some soup with horseradish and quali eggs, which were wierd, a good entree, and some great beer. John had a whole trout - pretty disgusting. I have since learned to deal with being served a whole fish on a plate. It was good atmosphere and inexpensive. We had thought about going out after dinner, but only Bill ended up doing that - the rest of us were still exhausted.

End of journal entry 

That's Brad posing with Polish kids, middle top left, Wawel Castel in middle left, and John staring at his whole fish, bottom left. Auschwitz is on right, will post that entry in next post.

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With that, my description of our time in Krakow ended. The purpose of our trip to Krakow was to visit Auschwitz, anyway, but I was surprised at how much I liked the city. It has been to this date my only venture into Poland, a neglect that must be rectified some day. The sooner, the better.

A guy I know on Twitter visited Krakow and Auschwitz last week and has been blogging about it. I encourage a visit to his blog. Here's his post on Krakow. Read that, then read the rest.

Next up, Auschwitz...