Auschwitz and Birkenau

Went to Auschwitz and Birkenau today. It was a very disturbing place. Shows just what people can do to each other, but hopefully we've learned from this.





And when I got back, I had this in my email:

...which was strange, but fitting.  Ironic timing, I think.

Anyways, I hope that your days are filled with love.  Besides my somber trip to Auschwitz and Birkenau, my time in Poland has been pretty amazing.  =)  Also, received an exciting email about prospects for when I return home, which is kind of awesome.  Here's to not counting chickens before they're hatched, though...

When I return to Pforzheim I'll have three presentations and two papers due.  Then on the 17th I travel to Ireland to visit Dad's cousins for the Christmas holidays.  Making plans to tentatively be in Dublin for New Years (I'm thinking a visit to the Guinness Storehouse is in order) and back in Pforzheim on the 7th.  Then a month without travel, finals, and then back to Poland and ROME and possibly Venice, and France, and maybe Barcelona...

Wish me luck!

~Deine AmerikanErin

I really am a nerd in my free time...

I'm currently visiting Kit in Poland (or Pol-la-land, as I've called it for years) and when we're not out sight-seeing or shopping, we're in her room doing homework or playing on our computers. =)

Need more proof? I set up a wireless connection so that we can both be on the internet at the same time.

Still need more proof that I'm a nerd?
This mug amuses me to no end:

CAD - Starbuck's mug design @ © SplitReason.com

Starbuck is a character in the SciFi show, Battlestar Gallactica and Cylons are basically robots that have gone haywire; so a "Starbuck's Fresh Roasted Cylon" mug is absolutely HILARIOUS to me...

Also, while shopping today, I tried on a sweater-dress (basically a knit dress with a big cowl neckline and no sleeves) and thought "Hm, I think I could make something like this..." and then didn't buy said dress and instead started looking up patterns online when I got home.

While in Europe, do as the Europeans do?  Maybe, but I've definitely noticed that when it comes to traveling, I'm doing just that.  Kit had told me to bring some "nice" clothing as we would probably be going out a few times while I was here, so I brought nice clothes, regular clothes, and three pairs of shoes.  Yes,  I BROUGHT SHOES.  I'm mildly frightened at the implications of this...have I started to go native? Or am I simply realizing that no, gym shoes cannot be worn everywhere? I'm still not sure, but considering that I thought about buying a sweater dress and leggings, I think I might be under some European influences here...

...

Anyways, back to traveling and interesting things:
On Friday I went to the Salt Mines of Wieliczka.  It was SO cool. However, it is 2am and I really need to get to bed, so I'll leave you with pictures and I'll get back to the story telling later.  =D



Much love,
Die AmerikanErin ;-)

Upcoming Trips

• I just realized that I really don't have a lot of time left here.
• Trip to Pol-la-land (YAY) 25 November to 2 December
• Trip to Munich (again!)  4 December to 6 December
• Two weeks of class
• Which include handing in two papers and giving three presentations.
• Three weeks of Ireland 17 December to 7 January
• Yeah, going there for Christmas and New Years =)
• Two weeks of class
• One more presentation (related to one of the two papers previously handed in)
• Two weeks of Finals
• Trip to Pol-la-land (again!) 5 February to 7 February
• Trip to Rome (w/ Kit!) 10 February to 15 February
• Two weeks
• Trip to Chicago. 1 March
• Yeah, ok, I guess I technically shouldn't call this a "trip" but I wanted to keep up with the "theme" ;-) 

The lack of time here makes me sad (The people here are so wonderful, I don't want to leave them!) and freaked (What do I do when I get home? Job searching??? Woah!) and think "Woah, wait, what??? Already????" Though, I have to say, it will be Really Nice to see everyone back at home again.  =)


Much love,


~e

The saga continues...

Well, I moved back into my old room (Room 220) and the next morning woke up with a Bug literally inches away from my face.  Apparently the fumigation didn't work.  SO.  I caught it and took it down to Herr Kiefer.  Who took one look at it and one look at the very angry, covered in bites, me and told me that I should probably move back down to Room 1.  So, here I am.  On the bright side, I got free laundry...


On to the Porto Trip!   (The following is transcribed from the journal that I took with me, since I didn't want to take Jethro (what I named my laptop) with and risk something happening with him.)


36 Hours in Porto, Portugal!


The journey started in September when Sergey came into my room with information about a flight to Porto, Portugal for 2€ round-trip. After some crazy booking hassles, we found a date (the 12th through the 14th of November) and Devika, Sergey, Bank and I had tickets to Portugal.  


On Thursday, the 12th, we left Keplerstraße at 06:45. Rather, they were supposed to leave at 06:45. I had gone to the Hochschule to print out our boarding passes. I met them on the bus around 7am and we went to the Hauptbahnhof together. Took a train to Rastatt and a bus to Karlsruhe-Baden Aeroport. Security: check. No problem, took all of about five minutes. Duty-free: check. Thought about buying some cheap Pushkin (only 10€) but decided against it.  Bust to plane.  Board the plane. Find a seat. It's not very crowded on our Boeing 737, so Sergey and I shared a 3-seat row and Bank and Devika sat behind us.  Suddenly Bank realized that he couldn't find his passport. We all started looking on the floor, under the seats, up and down the aisle... got the crew involved. Had them check outside and in the bus but it was seemingly nowhere to be found. So Bank was forced with a decision: Stay on the plane and have problems getting back into Germany or get off the plane and don't go to Portugal. Bank decided to go with the safe route and get off of the plane. About 15 minutes later, we took off. Maybe an hour into our 2.5 hour flight, one of the stewards came up to me. "We found your friend's passport," he said, "It was face down under a seat up front, so we didn't initially see it." So I thanked him, took the passport, and put it in my bag. I slept during most of the flight. 


We landed in Porto 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We got off of the plane and walked (through Sunshine) to the terminal, where we entered and went through everything and came out in the Metro station. After fiddling with the machines and consulting the maps, we bought tickets and got on the train to go to our hostel. One of the best sights on that trip was looking out the window and seeing an orange tree and a palm tree.  In November. It was about mid-60's outside. Lovely weather. Sunny and breezy, like Chicago in springtime. We got to the train station that was "closest" to our hostel and started walking towards it. About three minutes into the walk we realized that we had NO clue what the name of the place was.  We had booked it a week ago (ish) and I hadn't paid attention to the name because Bank and Sergey were taking care of booking. So we got to the street it was on and just started looking for signs for a hostel. Thankfully, we found it without a problem, it was RIGHT at the intersection where we were. So we checked in, went to our room, and dropped off our things. (And by "things" I mean that Sergey left his bag and I left my sweater. We had known that the trip would be short and that we would be carrying our things for most of it, so we had all packed Really Light.) 


It was around 1pm, so we decided to walk around a bit and see the town. We got a map from the front desk and ventured out into the city. The first shop we entered was run by an Indian woman, and she and Devika started talking. In the end, she offered us discounts on a few of the items and told us about a place to eat down the street where we could get a discount because we knew her.  (It was quickly discovered that Devika went to school where she used to live) After lunch we continued walking.  We walked for hours.  We saw so many things, old forts and cathedrals... It was also very interesting because Porto completely mixes old with new. There could be a new apartment or office building randomly in between two old houses.  And it looks like it shouldn't fit there, but it does because the entire city is built like that. We walked around until 8pm, when we realized that we were pretty hungry and tired and should probably head back to our hostel. We found a sandwich shop about three blocks away from our hostel where they spoke English (Inglais) and had dinner there before heading up to our room.  Oh, also, the Indian woman taught us how to say "Obrigado" which means "Thank you."  And while we were walking, we bought a bottle of wine, since wine seemed to be the specialty drink of the town...  


That night, in our room, we watched some cartoons, the VH1 "50 Greatest Voices" countdown, and talked until about 22:30 when I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and convinced Sergey that sleeping would be a good idea. Devika was already fast asleep at that point, so we turned out the lights and turned off the TV and went to sleep.  ((Note for Mom:  The room was split up in such a way that Devika and I were in one half and Sergey was around the corner. Any possible awkwardness was completely avoided!!)) That bed was So. Comfortable.


Ok, at this point I should say a little more about the room that we were in. It was a 4-person bedroom with 4 twin-sized beds. It had a bathroom with a shower (towels, soap, shampoo included!) and a TV with Cable. The walls were maroon, there was a mirror alongside one of them, and the window faced out into the main street. There were also shutters for the window, to stop more of the draft that came through. The curtains were a caramel/bronzey color with black roses on them.  Overall, it was a really nice room. The whole hostel was nice. They had free internet (and wireless! though, we didn't use that) which you could access through the PC in the common room. There was also a complimentary breakfast of baguettes, croissants, coffee, tea, and juice.


This morning, I woke up and went up to the common room for breakfast. Devika and Sergey were already awake.  Breakfast was sooo good.  Juice, tea, and coffee with buns and croissants... very nice.  After breakfast, we played Dominoes in the common room until it was noon, time to check out and start our adventure to the ocean.  Yep, Porto is located in the north of Portugal on the Atlantic Ocean.


We bought a kilo of bananas and a kilo of Clementine oranges and started walking West. After about fifteen minutes (all times are rough estimates because I didn't know that in order for my phone to be turned back on I would need to enter a PIN, which was safely somewhere in my room in Pforzheim, which meant that I didn't have a phone or source of time all weekend) we came to a park with a monument commemorating the something-or-other of 1808-1809. So we stopped, took pictures, and had some Clementines and Bananas. Then we continued on our quest west.


We got to the beach around 3pm.  It was a bit cold and cloudy, but it didn't matter! We were finally at the Atlantic Ocean!!! Pants were rolled up, shoes/sandals were cast aside, and feet were soaked.  It. Was. COLD.  Granted, it was November, so I wasn't too surprised... After the initial "YAY OCEAN!" bit, we walked up onto the hill/cliff and watched the waves and kite-surfers for a while.  It started raining-ish for a little, so we scurried over to what I can only describe as a moat. It surrounded a fortress that was built in the 12th century.  (At least, I think it was the 12th century, but I may be confusing that with a different fortress we saw and so it was either the 12th or 16th century...my architectural history isn't that stellar that I would be able to tell the difference offhand, sorry! ;-) )  The rain didn't last long, and soon we were out on the rocks next to the fortress, staring at the ocean.   Sergey put it well "There are three things that you an watch forever: The waves, the fire, and people working." Very true, Sergey, very true.


Around 4pm we climbed off the rocks, and headed south along the beach.  There were some BEAUTIFUL houses along that road. I think that if I ever have money for a vacation home, I'll buy one of those gorgeous, colorful, old houses...located just across the street from the Atlantic Ocean. After a few, maybe ten?, minutes of walking, we saw a Häagen-Dazs.  I decided that ICE CREAM would totally make my day, so I made Sergey and Devika come with me into the ice cream shop. Two scoops of ice cream later (one chocolate and one raspberry sherbert) with dark chocolate shell and little chocolate sprinkly ball thingies on top later, we were ready to head east again and find a place for dinner and somehow entertain ourselves until it was time to get to the Aeroporto and head home.  After going into two places and realizing that we weren't that hungry, we decided to buy some sandwiches/sandwich-making-materials and head towards the Aeroporto.


We knew that it was going to be a long night because the flight wasn't until 06:25. Also, we wouldn't be able to go through security until about 04:30 because none of us were E.U. citizens so the Ryanair people would have to check our passports before we could go through security. We got to the Aeroporto around 19:00 and have been here since. We talked ad had food until about 23:00 when we moved to some benches closer to the Ryanair counter and settled in for the night. It's now 00:34 and I've been writing for an hour. Sergey and Devika are dozing and I think I'm going to follow suit. I am SO glad that I came here. I still miss people, and so many things I did (like randomly stopping for ice cream)  reminded me of people, but I'm still so happy that I got to experience this beautiful city.


Obrigado, Porto!




(Pictures can be found here!)

The Saga of Mein Zimmer...

It begins quite simply.  There were a few unidentified bites that appeared on my hands and feet one morning in September.  I IMMEDIATELY thought it was bedbugs, but upon a small, informal, conference with a professor, I was informed that it was more likely to be mosquitoes instead, and as I was sleeping with my window wide open, it was very likely that that was the case.  So, I started closing my window at night and the number of bites diminished, for a bit.  So, life went on, regular classes started and things were as they were supposed to be.  Or so I thought.

Then, one fateful morning, I woke up with a bug literally inches away from my face on my pillow.  Somehow I had the foresight to NOT squish it, but instead capture and drown it.  I was able to keep this specimen and then compare to pictures on the internet and realize that I did, in fact, have bedbugs.  This made me QUITE upset.  I had a LOT of trips that I was going to be going on shortly, and who knew where the buggies were living!  So, in a mental frenzy, I went to the Hausmeister.  And he wasn't in.  It took me a week to finally get a hold of him and explain the problem.  He said he would call in an exterminator to look around and see what could be done.  It took him until Monday (the 2nd of NOVEMBER) to finally call and have an appointment set up with the exterminator.

On Tuesday, November 3rd, while I was cooking dinner, Herr Kiefer, the owner of the building, and the only “Hausmeister” that I had had to deal with (minus the “German Pirate” that I encountered on the first day of my life at Kepler) came to the kitchen where I was cooking and informed me that the exterminator had found bedbugs and needed to fumigate the room immediately.  As in, tomorrow.  Which meant that I had to move rooms, as mine would be taped off for two days.  But, I was only allowed to bring necessary items and NO clothing.  This little adventure led to me borrowing two of Bank's shirts and washing my underthings in the sink every night before I went to bed.  Talk about “roughing it.”   However, I was able to take my laptop and books for school, which was a relief.

On Friday, I was told that by Saturday morning I would be able to get back into my room and start cleaning everything.  I would have to wash absolutely EVERYTHING to rid it of the residue fumigation and make sure that there were no leftover buggies.  On the bright side, Herr Kiefer was going to let me do that for free.

So, here I am, doing laundry, moving back into my newly fumigated room, and getting the icky recently-fumigated smell out of everything that I own.  Including my yarn...  Poor yarn... But it's ok, because now I am fully sure that it is BUG FREE!!!

That's one of the reasons why I've been relatively quiet lately, I didn't want to scare people about the buggies especially when I was just waiting for Herr Kiefer to get back to me.

In other news: I'm going to Portugal on Thursday!!!! Our flight leaves Karlsruhe airport at 10:30am and we'll arrive in Porto around 12:45pm.  We'll be there for two nights and come back REALLY EARLY on Saturday morning.  We booked the flight and the hostel for less than 25€ combined.  Talk about a deal!!!  Though, due to the Portugal trip, we'll be missing one of the biggest parties of the year... But I think it's totally worth it, considering that the round-trip ticket to Porto, Portugal costs about the same as the entrance fee to the party... =D

I'm SO incredibly excited about this adventure.  It's going to be a blast, I can just tell.  =D

Pictures will, of course,  be taken and uploaded here as soon as the adventure is complete.  =D

Love and (bug-free!) hugs!!