Krakow Day 2: Tour

Friday I woke up and grabbed some breakfast and then we met as a group to go begin our tour. We went to the oldest synagogue in Krakow (don't quote me on that) and looked around. It had some artifacts and stuff but to be honest I did not really know what I was looking at because I do not know much about Judaism.

The Synagogue. The guy in the blue was our tour guide for Krakow. The lady in the gray he is talking to was our program director, Dara

We ended up seeing some cool things in Krakow. This wall is a memorial around a Jewish cemetery behind a Synagogue. The wall is made out of head stones that were destroyed by the Nazis. 

We kept walking and we actually walked through where part of Schindler's list was filmed. The part were Jew's luggage is being thrown down from the balcony into the courtyard. 

Through the arch is the courtyard. You can kind of see the balcony

We also saw Schindler's Factory, which is now a museum, but not dedicated to Schindler. The museum is about Jews in Krakow. Some of us though about visiting it but we decided not to. 

The Factory

This is a memorial to the Jews of Krakow. The ghetto was liquidated in 1943 I think, and the empty chairs represent the Jews who were taken away and never came back

Right off of this courtyard with the memorial was a museum dedicated to a Polish doctor who actually owned a pharmacy within the Krakow ghetto, which usually the Germans did not allow. The museum was really cool. You could touch and play with just about everything, including the cash register from the 30's or 40's. You could play with the bottles of chemicals shown in the photo below. You could open them and smell them and hope they didn't kill you. It was great

The front of the Museum

The wall of the old Ghetto

We saw some more stuff but that was the most important and interesting things. After the tour we met with a woman who was declared a Righteous Among the Nations. Righteous Among the Nations are non-Jews officially recognized by the state of Israel for saving Jews during the Holocaust. This woman and her family hid a Jewish girl in their small apartment, right under the noses of the Germans and the other Polish family that they lived with. She was really nice and open to questions and it was fascinating to hear.

After that we attended a Shabbat service. It was a lot different than the Catholic Masses I attend but it was still cool to see to be cultured. It was in Hebrew and I had not idea what was happening but it was still interesting. After that we went to the local Jewish center there and we ate dinner. After this we went out to a bar in Krakow that was really cool. It was dark and candle lit and had a good atmosphere. When we left the bar we walked to the city center to check it out. It was really beautiful, especially at night. Here are some photos. 

A Castle

They had many horse drawn carriages

A Church

The Square

The main building of the square

After walking around a bit we want back to the Hostel to get some sleep, for tomorrow we were heading to Auschwitz. Read the next blog for that story.

Krakow Day 1: Arrival

As I mentioned in my last post (which sadly was about 3 weeks ago) I visited Krakow and Auschwitz October 23-27 as part of a program called the Auschwitz Jewish Center for Students Abroad. If you are thinking about going abroad and are reading this, I would highly recommend the program for the reasons that I will talk about if you keep reading. 

Thursday I had to miss class a couple of times, which wasn't a problem, because I had a flight at 2:30 from Munich (Just kidding it got delayed until 4). I had a feeling the flight from Munich to Krakow would be an interesting one so I decided to purchase some good karma in the form of going to retrieve this old lady's coat about 30 gates away because she forgot it when we were moved gates. This is not a humble brag (or is it?), but the good karma will come in handy later. Stay tuned. 

I flew Lufthansa, and they redeemed themselves delaying my flight by providing us with the most fancy free snack I have heard of on a flight. So in case you are keeping score at home, Lufthansa is currently +1 in my book because of this free deliciousness and I did not really care about the delayed flight, but don't worry, they will realize their grave error of good customer service (a well known no-no in the airline industry) and will soon stick it to the little man (that's me). Stay tuned for information.

Was it really nonstop me Lufthansa? Was it really?

This was it. Delicious

I thought these clouds were nice. Side note, it wasn't nearly as nice below the clouds that day

Anyways I landed in Krakow and took a bus to the city center. I originally planned on walking from the bus station to the hostel but it was dark and raining and I only had 30 minutes to arrive at the hostel and meet the group and leave for dinner. I therefore went to go buy a tram ticket, but of course the machine was broken and therefore only displaying in Polish. But then the tram arrived, so I hopped on it anyways without a ticket and hoped that Polish policeman occasionally accept good karma instead of tram tickets as a form of payment. It is only 5 stops what are the chances? But then bad news! I took the tram the wrong direction 3 stops (did you know all polish words look the same?). So I got off and waited and eventually got to the hostel without getting caught and five minutes to spare. I settled into my room, which was supposed to be for 4 people but I was the only one in it. So that was luxurious. 

Then I met the gang and our program director. The gang was 10 or 12 girls from Meredith College in North Carolina (an all girls school). Our program director was surprisingly young and really nice. We then departed for a 13:1 girl to guy ratio dinner. We ate what I am told was traditional Polish food, which consisted of some noodles stuffed with either cheese, spinach, or meat depending on what you had. I think I ate about 15-20 because they were delicious. Also salad and other stuff. It was all good. We introduced ourselves formally like you always have to do at the beginning of any new adventure, with the usual name, city, college. All was well. It was fun.

For the second day of the trip/tour of Krakow, read the next blog. If I was technically competent I would make a link and you could click it, but I am not, so deal with it

I'm Not Very Good At This

So much for keeping this updated somewhat regularly

Last Saturday I went for the coolest hike of my life. Me and a few others took the Bayern regional train out to Kochel. We then took a bus to the base of Herzogstand Mountain. It was a pretty steep mountain and I think it was around 5500 feet, but it wasn't too bad and the weather was nice. At the peak of Herzogstand we relaxed and took some photos and ate some food that one of the guys we were with brought. When we were on top on that mountain the clouds rolled in within 2 minutes we went from miles of visibility to about 20 feet, it was pretty cool. Here are the pictures.

Those two photos were taken by me standing in the same exact spot looking in the same direction within two minutes of each other. It was pretty cool.

Actual view from the top

Thats part of the long path we took getting to the top

of Herzogstand, complete with the thing that goes around your wrist

From the top of Herzogstand we walked along a ridge that connected to the peak of another mountain called Heimgarten which was about 6000 feet. The ridge was pretty narrow at some points, about 3 feet wide, and there were some plaques for people who had actually died walking across it. But those were mostly for people who decided to not stay on the trail, which we did, so it was safe.

The three above photos is what the ridge looked like when we were walking it. I thought it was cool how the clouds were just stuck on one side of the peak and couldnt get over. Below is what the path looked like when we finished it and got to the peak of Heimgarten.

The tan line is the path that you walk. The tall peak in the middle is Herzogstand, the first peak that we were at. 

From the top of Heimgarten you could see this body of water, which unfortunately you cannot see in the photo but it was very blue.

From the top of Heimgarten you begin the long descent down the other side of the Mountain towards the city of Ohlstadt, which is actually pretty far from Kochel. I was really relieved when we were finally able to get back on the train and sit and relax. I remember I went to bed aaround 1am and didnt get out of 2pm the next day. I wasn't sore just physically tired. The hike was difficult, but not hopelessly so, and I had a lot of fun with the other people I was with, and the view from the top was amazing. 

This is the group I went with. Front to back Helen, Catie, Me, Ayhan (who volunteers for JYM), Mitch, and Dallas. Photo was taken by Josh

Left to Right: Catie, Josh, Me, Mitch on top of Herzogstand

Here are some artsy photos (Featuring foggy crosses)

This one is super artsy. Could probably be in Bates Art Museum

Whoa

So that was that exciting trip. Besides that its just been class and shopping and other boring stuff like that. The good news is that this changes soon. 

In 14 hours I will be on a plane to Krakow. Tomorrow and Friday I will be in Krakow and Saturday and Sunday I will be at Auschwitz. This is all part of the Auschwitz Jewish Center for Students Abroad program that I got accepted to. It seems like a really good program. I will of course take a lot of pictures there (but definitely no selfies) and post them on the blog that I write here about it.

Sorry this blog wasn't exciting. You were probably expecting more since I haven't posted in almost two weeks. Oh well. It happens. Goodbye.

Some more stuff on Class, and more random thoughts

So since my last blog, I have had the rest of my classes. On Wednesday I had my language class and Germany Today. I still like my language class. Germany Today I am not sure how I feel about. It could be good, it could be alright. I guess I will have to wait and see!

Thursday I had my language class again, and Munich and National-socialism. After my language class we had a a personal 5 minute meeting with our professor to talk about ourselves. She is a very nice lady, probably around 30 and lived in America for a while when she was younger. During the meeting, she just asks what school you went to, what books you used there for German, what you want to gain from being in Germany, what you think your strong and weak points are with the language. She told me she thinks I have good pronunciation and can tell I understand what she is staying, and that I just need to stop being so shy, so she is going to start calling on me in class because she knows I can answer the questions, but am just to shy to do so. I was thinking "well she has me figured out" because that is exactly how I am. Either way, should be a fun class and I should learn out. Also, I told her my writing and my vocab were the weakest, and wanted to work on that.

Munich and National-socialism will really be a lot of fun. We have a couple trips throughout the semester planned, including one to Dachau. For instance, our next class we are meeting at the University and will be walking about Munich talking about National-socialism. I love how for this class we get to learn about things and say "wow that was really cool, anddddd now lets go see it" and step out the door and be there. So cool. The only problem with this class is that the professor speaks with an accent and it is a little hard to understand sometimes.

Today we had to go to JYM to receive a copy of the official semester schedule, learn about the history of JYM, and get lectured to by a JYM Alumni (class of 1953) about global warming. Not sure where that fits in, but it was still kind of cool.

Tomorrow some of us are going on a more difficult hike in the foothills of the alps. Should be a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to it. After tomorrow I will have been here 4 weekends and will have gone hiking on 3 of them

Now time for random thoughts.

The director of the program here in Munich actually sends his kids to a summer camp in Camden, Maine. What are the chances?

Europe is one big Catch-22 (Hi Ms. Iverson). You walk everywhere, which means you have to drink a lot of water, which means you always have to pee, which means you have to always go to the bathroom, which there are very few public ones in Munich, and you almost always have to pay. The other day I actually wished a kid good luck when he said he was going to try to find a bathroom.

The cashiers here rarely ever have the right change in their tills to give you change back. They often have to go to other registers to get it or ask you if you have some more coins so they can jumble it and make it work. Yesterday I got a pizza for 5 euros and payed with a 20, but there wasn't 15 euros in the till so he took out is wallet and gave me 3 5's from there. What??? Are you allowed to do that?

I made a countdown calendar that tells me how many days I have left in Germany. Some people will interpret this as I am not having fun. Don't! I am simply curious, it is just how my mind works. Counting today I have 286 days left.

The light switches here are giant white squares, yet still impossible to find in the dark.

For some reason I can get to class in 25 minutes by subway, but coming back it always takes me 45. This is annoying. The other day was the first time I saw someone checking us for subway tickets. He was undercover, wearing cargos a plaid shirt, and a fanny pack, and like it was straight out of the movies he pulls out his wallet and flips it open to reveal his badge. Classic. It should also be illegal to close the windows on the subway. So hot, so smelly.

The elevator in my dorm takes forever. I often wait 5 minutes for it come. There are 3 of them for my 19 floor building, and I live of floor 6. Therefore, I often just take the stairs. A huge plus about the elevator is that, unlike in America, the close door button actually works. It feels so empowering even though it really does not make a difference.

That is all. Pictures of my hike tomorrow are sure to come

This past week and the beginning of classses

HI everyone. It appears I am not doing this more often as I said last time.

Not happened last week, we had a lot of free time. I picked my classes last Monday (Language class, Munich and National-Socialism, Germany Today, Intro to the Study of German Literature, and Goethe's Italian Journey.)

Here is a picture of my schedule, the ones that are circled are the ones I'm taking

Tuesday we had a session talking about intercultural communication and communicating  with Germans as Americas. It was basically a bunch of stereotypes and we listened to music.

Wednesday we had a short little history tour of the University, talking about art and people and stuff like that. Here are some pictures

This is the entrance of the building from the inside, as in the light between the two stairs is the street where you come in, so I guess I am looking out? I think this is where the White Rose got caught distributing their final pamphlet

This is one of the lecture halls. It's huge, sits hundreds, and isn't even the largest in the building. The white balconies actually have seats in them too. This is looking towards the stage where the professor speaks at a podium, which you can kind of see between the heads

This is the back of that same room, looking towards where you enter

Nothing important happened on Thursday that I can remember

On Friday we went on a trip of Andechs Monestary. You take a suburban train to the end of the line, about 45 minutes, and arrive at the Ammersee, which reminds me of Naples, mostly because of this boat. 

Can't see to well but it is one of those with the big water wheel as a propeller, like the one on long lake

Here are some pictures

A Dock

Lakeside dining

The sign greeting arrivals

A really nice building that I'm not sure what it was

This sign should help solve the mystery

We then hiked a couple miles up this incline, which was neither a mountain nor a hill. Somehwere in the middle. When we were walking up there was a Junkers Ju-52 circling overhead, so that was cool. Sounded incredible.

At the top there is the monastery, overlooking the city, and since this is Germany, there are some bier gardens up there too. Here is the monastery

And the view from up there.

There is also this cross

There were a ton of people because it was family day, so they had a train for the kids. I can't decide if the conductor has the best or worst job in the world

When we got to the top, all we had on our mind was food, so we went to the beer garden. I got a delicious pork roast and potato salad and a giant pretzel for 8 euros. It was awesome and cheap so I was very happy. We sat around and talked for a bit, and then decided to head back down the mountain. When we got to the bottom I realized I never actually went into the Monastery, which is supposed to beautiful, so I guess I have to go back to check it out. At the bottom I got a couple scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream for 2 euros, and it was also delicious. We called it a day and boarded the train back to Munich.

Saturday and Sunday I chilled/did laundry.

Yesterday was our first day of classes. As you can tell by my schedule, I only had my language class. the professor was really nice and I was able to understand most of what she was saying, so that is good. It does not seem like we will have much work to do outside of class, which is also a plus. For this class we had to buy one book, which came with 2 cd's and it only cost me 25 Euros. In America it would cost hundreds. America should catch on.

Today I had Intro to the Study of German literature and Goethe's Italian Journey. The Literature class was kind of overwhelming, because its very difficult to analyze a poem when you don't know what the poem is talking about because you don't know the words. Funny how that works. Ill figure it out though.

Goethe's Italian Journey seems cool. We study Goethe's travels around Europe and we will also be doing some traveling as a class to Weimar and Italy, so I am looking forward to that. We will also be writing about our own travels while here. Professor Soder, who is also the director here in Munich, is wicked funny and just a great guy, so he will make the class a lot of fun. He is always cracking jokes.

Overall, it seems like some good classes! Excited for tomorrow and Thursday so I can check out the classes I am really looking forward to (Germany Today and Munich and National Socialism)

Thats all for now! Until next time

Random Thoughts about Germany/Europe

As I walk around Munich, a lot of random thoughts have popped into my head. I started recording them and now I will share them with you here.

Germany is sort of annoying with how they do not like to break rules. For example, you are not allowed to turn on red, and you cannot cross the street if the little sign is red. Even if, in both situations, there are no cars coming for miles, you are fully expected to wait there for several minutes for the light to change. Why? It is so annoying

Buses are confusing. Why are their two buses with the same number is they run different routes? They should have different numbers


YOU'LL WANT TO READ THIS, IT'S GOOD

Totally forgot to talk about this on my other blog, but sometime last week we did a "Munich at Night Tour" which was awesome. The tour guide had a ton of energy and he knew a ton about the history of Munich and was interactive and it sounds lame but you had to be there. It was a ton of fun and he showed us some cool places. The highlight of this was we were standing in the exact spot, where in 1923 Hitler and his Nazis got in a firefight with the police during their march on the Munich city center after their infamous Beer Hall Putsch. When we were standing in the very spot where this firefight happened, a bird flew down out of this palace and landed on my head. It was just small bird, and at first I thought a flag was hitting my head because I was in a doorway and there are flags everywhere in Munich. So I tilted my head, but something was still hitting my head, so I brushed my hair, and a bird flew away. I was standing at the back of the group, and only one other kid saw it, so we started telling people and they could believe it and couldn't stop laughing. Now people tell me not to have any aspirations in life because this guy was telling us about Hitler and his march on the city center while we were standing where it all happened, so they think I am cursed now. But it was funny. What are the chances. Anyways, back to random thoughts.

Munich is so old that it doesn't feel like a huge modern industrial city like we have in America, such as Boston. I do not see very many sky scrapers, and it just has a really cool historical feel. But you know there is wealth around you because the buildings are nice and you see really nice cars (such as Ferraris)

I have seen an absurd number of people making out on the escalators going to the subways. What is with that? Is that the new thing to do?

A ton of people in Germany smoke. Especially younger people my age. Just sort of funny since Europe always bashes America for being so unhealthy.

I tell my mom how much money I spend on groceries and she thinks I am starving myself. So i had to show her a picture of my fridge. I have a lot of food, I just shop smart and the place I go is wicked cheap compared to back home, so I am happy about that.

Also, its weird how in America we grow up thinking that coins are worthless, yet when I get to Europe I have to start keeping track of my coins because they are worth a lot. They have 2 Euro and 1 Euro coins. I hate carrying coins around so I have been putting them on my shelf. Well I have been keeping track of my expenditures and I was off by quite a but (almost 20 Euros). I then realized that it was here.

That's right, these coins are worth almost 20 Euros. 2 Euros, 1 Euro, 50 cent, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1. Kind of crazy how fast it adds up

Completely unrelated: I started watching White Collar on Netflix and it is really good. It is about this felon who helps the FBI catch people doing similar crimes that he did and was wicked good at. Just thought I would let you all know that.

Long Time No See

It has been a week since I have written one of these. Has much happened? No. Am I sorry? Yes. Here is a quick rundown of what has happened this past week.

Forewarning, you can actually click on the pictures to make them big. I did not know this

Tuesday I just had an academic info session. They told us about homework, papers, assignments, types of the classes. Boring stuff like that. Wednesday was more of the same, only this time a tour of the Bayern State Library was included. German libraries are kind of weird, because there are very few books in the library. You have to search them online and request them and they come in a few days. So that is annoying because I feel like the description of books online are often terrible/not very helpful, so having to request a ton of books and wait for them to come in is sort of inconvenient. Besides that its like any other library.

I love being able to walk through Munich and see the remnants of the war. For example, here is the ceiling of the Bayern State Library

You're probably saying wow Jake why are you showing us this plain Jane ceiling, where is the remnants of the war. Well Ahah! I'm glad you asked, because before the war this plain Jane ceiling was intricately painted, but the allies bombed Munich of course and the ceiling collapsed down onto the stairs, and when they rebuilt it they did not repaint it. Also, they had a case showing examples of damaged books, and one of them was a book that was burned in the fire caused by the bombing, during which a lot of books were lost. Pretty neat stuff.

Another example of the bombing of this art museum called the Alte Pinakothek. It was also hit by bombs, and you can see where in this picture

I think I talked about this in an earlier blog, but now you can see it. Where the light bricks are in the middle is where they had to rebuild it from the bombs hitting. (P.S. those things in the foreground are not, as Jess suspected, Jelly Rolls. They are big hay bail type things, only made out of a plastic straw that you can lay on.)

On Thursday we had our language placement test. The test consisted of listening, reading, writing, and grammar. It was brutal. I described the feeling of anticipation for the test as "waiting for my own execution" because if you do well on the test its as if you are fluent/a native German speaker, and of course I am neither. The test was really hard. I found out my results today and I did bad. The good news was that I was on par with someone who has 2 year of college level language education, which I do, so at least I am on track for that.

Then Friday came, and this is where the excitement began. They decided that after crushing us emotionally with that impossibly hard test, that they would take us to hike in the foothills of the Alps in a city called Mittenwald, basically in Austria. It was really nice because JYM bought our train ticket for us (about an hour and a half ride), so we just had to take care of our lunch. We left the Munich Central Station at 9:30 am headed towards Garmish-Partenkirchen, the site of the 1936 winter Olympic Games. Even if you did not know that this was where the games were held then, you probably could have guessed by the giant ski slope emblazoned with the Olympic Rings, shown here

*Not visible due to my poor camera skills: the olympic rings*

Here are some more shots of the train ride in

We then arrived in Mittenwald where we would begin out hike. Mittenwald is supposed to be a legendary violin and Cello making place. Here are some more pictures of it

Mittenwald from a little up the mountain

We also found yet another beautiful German church. Here are those pictures

The Ceiling

But this picture is my favorite, because these people look like they are posing for the photo I am taking, even though they aren't

The hike up the mountain was good. The weather was ideal for hiking because it was not too hot and was not too cold. There were clouds with a slight breeze so it felt good. It was pretty steep but wasn't too bad. It was enough that you could do it without feeling terrible but still made you feel like you accomplished something. This was the view from the top 

And this is only on one side

This is the other side

On top of the mountain was a little restaurant which is operated by one guy who must make a fortune off of the people hiking the mountain. I ordered currywurst, which naturally came with french fries, and it was delicious. Cost me 7.50 but it was totally worth it. The best part of the trip through, was that instead of having to do the dreaded walk back down the mountain, you can just take a 20 minutes ski lift ride back down. It was awesome. Turns out you can also take this thing up, so not sure why we did not do that. Here are some shots from that.

We had some time to kill when we got down before our train for Munich left, so some of decided to stop at this is little ice cream shop and get some ice cream. Cost me 2 Euros for 2 scoops of this chocolate ice cream with chocolate covered cashews in it. It was so good. Here is the ice cream

This is the one I got

This is some other flavors/the general set up

Overall it was an awesome trip. I would love to go back and do it all again, so I may do that during our semester break. I thought it was so cool that we could board a train in Munich at 9:30, hike some of the Alps practically in Austria, and be back in Munich by 6:30. Gotta love Europe

Saturday I just did paperwork. So fun. 

IF YOU ARE JUST SCROLLING THROUGH THE BLOG MAYBE THIS BOLD, LARGE, UNDERLINED, ITALIC, RED TEXT WILL STOP YOU AND YOU WILL READ THE FOLLOWING NEWS

I found out that I got accepted to this long weekend academic trip to Krakow and Auschwitz. Basically I arrive in Krakow Thursday night and we meet up, Friday we tour Krakow, where there was a Ghetto in WWII, and Saturday we head to Auschwitz and get a tour of Auschwitz, and Sunday we get  a tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau and head back to look at Krakow some more, have a closing ceremony, and head back to where ever we came from on Monday morning. Here is a link to the program's website

http://www.mjhnyc.org/a_affiliates_ajc.html#.VCmKv_mSwlK

I am doing the program for students abroad, so look under that category. There is a $375 program fee which covers all food and local travel and the hotel, so I am anxious to see if I received the program fee waiver, because if I did I only have to pay for my travel to Krakow, which would be awesome. Either way its a great opportunity and I am wicked excited. The dates are OCtober 23-27. Here is a copy of last year's syllabus to give you an idea of what I will be doing

http://www.mjhnyc.org/documents/AJCPSASampleSyllabus.pdf

More stuff to follow on this of course.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went back to BMW World/Museum to look at their special exhibit on Rolls-Royce, titled "The Strive for Perfection." I gotta say, they were pretty close to reaching perfection. Here are some photos from that

Just kidding, that was all of my photos from that. It was just easier.

Today (Monday) I had my academic meeting with the program director here in Munich. Basically, I take my language course 3 times a week from 11:30-1, and have 4 other courses 1 time a week in 2.5 hour sessions. My other courses, are Germany Today (politics), intro the German literature, Goethe's Italian Journey, and Munich and National-socialism. Of course I am most excited for Munich and National-socialism, since we go to Dachau. I am excited to for the classes, and most should transfer to Bates fine, so that is awesome.

I then went to Oktoberfest for the first time with a few other kids from the program.I have to be honest here, if you know me you know I do not care for alcohol or crowds, so you can see how Oktoberfest is the perfect place for me. However, I am only going to be in Munich once (probably), and it is one of those things that you have to do when you are here. So i went to Oktoberfest with the other kids and we entered the Hofbrauhaus beer tent

Shown Here

We then looked for about 10 minutes for a place to sit. We finally found one, and I ordered my first German beer, for 10 Euros. Here it is, its called a Mass, only with the German double S thing. Its a Liter.

Who, you may ask, needs a liter of beer? Answer: These people

Anyways, here is some of the people I went with

I also bought a huge pretzel, for 5 Euros, so all in all it cost me 15 Euros, and to be honest I hated it. As I expected, I did not like the beer, and there were a ton of people, but at least I did it and I can say I went. That is good enough for me.

That is all for now, sorry for the super long post, and thank you if you actually read the whole thing. It was definitely a lot to take in. I will try to write more often so that I do not have to write so much at once, and you do not have to read so much.