Behind the Iron Curtain

12 days, 7 cities, 5 countries, and 3 night trains later we've returned from our final trip.

We left Wednesday night after class-this meant sitting through our already lengthy class for 2 and a half hours then bolting back to our rooms to grab our already packed luggage and catch the bus to the train station. A couple quick changes and we were on our first night train to Berlin. Fitting 6 girls and almost 2 weeks worth of luggage in one surprisingly small train compartment is exactly what it sounds like. We arrived in Berlin around 7 in the morning-and contrary to what we all thought we were not staying in a hotel but another hostel. The hostel was fairly lively with a bar and everything (Jaegarmeister around the clock) the only downside was Melissa's bed which broke the first night and despite badgering the desk on several occasions stayed broken all three nights. After we all dropped our stuff off and tried to freshen up as much as possible we went to go see the Berlin Wall, the most interesting part of this section of the wall was that when I had to guess which side was east and which side was west I was wrong. After perusing the wall we headed for a meeting with Transparency International-I believe the final count was 7 people fell asleep (haha not me suckas!!). We grabbed some lunch (Kebab-I heard they were invented in Berlin but I say that's up for debate). After lunch we had a guided tour at the Memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust it was a field of giant gray slabs reminiscent of the Jewish cemetery in Prague. After returning to the hostel we went to visit (on our own) some of the museums in Berlin since they were... FREE-just how I like it, and since they were free we only had to see the cool things and we could ignore all the other intellectual stuff since we weren't paying-we choose to see the bust of Nephrodite and the gates of Babylon both were pretty damn cool-I don't know if I'd ever seen anything so old. After the museums we went to get Indian food for dinner (I mean we'd already done German food and none of us have eaten anything "ethnic" other than Kebab in forever)-the food was good despite some fairly heated debate on diversity at Colgate-quite the hot button issue.

The next morning we had a bike tour scheduled. We biked all over Berlin and saw Check point Charlie, The TV tower, The only surviving Nazi building (which is now where the tax collectors work so I'm sure you all understand what a beloved building it is) The tour concluded with our tour guide explaining how the artifacts in one of the museums make him horny-yes we were all as surprised by that as you must be. After the bike tour we went to the DDR museum and danced the night away-just kidding it was about life during the Soviet Regime and it was a hands on museum with everything from a full scale apartment model to pictures taken at an FKK beach (nude). We had some time before our next visit so we all and I mean all sat down together with a ten liter mini tap to kill some time. Our final appointment of the day was a tour of the Jewish Museum, the most interesting and longest part of this tour was the "interactive art" three pieces designed so the viewer actually goes into them and feels disoriented, cold, hopeless all depending on the piece but they were very interesting-my Dad would have hated them. After the museum we got thai food-the Indian had really hit the spot and left us wanting more and then hit the sack.

We returned the next morning to the bike place this time renting bikes in an attempt to go to Potsdam for the day. Getting 18 bikes on a train at the same time is quite the experience, especially when there's some sort of wine festival that everybody is trying to get to. But despite handlebars and foot pedals jabbing into all kinds of places not suitable to mention here, we all made it on and off the train in the right locations. We biked through a park in Potsdam that took us by several Schlosses and gardens that were all beautiful then we got some sausage and beer for lunch followed by a visit to the location of the Potsdam conference. We then rode through a part of the town that looked like Amsterdam and back to the train station. When we got back to Berlin we had some time so we went to climb the Reichstag and we got to the top as the sun was setting-it was beautiful. Then a couple of us went to a restaurant in what Barry described as a "posh" section and we had some amazing food and wine before heading back to the hostel to celebrate Ben's birthday! We all got turned away from the gay club we were trying to go to so we had to settle for a regular old straight club but the night was fun despite the usual hiccups of combative personalities.

We woke up the next morning and got on a train for Prague. When we got off the train it was quite warm and we walked to our hotel which turned out once again to not really be a hotel but this time it was because it was a BOTEL-and yes this is exactly what it sounds like a boat floating on the river that also served-well only served-as a floating hotel, kind of like a cruise but without the moving and planned fun. After we checked into the Botel we had a walking tour, this was 3+ hours of learning which buildings in Prague were Art Neauveau versus Art Deco, for such a small city the tour was about 2 hours too long. After the tour that never ends ended, we crossed the Charles Bridge and found a cute place for dinner where I had goulash in a bread bowl and a plethera of meat (so eastern european)-then we headed back to the Botel to be rocked gently into our dreams.


The next morning we had a 7 hour meeting at Radio Free Europe, and despite the length it was actually a really cool place-we even got to sit in on the editors meeting. After the meeting we had some free time before our night train so we went up and walked around the castle for a little bit. Then we grabbed a quick dinner and picked up our stuff from the Botel and headed to the train station to catch our second night train to Krakow. We arrived in Krakow around 7 and got to our hotel with barely enough time to "freshen up" and eat breakfast before e getting on our van/bus to Aushwitz. After a 2 hour drive we arrived and did a 4 hour tour of Aushwitz and Berkenau. It was not at all what I was expecting. So much of it looked so normal but I think that was the scariest thing of all that so many normal elements added up to one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. After we returned to Krakow we were all feeling perky so we went to dinner and hung out in the hotel for a while and went to bed.

Learning about RFE 

We had the morning to see a little bit of Poland, we visited the castle and saw some of the State rooms and a cave that ended by a giant statue of a fire breathing dragon. On the way back to the hotel to pick our stuff up we did a little shopping. We got on our train to Vienna which ended up being diverted through Slovakia and 4 hours late into Vienna which meant getting to Vienna after all sources of food were closed. Fortunately the hotel had one of the best hotel breakfasts ever. That day we visited three institutions-I don't even know if I could tell you what they were. OSCE followed by OPEC followed by something about nuclear weapons. That night Prof Shain set us up with somebody our age to take us out to a wine bar. It was a lot of fun and while I didn't get to talk to her very much-and I couldn't tell you anything about her I did have great Sloshy Talk with Ben. After the wine bar we went to this club that was not that great so most of us grabbed a cab back to the hotel.

We had the morning to spend in Vienna so we walked over to St. Stephansplatz and then took the metro out to Shonnbrunn palace to do the Labrynth. We grabbed our stuff from the hotel and then got on the train again to Budapest, we got to the hotel and since it had been Axel's birthday on Aushwitz day we wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate his 20th birthday so Melissa and I asked for a recommendation of cheap hungarian food that could accomodate 19 people-the restaurant was posh, moderately priced, and NOT Hungarian (not to mention Prof HATED it). Afterward we tried to find          
a ruin bar and what we found must have been similar but it was outside and had gravel on the ground and was really chill-for Colgate people it was sort of like Beta Beach with less drunk freshmen. We hung out for a while and then headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we had a bike tour in Budapest which was really cool and the weather was great. It happened to be May Day so there were all kinds of May Day festivals going on that were sponsored by the communist party and had hot dog stands with confederate flags on them-the perfect place for Americans! So we did some souvenir shopping through the festivities. Then we went to the cathedral and climbed to the top (with the help of a little elevator). Budapest looked very different than a lot of the panoramic views we'd gotten. Then we had our last night train back to Geneva and our Eastern experience was over.

Now our rail passes expire on Wednesday. It was the most depressing ride to the cite on bus 3 EVER. It's like when Christmas is over and you feel depressed because it's over-only this time it's not coming again (shout out to Melissa). This begins the 3rd and final section of our semester where we begin our full time internships, and we have about 75 pages of writing to do, plus we still have to go to two classes a week. This will be cake.

Sad Thing: Starting Full time Work

Sadder Thing: Having a million papers to write

Saddest Thing: Rail Pass is expired on Wednesday (RIP)