"Hey Mambo,,, Mambo Italiano..."

It's Italy, the land under the hot Mediterranean Sun where the languid smell of the Venetian lagoon hangs in the air and there is enough gelato to send you quite happily into diabetic shock. I have been dreaming of an Italian vacation since I left Europe five years ago and am just soaking it all in. To be completely honest for a minute though, I find Italy a rather grungy country, lots of graffitti, and the fact that the building are all brown and tan don't help the fact that the sun is smoldering outside. I am, however determined not to let this disappoint me, because IT'S ITALY!!!!

Let me fill you in on the last three days:

Venenzia (Venice for you Americans):

First of all, there weren't as many canals as you would think. The island if really accessable by foot, but that one canal that you always think about when you see Venice in the moves is called the Grand Canal and it goes straight through the center of the Island. It's the one where you see all of the buidlings that have steps leading straight down to the water where you just pull the boat up. Yup, that's Venice. The last night we were there our waterbus took us through the canal at sunset and it was beautiful.

For all of you ladies out there the best thing to do in Venice is to go shopping, and there are two things that everyone must buy. The first is a Venetian mask (which I actually did not buy because I have no idea how to get it home and I had my eye on other things) the second is Murano glass. We went out to the island of Murano our second night in town and watched them make a vase which was so cool. some of the designs are so elaborate I have no idea where to even begin. Like these ducks!



My big purchase came in the form of a ring. I had been looking for one to go with my class ring I received in May and Mom made the brilliant suggestion of waiting until Europe. I fell hopelessly in love in Venice and decided to take it home with me!

Lake Como:

I had actually never heard of this little town before, but Blake had been before and was excited to bring us. By far the best part of the day was when we rented about paddle boat to go out on the lake for an hour. Imagine 2 guys, around 6 feet 4 trying to paddle and steer with their knees shoved again their chest and Christin (my roomate) and I sitting in the back with our legs shoved into the back of these iron seats, there was no room to even breath! That wasn't going to stop Ryan and Blake from trading drivers. They do a flip flop in the middle of the lake and then the next thing I know the steering wheel is in Blake's hands!I went into panic mode with visions of us floating in a lake for

hours until someone realized that we couldn't steer. Luckily though the wheel just slid right back in and we continued on our way. No matter how clumsily we clanked along. Regardless though, Como is an absolutely beautiful city, a sight not to be missed from the mountian. Oh, and random history fact for the day: Mousolini was captures in Lake Como just before his execution in 1945.



Milano:

The fashion capital of the world! This was the first time I got to see parts of Italy that didn't have that grunge factor that I was talking about earlier. We spent a large portion of the day near the Duomo and even took a trip up to the top! Then we wandered around the shopping district for a bit, enjoyed walking through Guicci, Louis Vitton, and Prada stores and buying absolutely nothing! I enjoyed studying the mannequins in the windows for new styles though. Oh, and get this, I grabbed a Glamor magazine just before I left Holland. Guess what's coming back into style? Uh, shoulder pads. I'm not sure how I feel about this one.



So that's basically life in Italy so far. I think I've practically eaten my body weight in gelato so far, my personal favorite is a pistachio and tiramesu combination. (They're good separately, not so much together.) And this is just the beginning, tomorrow I'm heading to Roma!

P.S. Fun History fact #2. I told you the Venetian masks were all the rage, but there
are two styles of them. The first is the typical painted masquerade mask, but the other one looks like this guy. If I had gotten a mask this what it would have looked like (understand what I mean now by my saying I had no room). Ugly isn't it? And a little creepy. Well, there's story behind this one. This is exactly what a doctor would have looked like during the Bubonic Plague. They wore the black robes as a sign of their profession, but the masks came in for another reason. The noses were made super long so they doctor could put herbs and spices up there in an effort to keep the disease away. Unfortunately the best thing the herbs did was scent the smell of thousands of sick and dying people. But it gives the doctors a distinct and incredibly creepy look.

"Water, water everywhere/ and all the boards did shrink..."~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What do you think of when you think of visiting Europe? Do you think of visiting Paris? or Spain? What about London? That one seems to be very popular. Have you ever thought about Sweden or Norway? No, me neither. That's what makes this past weekend so Amazing!

While the Baylor in Maastricht program gives up three Month Eurail passes, sometimes there isn't enough time in a weekend to go someplace further away and sightseeing. In that case let me introduce you to this little gem, it's called Ryan Airlines. Ryan Air is a discount airline that services Europe, and when I say discount, I mean discount. My flight to Sweden cost me a whopping 7.00 Euro, that's a little less than $14.00 for you American currency fans, and the flight home from Oslo cost a little less than that.

So Friday morning me and four of my Maastricht buddies boarded a plane bound for Stockholm, Sweden for a bit of Scandinavian bliss. Here's what I saw: lots and lots of boats, ranging in age from new to old, to holy cow that thing still exists?

Stockholm was my favorite for some reason I can't explain in rational terms. I think perhaps we had a very relaxed day. All that was really scheduled was a trip to the Vasa Museum so we got to take out time wandering through souvenir shops and little markets along the way. Oh, and don't forget strolling by the harbor.














I've spent the past three summers working the USS Cairo Museum at Vicksburg National Military Park, and I have heard the Vasa referenced at least once a month by some well travelled retired couple, usually the wife as the husband has already disappeared somewhere into the depths of the museum leaving her to entertain herself i. e. talk to the Park Ranger. "Have you ever heard of the Vasa." "Oh, you should definitely take a trip to see the Vasa" (said as if this trip would take only a couple of hours from Vicksburg). "The Vasa is the best preserved ship I've ever seen!" Really, I've heard just about everything in connection to the Vasa. I knew most of the story, I just hadn't seen it yet. Now I have, and I can say that everything everyone ever mentioned about it.... it's all true.

(These pictures turned out really dark, so I messed with the brightness so you can see them better. This, however makes them look slightly strange I think.)

The Vasa was commissioned by the King of Sweden in 1628, (so think... Spanish Armada, end of Elizabeth's reign, around that time period). It must have been absolutely beautiful for its time with all the decorations and painted sculptures that adorned her facade. Unfortunately this wasn't going to last too long because the ship had not longer been afloat more than 30 minutes before it sank. Why you ask? Well, the Vasa was one of the first ships that was built with not one, but two gun decks, this meant she weighed more and this fact was coupled with the problem that she was disporportionately tall compared to her width. She was top heavy and stared to lag to once side. Since the gun portals were so close to the water line, in goes the water and down goes the ship. She was recovered in 1961 (around the same time as the Cairo, interestingly enough) and now it the central sight to see in Stockholm.


Friday night our Swedish adventures ended, I am sad to say and we all boarded a train for an eleven hour trip to Oslo, but this time we had a sleeper compartment with I thought was really cool. I spent several hours hanging off the edge of my bunk taking pictures at the scenery as it wizzed by at 200+ miles an hour.

Saturday morning brought us to the Norwegian Folk Museum that was primarily about the cultural traditions of Norway. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it took me back to my American Girl doll days and my love for all things Kirsten. She was really supposed to be Swedish but the clothes and furniture all looked the same! There were a couple of permanent museums and then the village which is basically made up of buildings from the 1600s and later that were taken down and moved to the museum. It was a nice little stroll.



Then we high tailed it over to the Viking Museum to see move boats that had sunk and then dug up. Except this time they were older. I know what you're thinking, Lindsay how much older can you get than the Vasa? Uh, alot older actually, and since I haven't seen any Roman stuff yet, I think these ships are the oldest that I've seen since I've been over here. There was one ship in particular, the Gokstad Ship, that was amazingly preserved and it was built in 810 AD!



Can you imagine, the people settled Iceland and Greenland and made it all the way to Canada from Norway in little boats like these...

That was about it for my Scandinavian adventure. Oh, and my interesting food find of the trip was a grilled Moose Hotdog. Yea, instead of ketchup or mustard they put potato salad on top. Yummy.

The Art of Progress

America is a really young country. I have a tendency to forget this. In all honesty, I think of the progress we've made over the years and sometimes it makes me a little sad. About 150 years ago America was only have settled, there were miles and miles of undiscovered land lying perfect and untouched.There were hundreds of buffalo that grazed through the fields and birds flew high in they sky. In my opinion, American progression into a modern society is bittersweet. Yes, we are the technological masters of the world, we live in what is perhaps the safest country with books and paintings and many, many other beautiful things. But in order to have these things we have crisscrossing asphalt through what used to be beautiful landscapes and massive hordes of people trampling up and down paved sidewalks.

This feeling of loss isn't here in Europe, because there was never a moment before people.In fact, progress here stands as a beacon to human ingenuity and is incorporated into everyday life effortlessly. The past isn't sacrificed for the future.


This is the St. Servaas bridge. It stretched across the Maas river and connects the two sides. If your interested in getting to the train station or the movie theater you're going to have to cross this bridge (or another just like it). The original bridge that sat in this location was built by the Romans who originally settled the city, but after that bridge fell into disuse, this one was built in the 1200s. Today it's still used, though only as a pedestrian bridge. Regardless of cars or not, it sits at the heart of the city. After eating at one of the outdoor cafes you can take a stroll across this bridge and watch the sun set.

Here's a little local favorite among all the Baylor kids. It's the Selexyz bookstore.

Talk about Heaven on Earth! (Pun is absolutely intended here). Not only is this the biggest bookstore I've ever seen, it's the most creative use of ancient architecture that I've seen as well! This bookstore is complete with coffee shop (at the altar!) and carries books in Dutch, French, Spanish, German, and English (the English section is really big, and I've successfully refrained from buying anything! Go me!) It's interesting to go in here and just study for a little while, the frescoes still glow against the ceiling and all the tomb sites are still marked (I assumed the graves are still there, but I don't know that to be fact.)


When I was taking a walk around the old city center ( ok, so perhaps I was a little lost...) this past weekend I found this.

This is the original city wall that circled around Maastricht when she first was nothing more than a fortress city on a river. It was built in 1229. Look at the coolest part, though. In the foreground is a door. That is somebody's house. You can't see it but there are other doors that line directly across from the wall down the alley way. This part of town belonged to all the tanneries, so houses here are situated between the first city wall and a small river! It's actually quite a beautiful part of town.


Combining the past and present is not something unique to Maastricht. It's present in most European cities, Paris, Munich, Rome. I find this aspect interesting. It is as if to say, "we've progressed! No regrets!" Perhaps one day I'll be able to say thing about America. One day I won't be quite so bitter sweet about the industrialization of our country. I wonder what of our buildings will be incorporated into everyday life in 400 years!

"I want to go on living even after my death!"- Anne Frank, April 5, 1944

Yesterday I took my 2nd pilgrimage to Amsterdam. When I returned it was late and I had a bit of sinus stuff going on, so you must forgive me for not writing then.


At 267 Prinsengracht, Amsterdam, there is a house. It's a simple row house, looking no different from the houses left and right of it. In front, just past the busy little street lies the Prince's Canal. You can see the water flowing from between the trees lines. Little houseboats adorned with flowers are tied along the canal gently bobbing up and down with the motion of the current. It's a house in a simple neighborhood, away from the hustle and bustle of the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum. A couple of streets over there is an American food store where you can buy Lucky Charms, Reeses, and Mountain Dew, just about anything an American in Holland could ask for. Really, there's nothing special about this part of town, it just like any other street in Amsterdam, but that's the point.

We sometimes forget the streets we tread once lay underfoot of people from a different age, a forgotten age, and that places we live had a life before we stepped through the door, and will continue to have one after we've left. Yesterday I pictured a little girl about thirteen years old in a warm woolen jacket and matching cap skipping with her mother down the street in front of me off to see her father at his shop.She's a bit of a chatter box. Her mother stopped listening to her prattle a few streets back and walks straight in her hands pressed into her pockets for warmth. The girls has yet to pass a stranger and waves at everyone she meets, down to the little paper boy peddling his bike across the street. On her lapel there is sewn a yellow star with the name Jood scribbled across the center. Early this morning (68 years ago) she, her parents, and her sister went into her father's shop and never came out.

"For someone like me, it is a very strange habit to write in a diary. Not only that I have never written before, but it strikes me that later neither I, nor anyone else, will care for the outpouring of a thirteen year old schoolgirl."

But people do care. I certainly did back in June when I picked up her Diary in order to thumb through it, and the line of people who wrap around the block of 267 Prinsengracht care as well. Everyone has heard the story of Anne Frank. Seeing the story of Anne Frank is something I would wish for you all.

The rooms were tiny and so very dark, but I know I can sit here and tell you that until I turn blue in the face and it still won't mean anything. It's important to note that when I say tiny, I mean tiny for eight people (seriously, I was standing there having flashback to a horrible summer spent with three crammed into one bedroom). The annex as we refer to it today was actually always intended to be an apartment. It wasn't unusual at the time to have a duplex of sorts with accomodations for a business or home in the front of the building and an apartment in the back. Because of this the Franks and Van Pels had the luxury of a water closet with running water and a working kitchen. After hours they would sneak downstairs into the offices and help their father on clerical work for the business or listen to the radio. The difficulty lay in how they lived, crammed into those little rooms during the day, no sunlight, now fresh air, not even a cracked window. Be quiet or else the neighbors will here you! Still, you enter the rooms and there is a sense of life there. People lived here, they fought and laughed and cried here.



Anne was such a dreamer, a lover of nature and beauty and literature. Her cheerful voice comes shimmering through the pages of her diary unbound by time, uninhibited in her happiness and curiosity.




But here's where my imagination goes.
“I keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would like to be, and what I could be, if … there weren’t any other people living in the world.” This was Anne's last diary entry dates August 1, 1944. Three days later police raided the annex. What was she thinking? How did she cope? Did she cry? What was her father thinking?




Because of the things I've been through and I've seen, I put hefty weight on each and every person having a purpose in life. Sometimes this purpose can be fulfilled long before we ever grow into adulthood, and sometimes this purpose is fulfilled in our passing. Then only true tragedy, I think, is a death that comes before the purpose is fulfilled. This is not the case with Anne. It became increasingly clear to me as I walked through the museum that if Anne had survived there would be no Anne Frank house. Why would there be a need? Today, Anne has not only become the face of 6 million men, women, and children who died during the war, but she is the connecting point of an entire generation that survivors like Eli Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom miss.

I watched a little girl about ten years old scour this museum. She read every plaque, watched every video, and analyzed every picture and was still there when I left an hour later. I know nothing of that little girl except this. Anne Frank has made a history lover of her, and those who know history and love it do not fall prey to the sins of our forefathers.



"We cannot change what happened anymore. The only thing we can do is to learn from the past and to realize what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means. I believe that it's everyone's responsibility to fight prejudice."- Otto Frank, 1970

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world." Anne Frank,c. 1944

"Ich bin ein Berliner!"- JFK

After some great deliberation on how to write this weekend's blog post, I think I finally settled on the only way I can think to tell you everything about the weekend (yes, it was that amazing of a weekend). I'm going to break it down into several smaller posts. Then, I'll feel free to talk as much as I like!

I LOVE BERLIN!

You can imagine how surprised I was, especially after I planned to be in the city less than twelve hours on Thursday. I'd heard good things about the city from the other students who'd travelled before me, but the consensual favorite was Munich. With that in mind, I simply planned to take a walking tour around the city and be off to Bavaria. My how we can surprise ourselves.

Berlin is a city saturated with history, an imperial history, a dark history, a young history, a history of pain and perseverance. In the three hours I walked around the city, I learned more about her existence than I thought I'd ever know. I have seen sights dripping with a past, a story. I think everyone needs to know these stories.


Brandenburg Gate was built in the late 1600s as an entrance into the city. She was originally decorated with the goddess of Peace, who drove her chariot into the city with a wreath made of olive leaves held high over her head. After Prussia's fall to Napoleon's army, the statue was confiscated by The Emperor for his personal art collection. The Prussians took the sculpture back and in the process renamed her Victoria, the goddess of victory. They then changed the name of the square over which to presides to "Pariser Platz," or "Paris Plaza" so there would forever be victory over Paris.

But then again, she has another history as well...

It's strange to stand in a place you've seen a photograph of over and over again and have it look completely different and yet very much the same. It's even more strange when that place is so beautiful was it is today.

The Reichstag was (and still is today) the German Parliamentary building. It is an absolutely looming building that was rebuilt as the capital for the German government in 1999, seriously, folks when I'm saying Berlin is a young city, I'm not joking. After everything she has been through in the past 100 years she's like a newborn trying to stretch her legs for the first time. Today the German lawmakers do their work inside the building directly below the glass dome (you can see a little in the picture). Visitors to Berlin are actually permitted to walk around in that dome and to look down into the legislative sessions. It's said the dome was constructed so that if the lawmakers forgot who they were working for all they had to do was look up
(millions of tourists!).

The Reichstag holds another important key to German government (I didn't say this "important" was a good one). In 1933, a few months after Adolf Hitler was selected Chancellor of Germany, the Reichstag, the German symbol of democracy was set on fire. The Nazi's arrested Marinus van der Lubbe, Van der Lubbe was a Dutchman and, more importantly, Communist. In a country already unstable from the transition from imperial to democratic rule, and having already seen the mess of Russian politics, many Germans were terrified by the Communist party. This, Hitler manipulated to his advantage. Claiming Van der Lubbe was part of a conspiracy by the Communists to attack the German government and eventually gain control, Hitler convinced the then President Hindenburg to award him total power. This decree, granted by Hindenburg, was what allowed Hitler arrest Communist members of government a replace them with members of the Nazi party, ban certain publication, and ultimately pass the "Enabling Acts." Thus the "legal" dictatorship began.

Then, of course there are some less hefty stories that can be told of Berlin's buildings. Recognize this hotel?

(Forgive the fact that that man's head is in the way, I was going for angle here.)

No? How about now?

Why yes, yes it is...

One of my favorite stories goes with the TV tower. It
was built in East Berlin under Russian control. The man who was in charge of Berlin at the time (forgive me I don't remember his name) was apparently hardcore atheist. "Why do I need God? I have Marx and Lenin," he said. It was built between 1965-1969. Why did it take so long? I'm glad you asked. So, the construction of this massive tower, was supposed to be the symbol of Berlin and the largest structure in Germany. Aside from this it was suppose to be the big Russian, "look what we can do." Great. Go Communism. Whatever. Even then, though the Russian's had problems with it and had to call in a team of engineers from Sweden to finish the project. But that is not the best part of the story, the best part of the story comes after the tower is built and the sun hits the structure for the first time. Low and behold what appears?

A CROSS! (can you see it on the center of the ball?)

Needless to say the atheist dude was horrified. Not only could he not get the tower built himself but now it has a religious symbol painted across it every time the sun shines. He tried everything to get the glare to go away, he took bits off the tower, adjusted the angle, added things to it (he wound up announcing that it was not a cross but a plus for "Communism is awesome!"). Still the cross appears when the sun hits it. Today this little phenomina is called "The Pope's Revenge." I like to call it, "God's Sense of Humor."


Of all the things I saw in Berlin, one thing stuck with me the most, and, as usual, it had nothing to do with what I thought I would take away.

The Berlin Wall was constructed when my father was one year old. It was torn down six days after my first birthday. When I hear Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech, I think of the Wall. When I think of Communism, I think of the Wall. When I think of the inability to go from place to place, to travel, to see things, to read books, to tell stories, I think of the Wall. The thing is, I didn't realize this is what I thought of until I got there and actually saw the Wall. This wall, is the greatest symbol of weakness to mankind, it's concrete, steel rods, and piping are far inferior to paper, ink, and ideas that strengthens my country. I took no greater pleasure in my entire 8 hours in the city than to take this picture:Be as cynical as you like about politics, but I promise you. We all get to the same place eventually.
That is Berlin!