Terezin @ MindSay 
OK, I have a little time now to catch you up on my adventures… In my 11 days of travelling alone during the first week of March, I went to many cities. Some common themes of the places I went: synagogues, WWII, astronomical clocks. All-in-all, I had a really amazing time, and it was even a learning experience (in many different ways). But I was happy to return “home” to my bed and a familiar language in France!
Berlin (Feb 27-28)
I started my trip by flying to Berlin. I stayed at the “world famous hostel” (www.famoushostels.com) called The Circus. I instantly became friends with the 5 18-year old Scottish girls staying in my room, and I had a lot of fun my one night in Berlin. From then, I knew it was going to be a great trip and easy to meet people. I explored the city on my own the next day, staying only in the Mitte area, seeing Checkpoint Charlie (touristy replica of a guard house at an old crossing point between the east and the west), the Reichstag, and remnants of the wall. This was only the beginning though, and I went on to learn much more about WWII throughout the rest of my trip.
Prague (Feb 28-Mar 3) & Terezín (Mar 1)
In Praha, I stayed with one of my best friends Erik, who is studying abroad there this semester through AU. It was so great to hang out with a true friend! I had heard good things about Prague, but I found it to be too overrun by tourists, though it’s still a beautiful city full of cobblestone streets and old, impressive buildings. Erik was in class during the days I was there, so I explored mostly on my own. I walked everywhere from Wenceslas Square in Nové Město (New Town), to the astronomical clock and market in Staré Město (Old Town), to Starnonová (Old-New Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Europe) in Josefov, over the Charles Bridge to Malá Strana and the castle. I saw Frank Gehry’s Dancing Building, and Erik and I took the funicular up Petřín Hill at night. The highlight of my time in Prague: the Franz Kafka museum, which Adam recommended to me. It was a lot of fun too to use the Czech koruna, not the euro! For food, I had goulash soup with dumpling bread (kind of reminded me of the Ethiopian spongy bread) and delicious sausages from street vendors. I also tried hot mulled wine, which was ok but nothing compared to a glass of cool French wine.
While I was in the Czech Republic, I tagged along on one of Erik’s field trips to what used to be Czech’s largest concentration camp, Terezín. This was an amazing experience, though I’m not really sure how to describe it, so I’ll give you the facts. About 180,000 Jews were sent to Terezín in total, about 40,000 died there from bad living conditions (not extermination), and 90,000 people were deported to other camps (namely Auschwitz), of whom 86,000 died. Terezín was used as propaganda by the Nazis: At first it was promoted as a safe haven and resort for Jews, tricking many into coming here toward their death. The Red Cross even came to check on Terezín in 1944, but they made a good report as everything was staged for them. It was really a remarkable experience to have a guided tour around this place, and I learned so much from it.
Budapest (Mar 4-6)
The 7-hour bus ride from Prague to Budapest was actually quite comfortable, and it was fun to ride through the snowy Czech countryside and pass through Slovakia. Budapest was the one city I did not have a hostel booking for, but I found one easily and a great one at that, called Carpe Noctem. Budapest is actually 2 cities in one: Buda and Pest. Buda is the touristy side of the river with the castle perched on a hill, and Pest is the lively side with more things to do. The geography reminded me of Prague, and again it was nice to use a different currency: the Hungarian forint. I stayed mostly in Pest, but took a walking tour of Buda on my last day. Food was delicious: for dinner one night I had garlic creamy soup with a piece of fried bread covered in sour cream and shredded cheese, and some delicious meat and potatoes with more sour cream and shredded cheese. I went to St. Stephen’s Basilica (where I saw St. Stephen’s 10,000 year old mummified hand), saw the gothic Parliament, and walked along Andrassy Blvd to Heroes’ Square. Keeping with the theme of visiting record-breaking synagogues which I started in Prague, I took a tour of the 2nd largest synagogue in the world (after NYC), coincidentally with an AU alum and a couple from around Dallas. I also stuck with the theme of learning about WWII, and went to the House of Terror museum, in a building where prisoners used to be held and tortured. In the last few hours I had in Budapest, I went to the Turkish bath Széchenyi Fürdö. It was nice but our private pool and hot tub in Colleyville is nicer! Overall Budapest was really a ton of fun because I met so many people in the hostel, and they knew how to make their guests have a good time.
Munich (Mar 7-9) & Neuschwanstein
I took an overnight train from Budapest, which was an experience in itself since I slept on the top bunk. Waiting for my room to become available at the world famous Euro Youth Hotel, I wandered the empty streets tired at 6am in the snow, then went on a walking tour (same company as I had in Buda). It was a good thing I had a guide, because apparently Munich has a lot of “silent” or hidden memorials around the city, which I heard the rest of Germany thinks is a cop-out. In Marienplatz I watched the Glockenspiel clock display, similar to Prague’s orloj but longer. After some rest, that night I went on a “Beer Challenge” – put on by the same company as the walking tour, and we visited Munich’s most popular beer halls, including the Hofbrauhaus. The next day I went with the 2 women who were staying in my room (PhD students in Netherlands) to the Neuschwanstein Castle, about 2 and a half hours away by train and bus. This castle was the inspiration for Disney's Cinderella castle. It worked out well to have a group of 3 of us since we could buy a group train ticket and save some money, but unfortunately I was pretty sick with a cold that day. I wasn’t incredibly impressed with the castle, probably because the paths which offer the greatest views were closed due to snow. It was beautiful though and great to be in the mountains.
Strasbourg (Mar 9)
I left Munich early in the morning and had about 8 hours to spend in Strasbourg, which turned out to be one of the greatest parts of my whole trip. It was such a relief to return to France! As much as I love traveling, I missed France for the culture, bread, and language that I had gotten so used to hearing every day. In Strasbourg, they spoke a mixture of German and French in the streets, but it was French enough for me! It was such a beautiful city too; I really hope to go back someday for longer than just a few hours. In my little time there, I went to the gothic cathedral and watched the astronomical clock at noon, mainly to get out of the cold rain. I knew I was back in France because even the astronomical clock was running late, and it actually stopped working in the middle of the show! My spring break trip ended with a bang, though, as I happened to be in Strasbourg on the first night of a European Parliament session. Somehow, I ended up watching the MPs live in session! It was like watching CSPAN, but a little more interesting because of all the different languages being spoken (there was a radio that I tuned into which had translations into many different languages). I left straight from Parliament to the airport to catch my flight back to Nice.
…And back to Juan-les-pins!
Once I got home, I only had one night of rest before a good friend of mine came to visit me in JLP! He took a trip to Europe during his spring break from AU, first stopping in Paris then staying with me in JLP for the week, and we went to Barcelona together that weekend (where we met up with Erik, so I got to see him twice!). It was certainly a long couple of weeks for me, but I finally was able to catch up on sleep and enjoy the increasingly-warm weather right here in Juan-les-pins last weekend. It’s getting closer and closer to the end of the semester, but I feel good about how much I have already done, and now my plan is to just stick around here and enjoy life at the beach, though it’s nothing like Misquamicut in Rhode Island with the family :)
Love and miss you all, more than you probably think,
Emily
Photos: http://picasaweb.google.fr/lh/sredir?uname=emily.groffman&target=ALBUM&id=5315255278661740769&authkey=Gv1sRgCNPUjueFxeC_rQE&feat=email
Sunday was an early wake-up as I had to catch a bus a few metro stops away at 8:30 a.m. About 70 students from my program headed to Terezin an hour outside Prague. I didn’t know too much about the area before I left; only that it was a holding camp for Jews and other prisoners during the Holocaust and also a ghetto.
Our first stop was Lidice. Today, it is just a monument and a museum dedicated to an entire Czech town that was completely destroyed by the Nazi regime. After one of the members of the town was suspected of helping in the assassination of a Nazi general, the entire town was wiped out. Men were killed immediately or sent to Auschwitz, and women and children were sent to camps as well or to live with new families in Germany. Where there was once a large city of almost 400 people, today there is just a hill and valley and a few monuments. One of them is a statue of many of the children who were killed in Lidice. It is a bronze statue of children starring at the area where the town once stood and now only grass grows.
No more than 45 minutes from there is Terezin. Originally a small fortress and then a prison in the late 19th century and during WWI, Terezin was used as a holding camp for people all throughout Europe, but mainly Czechoslovakia. Political opponents, Jews, gypsies, many different groups were housed here and a great majority of them were later sent to Auschwitz. It was an odd experience being in Terezin just one week after spending an entire day at Auschwitz. In truth, I felt desensitized in many ways throughout the day. Just eight days prior, I roamed Auschwitz, a much more storied camp and larger space. This is not to say that Terezin is any less significant; it simply caught me very off guard to not be as emotional or moved by Terezin. Part of the reason may be because Terezin is so well preserved, looking much the same as it did sixty years ago, while Auschwitz is ruins, destroyed barracks, and demolished gas chambers and crematoriums. With that, Terezin looks like any other fortress with high walls, lots of crammed sleeping areas, and areas for prisoners and guards. Auschwitz, however, is unique in its complete and utter destruction as well as the feelings you expect to encounter as you go there from the hundreds of stories, books, and movies that detail the story. Additionally, going through Terezin as a group of 70 felt like I was touring the place more than experiencing it, as Auschwitz felt.
From the fortress and prison, we went to the town of Terezin that was turned into a ghetto during the war. Jews were kept within the city, crammed in close quarters with limited amenities and even less knowledge of their situation and fates. We toured two museums while there, and both were well done and interesting, but I wish the tour would have included more of a walk through the city than a museum dedicated to the city. Again, I just think it was the size of the group that hurt the trip because the program, CIEE, did a great job with it, but large groups tend to lessen the experience a bit.
Sunday is the Oscars and I hear John Stewart is hosting, but they don’t come on here until 2 a.m. and I have no interest in staying up until 7 a.m. just to hear who wins, so I’ll wait until the next day to check them out. Plus, I’m pretty convinced no bar, not even the best expat bar, will care to stay open for the Oscars.
On the movie note, there is a great film festival in Prague right now called the One World Film Festival. It is an international festival featuring documentaries and full-length features that deal with human rights. I plan to catch a few of them on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I’m getting to sleep early tonight, try to store some hours for the coming week. Traveling next weekend is up in the air right now as it is the weekend before spring break and we are guaranteed to be out of town for the next five weekends in a row. I’d like to stick around and catch a soccer, sorry football, game on Saturday in the city if I can. Anyway, see you later, have fun and enjoy.
