Ciao, Italia

“Veni vidi vici.”
I came, I saw, I conquered. This seems like an appropriate phrase for my most recent weekend of adventures. Our little Czech family has been travelling since last Tuesday when we departed for a class trip to Vienna and Venice then were graciously released for a week of leisure over spring break!
Italy indubitably and indisputably is the most magical destination I’ve visited thus far. My heart lingers in Venice, in Cinque Terre, in Rome. Though I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everywhere our group has explored up until this point, Venice for me was the start of a week of bliss: it held a certain quaint European charm that I hadn’t quite felt anywhere else. The lack of paved streets and some subsequent modern conveniences created an ambient rustic appeal and the sound of waves followed you wherever you wandered off too. Perpetual amazement and appreciation for the ingenuity of mankind were the themes of the day in the city of a thousand canals.

There goes an urban tale that its bad luck if you don’t eat gelato everyday you’re in Italy, and I took that piece of advice very seriously, sometimes indulging multiple times a day. It surely must be true because my spring break went off without a hitch. Following our last day in Venice, Clark and I ventured out for Florence as the first stop on our grand Italian tour. Panic was definitely present in my mind as we had plans to take trains all week, and I possess a passionate dislike of trains, mostly because I never really feel like I know what I’m doing or where I’m going in the stations, but all week our transport was effortlessly flawless.
Florence was a solid introduction to the Italian lifestyle for us: we ate an exorbitant amount of pasta, learned the ins and outs of wine and olive oil making, and biked the Tuscan countryside for some incomparable views. Tuscany may very well be one of the most beautiful places on this planet- it was a nice change of pace to appreciate the nature beauty of Europe as opposed to all the cityscapes we’ve been admiring. I also discovered that apparently two bros can’t casually traverse the Tuscan countryside without people thinking they’re a couple, so Clark and I had to get used to looks of confusion when we explained to people that we’re just friends who share a mutual appreciation of Italian wine.
As for Pisa, it really only needs one sentence. It was neat: we took pictures, we got sunburnt, we napped, we ventured on.
Cinque Terre, on the other hand, was majestic beyond words can portray. The juxtaposition of man and nature posed by the small coastal villages perched precariously on the Italian coastline was nothing short of phenomenal. Between hiking the rugged trains between the villages, wading in the crystal blue waters, cliff diving from some terrifying heights, and indulging in some top-notch seafood, Cinque Terre surely took our breath away. Though hiking eight or more hours a day in sub-par footwear was exhausting, the region itself is like something out of a fairytale and that made it all worth it. I’m a bit of a nature child back in the states so the forests and beaches of the Italian coast were a nice refresher. I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to actually live somewhere so tranquil and pristine.

Rome, of course, was stunning as well, but in a very different kind of way. It never ceases to amaze me how ancient historical monuments are just niched away in the center of bustling urban centers. I get this picture in my mind of sites such as the Colosseum in their own little world out in the middle of nowhere, which makes it somewhat disorienting when you just turn a corner and there lays one of the most prominent reminders of ancient Roman culture, surrounded by street food and gay bars. I also find it amusing how scooters and Vespas are such a prominent method of transportation in Italy. In Nebraska where trucks run wild, it would be an embarrassment to drive something so fuel efficient, whereas in Europe people care more about pragmaticism than status symbolicism when it comes to transport.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed everywhere we’ve travelled thus far, but Italy was the first to truly call to my soul. The food, the people, the sea called to my soul in a way that nowhere else has, and I will surely return. Ciao, Italia. You have my heart. 

Heavy Hearts

“Arbeit Macht Frei.” Work will set you free.

There are moments in your life that you instantly and profoundly recognize will affect your worldview until the day you die, and this past Saturday was one of those days. Our class had the opportunity to pay a visit the Auschwitz and Birkenau Nazi concentration camps in Poland, and never in my life have I been so haunted.

Anyone who has ever been to Auschwitz or any similar camp can attest to the fact that no words, no pictures, no video testimony can adequately prepare you for the true horror of what lies inside those barbed wire fences. Walking away from a single day in those camps, I am irrevocably scarred in the best kind of way. My appreciation for the luxuries of my life as well as my terror at the atrocities of past and present human rights violations have never been so clear. Never again will I plead apathy to the injustice of the world.

The shoes. The shoes were what broke me. Touring the blocks, I held it together reasonably well as our guide outlined the ways in which prisoners were mercilessly beaten, humiliated, tortured, experimented on, and ultimately murdered, but when we got to the part of the tour where the belongings of the victims were held, the tears came. Gazing upon mountains of looted shoes, luggage, and two tons of shaved human hair from the corpses of the victims of Auschwitz, I cried. I cried, and I watched as one by one my peers were broken by this place.

To set foot in a gas chamber where innumerable lives were mercilessly and horrifically stolen, to walk through the crematorium where their bodies were systematically turned to ash, to gaze through the doors of the torture cells where prisoners were starved, suffocated, and condemned to slow agonizing death evoked emotion more intense than I have ever experienced before.

I laughed a bit when I discovered that one of our classes for this trip was exclusively a field study consisting of weekend field trips, wondering how much we could really “learn” from touring a bunch of miscellaneous European cities. Now though, I revoke that laughter because I learned more about history and humanity and morality and civic responsibility in one day at Auschwitz than I might in a year of traditional class. Experiences like this one remind us why we must learn and remember the tragedies of the past lest they be repeated.

My soul aches as I write this because I know that so many of the people I hold dear will never truly understand the pain of injustice, that they will continue in their privileged everyday lives, oblivious to and apathetically detached from the misery of the world. This is why I travel. Ignorant is never a term I want to be associated with, and I hope that through my adventures, I can bring some enlightenment into my own life, as well as those around me who do not understand the importance of living as a world citizen.

“Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” –George Santayana

Never forget. 

April Fools?

This trip was a joke… right?  This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the city of Budapest in Hungary, and it was definitely a memorable experience, but maybe not for all the right reasons. Coming out of it, I can definitely say that I appreciate home sweet Olomouc more than ever.

I’ll start with the story of my 21^st birthday. On the Wednesday night before we left for Budapest, yours truly came of legal age in the states, so we went out to celebrate at the local bars and our favorite club in Olomouc, Belmundo, after which we walked home in the middle of the night with no qualms about our safety on the street. Budapest, however, is a slightly different scene. While breathtaking during the day, I must admit it’s slightly less secure when the sun goes down. I didn’t have the courage to go out to the clubs any of the nights we were in town, but from the sounds of it, they were targeted for a very different (and more party hearty) crowd than I run with.

Even during the day, Budapest pushed us to the edge of our comfort zones when one of our girls was robbed by a homeless man (don’t worry- a kind stranger chased him down and got her money back) and another hustled out of twenty bucks by a wily cab driver who gave her change in deceptively Hungarian-looking Indonesian bills.

Not to discredit the city- we did have some positive experiences, as well. Our walking tour guide on Saturday morning was truly charming and gave us a very honest, light-weight, and energetic view of Buda and Pest, the two portions of the city located on either side of the Danube. Later that evening many of us experienced historic Budapest at night on a high-class river cruise, and it was majestic enough to make us forget about the mishaps of the day for a couple of hours. There are two side to this city, and it definitely took its sweet time showing us its true splendor.

After a night on the river, we headed for the Szechenyi Thermal Baths for a day of relaxation, and I caught myself comparing our Hungarian excursion to darling Olomouc yet again. While it may be true that Olomouc is a much more comfortable place to spend a semester, I can’t say I regret our weekend in Budapest because in spite of innumerable mishaps, it was an incredible adventure with some truly unique experiences that I never would have been able to find in our little university town. I had only intended to stay at the baths for half a day, then hit up some other attractions, but once we arrived, it was a struggle to leave. The healing minerals in their water create an almost transcendent experience for everyone there. Many of us have been sick for quite some time, but for a few hours in the water, we were flying high.

I’ll make one more note of cultural comparison before I tap out: it’s about clothing and body image. In America, people seem to worry a whole awful lot about how they look and what they wear, but here in good old Budapest, I’m not entirely convinced that the general populous knows what body image is. In the baths we were accosted by hoards of individuals, young and old, slender and wide, meandering about in just about every manner of swimwear imaginable (much of it quite smaller than American styles…). I’m torn between pride of these individuals for wearing their bodies with such confidence, and horror at the sheers masses of skin being shamelessly flaunted.

In hindsight, Budapest was not as horrific as I made it sound in the beginning. Just because we had a rough time doesn’t make it any less beautiful of a city. Though it was nothing I expected, it was everything I needed to get a true taste of European culture. I think we as Americans often get in the habit of viewing Europe through rose-colored glasses, an abode of historic palaces and fancy desserts, and we forget that it’s not that different from the land we call our own, home sweet ‘Murica.