When in Spain… join a protest.

That’s right, I joined my first protest while in Madrid. No idea what I was protesting, but I figured I couldn’t let all the Spanish have all the fun so I joined in! More on that later, though.

Seville first. Wow. I try to compare cities I see with others to give myself/others a Sam-centered idea of what a city is like, and to me Seville is a mix between Barcelona and Paris. The architectural style was a bit Parisian with many high-rising buildings in a bit of a crowded fashion, yet the “feel” of the city was like that of Barcelona. As I’ve said, I think Barcelona is my favorite city I’ve visited thus far, and Seville still falls under that like due to the lack of a beach. While there is a river, it’s just not the same as a beach.

Still, Seville is quite beautiful! I think the crux of its infrastructure is banking (aside from churches as is obvious with every European city) due to the ridiculous number of banks I saw. But, I also saw several Starbucks (which I couldn’t skip due to my missing of it in Trier) a KFC, so that was nice. I’m not going to lie: I was tempted to go in. Man, I miss fried chicken.

Luckily for my sunburnt self, most of the city was shaded, with vias (streets) that had no greenery shaded by large sections of canvas hung between buildings over the streets to create shade. People in the city are beautiful as with the rest of Spain, too, albeit not as pretty as in Cadiz; the Moor influence creating darker skin tones just make Southern Spaniards beautiful.

That aside, who would have thought the cathedral in Seville is the 3^rd largest in Europe and largest in Spain? Wow. It’s quite odd, too; my first glimpse of it was apparently from the back side, and from there I was not really impressed. I mean, it’s massive… but what cathedral isn’t? At that point, though, I hadn’t read through the history booklet I got at the tourist information office, so I didn’t realize it was Spain’s largest and Europe’s 3^rd.

Later in my journey, though, after seeing numerous churches, beautiful streets, and something called the Plaza de Espana, or Spanish Plaza, along with its gorgeous park roughly 3 times the size of Forsythe Park in Savannah, I came along the front side of the cathedral. Ok, so that’s a bit out of order… I saw the Plaza de Espana first and last on my trip, but details. Anyway, it’s certainly massive. I think it would look bigger if there weren’t other buildings crowded around it; the cathedral in Ely, England, impressed me more, but it was standing all alone in the middle of… well, nothing.

Speaking of parks: in my travels thus, I believe that in terms of parks, Cadiz takes the cake on what I would call “small to medium” parks. Those are the random green spaces beside the roadways and those small parks overlooking the ocean or some of the squares. Seville, though, must take the prize for the best large parks. The park outside the Plaza de Espana is simply gorgeous. It’s almost a jungle of mazing beauty, and it’s absolutely perfectly maintained. I was impressed.

Next, I must note: I had yet another epic win of a meal in Seville. I got a whole serving of Paella, a FULL glass of white wine, a coffee, and bread for a whopping 8.50 Euros. Win. Not the best paella by any means, but the fact that I could get all that for so cheap makes it not matter in the least. It still can’t beat Cadiz’s meal, though.

Impressively, I noticed my Spanish coming back to me the longer I was in Spain. That doesn’t mean for a minute that I could understand the people when they spoke, but I could pick up on key words, read road signs, and express what I needed/conversational Spanish to some degree. Naturally, this occurred just before I was to leave Spain. Story of my life.

Anyway, Seville is truly beautiful. Everything in the city is over the top; parks, buildings, bridges, even sidewalks all seem as though infinite time and money were put into them. Monuments were everywhere, all parks were exquisitely maintained, the city was clean, all buildings ornately decorated… all in all, it’s just a beautiful city. People always say Seville is beautiful, and they are absolutely correct.

Something amusing I’d like to note: when reading the history booklet, I read of a charity hospital. The founders of the hospital wrote an interesting inscription on the building to capture the feeling of the dead as is to be expected of any such establishment: “Here lie the bones of the worst man the world has ever seen.” How’s that for charity? HA! I love Spain.

Something else I noticed while in Seville: safety is not a top concern. In Spain and many other places throughout Europe, the mentality I’ve noticed is thus: if you’re dumb enough to get hurt, it serves you right. Examples of this: lack of lines on the roads (not the case necessarily in Spain), no handrails in places you would expect (hello Greece), lack of barriers around dangerous places such as train platforms, and significantly less “don’t do this or you’ll die” signs than we are forced to suffer through in America. I like the mentality; if you get hurt, it’s your own fault.

Moving on. The bus ride there took about an hour and a half from Rota, not too shabby in my opinion for a 9 Euro bus ride. Coming back, though, took closer to 2 and a half hours. First of all, the bus was 15 minutes late, which is to be expected; time is not exactly Spain’s top priority. Then, we hit a wreck or something on the interstate, causing time to seem to take forever. I almost thought I was in Atlanta!

One final thing to note on my Seville trip: it’s interesting to see how much the countryside in the little bits of Spain I’ve seen differs from the beauty of the cities; the rural areas are laced with unfinished projects, rusting equipment and garbage, and truly arid land merely a few notches above a desert. It’s a bit strange, really, considering how beautiful and lush the cities are as a whole.

After getting back from Seville, I had a good 4 hour long conversation with my cousin about politics in America, something I very rarely do; typically, I could care less. But, being that my cousin is in the Navy, he’s stuck with politics all the time, so I pulled back into my high school years and had a jolly good discussion.

The next day, I honestly was a knot on a log. My cousin took me onto the Navy base to print out all of my boarding tickets and whatnot for the remainder of my travels, and we visited the base supermarket. That was one of the most eerie experiences of my life; having been in Europe since March, I’ve seen a fair deal of Americans. However, I have not been totally surrounded by Americans since I left Savannah, and that’s exactly what happened at this base store. It seriously was weird to be in the middle of Spain (rather, on the coast), and have nobody around me save Americans talking English. Seriously, it was almost unnerving, and puts me into a perspective that I’ll likely go into a bit of shock when I land in America in a few weeks.

Prior to going on base, I never realized how self-sufficient these military installations are. They have their own… everything. Stores, restaurants, bars, movie theaters, beaches, hotels, housing, hospitals, golf courses… and these aren’t even including the military buildings. Wow. And to think this base in Rota is merely rented from the Spanish! Just think what may exist on US owned soil…

Later on in the day, around 8pm and after doing somewhere south of nothing for the rest of the day, I arrived at Jerez de la Fontera airport (about 20 minutes from Rota). It’s a cute little airport, and quite nice for a RyanAir hub. Well, I won’t say hub; RyanAir only flies a few flights there. Either way, it’s smaller than Savannah’s. Come to find out, I got there almost 2 hours early on accident (this 24-hour time is killing me STILL), then ended up being more like 3 hours early after my flight to Madrid was delayed. Gasp! I’ve heard flying through Madrid will almost always delay you, and I must confirm that suspicion.

Cleverly, I repacked my book bag in a way that it would barely pass RyanAir’s strict bag dimensions test (you must place your bag in a holder and if it doesn’t fit, you pay 40 Euros). Tip: when backpacking for 3+weeks, wear the clothes that take up the most room on flights. Wear more than one pair if necessary. Otherwise, your travel will be expensive and your clothing supplies will STILL be short.

So, I finally landed in Madrid around midnight. Fun fact: Madrid is Europe’s 4^th busiest airport and the world’s 9^th. Who would have thought? It’s quite a nice airport, and has a great connection directly to the Metro into the city. Just as in Barcelona, Madrid’s subway system is impeccably clean and new-looking; the Spanish have a thing for making pretty subways apparently. It runs until 1:30am, too, so you’re in luck if RyanAir delays you by an hour coming into Madrid! Win.

After a few train changes and walking a little further than I should have, I found my hostel. It was quite nice! I was quite tired from traveling, so by 2am I hit the sack in my room with 11 other people. If you stay in hostels, just remember: Everyone sleeps at different times and with different levels of noise and drunkenness. Welcome to hostels! Luckily for me, I sleep like a dead brick. For those of you who are light sleepers, though… beware.

I woke up just early enough to grab a Spanish coffee the next morning (Sunday the 24^th of July), and headed off to the free walking tour of the city which I have come to grow fond of in cities that offer them. Once again, great decision; I met a lot of cool people, saw the highlights of the city, and made some good contacts.

Madrid itself, in my honest opinion, isn’t really much. It’s a city you can see in a day if you aren’t interested in seeing the multitude of museums and art galleries… like me. The city is quite pretty, feeling new in the way that downtown Atlanta does, but there isn’t really anything special about it in my opinion. It has some cool history, but not as much as Seville or Barcelona. This was ok to me, though, being that I wasn’t expecting much out of a capital city away from the coast anyway. The monuments are beautiful, the parks well-maintained, and the buildings well-to-do, but nothing in Madrid really stands out as special to me.

What was totally awesome, though, was the protesting I began this entry with. Surprisingly enough (seriously), by mid-afternoon I was literally bored. I spent time walking around the streets, resting on random benches to kill time… really, looking for something to do. Then came the protests. I’m not talking about a few hundred people out to complain, either; these Spaniards had gathered from many parts of Spain in Madrid this particular weekend (especially, as I later found out, due to the fact that the next day [Monday] was a national holiday). Many of them proceeded to camp in many public green spaces, walking around carrying signs, shirts, and war paints of protest. That, and the Guy Faulks (did I spell that right?)—the one from V for Vendetta—masks on the backs of their heads. Amusement.

I didn’t think anything of them early on in the day when we were going about with the free walking tour, but come about 5pm, things got interesting. Don’t worry, absolutely no violence, no obscenity, not even really any drinking. Well, not compared to Germany, anyway. But, funny enough, the police literally closed off the main veins of the city and thousands of protesters marched through the city for a good two hours, finally ending up in Sol Square, the city’s center. The fact that the police closed off the streets for anti-government protestors made me smile. People were literally sitting on top of red lights, bus stops, and anything else tall they could find to photograph and video the protests.

Imagine, if you would, police shutting down Peachtree Street in Atlanta and part of I-75 through downtown for thousands of people to march around and scream, play random drums, and wave signs about? It wouldn’t happen, first of all, but mainly… the city would shut down. Madrid wasn’t far from that. Keep in mind, though, that Madrid is relatively small when compared to Atlanta. Still.

I, for one, couldn’t resist the urge to join in. What was I chanting and singing along with them? I have no idea. What were they all so pissed about? Not a clue. Was I amused? Immensely.

The Spanish, in my opinion, are a bit like the French: let’s just find a reason to protest, thereby party. Apparently it’s commonplace in Spain. You’d never see that in America; no one seems to care enough to bother. If partying were introduced alongside protesting, though, I get the feeling Americans may join the European bandwagon. Wait—that wouldn’t work. Most cities in America would arrest you for drinking in the streets. My bad.

At this point, once the march was over, I won’t lie: remember me mentioning seeing KFC  in Seville? Well, I found another one in Madrid. Yes, I went. Yes, it was worth it.

So, after my highly entertaining afternoon, I headed back to the hostel. Within the hour, the 10 Euro pub crawl started, and I joined several of those I had met on the free walking tour for three bars and a club. Well, maybe not the club… I think I skipped that. But, let’s just say I got my party on with a Russian, some Danes, a few Brazilians, and two Americans. The first hour at the first bar? Epic win. Why? Unlimited beer and sangria for an hour. Seriously, unlimited beer and sangria. That was a good start.

Let’s just say the night ended well. The next day, though, I was t-totally done for; mixing tequila shots with unlimited beer is never a good idea. So, after I managed to wake up 5 minutes before I was due to check out from the hostel, I literally bought a water and went to sleep in a random park for the remainder of the day prior to having to leave Madrid. This wasn’t an issue with me due to my boredom with the city from the day before, so it worked out well!

The worst part of the trip thus far, though: when I got back to the hostel after my nap to get my things (they’ll keep your stuff after you check out for the day for you), I realized that the room I had been in (which previously had all bunk beds) now had all single beds, and my Sony battery charger and spare battery had been charging in an outlet by my former bed. Well, now it’s gone, and I have no way to charge my good camera. Hopefully I can find a store that has a charger, but it really sucks being that the battery I lost in it cost $50. I have no idea who would take that and a US power adapter, but I’m not thrilled.

I arrived at the Madrid airport early, again, and surprise of my life: my flight was delayed an hour. So, a few hours on the Madrid airport floor and a crowded RyanAir flight sitting next to screaming children later, I landed in Rome and found my hostel outside Rome Termini train station. It was odd to be back in Rome, but quite welcome. The hostel owner even had stayed late for me to let me into the home-like hostel! I felt a bit bad, though, being that when he walked me around the block to the hostel (inside a hotel, oddly enough), he switched the light on in the room I stayed in, waking up the two girls already asleep in the room. Oops.

My train to Formia, the town just outside Gaeta that I was to meet my family (whom I had never met), left around 8:30 the next morning, so I got up bright and early to take a shower only to find no hot water. No matter; hopefully Florence has that. So, after an included-in-my-hostel-price Italian coffee and doughnut, off I went to Gaeta!

Goodbye Trier, but Hellooooo Spain!

To be honest, just thinking about having to type my last entry about Trier, even though I’m sitting a matter of minutes from a beautiful Spanish beach, made me have to get a beer to simultaneously commemorate the experience and not be sad. That being said, let’s just say the last week was EPIC.

Remember how I said last week that I still had to plan hostels, pack, and party? Well, I’ll give you one guess as to which of those occurred in the most abundance, and it wasn’t the first two choices. Being Erasmus gives us all excuses to act just like the Germans: party all night, every night. Rather than to go into too many details, I’ll just say each night began at either Martinskloster, Cusanashaus, or a campus housing place, then typically moved into the city to carry on well until daybreak if not later. It was epic, truly epic, and I shall miss all of the people I’ve spent the last 4.5 months with immensely.

I did finally get to go up to the statue on the hill I’ve commented on before… the one I can see from my room. It was spectacular! You can see the whole city, and although it was cold, we stayed for well over an hour at 3am or so. Well worth the 40 minute walk straight uphill to get to it!

I took ridiculous amounts of pictures, so if you have me on Facebook feel free to check them out. Let’s just say I’ll miss it, but at least I know I’ll get to see all of these people in the future. It’s going to happen.

But, moving on. I did turn in my scheins for my classes, although AASU still thinks I didn’t actually take any of the classes that they sent me to Trier to take in the first place, so I’m pretty much screwed with my financial aid when I get back until they rectify that situation. That will take at least a month. I happen to know that from previous mess ups that didn’t even entail studying abroad.

Anyway.

I somehow managed to make it to my 6:30am bus to go to Frankfurt Hahn to fly to Rota with my ridiculous suitcase and myself. Let me add that I packed AND cleaned my entire room in a matter of 3 hours total, and fit everything I needed to take with me into my book bag and suitcase! I did give away probably 100 Euros worth of things, but I knew that was going to happen; it would cost more in shipping than the items (blankets, towels, cheap coffee maker, etc.) were worth, so it was Christmas for some of my German dorm mates.

But, to my [not] surprise, RyanAir informed me that, even though I paid an extra 40 Euros for my ticket so that I could check my heavy luggage into the flight, I would have to pay an addition 200 to ship it. They claimed it was 20 kilos overweight (roughly 45 pounds), and they charge 20 Euros per KILO. Yes, that’s right, I have a flight to catch and now have to add the entire price of the rest of my travels’ plane tickets to ship my suit case to Spain with me. You can imagine the choice words I had to say to that particular attendant.

So, I lugged my luggage away, proceeded to put on *literally* a pair of sweat pants and THREE pairs of jeans on OVER my existing shorts, a hoodie and jacket, and like the Michelin Man, headed for a taxi to get to the nearest post office.

Luckily, everyone was nice to me. The cab cost 20 Euros round trip, which sucked, and shipping the luggage all the way from Hahn to Brooklet, GA, cost 85 Euros. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but still… in twenty minutes I blew over a hundred Euros cash. That especially sucks right now being that I believe I shipped the Sparkasse (German) bank card home in my luggage on accident, which has my only access to more cash.

Anyway. Made it to Rota by just after noon, and lucky for me, there was my cousin ready and waiting! Welcome back to Spain. His apartment/condo is quite nice, having three bedrooms and two baths! The Navy does it right, I must say. Any number of quite nice beaches are less than 15 minutes walking distance, too. Not bad!

Life in Spain is quite odd indeed; it’s seriously like a ghost town in Rota between about 2 and 5pm. The things you may hear about the Spanish having a “siesta” each day in the midafternoon is quite true, especially here in Rota. Barcelona had it too as I recall, but not nearly as much. Then again, Barcelona is much larger.

To be quite honest, after a tour of the city by my cousin the first afternoon and a first beach nap, I was quite lazy and recovering from the past week of not sleeping until after midday Wednesday (I landed in Rota Tuesday afternoon). That’s not like me; typically, I’m the get-out-and-go type. But hey, at least I had a good reason to be lazy.

One highly amusing thing to note here: I had Thai with my cousin for lunch, and for dinner found a flyer for ANOTHER Thai place that I just couldn’t pass up. So I had Thai for dinner, too. The restaurant experience was quite amusing; I didn’t get there until pushing 10:30pm (the Spanish are night people, much like black cats… except lively), and when I did there were two older ladies (50s) from Amsterdam having a jolly good time with some Chinese Sake (or something). They bade I join them and talk to them for quite some time and take shots out of the glasses the Thai restaurant had given them that… well, let’s just say you’re likely to find them at a novelty shop. The conversation was quite interesting, too; when they found out I was going to Amsterdam in a few weeks, they proceeded to tell me how and where and what kind of “herb” to buy. Don’t buy from those on the streets, they said. It could literally be cow dung. Go to the coffee shops, then you’re golden.

I’m going to miss Europe something fierce.

Wednesday afternoon, I got out of the cool house finally into the Spanish midday heat. Let me tell you, I’m used to Savannah heat… but this must at least rival it. Keep in mind it’s been jeans and long shirt weather in Germany the past two weeks, but still I was not expecting to melt like the wicked witch! I did tour the city more extensively with my camera, though, and have some good pictures to show. I also researched how to get to Cadiz the next day and Seville the following, so after getting followed by a persistent homeless man for twenty minutes or so I headed back inside.

Rota is a cute little town (and I do mean little, even by Trier standards), but I admit it’s a bit dirty, and once you get out of the concentration of little shops and restaurants, it gets a bit sketchy. Keep in mind that it’s a well-established US Navy and Spanish Navy base (they US rents from the Spanish apparently), so the vast majority of people in the town are some kind of Navy. That creates a big American presence too, although I admit I have yet to see but two of them.

Something else one may want to keep in mind about Spain and Europe in general is the attire at beaches. Nude beaches are always talked about in the US as being big in Europe. Although I have yet to find any truly nude beach, just be prepared that topless beaches are… well, any beach. I’ve been to maybe a dozen beaches in several countries thus far, and it’s the same: tops are optional. So don’t be surprised.

Enough commentary for now. My productivity astonished me Wednesday night; I booked all the trains I need while traveling in England, checked myself into all of my remaining 4 RyanAir flights (thank God), and researched all the trains I’ll need in Italy. I couldn’t buy those because the Italian rail website is absolutely terrible, at least in the English version. Had I not taken Spanish, I wouldn’t know what it was talking about sometimes (the languages are somewhat similar). That, and trying to actually buy the tickets, not just find the timetables, is… well, impossible. I asked my Italian friend if it would be much more expensive to just buy them as I went, and she said it should be the same price, much unlike in England.

I also found out in my research (which took hours and hours… travel planning takes forever if you’re on a budget) that you can buy a Rail Card in England when you travel for 28 Pounds ($35-ish) that saves you a third on all tickets you buy in the country for a year. I wish I had this last time I was in England because I realized I’d save at least 50 Pounds (even counting the price of the card itself) in my travels with one. Oh well.

One other interesting thing I found: a website called eDreams.com. Check it out if you want to fly, especially in Europe; it’s somewhat like Bing Travel or Expedia, but I literally found flights that were cheaper from Venice to Rome than the rail was. I decided against it just because I’m sick of flying and it wouldn’t save me THAT much, but considering the flight is an hour and the train is 4, it is certainly a service to check! It also works for US flights, but… well, they’re always expensive.

So, my travel plans, in a nut shell (in order): Madrid, Rome (for a minute), Gaeta, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Verona, Rome (to fly out), London (for a minute), Turville (Vicar of Dibley village!), Reading (friend there), London, Amsterdam, Dublin, Chicago, Atlanta, Piedmont SC (to get my car), Savannah!

Phew! Hey, you only live once, right? And, minus the cost of my flight from Dublin to Chicago/Atlanta (same flight technically), the whole trip only cost roughly 499 Euros including trains! Not bad considering I’ll see the better part of Europe in the process… well, not, but better for me anyway!

After that epic planning, I got up this (Thursday) morning and caught the ferry to Cadiz, one of Spain’s primary ports and supposedly the oldest city in Western Europe! I’m not positive about that, but they claim it anyway. I was early (or late) to the ferry, so I chilled at the beach in Rota for an hour and caught a good burn (surprise), then boarded the 30 minute ferry to the city.

Let me just frame this conception of the city first: I wasn’t expecting much. I’ve never heard of Cadiz, and really only went as something to do for the day considering the ferry only cost 4 Euros each way.

Having said that, WOW. I was honestly blown away; the city, although small, not much different in size than Rhodes Town (not the island itself), is absolutely beautiful, complete with among the most well landscaped, most monuments, and cleanest overall feel of almost any city I’ve seen! I still would say Barcelona is my favorite city I’ve visited, but I’ll have to see at the end of my trip how I think Cadiz rates overall. It’s a bit difficult to rank cities when you’ve seen so many so quickly, but I did get a good feel for Cadiz.

I’d say Cadiz has everything short of a Starbucks; beautiful beaches, cool old castles, a well restored Medieval Town, beautiful churches and a cathedral, and relatively (for Europe) cheap shops and restaurants. I literally walked around the entire island that is the city (technically… it’s barely an island), then walked some more. My feet are actually pounding as we speak, but I stayed put-putting about viewing the beaches and having a nice lunch and later a beer to take in the scenery as a reason to rest. Everything was green, vibrant, well-kept… yet not to the point that it felt like a total tourist trap. Sure, there were tourists there, but this city somehow managed to maintain a “legit” feeling to me. It felt a bit like a mix between Miami, Paris (the architecture, for some reason), and Barcelona. I liked all three cities, so naturally… I’m going to praise Cadiz.

As in every European city, scooters rule the roads in Cadiz due to the maze of random alleyways between 5 story-ish buildings, primarily. I did notice, though, that there is a full-fledged university overlooking the Atlantic Ocean (Cadiz and Rota are both barely on the Atlantic)! This may be something to consider…

The restaurant I found, by the way, had some of the best food I’ve had in a while. At first, I was kicking myself for not stopping at the fast food joint I saw just after I got off the ferry; I hadn’t eaten all day or the night before (I forgot… go figure), and had walked around 2 hours to that point in absolutely ruthless heat. This time of day, by the way, was the 2-5pm window I mentioned from Rota. More was open here, though.

Anyway, I ordered a Tapas item (as are THE RAGE in Spain—most restaurants offer Tapas, if not exclusively so) called “Chilled Tomato Soup,” which makes my mouth water to think about even now. It was a bit like a slightly sweetened Bloody Mary without the Vodka, and it was served with a dish with freshly cut bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, and croutons. OH it was good, and it was served in what you would typically get a Bloody Mary in.

Then came the main meal: pan seared Tuna with a small side salad and “chips” (fries). Delicious! It was especially good when dipped in the soup. Along with these, I got a large beer (jar of cerveza, as it’s called) and a Coke with ice (there’s a surprise—hard to find ice!). I typically don’t get Coke, but I kept seeing people order them from the glass bottles and had to have one.

So, it sounds like I just spent a small fortune, right? Wrong: the whole delectable meal that made me barely able to walk from being absolutely famished cost a whopping 12 Euros! Win! It’d truly be hard to beat at a 5 star restaurant in my opinion even totally ignoring the price.

Anyway, enough of my mouth watering. I did finally make it back to the ferry after beautiful Cadiz, its beautiful people, and its beautiful scenery. So, now I’m back in Rota, and after talking with my cousin for quite some time and eating an entire frozen pizza without bothering cutting it, here I am.

Speaking of beautiful people: I mentioned when I got back from Nice how beautiful the people there are. Well, I still think they’re probably the most gorgeous, but… Spain is quickly approaching them. The Spanish certainly smell good, too; perfume and cologne seem to be staples of EVERYONE. We’ll see how Seville and Madrid fare and I’ll pass my official judgment.

So there you have it. Left Trier, seen two more cities, and am off to Seville in the morning! I didn’t realize how close it was to Rota, but apparently I just have to catch an 8 Euro bus there in the morning, and within 2 hours I’ll be there! I always hear about its beauty and many study abroad programs, so it’ll be interesting to see how the hype compares to the city. I’m trying to keep it in perspective; everything here is so beautiful!

Until next time…

Greece: The Ancient and Beautiful

Well, here’s the deal: I tried to get tickets to Berlin, being that I haven’t gone there, but couldn’t find any that wouldn’t cost me my first born. So, I started looking around on RyanAir’s website for the weekend, and voila! For just under 100 Euros round-trip, I could go to Rhodes, Greece! Although I haven’t been to Berlin, I must say: Greece sounds like a winner.

And that it was. After getting up before any normal human being should be at 5am on Thursday, I headed to Porta Negra to steal a coffee café’s internet to send my sister a term paper to proof read, then caught the bus to Nells Park, the location that the Flibco bus shuttle runs from Trier to Frankfurt Hahn Airport, and off I went to Greece!

Here, I lucked out. I don’t know if I had some serious body odor or what, but no one sat next to me on the 3 hour 20 minute flight there, so I had all three seats to myself! Win for me, especially considering RyanAir’s cramped airplanes. Seeing all the Greek Isles in the last few minutes was amazing, too; hundreds upon hundreds of desert/rocky-looking islands populated a spectacularly blue sea that could even be noticed from hundreds of feet in the air!

I landed around 1pm local time (Greece is an hour ahead of Germany), and went straight (luckily) to the correct bus to head into the Old Town of Rhodes, the location my hotel was. The bus, although somewhat old and decrepit (it, like three other busses I encountered in my time there, seemed to have difficulty getting into third gear), cost only 2.30 Euros for the 20 some-odd minute ride into the old town. Cheap!

For some reason, the hotel had messed up my reservation and had to “walk” me to another hotel. I wouldn’t know what that meant had I not worked at a hotel before. Luckily, it was literally right around the corner from the one I booked, and MAN… let’s just say I lucked out.

The hotel I ended up in, the Hotel Athena, was newly renovated, and the room I was assigned was on the top floor with not one but TWO views of the beautiful Agean Sea from the balcony. That’s right, I had waterfront views of the ocean from my cheap hotel. Spectacular! What’s even better: the hotel, something like 100 yards from the ocean, also overlooked the sunset strip of Rhodes Town, something quite amusing to watch each evening due to its hosting of many clubs and bars that literally opened just after sunset, which also just so happened to be viewed right from my balcony. Can you say cruise-quality living?

Anyway, after I almost wet myself from excitement from the view and my wonderful room, I headed to the beach (rocky, just like Nice, France’s) to attempt to snooze for a few; I had only three hours of sleep the night before having been too excited to sleep apparently. I just couldn’t stay long, though, even though I had beautifully clear-blue water at my toes and a view of another Greek Isle in the distance. If you’ve ever seen one of those odd clouds in America that’s dark and looks almost as though it’s a mountain, that’s what this view was… except that it actually WAS a mountain. Did I mention it was roughly the high 80s/low 90s then and the whole time? Win.

I was too impatient to see some old stuff, though, so after an hour-ish, I made out for the old town. Little did I know how close I was to it! In about a ten minute walk, I could reach the oldest part of Rhodes, completely surrounded in the original encampment of walls and towers dating back around 1,000 years, with parts even older than that. I can officially say I’ve seen Byzantine ruins mixed in with signs of Italian, Ottoman, and German influences (as they all ruled Rhodes at some point).

Along the way, I found a tour company’s shop advertising 25 Euro tours to and from Symi Island, apparently about a 2 hour ferry ride from Rhodes. 25 Euros for an all day excursion to another Greek Isle? That would be a yes, so I scheduled it for Saturday. Remember, it’s still Thursday, so I have plenty of time. I’d hate to get bored in paradise, after all.

Stumbling upon the very northernmost tip of the island (well, almost… slightly west of it), I found the Rhodes Port complete with 3 or 4 cruise ships. Honestly, here it reminded me a bit of Key West, Florida, in its touristy-ness. And touristy Old Town was indeed, a bit of Key West mixed with China Town in that many of the goods sold were obviously knock-offs of name brands. For example, you could pick up a bottle of Calvin Kline cologne for 3 Euros, or some Dulce and Gabana Sunglasses (however you spell D&G, anyway) for 5 Euros. Yeah.

Still, near the port was awesome indeed. An old lighthouse highlighted the horizon against the cruise ships and small rocky beach nearby, along with many statues of whatever the Greeks felt needed to be commemorated. While the old town was neat indeed, it was pushing 5pm by this point, and I was absolutely tired of walking. I therefore set out to find a sandy beach to take another rest, and find I did. It wasn’t what I was looking for, as I later found out, but it was sandy (or as much as you can ask for in the Mediterranean) and made for a great nap.

I may mention here that, in the interest of saving money, I had stopped in a “Super Market,” which in Greek terms means “glorified gas station,” and picked up some Pringles, a water, and some Ritz crackers for my lunch/snacks to stave off the temptation to eat out. It worked, although I have a word of caution: just as I realized in England when I was there in May, there is a difference in Ritz crackers made in the UK versus those made in the US or Italy. If you see any that say made in the UK, avoid them. They don’t believe in salt.

Anyway. I eventually made it back to the hotel after a nice 30 minute walk or so, and decided it was time for real food. I must admit, I’ve never been a fan of Greek food per se, so being in Greece I decided I must try something legitimate. I found an all you can eat buffet overlooking the sea for 9 Euros, so I had a go. I’m not going to lie… I’m still not a fan of Greek food. I don’t really like feta cheese (ok, I can’t stand it even in Greece), don’t like olives too much (a stain to my Italian name), and am not a fan of casserole-styled foods. Still, I’m glad I chose the place; now I can say I tried true Greek food, and at the same time was highly amused with the staff there making comments about all the beautiful ladies that walked by in Greek. 

So, being in a calm and relaxed mood, I returned to the hotel to have a beer at the bar (which was also cheap, just as all of Greece seems to be), and watched music videos the bartender was playing of 80s music that I had never seen, such as Elton John singing one of Queen’s songs: The Show Must Go On. Who would have thought.

Thus far, my thoughts of Greece: the people seem to be a mix of Turks and Italians; to me, although my history tells me better, it seems as though a population of Italians decided to breed with Turks, and Greece was born. English is also quite prevalent; it’s still comforting to see Greeks talking to all kinds of nationalities (especially Russians, Germans, Finns, and Sweeds, as seemed to be the most popular tourists on the island) in English. In fact, most everything on the island was bilingual in Greek and English, thankfully for me; while I can usually decipher anything in a Romantic or Germanic language, Greek is t-totally different and absolutely impossible for me to remotely decipher.

Rhodes itself reminds me of a mix of Belize + Key West. The touristy-ness and laid back nature of Key West was apparent in the town, but on the bus ride into town, I saw miles of desert-like land with many buildings half-completed and ghetto-like. The Greeks must be on Spanish or Turkish time, as the joke goes; projects both in and out of the city seemed to be started everywhere, but rarely completed. Sidewalks frequently just ended with no warning, and many buildings seemed to have been forgotten mid-build. It must just be so pretty there that the inhabitants forget they’re working on something.

Also, if you hadn’t gathered by my commentary thus far, Greece is far cheaper than I imagined; most tourist towns have jacked up prices, but not Rhodes; you could get a good sandwich for around 2 Euros, beers/wine for about the same as Germany, and goods such as towels and clothes for 5 Euros easily. Hotels were also cheap; for the 3 nights I stayed, 2 of which were in what I considered my penthouse, I paid 93 Euros total. Wowwwwww!

Moving on. The second day, after a night of strange dreams (likely due to the fact that I slept so well after having air conditioning, something I haven’t had since being in Europe to my memory), I slept in a bit… but, being in no hurry (I’m in Greece, after all), I managed to put-putt out of the hotel by noon. It felt like a good day to explore the island, being Friday and my last “full day” on Rhodes due to my booking of my excursion the next day. Naturally, my terrible map skills got me exceptionally lost, but eventually I made it to the larger part of the Old Town that I had only highlighted the day before.

Let me just say: Rhodes is oldddd. It even FEELS old; touch the limestone walls and you can feel hundreds of years of erosion at work! Just as in years past, people actually live in this fairytale land, but I must admit… I’m not jealous of them. It’s old, old, old, and many of the conditions are shabby at best. The lower floors of the 3-floor buildings were largely devoted to tourism shops and restaurants. It makes me wonder what else there is to do in Greece, as I seriously saw no other industry my whole time there. Maybe that’s why they’re in such financial trouble with the EU; with the world in a relative recession still, people have cut back on traveling to spend money. If Greece hasn’t anything else to do, they’re likely hit hard by the potential cutback in tourism (although I didn’t notice much slowness in that). That, and did I mention how cheap it was?

But off of my soap box. I enjoyed some of the best Italian gelato I’ve ever had (the kind that makes you stop in the middle of the street and look in amazement down at the cone you’re holding), and had a Greek salad at a little restaurant in the Old Town somewhat off the beaten path. Once again, I’m just not a fan of Greek food; a true Greek salad consists of no salad at all (in my understanding of the word); no lettuce, just cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, feta, and oil/vinegar. Don’t get me wrong—they were all fresh and delicious (especially the tomatoes, just as everywhere else in Greece that I had tomatoes), but just not my cup of tea.

Eventually, being dead-tired from walking for several hours in heat I haven’t been recently used to (when I left Germany the day before, I was wearing jeans due to the chill in the air), I found the beach I had intended to find the day before. Wow. The brochure wasn’t lying when it said there were more than 4,000 beach chairs laid out on a 4 kilometer stretch of sandy beach. Remember again here that sandy is a relative term. Still, it was gorgeous, packed, and a perfect place for another nap.

After the fact, determined to catch the sunset I had missed the day before due to being lost (gasp), I headed back to the hotel and bought one of the cheap beach towels. I should have done that beforehand… oops. I bought a cheap pizza to go and enjoyed it on my balcony, watching the initial phase of the sunset. Afterward, when my Greek Putumayo playlist ended and my pizza was gone, I headed down to the beach to shoot the sunset (photograph, that is), and enjoy a few Stella beers. Hey, I had tried the Greek beers, but the Stellas were cheap.

By this point, my feet were literally pounding in pain due to all the walking I had done, yet I strolled about for another 45 minutes to try to find some live music to chill with for the evening. I failed; just like in Germany, live music doesn’t seem to be too popular on Rhodes.

Instead, I headed back to my balcony to have a few “Super Market” Stellas and update my music playlists on my laptop something far overdue. Look at me being productive in paradise… of course, I got hungry around 2am, but lucky for me I could see a 24 hour pizzeria from my balcony, so I headed down to get a cheap sandwich. Greece seems much more lax on hours than Germany; most things were even open Sunday. 

The next morning was that of my booked excursion to Symi Island, so I was up surprisingly early enough to have some of the included-in-the-price breakfast (with wonderful coffee, I might add), and was about to leave when I found out my third and final night was supposed to be in the original hotel I booked rather than the one I was in. Here I should mention the way I found out: the keys in both hotels I stayed in, as is common practice in Europe, are made to slide into a switch or hang as a magnet on a master switch in your room, controlling all the power in the room. That way, when you leave, you must take your key, thus not allowing any power to be wasted (even the AC).

So, due to this particular key being a mammoth iron key with a huge magnet on the back, it was my practice (as most people’s) to leave the key at the front desk any time I left my room; it costs 50 Euros if you lose it. So, I put the key on the desk, and the front desk agent, while on the phone, informed me in her broken English that I should be aware I was only to stay until noon that day before checking out. Apparently my first hotel told them I only stayed for two nights. So, with literally ten minutes before the bus was supposed to pick me up from the bus stop for the excursion, I had to run upstairs and pack everything in a matter of 5 minutes to be out of the room.

And I did it! The desk agent let me keep my bag in the luggage room, and off I went to the ferry boat for the excursion. It was packed, too… but still, a nice boat, and familiar being that I’ve worked on a riverboat before.

The cruise to Symi’s first port (a monastery) was quite pleasant; I sat on the third (top) deck, and sun bathed the entire journey. I was one of only two people that I noticed that was not part of a couple or family, so that was a bit odd… but lucky for me, I don’t care. There was an extremely annoying Scotsman (I think… I did not even realize he was speaking English until the return journey) that roamed the ship with his pals the whole time, but no matter.

The scenery, obviously, was gorgeous; random Greek Isles left and right! The first stop was a bit of a bore, but it was pretty nonetheless… just a church, and how many of THOSE have I seen thus far? Again, I should have done the Vatican last to make those I’ve seen following more interesting.

We only stayed on that side of the island for an hour, and after boarding again, it took about 45 minutes to get to the primary port and its Isla Roatan-esque views. It was truly gorgeous! Again, touristy as anything you can see, but I escaped the bustle of that and decided to venture up the mountain for better views.

Keep in mind here that the whole port town (quite small, really… only 2,000 people live on the island total from what I was told) is built on a fairly constant steep, steep incline; the Greek Isles have a habit of being mountains sticking out of the water. The trip up the hill, therefore, was constant stairs with little to no horizontal surface. The stairs, I may add, did nothing for personal safety; that doesn’t seem to be a Greek priority. That, and I got the feeling few of the fat tourists coming to the island bothered to get much farther than the shops, so the way up was treacherous indeed; the stairs were all uneven, there was rubble/debris everywhere, and sometimes you couldn’t even tell where the stairs were. Don’t even wish for a hand rail.

So, much out of breath, I finally made it almost all the way up the mountain to a beautiful church that was easily seen from the bay below. Naturally it was closed, but I’d say the  view was WELL worth the climb and realization of how out of shape I was (and am). I stayed up in my bird’s eye view perch for the better part of an hour, taking pictures and just gazing; you could see the entire port town from where I was, as well as a good deal of the rest of that side of the island and the ships coming to and from port.

What I failed to realize, though, is that when one goes UP a mountain, one must also come DOWN. That was a bit tricky… especially considering I tend to go up stairs better than I go down. Needless to say, it took me twice as long to get down than up, being that I had to look down the whole way to make sure I didn’t miss one of the non-existent stairs and tumble hundreds of feet below. The fact that I was, as always, wearing flip flops didn’t help much either. 

So, knees shaky for the better part of the rest of the day, I had an iced coffee (called a “frappe,” so know what you’re in for when you order what you think is a blended coffee drink in Greece) and walked around the rest of the viewable horseshoe bay for different angles of the bay. Quite beautiful!

I snoozed much of the way back on the top deck again, being quite hot from the isle itself; it seems it acts as a natural shelter or cove from the sea breezes, so it felt much like a breezeless day in Savannah. The top deck of the ferry, though, was quite nice, and ignoring the Scots again, I snoozed for a bit.

We docked back in Rhodes around 6pm, and wanting to catch the sunset on the north tip of the island, I headed back to the hotel to get my bag and transfer hotels. Naturally, when I got to the hotel I original booked again, they were confused about my reservation, and it took twenty minutes or so for them to find me a room; I guess it would have been too embarrassing to have walked me to another hotel again.

When I finally got a room assignment, let’s just say… I moved from the penthouse suite to the mother-in-law suite. Granted, this room had a kitchenette, but it had obviously not been remodeled as my last hotel had, and it was on the first floor (remember: in Europe, the “first floor” is what we consider the “second,” with our deemed “first floor” being called “ground floor”) right next to the noise of the Sunset Strip and the lobby (as I was literally right above it. Luckily for me, I could care less, and watching the Sunset Strip was even more amusing from this hotel due to it being on the actual block of the strip rather than a block away.

Here’s another helpful hint about hotels in Greece: something unbeknownst to me, there actually is a distinction between a reservation WITH and WITHOUT air conditioning. Although I know they were wrong, because I saw nothing of the sort on the website I reserved the hotel with (a third party booking site called “hostelworld.com,” something VERY helpful when booking hotels and hostels in Europe). But no matter. So, I was told I could purchase air conditioning for 7 Euros, but being cheap and realizing it would cool off a good deal at night as it always does in Europe, I opted out of that. Go figure. 

Still, though… I can’t complain. 90ish Euros for 3 nights, two of which in what I would consider a 4 star hotel? Not bad. This last night’s stay, on the plus side, allowed me free internet. When I say that, I mean I found a signal I could bum off of someone. So, I sorted out school things that night and whatnot, trying to register for classes at two different universities (AASU and SSU) to no true positive end.

I may point out, beware of complications while studying abroad, especially if your semester abroad does not match that of your home university. Because most systems in American universities are automated, you’re likely to have your account frozen when your grades are not turned in during the time they’re due for regular students at home. That means you can’t register for the next semester, which for me will start less than a week after I return. It’s a bit difficult to deal with being thousands of miles away, too, so remember: patience is a virtue. :)

I suppose I should have gotten up early and done something Sunday morning, but I was under the impression that I had to leave by noon-ish to get to the airport to return, so I dilly-dallied around and just viewed the beach for a bit while waiting on the bus to the airport. The bus drivers there are quite helpful, although somewhat short with you. For example, I got on the wrong bus, and the driver allowed me to stand next to him for free while he pointed out where I should get off of his bus and onto the correct one for the airport. You wouldn’t get that in America… or anywhere, for that matter!

Unfortunately for me, I got to the airport an hour earlier than I intended, being that my flight wasn’t until around 3pm local time, but I used the time to finish up my last project of the semester while looking out of the terminal at the Aegean Sea, so it wasn’t a total loss. Upon my arrival back (after reading a hundred pages in Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson and ignoring the young couple next to me making out the whole time), I realized I had gone from paradise-like sun and warmth to rain and cool weather in Germany. Just my luck.

No big deal, though, as the rain stopped by the time I got back to Trier. Naturally, I missed the bus from Nells Park by one minute, so I walked the exactly 40 minute walk back to Martinskloster. I had forgotten there was a festival going on right outside my dorm called the Zurlauberner Ufer Festival (the name of the little district of the city I live in by the Mozel River), so it was quite hopping when I got back. That’s why I love Germany and Europe in general; random festivals go on all the time in much more of a serious manner than those we may have in the states!

Getting back to reality meant I had to figure out how I was going to give this presentation I had just finished in the Rhodes airport; my new laptop (which will be sold upon my return due to its large-ness) has no VGA port to connect to the projectors in all the university rooms. Don’t ask me why, but it only has HDMI. Out with the old, in with the new I suppose.

So, I had to go borrow a friend’s Dell laptop charger and try to get my old laptop (whose screen is broken halfway through) to work; it has the correct port. Luckily it works, and being that I’ll be using the projector anyway (or “beamer” as the Germans call it), I’ll just ignore the fact that I can’t see the screen. I’ll have to borrow the Dell charger again to get it to work, though; the battery seems not to hold a charge anymore.

Monday (yesterday) entailed the last classes of several ones of mine, including my final Business English Presentations class whereby the teacher from South Africa insisted we all bring wine to class and celebrate the semester’s end. We’d go to jail for that in America… but the whole class enjoyed wine after the grades had been handed out, and we stayed even longer than the class normally meets!

Yesterday was nice, too, to get to see a lot of my Erasmus friends for some of the last times this semester! The whole day, people came in and out of the various places I was perched between classes to catch up and compare leaving plans. Which reminds me: literally in ONE WEEK, I will leave Trier forever! Sadness!

Speaking of, I just wrote out what I should say to our house master that does not like foreigners and refuses to speak English; I was supposed to let him know two weeks before I leave to set up a check out date, but I keep putting it off. Normally, one of the girls two doors down from me would help me (she gets a stipend from the dorm to help students anyway), but she’s not here at present… so I wrote something out directly translated from my dictionary and gave it to another friend just now to rewrite. I figured if I put an effort to write something out in the first place, it would at least amuse my German friend when he re-writes the whole thing to say I’m leaving next Monday. :)

So, that about does it for this past week. It’s Tuesday now, and I have my final presentation on a film, Lone Star, in two hours or so after I try to confront the hausmiester. Tonight, after my final Northwest Coast Writing seminar, I have a little get-together with the other Trier Center for American Studies interns for our end-of-the-semester goodbye fling. Tomorrow, I must get my “scheins” together (grades, essentially, from each professor), which is going to be a pain; when we leave, we must have an “exit form” filled out, a sheet of signatures from all our teachers for ISEP’s proof of completion of courses, and a separate certificate from each professor saying we’ve completed the class and how many ETCS points we get from each class. That is difficult being that most teachers will not be giving out grades for the next few weeks as students have papers to turn in and whatnot, so we’ll see what happens.

Luckily for me, I’ve already turned in the one paper I wrote this term (on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five), and I only have one exam this Thursday. I should probably study for that. Otherwise, the rest of the week will entail beginning planning what hostels I’ll stay in over my end-of-the-semester trip throughout Europe, partying for the last week with the other Erasmus students, and packing! :( Sadness!

So, until next week-ish…

Ah, to be Erasmus.

Well, it’s currently one of the prettier days we’ve had in Trier for a while, so I am sitting in what is known as the Palace Garden, as I have mentioned before, taking in a few cosmic rays. Being that it’s so bright, I can barely see the screen, so we’ll see if anything I type actually makes any sense later.

Typically, I would be with other friends while chilling in the park, but being that finals are coming up and papers are due, most of those I know are being productive inside today. Not me! I do need to do a few things, needless to say, but I know me: on a day like today, I would get absolutely nothing accomplished by sitting inside, so I bought myself a disposable grill, a beer, and a bottle of wine, and am quite content to be as useless as possible.

Maybe I’ll do a presentation tonight. Maybe.

Due to leaving my Verizon (American) phone in Paris last week [and to which the lovely employees of the hostel I stayed in are utterly useless in helping], I’ve been without my radio to listen to Das Ding, the German radio station I frequently listen to when going to and fro in the city. So, I’ve made myself listen to the new Lady Gaga cd out of sheer loyalty, and I must say: I’m addicted. The album isn’t as good as the first two, but I’m grooving quite well to it…

This week has flown by with a series of parties signaling the end of the semester. It’s quite bittersweet; I’m not at all looking forward to the fairy tale ending, yet at the same time I’m not exactly dreading going back to the good ‘ole US of A. If my sister were not moving to Savannah to attend AASU in August, I’d likely be more reluctant to return, but as she is… well, it will be even more fun.

Before I note a few of the events of the past week, I thought I may make a brief list of things I’ll miss versus not in Trier/Europe versus America.

Things I’ll miss:

-The ease of traveling via trains/busses/low-cost airlines

-The laid-back mentality regarding drinking, specifically the ability to walk around the city with a whole bottle of wine in hand

-German [Italian] ice cream

-The ability to grill in public spaces

-The ability to walk virtually everywhere in any city with excellent public transportation; no car needed

-CHEAP cheap cheap alcohol and basic foods (bread, sausage, etc)

-Phands [bottle deposits] returned upon a bottle’s return; forced recycling

-Once-per-week classes

-Most of all: all the awesome people I have met in my travels

Things I WON’T miss:

-The absolute ridiculousness of it being hard to get internet

-The bipolar weather; I should NEVER have to wear a jacket in JULY. Period.

-The lack of a beach within a bazillion miles

-An exchange rate which rapes me with every purchase

-The inability to use credit cards everywhere

-No access to 24-hour stores

-The fact that virtually everyone smokes

-Hideous European-loving hatchback cars… station wagons on crack

-Gas prices equivalent of $8.50/gallon

I’ll keep adding to this list as I think of things to add.

As for the past week: as I said, apparently the theme of the week was parting. Not sure why, honestly, being that we still have three weeks-ish left, but literally every night at the University this week, some form of party was going on. I attended ones from Tuesday-Friday, met many interesting people along the way, and lowered the life expectancy of my liver by a third more than likely. But hey, what else is college for?

Oh yes, I went to classes too. That’s always fun. Actually, I’m lying a bit there: as I’ve said before, I like the classes I take here better than all but one class I’ve taken in America thus far; all of my classes are smaller, and the professors seem to be really engaged in what they’re teaching. I’ve been to four different universities in Georgia, so I feel like I can make that claim.

But, likely, it’s just the fact that taking classes in Germany is a bit exotic, different, and charming that makes me like the classes better. I acknowledge there may be a bit of bias present. That, and this is the first semester of my life where I feel like a true college student; although I have had one semester of not working while in school before, it did not feel like a true “college experience” due to having a steady girlfriend, little money, underage to drink, and no car. In short, it was a bit miserable.

Here, though, my plans from day to day rest solely on what I decide to spur-of-the-moment do without any true responsibilities. It’s a great feeling to be able to do whatever you want whenever you want, all at the same time as hundreds of other students.

Because of Germany’s socialist-styled government, students here have most of their education paid for. This takes the responsibility of paying back student loans [eventually] off of most of their shoulders, and for those that do have to take out loans, many programs exist to cause them to not have to pay any interest on those loans, and often the students only have to pay back half of what they borrow provided they meet a set of requirements in payments. 

But, while this sounds awesome, keep in mind it is due to those working paying more taxes than Americans pay. Because Americans are so against taxes for ANY reason, I seriously doubt any similar system would work stateside.

So, due to my consumption of the travel bug while in Europe, I’m going to be in a bit of shock when I get home and realize I can’t just see the world like many of my European counterparts are able to do; a job/jobs and the looking realization that I will have monthly payments to Uncle Sam for student loans for the rest of my life will put a bit of a cork in that bottle of champagne.

Do I regret it? Absolutely not. I feel that I’m doing everything I could ever want to do, within reason, all inside the confines of a specific economic system. That, and I’ve been scheming how to get away with traveling more while I’m young without directly getting in financial trouble…

Idea one: work in Europe after graduation for a few years. Obviously, this would require moving a long way away from America for a long time, but just think: if the dollar stays as weak as it is against the Euro, I could essentially pay back my students in almost half the time by earning money in Euros to pay back my dollar-valued loans. Good thought, eh?

Idea two: drag out school. Either slow down my current graduation date of next may by putting off classes a semester or two, or graduate on time and go straight into graduate school. After all, as long as you are in an American school, you can defer payments of student loans. Not ideal, but if you figure the number of years 

it’ll take to pay back all the loans anyway, the point is essentially moot.

Idea three: spend six months out of school, working and/or traveling a bit, then re-enroll in school. You have six months deference after exiting any given semester before Uncle Sam starts harassing you, so that gives a bit of time to draw a few plans up of what to do.

I feel I’m being the ideal citizen by thinking of ways to cheat my government. Well, cheat is the wrong word… thinking of ways to use the system to my advantage. Am I unique in these ideas? Absolutely not. But, if one wants to enjoy the finer points of this enormous world before being too old to appreciate all there is to see, one must think of a way to do it. What’s that saying? 

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Anyway, enough social commentary for now. On a whim, I decided to go to Koln [with “o umlaut,” but I can’t remember how to make that character appear] with an American friend to pick up her brother on Saturday [yesterday]. Although I wasn’t expecting the train journey to take a full four hours, I’d say it was worth the trip if even for the brief visit that it was. I didn’t leave Trier until around noon, and we left by 7pm 

from Koln to return. 

The reason I left so late: a friend when to America with his girlfriend a few weeks ago and brought me back a bottle of Cruzan rum, my very favorite. Needless to say, we had a good time watching 80s movies and sipping St. Croix’s best creation. I’ll leave it at that.

As in many European cities, Koln [in English, Cologne] has a magnificent cathedral. Can it compare to the Vatican? Not a chance. Even so, this particular cathedral [or Dom in German] has a tower that you can climb all 500+ steps to its top. What a view! It was a truly strange climb, though; the entire way up, all stairs, was a very tightly woven spiral staircase. It was dizzying to say the least.

That, and I felt like the most out of shape person ever, sweating on a relatively cool day after climbing more steps than should be allowed by nature. Well worth the view, though.

We didn’t stay much longer after the cathedral, as it was getting late and my friend’s brother was exhausted from traveling from Minnesota to Germany over the last 20 hours or so. But, we did stay long enough for me to find a Dunkin Doughnuts, a personal favorite in America… and I paid 1.30 Euros for ONE doughnut that really wasn’t that good… oh well.

Upon our return in Trier, we had dinner and later I met up with several friends at the Irish Pub to celebrate one of the Irish girls’ family being in town. It’s hard to beat drinking with Irish people, I won’t lie.

That brings me back to today, still sitting contentedly in the park. My biggest dilemma of the day: should  I grill some hot dogs or not? Life sucks sometimes, doesn’t it…

One final note: I did buy the tickets to the places I mentioned in my last entry for the same dates, give or take a few days. I still need to figure out how to get to and from all these airports to hostels which I also have not booked, so that’s going to be fun.

But: what I’m most excited about is going to Rhodes, Greece, this coming Thursday! I always wanted to go to Greece, and saw some tickets to the home of the Colossus, one of the seven man-made wonders of the world, on an island which likely resembles paradise. I’m pumped for it… three nights in Greece!

So, until next week… we’ll see what I can get myself into.

**Slight update: I typed this on Sunday the 3^rd, but never got around to posting. So, yesterday (the 4^th), after sitting through classes all day and finally giving my English Business Presentations speech [which went well, obviously, being a native speaker], a group of twenty or so Americans and other Erasmus students grilled out by the Mozel River until well after midnight.

Having had, shall we say, way too much the night before, I decided a calm night would be the way to go. Even so, after bbq’ing, we went out with some newly-met American students. It is incredible how many Americans are in a random German city smaller than Savannah. The closeness of the US army base helps, but the number of American students is quite baffling. Most of those we recently met attend the local craft/technical school and/or attending 6-week intensive language classes.

Once again, have I mentioned how bad the American military makes America look? It’s truly depressing; one of even the military wives asked my British friend where he was from, and he responded “England.” Her response? “England… you mean, like the country?”

I couldn’t keep myself from hysterically laughing at her lack of intelligence, which promptly pissed her off and her military boyfriend, who proceeded to threaten me. Come on, if anything, your girlfriend should be threatened to invest in a brain you moron. 

This is just but one example of the military. I hate to generalize, but most of them I see are only in bars and clubs, and they typically get overly drunk, obnoxious, and threatening. It’s hilarious to watch, though, once the embarrassment subsides. The local Irish Pub typically kicks them all out around 2am, and all of them head to another nearby club, Zapotex, promptly thereafter. Zapotex, which I have friends working at, makes bank on them due to the Irish Pub’s “buttering them up.” Hey, with little living costs and honestly nothing better to do, they blow money like candy and often brag about having the ability to do so along the way.

Nothing truly gets out of hand most of the time; they typically just embarrass the other Americans and annoy the Germans. Still… thanks, Uncle Sam, for limiting the drinking age to 21 and legally mandating men of age 18 to sign up for the draft, allowing them in situations where they can both drink legally, with little prior experience with alcohol, and potentially ordered to kill people. 

It just makes perfect sense.