Luxembourg

Here it is, the last stop of the first part of my European travels. So it's not Paris, but it is the Notre Dame, and it's beautiful. I really liked Luxembourg, a neat, modern city with some really great history and scenery. Yet again, another country, another feel to the city. Luxembourg gave me the impression of a big business city that takes a relaxed approach. Not a lot of honking, buses who let you cross the street in front of them, all with a beautiful ravine cut right through the center of town with beautiful parks and a river at the bottom. Nice and peaceful, but still with plenty to do. It was a nice break from the bustle of Eastern Europe that I enjoyed so much. Still, it was mid-December and so cold, but definitely a place I will return to, especially as it's only a three hour train ride away. I enjoyed wandering the streets here, where the buildings have the typical European closeness, but still have a style that's unique to Luxembourg. I really liked this blue house below.

The advantage to traveling Europe in December, is that you get Christmas markets, (oder Weihnachtsmarkt), and Luxembourg had a pretty cool one. It was fun to see the little rides that are clearly ripping off some Disney song or theme, all the people standing around drinking Glühwein, wandering amongst the stalls charging way too much for their respective crafts, and discovering the local take on fried potatoes. So I had previously been to the Mainzer Weihnachtsmarkt, and there had Kartoffelpuffers. Here in Luxembourg, they did a similar thing, but instead of frying potatoes with the consistency of hash-browns, they have this machine squeezing out potato paste in the shape of a small churro. And instead of eating it with apple sauce, here they serve it with melted chocolate. Oh, so good. I grabbed some on my way back to the train station and was glad the chocolate didn't harden until I was almost done. It started pretty warm, but it was really cold.

So there it is, two months of traveling Europe, with finding an apartment in the middle. It kind of hit me yesterday as I was filling out my customs claim form. One question they ask is what countries you visited and then provide two lines for your answer. It wasn't enough room. After listing Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Rep., Switzerland, Italy, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Luxembourg, I hoped I wasn't leaving any out. (I didn't include Slovenia or Croatia because I never got off the train.) It's been a crazy past two months, more if you include the US road trip, but it's been awesome. I've had the most amazing experiences, some that I never imagined would come my way. I've filled three pages in my passport with visa stamps, attended church in three very different german dialects and in Czech, used half a dozen different currencies, made some really spectacular friends, and started making real progress in my German language skills. Traveling alone, I had a lot of time to ponder and reflect on things, and not having any real responsibilities, had the time to sit and be inspired by the wonder of God's creation in a world so similar and yet dissimilar to the one I've know thus far in my life.

I'd just say that I've learned a lot about myself and other things, but then I hear Amber's voice in my head asking, "What did you learn?" not allowing me to get away with just throwing out a cliche. So here goes, I learned that:

• I can order food without speaking a common language.
• the most useful words in a language are the numbers.
• kids are kids no matter what language they speak or where they live.
• visiting four museums in a day is about two museums too many.
• most Czech castles are closed Nov-Mar.
• not everyone agrees on what to do with used toilet paper.
• sunsets across the Venetian Lagoon are spectacular.
• I'm terrible at describing the feeling of sitting in the Theater of Dionysus.
• sometimes you can trust strangers.
• sometimes you can't.
• most people try to do what they believe to be right.
• night trains are a great way to travel.
• I wouldn't have wanted to be a Medieval miner.
• the exchange rate in train stations is never the best you'll find in the city.
• it doesn't hurt to ask if you're getting on the right train.
• Czech buses are often better than Czech trains.
• Switzerland is expensive, but beautiful.
• there's more than one way of doing things.
• I love Eastern Europe.
• I'm not a big city person.
• I love old stuff.
• the Holocaust was the greatest travesty of recent history.
• we didn't learn the lesson.
• I love my family.
• they love me.
• there's more to life than what can be found on the Internet.
• God doesn't care what language you speak, He just likes hearing from you.

So thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. I have many more travels ahead of me as I live in Europe these next few years. So check in every so often, see if I've been somewhere new or gone back to get one more look at something I've already seen.

Αθηνα

In case you aren't up on your Greek, that's Athina, or Athens. I can't believe that I wasn't originally planning on coming here. People say that there are three places you have to go to say you've been to Europe: Paris, Venice, and Vienna. Well, I've done two of the three, and Athina should be ahead of them both. Maybe it depends on who you are, but for me there is nothing like knowing you're standing where the ancient Greeks stood over 2000 years ago. It's hard to describe the feeling of sitting in the Theater of Dionysos knowing that 2000 years ago, someone sat there to watch the plays of Aristophanes. It's really hard for me to explain how amazing that felt. Everything else here is amazing as well. Like the caryatids of the Erechtheion.Truly beautiful. I spent all morning on top of the Acropolis looking at basically three buildings. Maybe it's because I've wanted to come here since I was like 16, but it was so cool to be up there. You also get a good feel for how large Athina is from up there. A city of 3.5 million people, it stretches as far as the eye can see (on a foggy day). I came to Athina to see old stuff. While in Sofiya, I went into a church that had been built during the reign of Constantine. Here, I've been to buildings several hundred years older than that. But surrounding all that old stuff is a big, new city. Full of people selling rip off Prada purses and Rolex watches, huge office and apartment buildings, and lots of traffic. Then right next to the subway station, Hadrian's Library is sitting there behind a fence. After a while, the ruins all seem kind of the same, so I find I'm not taking as many pictures of old crumbled pillars as I thought I would. But it doesn't stop me being blown away as I stand in the Roman Agora where the main commerce of the city took place after 300 AD.

Sofiya

Part of the purpose of my trip this week was to use up my train pass, part was to go somewhere warm. Sofiya didn't accomplish either of those goals, but I'm glad I stopped there. Sofiya takes the anything goes attitude of Beograd and puts it to good use. I went through the Sofiya Synagoge which was beautiful. Pictured above is the chandelier inside, the largest in Europe at 2000 kg. The synagoge is adajacent to the Romanian Orthodox Church, not far from the Sofiya Mosque. Currently, 2000 of Bulgaria's 6000 Jews live in Sofiya. Before the war, there were 52000 Jews here. But happily, they weren't killed, they moved to Isreal after its formation. Bulgaria never expelled or surendered its Jewish population. They moved there after being expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and stayed until moving to Isreal. So Bulgaria wins a place on my list of countries I highly respect.

Sofiya isn't as well set up for tourists as Beograd was, which meant I did a lot more wondering, but it was great. They have the normal sights you'd expect from a national capitol, the parliment, the national museum, the national theater or opera, huge churches, but they have something I've only seen one other place (Bratislava), a public hall. It's kind of like the open markets you see in other places, but it's indoors. It's a cool place to relax, get some food, and people watch.

I got a doner for lunch. I figure it's a Turkish food, and I'm closer to Turkey now, so they should be more authentic, right? I think it's more that each area developed their own style. The ones here don't come in the pita, they wrap it around it. they put fries in it too. It was good. More spicey. That was nice.

Beograd

Back before I was planning to move to Germany, when people asked me what I was going to do after finishing my PhD, I said I was going to move east, like Indiana. So Germany's just a little farther east, but I wonder if I went far enough. I love Eastern Europe. Love it. Beograd is such a cool place. Of all the places I've been, they have the weakest currency/economy, and you can see that, but they're fighting to improve. I get the impression that Serbians, at least those in the capitol, are in a hurry to improve, but stuck with what they have for now. I think that's why they honk their horns so much. Like constantly. But in Beograd, anything goes if it increases traffic flow. Like driving on the tram tracks to get to the right turn lane. Or parking in a no parking spot as long as you get out of the street.

The "castle" in Beograd is more like a heavily fortified park. Even back before it was heavily damaged, the idea was to have the whole of this hilltop protected and available to mount a defense. I enjoyed the couple hours I spent wandering this area. Then the hours wandering the pedestrian area that starts next to it and extends to the main square downtown. Beograd has the large impressive buildings you expect from a capitol city, and churches that are fantastic. Like the one at the fortress that is clearly a soldier's church, complete with chandeliers made of bullets and sabers. Taking the "beating your swords into [chandeliers]" scripture literally.

It's hard for me to explain, but I just loved the feel of Beograd. I loved walking across the main bridge, feeling it shake as the buses passed over the expansion joints. I loved the Bohemian Quarter with the building painted with a realistic looking facade. I loved the pizza from the little shack Mara in the main square. I didn't plan this city much better than I had Venice, but I got a great, informative tourist map in English. The only problem is that when they transliterate everything to the Roman alphabet, finding where you are when the street signs are in Cyrillic characters is a little tricky.

Venezia

Venezia is a city with character. I assume that most people take the boat from the train station to Piazza San Marco, but I walked it and saw a part of the city they don't show you in the movies. Statues falling apart, buildings falling apart, graffiti everywhere. But I like it. As the city was built on a series of islands with canals everywhere, there are not streets designed to allow large vehicles. A lot of streets are quite narrow between tall apartment buildings. And they hang their laundry to dry on clothes lines stretched between the buildings. It kind of gave me the impression that Venetians love their city the way it is, live the way they want, and let the tourists deal with it.

The Piazza is stunning. An interesting fact is that the floor of the Piazza is not always above sea level. During high tide, it floods. There are these little drains all over the square, and at high tide, the Venetian Lagoon bubbles up and floods most of the Piazza. Like I said, residents accept Venezia the way it is and let tourists deal with it. I spent a lot of time wandering around, eating a couple pizzas and a gelato ice cream cone. I went through the Doge's Palace, but perhaps what I enjoyed the most was the sunset. Across the Lagoon, behind whatever that church is on that island out there. Bella. I sat there for like 30 minutes just taking it in.

Having not planned this trip very well (okay, at all), I had a pretty good day. I'll go back to Venezia someday, but probably not alone, and not without better planning.

Zürich

Last weekend I went to Zürich. It was really great, but cold. There was snow on the ground most of the time I was there. The other thing about Zürich is that it's expensive. But enough with the negatives. I arrived on Friday afternoon and wandered the city a bit until Wicher, my host, got home. It's a very modern city with lots of history. That night, we went to co-worker's of Wicher's to watch a movie, Dr. Strangelove. It was an international crowd so we watched it in English. They were a fun bunch of guys. We were messing around afterward, among the activities was darts. I threw a bulls-eye. That's right, I'm awesome.

On Saturday, I went around the old city more, mostly seeing churches important in the Reformation. Zwingli lived here and his name is everywhere. The churches here were much different from all the others I've seen. Much more simple. Not plain or ugly, but simple. I broke my rule about taking pictures in churches. Having seen the extravigant churches of Germany and Austria, I imagine Italy is even more so, and I can see why Calvin and Zwingli stressed simplicity in their worship. Several of the churches were closed on Saturday for a wedding and other things, so I had to go back on Sunday to see them. It was really cool to be there and think about how much change started there.

That night, Wicher was having a fondu party. It was mostly a Couch Surfer gathering. That was a lot of fun. Fondu is a lot of work, but makes for a great party. Zürich is a very international city, there were people there from all over Europe, the US, and even a girl from South America. Church had a similar mix. Unfortunately, it's also become a rushed big city. Everyone's in a rush. I've been through a fair number of train stations, but haven't seen as many people running around as I saw there. Great place though. I need to go back in the summer. It was so cold.

Mainz

Having been here a week, I guess it's time for the blog on Mainz. I really like this city. It's actually kind of large and thriving. I think the best part is the huge pedestrian shopping area in the inner city, on the border between the new and old towns. It really is huge and filled with everything you could want. Plus lots of pretzel stands and döner kebap joints. I'll tell you what, the döner might not technically be a german food (it's Turkish) but it's amazing. They have this huge like leg of meat thing roasting on a spit, and they carve off the outer layer, fill a homemade pita thing with it and salad, top it with whatever that sauce is, and voila, amazing goodness. It's so filling as well. So I think I'm actually eating cheaper here than when I was in the Czech Republic, but that's because I quit going to restaurants. I pretty much have an apple pastry for breakfast, a döner for lunch or dinner, and a little pizza from a pretzel place for the other meal. It comes to like 6 or 7 Euros a day.

The apartment search goes well. I got help today from Cathy, a woman at the Max Planck Institute who's job is basically helping new students get everything taken care of related to moving to Mainz. She went with me to sign the contract on the apartment, and was amazing dealing with them to get me a good deal. In one short (well not really that short) meeting, I learned a lot about Germans. Germans are very helpful and nice, until you try to do business with them. As Cathy put it, they are all so afraid that the other person is going to rip them off, they all try to rip you off first. So basically there is no trust in German business dealings. I have been having problems getting my money from America into my German bank account, and finally decided to just pull cash out of the ATM here, then take it to the bank to deposit. Well, I can only pull like five or six hundred Euros a day, so I needed them to be willing to let me pay the deposit and such on the apartment next week. It took some doing, but Cathy managed it for me. It helped that the real estate lady wanted to leave for lunch. So tomorrow, we should finish everything up, I'll get the keys, and no longer be homeless.

It's weird to think that this is my new home. I was thinking about it Sunday at church. I've been to church in three different countries and two languages since being here. It kind of felt like just another place I was visiting, but no, this is where I'll be for three years. It's going to be a great place to be. The ward here has been really great, welcoming and friendly. The singles group is great too. There are like 10 or so of them/us. From what I can tell a tight and supportative group. This is going to be a great place for me to be.