On Runaways

Hey lovies! In the 2 months (whoops) since we last spoke I've been bopping around as expected/promised. I've finished up my fall school semester academically, but more notably, I rounded out my travels with Amsterdam and Prague, and, Berlin, and am now BACK at good old Wesleyan University, my American butt settled in Usdan University center, sipping my earl grey like nothing happened.

EVEN THOUGH study abroad feels SO far away, this crazy traveling has made me lose sight of what real life is in some of the best ways: I thought I was spoiled for great museums, food, and sights from NYC and now I am lucky enough to add a whole bunch of other sights and scenes to my list. No matter what city I'm in, hieroglyphics will remind me of the Met, and train systems will make me yearn for the 2/3, in all its dysfunctional glory. Nonetheless, when I got back to west 104 the feeling reversed a little and little things about Paris have been popping up reminding me of the time I've spent abroad, and back at Wes I can't help but feel a little out of place even though I'm back where I'm used to.

In Amsterdam we stayed in a hostel that reminded me of the middle of times square (don't freak @mom, it was clean and normal), and while a lot of Amsterdam reminded my of my trip to Copenhagen (festive, Nordic, crisp in a cozy way) it was like Copenhagen's younger, grungier cousin. If you wanted to buy a postcard you could choose between a sweeping skyline or blatant porn, and walking along the streets you can just as easily find a cafe as a prostitute to sleep with in the red light district. I spent my time there downing hot chocolate, admiring the sights, and commenting on where Dutch pancakes fall on the pancake spectrum. We also visited the Van Gogh and modern art museums, including Moco where we perused Banksy's work and wondered how we were supposed to enjoy an artist's work when her/his work is directly against exposition.

The most striking was (unsurprisingly) the Anne Frank House, where I walked through where she lived in hiding and was eventually found by Nazis in 1944. Obviously, the experience was emotional and depressing but I walked out feeling weirdly inspired, because despite that the holocaust that gave Anne's writing context, despite the fact that WW2 was the end of the world for so many people and families, Anne created a work that survived her end of the world, and for a writer, that's pretty big.

Food was everywhere in Amsterdam, waffles covered in delicious looking sweet sauces, pizzas topped with various assortments, baked potatoes roasting: in short, every storefront was a munchies advertisement. My favorite meal was at Moders, a traditional Dutch food resto that had hands down the best cider I've ever tasted (elderflower infused!!) and a wide range of plates that were cozy (if that makes sense). The whole restaurant was plastered with photos of mothers in their family photos, and all the silverware was mismatched--people reportedly brought their own for the restaurant when it opened.

My second favorite was a slightly ridiculous boat brunch that I booked, where we munched on eggs benny and motored slowly around the canals of Amsterdam sipping our drinks and juice before heading out to watch the world pass by, cold stinging our cheeks. It was one of those moments where tranquil scenery reflected exactly where my mind was, and I felt a crazy rush of gratitude for the present moment as we moseyed along a canal, taking life as it hit us. Do I sound like a study abroad brochure yet? Great.

Also, I feel like I have to mention our brunch place Bakers and Roasters which was 100% yum and fulfilled my constant need for a strawberry milkshake.

Moving swiftly on: Prague was cold and rainy, but underneath all that there was a definite charm, lots of Christmas cheer, cheap eats, and a beautiful castle. My dad and I traipsed around, stepping quickly over the cobblestones so that we could make our way to everything in our short weekend trip. The Charles Bridge, Astronomical Clock, and Castle were the tourist-y activities we subscribed to, and only the Castle took more than 15 minutes to admire.

The clock was gilded and gave off its own magic energy that was a little inexplicable, despite the hordes of tourists in front of it. Standing in front of the clock felt important, not because it was personally significant, but because it was emotionally significant to the masses around me. Or you know, the stars were in alignment. On the other hand, Prague's castle and its surrounding buildings, which is the "largest coherent castle complex in the world" was a different kind of special: It was like seeing another world through a film of glass: there were halls and halls of armor, customized to phantom people, mini houses that housed psychics and KAFKA, as well a chilling torture chamber--it gave off some serious princess bride vibes.

The food was incredible, and everywhere we turned there was a market to bop around, despite the constant snowfall.

Apparently, Europe doesn't get colder, it just gets wetter, and my moist experience in Prague was followed by a similar experience in Berlin. Ms. Rachel Bass joined me in Paris and we popped to Berlin on a flight. For our first two days we combatted spitting rain as we wandered about Christmas markets, eating fried foods (did you know the original burger was a delish, kugel-like doughnut?) and sipping various warm and alcoholic drinks.

 Besides the sheer quantity of markets available to us, the most salient part of Berlin was the art. We visited quite a handful of modern art museums, which were truly moving and thought-provoking. It is only recently that my brain (probably due to the sheer amount of art I've seen) has accepted modern art as a way of thinking, a way of finding inspiration, a way of understanding the world. My favorites were Hamburger Bahnhof and KW. Here are some pictures of my favorite pieces:

Speaking of Art and Culture, we went to two pieces of theater, one of which was in German, and v. hard to understand with my vocabulary of no German words, but what I understood before we left before intermission was that it was about political powers working against/for fascism in order to get clean water for the community. So there's that. The second show we saw was a classic European 3-hour long endeavor, but it had subtitles! It was called Democracy, went up at the Deutsches Theater, and used a lot of interesting Brechtian devices to tell the story of a Berlin political party's attempt to create democracy after WW2, as a spy from East Berlin infiltrates and becomes emotionally attached with the party's leader. There was lipsyncing, filmed video projections of what was happening on stage, and general distance-creation that did its job to make me parse out the political situation and think about how interesting it is to be emotionally connected and have culturally regulated barriers.

We also spent New Years in Berlin, which was insane. We started off the night at Prinzipale, a speakeasy-type bar with a burlesque (!!) show, and rang in the new year with some fancy cocktails, the Charleston, and some silly fun dancing, before traipsing the streets where every man, woman, and child seemed to be lighting some sort of illegal firework (not illegal in Berlin, evidently), getting on the train, and heading out to Sisyphus, one of Berlin's well known techno clubs. Techno is um...not my thing, to say the least, but I felt like I had to at least try it in the world's techno capital, and although Sisyphus confirmed that I'll always be a theme party girl, the space was incredible: it hosted a handful of different rooms with different vibes, and it felt a little bit like Sleep No More, but less theatrical and more lasers.

Something I found weirdly disappointing was the historical attention paid to WW2 and the Holocaust: the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, with its intense name, was not as moving as I wanted it to be. The historical museums were full of information that I already knew. Maybe I am particularly well informed (I doubt it) but I didn't have any emotional or startling feelings visiting the memorials/museums, and the most powerful memorial we found was actually in Paris.

On our last night, we headed to the Green Door speakeasy because it was steps away from our AirBNB, but I would have been happy there even if we had journeyed to it--the list of cocktails was fantastic, and the vibe was cozy and classy. After the Green Door, we headed to the Kit Kat Club, because what else are two theater majors to do in Berlin? KitKat is a "sex club" that is reported to be too rowdy to be believed, but my experience felt pretty similar to my experiences at other clubs--sure everyone was a little less dressed, but most people were clothed, and it was still the same gender dynamic.

Soon enough, we were back on a flight to ye old Paris, and hit all the big spots (Marais, Rodin, Pompidou, Orangie, Versailles, Notre-Dame) before I got on my final plane of the semester back home.

A plane ride always feels vaguely void-like to me, so it was an absolute shock to touch down in Newark, after being nowhere for 8ish hours. I made my way through an incredibly long customs process, hauled my stuff into the car, and drove down familiar roads with the strange impression that I hadn't been anywhere. Maybe I dreamed it, I thought to myself, and if I didn't have photos and a transcript to prove otherwise, it would be easy to convince me that I had just woken up, disoriented and melancholy, from a beautiful 6-month-long dream. Then home set in, and I was so happy to be comfy and surrounded by the most important people in my life.

I feel like I got to run away from the parts of me that were hard: I got to melt the stress, the future and the past off my bones. Briefly, it was just me living in the present, creating and experiencing for the moment without a connection to anything before or after. It was just enough to change the way I think and experience a little, before returning, definitively, back to Earth.

So there you go. Study Abroad, done. Next chapter coming soon, probably in the form of thoughts and minutia. xo