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Where shall I begin? Although I last wrote to you toward the end of our journey in Wildhaus, I feel as though I need to say something more about our time in that little-known Swiss gem; however, know that despite my best efforts I am at a loss to find words to truly describe such a place.
I last wrote about the day of our hike along the Alpstein mountain, but due to time restraints I negected to mention a couple of unexpected events that took place on our climb. Firstly, the lady who pointed us in the direction of the hike told us of the great "Two Seas" - a 'must-see', if you will; so, naturally, we set out with our map on a quest for what we thought would eventually be an inspiring, jaw-dropping scene of two big lakes, side by side, high in the mountains. High in the mountains, yes, but, well, I've learned the term "sea" means something different to a native of a land-locked country and to a Canadian. After staring at the map for ages, thinking we were lost and shocked we could have somehow missed this landmark, I looked up and realized we were standing next to a pond. And on the other side of a few trees there existed evidence of a second pond..... Putting two and two together we laughed at Wildhaus' one and only (albeit well intended) let-down - but grateful for the laugh.
Then as we made our way through the mountainside, we were pleasantly surprised by art and musical installations staggered throughout the trail! This I thought was wonderful. Contrasting the surrounding natural environment, unusual metal industrial-looking musical instruments poked out amidst brush and forest and pine needles or stood in the centre blocking our path. Each were specifically designed for their locations and were interactive for hikers of all ages, whether percussion, horn, string, etc. Not being able to translate the German explanations that accompanied each instrument, I can't really tell you any more about them or why they were there, but I was really impressed by Wildhaus' commitment to investing in culture and artistic involvement. Two thumbs up!
Ok, I'll stop talking about Switzerland.
Kristen and I departed Wildhaus on November 3 and took an overnight train to Venice (we stopped for a while in Austria - so, I can say I've been there, too, right?). Without Kristen's EURail pass (oops! - that's another story) and without much sleep we made it to our hostel in Venice by 7 in the morning after having gotten lost only once! We were proud. For those of you who have not been there, know that Venice is *the* most confusing city on the planet. A man-made series of islands (in the greater shape of a fish), Venice is connected by hundreds of small bridges and tiny pedestrian streets and alleys but signage is extremely poor and even people who have lived there for decades get lost all the time. One man told us maps are no good there - no good! Imagine.
I still feel like my stay in Venice was a dream. A fairytale. This place hardly seems tangible. I recall waking from half-sleep as our train pulled into Venice at 6am, slowing on the bridge from mainland Italy, and I was fascinated by the image of an erie mist hovering over dark water in the early morning - only the silhouette of scattered posts with their rowboats tied to them penetrated the mist that replaced any existant horizon. This sense of dreamland still stays with me.
My first day in Venice also happened to be my birthday! It was also known as Pizza Day for Kristen, who consumed roughly 13 pieces of pizza over the course of our weekend! We spent much of our time wandering through Venice and attempting to get our bearings, watching gondoliers navigating through the canals and pottering through markets in search of gelato (a must-do on your first day in Italy!). That evening, we shared a couple bottles of wine with Ning, our Chinese friend currently living in London, and a few American friends studying in Rome. It was a great birthday abroad.
The next morning Ning, Kristen and I visited San Marco square, the Basilica there, and joined our American friends for likely the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted! Later that morning, however, Kristen, Ning and I endeavered to take a gondola ride! But.. it isn't a cheap thing to do in a day for backpackers like ourselves, so in order to lower the cost, we decided to invite others to join us. I suggested we make a sign and stand next to the gondolas - using a spare piece of paper and my back as a table, Kristen drafted "Would you like to join us on a gondola ride?" and all three of us stood there like idiots - but friendly looking idiots! - hoping a passing tourist would take us up on our offer. We got lucky! Minutes later a more-or-less non-English speaking Swiss couple agreed and together the five of us were taken out on the canals of Venice by our favourite veteran gondolier, Marco Antonio. Until this point, apart from the fairytale atmosphere of Venice, I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about the city, I think like a lot of other tourists (it can be smelly and the people may or may not appreciate just how touristy their city is); however, this gondola ride made it for me. It was incredible. Marco Antonio even sang for us!
Later that afternoon the three of us took ferries to the islands of Murano and Burano: Murano to witness mouth-blown handmade glass for which the island is famous; Burano to look for pretty articles made of lace, for which that island is known! On the way back to Venice we met three highly animated non-English speaking women from Napoli who invited us all to stay with them and meet their sons (needless to say, an invitation I have yet to accept!). Good fun, though!
My last day in Venice I was on my own - after a week of traveling together, Kristen and I parted ways as she had many more Pizza Days ahead during her Italian travels, and I was expected the next day in Split, Croatia. I spent my day in a different part of Venice, being drowned by a day of heavy rain (and avoiding the flooded areas) and inside the Peggy Guggenheim museum. The museum is located actually in her former house, and I was lucky enough to witness a presentation of her biography and hear more about her collections. Truly inspiring.
About the floods in Venice - these happen all the time, as you can imagine, in a city built in water, which I understand. Most of you probably know that all over the city they have platforms on hand for when high tides threaten, but I just can't understand why they haven't done anything to actually fix the situation and prevent the floods! It amazes me.
On November 7 I left Venice, looking forward to warmer climates! I won't say much about my overnight train to Zagreb experience, except that it was a very uncomfortable situation made so by an inappropriately behaving Eastern European conductor. In the end all was fine, nothing really happened, but I will just say I was overjoyed when I stepped off that train and arrived in Zagreb, Croatia at 4am.
Later that morning, I set off on a train to Split in the south of Croatia. As you can imagine, this country has seen a lot of destruction in recent years and it was certainly interesting to see how people have chosen to move on from it. In the countryside lie crumbling remains, a memory of what once were houses, perhaps parts of the frames still standing, some with doors but missing a roof, others just barely more than a leveled foundation.
I happily arrived in Split on November 8 and immediately made a friend named Ian, my new dormmate, from Perth. Split isn't too, too warm this time of year but it was just enough to justify breaking out my Birks again :) I shared a few drinks that night with Ian and other friends from my hostel, Nick, Iris, Abbie, Lee and Amy, to name a few. The next day I climbed to the top of the mountain that makes up a penninsula on the edge of Split, and then joined some Aussie girls from our hostel (Abbie, Lee and Amy) for a coffee. The next day Ian and I took a ferry to Brac, a nearby island. On our way we were joined by dolphins swimming next to our boat! Once we arrived at the island we took a bus to the other side, to a small place called Bol. In the high tourism season, the beach there is littered with tourists and somehow we were lucky enough to have the entire beach to ourselves (save one or two fishermen) on a beautiful day! Ian even went swimming. I did not take into account just how much time it would take to get to and out of Split (Croatia also lacks highspeed trains) so regretfully I did not give myself enough time there to enjoy the hikes around national parks and other islands - I have promised myself I will one day return to Croatia and do it properly!! I really enjoyed my time in Split though - the hostel was incredible and everyone I met was very friendly and welcoming - I shared a few meals and a few drinks with some really good people.
That night, I set out back to Zagreb to get a connection the following morning to Budapest!
My mom has been to Budapest and I remember hearing a lot about it so knowing my time in continental Europe is limited, I decided to make one quick stop in Hungary on my way to the Czech Republic. I had one night in Budapest but I think I did as much as anyone can in a 24 hour period! (Obviously, the winter boots and mittens had to come back out after Croatia, since it was freezing there!) The owner of my hostel - a former Toronto resident and huge Canada fan - kindly drew a walking route for me to get to see all important sites! This city is beautiful - everything is so well lit at night and makes for quite the picturesque scene. That evening, I climbed to the castle in Buda that overlooks the river dividing Buda from Pest, saw the impressively designed Hungarian Parliament, and walked along the waterfront in Pest. The next morning I made an early start in Pest, walking to the Praca des Herois, did some shopping, went to the big market, had an outdoor picnic, and in about twenty minutes walked to Buda again to climb to the top of the Citadella! An amazing walk and view from the top! Almost as good as Halifax's Citadel.... :)
From Budapest I took a train through Slovakia to Prague in Czech Republic. This city is awesome. I did the touristy things there - visited the castle, enjoyed the art exhibits in the National Gallery on the castle grounds and climbed to the Metronome - standing where the largest ever statue of Stalin once stood and was blown up after the war. Prague is beautiful, and that is really the only way to describe the views of the two sides of the city and the bridges that connect them. I began every morning by walking to the centre of Old Town and wandering through the market there, sampling some of the pastries and langos made fresh for patrons and listened to some street performers on their trombones and saxophones and washboards! Of course I waited to witness the chiming of the Astronomical clock to see the skeleton man shake his little lanturn on the hour, and I visited the Charles Bridge and all its excitement. Apparently I touched the wrong part of the lucky statue....Oh well! On my last night I went to see a Black Light Theatre/dance show, which was definitely an experience. Although I wasn't necessarily a fan of the choreography or concept, I appreciated what was happening before me and it certainly gave me some things to think about - technical possibilities with light and costume. I am glad I went!
From Prague I came to Berlin last Monday. I do not want to leave.
Berlin has surpassed all of my expectations - as soon as I got off the train I fell in love with the place. Feeling adventurous I actually went out on a pubcrawl on my first night, met a few friends AND I ran into Lee and Amy whom I had met in Split! We were not expecting to see each other, not in Germany at least, and not in the same pub! A funny coincidence.
The next morning I went on a tour of a local former Nazi forced labour camp used in the Second World War. Italians, Hungarians, Pols, Ukrainians, Germans and Dutch labourers were kept there, forced to work and enhance the German war effort. Incredibly, in the cellar below a bunker is where you can read messages and names and dates written on the walls by Italian labourers in the early 1940s. This was my first experience visiting such a place and it was certainly not something I will forget. On this tour however, I met a group of friends with whom I would become inseparable for the remainder of this past week: Lyen, from Fort MacMurray, and Sam and Max from Blackpool, England. At the forced labour camp we learned in depth about what practices went on by the Nazis there and how the network of forced labour camps, concentration camps and death camps developed over time over the course of the war. Heavy stuff.
The next day, the four of us went on a guided walking tour of central Berlin where we visited Brandenberger Tor, saw the hotel balcony where Michael Jackson hung his baby over the railing (had to point it out!), the Reichstag parliament building, and in the middle of the tour we visited the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe (otherwise known as the Holocaust Memorial) designed and created by a Canadian-American artist and built in 2006.
I would love to describe this memorial, which takes up an entire city block, but words fail. It is simple, it is complex, it is dark, it is grey, it is cold. It is powerful. Like the Holocaust, it makes it easy to lose yourself in it, you get separated from people in it, it makes you feel small and isolated. It is very emotional and very appropriate.
Our guide then took us to the place where many last saw the man responsible for the autrocities that occurred in World War II, the bunker where Adolf Hitler died. It is actually a parking lot, appropriately, and the bunker exists 12 metres below it underground. We were taken to many other sites, including to one of the larger remaining sections of the Berlin Wall, which I was excited to see. We were also reminded how the fall of the Berlin Wall came about and how the typical tensions between Berliners evaporated for one weekend in 1989.
That evening I met with my friend Prisca for coffee and she and I went back to the Holocaust Memorial to visit the exhibition that exists underground beneath it. There they have original letters (and their translations) on display, written by Jewish people (taken by Nazis to concentation camps and then extermination camps) and addressed to their families. This personal account, combined with graphic images and photographs taken in these camps left me feeling sick to my stomach and still does. One photograph that shook me in particular was of a mound of naked deceased bodies piled on top of each other on the ground, their skeletons showing through their skin they were so thin and starved, with a well-dressed, plump guard in the background looking on.
Because I feel it is necessary for people to see these exhibits and learn about this history first-hand when they visit Germany (in particular), I agreed to go on yet another tour the next day, this time of Sachsenhausen, a former concentration camp sitting to the north of Berlin. Max, Sam and Lyen and I went together, naturally, and over the course of a few hours our tour group was taken through the camp and told of what unimaginable things happened there. Two of the scariest sights of Sachenhausen: the ovens of the crematoriums that are still standing, and the white-tiled "autopsy" and examining tables in the "medical centre". (Experimentation centre, is more like it.)
It is one thing to witness the remains of a Nazi concentration camp - and later a Soviet concentration camp (after Hitler) - and see what things existed and occurred scarring the face of human history eighty years ago. Thankfully, Sachsenhausen is now an official memorial site. However, It is another to stand inside a former prisoner bunker and see the recently charred walls with the paint peeling off from a fire set by a group of Neo-Nazis attempting to destroy the memorial site after the President of Isreal visited Sachsenhausen in 1999. I will never understand such hatred.
On a happier note, I will say that the intensity and wealth of history that exists in Berlin matches the wealth of cultural and creative identity that also exists here and I absolutely love it. I have been lucky to really enjoy the different places I have visited in the last three months, but none have spoken to me like this city! None have come close to this! At some point in my life I plan to live here, if even for a short time.
I am staying in Berlin until early tomorrow morning - my friend from York, Sarah Harris, has so generously let me stay in her apartment while she is away this weekend and I cannot thank her enough for giving me the opportunity to get organized before I make my FINAL stop on my solo European journey. Tomorrow I arrive in Amsterdam where I will meet Colette (my aforementioned friend from Brussels!) for my oneeee night in the Netherlands - I know, I know. I had tried to stay all weekend in Amsterdam but unfortunately it's a big tourist destination and even in the off-season, I guess there are no beds available on a Saturday night :( But! This unexpected change in plan has allowed me to spend more time in my favourite city so I absolutely cannot complain.
My friends have all left town but I miss them already and I hope to one day take them up on their offer and visit Max and Sam in Blackpool! :)
Thank you for reading - I am sorry for the length, as always, but had lots and lots to say after so many diverse places.
On Monday evening I will fly from Amsterdam to Dublin for a night and then on to Cork to visit my Irish family for a few weeks. I will write again in December, so, until then, enjoy the early holiday season!!
Sarah
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Sarah *Correction: After writing this blog I checked my flight information for my flight out of Amsterdam to Dublin - let's just say I made a very crucial mistake and Amsterdam is now out of my itinerary. I will fly to Dublin on Monday from Berlin and will sadly not be able to reunite with Colette. I'm very disappointed and surprised about this unexpected and very expensive change in plan.