Monday, October 27, 2008

Ok so continuation of my last week.

On Sunday I flew to London and met up with Stephanie in the airport, where her camp friend Dalia picked us up and drove us around and brought us to our hostel in Victoria. London is huge...i mean, really really huge and awesome. We walked around the city for a few hours that night and went to a pub for dinner. I had the best burger of my life and a pint of beer for 6 pounds. After that, we came back to the hostel and fell asleep after totally exhausted. The next morning we got up early to go on a free walking tour of royal london. it was led by an australian expat and was filled with australians. it was really informative and we even got to see the changing of the guards at buckingham palace. At the end of the two hour tour, we went for lunch at an all you can eat chinese buffet for 5 pounds. An auzzie, fin, and bulgarian joined us. best moment came when the bulgarian takes out his camera, points it at stephanie and me and says ´may i take advantage of you´...um what did you say, yeah he didnt realize you can´t say that to a girl. from there we went to the national portrait gallery, which was amazing. we came back to the hostel, napped for a few minutes and went out to a pub crawel. it was suppose to be 10 pounds but the guy just didnt take our money...fine by us. the next day, we decided to take it easy and spent like 5 hours in camden market where we did some shopping and ate lunch. i loved it there, so artsy and alternative and cheap. that night we went over to the lse area and met up with a friend from Case-nina. We were going to go to a club with two of her friends but strangly in london, they stop letting people in at 1230...you´ll soon read how you dont even go out till 3 or 4 in madrid. anyways, we ended up just getting kebab and then stephanie and i coudnt find our night bus, walked around a bit randomly, finally got on to a bus we new wasnt right but was in our direction, got off at a stop that looked familiar and somehow ended up directly in front of the bus stop we needed to get back to our hostel...we rule. the next day was our last, we went to the tower of london, the british museum, and the imperial war museum. the war one was my favorite because they had a special art exhibit of the holocaust. there are several survivors who are now artists. i started crying a bit bc it was so moving and some nice old british man gave me a tissue. i have been to two former camps in the past two weeks and not until that moment, did i actually feel something.

then i left london and am now in MADRID! i leave tomorrow for switzerland and will write about madrid later.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Week in Review

So so much has happened this past week. I'll go by country:



Poland: 34 other classmates and two study tour leaders (alex and kristin, both doctors) and i drove for 12 hours to poznan, poland on what would become an incredible trip. poland is depressing and to top it off, we watched the pianist on the bus. overall not much to say about it though. they have an awesome mall and everything is cheap and i shadowed a pediatrician in the hospial there. we learned about lactose intolerance and then we sat in on an exam of a 7year old boy and when the doctor asked who was next for doing the exam, i was the only one to volunteer...when will i be able to do that again for at least 4 more years. i felt so grown up. after three nights there, we drove to...



BERLIN: alright, this is my FAVORITE place in the world. ive been twice and continually love it. we arrived on wednesday and within 1 hour got in a slight bus accident, no big deal but it was a great start... that night we went to unsicht bar-the blind restaurant...amazing just like it was last year. you eat in the dark and have blind waitors. afterwards, i became tour leader to about 7 students b/c i remembered berlin so well and can navigate. it was so much fun. thursday we did some cultural and educational stuff like going to the major hospital in berlin-charite and then we went to the olympic stadium and had a tour. so as we are driving back, im talking to some people about the perfume store i love there and who would have guessed, but we are driving on the correct street on the right block! so the driver pulled over and let a few of us off. we bought perfume and it was amazing. then i led the same group on a mini walking adventure to KaDeWe. that night we had a really lame dinner cruise. i ended up sitting next to both the tour leaders-alex and kristin. we had a really great conversation during dinner about religion in denmark and then some misc. stuff. after the boat ride, we went to the hopbanhopt big train station and got alcohol, then went back to the hostel...the events of the next 30 minutes can be asked directly to me. then me along with 8 other students and alex and kristin went to this awesome very local berlin underground club called Sage Club. There were about 10 different rooms, one with a live band. I hung out inthe live music room with maria and kristin, then alex came and got us to go downstairs to the dancing. we had a wonderful time there. Friday we went to the DDR museum and had a nice group lunch then had the afternoon free...so i bought birkenstocks. but, friday night was the hightlight so it gets its own paragraph.



Friday night!: about 15 of us and alex and kristin went on a pub crawel in east berlin and afterwards planned to go to this club called Panorama. At the first bar, alex and i talked about how excited we were for the club. of course i had dressed appropriatly for a club in europe...but no one else did. the leader of the crawel said that this club was one of the hottest in berlin therefore-appropriate clothing needed, no americans, no big groups, speak german. so, it ended up that after the third bar, alex kristin and i (he speaks german and we were all dressed right) snuck off to panorama. BEST NIGHT EVER. It was fabulous and they were fabulous and the music was amazing and the vibe was amazing. I danced till 545am and then we took a taxi back to the hostel. i had so much and didnt want to leave. the next morning i got up at 745am (next morning...maybe not) to leave for copenhagen.



BUS: the bus ride was painful. by the end of the trip though, i feel like i made a few really good friends and hoping that some new friendships develope in november when i return...even if two of those friends are doctors.



I got back saturday night at 7pm, packed, and left the next morning for LONDON with stephanie. We have had the busiest few days and tomorrow i go to MADRID to visit gilad!!



London: i will write about later because i just typed a lotttt.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

I leave for London in 1 hour, so I don't have time for a long entry. I just wanted to say, I had the most AMAZING time in Berlin. I hung out with my two tour leaders two of the nights and went to what we learned is the hottest club in Berlin right now called Berghain-Panorama Bar and the rest of the time I acted as tour guide to a group of students because I remembered my way around from last summer.

I leave for London today, Madrid Thursday, Bern on Monday, and Zurich on Wednesday. I return Nov 1st and will write about my travels that weekend.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Study Tour

I leave tomorrow for a week long study tour to Poznan, Poland and Berlin, Germany. I return Saturday and promptly leave again on Sunday for: London, Madrid, Bern, and Zurich. I return November 1st.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

a local?

Today, walking to DIS for a field study was the first time in almost 7 weeks that I finally feel like a local. Though I don't know how long that will last or even why. But it was kind of nice. I think it had something to do with my outfit-black dress, tights, ballet flats...getting ready for synagogue.

and look at all these crazy letters I can use on the danish keyboard-æ, ø, å

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Germany for the night

At 5:30 pm on Friday, I got on a bus with my Holocaust and Genocide class to go to Hamburg, Germany and the Neuengamme Concentration Camp for a quick 24 study tour. We arrived in Hamburg at around 10pm, threw our stuff down and went out. Stephanie's friend Jordan has a cousin in Hamburg, so she took the three of us out to the red light district of Hamburg. We had a wonderful time. The cousin's husband (early 20's) bought the three of us German beers to try. We got back to the hostel late and woke up early the next morning. My one night in Germany showed me again how much I love that country compared to Denmark. Something about how the people were acting and interacting.

This was my first time at a concentration camp. I was far less emotional than I thought I would be and I don't know why. With the little sleep I got, I thought it would affect me even more. We were given a two hour tour of the museum and grounds. It was truly surreal to walk on the ground that so many Jews worked to their deaths on. The only building still intact for visitors is a brick factory. It was massive and we learned was built by hand by Jewish prisoners. After a few hours there, we got back on the bus and made our way back to Copenhagen.

Stephanie, Zoya, and I finally made it to Rust, a popular Danish night club. It was a ton of fun and I even convinced someone I was in medical school. Not that hard to do.
Conversation went like this:
Where are you all from?
The states.
Why are you here?
Studying.
Where?
(This is where I start to falsly answer all our questions): Copenhagen University
What do you study?
Medicine.
Oh, so you have classes at Panum Institute?
Yes. (not a lie since my cancer class is taught there)
Wow.

Oh and we met an anti-semitic italian from westchester county, ny who has lived here for 5 years. it was fun telling him he was saying things to the wrong group of americans (3 jews).

It was raining when we left, so we had to run to the bus stop and wait in the windy rain for a bit.

It was a really good weekend and I am now more excited than ever to go on my three week vacation. I still have to get through midterms this week though.