through a glass dimly

Sometimes it seems like an injustice to an experience to try and reduce it to a short, few hundred word blog post. In this case I find that to be especially true. Just a few hours ago I returned from a weekend in Hamburg, Germany with my Holocaust and Genocide course; I don't need to elaborate any more on the purpose of the trip. 

The first place we visited was Bullenhuser Damm, where 20 Jewish children ages 5-12 and their caretakers were brought to be murdered after having been part of medical experimentation. Today the building houses both a kindergarten and a therapy center in addition to a memorial museum. The upper floor of the museum has the history of each victim and his/her picture. The bottom floor is the basement where the actual crime took place; the image of its cold, white-washed walls will stay with me for a long time. On the wall was a quotation from one of the men who did the deed: "I asked Trzebinski if this had to be done, and he said orders are orders." Chilling. Outside is a memorial rose garden, a very personal way of remembering the lives of these children, as opposed to a colossal bronze monument. Separated by just a row of bushes is a playground for the kindergarten: the hope of lives now lived and the remembrance of lives lost all too young, right next door to each other.   

Bullenhuser Damm 

The second site we visited was St. Nikolai Kirke. When the Allied forces fire-bombed Hamburg (it was an important port city and the second largest city in Germany) in the 1943 "Operation Gomorrah," the spire of St. Nikolai was one of the only things to survive; the entire city otherwise was in ruins, and thousands of Germans lost their lives. One of the memorial statues in front of the church reads "No man in the whole world can change the truth. One can only look for the truth, find it, and serve it. The truth is in all places." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer   

St. Nikolai Kirke

The third site we visited was the former location of the Neuengamme concentration camp outside of Hamburg. Over 100,000 people entered the gates of this camp; only half ever walked out. Many of those sent to this camp were political prisoners and were Russian, Polish, Norwegian, and Danish (the Danes who were there were resistance fighters). An eerie reality to this camp's location is that it was near enough to a residential area that people would walk past it in plain view while enjoying a nice Sunday stroll. The camp was  large, too; we walked around only part of it and still had covered a lot of ground. There were also memorial museum exhibits where, in as many cases as possible, the imprisoned were remembered individually through pictures, stories, and quotations. There's something to remembering the past in an individualized way; it helps you put a faces to the mass atrocities.  

former site of Neuengamme

What was going through my head during the weekend? On one level I was thinking about how you can read countless books and watch countless movies about the Holocaust but to actually visit places where those things you read about took place brings a whole new level of meaning. The rest was mainly a lot of questions: a lot of wondering why and how something that horrific could happen, how the value of a human life could be so diminished that millions could be taken without a second thought. There are so many factors involved that influenced the perpetrators and so many theories from researchers trying to make sense of them all (and I should know since I'm researching them for my final paper for this course). But at the end of the day no simple solution can be found and no explanation can suffice. Try as I may, I don't think I'll ever come to grips with why it happened. 

Or why brutal atrocities of any kind happen... which brings my thoughts quickly from the past to the present. Human lives are being trivialized, people are being abused, exploited, and killed. Now. Right now as I write this. Right now as you read this. It's too late to do anything about what happened in the '40s, but there's a lot going on in 2012, too. I hesitate to go off on an advocacy rant because whatever I tell anyone else to do I better be doing myself. 

But I think that the best way to remember those lives lost in the past is to do everything in our power to stop the cycles of destruction that are going on right now. At the root of these horrific events is the devaluing of a human life and the elevating of one life above another. That's where the problem starts. And we've seen where the problem ends... 

Whenever we look into the eyes of another human being, may we always see him or her as such, may we always give the dignity and respect that is deserving of a human life, and in doing so may we always remember that we are no more, nor no less, valuable than they. 

What's an elk?

March 20th: the first official day of spring and the half-way point of my semester. I've been in Copenhagen for exactly 2 months and have exactly 2 months to go. I don't know whether to react with "I can't believe I've been here that long already" or "Have I really been here that long - because it feels like I just got here." 

Either way I feel like I can definitely call Copenhagen my home. Or, rather, add it to the list of places that I've acquired as "homes" over the past 4 years. I'd like to think that I fit in pretty well here, too. I'm always flattered whenever Danes approach me and speak in Danish. That's a sure-fire sign that I look like I belong here at least (and there's definitely tourists around so it's not like it's assumed that everyone who passes by is a local - or at least that's what I've told myself). So apparently I've got my clothes and demeanor going for me even if I don't quite have the language thing down. Because I really have no idea of how to give directions to someone in Danish or how to carry on a conversation about a charity organization that I get solicited to support. Not things that you learn in a basic Danish course. 

On the flip side, on my weekly ventures to speak English with Danish middle school students, I've run into some interesting conversation topics leading to the need to explain things I've never had to explain before. Like what elk and moose are (which I thought I could explain by saying that they were giant deer - until I had to explain what a deer was) or what fried chicken is (by the way, it doesn't sound as appetizing when you explain how to make it) or what french fries and chips are (and the confusion between British-English and America-English terminology didn't help at all). Or here's another one: what an "American" cookie is like and the fact that it can come in so many varieties beside chocolate chip. Oh, and by the way, they don't have chocolate chips here so I had to explain what those were, too. Good thing there's a thing called pen and paper and skills I've acquired via many games of Pictionary.

In honor of the first day of spring, I tracked down a "spring in Copenhagen" picture from  Google. This flowers galore shot of Rosenborg Palace has yet to come, but I did eat lunch in this park yesterday, and it was warm and sunny albeit very windy (the lettuce from my salad started blowing away at one point).

Turtle Chronicles Pt 4... off to Italy

My little friend Chester decided that he needed a break from Denmark... so going south to Italy for a week seemed like the perfect solution! And after being gone from Copenhagen, he realized it's a pretty terrific place.

at the Duomo in Milan

on top of the Duomo

doing some exploration in Milan

going to see the Last Supper in Milan

a beautiful day in Lake Como

on the train from Lake Como back to Milan

flying back home to Denmark  - with free chocolate from the airline

Ciao, bella!

As I write this* I’m sitting outside on a beautiful spring day in Copenhagen. Yesterday I woke up in a German airport. The day before that I went on a run around Lake Como. And two days before that I was eating gelato in the Piazza Duomo in Milan. Needless to say I’ve had a whirlwind of cultural and travel experiences this week.

It all started off this past Monday when I embarked on a trip with 30 other DIS students to the city of Milan, Italy for a study tour on positive psychology. For a course on the “science of happiness” they certainly picked a good location to make us students happy.

Every day we had an academic visit where we visited professionals who use positive psychology on a daily basis. Most of them were researchers in the field – including the head of the European organization of positive psych – but others were anything from a meditation coach to a holistic health doctor. Besides hearing about the research and seeing positive psych in practice, it was enriching to see different and more local places in Milan than I would if I were only there as a tourist. How many people place universities and health care centers at the top of their list of places to see in Milan?

But believe me, when I wasn’t sitting in a lecture I was by all means being that tourist with a camera always in hand. I think I took over 600 pictures by the end of the trip - and eventually they’ll get posted. The first day we were divided into small groups, given a map and a list of things to see in Milan, and told to “have at it.” By far the best way to get acclimated to a new city. [Side note: my map reading and navigation skills grew exponentially during the week]. Highlight of the day was nothing related to what we were “supposed” to do: bumper cars. When we happened upon an all-but-deserted fairground and figured out that the bumper car employees were still there and willing to let us ram into each other for only a euro each, we couldn’t pass it up.

The next morning was (supposed to be) the day for me to see the famous Last Supper. This painting is pivotal in the art world because it’s the first time that any particular moment – capturing emotional responses and reactions from a very specific event – had been depicted. Prior to that a lot of art was stoic and stale. So way to go, Da Vinci! At any rate, I said “supposed to be” because we had a bit of a mishap getting there and arrived 15 minutes late. You might not think that’s a huge deal, except for the fact that we had a specific 15 minute time slot to enter the building. As much as I was bummed about the idea of not getting to see it, I have to admit I enjoyed the excitement of running through metro stations and down the streets (and the hot chocolate our tour leader bought us as a consolation – a warm cup of what was basically just pure melted chocolate). Before I leave you thinking that I didn’t get to see the Last Supper at all, though, I’ll add that by sheer providence another group cancelled and we were able to reschedule for the next day; normally it’s all booked up months in advance. So, yes, I did see it after all. And it was well worth it, too. Much larger and much more detailed than I’d imagined.

Speaking of things being large and detailed, the Duomo (cathedral) in Milan is incredible! There’s really no way to describe in words or even in a picture the feeling you get looking up at it. It’s massive, majestic, and magnificentally designed. I probably took a hundred pics of it alone. We also had tickets for rooftop access. Having grown up in the States where there’s so much concern about liability, I expected this to mean going up an elevator to something fairly enclosed. Besides the elevator part, I was happily wrong. We quite literally had free range of the roof of the Duomo and, since I went up there earlier than everyone else, I’m pretty sure I was the only one up there at one point. In other words there weren’t even employees up there keeping everyone safe or whatever. Mimicking Arnold from Magic School Bus, “this never would’ve happened in the States.”

And, after all that, I still have a few more things to share, prefaced by something I’ve learned: when traveling, unplanned and unexpected is always best so just go with the flow and see what happens!

1. A few friends and I were randomly invited to a local Italian event serving free wine and food. How could we say no? The best part was talking with two different Italian gentlemen. Hand gestures, basic use of Spanish, and even more basic knowledge of Italian apparently go a long way. (I didn’t understand everything they said but I did gather that one of them was 77 years old, had been to New York, liked to read newspapers, and knew a lot about China.) Whereas in Copenhagen everyone speaks English and you nearly forget that it’s not their first language, most people in Milan didn’t. But I enjoyed this fact. You get a much quicker understanding of a language when you’re forced to attempt to speak it. Also, I’ve decided that one of my life goals is to learn Italian; it’s a beautiful language and so much easier than Danish!

2. When I go to new places I’m a magnet to random brochures and newspapers. I enjoy trying my hand at reading in another language and looking at places to possibly go. Long story short, on an evening off, my friend and I ended up at a local performance that was essentially Cirque du Soleil meets hip-dance meets West Side Story. After braving our own way there and back across town and after seeing the fantastic show, I was in high spirits.

3. Lake Como. First, I have to say that Lake Como is a stunning place. I stayed there for just a weekend and didn’t want to leave! Nature was such a welcome site after being in a city all week (yeah I know I live in Copenhagen which is a city, too, but it's definitely not a city in the same sense). I could write an entire other entry about being in Como itself but I’ll save you the time in reading it by saying that the highlights were the railcar up to a smaller village on the mountain, doing paddle boats, having a spontaneous dance party in a park, and the simple fact of it being warm enough for trees to start blooming and not to wear a jacket. Also, I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I went on a run around Lake Como. There was something really special and memorable about it: the peace of the morning, the cool crisp air, the sun reflecting off the mountains – and most of all the fact that I felt bonded to the locals who were also out running. Even though we didn’t have a shared language, we could share the common view of the beauty of the morning and the satisfaction of a good run.

4. Last but by no means least, I had the joy of seeing a friend from Eastern while I was in Milan! It was such a strange (in a good way) experience to be able to say “Oh yeah we’re both gonna be in another country in the same city on the same afternoon so let’s do lunch. Ya know, no big deal. Happens all the time.” After organizing our rendezvous the old-fashioned way of saying “meet you at this place at this time” and finally getting there after my tram broke down, we had a great afternoon, and it was a much-needed time of catching up with a familiar friend.

Overall, what I found I enjoyed most about my time in Italy was 1. learning (on even a small scale) about their language and culture and 2. the excitement via challenges of traveling in a new place. Both of these things included making every effort to get away from the touristy hotspots and to explore places on my own whenever possible. And, by the end of the week, I can say that I’m geared up and ready for my next set of travel adventures: my upcoming 2 week break in April! 

P.S. Italian food = delicious. Need I say more?  

*I wrote half this post at the beginning of the week but didn’t get a chance to finish and post it until today. So as I write this now I’m sitting inside my house...

Turtle Chronicles Pt 3

Time for the next installment of this little turtle's adventures in Denmark...

Chester met The Man Meets the Sea in Jutland

this time the whole family came along for a visit to the Botanical Garden

hanging out in an old plaza with neoclassical buildings 

blue skies - and old trees

exploring a costume / everything-random shop... here's the shrunken head basket

same costume shop... now with the bows and arrows 

LEGO store in Copenhagen 

oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day

Spring is in the air here in Copenhagen! In planning for the trip I'm not quite sure why I was under the impression that I was coming to a land of perpetual dark and cold... because it's barely even March and we've already had several sunny and warm days.[Disclaimer: warm is relative; it's still nothing more than the 40s]

Today was a particularly spring-worthy day... You know when you can smell the season in the air? Like the day when you wake up and go outside, take a deep breath and just know that the next season is there? Well that sensation happened to me today. It was accompanied immediately by seeing 2 guys walk by while eating ice cream cones, which I'm sure helped in bring about the spring mentality. Now for a brief tangent - just as Rita's in Philly does free water ice on the first day of spring, there's an ice cream shop here called "Paradis" that does free ice cream on - what seems to me at least - an arbitrary day in February. These Copenhageners don't delay in bringing about spring traditions.

Today was also one of those days that I by no means would've wasted spending indoors. So along with one of my friends and housemates, I spent the afternoon after classes at a historic plaza nearby where the sun shone brightly and the people-watching was prime. Best part was finally getting pictures of the baby strollers here; they're nothing like what I've ever seen before, and I've been making it a goal of mine to get a picture of one without freaking out the parents. I succeeded in getting pics of 3 in 30 minutes; hopefully I did it discretely enough to not creep them out.

Sometimes Danes leave their babies sitting outside while they go in to a shop. It looks here, though, like these strollers belong to the people eating - so that's good.

 Here's a close-up of  the Danish strollers: a boxy fortress on wheels. 

This Danish mom loved the weather, too, and stopped to enjoy it. Oh and I guess she loves her baby, too.