Backlog like Whoa

I’m pretty much the worst blogger ever.

In my defense, though, I’ve had a very hectic month. Here’s the quick rundown:
Feb 20-22: Munich
Feb 23-Mar 1: Luxembourg, Brussels, Paris
Mar 2-5: Lots ’O Work Week
Mar 6-15: Mike Visit
Mar 16-19: Midterms
Mar 20-28: Krakow, Bratislava, Prauge, Budapest

So, as, you can see, I’ve been VERY busy. Thankfully, though, it will be slowing down very shortly.

I’ll be in Strasbourg this Thursday and Friday for the NATO Youth Summit. All the real world leaders will be there on Saturday. (For those of you non current event followers, it’s a big deal, trust me.) Our teacher (who is the deputy head of staff to a member of the European Parliment), knows that there is a surprise guest coming on Friday, partially because of the sudden HUGE increase in security. He is fairly certain that this will either be Sarkozy (the French President) or Obama! Needless to say, I’m pretty damn excited.

Freiburg was actually chosen as the police head quarters for the summit (It’s being jointly hosted by Germany and France – Strasbourg is just over the boarder in France, only about an hour away. It’s one of those territories that has been contested forever; the residents changed their nationality 5 times over the past century. Now they speak French, but their food is still primarily from Germany. Much of the older population only speaks German. It’s a very interesting region, but I digress.). There was an anti-NATO protest downtown yesterday, and everyone was very concerned it was going to turn into a riot – our later classes were cancelled and most, if not all, shops closed down early. It stayed peaceful, though, thankfully.

Next weekend I’ll be partying around Barcelona on my spring break (YES – a REAL spring break in a Spanish speaking country and a beach!).

I’m just going to give you some highlights of this past whirlwind month so you can only catch the good stuff.

Luxembourg, Brussels, and Paris (Feb 23-Mar 1; pics and more pics)
Check out my thoughts here and here. Luxembourg was cute, I really hated Brussels, and Paris was just beautiful. It made me want to study French really intensely. Sadly, I must actually take major classes these next two semesters, but c’est la vie.

My favorite peice in the Louvre was hands down the statues of Cupid and Psyche (below). It just has so much emotion in it. My favorite painting was da Vinci's Madonna on the Rocks. And it was sooo awesome to see Monet's Water Lilies at Musée d'Orsay. If you like impressionist art, go there.


Wine Tasting (Mar 6 - pics)
IES took about half of us on a wine tasting, with really weak reasoning how it tied into our coursework. For my EU-US class they said it was relevant because wine is a common material involved in transatlantic trade; my Regions in the EU class argued that since wine making is an integral part of the Baden-Württemberg region (where I’m living), wine is important to understanding the culture. Anyway, the moral of the story is IES got us all drunk, including one of my teachers, which was hilarious.

I got to taste ice wine, which was so delicious I could cry; it tasted like honey. Note: Only by ice wine from Germany, Austria, or Canada – they’re the only ones who let the grapes freeze naturally. The guy giving us a tour said it was just a pleasure just to make the ice wine, because they would all get together and drink brandy while picking the grapes and making it. The wine was about 20 € (Is the “”€” before or after the 20? I still can’t figure it out.) for a bottle that is half the normal size. Our tour guide even said this price is much lower than market price – they just want people to enjoy it.

Mike Visit (Mar 6-15 - Paris pics and Freiburg pics)
And so, I was drunk when I went to pick up Mike that evening at the train station. We went to Paris, and I’m sure all of you know how wonderful that was =o). In Paris, we went to see all the non-traditional stuff: the Arche de la Défense, Centre Pompidou, and we even found this random pet market. I also liked that all the public parks had ping pong tables.

(I made him do this)

It was just so nice to have him here to explore parts of Freiburg with him that I didn’t even know existed. My homesickness definitely increased after it left, but thanks to my revitalizing Eastern European trip, it’s gone back down to a much more manageable level.

Strasbourg (Mar 12 - it was during Mike’s visit - pics)
I got to go to the EU Parliament and watch a debate. It was good. We had some boring speakers. The End. The region is very interesting – see above digression.


Eastern Europe (Mar 20-28 - Krakow and Bratislava pics, Prague pics, Budapest pics)
It was awesome. Eastern Europe is just so cool and gives you a completely other perspective I’ll be writing an IES blog about this, so stayed tuned. On our way from Krakow to Prague, we stopped at Auschwitz. It was very intense and very sobering. Oh, and I was in Prague when the Czech government fell, which is actually putting EU leadership at risk, because they currently hold the EU presidency. Cool, eh? (I also met a Canadian in Prague.)

I’m hopinghopinghoping to bee much better about this blog, now that my schedule has calmed down.

Wow, this is so long, I fee like Zack. Oh, well. Here’s hoping that I meet Obama!

Until next time!