travels and other thoughts

Dear friends and family,
Hi. It's been too long. Sorry that I've not kept you updated on my travels and adventures, but school-work and play-time has kept me busy. I'll start this update by saying that I love this city. As the sun is starting to come out, Amsterdam is waking up... and there's so much to do! I've been enjoying getting lost on my bike and finding fun stores and other gems. My new favorite place here is a non-profit squatter restaurant/venue. My friend Stephanie introduced it to me. It's a whole building of squatters and they opened an organic, vegan restaurant/bar on the first floor from which they serve dinner three times a week. The cooks and bartenders are volunteers and you serve your own food. Last time I was there, a bearded, dread-locked guy was passing out oily raisins that he got from a Hare Krishna alter and claimed that they were natural ecstasy.. yeah, it's that kind of place (don't worry mom and dad, I don't eat raisins from strangers). They also have giant drum circles and offer classes such as trapeze and breakdance. I really want to start going to the breakdance class! I've also been going to my share of concerts here. Most notably, I went to a "Girltalk" concert (a DJ who mixes other people's songs). The concert was in a club that's a renovated giant church. It started at 1 am and lasted until 5 am and was basically a rave. There are so many things I've been up to - for the sake of ease and organization, I'm going to make a little list:

1. Paris - I visited Paris in March (feels like forever ago!). I stayed with a friend, Ashley, who's studying there, and she guided me through the city. We walked all over and visited many of the must-sees. I ate a lot of pastries and had a really good time!



2. Dublin - I was in Dublin during the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. It was insane. I stayed with a friend from home and GW, Carolyn Kerchof. While I was there, I met up with Hannah Rosenfeld and some of her friends who are studying in Barcelona. One of her friends had a cousin visiting her from GW who I knew.. small world. Anyway, on Saturday we took a train to a coastal town called Bray and went hiking up a small mountain. It was beautiful - definitely the picturesque landscape that I had imagined Ireland to be. SO sunny and green! On Saturday night, we met up with another friend from elementary school, Hannah Kuzniecky, who's now studying in Paris. I also saw what I felt was like half of GW in Dublin. It's fun meeting up with old friends on the other side of the world.



3. Berlin - two weekends ago, a friend from my program and I ventured to Berlin. We found a super-cheap last minute train and decided why not. Berlin is an interesting city. It's huge! My favorite part was all of the Graffiti... a lot of it was political and a lot of it was just for fun. The history in Berlin is all so recent, so it was crazy to be there and actually see it. At times, walking through the city was kind of creepy - the Nazi architecture of cement slabbed buildings leave the city with a creepy feeling of lingering structure. I wish we had had more time to experience Germany... We arrived in Berlin at 4:30 AM Sat morning, woke up for a 5 hour bike tour at 9 AM saturday, finished up some sight-seeing in the afternoon, stayed out until 4AM on Sunday morning, and were on our train back to Amsterdam by 8 am Sunday morning. We had 28 hours in Berlin and managed to stay awake for 21 of them. I'm proud of us.



4. Ashley visited me last weekend from Paris. We went to an Amnesty International film festival called "movies that matter." It was super interesting. I saw 6 films and each one encompassed prevalent human rights issues such as the death penalty in the US, resource exploitation in the Congo, media censorship in Burma, Iranian refugee struggles, free speech, etc. After each film, there was a Q and A session with the director. My favorite film was a film called "An Independent Mind." It presented 8 stories of individuals who had been denied freedom of expression. One of the cases included was David Irving, a well-known Holocaust denier and Anti-semite who was arrested in Austria for promoting his ideas to students. I thought it was interesting that Irving was included in a series of stories on individuals who had been oppressed/censored for expressing ideas promoting generally positive causes (democracy, etc.). During the Q and A, the director revealed himself as a Jew, which added another interesting element.. and made it ok (I don't think a non-Jew could have included this guy in his/her film without huge repercussions). And I agree that arresting Irving was a violation of his human rights, and shouldn't have happened.

Tomorrow, I am going to Istanbul, where I will be staying for a full week. I am staying with a Jewish-Turkish family and two of my best friends from GW (last year I was supposed to live with 3 of my friends but, alas, i was in Bolivia. My friends got placed with a Turkish, Jewish exchange student who they loved and now, since we're in Europe, we will be reuniting and staying at this girl's house.) I am looking forward to experiencing Passover in a Turkish setting.

On that note, as Passover is rolling around the corner, it's that time of year when I start to think about freedom and its many meanings/ what is freedom/ does it exist? As I go through waves of ups and downs and sideways's of trying to process my life within the past 10 months or so, I continue to contemplate the freedom that has allowed me to experience over six countries, several worlds, and many separate realities. I think of the freedoms that have dissolved after having inherited the responsibilities that are leftover from life's experiences and I remember those who lack basic and simple freedoms. It always boggles me that the the word seder literally means "order," while its celebration is centered around freedom (order = freedom?). Who is free, who is not free, and what are the different levels of freedom? Just some thoughts for contemplation...

I hope everyone has a great Passover and/or Easter and/or spring awakening. Keep me updated on your lives and enjoy.

Maastricht, etc.

Its been awhile since my last update... let me fill you in.
My classes are way harder than expected. I'm taking a class called Intro to Public International Law. Emphasis on the Intro. ... except that there are four 3rd year Columbia Law students in my class and a handful of other law students. It's super intense. I have two friends in the class in the same position as me and we throw each other WTF glances all through class. How are we supposed to be fluent in law jargon? The feedback for my first assignment, a case brief, was "valiant attempt." Oy vey. My other classes are manageable - Dutch is hilarious, European Integration is boring, and Complexities of Prostitution is... interesting.

I'm settling in and starting to find "my places" in the city. I'm beginning to enjoy being in such a dynamic place... there's so much here. My second weekend, Hannah Rosenfeld and Rebecca Adelson (roommate from college) visited.

It was great seeing them, especially since I hadn't seen Rebecca in nine months (I could've had a baby and she wouldn't have even known!). We had a lot of fun and covered all the touristy bases - Went to Anne Frank, Rijst Museum, and Van Gogh, and ate pancakes, cheese, waffels, and frites. My favorite part of the weekend was when Rebecca and I spent a few hours in the red-light district watching groups of boys (they always go in groups, never alone) try to convince one another to see prostitutes. The red-light district is the best place for social interaction/ group psychology/sociology observation, really. At one point we stopped to talk to a big group of 20ish year old English boys trying to raise 50 euro so their reluctant friend could see a prostitute. What a great conversation to be part of...

The next big event was my bike fall. I was riding through Amsterdam's main square really fast to catch up with someone when my front wheel slipped into a tram. Before I knew it, I was diving face-first into concrete. Very scary. Very painful. I want to start wearing a helmet even though people will make fun of me.

The next weekend I took a day-trip to Utrecht, a smaller town, with some friends. It was nice to be in a slower-paced environment. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Organ Museum (music organs, not body). It was the creepiest museum I've been in. There was all this random music playing in the background while creepy children ran around giggling, possessed by the colorful organs.



Last weekend was great. Thursday night when I went to a ballet - it was a great performance in a beautiful theater. Friday night, two friends and I went to the Portuguese synagogue for services. Afterwards we were invited to dinner at one of the Rabbi's houses. It was nice to be in a home and to be fed real dinner. The Rabbi is half Chinese and half Surinamese (with ancestry from Portugal) and grew up in Suriname, and his wife is half African American and half white and grew up in Israel. Obviously, their children are beautiful. They told us all about Jewish life in Amsterdam and want to connect us with some Jewish students here. There was also a guest at dinner from Seattle who knew a few people from Birmingham! I love Jewish geography.
On Saturday I went with some people to Carnival in Maastricht, a town three hours (by train) south of Amsterdam. Carnival was the most absurd scene ever. People were intense about costumes, every one was drunk, and there were small children in the bars at midnight. The streets were flooded with massive dance parties and there were huge speakers everywhere blasting traditional Dutch music put to funky beats. It was crazy to watch the town transform from Saturday morning - a quaint town with old churches and beautiful architecture, to a Saturday night - a massive rave. By midnight, the streets were covered in broken glass and puke. Question - why would all of the bars/outdoor beer stands serve drinks in glasses rather than plastic cups? Hundreds and hundreds of glasses must have been broken that weekend. I feel like Carnival is a mix between Halloween and Mardi Gras minus the boobs and scandalous costumes. We stuck around Maastricht until Sunday night and then returned home.

This weekend I will be going with my program on a trip to Groenigin, in North Holland. It should be fun.

Intro to Amsterdam

I arrived in Amsterdam on Wednesday morning. I've been busy with orientation activities and learning about how things work in the Netherlands. Before I got here, I didn't know that much about the program I'm in, but it's structure is interesting. Basically, I'm enrolled in the University of Amsterdam as an international student. About forty percent of the students here are international and there's a sub-section of the university for us called ISN - the International Student Network. So, I had to do two orientations - one with CIEE (the smaller org that I came here with which acts as an intermediary between our home universities and the University of Amsterdam (there are 60 american students with CIEE)), and one with ISN (all of the international students)... sorry if that's really confusing. ISN has already planned three parties for us and there's another one tonight. I am taking classes with mostly ISN students and am living in the international student housing. After traveling a lot this year, it's been really cool to submerse myself in a totally international culture. I haven't met many people in my building yet ( I haven't had much time in my building yet!), but I share a bathroom with two Chinese girls, live across the hall from three Spanish boys, and met someone from Kazakhstan who lives on my hall.



My building is great. It's in the most posh area of Amsterdam and I live next to billionaires - every time I get lost and ask someone for directions back to my building they say something like, "You live there? Really? Are you sure? Wow. That's really nice!" Quite a different living situation than Zona Sarco, Cochabamba, and Hotel Golden Gate, Gulu. My building is on the same street as the Anne Frank house and I'm also surrounded fancy cafes, boutiques, bars, and cheese shops. My room is a single with long, huge windows and a perfect view of the canals. I have a small kitchenette in my room with all the essentials - i bought a tea kettle yesterday.

I haven't yet adjusted to this city and although we've been through intense orientation, I still feel totally disoriented. I bought a bike off of a guy in a market for a good price and love biking everywhere (even though my fingers are numb after every ride). It's very peaceful/ kind of scary. The people I've been hanging out with said they'd make fun of me if I started wearing a helmet (no one does it here), but I'm considering it nonetheless. I've been meeting tons of people the past few days and they generally seem nice (although it's pretty obvious some of them are here just to smoke marijuana for a semester). Making good friends here will be a little different from the friendship process in Bolivia where I felt like everyone on my program was pretty much on the same page.

It's weird being here after my experiences in Uganda and Bolivia. People always talk about the pains of reintegration from the 3rd world to the 1st world and I haven't really experienced that until now. I'm having fun so far and I know it's just the beginning, but the formality and organization of Amsterdam is kind of a bummer. I know Amsterdam is known for being alternative and funky, but nothing has shocked me about this place yet. Even the red light district... I went with some of my friends who were talking about how sketchy it was, but I was completely unmoved. I guess everything seems kind of sterile after being in the overwhelming chaos of Kampala or Cochabamba. It's also super cold and gray here, which is not my preferred climate. I know that I need to stop comparing the experiences, because they're completely different, but right now I really miss everyone/thing from my previous abroad experiences. I keep reminding myself of my first week in Bolivia, where I cried almost everyday and didn't think I could handle the language barriers - I realize that living in new places takes awhile to adjust to, so I'll stop complaining and acknowledge the incredible opportunities that I have here... like eating really good cheese and yogurt (not something available in Uganda or Bolivia)!

My classes start tomorrow and I'm excited to get on a routine. Right now I'm signed up for Beginning Dutch (ah!), Public International Law, European Integration, and the Local and Global Complexities of Prostitution (so excited for that one!). Supposedly, courses here have a really intense workload and are kind of hard. It should be interesting to be in an academic environment and learn about kind of controversial things (like prostitution and the EU) with such diverse and international classmates. I hope to be introduced to lots of different perspectives.

Wrap-up

I'm in Amsterdam now. Before I elaborate, i'll finish where I left off. My semester in Bolivia wrapped up really well. My independent research focused on three case studies of women artists and the themes of national identity, globalization, and economic empowerment. I established some incredible relationships during the course of my project, particularly with the weavers - Carlota and Leticia - and had fun time being on my own again. Doing a full research project in Spanish was an experience too... I recorded each interview and listened to them on repeat for hours until I could figure them out. The project was photography based, like my Uganda project. The structure of the SIT program and my encouraging academic directors helped me organize my thoughts and guide the direction in which I will take my Uganda research, since both projects are thematically similar.

Leticia, Guiomar Mesa - contemporary artist, Doll making workshop in El Alto, Bertha - doll maker and community organizer




Here is a list of events that I failed to prepare timely updates on:

La Paz - beautiful and ugly and hectic and modern and old and Bolivian and touristy and indigenous and outdoorsy and indoorsy with shopping and trekking and snowy mountains and hot jungles and old people and young people and hippies and hipsters and cholitas… you get my point - was great. You can walk to a street corner in a heavy jacket and gloves to buy fresh papaya, mango and avocado. Where else can you get that combo? I spent the latter half of my research time in La Paz working with a contemporary artist in Zona Sur and a doll-maker working at an NGO in El Alto. I had some luck with my living situation and ended up living with a great family who I sort of randomly met though friends of a mom of a ex-boyfriend of a friend. I lived in Zona Sur with them and they were extremely good to me. Other highlights from La Paz include a visit to a Cholita wrestling match. Quite a scene.


Enjoying coca mojitos in La Paz, Cholita wrestling, and a scene of the city


Tiwanaku and Copacabana - In Copacabana, we stayed in a super nice hotel and I stayed in a baller private cabana with three other girls. One day in Copacabana, we went on a day long boat tour of different Islands and ruins. It was such a relaxing and nice day and the lake was beautiful. After lunch, our boat stopped at the side of the lake. All of the sudden people in our group started getting naked and jumping in from the top of the boat. Except for one person, our whole group skinny dipped in lake Titicaca, midday, in front of our tour guide, the boat driver, our directors, and their 8 year old son. It was the coldest water I’ve ever been in. Oh, peer pressure. And, of course, we didn’t think about how we were going to get back in the boat before jumping out of it and leaving all of our clothes on the top level. That was the entertaining part. After all of the boys suavely pulled themselves back into the boat, we girls crouched on some rocks, shivering, debating how we were going to do it. Finally we decided that there was no un-embarrassing way get back, so we let ourselves get pulled up by the tour guide while trying to climb in. I wonder what he thought of us. Our director and his wife, Lupe, were very supportive of this endeavor. Nudity seems to have become a theme in our group.
On our boat ride back to Copacabana, I was sitting with four or five others and Lupe. Somehow, we started talking about sex education. Lupe took over the convo with lessons from Kama Sutra, in Spanish of course. I was trying to be mature and focus on what she was saying until she mentioned something about elephants and the difference between vaginas chicas and vaginas grandes. I can’t handle detailed sex talks. I held back my laughter as much as I could... I didn't want to disappoint my role-model, Lupe. The discussion ended with a group consensus that the kama sutra should be incorporated into every school’s sex education class. I should petition that in Alabama.


Reiki Initiation
After experiencing hours of reiki performed by Lupe, I decided to ask her to initiate me into the practice. My body is now officially a vessel for g-d's energy! Initiation lasted 8 hours of one-on-one Lupe time. She's a calming person to spend time with. At the end of the day, as my exam, I had perform a full reiki session on one of her clients. It was a little nerve-racking but he gave me a sincere "muchas gracias" at the end. When my parents came to visit, I booked a day with Lupe for the three of us. It was one of the nicest days I've experienced - after being thoroughly reiki'd, we played energy bowls for an hour matching different tones and creating music.

Chalalan

When my program ended, I met my parents in La Paz and flew with them to Rurrenabaque, a misty town in the rainforest. When we got to the airport, we learned that our plane had been delayed because of rain. The runway is a dirt road and rainy slosh would not be fun to land it. We made friends with some young travelers and finally arrived in Rurre. After laying in hammocks, reading,, and eating star fruit from the trees, we went to happy hour at the Mosquito Bar. Our friends from the airport were there and we drank with them for awhile and had a good time. It's always fun meeting new people and exchanging experiences. The next day, we took a three hour boat ride down a river to get to our eco-lodge, Chalalan. Chalalan was absolutely beautiful! It was set on a lake smack in the middle of the rainforest. It was rainy season when we were there and the rainforest was super dense and green... almost mystical. We were the only ones there and had the whole ecolodge to ourselves. We went on hikes and canoe rides and saw monkeys, turkeys, frogs, insects, birds, and... cayman! We got back to Rurre on the day we were supposed to fly back to La Paz only to learn that planes hadn't left Rurre for the past three days due to rain. We freaked out a little at first (we had an international flight to catch!), but resolved our frustration with Israeli falafel (there are tons of Israelis in Rurrenabaque.. we even found a "Jabad" house with a picture of the Rebbe on it!). We returned to the Mosquito Bar later that night to enjoy fresh-fruit cocktails at happy hour and our friends from the airport were there too. We left the next day. It was a very relaxing way to end my time in Bolivia.

Jabad House of Rurrenabaque and My dad getting a hair cut... we (the whole fam) treated ourselves to 4 dollar luxury haircuts

Canoe ride at Chalalan

the whole fam with a big tree in the rainforest

I miss Bolivia SO MUCH! And mi familia!

Dancing with mi papa at a SIT fiesta

Inauguration in DC

OBAMAAAA!!!! Inauguration was the most inspiring event I've been present at. The number of people who rallied for the unity of our country was amazing. It was a weekend of pride for our country and hope for our world.Liz and I on our way to the mall