Hofstra Odyssey

It feels incredibly surreal to be sitting in my room now without the need to wake up early tomorrow morning to travel to our next site. I wrote this yesterday right before we went out for the last time together in Paris: 

This is our last night. 1 night left to really savor the moment, marvel at the sights and most importantly, spend time together as a group, one that is less like a collection of students and more like a crazy, dysfunctional but deeply attached family. And we don’t even fully realize this yet. Yet we all know, consciously or subconsciously, that when we all go off on our own ways this summer, a part of us will feel like it’s missing. 

For the last 10 weeks, our entire perception of time and life-pace has been slammed into overdrive. We have been living at a highly intense level, cramming so much into the seemingly always-dwindling time we have. Through this rapid lifestyle, we have all been forced to learn how to live in the present since one wasted moment means that we could already be in a new city or country. The feeling of having frequently missed something of value was not an uncommon phenomenon. We have worked through it though; picking up whatever scraps of value we could along the way and moving forward to find some more. 

Sometimes, we really experienced “beauty” and other times we only got a quick peek, which can be a bit of a tease. We learned that even things that are clearly not positive can contain a different kind of importance worth seeing such as our visit to the Terezin concentration camp outside of Prague. We also learned that not every challenge is an unfortunate thing and not every unfortunate thing has to be a challenge. We realized that part of being a tribe, as Linda dubbed us, was having the ability to sacrifice one’s own needs for the greater benefit of the group- and this certainly isn’t an easy thing to do. Yet we all had to face our own personal difficulties, and many of us surprised ourselves with what we accomplished.

Ask any one of us and you will find that it is very difficult for us to rank the experiences we had or the sites we visited. I realized this after I fell into a particular habit of declaring in every single location we traveled to, “this is my favorite city yet!” I finally stopped doing that and just accepted that everything we have seen has been pretty amazing. There were a certain special places that were literally so stunning that I found it difficult to believe what I was looking at such as our drive through the Swiss Alps or Budapest at night along the Danube river or countless others.

It is undoubtedly going to be tough to return to reality. However, I would not change a thing because it is the bittersweetness of the return that signifies a unique and incredible trip. 

Beer gardens have been popular in German for quite some time dating back to the 19^th century, primarily in the southern part of the country.  In the past they didn’t serve food and allowed customers to bring their own picnics. Most beer gardens now serve food, but still allow customers to bring their own and have a picnic if they wish.  Beer gardens have become a staple in German social life with plenty of seats in a casual setting.

After spending the morning walking around Berlin we stopped at the Café am Neuen See, Biergarten for a beer and a bite to eat.  The café was situated at the edge of the Tiergarten, which is a large urban park located in the city.  We found the beer garden to be a sanctuary hidden in the trees.  The picnic tables were filled with families and friends eating in the shade.  It was hard to find a seat on the crowded deck, but after moving a few things around we were situated. Traditional German foods were served in addition to pizza and desserts.  We grabbed our beers and then waited in line and picked a dish to try for lunch.  Given the fact that none of us speak German we still aren’t exactly sure what we ate, but it was delicious.  It looked like a slice of a large hot

On our first full day in Berlin, we went on a walking tour of the city. I never knew how big Berlin was. The tour lasted about four hours, and we only stayed in East Berlin for most of that time! Our tour guide was amazing because she knew so much about the history of Berlin, but she also told us great stories to help us really visualize what it was really like during a certain time in the past. 

One of the most interesting points of the tour for me was visiting some of the remains of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall was established during the Cold War in August of 1961, forbidding any emigration from East Berlin to West Berlin. Our tour guide explained to us how the wall was literally put up overnight, and wherever anyone in Berlin happened to be for that night, in the east or in the west, that is where they would be stuck by the next morning. Some were separated from families or loved ones by the wall, barbed wire, and multiple guard towers and checkpoints. West Berliners were permitted only short, approved visits into East Berlin, and there was sometimes a risk that they would not be able to return. 

Our tour guide told us amazing stories about people who escaped from East Berlin to West Berlin. For example, one woman spent months in advance preparing for her escape by losing as much weight as she could. Then, at a pre-arranged date, her boyfriend from West Berlin came to East Berlin for a day, and she was so thin that they cut open the passenger seat of his car, put her inside it, and stitched the lining back up. They were able to drive back to West Berlin without being caught!

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and German reunification followed shortly in 1990. 

I know what you are thinking. “You guys took one of those dumb, touristy ghost tours of Prague?” The answer is yes, yes we did. And I think if you asked any one of us who went (Charlotte, Dan, Emma, Jenna, Kaylee, Nicole and I) we would tell you it was one of the most enjoyable tours we have been on. And on this trip, we go on a lot of tours. 

There were several interesting moments that made this tour great, and I feel qualifed to evaluate as such because I am a tour guide at Hofstra. 

Number One: She wore a costume. She looked like the grim reaper. She held a noose instead of an umbrella so we could easily identify her while walking through crowds. She had a friend that was dressed up who purposely hid to scare us near the end of the tour. This takes a lot of preparation. I appreciated it and thouroughly enjoyed it. 

Number Two: She told a lot of corny jokes and went with them even when no one laughs. As a tour guide, I know that sometimes you have to make a corny joke when your audience seems uninterested. Sometimes they work and you feel awesome. Most of the time you feel like the teacher calling out Ferris Beuller’s name when he has skipped class, all you hear are crickets. When her jokes flopped on all of us, she just kept rolling and told more corny jokes until we couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. 

Number Three: I actually learned a lot. It is important to note that I was told that sometimes the tours make some stuff up to make the town seem spookier or scarier than it originally is, but I think most of her stories are based on truth. One of them is the story of Golem:

Prague is home to Europe’s oldest synagogue. The rabbi of said synagogue was tired of the anti-semitism his people were experiencing and created a Golem. The golem was a massive monster constructed from the clay taken from the banks of the Vltava River and was used at the beck and call of the rabbi and his followers to protect themselves. When it was no longer needed, the golem was destroyed (some say) or buried (some others say) or still alive (according to some Nazis apparently). She told us the story in front of the synagogue that may or may not hold his body and left us with so many cliffhangers as we moved around the Jewish Quarter. 

So overall, it was an amazing experience. We got to see Prague at night and see neighborhoods that we probably would never have seen otherwise (including, perhaps, the creepiest hospital in the history of the world). We learned some new stories about Prague from a women in a grim reapers costume. How many of you can claim to do that?!? 

(She is listed as one of our favorite tour guides on our list of tour guides, in case any of you were wondering.)

We arrived to Prague on April 26th, just in time to celebrate Jenna’s birthday.  We had a great dinner at a restaurant right down the street.  Around the corner from our hostel was Bohemia Bagels, which some of us went to several times a day.  Our hostel was also right next to the Tyn Church.  We constructed on our own little walking tour the second day there.   We visited the infamous Prague Castle, the largest castle in Eastern Europe and the Charles Bridge, the bridge that helped unite Prague during the 14th century and has 30 statues on it.  We also visited the Prague Metronomm, the National Theatre, the Bethelem Chapel, the Powder Tower, the Tyn Church, Petrin Tower, Wenceslas Square, Astronomical Clock, Henry’s Bell Tower, the Lenin wall, the Jewish cementary, and the location of where the story of the Golem started.  The atmosphere of Prague makes you want to live there.  It is beautiful city and is very rich in history and culture.