What Happens in Amsterdam Stays in Amsterdam...

So this past weekend, I traveled to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Now, you should know a few things about Amsterdam before you continue reading - first, Amsterdam has…let's say, "looser" regulations about certain things that are less acceptable in America. For example, prostitution is one of Amsterdam's biggest industries, and is quite prevalent. Also, the use of marijuana is widespread amongst the "coffeeshops" of Amsterdam.

So we rolled out of Luxembourg Friday afternoon and caught a 14:20 train toward Namur, where we changed trains. Then, our train from Namur to Liege-Guillemins got late, and we missed our next train. But, we eventually got on a train from Liege-Guillemins to Maastricht, and then on to Amsterdam.

We pulled up at about 21:00 into the main station at Amsterdam, and had to figure out how to get to our sketchy bed and breakfast. Turns out we have to get on this ferry across the river, and then we just had to walk up the street to get to this lady's house. Luckily, we found the place without any problems, and met Linda - the hippy lady. Backstory - so we ended up at this B&B because someone's marketing professor heard we were going to Amsterdam, and recommended this place, and actually made our reservations for us (turns out Linda was an old friend of his).

So, our rooms were very interestingly decorated: lots of strange black paintings and funky decorations. Also, though there was a bathroom in the hall, we had a shower in our room - but it was like a free-standing unit, with an umbrella on top. After we set our stuff down, we headed back into the city to get dinner - because we were starving and it was almost 22:00.

So we rolled into the city, and wandered around for a while looking for someplace to eat. Unfortunately, as we were getting into the city late, the only real option was McDonald's (well, there was a KFC across the street, but that just seemed too American for us). We got some cheap food, and then walked over into the Red Light district. It was not really what I expected. Basically, there are just streets lined with these places where girls have like their own little booths, with glass doors. And they just kind of stand there, and from my understanding, if you want to uh…make a transaction, you have to go up, knock on the window, negotiate the price, step into their office…I think that's about enough detail. Anyhow, I actually thought it was hilarious at one point, because this one girl was in her booth, not paying any attention to all the people outside - she was texting on her phone. What the heck? I mean, it's not like I was interested, but she wasn't even trying.

We strolled around for a little bit longer, and then ended up at Bulldog, the hostel that a bunch of other Miami students were staying at. We sat around and just hung out for a bit - many of the students were in different states of mind, so it was quite entertaining. 

When all the other Miami students were clearing out, we decided to follow suit, but while they went to the Red Light District, we just went back to our place.  After about probably 5 minutes, we were asleep.

I woke up at 6:45 on Saturday morning, because I had thought that the established game plan was to be up and ready to roll at 8 am. Again, miscommunications about waking up led me to just chilling and getting some work done Saturday morning. We had breakfast with Linda at around 9:30, which consisted of bread, a nutella-like chocolate and marshmallow spread, eggs with ham, coffee, and orange juice. It was awesome to get a hearty, warm breakfast.

We got back to the dock, got on the ferry (which I'm still not sure if it cost anything to get on, but we never paid for it, so whatever), and got back to the main train station. We then took a leisurely walk to the Anne Frank house. The city is very pretty, much more so during the day than it was the night before. Here is a picture of one of the canals in the city:

We eventually got to the Anne Frank house, and noticed that there was a substantial line, but heard it was going fast. Our group actually split up at this point, as several members were uninterested, and several were. I was among those who stayed and waited in line. It was only about a 40 minute wait to get in, but it seemed faster. So unfortunately, you were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum / house, but I can tell you all about it:

So it's actually quite a large facility, because the front part is a warehouse area, and in the back, where the 8 people actually hid, was a sort of annex house. Throughout the museum they had quotations from Anne Frank's diary on the walls, and a ton of artifacts or relevant news publications. They still had the original newspaper cutouts and posters that Anne and her family had put on the walls hung up in place. When you walk through the bookcase into the secret annex, you really do feel like you can connect with what they did for two years. They had the curtains drawn all the time, they could never go outside, and had to maintain silence as much as possible.

Basically, it was really cool. At the end especially, they had a ton of stuff about Anne's actual diary. They had a bunch of original pages and stuff - it seemed as though she was quite the prolific writer. It's a shame, such inspiration and hope, lost because of a genocidal maniac and his oratorical skills.

So then, we went to go meet our friends at the Heineken Brewery. Unfortunately, we went the wrong way and ended up going like 20 minutes out of the way before turning around and power-walking all the way to the Brewery. The 15 euros it cost to go on the "Heineken Experience" tour was a little steep, but I'd do it again for sure.

The first part of the tour was all about the history of Heineken. It discussed the company's founding, their awards, and the evolution of the business. Then, we got to see how they make the actual beer, and even got to taste the raw hops and barley (which were bitter and terrible). Next, we got to see all of the brewing facilities, which were large and cool but I had no idea what any of it was for. The next part of the tour was called "Brew U" and it was like an interactive ride in which they demonstrated what it would be like to become a bottle of Heineken beer. While interesting, all I wanted to do was get something to drink. We hadn't had lunch, and I was really thirsty from the power-walking. Finally, we got to have our tasting of freshly made Heineken beer. So they let us go into this room, and they just passed out glasses (15 cl, which means they were small), of beer to taste. The guy explained that there is a lot of foam in Heineken beer, and that's intentional to protect the flavor of the beer underneath. They instructed us to tilt the glass back when we drink so that the beer can get under the foam into our mouths - and how drinking foam would indicate your inexperience and overall lameness. It was harder than I imagined, but I managed to not drink all of the foam. Whatever. But my thirst was still not satisfied. Here is a picture of Heineken's tasting bar area:

So we continued on the tour, and got to see several exhibits about the marketing of Heineken and of all the stuff they sponsored. There was an exhibit about James Bond and another about the Champions League - both were really cool. Finally though, at the end of the tour, we got to the Heineken World Bar. We each were given two tokens upon entrance to the experience, and each token was good for a beer at the World Bar. So, that's pretty much what happened. We sort of skipped the line and just went up and grabbed our drinks. These were bigger glasses (maybe 25 or 30 cl - I honestly don't remember). But we got our second drinks, and had those too. And then I remember some strangers just left their full beers on our table, and I seem to recall somebody pouring some of that into my empty glass. 

Moral of the story: Jimmy is a lightweight / beer has greater effects on you if you haven't eaten lunch. So then, we exited the brewery. Now, several of our friends had gone and rented bikes without us, so we had to take the tram back to the train station and get bikes of our own. That tram ride was probably the most fun I've had in a while - due to the fact that I was definitely beyond the point of "just feeling it" and would even go as far as to say I was "tipsy." Anyway, for some reason I let (Name removed for liability purposes) convince me that it'd be fine to get on bikes. I can't even believe the guy let me rent them, and even encouraged me to not get the 3 euro insurance! Probably not the best decision I've ever made in my life, but luckily nothing bad happened. I somehow managed to be able to bike around solidly for the rest of the evening - how, I'll never know.

We settled on going to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. Some of the other Miami students had told us that all of the Chinese and Indonesian food was really good in Amsterdam (don't ask me why), but we ended up at a Tibetan restaurant. I had mixed meat and rice, which was warm and delicious. Also, it was cheap, I think it ended up costing like ten euros for the whole meal. So anyways, we paid, and headed back out into the city.

After getting our bikes, riding through the crowded streets, and parking them shortly thereafter, we decided it was time to go to another bar. So we ended up at the Blarney Stone, an Irish pub. It was by far the lamest Irish pub I've been to yet. I mean, there was like ten people there, most of them were already drunk, and they were all guys. If there is not a single woman in the entire bar, you can be sure you're at the wrong place. Anyhow, they did have cheap beer, so I somehow managed to procure a pint of Guinness (funny how that just happens). 

So we were pretty tired, and after biking through the Red Light district at night, we had all had plenty of Amsterdam and were ready to sleep. So we made our way back to the train station, got on our ferry, crossed the river, and rolled up to our B&B. So, after such a long day, we still faced the challenge of getting into our place - Linda had supposedly left a key for us in the mailbox, but it was the wrong key, and we were supposed to use the back door. Ergo, we ended up knocking on the door, and Linda had to come let us in. Then, after a long and challenging day, I at least, had relatively little challenges in getting to sleep.

We awoke late Sunday morning, around 8:30 or so. After a quick shower in our room, we heard Linda calling us down for breakfast. Again, we had some delicious bread, coffee, and warm eggs. It is so clutch to get warm breakfast - they just don't do that in Europe very often. So then we got on our bikes, and rode back into the city (after taking the ferry of course). Here is a picture of our little ferry dock area (with the train station centered in the background):

We shopped around for touristy souvenirs (I really should buy people some gifts…). After that, we returned our bikes, went back to our B&B to pick up our backpacks, and hopped on a train after snagging some sandwiches for lunch. So after approximately seven hours of relatively uneventful train travel, we got back to Lux City, and thus ended another interesting weekend in Europe.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to check out more pictures on facebook (I'll put them up shortly after I post this blog). 

Ich Finde Berlin Sehr Gut!

Listen: Berlin is awesome. Go there. This past weekend, Megan, Devon, and I traveled to the wonderful and historic capital of Deutschland. It's fair to say that it was one of the coolest places I've been.

Friday - got out of class around noon, figured out the game plan, got all my stuff together and took the 13:00 train from Differdange into Lux city. Rolled up at 13:40, went to the grocery store and got sandwiches, wine (we didn't end up drinking it on the train - that's just so not classy) and snacks for the train. Got on the train headed toward Koblenz, which was chill. But then - DISASTER STRIKES - our train from Koblenz to Frankfurt is 20 minutes late. Ergo, we're gonna miss our connection from Frankfurt to Berlin. Anyhow, we got into Frankfurt late (our train to Berlin had left), but we managed to get on another, later train to Berlin thanks to an Icelandic guy at the train station. That train was an ICE train (one of the high speed German trains) and it was really crowded but we snagged some seats. It was a rather chill ride, and we got into Berlin at around 00:30. Yikes. 

So our hostel was pretty far away from the Hauptbahnhof. We had to get on an S-Bahn (suburban train) to another station, Alexanderplatz, where we got off. Then, we went to look for the M5/M6 tram stop. As we stood there, trying to figure out whether the tram would actually still be running, Devon decided to go up and ask this stranger how to get to our hostel (i.e. she tells him where we're staying - do not do this). He's like "yeah sure, I'm going that way, I'll take you there." Now, at this point, for about five seconds, I was relieved. But then my sense of danger got cranking - all of a sudden I realize me and two girls are following this stranger through the dark streets of Berlin. He told us he was a police officer, which made me feel better, but I wasn't letting my guard down - I mean, I literally had my hand on my swiss army knife in my pocket (I would recommend carrying one wherever you go). But everything worked out fine, he took us to where the actual tram station was, and told us where to get off. So we got off the tram right by our hostel - Generator Hostel Berlin - which turned out to be a giant mega-hostel. Like, this place had 900 beds or something like that. Anyways, we checked in, and went upstairs to our room. We were in a 6 person room with just 2 other strangers. At this point it's 02:00 and we're exhausted, so we call it a night, and conk out.

Got up on Saturday morning, showered, and when Megan and Devon were ready we headed downstairs for our free breakfast. We had to take all our stuff out of our room because we had to switch rooms between Friday and Saturday night, so we left our stuff in the hostel's locked luggage room. From there, we got on a tram - oh wait, you don't know how to use a tram? I've never explained that before? Oh, well, let's pause for a brief synopsis of tram etiquette and knowledge:

How to Pay For and Get on a Tram:

1. Find the tram stop

2. At the larger, main tram stops, they will have small electronic kiosks where you can go to purchase tickets. You need to know what kind of ticket you want, so check the surrounding area for posters that have information about them. Most places offer simple, one-way tickets, day-long passes, or even group passes. Evaluate which one you need, and if there is a machine at your stop, purchase a ticket. If there is a machine and you now have a printed ticket in your hand, proceed to step 3. If not, proceed to step 4.

3. You need to validate your ticket. What that means is that you need to get a little stamp on it that says the date and time. There will be machines that do this at every single tram stop. They look kind of like orange posts, but they all have a slot with an arrow pointing into the slot. All you need to do is put your ticket (in the correct direction) into the slot, and it will stamp. Then, you can hop on the tram.

4. If there is not a ticket machine, get on the tram you want, and buy your ticket on the tram - all of them will have both a machine and validation system onboard. 

5. Sit in a seat if possible, but if none are available, it's perfectly acceptable to stand - just remember to hold on.

6. Watch for when your stop is - when you see it come up as the next stop (on the overhead screens that you'll find on every tram), and push the "Stop" button that you'll see on all of the handles in the tram. It will just signal that someone for sure wants to get off the tram.

7. At your stop, push the "door open" button on the door itself (it should look like a green button, and it will likely be flashing, even before you push it). Exit the tram. Congratulations - you made it!

Now, where was I? Ok - so we got off the tram, got on another S-Bahn into the main part of Berlin, and took a leisurely breakfast stroll over a river and on down to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). It is really cool:

The story behind the statue on the top is really funny and interesting: So I guess they had this statue here, and then Napoleon came and jacked it when he was conquering and stuff. Napoleon took it back to Paris with him, but later, the Germans got it back and made some slight changes to the statue. They renamed it "The Goddess of Victory" and actually changed the angle of the goddess's head on the statue, so now she is staring right at the French Embassy, which is located in this square, as a reminder to the French. I thought it was hilarious. 

From there, we waited at the Starbucks for our FREE (English) walking tour. That's right, free and in English. So we then got to go on an almost four hour walking tour of Berlin. It was really cool, and our tour guide was awesome. Turns out he was from Atlanta originally, and loved America and Germany. So Adam, our tour guide took us all around the city - one of our first stops was just at the Brandenburg Gate going over the history of the city. I'll try to sum it up quickly - It was founded as a Slavic fishing village called, "Brrl"and is built on a swamp. Fast forward, since communists don't like people who like freedom, they built a wall in the city. In 1989, everybody finally realizes what's up, and the wall goes down (more on that story later). 20 years later, the city is still coming back together and is full of history from Nazi Germany among other things. 

So we went to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe, which is right in the middle of the city. It's rather abstract, but I personally found it really powerful. Here is what it looked like:

It's basically row upon row of these stones, and they're all different sizes. There are exactly 2,711 of them - which is an absolutely (and purposefully) a meaningless number. The artist wanted it to be an abstract work. You can kinda tell from this picture that the floor is not flat - it moves up and down, which adds to the intrigue. You should check it out.

We then went onwards, and ended up in a parking lot. Turns out that we were standing on Hitler's bunker. So weird, and a little surreal to be standing on top of the bunker of a man who murdered millions of people. Here is me standing on Hitler's bunker:

We then visited the Luftwaffe headquarters, which was one of the few surviving buildings from the Nazi regime. It's a huge building, literally it takes up a city block, so it was interesting that the Allies never bombed it. Two theories exist as to why that was: first, there may have been a "gentlemen's agreement" between the UK and Germany about not bombing the air force headquarter's (b/c the RAF headquarters in London had survived the war also), second, it is a huge landmark, so allied bombers might not have bombed it so that they could use it as a marker in orienting them towards their other targets in Berlin.

We also saw the Berlin Wall, but I have better pictures of it from later on that day, so for now, just be patient. The wall is surprisingly not intimidating. It's not as tall as I thought it would be, but again, it was surreal just to be there, literally touching history. We also walked past Checkpoint Charlie, which was a place along the Berlin Wall where people with the correct documentation could cross. Next, Adam took us to this little cafe for a break (I'm sure the tour guides must get some kind of kickback from that place, since they brought like a hundred people in). I had a chicken sandwich, it was excellent. 

From there, we walked over to what was described as one of the most beautiful squares in the city. The official national concert hall was located there, as were both a French and German church. My memory fails me hear, but I think basically a bunch of French Huguenots had come to Berlin and helped do something, so the Berliners built them a church. Then, the Germans decided they needed their own church, right on the same square - so they built basically the exact same church as they had for the French, but the Germans made their church just a little taller and just a little bigger. Hilarious, the German sense of humor. 

We then walked to a much darker place in German history. Another square, where the former library of Humboldt University is located - where the Nazis gathered books by Jewish authors and burnt them publicly. It was an awful feeling, knowing the atrocity that this book-burning predates, especially because many of the people who burnt books were professors at the University - the very people who are supposed to protect free thinking and open discussion. There was a memorial there to the books lost, but it's not what you might think. Basically in the middle of the square, there is a glass square, probably 4 feet by 4 feet. Through the glass, you can see a large white room under the ground, and you can see row upon row of empty bookshelves. Adam told us that it was the designer's intention to convey the "presence of absence." Also, there was a small plaque with a quotation on it, it reads: "DAS WAR EIN VORSPIEL NUR, DORT WO MAN BUCHER VERBRENNT, VERBRENNT MAN AM ENDE AUCH MENSCHEN" which means "That was only a prelude, where they burn books, they ultimately burn people." Craziest thing about it? The guy, Heinrich Heine, who wrote these words wrote them in 1820, over a hundred years before the Nazis burned books there. Just goes to show you that if you don't learn from history, you really are doomed to repeat it.

We then walked over to this cool little memorial. All it consisted of was an empty room with a statue of a woman holding her dying child in her hands, and then has the graves of a Nazi soldier and a German Jew at the statue's feet. Pretty powerful stuff.

We then walked over to the Berliner Dom, our last stop on our tour. It's basically just Berlin's cathedral. It was pretty cool though. Then Adam told us the final story of our tour. He had mentioned early on in the tour that he would tell us how two words brought down the Berlin Wall.

Listen: so apparently in November 1989 the leaders in East Berlin had been feeling some pressure about this whole wall issue (I already apologize for lack of details, but it's been a hectic and crazy week of schoolwork and such, so I've been putting writing this off). Anyway, so they decided, at this secret meeting, to tell everybody that they were gonna allow people to cross the wall, but not really allow that to happen. So as it turns out, this one guy missed the secret meeting, and is scheduled to give this press conference. Right before the press conference, this guy's aide hands him the notes from the secret meeting he missed - which he doesn't get a chance to read. So he gets up there, gives a spiel about something, but then some reporter asks him point blank about the wall issues. He doesn't really know how to answer the question, so he starts looking at this paper (summary of secret meeting), so he just starts reading off the part about how they're going to open up the wall and let everyone pass freely. He never really gets to the part about how they weren't actually going to do that, so all the reporters pounce. Turns out Tom Brokow is the one who asks, "When?" And so this guy looks down at the paper, scans it, can't find a date anywhere - except for in the corner where it reads, "November 9, 1989" (which was that day's date, b/c that is the day the memo was written). So he then utters the two words that bring down the Berlin Wall: "Effective immediately." It blew my mind that the Berlin Wall fell because of a communication error and fortunate mishap. The world is funny like that sometimes, I suppose.

This is a video of our tour guide from the conclusion of our tour:

After our tour, we tipped Adam, and went on our merry way. By our merry way, I mean we walked around to a little flea market on the other side of the Dom. then, we stood around and watched some sort of parade/demonstration. We think they were all football fan clubs and supporters, but not really sure - if it was a riot then it was a very happy riot. After that, we took the S-Bahn a couple of stops over to another part of the Berlin Wall. For 1.3 km, the wall is intact, and has been painted on by over a hundred muralists. The murals themselves all represent in some way the feelings the artists had about the Wall. Here are a couple of pictures I took of these parts of the wall: Hmmm...ok, well it appears as though it won't actually let me upload these pictures (it says something about only using pictures I have a license to use? I think I should be able to use them - well, I'll put them on facebook, so you can see them there, I guess). 

We then walked up to a neighborhood Adam had told us about, and decided to find some dinner. On the way though, we stopped at a German bookstore so Megan could buy some children's books in German. Then, we ended up at dinner in this suedo-mexican place (?) because they were having happy hour when we walked by. Happy hour in Germany = 3,90 euro for a pina colada. Score. Ok, so it was nice and warm in our restaurant, but as soon as we got outside, we realized how cold it really was. So our "pub crawl" turned into us going into the first bar we found and chilling. We had some typical German beer (typical as in the brand name was "Bier"), and then took some trams / trains / sidewalks back to our hostel. After getting on the internet in the lobby downstairs to wish my mom a happy birthday, headed back upstairs and got to sleep after a long day.

Sunday morning we got up early, so that we could get breakfast. Now, there may have been a slight miscommunication about when everyone was supposed to get up, but no serious problems arose (although we did end up stealing some rolls and nutella from breakfast). Then we got all packed, and headed out to try to go to the Reichstag. The Reichstag is the German parliament building (akin to the Capitol Building in D.C.). Here is what it looks like:

The architect was real cool - you see, he built this glass dome on top of the Reichstag to symbolize, "transparency in democracy," so you can climb up into this glass dome and look out over the entire city. Also, from the top, you can look directly down into the German Parliament chamber and see actual government proceedings. As you can see, there is quite a long line, and even though we waited for an hour or so, we never even got close to the door, so we bailed (I guess that just means I'll have to go back!). We then walked around Berlin for a little while, strolled back through the Brandenburg Gate, hung out at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, and then walked back to the train station. Berlin really was a rather beautiful city, definitely more so than I had expected going into the weekend. Here is a pretty picture of the city:

Our train ride home was relatively easy. We all got to sit together, which was nice, and then whilst Megan and Devon slept (or "train-slept" which is the kind of sleep you get on trains - you know, where you are never really fully asleep and every twenty minutes or so you wake up), I talked to the other guy sitting with us. He was a PhD student at Humboldt University on his way to a conference in Essen (another German city). He was trying to explain to me his studies, which I was barely able to converse about - so he was a geography major in his undergrad work, and he was currently working on his PhD thesis on leather workers in Bangladesh and how global value chains are affected by that specific industry. Basically, he was real sharp. We got to talking a little bit about the university system in Germany, and I learned a few interesting things - like how most Germans do undergrad work for 5 years. Also, he was explaining to me that there is a huge trend nowadays of shifting from more traditional styles of teaching (i.e. large lectures), to more seminar-based learning that focuses on students. I talked with him about how Miami University is a sort of unique and interesting mix - we're not a liberal arts college, but we're not some giant mega-university. He thought that was really cool.

So I ended up getting home around 11:30 or so on Sunday night. Not a bad weekend, in fact, it was quite a good weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and would say that Berlin is the first place I would go back to in a heartbeat.

The People You Meet

Ok, so this will be kind of a hodge-podge post that combines a couple of things I've wished to write about.

First, earlier this week, on Monday night, I walked up the stairs to the train stop in Differdange to catch the 10:00 train home. As I climbed upwards a familiar sound reached my ears. Though there were no other Miami students at the stop, I heard English. As I approached, I recognized one individual who I had seen last week in Esch with a Boston College sweatshirt on. So when I realized they were speaking English, I had to know more (i.e. introduce myself). So it was that I met Ella, Walter, Bierette (spelling?), and some other lady whose name I cannot remember but who was definitely from Mexico. Turns out these four individuals are students working towards their Masters degrees in international studies and relations. They are doing that through the university in Leuven, Belgium. So I learned that for their program they are spending eight months in Differdange and Luxembourg and then going back to Leuven for the last three months of their year-long program. It was fascinating, and refreshing, to meet students who are not as crazy or as loud as the Miami students. You see, from the train stop, one can see the MUDEC student body's favorite bar, "Cafe le Notre," more commonly know as "Das Boot." The juxtaposition was ironic and comical for me. To hear the rowdy Miami students from the bar (on a Monday night, no less), and to hear the stories of Walter, a student originally from Belgium, Ella, who came from Armenia to study, and Bierette, who was from Estonia, was a little saddening. Even the internationalism presented by the MUDEC students pales in comparison to that of the Europeans.

Basically, it was cool to hear all of their perspectives on Luxembourg and on university matters. It was nice to meet other students in a relatively similar situation as ourselves. And, we'll hopefully get a chance to see them all again (as I learned that everyone from their program lives in either Differdange or Esch).

Fast forward to Wednesday night. For our mandatory activity, this guy Paul Dostert from some official Luxembourgish government office came and spoke about the Resistance in Luxembourg during World War II. While many of my fellow MUDECers studied for tests or spaced out, I in the front row stayed at least attentive during his hour and a half speech.

I heard the story of a 19 year old who started a strong anti-German resistance in Luxembourg's north. This student, two years later, was to be arrested by the Germans and instead he shot the two German police officers and then took his own life. I learned about how in 1939, Luxembourg defiantly celebrated the centennial anniversary of its founding as an independent nation. I thought it was really awesome that this small country had the guts to basically spit in Germany's face, even as war loomed. This was all during the hour and a half spiel to the whole of MUDEC. After that however, there was a reception scheduled (which I had signed up for - because there was going to be cheese and wine), and so I got to basically hang out with Mr. Dostert, the MUDEC theatre professor (still don't know his name), Assistant Dean Raymond Manes, Kelley (our student activities coordinator), and two other students for another hour. That's when I really learned some interesting things.

Mr. Dostert spoke about Bulgaria during World War II. He told us how not a single Bulgarian was ever taken to a death camp or concentration camp (which are two very different things, as I've learned). He told us how after the war the Bulgarians had tried to claim themselves as a shining example of protecting their own jewish community, and even went as far as to blame other nations for not doing better. To Mr. Dostert, this was hogwash, as he explained that basically the Bulgarians had just not been forced by the Nazis, and that they themselves made no distinctions between protecting Bulgarians and protecting jews. Mr. Dostert also spoke about the interrogations of the Nazi leadership after the war, which John Dolibois (for whom MUDEC is named) participated in. He told us how the Americans took a very "ambitious" policy of taking Nazi leadership into questioning. He said that they had kept them in Luxembourg's north where many interrogations took place before the Nuremburg trials. Now, although it was only his personal theory, he said he had read documents suggesting that Americans actually went so far as to kidnap Nazi leaders from parts of Germany and Luxembourg so that they could question them before they got to Britain or before the Allies' had come up with rules about how the German prisoners were to be treated. Mr. Dostert even said that this tactic was basically designed to make sure that the German prisoners were not taken into Soviet custody. Fascinating. This whole history thing can be really interesting sometimes.

Anyway, I've got to go. This weekend I will be in Cologne and Aachen in Germany. I will definitely take pictures and write a sweet post when I return on Sunday. Thanks!