Croatia:
Bosnia-Herzegovina:
Jewish Museum in Bosnia-Herzegovina:
This inscription made me laugh.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Pictures, Pictures, Pictures Galore
Well the end of our stay here in Freiburg has been a bit anticlimactic. My nose has been scraping my textbooks for my upcoming final exams. But I did promise some pictures from my trip and here they are, along with a video or two!!
Croatia:
Bosnia-Herzegovina:
Jewish Museum in Bosnia-Herzegovina:
This inscription made me laugh.
Croatia:
Bosnia-Herzegovina:
Jewish Museum in Bosnia-Herzegovina:
This inscription made me laugh.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
I'm BACCKKKKK!!!
PICTURES TO COME IN NEXT POST, STILL UPLOADING THEM
Hey everyone!!
Sorry it's been a while, I had a fantastic time on the trip. For starters we went to Croatia, which was interesting because I've never seen an Eastern European country, especially one that was so recently involved in a war (1991). The most interesting thing of note there were the Soviet buildings.
They look SO DIFFERENT from buildings I'm used to seeing. Apparently the Soviets had no idea how to build something aesthetically pleasing at all, but I guess that's what you get without a Capitalist system.
We spoke with a professor and a famous news reporter in the area. We were supposed to be visited by an MP, but unfortunately the jerk cancelled on us. Oh, and the prices were SUPERB. It was amazing to be in a place where the dollar was actually strong. Who knew it existed? I bought a few interesting little dodads, but nothing major.
Before I go on, let me tellk you a bit about the hotels we were staying at: They had a 5-star system in all the countries we went to, and all the hotels posted on their sign how many stars they were.
Perhaps it was government mandated or simply a custom throughout Europe and Turkey that just doesn't exist in the US? Anyway, we always stayed in 4-star hotels (out of 5-star), and they were NICE. They were obviously meant for Western tourists as they had pools, wireless internet access, and everyone spoke English as a necessity.
Following that trip, we went to Bosnia-Herzegovina. For those that dont know it's a pretty messed up country, and I could go on about all I've learned about it for quite a while. Essentially, it's a tripartite government with three micro-countries within it. The first is Republica Serbska, the piece of the coutnry that's majority Serbian. They have their own government.
The second is the Federation, as it's called, which is essentially a confederation of 10 provincial governments. They're split so that they're either large-majority Croat with minority Bosniak or large-majority Bosniak with minority Croat. Yea, really confusing? Don't even get me started...
The third is the weirdest, it's a tiny little province in the north east that's split just about 50-50 between Croats and Bosniaks. When the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords partitioned all this stuff, they wanted to separate this province from the other two partitions because they were fearful of ethnic clashes with both sides so close in number.
That prediction has proven completely wrong, and this 50-50 split province is actually the most prosperous province all all of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Anyway, we visited Bana Luka in Republica Serbska first, and this was perhaps the most interesting part of the trip educationally for me. There were 18 of us and we got to meet with 18 college students at Bana Luka University (they all spoke English) to talk and exchange ideas.
That conversation was a truly revealing moment for me. They had such a different experience than I did in life. They were all young children when the war was going on mostly, but quite a few had lost relatives in it.
What struck me most was their lack of opportunity. Since they weren't an EU member state, they had to get expensive 300 Euro visas to travel. With the average wage their so low, this was nearly impossible.
Unemployment was over 30% and even after graduating from college they had slim prospects for work. I spoke with a few of the students, and let me tell you, they're sharp.
They're at least as smart as I am and a few quite a bit smarter. That I should have all the opportunities in the world and them absolute crap simply because of a genetic lottery on where we were born seemed horribly absurd...
They're stuck in this tiny piece of land in a country that they have no identity with (they consider themselves Serbs, not Bosnians) with few prospects for the future. Despite the grim outlook they were optimistic about their future, which amazed me at their resilience to adversity.
One of the most interesting people I met there was the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Republica Serbska (he was 22 like me). We had some truly interesting discussions on politics and it was amazing to hear such a different perspective on world events and world leaders.
This trip certainly made me more motivated for where I want to go in life. I now know I definitely want to get into International Relations. I'm going to grad school to study it, although I don't know where yet (my friend Mike goes to Texas A&M and told me that it has an excellent IR program so I'll certainly be taking a look at that one).
I may try to take a year off after I graduate undergrad to perhaps take on an Internship. With my poor GPA I'll certainly need something extra on my transcript to help me out.
Anyway, after Bana Luka we went to Sarajevo where the Serbs essentially pulverized it into the ground barely a decade ago. We met with some businessmen and the OSCE (UN organization meant to help progress along) which was alright but not great. Walking around the city was the most amazing part.
I expected everything to be totally destroyed but it wasn't like that. There were certainly hefty war scars everywhere, but life seemed moderately normal. There were markets, shopping, plays, stuff you'd find anywhere. The big difference was every now and then you'd see bullet holes...
I also got to see the exact spot where Franz Ferdinand was murdered, that was a pretty cool piece of history. World War I, anyone? The bazaar there was pretty cool, they had all sorts of old stuff from the war for sale. There were so many things I wanted to purchase but that the airplane probably wouldn't let me take on ;(
Finally, we went to Turkey to see Ankara, Istanbul, and Troy. This is what I was waiting for the whole time I was here. How different was Turkey than the West. Were the people friendly? Were they ready to join the EU?
Before I say anything, THE TOILETS!!! They don't use Western style toilets (except in the hotels meant for Western guests). They were a bit creepy to use, but I managed alright...
Ankara was our first stop. Next to our 4-star hotel was a 5-star hotel, and outside of it we saw a very large black limosine with a US flag on it, clearly someone super-important from the US government (found out later it was a Senator or Representative).
Ankara was pretty damn Western if you ask me. They had the call to prayer 5 times a day, which scared the living bejeezus out of me the first time I heard it. Other than that, though, the people were friendly, quite a few spoke English, and there were some giant skyscrapers.
So we got back to the hotel, and....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! MY MONEYBAG WASN'T IN MY BACKPACK!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I HAD LOST $100, MY CREDIT CARD, DEBIT CARD, AND DRIVERS LICENSE (passport safe). AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I HAD NO WAY TO TAKE OUT MONEY!! Frantically, I took out my cell phone and called every family member I could find. Finally (of all people), Uncle Dan picks up his phone. THis is weird because Dan is notorious for not being there when I call. I asked him to call my Mom and tell her of my dilemma.
I use a wireless network and the excellent iPhone app TextFree to text my mom (my Uncle called to tell her I was texting her, she never knows to look for them) and she tells me to call her. I do, but after a minute, the call drops with a weird German message. I was OUT OF MONEY ON MY CELL PHONE
WHAT?!?!?!?! I had 40 Euros left yesterday that was absurd!! Then I thoguht about it... OH!! It was meant to be an EU international phone. Turkey is NOT in the EU, and I called 8 people in the span of an hour. 8 calls outside the EU and 5 Euro per International call...OOPS!!
I had a lot to communicate with my mother and shes the slowest texter in the world (no offense, mom, I do appreciate your help wholeheartedly), not to mention i had no money for a pay phone, my iPhone had no phone service, and my cell phone was out of cash. Oh, and the instructions to refill my cell phone WERE IN GERMAN.
What to do...Aha! Pull out my handy-dandy iPhone, connect to the WiFi network in the lobby, and download Skype for the iPhone!! Normally you have to pay for calls on iPhone skype, but I remembered they had a promotion where you got One Free Call!! I downloaded it and called my mom's cell ASAP.
Told her the problem, and we discussed how to get money to me through Western Union, etc. Just as she was cancelling my credit card, the bus driver contacted us and said he found my money bag in a corner of the bus under a seat. It had fallen out...
WHEW!! Well, my credit card was cancelled but my money was safe. I sent out a big thanks to my mom (thanks again, btw) and all was well in the world...
Back to the trip though...
We entered quite a few bazaars...BE CAREFUL WHEN DOING SO!! The merchants there have little stands set up and they're very aggressive (in a good way) to get you to buy their wares.
They clearly know what they're doing, as their English is better than many people in the US, and they always charge massively too much with people from the US (they all ask where you're from, seemingly out of curiosity, but it's clearly to gauge how much to charge you). They have silver tongues and like to tell you how good their wares are.
I learned to haggle pretty damn well (at least I thought) out of necessity than anything else. From what I understood at the end, depending on how touristy you look, where you're from, and how stupid you look, they charge anywhere from 20% to 150% above what a "fair" price would be. To discover this I spied on a stand while he sold the same brand of apple tea to 5 different customers.
When I started I was only able to get an item down from 32 lira (Turkish currency, about $0.66 each) to 30, but by the end I managed to get a watch down from 40 to 25. Knowing how to haggle is a great skill to have and I'm glad I was able to get a crash course in it while I was there.
Istanbul was even more cool than Ankara. We visited countless ancient and historical sites, including the tomb of Ataturk, the Hagia Sophia, and the Blue Mosque. Really cool place. Also the Bazaars were bigger and the salesman even MORE aggressive in shoving their wares. Not only the salesman but the restaurant owners too, they would stand outside their restaurants and try to allure tourists with deals.
We visited Troy at the end which had some pretty incredible ruins from ancient times. I'm not a huge ancient history buff but everyone knows about Troy so it was pretty cool to see what they used back then.
Anyway, the trip itself was stupendously interesting. I know more about the Balkans and Turkey then I could ever learn out of books or in a classroom. I now have gifts for quite a few people (except for cousins Max and Ben, those guys are REALLY hard to shop for!!) We got back our midterms today and I got a "B" on both of them which is fine and dandy. Ahead of me I have 3 papers all due Monday so I'll be working my ass off...
See everyone later!!
Hey everyone!!
Sorry it's been a while, I had a fantastic time on the trip. For starters we went to Croatia, which was interesting because I've never seen an Eastern European country, especially one that was so recently involved in a war (1991). The most interesting thing of note there were the Soviet buildings.
They look SO DIFFERENT from buildings I'm used to seeing. Apparently the Soviets had no idea how to build something aesthetically pleasing at all, but I guess that's what you get without a Capitalist system.
We spoke with a professor and a famous news reporter in the area. We were supposed to be visited by an MP, but unfortunately the jerk cancelled on us. Oh, and the prices were SUPERB. It was amazing to be in a place where the dollar was actually strong. Who knew it existed? I bought a few interesting little dodads, but nothing major.
Before I go on, let me tellk you a bit about the hotels we were staying at: They had a 5-star system in all the countries we went to, and all the hotels posted on their sign how many stars they were.
Perhaps it was government mandated or simply a custom throughout Europe and Turkey that just doesn't exist in the US? Anyway, we always stayed in 4-star hotels (out of 5-star), and they were NICE. They were obviously meant for Western tourists as they had pools, wireless internet access, and everyone spoke English as a necessity.
Following that trip, we went to Bosnia-Herzegovina. For those that dont know it's a pretty messed up country, and I could go on about all I've learned about it for quite a while. Essentially, it's a tripartite government with three micro-countries within it. The first is Republica Serbska, the piece of the coutnry that's majority Serbian. They have their own government.
The second is the Federation, as it's called, which is essentially a confederation of 10 provincial governments. They're split so that they're either large-majority Croat with minority Bosniak or large-majority Bosniak with minority Croat. Yea, really confusing? Don't even get me started...
The third is the weirdest, it's a tiny little province in the north east that's split just about 50-50 between Croats and Bosniaks. When the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords partitioned all this stuff, they wanted to separate this province from the other two partitions because they were fearful of ethnic clashes with both sides so close in number.
That prediction has proven completely wrong, and this 50-50 split province is actually the most prosperous province all all of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Anyway, we visited Bana Luka in Republica Serbska first, and this was perhaps the most interesting part of the trip educationally for me. There were 18 of us and we got to meet with 18 college students at Bana Luka University (they all spoke English) to talk and exchange ideas.
That conversation was a truly revealing moment for me. They had such a different experience than I did in life. They were all young children when the war was going on mostly, but quite a few had lost relatives in it.
What struck me most was their lack of opportunity. Since they weren't an EU member state, they had to get expensive 300 Euro visas to travel. With the average wage their so low, this was nearly impossible.
Unemployment was over 30% and even after graduating from college they had slim prospects for work. I spoke with a few of the students, and let me tell you, they're sharp.
They're at least as smart as I am and a few quite a bit smarter. That I should have all the opportunities in the world and them absolute crap simply because of a genetic lottery on where we were born seemed horribly absurd...
They're stuck in this tiny piece of land in a country that they have no identity with (they consider themselves Serbs, not Bosnians) with few prospects for the future. Despite the grim outlook they were optimistic about their future, which amazed me at their resilience to adversity.
One of the most interesting people I met there was the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Republica Serbska (he was 22 like me). We had some truly interesting discussions on politics and it was amazing to hear such a different perspective on world events and world leaders.
This trip certainly made me more motivated for where I want to go in life. I now know I definitely want to get into International Relations. I'm going to grad school to study it, although I don't know where yet (my friend Mike goes to Texas A&M and told me that it has an excellent IR program so I'll certainly be taking a look at that one).
I may try to take a year off after I graduate undergrad to perhaps take on an Internship. With my poor GPA I'll certainly need something extra on my transcript to help me out.
Anyway, after Bana Luka we went to Sarajevo where the Serbs essentially pulverized it into the ground barely a decade ago. We met with some businessmen and the OSCE (UN organization meant to help progress along) which was alright but not great. Walking around the city was the most amazing part.
I expected everything to be totally destroyed but it wasn't like that. There were certainly hefty war scars everywhere, but life seemed moderately normal. There were markets, shopping, plays, stuff you'd find anywhere. The big difference was every now and then you'd see bullet holes...
I also got to see the exact spot where Franz Ferdinand was murdered, that was a pretty cool piece of history. World War I, anyone? The bazaar there was pretty cool, they had all sorts of old stuff from the war for sale. There were so many things I wanted to purchase but that the airplane probably wouldn't let me take on ;(
Finally, we went to Turkey to see Ankara, Istanbul, and Troy. This is what I was waiting for the whole time I was here. How different was Turkey than the West. Were the people friendly? Were they ready to join the EU?
Before I say anything, THE TOILETS!!! They don't use Western style toilets (except in the hotels meant for Western guests). They were a bit creepy to use, but I managed alright...
Ankara was our first stop. Next to our 4-star hotel was a 5-star hotel, and outside of it we saw a very large black limosine with a US flag on it, clearly someone super-important from the US government (found out later it was a Senator or Representative).
Ankara was pretty damn Western if you ask me. They had the call to prayer 5 times a day, which scared the living bejeezus out of me the first time I heard it. Other than that, though, the people were friendly, quite a few spoke English, and there were some giant skyscrapers.
So we got back to the hotel, and....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! MY MONEYBAG WASN'T IN MY BACKPACK!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I HAD LOST $100, MY CREDIT CARD, DEBIT CARD, AND DRIVERS LICENSE (passport safe). AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I HAD NO WAY TO TAKE OUT MONEY!! Frantically, I took out my cell phone and called every family member I could find. Finally (of all people), Uncle Dan picks up his phone. THis is weird because Dan is notorious for not being there when I call. I asked him to call my Mom and tell her of my dilemma.
I use a wireless network and the excellent iPhone app TextFree to text my mom (my Uncle called to tell her I was texting her, she never knows to look for them) and she tells me to call her. I do, but after a minute, the call drops with a weird German message. I was OUT OF MONEY ON MY CELL PHONE
WHAT?!?!?!?! I had 40 Euros left yesterday that was absurd!! Then I thoguht about it... OH!! It was meant to be an EU international phone. Turkey is NOT in the EU, and I called 8 people in the span of an hour. 8 calls outside the EU and 5 Euro per International call...OOPS!!
I had a lot to communicate with my mother and shes the slowest texter in the world (no offense, mom, I do appreciate your help wholeheartedly), not to mention i had no money for a pay phone, my iPhone had no phone service, and my cell phone was out of cash. Oh, and the instructions to refill my cell phone WERE IN GERMAN.
What to do...Aha! Pull out my handy-dandy iPhone, connect to the WiFi network in the lobby, and download Skype for the iPhone!! Normally you have to pay for calls on iPhone skype, but I remembered they had a promotion where you got One Free Call!! I downloaded it and called my mom's cell ASAP.
Told her the problem, and we discussed how to get money to me through Western Union, etc. Just as she was cancelling my credit card, the bus driver contacted us and said he found my money bag in a corner of the bus under a seat. It had fallen out...
WHEW!! Well, my credit card was cancelled but my money was safe. I sent out a big thanks to my mom (thanks again, btw) and all was well in the world...
Back to the trip though...
We entered quite a few bazaars...BE CAREFUL WHEN DOING SO!! The merchants there have little stands set up and they're very aggressive (in a good way) to get you to buy their wares.
They clearly know what they're doing, as their English is better than many people in the US, and they always charge massively too much with people from the US (they all ask where you're from, seemingly out of curiosity, but it's clearly to gauge how much to charge you). They have silver tongues and like to tell you how good their wares are.
I learned to haggle pretty damn well (at least I thought) out of necessity than anything else. From what I understood at the end, depending on how touristy you look, where you're from, and how stupid you look, they charge anywhere from 20% to 150% above what a "fair" price would be. To discover this I spied on a stand while he sold the same brand of apple tea to 5 different customers.
When I started I was only able to get an item down from 32 lira (Turkish currency, about $0.66 each) to 30, but by the end I managed to get a watch down from 40 to 25. Knowing how to haggle is a great skill to have and I'm glad I was able to get a crash course in it while I was there.
Istanbul was even more cool than Ankara. We visited countless ancient and historical sites, including the tomb of Ataturk, the Hagia Sophia, and the Blue Mosque. Really cool place. Also the Bazaars were bigger and the salesman even MORE aggressive in shoving their wares. Not only the salesman but the restaurant owners too, they would stand outside their restaurants and try to allure tourists with deals.
We visited Troy at the end which had some pretty incredible ruins from ancient times. I'm not a huge ancient history buff but everyone knows about Troy so it was pretty cool to see what they used back then.
Anyway, the trip itself was stupendously interesting. I know more about the Balkans and Turkey then I could ever learn out of books or in a classroom. I now have gifts for quite a few people (except for cousins Max and Ben, those guys are REALLY hard to shop for!!) We got back our midterms today and I got a "B" on both of them which is fine and dandy. Ahead of me I have 3 papers all due Monday so I'll be working my ass off...
See everyone later!!
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