I am the worst blogger ever. I wouldn’t say my posts are bad, but I got back from Austria like three weeks ago. By the time I post about my Seattle trip, school will have started. However, when you see how long this is you’ll be begging me to stop posting…
This blog post is dedicated to Jessica Bralley. Thank you Jessica.
This summer has turned out to be pretty exciting. First it was Alaska. Then it was my accidental involvement in a sting operation. Then it was time for Austria and Germany! Several months ago I agreed to volunteer for SisterEmily’s organization at the 2010 International AIDS Conference, selling bags to benefit families living with HIV.
Just as I was beginning to prepare myself for the trip, Henrietta (my snake) decided to scare the bejezus out of me. I woke up the night before our flight (scheduled for 8pm the next day) to the loud sound of a snake in its death-throws. I will spare you the details, but she was having trouble breathing and kept holding her head up (which I later read lines up her esophagus). I thought for sure she wouldn’t make it past the night, but when I woke up she was still living, though wheezing audibly. My Mom graciously agreed to take her to a snake vet on Monday since Emily and I were leaving in about five hours. Great timing Henrietta! This whole deal unfortunately put a cloud on my first day of traveling and sight seeing.
Since I only got 20 minutes of sleep on our two plane rides my mind had plenty time to wander on our very sweaty journey to our hotel in Vienna, Austria. After setting our stuff down, we walked around the city to stay off our much-awaited chance for sleep. First we had lunch/dinner at a nice restaurant, except Em and I failed at ordering the right things. Not b/c of any language barrier. Just because we failed. Next, we jet-lagged our way to the Hofburg Palace (home of the infamous Silverwear museum). It was strange, one side of the palace did not look familiar at all, but a quick walk through one passage way and I found the Vienna I remembered. We also saw Stephans Gothic Cathedral, ate some ice cream, and went to our first H&M of the trip. Then I could go no longer. I had no trouble falling asleep.
At our 5am on Tuesday, I read a text message from my Mom telling me Henrietta did not make it. Apparently, a tumor was making it almost impossible for her to breath, so they euthanized her. Needless to say I was very sad. I had owned her for about eight years and I wish I could have been with her at the end. However, I decided not to let the news ruin my vacation and I soldiered on.
Around 7am Em and I took the train to Salzburg. We sat across from a nice American couple—oldish, but recently married. The woman’s son was marrying a Slovakian girl who was fluent in five languages. As we talked to them on the stuffy nonairconditioned train, it made a stop and a firm voice told us to get the hell off the train b/c of technical difficulties. Eventually another train came but the announcer on the platform only spoke German. We very hesitantly got on the train everyone else got on, though it said it was going in the opposite direction. We found a nice man on the train who seemed to speak German, Spanish and English very well assured us our half of the train was going to Salzburg. Our second train ended up having actual air flow and fewer people, while only arriving a little late. It ended up quite nicely and that’s why you should always go with the flow.
We found our hotel and were happy to be greeted in English. When my sister had called the hotel from the US she had asked the Austrian “Sprechen sie Englisch?” Her reply was “nein”. Kind of ends the conversation right there. We think she had called the wrong number, so I imagine a random Austrian being pissed some jerky American expected her to speak English in her own home. Sister and I ate at a kabob place for lunch and then tried to kill time before our “Sound of Music” Tour!!! The tour was much fun. There were some negatives though. They started out with really obscure songs not even Emily (who has seen the movie dozens of times) knew all the words to. We imagined that people not well versed in the movie would have trouble understanding our guide’s complicated explanations for certain scenes. But not Emily, when the guide imparted a fact to us and everyone else’s face went blank, Emily would smile wide and nod in recognition. My favorite part was learning how dangerous the filming was. The beginning scene with Maria singing on the hills was filmed by many helicopters that flew mere feet from her head. They filmed that scene for over a week, while Andrews got knocked down and bruised countless times. The youngest little girl also almost got pneumonia in one water scene and Liesl, during the famous gazebo scene, cut her leg and had to dance to “I am Sixteen” in heavy bandages. I also learned that the director got an award for special effects because of clever film cutting (before the days of computers) and for making buildings transcend time and space. After the tour, we got a traditional Austrian dinner full of meat meat and more meat.
Wednesday, we took a nice day trip to Werfen that ended up requiring a lot more walking uphill than we were expecting. In the Salzburg train station we had a little confusion about which platform our train would be arriving at. We asked a German lady who told us to go to the other side. Arriving on the other platform we were immediately told to go back where we just were. Leading Em and I to conclude that the woman was a goblin trying to ruin our trip. She didn’t know how hard that is to do. I hypothesize that after several horrible plane experiences I have worked up loads of travel karma that really helped with this trip. Even when we had trouble we always ended up getting where we needed to go. You’ll see what I mean. First, in Werfen we went to a fortress. We walked from the train, following signs to our destination. At one point we came across a pivotal sign that was hidden behind (I kid you not) a dumpster full of manure. Regardless we found our way uphill to the cable car that took us all the way up to the fortress. Before our scheduled Falconry demonstration (woot!) we tried to see the weapons (Waffe) exhibit. I say tried because we accidentally got swept up with a tour of about 100 people who went all the way to the bell tower. The guide kept blocking the exits as we went along! We did get to see an awesome bell and learned not to take the tour later. Then was the main event. Giant birds catching swinging prey. I had seen a falconry demonstration at the Greenbrier in WV, but this one had many more species including a bald eagle and huge vulture. At the end of the show the vulture made my favorite begging for food noise that came out as a half growl, half hiss. After our own delicious none-raw-meet lunch we headed for the second part of our day trip. The Ice Caves!
Our first minichallenge was finding how to actually get to the caves. We went into the town of Werfen and found an information center that is only closed one hour every day—the one hour we got there. Luckily we found a helpful machine that sent us to a shuttle service. Also luckily (karma) a bus was ready to go at the exact moment we arrived. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of our journey to the caves. No, after the bus we had to walk 20 minutes uphill, in bright sunlight to a gondola that took us up a steep mountain. Then another 20 minute walk up to the actual caves. It was bloody hot and humid, by the time we got to the top I was literally burning and exhausted. Fortunately, the cave was really really cold. It is an ice cave after all. An ice cave with 700 stairs you have to climb. My thighs hated me. I can’t accurately describe the awesomeness inside the cave. Mucho ice sculptures. Just take my word for it. After climbing all the way back down to our bus stop we got a little nervous when our bus was 10 minutes late. But it showed up. As Emily said at the time, “Everything’s coming up churchies!” Back in Salzburg we had delicious (vegetarian!) Indian food for dinner. I went to sleep with sore legs and a huge sunburn—or so I thought.
Thursday, was our last day in Salzburg. We decided to find a breakfast place on our way to the Salzburg fortress. The place turned out to be less than a minute walk from our hostel. We bought sandwiches there for lunch also, though the lady at the counter thought we wanted to eat them right away. Doesn’t she know we like to wait at least an hour before our next meal? On the way to the fortress we found an excellent antiques tent at an outdoor market. The fortress had beautiful views of the city and was quite pleasant. After, we ambled back to the hostel, stopping at a church or two along the way. Finally we lugged our bags to the train station and we were just in time for our train to MUNICH!!
In Munich we met up with Emily’s friend Steve who was letting us stay at his place. Within ten minutes of arriving I was almost run over by a bicyclist, putting the fear of God into me for the rest of the trip. Steve let us drop our bags at his place and then we went to my first beer garden for dinner. You would never find anything like it in America. A Bier Garten is basically a huge picnic area where the young and single can eat alongside families with children. Meanwhile beer is flowing freely though for pay. The food portions were ridiculous also. After dinner, Steve gave us a quick tour of the city showing us places we could go the next day. It was a great intro to Munich.
The next day, while Steve worked Emily and I went into the heart of downtown. I couldn’t name everything we saw cause I don’t remember. But the highlight for me was thus 1)St. Michael’s Church cause it was filled w/ angel sculptures. 2) was the third H&M of our trip and the first where I finally bought something. At noon was the glockenspiel; a huge clock in the center of town complete with horribly out of tune music and super fun animatronics figures that danced and jousted. Then, we had lunch in a garden/grassy area. Next was the Residence. I have never seen so many royal rooms in my life and there was absolutely no airflow inside any of them, which reminds me of the other fun part of the day. My good friend heat rash decided to make an appearance. The last and only time I had it was during middle school at a horrible YMCA camp where it was 100 degrees every day. Well the horribly itchy red bumps were back and, before lunch, I insisted on a quest to find Aloe Vera. It ended up helping…not at all, but the placebo affect was kind of nice. Anyway, after the semi-palace I was very tired and itchy (irritated from the stuffiness). We returned to Steve’s to await his return and do laundry. Dinner was spent at another bier garten, I think the largest in Germany. Steve has a group of English speakers who meet every Friday at a beer garden. Everyone was at least ten years older than me, but it was an interesting mix including a real “doofus” who bragged about how is wedding ring attracted prostitutes—I mean women, a youngish man trying to start his own meat pie business and the most laid back father every. It was fun, but I was happy to sleep that night.
Our last full day in Munich Emily decided we had had too much nondepressing fun, so we went to a concentration camp: Dachau. We had a little trouble getting there. It’s possible when we were waiting for a train we faced the wrong direction for ten minutes before figuring it out. Then, after we got there and another bus ride, we may have followed some tourists going the opposite direction, away from the camp, that happened to be right next to the bus station. Anyway, we got there eventually. It was all set up really well. There was a great museum that gave a comprehensive overview of the camp’s history and an audio guide that included recollections from camp survivors and liberators. The camp also, of course, raised many questions like “how could it happen?” and “What would you have done?” I’m glad we went there, but there’s no better way to make you question humanity. Afterwards, we had an ice cream lunch and, then returned to Steve’s house, watched an ep of Last comic Standing before dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant. Sadly, we got soaked on the way there from the only rain during the whole trip. Regardless it was a fun and good end to our time in Munich. Thanks for letting us stay at your place Steve.
Sunday we returned by train to Vienna for the next phase of our trip: The Conference. AIDS 2010!!!
Instead of talking about each and everyday I’ll give you an overview. Firstly, throughout the week we had a “fun” time figuring out where we were going to sleep each night. The original plan was to share the room the conference booked for Emily and her roommate. However, the room turned out to have a bed with only about a foot of space surrounding it. Also a Russian woman had apparently exploded inside. No not literally, but her crap was everywhere. Mos def not enough room for three people. That Russian woman must have been really confused when her roommate never showed up, because we were in and out before she returned to the room. We found a youth hostel sort of close by. However, we could only book it for one night. The next night we stayed at one of Emily’s public health friend’s room. And for the rest of the week we managed to stay in the hostel, but not always in the same room and not always together. Regardless we made it work, though it added more stress than necessary.
Monday through Friday was the conference itself. Most of the time I manned the booth for Emily’s org Support for International Change, selling bags to raise profits for the organization and the HIV positive people who produce them. A great cause right? Who wouldn’t buy that? Unfortunately everything being sold was for a great cause, so we didn’t sell as many bags as we wanted. I blame—the bead booth right next to us. A booth that slowly killed my spirit and had me ranting on my Facebook status for most of the week. Their beads are made in Uganda and all the proceeds go to the women who make them. There is no doubt that it is a great cause, but their customers wore on me. You see the beads are made of paper. Paper you say? Well that’s pretty interesting. However, the sheer excitement people exuded when they heard the beads were made of paper was infuriating. “Made of paper? That’s amazing.” “OMG, paper?” “That’s so awesome. The awesome thing in the world.” They reminded me of the crazy double rainbow guy (if you don’t know, look it up). Get over it people. The reason I sound crazy when I talk about it is because it was very traumatizing for me. Sitting around all day, everyday, while we sold only a few bags and they sold billions of beads. Meanwhile I got to hear “Did you know that these beads are made of paper” every five minutes. I’m lucky I didn’t scream.
The rest of the conference was very educational. Every so often I got to attend panels, where experts in different fields all talked about HIV/AIDS and the global health crisis in general. There was definitely some sociology mixed in too that caught my interest, including plenty of stuff on stigma and “intersecting oppressions”!!! I hope to use some of the stuff I learned at the conference in my future classes. And that’s all I can tell because I’ve already written too much and my fingers are about to fall off.
BUT IT WAS A GREAT EXPERIENCE AND I’M GLAD I GOT TO GO AND, ESEPECIALLY, TO SPEND TIME WITH MY DEAR, AWESOME SISTER. HERE’S TO AIDS 2012 IN WASHINGTON DC!
A few pictures, with my super random commentary, can be found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473892&id=775895149&ref=mf
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