Hello all!

So I thought I’d wait until I’d started classes to write my first blog abroad, in order to have ‘enough’ interesting things to write about… turns out there are more than I could ever describe in 10 entries!  But I’ll give you a brief overview of my life abroad thus far.  I will make a list of events so that I won’t forget everything:

1. Arriving in Maastricht

I took a 7 hour flight into Brussels, where a taxi van driver picked me and 4 others from the CES program up to drive the 45 minutes or so it took to get to Maastricht.  Upon meeting my peers at the airport I realized that I brought nearly double the luggage that they each did, but I chock this up to being the only girl in the group lol.  Traveling with that much luggage reminded me that I want to learn the skill of ‘packing light’ while I’m here.

After moving into my sweet digs (single room that was big enough for two by Penn State standards) and taking a much-needed jet lag- induced nap, I met my coordinators, Nathalie and Laura, who then showed the group of us (which now included 2 more later arrivals) around downtown Maastricht for the rest of the day.  The next day we all met up again to have a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs (fabulous) and then orientation activities with Nathalie and Laura for the rest of the day.

2. Berlin Study Trip

Just as I was starting to get over my jet lag hangover, we prepared to go to Berlin for a study trip.  I was super excited (and super exhausted) to say the least to visit a city so full of life, history, and beauty, and to see Germany for the first time.  The plane ride was less than an hour, and before I knew it I was in another European city after only 3 days of being away from home!  My first impression was that Berlin certainly was cold.  The kind that made me want to wear all of my clothes I brought at once!  Ah but it was beautiful, too, and the airport and train station were amazingly clean.  The second impression of Germany was how orderly everything seemed to be;  Nathalie told us that it’s a common (and true) stereotype that as a culture Germans are utterly Obsessive Compulsive, and MUST have everything in its right place and everyone doing their rightful job.  We saw evidence of this almost immediately when the train we got on to take us to our hotel was delayed.  Berliners have one of the most efficient and timely public transit systems in the world, but the way the people were acting, you’d think two minutes’ delay meant the end of the world, or at least a MAJOR inconvenience.  Two hundred seconds of watch-glaring, finger-pointing, annoyed grumbling, and melodramatic eye-rolling ensued before the train started again and everyone sighed as if to say “Well it’s about time!”.  I was beginning to think how much I’d like these crazy Germans.

We did so much in Berlin that it literally would have taken any normal person at least 10 days to accomplish what we did in four.  Therefore I will give you the highlights.  Firstly, we went on a fabulous (and I mean Fabulous with a capital F) five hour walking tour of the city, seeing the great sights of Berlin such as the Brandenburg Gate, remnants of the wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the site of Hitler’s bunker, the Reichstag, and so much more, all while listening to our tour guide, Tom Williamson, throw so much history at us he aptly described it as a “250 page book”!  I never knew history could be so interesting, funny, and just flat out surprising, and learning it all from an ex-pat American with an iron wit was certainly unforgettable.

While in Berlin it is also important to mention we went to museums, LOTS of museums!   And I mean all kinds.  One day we went to a former concentration camp outside of Berlin called Sachsenhausen, which was turned into a museum of sorts.  I won’t easily forget how I felt walking in the footsteps of thousands whose last days were spent there.  It is impossible to not feel something when you look out across the barren property, empty save for a few remaining original living barracks, the only sign of nature being two tall trees flanking each side of a Nazi guard tower.  However disturbing it was, visiting the grounds is something I’m glad I did, as it really made the history of the war and the Holocaust real for me, and I won’t forget it.

Another emotionally heavy excursion was to the Stasi prison in the former East Berlin, through which we were guided by a former prisoner.  We saw the cells, torture rooms, interrogation rooms, and heard the incredible story of our guide, who turned out to be a famous anti-communist protest leader in East Germany, and who got elected to parliament when the wall fell, helping in the reunification of the country.

Besides these we went to at least five other world-famous museums that housed treasures such as the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, works by Monet, and countless others.  It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to the city I fell in love with after only four days, but I’m promising myself that I will return – when the weather’s nicer! haha.

Well, that’s all for this post, the next one will be all about the start of classes.

Tot ziens, vrienden!

Location: Maastricht, Netherlands