Overflowing Heart in the New Year

Hello lovelies!

I hope that the New Year has found you well and that you have had a restful winter break wherever you might have been. I had an absolutely wonderful break and have started this new year full of energy and an overflowing heart.

As you all are starting a new quarter I am immersed in what is to become a three-week long ordeal of finals. Yes, you read right; the next three weeks are all essentially one big ‘finals week’ for me. It is kind of nice though. Since I am taking seven classes, I think it would be incredibly exhausting to finish all seven classes in one week. However, with finals, orals, papers and presentation on the horizon, this might end up being just as draining. Though on a brighter note, I received my first ‘A’ in a real Austrian college class. I had to turn in a paper right before break. This would not have been a big deal, but it was a paper written in German analyzing a text about feminist philosophy. On its own philosophy is confusing enough, but add to it that you have to read and analyze it in German and you’ve got yourself a recipe for hours and hours of paper writing. It was worth it though!

Anyway, classes in general seem to be wrapping up pretty well. I am most worried about my Austrian History final. It is an oral final over essentially 2000 years of history and the professor’s reading materials and lectures are more scattered than a mad scientists thoughts. This class is also in German and the final will be in German, which would not be a problem at all if the professor had any inkling of organizational skills. The professor keeps mentioning things during class that he wants us to know for the final, but they seem so trivial in the greater scheme of the class, that I am having a real hard time figuring out how to study for it. I have another two weeks, so I should be okay.

Though, a pretty awesome part of this class was an excursion to Vienna that we went on mid-December. We spent a weekend exploring the city and its many treasures. We had class-work during the day and had the evenings free. We visited two awesome museums, one of them having been a castle during the Hapsburg Era! Our professor took us on a walking tour of Vienna which included all the major sights from the Stephansdom to the old Jewish quarter. Though, I have to admit that my favorite part was seeing the site where the old Ottoman Empire had defeated the Austrians. There is even a little shrine so to speak where a ‘cannon ball’ had demolished part of the old city walls. I know that since I am studying in Austria I shouldn’t be excited to see the site where it was once defeated by the Ottomans, but there is just something about the Ottoman Empire and its rich history that absolutely captured my heart this summer in Turkey. I am just fascinated with its history.

In terms of schoolwork while in Vienna, we also had to conduct a research project, which turned out to be more exciting than our professor had even anticipated. We all split into groups of two and were assigned a neighborhood of greater Vienna to go explore. Our assignment was to look around, take pictures, and interview people we meet in order to figure out what made that particular neighborhood special and what its historical significance was. Josie and I were assigned to go to Mexico Platz (Mexico Place). When we got there it seemed like any other place, but we soon found what looked like a gigantic castle, but was actually a church. The church had been commissioned by a Hapsburger and there was a chapel inside that had been specifically commissioned by the Red Cross (the one that still exists today) to honors its first true patron and supporter Kaiserin Theresa (also from the Hapsburg family). Though, all of this was not nearly as exciting as what we stumbled upon when we started heading back towards the subway station. We saw HUGE groups of people walking down the street carrying lanterns. Upon closer inspection we realized that some of them seemed to be wearing some sort of scout uniform.

Too intrigued to turn back, we started going towards them. As we got closer we realized that some of them were singing camp songs – camp songs that both Josie and I also knew! This was all too bizarre, and we were on a mission to get to the bottom of it. We stopped the next group that we saw and asked them what was going on and they told us something about a freedom light and that we should follow the stream of people and it would lead us to a church and we should talk to the people there. That is exactly what we did. We walked into this brightly colored and elaborately decorated church that looked more like something that you would expect to find in Latin America then Austria, but there was little that could surprise us at this point.

Looking around trying to figure out who we should approach we settled on going up to an elderly couple that seemed to be in charge. We approached them told them who we are and what we were doing, all in German – then the man took a good luck at us and started laughing. Guess what? He was the leader of an American Boy Scout group. Seriously, how does one manage to stumble upon a Boy Scout group at the other end of the world…Anyway, they were incredibly friendly and explained the entire event to us, as well as introduced us to all of their little scouts. One of the scouts was originally from Beacon Hill, but all of them currently live on the army base in Kaiserslautern, Germany (which is the town that I went to when I visited my friend Katy). The world really is a lot smaller than we think.

The event was also pretty neat. There is this movement all across the world, where a light from Jerusalem is delivered all across the globe which symbolizes a peace light. There are huge meeting spots across the world where the light is delivered during the Christmas season (and apparently it is quite literally a light that is carried from Jerusalem, there is even a special airplane that flights the light to different destinations) and from there various groups light their own torches and candles and then further spread them to other parts of the world. It really is quite a wonderful symbolism, and it was very neat to see the light carried all across the neighborhood that we were in.

Aside from that, there were three other spectacular things about the Vienna excursion. It snowed a little bit while we were there and it was just magnificent to see this architecturally rich city covered in a thin layer of snow. It was as if someone had built a gorgeous gingerbread city and then dusted powdered sugar over it. Vienna is known for its exquisite Christmas Market and rightfully so. It was delicious to say the very least. I gorged myself in gingerbread and various other types of sweats while enjoying all of the various knickknacks that were being sold. I really wish we had Christmas Markets in the U.S., they just make the winter season so much more fun. The last but not least high point of the Vienna excursion happened on the last day. We had a couple of hours of free time and I had really wanted to go to the Modern Art Museum. The professor of my feminist art/philosophy class had suggested that we go to the museum if we get a chance. The current exhibit was really interesting in relation to our class. I got to see some of the works that we had talked about in class, which always probably one of the coolest things ever. The Modern Art Museum was also a nice contrast to the other museums that I had gone to with the class. Overall, Vienna was a wonderful and it redeemed Austria as a whole. I still think that Austria has too much of a ‘small-town’ attitude for my liking, but Vienna definitely helped redefine that prejudice a little bit.

Following the Vienna excursion there was the normal school bustle and nothing too exciting happened, except for the fact that I partook in a really awesome research project. The Economics department at Karl Franzens University (the university that I am attending here) was conducting a number of research studies, and I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in some of them. The research revolved around a stock market simulation system that we were testing. It was thrilling to be able to apply my academic knowledge of finance in order to test this system. It was super exciting to be able to take part in this experiment.

Before I knew it, it was already winter break. It is kind of crazy to think that I have been in Europe for almost half a year now; it has definitely gone by quicker than I expected it to. Anyway, winter break started with my departure for a week in Berlin. Josie joined me for the first couple of days and we had a blast. It was ridiculously cold when we arrived in Berlin (-15C approximately 5F), but it also started to snow, which was wonderful! The city was elaborately decorated and the snow just made it even more beautiful. Josie and I took a free walking tour of Berlin, which hit up most of the major sites. Some of the major points of interest we visited were: the Brandenburg Tor, Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the Wall that are still up, as well as the site where Hitler’s bunker was.

There is an interesting story with that though. If we had attempted to find the site of Hitler’s bunker by ourselves it essentially would have been impossible, because the area is completely unmarked. This is on purpose, because there was worry that if some sort of plaque was erected it would run the danger of becoming a shrine for neo-Nazis. And yes, according to our tour guide neo-Nazis still exist, they might be a total minority but their presence is still acknowledged.

Since it was so incredibly cold, and we had spent the previous day outside on the walking tour Josie and I figured that an indoor activity might be exciting. When we had arrived at the train station I had seen an advertisement for “Dirty Dancing.” The ‘dirty dancing’ movies are some of my favorite movies and it goes without saying that I was very excited about the prospect of seeing it live on stage. And that is exactly what happened on our ‘indoor day.’ Let me just say that it was an absolutely incredible experience. The movies are great, but seeing all of the dancing scenes live in front of you was just plain amazing. This was probably one of my favorite theater experiences to date. Just amazing!

We hit up a couple of museums the next day and Josie left for London that night, while I had decided to stay in Berlin for a couple more days and meet up with friends later on in the week. I spent an entire day at the Checkpoint Charlie museum, because it is just amazing and incredibly huge (it’s over 2,000 square meters!!!). There are also really amazing stories that go along with the museum, because one of the rooms used to essentially be a safe-house for transferring people from east to west. The museum had so many artifacts and stories from people being smuggled from east to west that I just got lost in it all, and quite literally spent an entire day there. On my other day by myself I went to the Siegessaule (which is the big gold tower with the angel on top of it, that you might have seen on TV at some point) and went all the way up it to get an incredible view of the city. The area around the Siegessaule is also called the Star, because there are five main roads that lead directly lead to the tower. It was a really neat experience to the see the city from the top and see all of the major roads leading to this one meeting spot. I spent the rest of the day wandering around Berlin’s shopping district, which is a 4km of stores, whoever thought the Alderwood Mall was big, has not experienced Berlin’s shopping district yet!!!

Bright and early the following morning I packed up my stuff and headed back towards the shopping district, because I was meeting up with friends around that area. One of the girls that I had met this summer during the Critical Languages Scholarship Program was teaching in Turkey this year and we had arranged to meet up in Berlin during our winter breaks. She came with a bunch of the other teachers from her school (who were all also recent graduates from the US) and her brother also came and met up with us. Since none of them spoke German and this was their first time in Berlin, I instantly became the unofficial translator and tour guide. I had such a blast showing everyone all the neat places that I had found in Berlin.

Kim (who is the girl that I met in Turkey) and her brother had never played in the snow, or gone inter-tubing in the snow. Since there was a “snow-hill” set up in Postdamer Platz, we decided that it was absolutely necessary to join all the little three year olds and go play on the “snow-hill.” Let’s just say that Kim and her brother might have been two of the most adorable twenty-something-year-olds that I have ever seen. All three of us went down the hill together with linked arms the first time and it was just plain adorable to hear them scream and laugh all the way down! I have to admit, even though I have gone inter-tubing before, I had a total blast with them! Pretending to be a three-year-old is always just so much fun!

We also spent Christmas Eve together as a group and went out for authentic German food, which was so much fun! There were a ton of families at the restaurant and most of them were dressed up in traditional German clothes, and the atmosphere at the restaurant was just super amazing overall.

We also spent Christmas morning exploring traditional German food as well, or should I say indulging in delicious German sweets. We hit up three of the major Christmas markets in Berlin and had an extended breakfast, which turned into more of a brunch there. Surprisingly, there were a ton of families out as well. We decided that having breakfast at a Christmas market on Christmas day might be a traditional way to spend the morning. Regardless whether it was traditional or not, one thing is for sure, it was a very delicious way to spend the morning.

Following our food adventure, we headed over to Museum Island and went to the Pergamont Museum, which was super cool. It is a museum dedicated to architecture, so all of the exhibits are ridiculously huge. Furthermore, most of the exhibits are from Constantinople thus everything there related to what I had seen and learned in Turkey. Unfortunately, I could not stay with them for very long, because I had to catch a flight to Sarajevo that evening. My plan was to spend the next 10 days in Sarajevo visiting family.

I had a flight from Berlin to Beograd, and was supposed to have a flight that same evening to Sarajevo. Though, unfortunately something was wrong with the airport or the weather (no one was able to tell me exactly what was up), and I had to spent the night in Beograd. But the airline was very nice and arranged a hotel for me to stay in for the night. I still had to get up at 3:30am in order to catch my flight the next morning though, which was slightly painful but worth it!

I had not seen my family in about three years. I had seen them the last time when I went to Bosnia after my Italy trip. In all honestly I was a little anxious about my trip to Bosnia. I had always visited my family while being accompanied by my parents. I have never really spent an extended amount of time by myself with them, and was not really sure what to expect. Let’s just say all of my worrying was totally unnecessary and I had such a wonderful time. I actually think it was necessary for me to go by myself in order to experience the company of my family from a different perspective. I also think that I learned a lot about myself from those ten days in Sarajevo.

I stayed with one of my dad’s brothers and his family, but essentially just spent the evenings there, because I went and visited all of my other family throughout the day time, and they also took me on great field-trips. It was wonderful to catch up with everyone. I think that one of my biggest gripes with my visit last time was that everyone was treating me like a small child and not really giving me room to breathe. It was different this time. I was able to completely be myself, and had more of a status of an adult. Well, okay not really an adult, but at least a young adult, which I guess is appropriate. I think the fact that I came by myself really helped my family realized that even though they might not have seen me grow up, I really have grown up, and can have intellectual conversations with them.

Spending the holiday season with my family, was really a great decision. I was not only able to reconnect with my family, but also with a different part of myself. Regardless of how much I travel or where I end up living, there will always be parts of me that are very distinctively connected to the Bosnian culture. Okay, I won’t lie, I really love Bosnian food and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon!...

Well, I think I have sufficiently caught you up on my life in the last month or so. I have about two more weeks of school and finals, and then I am done. Actually, since the school system is so weird here, I won’t actually be done until the end of February. I have a couple of final papers that I have to turn in at the beginning of March, because the professors don’t want us to even start our papers before the lectures are finished – they want us to be able to use all of the material that we have learned throughout the semester and apply it in our ‘seminar papers’. Though, my last real class is on January 31st (yes I know it’s a Sunday! And it’s a 6 hour class too!!!!) and my last real final is also that day. It is actually my oral history final. We will be having a 6 hour class, a small break and then the oral finals. I have a feeling that day will be very, very exhausting!!!

My plans after that are to pack up and head over to Paris for a couple of days. I have a friend from SU that is studying there currently and would really like to meet up with her. Well, I actually really want to see Paris and she offered to host me and be my official translator and tour guide, and I’ve found cheap plane tickets over there, so hopefully it’ll work out. Shortly after that I’ll be heading back home to Seattle :-)

Sending all of you much love and warm wishes,

Ajla