MADRID, SPAIN

“Well, do you speak German maybe? No? French? Not that either? Well that’s probably best, those wouldn’t have been that helpful anyway.”

Now making an appearance on my To Do List: learn Spanish. 

This weekend I flew to Madrid, officially adding Spain to the list of places I’ve visited. It was literally a weekend trip in duration, and since it was so short, my observations will probably end up being slightly superficial. In a nutshell, Spain in wild, but not the wild I’d expected. 

On my way Saturday morning, I felt so incredibly ill for a number of reasons, including a number of beers Friday evening, not enough sleep that night, some sort of bug that I’d caught, and having to stand in a cramped, overly warm train car for almost 2 hours. This is not a good time to feel sick, since in order to get to my hostel from my house here, I had to take 1 car, 3 trains, 1 bus, 1 airplane, 4 subway lines, and then it was “just a short walk to the doorstep of the hostel”, quoted from the hostel’s website. Needless to say, I was exhausted. I fell asleep for an hour before Maria came to pick me up for a delicious meal of tapas and sangria.  I have known Maria and her family for as long as I can remember, and it was so great to be able to meet her in Europe, especially since she can speak Spanish! I fell asleep again for a couple of hours before Meredith and Sami burst into our hostel room. Meredith is my good friend from College of Charleston, and Sami and she are studying abroad in France this year, so it was really lucky it worked out for us to meet in Madrid. Meredith was down for the count for Saturday evening with a case of food poisoning, and after exploring the nightlife and finding nothing that impressed, Sami and I were back at the hostel within an hour. 

Maria and Me and Tapas

Saturday everyone woke up and felt better, so we were off to find this great market of which we’d all heard rumors. It was supposed to have over 500 vendors with everything from clothes, to jewelry, to spanish fans, to who knows what. We approached the spot on our map, but vendor after vendor had only coins. Coins and stamps. Plastic casings for coins and stamps, and more coins, and more stamps. We eventually asked our way to the right place, and the rumors were true. It was overwhelming huge ,and I bought a leather bracelet, a leather wallet, and found my magnet which I buy in every place I visit. Man, I love markets. The rest of the day including wandering through the huge city park, which held a lake with row boats and great modern art sculptures, and then a (free!) trip to Museo del Prado, which is one of the most well-known art museums in the world. Spanish art has never been right up my alley, but it was great to see some Goya and El Greco up close and personal. We ate churros with hot chocolate dipping sauce. We napped. Meredith was food poisoned still. Sami and I went in search of nightlife one more time. Everything was closed. We slept some more. 

Street Art

1/100th of the Market

Colorful Spanish Fans

Buildings with Frescos and Blue Skies

Spaniards enjoy strangely shaped trees.

Monday morning, we made one last trip back to the market area in search of a specific food. The day before we’d seen over 100 people eating a fried calamari sandwich, and knew it was something we had to try. It was exactly as can be expected: fried stuff on bread. I would love to see more of Spain. I’m sure this is going to be an overgeneralization, but Madrid felt so alive. There was so much walking and talking and fighting and kissing, and even though it rained a couple times while I was there, thousands of umbrellas were still bobbing around the pedestrian streets, coming in and out of the subway, and greeting each other whole-heartedly. Also, I love how different their Spanish is from what I’m used to, saying most words with a slight lisp. It’s like they are biting their tongues while saying “Gracias”. (Try it! It’s fun!)

Love how many trees are in the city.

Madrid makes me want to tile everything I own.

A couple exciting things happened on the way back, which ended up lasting 11 hours. I saw the flipping over of an airport luggage cart in tow to fill an airplane. It was within 100 meters of its destination, meaning all of the passengers got to witness their checked luggage flying threw the air. The shuttle bus driver gave me free transportation to the train station, which was great. I looked in correctly at the train timetables and had a minor panic attack when I thought I’d be arriving home at 6:30AM, but I didn’t, which was great. Some guy tried to explain to me in one train station that he wasn’t bad and asked for money very forcefully, and a total stranger walking by yelled at him to stop and leave me alone, which was also great. If you happen to read this, Random Hero, thank you for saving me. Great food, great friends, great weekend. 

Very next on the To Do List: not being sick. 

For Your Valentine's Day Viewing Pleasure

A Day in the Life from Ginny Bridges on Vimeo.


Wishing you a loving Valentine's Day, and all the kisses and hugs you could ask for. We all know that at least Mathis will be getting his share. 

Yours,

Ginny

KRAKOW, POLAND

Poland is one of those countries that I have always known was out there, but could tell you practically nothing about it. So when April casually mentioned heading to Krakow for a weekend, of course I said, “Let’s go!”

freezing but smiley!

Johnny Quest, our appropriately-named pilot, landed us safely in Krakow on Friday morning, and after arriving at our hostel, the girl working the desk lead us to an entirely different building. We stayed in a four person room with kitchen and bathroom, all alone, in a separate building on a floor with no other hostel tenants. Talk about privacy!

Friday was our day to take in the sights and eat pierogis. I’m not sure how I feel about pierogis, but if anyone can tell me what they are normally topped with, I would be most grateful. April and I have decided on either bacon, white beets, onions, or perhaps just chucks of fat. Krakow is the only major city in Poland that wasn’t destroyed in the wake of WWII, and the ancientness of the place can almost be felt. The city to me smelled old, like bricks, smog, and campfire, but in the best way possible, and right across from where we were staying, in a park that circled all around the city, were ancient medieval wall ruins. St. Mary’s Basilica is known for it’s ornate wallpaper and blue ceiling, but both were trends in all of the churches (and restaurants!). We made out way to the Oskar Schindler Factory in the former jewish ghetto of Krakow, and loved the museum there. The interactive museum around the Nazi reign in all of Poland, whose strict and horrible leadership to normal Polish citizens tends to get overshadowed by the monstrosities committed against the jewish population.  We ended the evening drinking beers out of straws in a jazz bar downstairs in the main square, or what we thought to be downstairs. 

Any guesses about what is topping these babies?

Beet root soup!

So many birds. I don't enjoy birds.

blue ceiling #1

blue ceiling #2

blue ceiling #3

blue ceiling #4

Oskar Schindler Factory, same one from Schindler's List

The next day on our free walking tour, we learned that the medieval ground level of Krakow, like most cities in Europe, would be considered the basement today. We learned that one of the Earth’s Seven Chakra points in Hinduism happens be on a wall of their castle, and that the authorities don’t particularly enjoy the number of people who come to hug the wall every year. We walked all over the city, got to see the famous Fire-Breathing Dragon statue, were mistakenly identified as Australians by Australians, and even happened to better our Polish along the way. (“Dziekuje” means “thank you” and “Masz piekne miesnie” means “your muscles are beautiful.”) I found it very interesting how little our guide spoke about the communist reign of Poland, but figured it was probably too close for comfort. 

The wall in the process of providing Chakra

It was kind of a little sunny!

Sunday was the day I’d been secretly anxious about, and at 9:30 our tour guide picked us up in front of our hostel and we drove the hour to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. I have never had a very good track record with car sickness, and this day proved to be no exception, as our driver swerved in both lanes, passing cars and blasting heat in the van at 100˚Celsius, not even Fahrenheit. While fighting my sickness furiously by scratching an orange and sniffing it with all of my might, the addition of a beyond graphic video of what the Soviet Army discovered upon arriving at the concentration cramp put me over the edge. I can proudly report that the first thing I did upon arrive at Auschwitz is loose my breakfast.

entrance to Auschwitz

In the end, my tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau was nothing to have worried over. I had pictured people crying everywhere, graphic pictures, and moving collections of all that remains of the victims. While there are startling photo galleries and there are entire building devoted to the leftover shoes, toys, prayer clothes, and hair of the Jews, I barely saw anyone crying. There were times when I would walk through the only standing gas chamber and crematory and want so badly to feel pain of what the millions of people had been through. Or I would look out on the over two miles of Birkenau and the field of only chimneys, all that remains of the hundreds of barracks, and want to cry about how lonely it felt. Or I would stand on the sorting platform where thousands of people were sent to the crematories before even recording their names. Or see how small the train cars were by which they were delivered 80 at a time. Or the black-and-white photos lining hallways. The list of misery and desolation goes on and on, but my feelings on my visit wouldn’t change. It’s too impossible to feel empathetic, or even sympathetic. I don’t know if humans are capable of physically or emotionally experiencing sorrow on such a scale. I do know, however, that it was difficult to shake the feeling of hopelessness that took over only moments after walking through to the other side of the electric fence. Hopelessness to the point of worthlessness. I guess Auschwitz-Birkenau still serves the purpose it was built to accomplish.  

signs surrounding the perimeter

prosthetics 

piles of children's shoes

hallways of photos 

gas chamber

train car

memorial 

Birkenau

My favorite part of Krakow was Kazimierz, the former jewish district. After experiencing such a feeling of hopelessness that Auschwitz-Birkenau can allocate, it was refreshing to walk around Kazimierz and see a place that’s up and coming and full of life. There were galleries on every corner, and of course any new art scene is extra exciting for me, but I think that Kazimierz is on the verge of being something very exciting to the art world, and Krakow is very well on it’s way to being the next Prague, or place that everyone loves to visit in Eastern Europe. Plus they have a breakfast place with fresh bagels, an absolute godsend for any American traveling after living in Europe for awhile. 

Kazimierz

street art

In other news, I’m taking a baking-super-sweet-American-desserts fast until Valentine’s Day in hopes of not draining our entire house of sugar at such an alarming rate. Already counting down. 5 more days!

They Can't Feel Anything, Right? - Sie Können Nicht Fühlen, Richtig?

So it was crab galore at the Niemeier residence last week, but with a hint of surprise, complication, and crazy, like most things seem to go around here. Lesson learned: When Germans say fresh, they mean fresh.

After searching long and hard for crab meat in numerous grocery stores and speciality butchers, Sandra and I found a promising (and rather expensive) store that said they would order it for us. The purchase was made and we were to pick up the crab on Thursday. I will remember it perfectly for years to come, much like how people remember where they were when JFK was shot or numerous other traumatic experiences of this scale. I was upstairs mid-diaper change and making sure Mathis didn’t launch himself off of the changing table, when Sandra came home and informed me that I was needed downstairs. She spoke lots of German. I tried to understand. I thought what she was telling me must have been lost in translation and a misunderstanding on my part. We switched guard of little, half-naked Mathis, and as I approached the trunk of her car, I heard a horrible scratching noise. Claws on styrofoam. No. Way.

"Oh no. They're moving!"

Yup, they were alive. As in not dead. As in still living. And they weren’t all crabs! They were a bunch of crayfish and two giant crabs with little legs. After rounding them up and double checking the trunk for stranglers, Sandra, Mathis, Kara, and I ended up gathered  around the table in a staring contest with these live animals, waiting for operation boil-a-bunch-of-crustaceans-to-death to take place. Christof slept through the whole thing. After a large pot was delivered by Bernd and several hundreds of phone calls to my parents later, we ended up with enough crab meat for four baby crab cakes, and a feast of crayfish that we enjoyed with my friend April later that night.

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"I hope you can't feel this!
Thank you for dying for our nourishment!"

Self-picked, freshest of the fresh, crab cakes!

It was delicious. And what makes my family here extra great is how they are ready to try again! Sandra found more crab meat! In a can! As in not living, I’m guessing. Hopefully. Please. Now if only I can get over that scratching noise... 

Death.

Ripping heads off of crayfish!

Our crayfish are friends until the end.