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.

Crabby - Verdrießlich (I'm 100% positive the joke doesn't translate)

When I get back to the States, I am only going to eat crab.

You have no idea how hard it's been to find crab meat here! I dying to eat crab cakes, crab legs, crab stuffed things, crab dip (hot or cold), anything crab. Man, I really miss crab meat.

And Mexican food. Those two things. 

The day I get back to America I'll accept any sort of Mexican food that includes crab meat. Thank you for your attention. 

Good thing Mathis is so cute to make up for it. 

Happy New Year! - Frohe Neues Jahr!

New Years Eve in Germany feels very similar to New Years Eve in the States. There’s drinking, good food, fireworks, pretty much everything you could ask for in a celebration. 

We packed up Mathis with all of his necessities and headed to the Kückmann household. Kara came too. She's very afraid of the fireworks. Just like Gretchen! Really, the only difference between them is approximately 70 pounds. 

Kara trying to eat Tom.

Gretchen trying to eat me. 

We ate dinner (oh, pink herring salad) and played with a few fireworks before Ben had to go to bed. We were informed to wake him up at 11:45pm to see the whole street shooting them off, but at midnight that task proved very impossible. The kid sleeps hard. To pass the time, we played a game called Activity, which is really fantastic and I hope we have it in America so I can buy it and play everyday! It’s Charades, Taboo, and Pictionary, all rolled into one game. It's especially hilarious if you play it in a language you barely understand. The boys team kept having to take me out in the hallway behind several layers of closed doors in order to explain the word I was supposed to draw or act out. Even with our handicap of me, the girls team dominated. 

Julia and Ben and Fire

Baby Phones of all the Boys

Losers!

It is very important for Germans, even if they don’t know English, that they make time that night to watch a black-and-white, ten minute British play called “Dinner for One.” So important that this scene plays at least 10 times on TV on Sylvester(German for New Years Eve). It involves a senile woman, her eager butler, and a lion rug. And that’s “Dinner for One.” 

At midnight, we shot off fireworks. We drank champagne. We spoke with neighbors. We went home. It was the first time in a long time that I had spent New Years quietly in a family setting, and I really enjoyed it. 

First New Years in the Snow!

My new year has gotten off to a solid start. I was the star of a very interesting middle-school English report entitled “The Life of an American Au Pair.” A wonderful topic if I do say so myself! After a couple of rehearsals here, I went one early Monday morning to the middle school girls’ English course and answered a series of questions in front of the class. I spoke, they stared with open mouths, and then there were no questions to follow. I love it! I discovered middle schoolers are exactly to same everywhere, in which they are all way too cool for school. It was really a lot of fun, and I hope that I can start to tutor some students in English. 

2011 is great in other ways too. My German course started back up. I’ve stuck with my New Years resolution to do yoga every day. Mathis is learning to crawl. I’ve been planning a lot of trips. I’m going to Poland at the end of the month and the Netherlands and Belgium in February. I had plans with friends three nights this week! I made cinnamon rolls from scratch!  I’ve been playing a lot of piano lately. I’ve been eating a lot of cinnamon rolls lately. 

Wishing you strong beginnings, plentiful adventures, and sugar comas in 2011!

Better Late Than Never! Part Two - (since no German translation) Teil Zwei

A cute picture of Mathis and my Parents to preface.  

Breakfast was always a struggle to find from the location of our hotel, but on Thursday morning I knew it wouldn’t matter. I’d been talking about eating döner kebaps (delicious Turkish fast food and probably my favorite thing about traveling in Europe) to my Dad as soon he’d step foot onto European soil, and the plan was made to buy them at the Berlin train station and eat them for lunch from our reserved first class seats on the train to Rheda-Wiedenbrück. Taxis were taken, a Whopper from Burger King was randomly eaten by my brother, platforms were found, döner was bought, our train arrived. 

But where was our train car? I had purchased first class reservations solely so we would definitely have a seat, but both of the first class and a few second class cars were missing. Just not there. With the whole of Germany traveling the day before Christmas Eve, the cars were so full that my brother squeezed onto the first step of the entrance before the doors barely missed shutting on his backpack. After riding a few stops with nothing to keep us from falling but the other bodies pushed against ours, the four of us made it into a hallway and settled in for the rest of the 3 hours. A very busy hallway, I might add. Sometimes the train would rock to the right and we would find ourselves looking through the window straight down to the ditch below. Sometimes the train would rock to the left and we would find our bottoms against the windows of the lucky passengers with seats. And sometimes an extra large woman with an extra large backpack, unfathomable in size and girth, would wedge herself skillfully between the wall and my dad, standing in the hands-up-you’re-being-robbed pose while being squished from face to shins against the window.

a little cramped...

It’s ok! It’s fine! I just have to keep telling myself I had the best döner kebap probably ever in Vienna. I’ll get over my lack of wonderful döner. Standing up on the train for over 3 hours is not the party of the life time, but there are worse things. For example, that cold döner situation. Man. I’m still bitter.

Somehow we made it to Gütersloh, and thankfully Sandra forced Christof to come pick us up there, instead of us having to ride one more train. From then on the weekend went more smoothly than I could have hoped for.

See, the boys are good for something.

Except for the couple or more times that we got a car stuck in snow, with different combinations of 2, 3, or even 4 Bridges’ shoving away. Man, that was a lot of snow. 

Oh, and the time my parents overslept like teenagers, and Christof had to go check on them. But honestly, both of those times were even fun! 

On Christmas Eve we decorated the tree and explored Wiedenbrück, which my family found especially beautiful. 

Widenbrück on Christmas Eve

Any free second throughout their time here was spent playing with Mathis, of course. and Kara too.

Taylor entertaining everybody

Germany has their big Christmas celebration on the 24th, so we headed to Martha and Bernd’s and had a typical German dinner with pork that I always love and sauerkraut that I actually liked. Beer and wine were drunk, songs were sung, stories were told that seemed to be understood in both English and German, and presents were opened. I got way too many gifts than I should have, the best of which being a trip to either Croatia or Belgium/Netherlands! Taylor slept in the basement while he was here, and my parents hotel was in walking distance, which proved convenient when we were so tired from celebrating! 

Mom, Julia, and Tom

Bernd and Ben

Marko, Taylor, and Christof singing

Oh Tannenbaum!

Sandra opening an Octopus from America!

It was our turn on Christmas Day, and after a walk in the woods that was more like trekking through over two feet of snow, the Bridges family opened our smalls gifts to each other and began work on my favorite part of Christmas, cooking the Lowcountry Boil. Thank goodness I got a can of Old Bay as one of my christmas presents! 

Probably my favorite picture of the whole trip.

Items were modified according to what we could find the day before in the grocery store, but all in all with the good reviews and when not a scrape was left on the table (except for on the brown paper in the middle that everyone was excited to learn was for throwing your shrimp shells), we’d found a dish that can be enjoyed across countries. Thank goodness for the power of computers, because with mine we got to talk to Grandé and Monkpa on Christmas Day! We ended the evening with the only way we know how, watching Christmas Vacation in German with English subtitles. Just as hilarious as ever.


The 26th was Explore the Castle and Rheda day, as well as Fancy German Dinner day. 

The square in Rheda

Everyone at the Ratskeller! Thank you, Grandé,
for such a wonderful meal!

Both were excellent. My family couldn’t stop commenting about feeling like they were in a postcard, with the half-timbered houses and huge snowflakes falling. They also couldn’t stop worrying about their flight which had to leave in under 48 hours. For my dad’s birthday the next day, we headed to the nearby town of Münster, which I always really enjoy seeing and which has a very rich history. The treaty to end the 30 Year War was signed in their courthouse in 1648! I bought snow boots, Taylor found German soccer jerseys, and the car got stuck in the snow just one more time, to grow on! 

When we got back to the house, cakes were set up on the table and the entire family was on the way over to celebrate my dad’s birthday! After two invigorating rounds of “Happy Birthday”, we ate cake and I think my dad did have a happy birthday. 

Happy Birzday zu You!

They spoiled my dad!

The next morning at 5am my family got a final glance into the real Germany as we drove on the German Autobahn to the Düsseldorf Airport. Just like in a race car. (only joking, Sandra!) The roads were luckily free from ice and my family got to the airport early. As we said goodbye, it was hard to be too sad, half from being so tired in the early hours but half because we had such a wonderful time. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from the trip and while I might forget what we ate, some historical dates that we learned, or how to properly shove a stuck car out of snow, I could never forget how much their time in Germany meant to me. I am so thankful I have the type of family that is not only accepting of their wandering daughter and sister, but that would also fly across the Atlantic to come visit her. You are the best.

To many, many more travels together, right Taylor and Dad?!