Monday, July 10, 2006

As promised: an absurdly long post

Ok I had just typed pages and pages and then the power went out and I lost everything I had typed. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Ok, I will start over but that had better NOT happen again.

SO I can finally post! For those keeping track, today I am in Avignon, France. I will be here for several days, exploring and seeing plays at the Festival de theatre.
My hotel is really far away behind a mall in the suburbs, but hey, it was cheap. I can't complain.

I guess I will start at the very beginning. I hear its a very good place to start.

I left Paris. I'm still a bit in shock that its over, its seems almost impossible. I keep thinking I'm going to walk out of this cafe and back to my apartment on Avenue du Roule in Paris, but I won't. I said goodbye to my boyfriend, to my friends, to my host family, and I have no idea if I will ever see them again. I woulf like to think yes. Some of them have promised to visit. When I return to Paris, I will always have friends here, but its not the same. The last night Akilles and I spent together I started to cry only once, and only after he had left on the night we said our final goodbye. After the shows, which went extremely well, I was with my castmates until 3am. When they finally put me in a taxi, I was crying and kissing them all. When the taxi pulled away, they chased it down the street, aving and blowing kisses. I have emails and phone numbers and I hope very much they will come to New York.
This week they are out in the country, living in commune, preparing a show round-the-clock. What youth and spirit cannot do must be impossible. I love them and miss them.

Clement made me a CD which I haven't listened to yet. French songs that he labeled with instructions about when to listen to each: "for rainy days", "for feeling sad", "for driving in the car", "for i don't know what". I love him so much, i can't wait to see him again. Why do the great ones like boys?

So that was June 25th. That was leaving Paris.
Après ça, i have done the following (i'll try to be as organised as possible):

1) Leipzig: Spent most of the day in the train station, but did manage to take a long walk that evening. Leipzig is in eastern Germany, which still carries marked differences from ots Western counterparts; remnants of its time behind the iron curtain. In Leipzig lives Corrina, the german student (now in med school) who lived with my family for - months when I was 13 years old. She has lived in Leipzig for - years now, and was telling me about the lingering tensions in the relationship between eastern and western germany. She grew up in the West but she claims that she likes Leipzig better, with 5 eras of history on every block (although admittedly poorly mantained in some areas). She is leaving Leipzig soon to spend a few months in Hungary doing her internship: Leipzig is too full of students and too short on jobs. It was nice to see her and talk to her, but I was still in a daze from leaving Paris, and exhausted from lack of sleep. Plus we were leaving early in the morning for our train to...

2) Prague: Prague is great, especially if you like Art Nouveau. Loved the Mucha museum. It is remarkably well preserved as well, most of the old city sights survived the communist era without too much damage. We took a walking tour with one of Prague's old actors, he even took us to lunch at the National Theatre's cafeteria. The National theatre is where they filmed certain parts of Amadeus, and Mozart worked and lived in this city for 6 of the 'best years of his life'. Prague is also the traditional home of Black Light Theatre, which is across between puppetry, mime, and a lazer light show. Clearly a product of the 60's.
Just in front of the statue on Wenceslaus square, there is a monument to two students, 21 and 19 years old, who set themselves on fire in protest against the communist regime. Clearly, apathy is not a political epidemic in Prague. Not that anyone should make a habit of setting themselves on fire, but it certqinly made an impression on me. Have I ever been so devoted to a cause that I would sacrifice myself, much less set myself on fire? Could I ever be?

3) Salzbourg: The best thing about Salzbourg was the France-Brazil match. Beautiful town, a few interesting mozart sights, but mostly lots of tourists and not much to do. The highlight for me, was the hilarious 'Sound of Music' tour, which took us into the countryside. There are miles and miles of unbelievable countryside, wide clear lakes, charming villages, and plenty of strudel stands. In the van, the guide turned on the Sound of Music soundtrack and everyone on the bus started to sing along, which I thought was sweet. A testament to the universality of, if nothing else, Julie Andrews. The hills were indeed alive, and I wasn't even annoyed. Oh, and we went to a luge course and rode down the mountain in the silver metal tracks.

4) The next day we took a boat ride through the Wachau, a beautiful valley full of terraced vineyards and cute-as-a-button villages, skirting a 15km bend of the Danube. It was nice to relax. That evening we arrived in...

5) Vienna: I loved Vienna, and we were only there for barely two days, which is not nearly enough. It is a beautiful city, benefitting from the incredible wealth of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, and nearly completely rescued from the perils of WWI and II (which is more than we can say about the empire itself). I fell in love with the legends of the familial turmoils of the monarchy, especially the mysterious, depressed, and beautiful empress Sissy. Internationnaly misunderstood and yet unabashedly admired, she wrote poetry and travelled the world. Then she was assasinated by an italian anarchist. They devoted an entire museum to her legacy. I think I will pick up a book about her when I get back to the states.
Vienna made me want to learn German, and for those of you who do know it, if you want to live abroad and work on it, I would strongly endorse spending time in Vienna.

6) Budapest: It takes time for Budapest to surrender her mysteries to those who are willing to seek them out. I had one full day and one morning, which of course, was insufficient. Hungarian is also an IMPOSSIBLE language. The city is fascinating, and still recovering from the communist era, which hit Hungary particularly hard. My favorite sights were the Museum of Terror and the Public baths. It was also hot hot hot, and I got sunburnt, but France beat Portugal so I didn't care. I watched the game on an enormous screen, sitting on the ground in the middle of a square. People were everywhere, cheering, yelling. It was truly exhilerating, honestly, I sat there and looked around me and I just smiled. I think I would have been satisfied even if we had not won the game. But we did. Hehe.

7) Miskolc: just barely emerging from the veil of Communism. A small city in the hills, where my mom's cousin and her husband have been doing missionary work for the last 16 years. The countryside if lovely, and the town is a work in progress. Hungarian food is yummy, if you like heartburn.

8) Krakow: We visited Auchwitz-Birkenau first thing, which was a bit unorthodox perhaps but incredibly moving. It was so enormous and the sun bore down on us so hot, my heart was heavy with sadness. The atrocities that occurred here stand in stark contrast to the grass that now grows green and fragrant over the fields where crumbling chimneys of hundreds of prisoner barracks once stood. Really a moving spot, I would recommend a visit if you ever get the opportunity.
Krakow was nice, we basically just walked around a lot. It was beautiful, with a church on every corner, usually with a picture of pope John Paul II on it. He was born near here and Archbishop here as well. He's sort of a cult figure in Poland. The polish are ardently catholic afterall. Krakow is also full of tourists, but still worth it for a day or two I think.

And that's all. Now I'm here, and staring at this screen is giving me a headache. I'll try and update again before I leave avignon.

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