Can we talk about how much I am stressing out about the future? How am I going to support myself? How am I going to find a place to live? How am I going to find a job? How am I going to get into a competetive grad program? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I went running today, which was successful on my part. I said goodbye to Maia for the next couple weeks. Tomorrow FLOWERS ALL DAY. It's going to be amazing. Tuesday, Den Haag, Wednesday Brussels or Frankfurt...Should be interesting....

I have been going to see Maia play tennis for the last few days. Today, however, she didn't have any games. I tried to convince her to let me break her loose (she was complaining that the program is very strict), but I guess she wanted to hang out with her friends since she won't see them again in the near future, totally understandable. So, today I luxuriated in bed for awhile. Got up for breakfast and a mango smoothy, planned my day, then went back to sleep glamorously. It's very hard to sleep in the hostel because there are 17 other people in my room and people are always going in and out and rustling around and whatnot. So, I was overly tired and needed to catch up. Oh and I love sleeping. There's that as well...When I woke up again I went to the Van Gogh museum, which was cool, then laid in a park nearby and read my book. It's so good. It's called The Place at the End of the World. It's written by a journalist who goes into war zones and reports on the perspectives of the people who have no voice. Very informative, but readable, which is always good with a nonfiction book in my opinion. I often get bogged down and can't finish non-fiction books because they are so informative that I feel like I have to soak up ALL the knowledge contained in the book. Then I get frustrated because I don't progress with the book quickly and then I generally give it up halfway through or something. Ridiculous. I know. I just got through the Anne Frank museum. Oh the Holocaust. They had a cool movie thing at the end where it presented different rights - they were using the example of freedom of the press as an example and asking questions like if someone is promoting Holocaust denial, should that be cracked down upon. Basically it was looking at the balancing of rights. It was basic for me, but I think for other people, probably not. These might not be things that people generally think about. So, I was impressed by that. Tonight the hostel people are having a movie and discussion night - sounds good in theory. I thought it might be a God related movie, but no - they are watching and discussing Batman Returns...So bizarre. Not exactly what I was hoping for. So I am trying to avoid the place until then. But my dinner is there...So tomorrow I might try to go to the Dutch Resistance museum. I went to the war documentation center yesterday before going to Maia's game and they didn't let me in because I wasn't doing research. But I just wanted to look around and find out about their mission statement etc. Mmmmm war documentation. But oh well. So, the resistance museum may be kind of what I am looking for. Then I will head back to the tennis stadium. It's the last or second to last day of playing. Maia leaves the day after tomorrow. I am almost positive that I will be meeting a friend in Frankfurt and I'm not sure what the plan is from there. Things have gotten a bit confusing...We'll see what happens and I will keep everyone updated...since I'm obsessed with the internet at this stage in my life...

I am finding that Amsterdam is very specific. I think I would enjoy it much more if I was with friends, but alone it is kind of weird. It's really quite a party city. There are some very cool little shops, but I haven't gotten a chance to go into them. I have spent the majority of time figuring out the logistics of finding and hooing up with Maia. I got to watch her play tennis today, which was cool, but she was playing against this very annoying girl who threw her off with her strange grunting. Last night Maia said that she is homesick, but not homesick in the traditional sense. She said she misses the familiarity of home and Milford and everything, which is completely understandable. She has made several friends and I think she is having fun. The people who are the "counselors" are cool and it seems like Maia likes them as well. I talked to one of them for a bit today. She is from Holland and she was saying that it has been interesting for her to work with American kids, because she has all these preconceived notions about Americans and they have been disproved mostly. She was also saying that the main thing she notices is that there is a huge difference in kid's senses of responsibility for their actions, which I thought was interesting. I am having trouble balancing going to the tennis area and seeing Amsterdam. Today I slept in a bit and then went to Hillegom to the tennis tournament and the train timing was so long and ridiculous for a town that is very close. Hopefully now that I know the routine, I will be able to cut down on travel time. Then when I got back to Amsterdam, I went grocery shopping for Maia and I, then got lost with a full bladder and bags of groceries, found a bathroom, went back to the hostel, then did laundry and now coordinating with a friend on the interweb. I need to go to the flower market outside of town and see the sights in Amsterdam as well. I have time though...The hostel I am staying at is pretty crazy. The people there are REALLY INTO GOD. I mean I respect religion and everything, but this is intense. I was perusing the bookshelves, all about christianity, novels about christianity, etc. There are quotes from the bible everywhere. There is a book with information about each of the employees and most of them are like "hobbies: god, snowboarding"", etc. very intense. To each his own...

I am in Amsterdam! Glamah! I haven't really looked around that much. I came in last night at 7 and thought there would be no way I would find a hostel, but I found one straight away, which was such good luck. I was on the train yesterday for 12 hours and had to trasfer twice, cause the train was late and it was a pain in the ass. The hostel I stayed at yesterday was absolutely crazy. The reception itself was a bar, and there was a lounging area where people were of course smoking weed and other things and there were lots of pillows. Today, I checked out of that hostel and checked in to my hostel that I will have for the next five nights. I have rejoined the religious community. The nuns would be proud. Hopefully it won't be too intense. It was the cheapest thing available, so...Today I will take the train to the place sports complex where Maia is apparently, but I'm not sure where she is training and whatnot, so I will wander around for awhile. After I eat something. So hungry. This town is disgustingly expensive I must say, which is depressing, especially after Prague, which was so cheap. Oh Prague. How I love thee.

And now I'm in Prague. Yesterday I went to Auschwitz. I took the overnight train from Budapest to Krakow, then transfered trains and went to Oswiecim. I was going to spend a little bit of time in Krakow, because the train was getting in at 6 something and I figured I didn't need all day for Auschwitz, but I got barely any sleep on the train the night before, so I was very tired and didn'tp feel like dealing with all the checking my luggage and figuring stuff out crap in Krakow, so I just got on the train to Oswiecim. And fell asleep. A nice lady woke me up before we got to Oswiecim, though, which was very sweet. I tried to communicate with the people at the train station and it was very difficult and they were extremely rude to me. So, I checked my luggage and then started walking. I figured that there would be signs for Auschwitz everywhere...but there weren't. So I walked and walked and walked. It worked out well, because I ended up seeing the village of Oswiecim itself, which was interesting for several reasons. I was thinking about it on the train and I was thinking, what will the village be like? What will the people be like? Is the site of Auschwitz some kind of profitable tourist industry and how is the town affected by it? Who lives there? Why would you live there? What is the effect of the camp on the town and is it reflected in the daily living styles? What about the collective memory of the town? So, with these things in mind I walked. It is a very green town, set on a river, with several small parks and whatnot. Bike paths. Children playing. Nice gardens. Churches. The only thing in the village that was different was the Jewish cultural center, but that is prevalent in most of the eastern european towns, so if you didn't realize that this was where Auschwitz was, it wouldn't seem out of the ordinary either. There was a town square and some wild dogs running about. And still throughout all of this, there were no signs for the camp. So, I stopped at a bookstore and got a map and it was actually on the other side of the train station from where I had been walking. Then I saw that there was a Auschwitz museum, so I thought I would wander there first and build up to the site itself. I wandered about trying to find it and then went in the wrong entrance. I found an open building and went in and of course I wandered straight into the remains of a crematorium. The thing they save for the end of the tour because it is the most horrific. There was a sign that said, please maintain silence, thousands of people were killed here. Of course, that just started me crying right off the bat. Then, I found the actual entrance to the museum and got a joined and english tour. I guess the rest of the experience and tour and everything can be described as simply unreal. I mean you're standing in this historic place, places actually, and you can mentally know that all these horrific things happened, but to actually realize this is very difficult. It is difficult to conceptualize the sadness and, well, everything that happened there. There were rooms upon rooms of shoes and suitcases and hair. That was one that really got me. They had loads upon loads of hair. Apparently, the Germans used the hair that was shaved off of peoples' bodies to make textiles. So there were just piles of human hair. It was so disturbing. So many thoughts...so much to say. There are people waiting for the internet though and I shouldn't be wasting this beautiful day. But the rest of the non-emotional side of the visit was just pissy. After I left the museum, I got a bite to eat, then played on the internet, then waited for a bus to the station, because my feet were killing me. The bus never came. I walked to the station, asked to buy a ticket to Prague, the lady was really rude with me, then I asked her if she took credit card and she snorted at me. So I walked and got money, then to the grocery store and got provisions for the 6 hour wait I had ahead of me. I wasn't about to go back into the town of Oswiecim, because there is simply nothing there and I knew I could either sit there or at the train station. So...I sat in the train station for 6 hours or so, reading, writing, drinking caffeinated beverages because I had gotten no sleep, sewing, and futzing around in general. Of course, I had to pee at this point. I went to use the (paid) bathroom and it was closed so I asked the cashier lady for the bathroom and she looked at me like I had asked her to give me the moon and said, uh, huhhuh, no. I was so angry I almost pulled the waste basket over in front of her booth and peed in front of her, but I held back. Then I peed in a bush. Then the mosquitos descended. It was just not a fun time in general is my whole point. And then I was in a car with 5 and then 4 other people for the night train, so sleeping was not fun.

I arrived this morning in Prague, checked my stuff, got coffee (3 actually), and found a hostel. They let me shower even though I couldn't check in till 1, which was fantastic. It was truly a beautiful showering experience. The layer of grime is mostly gone now. Mostly. Then I walked to the botanical gardens and took a nap, which was also lovely. I walked to a couple of parks and read and ate some food. I'm still very tired. I really don't feel like doing anything today, but I think I will take the public transportation (which will be a trip, cause I haven't been doing any public transportation, except with Emrah in Vienna, so we'll see what happens. Ok, I really need to end this. Perhaps more later.

Yesterday I arrived in Budapest. I ended up staying in Vienna for 5 days or something like that. It was much different than I expected, but I liked it quite a bit. More on that another time. Today I went to the largest synagogue in Europe, which was beautiful, and there was a museum attached to it, which had some interesting artifacts. There was a room comemorating the holocaust in Hungary, which was of course powerful. There was a tree over a mass grave which had the names of all the families of the people buried there. It was quite beautiful. I walked around a lot and saw a lot of the Pest half of the city. I saw the Parliament and then went to this museum called the House of Terror which was where the Communist party and the political police were housed and where they carried out executions and torture. Very very intense. I almost vomited a couple times. Just wait for Auswitchz. The most comical part of the day was this old woman sat down next to me when I was getting out of sun for a moment and started talking to me, and I just nodded and smiled and thought it would be over in a couple minutes. This woman talked without stopping for the next 30 minutes. And of course I couldn't understand a word of it, so I just nodded and smiled. Finally, I got up and kissed her on the cheek and said goodbye, without saying a word. I didn't want her to feel stupid...It was very intense. Tonight I stay in this hostel again, called the Red Bus hostel, which is really cute. Then tomorrow I will go to the Buda part of the city and then take the night train to Prague. I will get to Prague at 7 in the morning. Should be good. That's my story...

And some pictures from Vienna:


Beautiful fountain. We sat with our feet in it for awhile to cool off. Oh Europe.
Best toilet ever. Dad, I feel like this might be something you would adore.
Beautiful church


Me by the botanical gardens.

THat´s me (in case you didn´t know), with Salzburg in the background.




To amplify the previous post, I now have pictures. I have gotten stuck in Vienna. Not stuck in a bad way, I´m just having trouble leaving...We´ll see what happens. Ok, but here are some pictures of Salzburg.

I wish I could say that I have pictures to share at this moment, but unfortunately, this computer is a little ghetto and not so fabulous. There are so many details to share I don´t know where to begin. That´s the thing about traveling alone: I´m not lonely - not yet, thank god (it´s only been three days or something!) - but I have all this time to just think. And contemplate and reflect and write and whatnot. I think this is going to be a very good period for me in many ways. I have already written some 10 pages in my journal (Ryan, if you´re reading, you´ll be so proud). I mean even just "traveling" around in Geneva, or anywhere really, I have so many random, I need to got this down moments. Maybe I´m crazy or forgetful or just full of thoughts, I don´t know. But anyway, I´m in Vienna now. I had a bad feeling about the city at first because when I was leaving the station, I encountered this crazy dude who kept muttering to me in German and it sounded very hostile (but what German doesn´t?) and he was sketchy and finally I left him behind and then I went to the hostile closest the station and it was full. But then I found this hostel and everything has worked out ok. To give a very brief overview, omitting the important details which make up life, I met some chill girls at the hostel last night (one of which was from Tennessee, which made my very happy - southern accents!), then I got a terrible nights sleep, then I woke up early this morning, checked out of the hostel, dropped my stuff at the station, went to Mozart´s home (not so impressive, but very inspirational - have I mentioned how much I crave the piano at this point in my life???), bought a Mozart CD (which I don´t think will duplicate our collection, Mom), then I got on the train to Vienna. I was all settled in for a quiet ride alone in my compartment, when this large group of pre-teens on some sort of outdoorsy trip came on and invaded my space. I was very disappointed. until I saw their leader. He was very cute, and then I realized slightly balding. But still cute. The ride was ok. I mostly knit and listened to Ani and Mozart (why didn´t someone ever try to combine the two?) and the kids watched me...The ride was much less spectacular than from Zurich to Salzburg, but oh well. Today, after I found the hostel, I went wandering and found the botanical gardens (what else would draw me initially?). I went to the museum there and then sat and listened to some guitar, and then walked around and wrote in my journal and read. It was overall quite lovely. The thing is, what is it with men? What is it that they think that me crossing the road means that I really want them or need them to whistle? I hadn´t been exposed to it in Europe, in this form that is. In Latin America , sure, but I just don´t understand. Men are so sketchy. Sorry guys, but there are those of your population out there right now that make me stay in early at night. Maybe there are women of the same nature, but it´s not so physically omnipresent. That´s my update. Internet is disgustingly cheap here, so maybe more tomorrow....