Coming back from a trip often feels like I went through a time warp. I could almost forget that I was on a fantastic two-week trip.
It started off much less than fantastic. In the morning of my flight from Cologne airport to Milan, I had to take a train from Düsseldorf to Cologne, and Cologne to the airport. I had booked my trains in advance and arrived at the station with plenty of time, early in the morning. Of course, my train was delayed enough to cause me to miss my next train to the airport. I ran around the Hauptbahnhof with my stupid luggage to see if there was a different train going to Cologne. Yay, I found one! I hustled to the platform and suddenly it got delayed as well. I stood there pointlessly for a few minutes, imagining my plane leaving without me. Then a clueless looking woman came up to me saying “Köln Flughafen?” I probably looked just as clueless so maybe that’s why she gravitated towards me. I quickly realized that she didn’t understand English or German. And she quickly realized that I don’t understand Spanish. German was barely our most common language. We incompetently were asking each other questions and shaking our heads out of further cluelessness. But it was nice in a way.
“Taxi” must be the same word in all three languages because when I tried to tell her in German that I might take a taxi, her eyes lit up. This random Spanish lady and I took a (freaking expensive Düsseldorf monopolized) taxi together. I managed to not cry at the absurd cost because I was thankful that of all people, this lady came up to ME and we happened to be going to the same destination. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have been more stressed (and out another 80 euros…)
I’m not even going to mention the yogurt part of this story.
Finally, the journey begins. My mom, Rachel, and her mom were flying to Italy and we would meet in Varenna on Lake Como. I had a beautiful train stop-over in Lecco, where I sat by a stunning view to let the time pass until my next train.
Eventually we all arrived in the beautiful village of Varenna, greeted a local – my mom’s longest and bestest friend, Melita (shout out to my blog’s biggest fan!! 🙂 )
Next stop, Florence!
(click the pictures to view captions)
Not much beats Cinque Terre in terms of scenery. My favorite part of our time there was a very hilly hike from one village to the next.
We headed to Milan for our last day and parted ways in the morning. They went back to the States and I flew to Munich to meet up with Bori for my second week of spring break.
It’s hard to pack for a trip when you’ll be in warm weather and freezing weather. Munich, Warsaw, and Prague would be significantly colder than Italy (even though it was very warm in Germany only a few weeks prior). There was even snow in the forecast. We were unprepared and cold pretty much all the time.
We spent a short time in the city of Munich, and went to Dachau concentration camp (the first of its kind). The camp itself is a museum now. Damn, was it heart-wrenching.
Next, Warsaw. I don’t quite know why I fell in love with this city. It’s not particularly beautiful with all the communist buildings and some inauthentic pre-WW2 buildings, but holy moly this city has been through so much. Warsaw used to have a diverse population consisting 30% of Jewish people, who all were forced into a small ghetto and most were obviously murdered by the end, and then hundreds of thousands of people died during the Warsaw Uprising. The Soviets took over for 45 years of communism. Today, the city is booming. Talk about resilience!
Prague has also been through some serious sh**. As one can imagine, the center of Europe tends to get caught in the middle of things (pun intended). WW2, Cold War, communism, etc. Unlike Warsaw, Prague wasn’t completely destroyed. One of the oldest running Synagogues is in Prague’s old Jewish quarter, and the famous astronomical clock dates back to 1410.
Now back to normal life…..and the school year is wrapping up!!
Teaching and Learning in the Journey of Life 
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