Little Green River

The paper prompt:

In the “Problema I ” in Fear and Trembling, Johannes de silentio speaks of a “Teleological Suspension of the Ethical.” What is this teleological suspension of the ethical? Include a discussion of why Abraham is said to represent an exception to the ethical and why “tragic heroes” are not. And please explain what you take to be at stake in this discussion (i.e., what are the theological or ethical implications of this discussion).

The first part of this question I could answer in a sentence: It means prioritizing a particular goal above one’s ethical duties (as commonly conceived–Kierkegaard isn’t partial to any particular ethical system). I dislike it when people use big fat philosocrap words for things that really aren’t that hard to explain. But it’s the phrase Kierkegaard uses (or something like it; I mean, it’s a translation from Danish)…

Despite the apparent obscurity of the question, I really, really like Fear and Trembling. And I want to write this paper on it. But. I have so many questions, phrased so colloquially, that I don’t know how well I’ll be able to construct them into a three-page paper due tomorrow. I’ll probably end up writing my ten-page final paper on this book, too…

God Himself tells you to cut your child’s throat. Not for any greater good–not to save your town or uphold the law or defend your country as Jephthah or Brutus or Agamemnon (for the purposes of this argument) did. Because God told you to, and nothing else. Do you do it? Or do you tell God to f*** off?

What is it about faith that people admire so much, anyway? Anyone with half a brain, religious or not, will recoil in horror when a father murders his son. So why does Abraham get the praise and respect of not one, but THREE major religions? Every year whole sermons get delivered on this Bible story, all glossing over the fact that, while *we* know Isaac’s okay in the end, Abraham *doesn’t*. For three days, he as good as kills Isaac. Religion must fear this story, notwithstanding how much it lauds its protagonist.

Kierkegaard’s Problemata III extends the problem further. The question is whether it was ethical for Abraham to not tell Sarah, Isaac, or anybody else about what he was planning to do. Kierkegaard’s discussion points out that “God told me to” is not a valid argument. I don’t know if God told *you* to, but He certainly didn’t tell me! God is not something that works in communication.

The obvious extension of this problem is regarding *any* matter of faith, not just murdering children. Want to see how? Ask a bunch of Christians why they believe in God. I’ve heard a few bad arguments commonly used as answers to this:

“Because [so-and-so; often the Apostle Paul] became a Christian; if he could be so convinced as to convert, God must exist!” Great. You don’t believe in God. You believe in so-and-so. Your faith is that he was not mistaken, crazy, or lying–while all the other religions’ claimants to prophethood/conversion were wrong. Good luck with that.

“Because nature is so beautiful, etcetera.” Yes, flowers and stars are pretty. Science agrees very much! But there’s an awful lot of ugly things in nature, for example tapeworms and tsunamis. If the vague feeling of “beauty” is your only argument for the existance of a God (let alone the whole Jesus Christ/Ten Commandments/big honkin’ holy book baggage)… can I interest you in various forms of paganism?

Then you have the personal stories. Life-changing experiences, when you could just FEEL God walking with you. Visions, voices in your head, that sort of thing.

At that point, you have a sort of paradox. It is clear that the person you’re talking to has a logical reason to believe in God. Unless they have a history of mental illness or some other explanatory circumstance, they cannot be expected to discount their personal experience of God; otherwise, they’d have to doubt *all* the things their senses tell them! Their belief is logical–for them.

For you, the listener, on the other hand, you’re put in the same position as the believer in my first bad argument. If their testimony is going to have any logical impact on you, you’d have to put absolute faith in them, a fallible human being. That’s not something most people will (or should) do. There’s so many easier, more logical explanations for why they think that’s what they saw/heard/felt. Modern neuroscience is all about poking people’s brains and making them have out-of-body experiences and whatnot. While it can’t be proven that their prophetic vision was really a brain fart…which explanation are you gonna default to?

Faith is not a thing that can be communicated. It defies expression.

The most interesting Christians are those that dodge or refuse the question. They’ve already figured this out. What’s the point in trying, if it just opens you up to pity or ridicule without any chance of benefit?

And yet… So many religious figures, particularly evangelical ones, put SO much emphasis on testifying: sharing one’s personal experiences with God. Lots of people see faith as an interpersonal thing, and believe it both can and should be built upon in a communal setting. Churches are social structures. What is their answer to Kierkegaard? He’s been around for almost 150 years…surely someone has come up with a viable counterargument? I’m honestly quite curious. This might be the focus of my final paper.

On a lighter note, when we read the Abraham story in the Genesis, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Holy Bibble version (starts here, or maybe here). Tee hee hee.

When we got back from break, instead of immediately leaping into public service television and liberalization my European News Media prof spent the first half-hour of class with a challenge: who in the room had the funniest travel break story? Here is my mostly-accurate retelling of the two best stories, which each got a prize.

Second place:

Hunter and a friend were in Istanbul. While they were there, Hunter decided to go to a Turkish bath–I mean, when you’re visiting Turkey, you’re like obligated to! The Turkish baths mentioned in his guidebook were kinda expensive, though, so Hunter decided to go to one down the street from his hostel which was like half the price.

So he sits down with his towel in the first room, a sauna. He notices that the Turkish guys in there are kinda looking at him funny. He figures it’s just because he’s a tourist.

He then notices that one of them is masturbating. O-kay… He finds this odd, but as a tourist…maybe that’s just what some guys do in Turkish baths? Besides, he’d already paid good money to get in!

After a few minutes, Hunter proceeds to the next room, which had pools of water and such. It also had Turkish guys giving each other blowjobs. Oh dear. By this point, he figured out: hey, it’s a gay Turkish bath!

When one of the gay dudes starts splashing him with water, trying to get his attention, Hunter finally decides to leave.

Moral of the story: When you’re a tourist and don’t know what the heck is going on, just suck it up and pay full price. Especially when it’s an activity that involves quantities of mostly-nude men.

First place:

Steven and a friend had been backpacking in Italy and were planning to meet some friends the next day in Paris. So they went to the station to take the night train there. They hadn’t made any reservations–they’d never had any trouble getting a seat on a train before. Unfortunately, the conductor told them that the train was full. For Steven and his buddy, this was not an option. They’d already booked the hostel and everything in Paris; it was too late to cancel.

The conductor let them on the train and said they could look through the cars to see if there were any openings. There weren’t. Then the conductor came back and said that he had a place for them (probably the conductor’s bed or something), but it would cost them twice the normal rate. They thought that was ridiculous, declined, and said they would be fine just hanging out in the hallway or whatever. The conductor, however, said that that was not an option–even if he were willing to let them, the customs guys would kick them out as soon as they hit the French border. He told them to get off at the next stop, then left.

Leaving was not an option. Instead, the two boys, with their backpacks, crammed themselves into one of the toilets.

There was only room enough for one to sit; the other had to stand. They switched places every half-hour or so. When they heard customs get on board, they unlocked the door so it would say “vacant” instead of “occupied.” They did this for ten hours, the whole time terrified of getting found out by the officers, the conductor, or an incontinent passenger.

The expression on the conductor’s face, when he saw Steven and his buddy disembark in Paris the next morning, was fabulous.

Moral of the story: Heck if I know. But there’s no question that Steven deserved first place, for surviving ten hours in a train bathroom if not the sheer guts for attempting it in the first place. Damn.

Today was the day I inadvertently walked all the way down a mountain.

I dragged my self and my suitcase a second time from Zurich Hauptbahnhof to the same hostel I’d stayed in five days previously. I got in early, so the rooms weren’t ready for me to move in. Fortunately, however, the guy at the desk said I could leave my stuff in the office and come back before noon to get my key. Thus, I was able to walk around a small park on Lake Zurich (which turned out to have a small aviary of tropical birds, for some reason) and then aimlessly cruise around the city in random trams instead of waiting for two hours for people to check out.

After I finally moved my stuff in and ate yet another jam sandwich (my lunch diet during the whole trip), I decided to take the train up to Uetliweg, a large hill/mountain overlooking the city of Zurich. The view at the top, looking down on green fields and adorable farmhouses on one side and the city and lake on the other, was of course amazing. Unfortunately, I’d run out of space on my camera in Bern, so I don’t have any pictures.

Uetliweg is covered in several walking paths, which intersect train stops on occasion. One of these paths is called “Planeteweg”–starting at the sun, there are markers for each of the planets at proportionate distances. (Pluto is not just included–because of its weird orbit, it has *three* markers, at apogee, perigee, and average distance!) Unfortunately, for some reason (in German, of course) the Planet path was closed when I was there. Nevertheless, I thought it would be nice to take a walk through the woods and admire the fall colors and pine trees. So I set off on one of the paths, which was supposed to intersect with a train station in about a half-hour or so.

While I was on the path, I was joined by this elderly German lady who I guess wanted somebody to walk with. Okay. As we walked along in the leaves, she asked why I was in Zurich and where else I had been and how Copenhagen was and my age and my family and whatnot. She spoke English, but I couldn’t always understand what she was saying–I think I mostly guessed correctly.

After a while, we reached an intersection with another path, where there was a water fountain and a playground covered in raucous children. I was pretty sure we ought to take the left fork. My companion, however, was convinced that we should go right, for reasons unknown to me. I eventually gave in, figuring that she could at least read German–she probably knew better than I where to go. Right?

Two other times I similarly withdrew my judgment–even once when I could *see* a parking lot through the trees, suggesting the presence of a station. I couldn’t just *leave*–that would be rude! So we walked, and walked, and walked…

Eventually we found ourselves off the whole trail system altogether–dumped off unceremoniously on the side of an unlabeled road with lots of speeding cars and no bus stops. There was nothing to do but continue walking down the hill on the sidewalk, in the hopes that something recognizable was closer to our front than our back.

Eventually, thank the Lord, we reached a tram station. The very end of the line. God it felt good to sit down. The constant downhill march wreaked havoc with my knees and my right hip. For several days afterward they didn’t feel right. I can only imagine how the 62-year-old woman felt. But it was the path she chose…

Lesson: Don’t trust old German women with directions?

After resting my legs for a while, I then walked around Bahnhofstrasse, the trendy shopping street on the other side of the river from my hostel. I stopped in a fancy-schmancy Swiss chocolate store, Sprungli, because I’d heard they were good. They *were* good–even when full of people, the store smelled delicious. I asked to sample one of these strange confections they had that looked like a miniature hamburger, and the lady gave it to me for free! It turned out to be made out of a meringue-type thing, with gooey chocolate stuff in the middle. Mmm. I looked at some of their boxes of chocolates and whatnot, but their prices were through the roof. I felt a little bad about sampling without getting anything…but what can you do?

This was my final full day in Switzerland, and I wanted to make it special. After days and days of jam sandwiches and pasta, I was prepared to forgo my general rule of never spending more than $10 on a meal and splurge my 20 remaining francs on dinner. Thus, I had planned to go to the oldest vegetarian restaurant in Europe, Hiltl. The restaurant was located near Bahnhofstrasse, so after leaving Sprungli I decided to go visit it early and take a look at the menu. I found an English copy of their *lunch* menu–and was promptly blown away. 23,- CHF for curry? I mean, I’m sure it’s damn good curry, but… ?!

So Hiltl, despite its historic qualities, was out of the question. My next candidate for dinner, after stopping back at the hostel for a bit of a rest, was another vegetarian restaurant down Niederdorfstrasse called Pot Au Vert that looked cute. But when I arrived around 5:45, they weren’t open yet and their menu was nearly as expensive. Boo that.

Zurich is not as bad as Copenhagen, but it is still an expensive city. Expect to spend $20 on dinner–even without drinks. Blargh.

I ended up going to the ZicZac Rock Café, an American-themed restaurant connected to a “Rock Hostel” where each of the rooms is band-themed. Ridiculous? Quite possibly. The interior was completely kitschy–a fake ten-foot Statue of Liberty on the bar, guitars and gold records hanging on the walls, a rotating Lego globe… The rock music blasting out of the speakers would’ve been too loud for most folks, but I wasn’t trying to hold a conversation with anyone and their choice of music (The Who, U2, Led Zeppelin, Heart, etc) was pretty good.

Attempting to stay true to my previous vegetarian intentions, I ordered a veggie burger. It turned out to look more like a veggie chicken patty than anything else–it was made out of mostly potatoes, along with some peas and carrots. Still tasty, though. I don’t think I realized how hungry I was until the waiter set the gigantic plate down in front of me. Salad, fries, burger–I nearly cleaned the damn thing. Maybe it’s silly, going to an American-themed restaurant when you’re a tourist in a foreign country. But I wasn’t a tourist, really. I was a financially-disadvantaged student who had been living on freaking jam sandwiches for a week, and pasta for three months. I missed actual American food, dammit!

After dinner, after I’d digested a bit, I went to McDonald’s for dessert. I’d seen signs for tiramisu (tiramisu? at McDonald’s??) and I was morbidly curious. It was…about what you’d expect it to be like. Creamy, not terrible, but not tiramisu.

And off I went the next morning at 4 AM to the train station, then the airport, back to Copenhagen. The third week of the travel break I spent with my Dad visiting the National Museet, eating a three-hour traditional Danish lunch at Det Lille Apotek, and various other obligatory touristy things that I’d not gotten around to doing during my time here. So that’s my story.

(Edited from journal entries written in Switzerland)

I had thought that, by getting up early, I would be able to give myself lots of time to explore Bern even after four hours’ train travel. Indeed, I was in Bern by noon. The problem was, the hostel receptionist wasn’t–lunch break was from 11 to 3. And I wasn’t going to get far in Bern with no map and lugging all my baggage around.

Shortly after eating the lunch I had packed, two other travelers stumbled into the waiting room and found themselves in the same predicament. Their names were Rachel and Jessica, two American post-college high school English TAs in Alsace. Jessica was from Ohio, while Rachel came from Moorhead–a UM Duluth graduate. They hadn’t had lunch yet, so we went to a nearby pizzeria where they ate and I sipped the second-most expensive diet Coke of my life. Afterward, we walked around the outdoor vendors in nearby Bärenplatz (I bought some fruit) and went around the block admiring the shopping opportunities. By then it was 3, so we were finally able to check in and take a load off.

Despite the delay, I still had a good time in Bern. I had my picture taken with the fountain near the hostel with an ogre eating babies. Mmm, babies. I bought a crêpe with Nutella from a crêpe stand and then watched two old men play chess with oversized pieces on a public board in the ground, while a passel of other old men shouted advice and jeers in German. I visited Einstein’s house (not all that impressive, especially since everything’s labeled in German) and got a picture of the clock that inspired E=MC^2.

It was too late to visit the bear pits and I decided Gurten was too expensive, so then I arbitrarily decided to visit Rosengarten. I got there at sunset and it was AMAZING. So many roses, many still in bloom–it was much bigger than either the Scripps or the Swarthmore rose gardens. There were fountains, an old playground with a carousel, and a restaurant.

And the view! My God! Sitting on the wall, looking down at the entire old town wrapped in the river Aare with the soft orange of early twilight, and mountains on either side… who needs Gurten for such a view! The park was well-occupied while I was there: by two guys tossing a disc on the lawn; by cadres of young men, mostly dressed in black, puffing smoke from hand-rolled cigarettes and laughing; and by a lot of couples also admiring the view. Something about that light, as I watched it fall on the students sitting on benches with their sketchpads under the brown and yellow trees… It was heartbreaking. Perhaps the moment I most missed Nelson this semester.

Again, I really like Bern. It’s a nice city, without seeming as pretentious as Lugano was. I guess, the image I had of Lugano in my head was of a small village. That’s how it seemed in Bloomability. Maybe that’s what it used to be like. But there’s a casino or two now, and a zillion expensive hotels and schmancy banks, and the shopping is *definitely* geared toward the Rolex class. I mean, not that I *mind* seeing lots of attractive men wearing sunglasses and Italian suits roving about, but… Bern has a lot of nice stores too, of course, but I’ve seen a good number of secondhand or less-expensive options, too. I did some shopping at this quirky cute place called This and That near the clocktower, which had a lovely variety of random, inexpensive things.

So yeah. The Bern public transportation system may be insanely designed (of course, that’s what I *always* think whenever I first arrive in a city), but Bern is certainly on my cool list.

Next entry: Zurich II: Revenge of the Germans!

(Edited from journal entries written in Switzerland.)

24.10.06

The train ride from Zurich to Lugano was quite enjoyable. The mountains got taller and rockier and mistier as we chugged southward. I saw a few peaks with snow. Switzerland truly wins the Most Badass View award. I mean, one of those deep blue mountain lakes with some cottages nestled into the green hillside and the mountains robed in fall foliage, under a blue and white sky? It can’t be beat. Or if it can, it would be by those Swiss mountain streams falling out rocksides into nowhere. I had to be careful to ration my phototaking while I was on the train–I could have *easily* filled my camera up.

Around 1 I decided to have lunch, so I had an apple and made myself a cheese sandwich while we went through a long tunnel. (So many tunnels! Swiss engineers are geniuses–they *have* to be, with this kind of terrain…) When I looked up again, we were out among houses and cornfields and goats and vineyards and–wait, was that a palm tree?

I mean, I already knew there were palm trees in the Ticino. However, that doesn’t make seeing them, after all those austere, rocky rapids and pine forests, any less weird. Sure, you have the same thing with Scripps’ campus and Mount Baldy (indeed, in some ways Lugano does remind me of Claremont, only everyone speaks Italian and there are a zillion steep hills), but even then Mt. Baldy’s pretty far away. Here the mountains are In. Your. Face.

So now I’m sitting in front of the hostel waiting for the proprietor to come back from her lunch break. Which ends at 3 PM. The Swiss like their long lunches, I’ve noticed…

25.10.06

Today I resolved to spend the day down in Lugano. Thing is, I don’t really have a map. (The directions to the hostel are a start, but most of the streets are unmarked and the shape seems like of inaccurate, too.) So by guesswork and the tourist “You Are Here” map boards I made my way to Parc Ciani on the lakeside. This was my first real view of Lake Lugano (the view from the train station the first day was misty and mostly obscured by buildings) and it just floored me. I took some pictures; we’ll see if they turn out. It’s still pretty misty today. But yeah. The placid lake, with the mountains rising out of it…wow.

The park was pretty, too, with green things and trees and sculptures. I keep forgetting that swans are a native species in Europe. It seems weird for something so fancy to just be there, like any old duck or pigeon or squirrel.

As I was sitting on the stone wall marking the shore, three swans made a water landing in unison in front of me. “Showoffs,” I muttered. The others were preening themselves on the beach and glared at me if they caught me looking. They didn’t seem to like it when I was watching an “ugly duckling” go fishing, either. (I would have taken a picture of the damn thing, but he was too small and too far out for it to have turned out.)

Yet… when I was eating some dried cranberries one swan came over, seemingly expecting me to feed him! I told him he was pathetic, and he swam away.

There was a sign in Italian by the wall that I think prohibited fishing. Too bad, because there were a lot of fish. Just looking down into the water below me I saw tons of minnows, schools of somewhat larger fish, and even a few trout! There were some sort of fish leaping out of the water every so often to catch bugs, too. With all that so close to shore, I imagine the fishing elsewhere in the lake would be phenomenal. The Swiss must take care of their environment pretty well.

I had been planning to take the funicolare up to Mt. Bré. I had intended originally to do Mt. San Salvatore, since that was the one written about in Bloomability, but all the tourism pamplets and such were for the Mt. Bré one. I didn’t know whether or not the Mt. San Salvatore one even ran anymore, let alone where it was! But, comparing the two mountains from the park, Mt. Bré was both shorter and much more built-up. Mt. San Salvatore, on the other hand was steeper, less tamed. No matter how much you might like to, you can’t build luxury condos on vertical rock faces. When I walked back towards the center of town, I found a map that finally showed the Mt. San Salvatore funicolare station. That settled it.

I’m writing now from the top of Mt. San Salvatore. It’s still rather misty to the south–meaning you can’t see Milan–but the view is gorgeous all the same. There’s a little Catholic chapel up here; I ate lunch on its roof. According to the museum up here, the chapel is owned and run by the Archfraternity of Good Death and Prayer (formerly known as the School of St. Martha), who in the old days would comfort and accompany convicts sentenced to death, then give them a proper burial after their execution. O-kay…

Ha ha, the top of Mt. Bré is all clouded up! It’s sunny here.

When I first decided to visit Lugano, I was determined to have some gelato while I was there. And, this afternoon, indeed I did. I think I have been spoiled by Denmark, though. This was my first time visiting an establishment that served food on this trip (I’ve been living off of groceries) and I assumed (or hoped) they’d know a little English. Nope. Not the place I went to, anyway. And I don’t speak *any* Italian or German. Fortunately I managed to get my gelato fix through hand-pointing and such…and JESUSFISH was it worth the trip. Fifteen years down the road, I’m going to get pregnant and be like, “Honey, I need to go to the Ticino and get some melon gelato. NOW.” Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I even need to be pregnant and hormonal to crave that stuff. Yum.

26.10.06

None of the three people I met at the hostel in Lugano were backpackers. One, whom I met while cooking dinner Tuesday night, was an American from Maine studying at the university in Lugano. So was my roommate, Yu, a Chinese citizen whose sister was getting her Ph.D at Vanderbilt.

Yu was very stressed out the second day because she had orally committed to one apartment in Lugano, but then got a better offer and wanted to back out. She hadn’t signed anything, but the first landlord was very angry and was threating to talk to a lawyer or to her academic advisor about it, since he’d already turned away other potential tenants from the apartment based on her word (he said). She asked my advice, and I said that since she hadn’t signed anything she ought to be okay. But I’m neither a lawyer nor a Swiss citizen; I don’t know how it works here.

The third person I met yesterday, also in the kitchen. I never got his name, but he was a Swiss citizen, born in Lugano, but I gather he had spent a lot of time in France–he spoke French and he mentioned that his mother lived there. We ended up eating dinner together and he seemed like a very nice guy. I guess he’s in Lugano to look for a job. We talked about food, the US, travels… Then the topic of Muslim immigration came up…and so went one of those conversations that always start out with “I’m not a racist, but…”

Sigh. I don’t know what the solution to the banlieues is, or how to turn parochial Europe into a functional multicultural society, but going on about how so many of the immigrants’ children aren’t français, and how a bunch of them are drug dealers, or how this Muslim dude stole your skateboard when you were a kid…doesn’t seem to help any.

But of course everything works better in Switzerland. No immigration problem, because of the closed border. (It was at this point I realized–the paskontrol in Zurich didn’t stamp my passport! Dammit!) Better food, on average, than France (by his estimation). No poverty; few people begging for money. But, he said, lowering his voice and facetiously leaning in close, if you want to stay on the Swiss’ good side, “don’t talk about the Jews!”

Heh. Heh. I took another bite of pasta.

Tune in next time for the wonders of Bern!

(Edited from journal entries written in Switzerland.)

The flight to Zurich wasn’t exceptionally different from American flights, excepting that the in-flight snack was a Swiss chocolate bar. Mmm. The ground that rose to meet the plane didn’t seem too different from Denmark, at least in terms of construction–same palette of exterior colors, same curvy roads and tile roofs. A bit lumpier terrain and more trees, but from what I could see from the plane that was pretty much it. When we landed, we got off the plane outdoors and boarded two buses to get to the actual terminal–up to that point, that was probably the biggest difference of all.

Then came trying to navigate the airport and take a train to downtown Zurich. That’s when I realized–I don’t know German. At all. I mean, sure, when I first arrived in Denmark, I didn’t know any Danish, but I could pick up enough through cognates and context that I could still mostly understand what was going on. Not so with German. Virtually all the words on the airport signs hit me like lengthy incomprehensible collections of letters–beyond the word “bahn,” it’s completely foreign. Oh dear.

Eventually I made my way to Zurich HB, found the station grocery store, held up the line when I forgot the price-per-kilo of apples, and picked up a city map from Tourism. On to the hostel!

Half an hour later…

Hotel Biber’s instructions for finding the hostel suck. Also, the hostel is *not* an eight minute walk from the train station, unless you’re a speedwalker with no baggage. The reception desk is three flights of stairs up, which after all that searching was nearly my snapping point. But then I walked into the common room–and it immediately felt like home. Dim lights, yes. Expensive internet, of course. I can’t put my finger on just why, but the atmosphere just exudes student-friendliness. There’s kids here from New Zealand, Mexico, England, and Japan, so far as I’ve seen. English is the lingua franca. And this Cat and Girl cartoon definitely nails a decent number of the common room conversations right on the head.

That evening, I went exploring a bit in Zurich–went up and down Niederdorfstrasse and down by the river. Nelson and I were texting each other, and he suggested that we play a “text adventure game” where he said to /GO NORTH, /FIND FLASK, /GET FLASK. I did so, drinking the most expensive Coca-Cola in my life in the process. *So* worth it, though.

I wonder why Zurich has so many vegetarian restaurants. I’ve seen four veggie-friendly places just in my limited exploration–a far higher concentration than in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or Brussels. The oldest vegetarian restaurant in Europe, Hiltl, is in Zurich, too. Why? And why do they have a flash game called “Miss the Chicken” on their website?

Zurich is also chock-full of fountains. Most aren’t all that pretty; they look rather old. Again, why? Something to do with Zurich’s Roman heritage, maybe…?

It feels really good to be somewhere new, even with all the difficulties that travel entails. I’m glad to be getting out of Copenhagen–perhaps if I am gone long enough, it will regain its shiny “new” charm? But all the same, breathing new air and seeing new sights is much more fun when there’s someone else to share it with.

The window of my hostel room is open. I can hear the sounds of people laughing and chatting in too many languages and the jazz band playing in some bar on the street below. Screw playing a cover charge!

Now it’s time to play: Guess What Karen Forgot! Yep, my toothbrush and toothpaste aren’t here…

Next post: I go to Lugano! Until then, you can see all of my Switzerland pictures here.

When I left off, we were checking into our hotel in Brussels: Hotel Ustel. It wasn’t the best place. The hotel was apparently made out of two narrow buildings next to each other, whose floors didn’t quite match up. The elevator wasn’t just tiny–it was a dumbwaiter with headroom. Unlike in Amsterdam, my bed was *not* underneath a shelf so I could hit my head everytime I got in or out, which was nice, but the bedspread had a cigarette-burned hole in it.

Oh yeah, and I heard gunshots outside while I was taking a nap. Twice.

The rate of pickpocketing for our group was ridiculous. While we spent most of our daytime hours in the EU/tourist districts, we tended to eat and recreate in poorer areas. Thus, out of 60 politics students, about eight of us had an attempted pickpocketing. One or two people were able to chase down the culprit, retrieving a camera and an emptied wallet, but still. Pretty bad.

Still, being in the ghetto had some advantages. There were lots of affordable African and Middle Eastern restaurants around. The first night, we ate at Avenidas, a Moroccan seafood restaurant a block or two away from the hotel. The real fun part was Jeff, Dan, and I attempting to explain Meredith’s veganism and wheat allergy to our waiter, who spoke plenty of French but very little English. (Note to self: “farine” means “flour” in French.) Eventually, we mostly communicated everything; while the waiter misinterpreted Jeff’s “Pas de pain” to mean no bread for *anyone* at the table (and several of us ordered sandwiches!), sooner or later we acquired food and Meredith didn’t die. Yay!

On our first morning in Brussels, we went to the European Parliament to hear from a Danish Social Democratic MP, Dan Jørgensen. Despite his talk beginning with a “So, who are you guys? No, really,” it went pretty well. Dan was a charismatic, young-ish guy, so he knew how to communicate with us. You could tell he was really enthusiastic about the European Parliament and specifically their REACH Directive (a massive overhaul of chemicals regulation, requiring all chemicals on the European market to go through a battery of safety testing), which he was on the committee for. It would have been better if someone from DIS had told him earlier that we were taking a class on the EU, though–he went through a good deal of basic institutional information that we already knew.

After navigating the security checkpoint line, we also took a tour of the Parliament building. The tour guide spent a ridiculous amount of time talking about this sculpture in the Parliament’s atrium, which is supposed to symbolize the European integration process. I mean, her analysis of the sculpture made sense–all the different waves and bars coming together in different places, and that if you flick one of the bars the entire sculpture vibrates–but it was just rather long and involved.

After lunch, we had some free time. So we took lots of pictures in
the big tourist-central square in Belgium and then went into almost every chocolate shop on the street–Neuhaus, Godiva, Leonidas, La Cure Gourmande, and quite a few others. I was almost out of cash at this point and there was no nearby ATM, so I didn’t buy anything. Nevertheless, the chocolate smell in the shops was alone worth tagging along, and some of the stores had free samples! One of the small shops (whose name I unfortunately seem to have forgotten) offered samples of the best truffles I have ever tasted. Upon tasting them, Jeff immediately bought a bag. Mmm… Belgian chocolate is amazing–even better than Swiss chocolate, by my reckoning.

Next we visited Denmark’s Permanent Representation to the EU, which supports Denmark’s representative in the Council of Ministers. We got a PowerPoint presentation about the office’s activities in the Ministry and EU in general. I remember it was very interesting, but I can’t recall a thing it said. At this point, my level of sleep deprivation was such that I was mostly focused on not nodding off, so my level of memory retention wasn’t the best.

My biggest impression of that visit was of walking around the neighborhood the office was in, Place Schuman and a few side streets. Brussels has perhaps the greatest mix of architecture I’ve seen in a European city. You have the “quintessential” urban European buildings, narrow-faced flats with tile roofs. There are the old castles and monuments, made of brick or stone or marble. And then you have the EU quarter, full of imposing, impersonal cement-and-glass surfaces that look like someone set the architect’s budget a bit too high. American cities are full of office buildings of this sort, of course, but it seemed strange navigating a whole neighborhood of them in Europe. Most of Europe is built human-sized; a some parts are built monarch-sized. The EU is built capitalist-sized.

That evening, Dan, Bernadette, Jeff, Meredith, Erik, and I went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner. Not only was the food tasty and inexpensive, and the menu an opportunity to practice my French, it was here that I discovered the most amazing tea in the world. Middle Eastern mint tea, unfiltered, served in tiny cute silver teapots. Meredith, Jeff, and I would return here the next night, just for the tea. Drinking it just makes the world seem like a better place.

In order to encourage socialization (and perhaps try to make up for our having a crappier hotel than the other politics group), our study tour leaders Mia and Beth organized a meeting that evening at Maxim’s, a bar on the central square, and offered to buy us each a drink. Well now. I didn’t recognize most of the items on the liquor menu, but Meredith recommended Grand Marnier. I trusted her judgment–her Bailey’s and amaretto liqueur on the rocks concoction at the Amsterdam hotel bar turned out to be scrumptious, like a liquid European truffle–and, indeed, it was tasty. Kinda like Blue Curaçao, only stronger. Hooray for school-funded alcohol experimentation!

We went on to explore Belgium, wandering down random streets, popping our heads in yet more chocolate shops, and huddling under a few common umbrellas when the rain came. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel, and after drying off, we congregated in Dan and Erik’s room. Dan, Erik, and Bernadette had stopped in a touristy beer shop that had like 100 different kinds of Belgian beer (“buy five get one free!”) and wanted to sample their finds. Bernadette was generous enough to let me have half of her cherry beer so she could try more than one, so I did end up trying the famous Belgian fruit beer. I’m still not a beer person…but it was actually pretty good. Brought beer up to about a “wine” level of tastiness, for me. And so we spent the evening lounging in the room, drinking good beer and eating white-chocolate Toblerone, watching a strangely amusing BBC program about elderly drivers. Good times.

The next day, we had our “political actor interview,” where we went in groups to interview various people involved with the EU. My group’s original interviewee, a guy involved with humanitarian interventions, was unexpectedly called away on business, so instead we got a soft-spoken European Commission bureaucrat who deals with auditing policy. Fascinating. It wasn’t a complete loss, though. We’d already heard speakers from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, so it was nice to hear the perspective of a member of the third branch on the EU as a whole.

Afterward, I went to a Belgian sandwich shop and ordered myself a bona fide croque monsieur in French. I felt like my six years of high school French classes were vindicated.

That evening, we met up with one of Bernadette’s college friends, who was studying abroad in Brussels and interning at NATO. She seemed like a nice enough girl, though I had to bite my tongue during her proclamations of Bush-love. We wandered the Belgian streets and she directed us to the best waffle place in Brussels, where Jeff and I split a waffle with strawberries and chocolate. My GOD. I did not know waffles could be that good! The texture was just perfect–soft for the most part, but a little crispy on the edges. And of course the strawberries and chocolate contributed to the deliciousness.

The last day was our American day. We visited NATO in the morning and learned what the heck NATO does now that the Cold War is over. We had lunch in the NATO “canteen,” which might very well be the best cafeteria I’ve ever been in. Delicious entrees, large portions, and an absolutely ridiculous dessert selection. (“Hmm, will I have the creme brulée, the fruit-filled crepe, the satanic chocolate cake, the…?”) If *I* were an intern there, I think I’d gain twenty pounds! Our other stop was the US Mission to the EU, where we watched a *hilarious* movie about the importance of the EU to American interests (which included a “phat” soundtrack and a clip of a Britney Spears music video that make everyone collectively go, “What the hell?”) and listened to political officer Margaret Diop describe the wonders of being a diplomat.

Both places, I noticed, had a lot more intrusive security than any of the EU offices. NATO was surrounded by barricades and barbed wire, and we had passport checks, bag checks, and a metal detector sweep while dogs sniffed the tour bus. The US Mission didn’t have dogs, but the guy went through my purse far more exhaustively than anyone else had previously–he even looked inside my Altoids tin! What, was I gonna offer Ms. Diop an anthrax mint? Given the US’s present level of world popularity, though, I can understand why they would want to take such measures.

And then came the overnight bus ride back. Aw jeez. A good third or so of our group was leaving for their travel break travels directly from Brussels, so we had a bit more room to stretch on the way back to Copenhagen. People seemed to be in good spirits, chattering eagerly. Sometime during the evening we watched “Fargo.” It made me really homesick. It also made my latent Minnesotan accent temporarily rear its head, to the amusement of the others around me. Oh well.

I barely slept the whole trip. Sleep and cross-country travel do not mix well for me. I was just getting my best sleep of the night when we had to get off the bus to get on the ferry from Germany to Sjælland at 6 AM. Argh. We made it to Copenhagen, grabbed our suitcases, and off we trudged over the foggy cobblestones on our separate, zombie ways. I thanked the heavens I’d left a couple days to rest before leaving the country again. I’d need them.