I wouldn’t say I’m an impulsive person, but let me tell you something, this trip was the most spontaneous and hasty decision I’ve ever made. Not quite sure what was going through my mind when I put down the deposit for this one and a half month excursion, but I’m glad I did. First Istanbul, a beautiful city, that is dynamic, energetic, culturally diverse, HUGE, and has spectacular food. I’d have to say it was my favorite stop across all 4 cities I traveled to. Although there was a huge communication barrier, I fell in love with the cultures welcoming nature. Istiklal street in Istanbul was fascinating, street performers everywhere, doner kebab every other shop, cool boutiques, a busy and lively crowd. Then there was the Grand Bazaar, one of my favorite places within the city. So many photogenic boutiques, with stunning lamps, outstanding Turkish Delights, delicious Turkish tea, and more. I think I may have fallen in love with this city, I would go back any day.
Next stop was Berlin, Germany… A lot of fun, but I think my experience of the city was undermined by the major workload of my courses. The negative part of this trip was the two classes I took. In my previous Uni education I’ve taken a couple of Social “Science” courses, didn’t have much of an opinion on them because going into it my mentality was: “Let’s get the A and move on”. I couldn’t do this here because I traveled with 31 other students, 70 percent of which were in the social “sciences”. Now I’m putting quotes around science because this experience reinforced my perspective on the field, it is a soft science in my opinion. Now I know that may carry negative connotation, but I hope to not undermine the difficulty that comes with the study. I’m calling it a a soft science because in the hard sciences like Physics, Biology, Neuroscience, etc. we have theories based off of factual data like wave frequencies, forces, mass, etc. I’m not saying that there isn’t factual data in the conclusions of the social sciences, but rather it is based off of spontaneous social events, and analyzed. This is where interpretation comes into play, thus 15 social scientists can form 15 completely different conclusions off the same event. Whereas in the hard sciences, a conclusion on factual data is universal and as long as the science was performed properly, there isn’t much to debate, unless new information comes into play of course. I think this was the most important takeaway from this trip, at least for me. I was immersed in a new field, and this gave me insight on the academic infrastructure to success within that field. But let’s move back to my experience in Europe. Berlin is a stunning city, so much to do, lots of history, museums, pubs, bars, culturally diverse food, and more. It’s a young city built on the ideas of the enlightenment period, quite literally. Culturally, Germans are very proactive people, with good work-ethic, at the same time they know how to enjoy themselves. I wish I could go back to this city and experience it once more because, sadly, I do not think I was able to immerse myself completely in the culture. Between the living arrangements and the workload I was to busy to really experience Germany, plus the living conditions didn’t meet the bar that Istanbul set, so naturally I was cranky. I tried to ignore that, but a group of us got bed bugs, which resulted in us having to move and that just killed the overall experience. Especially because, 8 of us were forced to move to a different hostile, away from the other 23 students, and by then I had made some good friends across the whole group. It’s a shame, but I did learn a lot by this point in the trip. Our last day in Berlin was a pretty emotional experience, the whole group went to an abandoned airport strip that Berlin made into a state park, we had beer and pizza. It was a great way to end off the trip and say bye to everyone, that’s when I realized that If I didn’t take the time to fill out the 10 minute application for this trip I would have missed out on one of the most enjoyable learning experiences I may ever have. After the trip was officially over, a couple of colleagues and I did some extra Euro-travels, we went to Amsterdam and London.
I had a pretty negative experience in Amsterdam, it just seemed so fake to me. The dutch invest so much money into maintaining the facades of the city, while every building has a shop, it’s like this hyper-capitalist society that makes significant investments into creating this so-called “paradise”, that every tourist falls in love with. Don’t get me wrong, this city is beautiful, they do a great job of that, but it’s so fake to me. There is no culture when it comes to the Dutch lifestyle, all I saw was lazy, wealthy individuals that are where they are because of “old” money. Now this hyper-capitalist society translates back to the medieval period, they are inherent traders. Which is why everything is so expensive, it’s also why they are so culturally-neutral. The modern-day dutch society is built off of the values of millions of culturally diverse traders from around the world. With time as they settled, the Dutch society became more homogeneous as they interacted. Overall, not the best experience in Amsterdam.
Now we move to London, going into this trip I didn’t have high expectations for this city because I thought it would be similar to NYC. I’m writing this in London right now, it is my last day here, and gosh has this city surprised me. So much fun! Very energetic as well, delicious food but expensive. It has been cloudy everyday we’ve been here, but I think that’s the London climate. As this trip is coming to a close, speaking as this is my last day before 17 hours of travel back to NY, I have to thank my family and friends for this experience. My parents weren’t hesitant at all when I told them, “hey ma and pa, I’ll be gone for a month and a half this summer to travel around Europe”, much more accepting of it then I had expected. I am excited to come home though, so many friends I need to catch up with when I come home. But gosh, I need to make some money…
Quick update on the actual blog, I know I said I wasn’t going to do anymore long posts but this is a “project” according to wordpress so I’m excused 😛 Writing on this blog has become more natural for me, something I would have expected. I’ve also become more open about it, not telling people the URL just that I do indeed have a blog. As far as photography goes, I don’t need any sou
Mildly Muddling 