BARCELONA!

Well, I'm home from Barcelona now and just had my first of five finals this morning. Unfortunately, the weather today was way too nice for me to really care about any of my work. I'm not too worried about the one that just happened, but I have a 12 page paper and another final on Thursday (both for my Cultural Identities in a Post National World class), my Muslim World final (which looks like it's going to require the most studying) on Friday, and my EU-US relations and German finals on Saturday. Then I'm finished with the EU program aside from the Model EU, which takes place next Monday-Wednesday. I can't believe that I only have a few days left in Freiburg. I really just don't want to believe it. It's making me want to live up my time here rather than study, which might be a problem, but I kind of doubt it because I've learned a lot already this semester and can't really learn too much more in the next few days.

After my exam today, Eli and I went to a beer garden and then out to a Thai restaurant because it was so incredibly beautiful out today. I'm not sitting at a cafe "writing a paper." I'll get back to that in a little bit...
SO! Barcelona. If only I remembered ANY of my three years of Spanish. I once asked a woman "?Donde esta la casa batllo?" (where is la casa batllo?) and then she replied in Spanish and I made the other girls ask someone else. Well, at least my German is better...
I went with three of my best friends here, Vanessa, Erica and Natalie. We stayed in the quintessential hostel, complete with an amazing location (right of La Rambla), communal bathrooms, and no outlets in the room. It was clean and the bed was comfortable, and that's really all we cared about. No use wasting time in a room when you're in Barcelona, right?
The first night we were here, we went out for tapas, which is surprisingly vegan friendly, along with a bit of sangria, just to fully immerse ourselves in Spanish culture. We walked around a bit, but ended up going to bed fairly early so that we could see as much of the city the next day as possible.
The next day was our Gaudi day. We went to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, which is this huge unfinished church. It was nice to finally see some incredibly unique and bizarre architecture. We didn't go in because it was incredibly crowded and we could see the majority of it from the streets. We then walked around looking for some lunch (I was quite unsuccessful) and ended up at Gaudi's Casa Batllo, only to see that it was way too expensive to see the inside. Eli's floormate, who's from Barcelona, told me that this one was cool, but that La Pedrera was a much better deal, so we decided to do that later. We ended up visiting that on the last day, which I'll get to later. We asked the ticket guy for directions to Gaudi's Park Guell, and we took an incredibly long busride there. It was definitely worth it, though. From this park, you can see all of Barcelona and it's incredibly ornate just like all of Gaudi's creations. There were so many colors. It is also home to the world's longest bench. We took a ton of pictures, walked all the way up the hill (quite a feat in 85 degree weather!), got incredibly sunburned, and sat at a cafe eating amazingly delicious fresh Spanish fruit. All in all, we had an amazing day. We came back and took a nap that ended up being the end of the night.
The next day was beach day. Before that, we discovered an amazing marketplace right off of La Rambla and bought an incredible amount of fresh fruit and nuts, on which I pretty much lived for the rest of the trip.The beach was a little rocky and very dusty and the water was incredibly cold, reminiscent of my days at the Beach. Definitely no complaints, though, because there's really not much better than sitting on a beach. At least I got to study for one of my finals on a beach! That's more than most people back home can say :) I got incredibly sunburned, unfortunately, and wound up with another one of those disgusting rashes. It's still itchy. Ew.
The next day was our last full day in Barcelona, so we did the final necessary things. We went to the Picasso museum and to La Pedrera. It was definitely artistic genius overhaul. Just look at the pictures, they really say it all.
PICTURES!!

Gaudi's Park Guell
View from half way up Gaudi's Park Guell. This is where my first sunburn happened.

Plaza Real, where our Hostel was

Gaudi's La Batllo. It's supposed to be really cool to go inside, but it cost like E20, so we decided to go to La Pedrera (E5), instead.
At an outdoor market. Ohhhh man... I basically lived off of fruit on this trip.

The four of us (Natalie, Erica, Vanessa, me) on top of Gaudi's La Pedrera
Roof of Gaudi's La Pedrera. So unbelievably amazing.

Overall, I love Barcelona and I'm hardpressed to choose what my favorite city in Europe is. I suppose I still have Dresden and Copenhagen to choose between before my European studies are over, but I'm certain that Barcelona is up there. Freiburg will always have a special place in my heart and is definitely the best place for me to live. But to visit? Barcelona is definitely high up on my list.

An amazing weekend

Let me start off with the not so amazing part. On Friday, my EU-US relations class (along with two other classes) had a field trip to Strasbourg. It started off pretty well, sans the 8:30am departure time. We went to the European Parliament (the other one, the one that's not in Brussels because the French need to claim part in everything) and my professor, who's an assistant to a representative, gave us a special VIP tour of the place. The architecture of the building is supposed to be symbolic of the institution's purpose. For example, many of the columns are transparent and the EP is pretty much the only EU institution that is. It was decorated in a very modern form of French interior design, which basically translates to heinously uncomfortable. Oh well. Herr Schüler's insight was really interesting.
After our tour of the parliament and some presentations, the group went out to lunch. A guy in my program and I decided not to go with them (flammkuchen isn't healthy enough for him and not vegan enough for me) so we just walked around the city for about two hours, which I'm now very glad that we did. The city is gorgeous, despite the terrible, gray weather.
By the time that we met up with everyone, it was beginning to rain. We went inside the enormous cathedral (4th largest in Europe) and had a tour by another professor, Markus. By the time we were finished, it was POURING rain outside. So, what do we do? We walk around in the pouring rain for half an hour. Genius? Obviously. The rational for this was that our bus driver wasn't going to be back at the bus until 4, so we couldn't go back to the bus. Um... how about staying in the Cathedral? Or having us split up into various coffeeshop groups? Or any of those other logical things to do when it's pouring rain? Needless to say, we were not happy. When we finally got on the bus, the driver kept the air conditioning on because he didn't want us rotting his bus or something. It was completely miserable. My shoes are still soaking wet.
When we got back, I took a hot shower and a three hour nap just to make myself warm again.
And this is where the amazing weekend part begins...
On Saturday, I woke up around 10:30 and went to a cafe to work on a 15 page paper about the EU's involvement in Afghanistan. The sun was shining and it was in the 50s, so I walked around town a little bit first. I absolutely love Freiburg when the weather is nice. People are all over the place and the mountains are all lit up around you. Even sitting inside of a cafe doing work wasn't as terrible as it could have been.
On my way home, I decided to check out a new grocery store that's on that side of town and it had the most amazing produce selection ever. I immediately got excited for dinner and came back and made myself a delicious chickpea quinoa curry while my flatmates made something else. We had a lot of fun just sitting around and chatting.
Then I met up with my boyfriend type person downtown and we just walked around because both of us had been studying all day. He's from the DRC and told me all about his country and the obscene amounts of corruption and his family's reasons for leaving. We went to a park that I didn't know existed and I rode a swing for the first time in forever. We went home fairly early and I woke up this morning to another beautiful day outside. I'm currently back at the same cafe, taking a break from my paper, and hoping to repeat yesterday's wonderfulness.
One of the reasons that yesterday was so nice was because I was finally alone and away from the constant surrounding of other people in my program. It was quite possibly the first time that I'd done that since I got here. These last few weekends will hopefully be just as good.

Luxembourg, Brussels and Paris

I returned Sunday evening from our final trip, this time to Western Europe. We left last Monday, bright and early as always. We arrived in Luxembourg a little before lunch time and had two speakers at the European Court of Justice. One was a clerk and another was a translator and they both gave us different insights into the function of the Court of Justice. We explored the little town of Luxembourg for about two hours afterwards and only really needed about fifteen minutes to see everything. We ended up spending a good amount of time in an amazing little coffee shop.
Here's a picture of Jamie, Derek, Alia and me in said coffee shop. Everyone has been questioning whether or not I've made any friends here, so I figured I'd post some with people other than me in them. The stuffed animal just happened to be there.

After seeing all of Luxembourg (except for Patton's tomb, which we found out much later is located there for whatever reason), we got back on our bus for another long ride to Brussels. Arriving around dinner time, we decided to walk around and stumbled upon a gorgeous area later coined Asia. We pretty much ate there every day because it's incredibly vegan friendly (Jamie and I being the two vegans), healthy, cheap and delicious. I think this, along with the AMAZING chocolate, really just sold me on the city. I absolutely loved Brussels and everything about it. The city was clean and beautiful and was completely walkable. I probably bought twenty chocolate bars because it's honestly the best chocolate I've ever had in my entire life. There was also ample amounts of sorbet all around. There was also a bar called Delirium that had 2,004 different kinds of beer from all over the world. I must say that Belgium can actually compete with Germany in this area.

The town hall in the city center.
CHOCOLATE!!!

Unfortunately, though, we didn't have all that much free time in Brussels. Although there was enough time for a quick visit to the chocolate museum and dinner at various sushi/thai/vietnamese/chinese restaurants, they really kept us busy with meetings. Unfortunately, only a handful of (randomly selected people) were able to go to the European Parliament, so I missed out on that institution entirely. I was able to go to the European Council and Council of Ministers and a very influential agricultural lobbying firm, though. We also had an American NATO speaker. They kind of overloaded us with speakers and a lot of it has blended together, but overall I definitely learned a lot from the speakers. For example, at the lobbying firm, we heard a guy defend the Common Agricultural Policy, which is what the majority of the EU's budget goes towards and is supported heavily by the French. Most of what I had previously learned about CAP was negative in that drastic changes need to occur. But after hearing the best lobbiest ever, it seems a lot less obvious. If the EU is going to have higher standards with the environment, GMO foods, etc., there's a lot of added costs that go into that for farmers in Europe. Why should Brazilian farmers who have no penalties for destroying the rain forest be able to compete without added tariffs in Europe? Interesting. The speaker also brought up fruitarians (people who only eat food that has fallen from the trees naturally.), which I found particularly amusing. At the Council. All of the flags of the 27 EU member states. The current decor is done by Slovenia, who holds the current presidency.

On Thursday morning, we left (rather grudgingly myself) for Paris. The program gave us a lot of free time in Paris and we only really had two meetings. One of them was absolutely terrible and it's very possible that somebody's secretary's secretary was the one giving us the presentation. It was word for word off of a powerpoint, which was word for word off of their website. Then, people in my program basically tore her apart by asking questions that she should have known the answer to. No need to talk about that anymore.
After the first speaker at a European Security and Defense advising organization (which was basically a reading of three people's resumes, unfortunately), they made us walk for 45 minutes to show us where our next meeting place was going to be. The majority of the girls, myself included, were not wearing appropriate shoes for such a (cobblestone laden) journey. My feet became so blistered and my feet and lower back so tired from this that I (and a few others) was pretty much cranky for the rest of the trip. Perhaps I can blame this on my dislike for the city of Paris, but perhaps that's only part of it. Going to the various museums (the louvre and Musée d'Orsay) and seeing the necessary sites (the Eiffel Tower, Champs-Élysées, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Sacré-Cœur, etc.) was amazing, but the general feel of the city wasn't. It was dirty, the people were generally unfriendly (except at more Asian restaurants where they'll happily speak English with you), and it just felt unnecessarily snooty. Walking down Champs-Élysées (the high class shopping street) was incredibly annoying for that very reason. So much mindless consumerism and pretentiousness. It also didn't help that on our last day there, Sunday, everything was closed and my lunch consisted of an apple and a couple dried apricots (after a breakfast of plain cornflakes) and dinner wasn't until we got back to Freiburg at 10pm because the only place open to stop on the way was McDonald's. I also spent days having a dressing-free salad for lunch and not eating dinner until very late after hours of walking around. Not a very happy Emily.
But, I have pictures. IES took us to a fancy French restaurant, explained below.

I'm not even going to bother saying what this is.
The LouvreMe, Leslie, Jamie, Jessica and Derek at the fancy French restaurant
I asked one of our program coordinators to explain to the waiter what a vegan was and to ask them to prepare something special for me and Jamie. Watching the waiters face might have been the most amusing/horrifying expression ever. What came out was a plate of vegetables, including ratatouille. Pretty delicious. Let's just hope a rat didn't make it.

Now I'm back in Freiburg and realizing how quickly the semester is coming to an end. I have a 15 minute presentation auf Deutsch next week, two 15 page papers due in a week and a half, a 20 page paper due the week after, and finals in about a month. Don't expect much updating from me, unfortunately. On Friday, my EU-US class is taking us to Strasbourg to meet with the other European Parliament, so expect updates about that.

Amsterdam and Last Week in Freiburg

I have been incredibly busy in the past month. Because we travel so much, we only have so much time to do our school work. In any given week, I could have two midterms, a paper and a German test. This week, I had two papers due. It's pretty intense, but I'm not complaining. I could be doing the same amount of work and be stuck in Wisconsin doing it.
Last week, Kate and her friend Siobhan came to Freiburg. I had a midterm the morning after they arrived, but then I had an easy day and a half and was able to show them around the best sites of Freiburg. They saw the Münstermarkt (market at the cathedral) as well as the museum that I haven't even been to yet. I took them to the places with the cheapest Chinese and Italian food, the best beer, and the organic supermarket. I think they could easily see why I love Freiburg so much.
On Thursday evening, we, along with four other people on my program, hopped on a train to Amsterdam. I slept incredibly well on the train. We arrived in the city and were just ready to relax. It was nice to finally be able to be in a city without being overwhelmed by lack of time and a surplus of things to do. We took our time at the various museums (Van Gogh, Anne Frank's House, Rembrant's House) and were able to catch up on much needed sleep. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty terrible the entire time we were there, so there weren't as many tulips as one would expect out of Holland. The city was absolutely gorgeous, though, once you got past its lewdness and the less than ideal weather. The liberal politics of the city really make you think about American politics, though. Would it be better to regulate and legalize soft drugs and prostitution? It seems to be working out well for the Dutch, but I'm sure our history and culture would create a lot more problems than are seen in the Netherlands.
Next week, we're going on our final field study trip to Western Europe. We're leaving for Luxembourg and Brussels on Monday and then leaving for Paris on Thursday. It's a long time to be on a bus once again, but at least if our bus breaks down, we won't be stuck in Slovakia.

Woo!

I got As on both of my exams last week! and my exam this morning was super easy and I probably got an A on it too! Wooo... Kate's here with one of her friends from her program and I'm taking her out to a "China Schnellrestaurant" (chinese fast food, basically) in a few minutes. Tomorrow evening, we're taking a night train to Amsterdam with a couple of my friends from this program. I love Europe.

Long time no update...

Sorry it's been so long since I updated this thing. I've been swamped with work ever since we got back from our last field trip two weeks ago. Last week, I had two midterms. One of them was completely insane and asked questions that you would only know if you had ample background in the material, meaning EU relations with the Muslim World. Hopefully it didn't go too badly, though. I studied a lot and can only hope for the best. My other midterm was for my Civilizational Identities class, and it wasn't bad at all, but it still required a lot of work. This upcoming week I have a midterm and a presentation on Wednesday. Kate is also coming to visit Freiburg for a few days, starting late on Tuesday night until we leave for Amsterdam on Thursday evening. I'm running around trying to study and really just freaking out my housing situation for next semester and trying to resolve that before I can relax for a long weekend.
Anyway, going back a few weeks...
On February 22, we went skiing in the Alps. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately the way in which it was set up required a lot more cross country like skiing than anyone would ever want on regular skis. The next day, my back and arms were incredibly sore, while the muscles that were supposed to hurt were completely fine. It was overall a really nice day, though. The picture above is of Erica, Natalie and myself at the end of the day and the other is obviously me in the middle of the Alps.
That Sunday, we left for Budapest. The transportation situation was terrible all around Eastern Europe and it started that day. We got on a bus at 6 am for a flight that was supposed to leave Stuttgart around 11. The flight didn't end up leaving until 3 because of technical difficulties. Thanks, Easy Jet! It was, however, the fastest flight of my life. I maintain that we just teleported from Germany to Hungary, because I fell asleep the minute I sat down and didn't feel the take off or the apparently very brutal landing. Can't complain about that!
We arrived in Budapest and went on a boat tour, pictured above. This was really the only time that we got to see both the Buda and the Pest sides of the city. We had meetings in the Hungarian Parliament, though, which was really cool. The speakers were incredibly pessimistic about Hungary's future. The picture above is me and Jessica (another girl from Naperville!) in front of the parliament. The whole city was gorgeous, but everyone all over the city just seemed incredibly depressed all the time. It's like there's something engraved in the Hungarian psyche or something.
On Tuesday, we left for Krakow. We left in the afternoon and stopped for dinner in Slovakia. Note to self: Never try to find anything to eat in Slovakia EVER again. Boiled potatoes for dinner? Sweet. We got back on the bus and within an hour, it broke down. We were stranded in the parking lot of a closed grocery store in the middle of nowhere in Slovakia for FOUR hours. It was freezing outside and they let the exhaust go onto the bus, so we all felt incredibly sick by the time our backup bus came. We finally arrived in Krakow around 3am. At least now I can say that
I've been to Slovakia, though...
Krakow was a really nice city. It just felt homey. The city wasn't very destroyed in WWII, so there is a lot of medieval architecture throughout the city. There's also a really neat market in the middle of the city square. Everything was really cheap and that's where a ton of souvenirs are coming from. I met up with John, a friend from Beloit. We had Indian food and he showed me around the city a little. It was really great to sit down and talk to someone from Beloit and talk about people that we both know.
On Thursday morning, we left for Prague. On the way, we stopped at Auschwitz, which had the same impact on me as Dachau did a few years ago. Our tour guide was eager to tell us everything that she knows about the Holocaust, particularly in Auschwitz of course. It was really interesting and incredibly depressing, of course.
After a nine hour bus ride, we finally arrived in Prague. We immediately looked for a place to eat. Jamie (the other vegan) and I decided to go to a vegetarian restaurant. A bunch of friends came with us and we absolutely fell in love with the place. Dad, when we go to Prague, we're eating there at least once. Absolutely amazing. We ended up going back there two more times to eat. mmm...

Prague, like Krakow, was left untouched by WWII and remains gorgeous as a result. We had a lot of free time in Prague, which was incredible because we actually got to go to all of the places that we wanted to. Unfortunately, the day we wanted to go to the castle, it was closed. We did walk up to the top of an observation tower and we did walk all the way up to the castle and take some cool pictures seen above, though.
The past weekend we traveled some more. I went with five friends to Munich. Unfortunately, all of these girls are in the other travel group so I didn't get to go to Eastern Europe with them. Munich was a lot of fun, though. I don't have any pictures because I haven't uploaded them onto my computer yet, but I basically saw the same things that I saw when I was there before. On Saturday, it was absolutely gorgeous out. We climbed up to Neuschwanstein and took gorgeous pictures. That basically took all day. We came back and went to an Indian restaurant and it was absolutely delicious. Mom, we're definitely going there because it was amazing!
Well, that's enough for now. Props to anyone who read that whole thing! I'll update again when I get back from Amsterdam and hopefully I won't wait as long that time.

Wait, was I just in Central or Eastern Europe?

Once again, I haven't had any time to update this. I have two papers due today and have two midterms next week. So, though I will certainly update with a less academic outlook on my tour of Eastern/Central Europe, I will just post this for now. It's my reflection essay on the trip and we are supposed to pick a running theme throughout our trip, which is why so much of the post focuses on question of where Eastern and Central Europe split.

Upon our arrival in Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic, we were reminded that we were on a tour of Central Europe, despite my preconception that I was on a tour of Eastern Europe. None of these countries wanted to be associated with the strong feelings of depression, hardship and poverty that are connected to the term Eastern Europe. I pictured all of these countries as still rebuilding after the fall of communism and the breakup of Czechoslovakia. I knew of the massive inflation and various failed reforms. I was therefore unsurprised to see Budapest in the state of distress that it was in. I was, however, surprised to see that Slovakia appeared to be doing better off economically than Hungary. Based on a not so quick drive through, we passed an abundance of construction and an economy that appeared to be developing quite nicely. Slovakia and Budapest were exactly how I pictured Eastern European states to be, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw in Krakow and Prague, where prosperity seems to have already flourished. Of course, Poland and the Czech Republic are not without problems, but they are at a point in their history where they can move past their own domestic affairs and on to international ones. Although it is impossible to solidify a division between Central and Eastern Europe, the feelings accompanying my trip to Slovakia and Budapest went along with my idea of Eastern Europe, while my time in Prague and Krakow led me to feel as though I was in Central Europe.

Upon my arrival in Budapest, I immediately noticed a feeling of melancholy within the population. We walked down into the subway and saw a plethora of homeless people and a rickety Soviet-esque subway station complete with noisy, dangerous looking trains. Although the abundance of the homeless population was distressing, the aura of them was something that I had never seen before. They all appeared immobilized by their depression. When given money, they did not move. They were in a state of mere existence. Immediately, I recalled a movie I had seen and all of the images of depression and desperation so prevalent in the movie returned to my consciousness. The movie was called Kontroll and is based on the lives of the kontrollers who check for tickets in the Budapest subway system. They all lead a melancholy existence and it is unclear why they go on.

Kontroll also reminded me of the romanticization of the days of communism that is still widespread throughout Budapest. The controllers are hated by the people of Budapest, who, as a result of communism, do not believe that they should have to pay for the use of the subway. The second and third speakers that we heard, Dr. Klara Syalay and Dr. Zsolt Enyedi, brought this idea of the immense lifestyle and outlook changes that resulted after communism. A general feeling that things were better under communism, that in the ‘good old days’ you wouldn’t have to pay for things like public transportation, is widespread throughout the country. This is unsurprising given the current political and economic situation of Hungary. Dr. Enyedi even told us that Hungarians think optimists are stupid and ignorant because throughout Hungarian history, there has not been an occasion to remain optimistic for long. Currently, in the EU, Hungary has the highest government debt, the lowest GDP amongst the post-Communist nations, highest inflation and the fastest rising unemployment rate. The general feeling that I got from all of the presenters was that Hungary just wants help. They are desperate for economic hope and they are afraid of stepping on any toes before they get there. As a result, although they are a medium sized country that could have some leverage in international affairs, they choose to focus more on domestic issues than European Union affairs, and tend to go along with the majority in the EU. The first two speakers at the Hungarian Parliament outright told us about how screwed up the country is economically, which was quite out of character for politicians. This only exemplifies this desire for more investment and economic help from the outside world and the sense of hopelessness that appeared imprinted in the Hungarian psyche.

After a few days in Budapest, I was ready to visit a more optimistic and contented city, which was what I eventually got in Krakow. Unfortunately, the trip to Krakow was much less than pleasant than our time spent there. Our bus broke down in a tiny mountain village in Slovakia in a parking lot across from a rundown hotel. Upon entering Slovakia, I was reminded again that I was still in Eastern Europe. Although the Slovakian speaker that we heard in Prague was much more optimistic than any of the Hungarian speakers, much of the countryside looked as if it had not moved away from the old fashioned pastoral society. The quaint villages merged with decrepit shacks and abandoned homes and buildings. As we continued, however, it was clear that there was a lot of construction going on in the more populated areas. My confusion was explained by Vladimir Bartovic in Prague. Slovakia has a strong economic relationship with the Czech Republic because the center of the former Czechoslovakia was in Prague. Slovakia after the break up of Czechoslovakia was, according to Madeline Albright, “the black hole of Europe.” It is obvious now, however, that that is no longer true. There have been great strides forward in the past few years and much of the country is under construction. What I had seen at first was not representative of Slovakia as a whole. The Slovakian government only recently, in 1998, became democratic and the first few years of corruption stalled the country’s growth. Recently it appears to have recovered even from that. With the help of its neighbors Poland and the Czech Republic, it joined the EU in 2004 and has only continued to grow since with a 10.2% GDP last year. Surprisingly, Slovakia not only has the lowest inflation rate in the EU, but it is also leading in growth. This kind of economic growth was my expectation for all of Eastern Europe, but only in Slovakia was this expectation fully realized.

When we finally arrived in Krakow, I was pleasantly surprised with the feeling of the city. The people seemed happier and much less hopeless than they had been in Budapest. The first place we walked around was the market square at the heart of the Medieval Old Town. It is full of historical buildings and a beautiful cathedral. The city was left relatively untouched by the Second World War, so its fourteenth and fifteenth century architecture provoke a sense of both historical greatness and pride for the Polish people. This sense of pride was an element that appeared to be lacking in the Hungarian psyche.

Unfortunately, because of the debacle with the broken down bus in Slovakia, we only heard one speaker and missed out on the basic history and statistics that we learned in both Prague and Budapest. Mr. Mateusz Tobiczyk of the Institute for Strategic Studies spoke about Poland's foreign relations but centered the majority of his speech on the United States rather than solely its relationship with the European Union. He was certain, however, to emphasize the Central European-ness of the city. He brought up the idea of Polish pride indirectly in his talk about Poland’s demand upon foreign powers, particularly the United States in terms of the missile defense shield. The sense that Poland deserves its share of everything is far from the desperation that I noticed in Budapest. The will to stand up for its interests and go against European opinion proves Poland’s poise and self-confidence. This Polish pride was apparent not only in the people, but also in the upkeep of the city, which felt both clean and magnificent. Any sense of being in Eastern Europe was forgotten because the people were content and were concerned with international affairs as much as they were with unemployment and inflation. This suggests a feeling more like that of a Western European state than that of a former Soviet bloc nation.

Prague is a very international city in contrast to Krakow and Budapest. Constantly while walking through the streets, I heard people speaking English or German. As a result, it was very difficult to get a sense of what the Czech people are like and I can unfortunately only gage this off of the speakers. Both David Král, of EUROPEUM, and Michael Kořan, of IIR, portrayed the Czech approach to foreign policy as being neutral, seeing itself as a growing regional power, but without the necessity of becoming ultra-powerful. They also stressed the political polarization between the two leading parties, the Civil Democratic Party, currently in power, and the Social Democratic Party. Both of these parties were in favor of joining NATO and the EU, though the Social Democrats believe that more attention should be placed on the EU rather than the basically obsolete NATO. Kořan stressed the country’s recent historical ties to the East, but today believes that it is getting more acquainted with the EU and the West. The Czech Republic has been a big propagator of democracy and Western values in the region and is now realizing its economic interests lay in cooperation with the West. As a result of this, the city today has a modernized, Western feel. It is no longer inexplicably tied to Russia or the East, but, rather, is in the process of finding a balance between the two.

When I think about Eastern Europe, I think about a region mixed between Slovakia and Hungary. I think of poverty and hopelessness, but with a rapidly developing economy. Although it is true that Hungary was at the forefront of post-Communist reforms, it has since stagnated and created a sense of pessimism for the future. In Slovakia, the economic boom that occurred in Hungary a decade ago is in full force today, but unlike Hungary, there appears to be a feeling of cautious optimism for the future. Poland and the Czech Republic, however, strike me as much more removed from its history in the Eastern bloc and appear to be more Central European than the others. Their economies have recovered and the cities have a proud historical feel that is not ominous of the years gone by. Their policies have also moved beyond that of post-Communist redevelopment, while Hungary is still dealing with the repercussions of failed reforms and Slovakia is dealing with years of corruption following the fall of the USSR. Poland is seeking a balance of power between its interests in Europe and its interests with the United States. The Czech Republic is also becoming more a powerful voice in the region and a propagator for Western interests. While I would be hard-pressed to agree that Hungary and Slovakia do not fit the Eastern European stereotype, as noted by all of the locals and speakers, the Czech Republic and Poland are certainly in the center, acting as a bridge between the East and the West.