France

Dear Kiana,

If there's anything more wonderful than the French language, it's French being spoken by a horde of curious two year olds.

I did a homestay in France, and it was absolutely amazing! American families, step aside: you have sadly been demoted (in the all-important rankings list I've got in my head) to spot #3. France: good work.

Because I know everyone aspires to create the perfect family as viewed by Nicole Williamson (because really, why wouldn't you), I will grace you with a very helpful guide based on my experiences.

How to Create The Perfect (French) Family:

1. Parents
I stayed with a couple that had two kids in St. Malo, France. We docked in Le Havre, France, and our Semester at Sea group left early the first morning towards St. Malo about 3 hours away. St. Malo is a historical beach town that is now particularly popular with tourists. After exploring the old city, we were introduced to our host families and spent the rest of the time with them.
I can't think of a better word to describe Nono, the mom, than jolly. Truth be told, there are very few instances where the word jolly really works. If your last name isn't Claus and you don't live in the North Pole, you probably don't qualify. But Nono is really and truly jolly.
The dad, Jerome, is a laid back painter/carpenter with a good sense of humor and robust laugh. They have a house a few minutes out of town overlooking a lush green field. They both made me feel so incredibly welcome during my two days there.
Takeaways: if you're going to be super cool parent, being jolly is the way to go.

2. Kids
Okay, in terms of cuteness, the kids are a pretty big deal. If you know me you know that kids aren't exactly my favorite thing in the world. So for a kid to win the Nicole Stamp of Approval © is a pretty big deal. Lena, perfect child #1, is 12 and totally sweet. Things that make Lena awesome: she makes amazing crepes (+1000 cool points), she got out cups and we did a super sweet rendition of the cup song (+2000 cool points), and she loves Beyonce (infinity points, I would adopt this child). Her brother Matteo is 8 and is a total trickster. He has this toothy mischievous smile, and scared me from behind doors and alcoves numerous times that night much to the amusement of the whole family. Because he is adorable about it, he is still perfect child #2 in my book.
Takeaways: I offer my eternal love to any child that likes Beyonce.

3. French
No one really spoke English, which was so fun! I was in the home with another SAS student who spoke limited French, but she was really nice about it so everything flowed smoothly. I sometimes left her hanging to talk about things like unemployment (flashback to French III/Controverses) and culture but I think she understood a fair amount.

One of my favorite topics of conversation was the word squirrel. For those who don't know, the word squirrel in English and the word écureuil in French is the hardest word for us to say in each other's language. When I first tried to say écureuil, the dad straight out laughed at me because he thought I was just kidding around and not actually trying to say the word. It was okay though, when he tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to pronounce squirrel. He went from sqee-rel to skurl and everything in between.
Takeaways: speak a cool foreign language, preferably French.

4. Food
The last step to becoming the perfect family is serving up some delicious local food. For dinner, we had galettes, which are similar to crepes, with egg, ham, cheese, stewed tomatoes and onions, and creme fraiche. Then we had actually crepes with nutella and cream. Then Jerome (who once studied as a pastry chef) taught us how to make meringues, which we ate with a berry compote and whipped cream. It was all so French and delicious! Finally the next morning we had more crepes thanks to Lena, and delicious fresh bread and jam. To answer the question I'm sure you're thinking: no, they didn't have to wheel me out in a wheelbarrow. I walked (waddled) out just fine on my own.

What about the French two year olds, observant readers might ask. Well okay. The mom Nono runs a small at home day care/nursery during the day, and while we had breakfast all the parents came to drop their kids off. It was a houseful of confused two year olds who'd never seen an American before. Those were probably some of the most entertaining conversations I've ever had.

Kiana, thank you for indulging my strange requests as I cope without internet, and for always responding to my emails, and also for being awesome in general. Looking forward to seeing you in December! PS bought more "quality" literature in french!

Je t'aime et tu me manques,

Nicole 

Belgium & The Netherlands

Dear future American citizens,

For many years now, I have vowed to serve as your humble leader as President of the United States. Since the second grade, I knew that the White House would be my home and that I would lead this country to greatness, all the while enjoying cool rides in my private jet and exciting gifts from other heads of state. 2044 was going to be my year... the year where every car was emblazoned with a "Nicole for President!" bumper sticker. Unfortunately, since second grade I've learned two things:

1. I am not at all suited to being a world leader, and
2. Being President is a ton of work.

Alas, although I am a political science major, I have discovered through the years that maybe the role of "President" is not for me. I will happily step down to a pleasant VP or Congressional seat.

It was in Belgium of all places that I learned another reason I'm probably not suited for the highest office: you have to represent totally different kinds of people. Growing up, you think you know what it means to be an American, and then as you get older and meet people with vastly different opinions you learn that there is no one meaning to the word American. We all come from different pasts; we have our own narratives, thoughts, and beliefs.

After docking in Antwerp, Belgium, last week, some friends and I decided to take the train to see Brussels, Belgium, which is the capital. We had lunch and walked around the city, and eventually ended up talking to a shopkeeper in a mall. He was Pakistani but had lived most of his life in Brussels, and before long we ended up talking about what life is really like in America and in Belgium.

The most striking moment for me during that exchange was when he asked the four of us: is there still racism in America?

This is, of course, a big question. The answer is also, in my opinion, very important. Traveling abroad, you're confronted with these moments often. How do you sum up your entire country? How do you tell people who have never been there, and maybe never will, what it's truly like?

The first of our group responded and said something along the lines of "racism is a huge, awful problem in America, everyone there is racist! Life is impossible as a minority."

I've never thought of myself as some back-country "America is King!" patriot blind to the bad things my country has done, but I was taken aback by her account. Yes, it's something we struggle with, but is life really impossible as a minority? At first, I was angry to hear such a negative portrayal that seemed to leave out the important nuances.

As we chatted longer, eventually we came to a balanced conclusion that included some of the unfortunate incidents in the past few years as well as the more subtle ways race plays into society and achievement. But I couldn't shake my initial feeling. The group of people I was with were my friends because we shared common interests and experiences. Yet every one of us described our experience with race in vastly different terms. What does it mean to be American, then? How do you sum up a culture?

After Belgium, I have immense respect for people who are accountable to and who represent all sorts of people like and unlike themselves. I like learning from people different from me. But answering important, worldly questions on behalf of others? That's hard.

I know that many of you are disappointed to hear I won't be your next President. I sincerely hope you are able to continue on with your day in light of this grave news.

In other news, I had a great time exploring Antwerp, and also The Hague, in the Netherlands! At the Hague my class visited the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia where we learned more about the atrocious war crimes committed in the 1990s and the work being done to prosecute war criminals. More on that to follow!


Love,

Nicole

Germany

Dear Aunt Karen,

I was so pleased to receive your email and hear your thoughts about the blog! I actually sent you a postcard from Germany (oops, I spoiled the surprise), so it should be there soon! In the meantime, I would love to share some thoughts about my experience there.

I've been fighting myself for a couple of days now. I know I need to write about Germany and process my time there before entering Belgium tomorrow. On the other hand, every time I lift a pen to paper to draft a blog post, my hand freezes and I can't continue. It is as though I'm paralyzed. In Germany, I visited a concentration camp.

I want to offer a warning in advance: this post is about feelings. If feelings make you squeamish, know that I enjoyed Germany and apart from the concentration camp did a number of fun things there. I ate bratwurst, tackled the language barrier, and spoke to some locals in Rostock. I went to Berlin, ate German pastries, and strolled through the seaside town of Warnemunde. If you want, you can stop reading here.

Sachsenhausen

The camp I went to is about an hour away from Berlin, and is called Sachsenhausen. As opposed to a death camp where prisoners were essentially sent to die, Sachsenhausen is a labor camp where prisoners were forced to perform grueling work that likely led to death. The camp was open from 1936-1945 and housed male political prisoners, Roma, homosexuals, and some Jewish people (about 20% of the camp was Jewish. If you had gone in believing that only Jewish people were imprisoned, Sachsenhausen may surprise you). It is also the first place that gas chambers were tested as an "effective" method of killing large numbers of people.

I call this a post about feelings, but more accurately I could call this a post about un-feeling, which is the only word I can think of to describe my experience.

In Poland, I visited the site of the first battle of World War II. I stood in the remains of a bunker that was blown to bits, killing many of the soldiers there. At the concentration camp, I stood in the very same spot where Jewish prisoners were cramped three to a bed; I gazed at the closet where soldiers would beat prisoners and leave them to die... I was there. And I didn't have the moment I thought I would have.

I felt sad, of course. I felt disgusted, and horrified, and angry, and at some points nauseous. But when I went to these places, I expected some sort of transcendent experience that would make my hair stand on end, my heart stop, and a chill run through my body. I expected the world to disappear and to suddenly, personally, comprehend the horrors the victims were forced to endure. I thought my heart would feel heavy and I would leave changed, with a deeper connection to this world.

That didn't happen to me.

I call this a post about un-feeling because while I felt all those understandable, upsetting emotions, I never got that moment -  deep, physical, intense - that I was anticipating. How could I, this introspective American student who had entered the camp so open to a deeper connection to the universe leave without this transcendent experience? Was there something wrong with me?

The answer, as you may expect, is no. There is nothing wrong with me. The feeling I was searching for is rare, and fleeting, and can for many be disturbing. You don't have to have an out of body experience to understand the horrors of the Holocaust.

I am on the trip of a lifetime with the opportunity to embrace history, culture, beauty, and also the atrocities of this world. There are some days when I feel as though its real, and that I really am in these incredible places. Sometimes I need to close my eyes, because the immensity of it all overwhelms me. There are moments that are mundane, and some that have felt life-changing. It's a combination of those things that make the experience what it is.

Sometimes you feel things, and that's good. Sometimes you don't feel what you thought you would, and that's okay too.



Sorry, Aunt Karen, that you got a post that was sort of heavy. Maybe the postcard can make up for it.

Tomorrow, to Belgium! (and the Netherlands, and France)...

Love,

Nicole

Gdansk, Poland

Dear Adiya,

They say certain things are universal: things like love, fear and hope. I'd like to add one more thing to the list: pigeons. Pigeons are universal. It amazes me how you can journey across the world and still be plagued by flying demons with no respect for human dignity. I don't get it.

I want to warn you that I'm not about to proceed with a wildly hilarious story about how I got attacked by a pigeon in Poland and vowed to take down his little cohort of beady eyed monsters, because that really and truly didn't happen. If it had, my blog might actually be interesting. I really just wanted to begin by saying that there are a lot of things about Gdansk, Poland that remind me of the US, and pigeons are one of those things.

Okay, moving on. We are in Gdansk, Poland and it is a truly beautiful city! Gdansk is a seaside town and a very popular place for locals to travel to. Most people in Poland stay in Poland to vacation - so while the town is somewhat touristy, it's touristy with actual Polish people.

Gdansk has a lot of history. As I've learned in class, it had great historical significance in the solidarity movement - think 1980s Poland. In the Gdansk shipyard, solidarity leaders locked themselves inside the gates and crafted a list of demands which were soon agreed to by the Polish government. Most of the town was also rebuilt after WWII. So, apart from having picturesque cobblestone streets and good nightlife, Gdansk is an important town.

One of the things I did while there was climb the tower in St. Mary's cathedral. Let me tell you how it went down.

We spent a fair amount of time wandering the streets, knowing in a vague sense where the cathedral was but feeling no rush to get there. It was very casual. We eventually entered the wooden doors and recognized a group of Semester at Sea students who immediately said: "You have to go up the tower! The view was stunning! Just beware of the stairs..."
I hadn't known there was a tower at this cathedral but this sounded like an adventure. Her added warning made it seem even more adventurous and mysterious. "I'm climbing up a tower! In Poland!" I thought. I was so busy thinking: adventure adventure! that I didn't think to take in their sweaty faces.

While we prepared, a group of maybe thirty five Polish students passed us and ducked into the narrow doorway to the stairs. The group didn't take long to file in.

After a minute we followed. First, you enter a narrow spiral staircase with steep stone steps and stone walls, and I would be shocked if even a size six woman's shoe would fit on that step it was so narrow. It only took 30 seconds of climbing for my thighs to say: you will pay for this dearly tomorrow, weak human. I felt the first bead of sweat gather on my forehead. All I could think was: how the heck did that many Polish school children disappear so fast??

It's official: I'm not the youth I used to be. Bring out the wheelchair now, I might as well give in. I have become an old woman complaining about my joints.

When you feel as though you are on the brink of heart failure, the spiral stairs end and you get to what looks like the roof of the church, although still indoors. There is good news: you are on top of the church. Bad news: you have not yet climbed the tower.

Now, you are faced with non-spiral stairs that wrap around the inside edge of the large tower, and if you're afraid of heights I beg of you, don't ever look down. Because of the way its built and the darkness of it all, you really have no clue how much is left. So we climbed. And climbed. At one point I saw a black girl's detached braid on the ground and I knew: one of our brethren has perished here. The climb ahead is perilous indeed.

All dramatics aside, it really was a sweat-inducing, arduous climb. However, when you finally exit the tower and get to the viewing deck, the view of Gdansk and the sea beyond is breathtaking. You can see red slate roof for miles.

It wasn't until afterwards that I learned we had climbed over 400 steps.

Another thing I learned besides the universality of pigeons I learned from our little group: that is, how different people react to speaking no Polish in the heart of Poland. Granted, because there are tourists some people speak English. But not most.

Here is the spectrum:
People who speak louder or slower in English: because when Hi, do you speak English doesn't work, HI!!!!!!!    WE   ARE    AMERICAN   DO   YOU    SPEAK    ENGLISH    PLEASE    always does the trick.

People who find other English speakers, but use so many idioms that it's impossible to understand. I kid you not, the kid I was with kept saying things like yo dude, that Polish sausage was dope! to confused old Polish  men.

People who assume nobody speaks English and proceed to talk about people right in front of them like they can't understand.

People who assume nobody speaks English and just go silent instead, resorting to awkward smiles and a lot of pointing and gesticulating. I am in this category.

I would add a category for normal respectful travelers but I am still not convinced these people exist.

Of course this all reflects very well on Americans.



I also had a lovely time eating pierogis and kielbasa, kayaking through the canals, experiencing local nightlife and, yes, using wifi.

Tomorrow we depart for Germany, so stay tuned.


And of course, Happy Birthday to the most wonderful friend, Adiya! Love you!


Love,

Nicole

St. Petersburg, Russia

Dear Mom,

I have the sniffles and I miss you.

Today we leave St. Petersburg, and sail towards Poland. It's been a great three days here.

To be honest, I think Russia surprised us all a little bit. Many of us went in with a set of expectations that ended up being challenged the longer we spent in the country. It started with the information we received. Based on the design of the program, Semester at Sea has us do a lot of preparation before going to a country. For Russia, I read a history of Russian politics in my Comparative Politics class, and in sociology we read about Russian fatherhood. We had coffeehouses and chatted at dinner, and the night before each port SAS does a major run-down of what's going on in the country we're visiting.

In Comparative Politics, when people were asked to name the first word that came into their head when they heard the following words: Russia, USSR, communism, the majority of the class said:
communism; communism; bad.
(as an exemplary, enlightened political science scholar, these were not the first words that came to mind. I'll admit it though, my own thoughts weren't so different.)

Then in our cultural introduction meeting, we learned more about the situation in Ukraine, and an assortment of cultural differences between Russians an Americans (things like disarming prolonged eye contact (findings: very, uncomfortably true), and some phrases, etc).

Then in our logistical meeting, we learned more about safety, crime, and racism.

In short, Russia sounded like a desolate place full of unsavory characters.

Most of those things turned out not to be a problem, although some things were.

Things that were true:
- cold
- crazy levels of pickpocketing
- beautiful
- subtle racism


things that were not true
- creepy communist vibe
- antagonism towards Americans


Cold
Yes. Plain and simple. I was told St. Petersburg only has about 60 purely sunny days all year. It drizzled two of the three days I was there, and all three were overcast.

Pickpocketing
This also turned out to be true. Our guides were very vigilant about reminding us to clutch our bags closer whenever we slipped. However, while touring the Hermitage museum, the man next to me (a professor) did get pickpocketed and his wife saw it happen. I've heard a bunch of other stories as well.

Beautiful
St. Petersburg has such a long, rich history, and it's buildings are centuries old. While there, I visited a ballet school to watch renowned Russian youth rehearse and perform, and visited the Hermitage Museum. Both of these experiences were beautiful and inspiring.
At the ballet school, we met with the director and watch 12, 13, and 17 year old students perform. The girls were already on pointe and had performed across Europe. They were so talented, and so young, and yes I felt a tad inadequate.
The Winter Palace in particular was gorgeous. The palace is a part of the Hermitage museum and the museum's architecture is equally as stunning as the artwork inside. If anyone knows of any 250 year old palaces on the market with an intimidatingly large throne room, let me know.
The museum itself is huge, with over 16,000 paintings alone. Like the Louvre, it would take years to look at each painting for even just a few seconds.
I was planning to visit Catherine the Great's Palace about an hour outside of STP to see the stunning rooms, and also a trip to experience authentic Russian food, but unfortunately the cold did me in and I got sick. I guess that just means I'll have to return one day!

Subtle Racism
I had read up a bit on racism before setting sail because I was curious, and we did discuss it a bit in preparation. Russia is a relatively homogenous country so in some parts of the country, people just haven't experienced many minorities. Personally, the worst I experienced were some inquisitive stares and a disdainful look from customs. Others had more negative experiences, and I know a fellow voyager whose arm was grabbed roughly but thankfully then released. Many of my friends, however, were treated like celebrities and had numerous photo requests. People were genuinely surprised to see black people. To be honest, I did a lot of reflection on race while there.

Communist
St. Petersburg feels like a few other European cities. To a traveler, the government does not feel omnipresent except for an overabundance of police near where we were. While we were there, they were gearing up for local elections, and there were a lot of geeky posters of balding white men with over-colorful backgrounds and yellow block letters in Russian promising some sort of undeliverable.

Antagonism
The only antagonism I ever experienced was discussing Ukraine with our guide. She started off saying "Russians are mostly ambivalent towards the US" and ended with "yes, there's definitely tension over Ukraine and US involvement. Definitely." So... yes on the antagonism front? Unclear.

I had a great time in the first stop and hope to post some photos soon! I will also post an entry entitled "Life at Sea" because there's lots to say about living on a ship.

Love,

Nicole

PS: a sad update. Because of the Ebola outbreak and health concerns, we will no longer be traveling to Senegal and Ghana. I'm disappointed about this as I feel that it changes the whole nature of the voyage. However, I do understand SAS' reasoning and I just hope that the outbreak will be controlled and people both sick and at risk receive proper care.