AAAH WORLD CUP

The past two days in Amsterdam, the city was festooned in orange for “De Oranje”. Usually, bright colors help one distinguish the shady from the safe areas of a city; it was impossible to tell there, because everywhere was orange. It has been nice to blog about my personal growth and the lessons I have learned over the past couple of weeks, but it is impossible to avoid the World Cup and football now.

Fast forward. I’m on a wonderful mechanism; my train docked in some sort of crazy garage in Denmark. We had to walk up a flight of stairs. It was like a shopping mall, or an airport terminal. But, alas, to my complete confusion, we were still moving. This, my friends, was the legendary “train goes onto a ferry” journey. I was so happy. I sat on the sun deck for a good 20 minutes holding myself back so as to not get tossed overboard amongst gale-force winds and incredible ocean spray amongst the warm sun. More importantly, on this ferry with its shops I saw a newspaper. It read, in big white letters, 1-1. This is the AMAZING start of the World Cup for South Africa. I was so proud; it’s always a shame when countries that host huge tournaments do not get to share the competitive pride with the monster footballing countries; this, at least for the slightest moment, is so refreshing. Up to date, no European nations have played. UNFORTANATELY, TO THE HIGHEST DEGREE, I will be missing the England vs. USA game, the most anticipated match for America, by being in transit to Basel overnight. I pray that Deutsches Bahn trains acquire internet capabilities within the next 2 hours.

In any case, the hype is huge. I now have two football special magazines: one in German, one in Dutch. Both incredibly hard to comprehend, both with their obvious statements. What I did see quite often was the prediction that European teams were to fare amazingly well, in that the only teams not from the continent in the final eight were Argentina and Brazil. The hopes are extremely high here. However, I feel it is too early to be disappointed that no one is blabbering sentence by sentence about the World Cup 24/7. There’s still time.

Stop! Relax, Outside the Box.

What do you do in a place where everything turns off at 8:30 at night? Just sit and ponder. Walk up some hills. Explore the façade of a city built up around rock forts and torn down mercilessly by crippling war. Oh, and maybe practice your French and marvel at the oddity of Luxembourgish. This, my friends, was my past few days. In the smallest country I have ever consciously visited (Singapore, in my infancy, only counts through home movies), I got to see the calmest metropolis ever. The streets were clean, people were on the whole friendly, and you could walk the city without a care in the world. Erich, Dionna and I, people of Chinese, Caribbean and Indian heritage, were stopped in front of a fountain to have a man take pictures of us with HIS camera. He then proceeded to tell us what places to visit. We figure it was because of our diversity that they had never seen before.

Despite being crammed by some of Europe’s most influential countries, Luxembourg is incredibly removed and all its own. Though Germany and France exhibit open-all-the-time stores with bustling nightlife, Luxembourg is the complete opposite; a veritable city that runs despite seemingly having more hours closed than open. I guess, however, this gives you time to slow down and find things that a crowd would normally push you through. In the Casemates, an underground fortress in the old city, we did an experiment with the diffraction of sound waves, managing to get audio to move coherently between two deep spiral staircases about 100 meters between each other. It was something we would not have thought of in a circumstance with visitors flooding through the claustrophobic caves.

In the far north of the country, in Clervaux (a grueling 52 minute train ride out from the City) we got to, practically alone, dissect one of the most controversial and acclaimed art exhibitions of all time, the Family of Man. We got to take the time to take an emotional journey to find ourselves and relate ourselves to these pictures outlining the elements of human life. It was incredibly rewarding to do this with no silhouettes drifting past eyesight.

The luxury of Luxembourg is its silence. Though there is a time to play and socialize en masse, there is also a time to be alone. In the ‘City’, we got to walk through, uninterrupted, the antiquated architecture and rich roads at day and night, just free to look about and keep our thoughts silent to the world, but loud within ourselves. I thoroughly appreciated it.

In other news, the World Cup begins in two days. Now that my intense relaxation has passed, it’s time to get psyched; I bought my Weltmeisterschaft 2010 exclusive magazine detailing all of the World Cup squads, groups and matches. It’s in German. My experience with that language is 6 weeks in 6^th grade, and a semester in Freshman year. Let’s do it. GET PUMPED!

Respect on all levels

Brussels is a wonderful city. I like it because it looks so ordinary compared to others that I’ve been to coming in. Graffiti adorns as many walls as possible, and many buildings look severely worn out with the exception of about a handful. It’s like revisiting the 1940’s, down to signs for the train stations; this is awesome, because it’s like being in a Belgian film noir. When I stepped off the train, it was awesome too; Brussels’ population is 46% immigrant composed, so nearly everyone looked like they weren’t from here originally.

For many, it’s still a struggle to be here; prejudice is still relatively rampant here, with African-based teenagers finding it difficult to keep current with school or envision bright futures. Many have been ashamed to bring their families to Europe because of their lack of success. However, though the museum at the Atomium said all of this, one particular detail made it seem less polarized. A large majority of the public of Brussels said they would support a football team made up predominately of foreigners. It’s great, in my view, that soccer, a game, gives people the strongest opinions of acceptance of a country’s people.

Furthermore, the interactions I saw between races was one of mutual respect; the 21^st century, though it is wrought with turmoil, is a time for social progress as well in many respects. What’s most important is that since it’s a very working class community here in Brussels, food stalls from various cuisines are always open late.

Before I came to the country, I knew that Belgium was the country of beers; thousands of beers come from here, with pretty much each town making their own (single or few). I thought it was particularly interesting how monks in monasteries make these beers; alcohol seems, to me, to be contrary to the holiness and piety. Regardless, it was a wonderful escape to go down to Rochefort in Wallonia to go visit some amazing caves and try the local trappist beer. It had a flavor I had never tasted before, and you could taste the uniqueness of the town in the beer.

Usually, I prefer the metropolis to the sleepy town, but this was different. There was absolutely no one in the tiny square by what seemed like the lone bus stop. I could just sit for a few minutes and relax. What made it great was that a wonderful shop with great food (fries and cheese!) was just a block down. Europe’s towns are very laid back but also manage to have thriving economies at the same time, which is why I was in love with Rochefort.

Finally, we ended up at the most anti-human location we could possibly be, the caves of Han (or, in French, Les Grottes de Han). I have one of the greatest amounts of respect for nature’s pure ability to create a masterpiece that it seems only the creativity of human minds could make with just water and time. These caves were massive galleries of art, comparable to rooms full of Picasso or Van Gogh. It was extremely cold, but the crevasses and pillars were warm and glowing.

Inherently, this post travels through respect and appreciation. I learned within a mere two days to respect something big, something small, and something nonhuman. We live our best understanding and putting effort into everything around us. Nothing deserves neglect.

It's not necessarily the biggest thing EVERYWHERE

So, this is a really short post. I just remembered something I saw on the way back to Dublin from Belfast. A bunch of people were on a field playing something that looked soccer-like. Me and my friend, Dionna, automatically believed that this was soccer; there were goalkeepers and everyone was constantly just running around. Our friend, Erich, was convinced it was closer to football. My arrogance at the moment however, with my following of soccer, phased my judgment. We then find out from a girl in front of us that it is actually a mix, a sport where you have to kick the ball after taking a few steps with it in your hands after passing. You use both the rugby goal and the football goal. I was utterly perplexed and humbled; I learned that Europe is obviously much much more than football. I always realized that it had great tradition in other sports (Switzerland, my home country for 2 months, can be proud of 2 of the worlds greatest Tennis players, Martina Hingis and Roger Federer as well as legendary Ski Jumper, Simon Ammann), but I always thought that everything was far overshadowed by soccer. Apparently, everything has an off season, and there has to be something there to replace the possible disappointment that failure in football may bring.

Division for the First Time

Yesterday was the first day that I was really forced to experience turmoil between factions in Europe. Dublin itself has wonderful architecture and plenty of people of different background just walking en masse in the city center and Temple Bar. It’s a really warm place to be, with no cars around and streets full of kind buskers and block upon block of old style pubs and taverns. It’s the Dublin I thought it would be.

This, however, is a big difference from Northern Ireland. Though it’s been quite sometime since the true hey day of the IRA, the marks have been left and there’s still uneasiness among the relative calm. Driving through the countryside, you would not know the difference; Ireland is the same rolling green throughout the isle. However, the first time you really know you’ve entered the UK dependency is with the road signs. Any trace of Gaelic has been erased from the boards describing road services and towns. This attempts to function as a sort of dominance over the Irish, or it did for the longest time during the “Troubles”.

The citizens here aren’t different from those of the South of the island, which is probably what made this place such a hotbed for so called terrorist activity. Our tour guides into the North spoke with a similar Irish accent and knew Gaelic as well. Genuinely kind people they were, like the Irish of Dublin. So why all of the hate and turmoil? This is one of the key places of evidence today for religion going beyond its proper realm and fully interfering with politics. Derry/Londonderry is the perfect display of the division. The Bogside is an area of this city where Bloody Sunday occurred and the population is primarily made up of Roman Catholics. There is a small block of land clad in blue, red and white where Protestants reside, sort of a resistance against the goings on surrounding the area. The murals of the Bogside are quite blunt and potently symbolic of the anger the public feels about the untied knot of the events of deaths of innocents. Though it looks like no one is fighting and people are harmonious, the appearance does not echo the same sentiment.

The same sort of idea could be seen in the mythical story of Giant’s Causeway. At first glance, this is just a magical feat of nature, the fury of volcanic activity at it’s most graceful state. However, when we examine the mythology, we see a feud between emotional giants, Ireland and Scotland. The story is that this causeway was build between the two isles to gain the love of a woman and to settle a dispute over her. In the end, the Irish giant prevails over the Scottish (for this sake, British) giant because the will of Finn McCool shakes the core of the Scottish giant. We thus see the heart of Ireland versus the physical strength but coldness of the British; a battle that can be seen throughout the past century.

Despite all of this turmoil, I had a cameo entrance of football make me feel at ease. In the middle of the Bogside, at the heart of unrest, were a group of children in their front yard frolicking with a soccer ball. Sport in general has turned conflict into civil competition, much like war was in the older days, where agreements were made about the fights. It forces people to exercise caution and sensibleness while fulfilling the anger within the most deepset conflicts. And, what I learned yesterday was that, inherently, it wipes the salt from the wound, though very slowly and with very little magnitude. Whatever helps is worth it, though.

The Dreaded Journey...but not really

That will never happen again, but it did need to happen. 31 hours. 4 trains, 1 plane. One disheveled American teetering and tottering through the sleeping and restaurant cars trying to find a home. The world of European Rail is massive and I was surprisingly so small within those vehicles.

Stockholm to Copenhagen was to be my testing leg; the leg of patience in which I had to just sit and wait and look outside. But that was fine; I had already fueled up on enough soccer talk to make up for the days past. I met a guy from Manchester, England named David. I had pondered us discussing football earlier in our acquaintance since we had been together in Stockholm for 2 days. But, finally, at our last breakfast there, about 20 minutes of debate spilled out over the ensuing mayhem. We discussed the England v. USA match of course, both agreeing it would be close, but each of us rooting for our sides. This was what I wanted; I hadn’t really found the true support, rather calculated and well-thought out opposition to national teams. David was proving my hypothesis with a cool demeanor; people do care about their teams. Remember when I said Rooney’s causing the stock market crash was exaggerated? Apparently it wouldn’t be so absurd to England; still pretty absurb, but not completely out of the question.

In any case, the first leg was a leg where I pondered what I accomplished while looking at the sea of yellow of flowers give me such a fond farewell to such a beautiful region. I was really anxious though; I have to say, one thing I dreaded about the train travel was the transfer waits. Hours with nothing to do; sure I would explore, but there’s only so much I can do, and I walk and absorb fast. But it was fine, cause next came the best experience: the individual sleeper car cabin.

It was a huge room, like a hotel, with its own key card, its own shower, with a bed. I was in awe; it was a jungle gym apparatus that spilled out into luxury. Inherently, this turned out to be very counterproductive; I slept much less than I should have. I predicted a miserable state, but a simple breakfast of bread made me feel better (did I mention how horrible vegetarianism is for carbohydrate consumption here?). In retrospect, so did the prospect of my next leg.

Brussels to London. It seemed like a crossover into another realm, because the UK is still part of the EU, but exercises American standard security. I had to diagram my life story over the next 2 months to the security officer at the Eurostar booth in Brussels. Speaking the same language as someone has its benefits and its negatives; though it was nice to finally say words after so long, the interrogative style was not my choice for resuming my conversational skills. However, I was pleasantly surprised on the train.

Two women. One of my generation, one of the generation of wisdom. One was city-hopping for short term work with merely a bundle of resumes, while the other was travelling to trace her family history for a book. One was French, one Australian. Despite the vast differences, they both were so damn interesting. It was a fun back and forth listening to Beryl (the Older Australian woman)’s stories of criminal family members in Ireland, and discussing the criteria for good employees with Valentine (the Younger French girl). As I left the train, Valentine and I had gained such a bond in just one hour that we decided to hang around each other for at least 10 minutes more. We parted with promises to keep in touch, one that I intend to keep.

For a while on this journey, I thought of losing faith in Europe’s trains. But, within this trip, I regained the vision of simple beauty. Trains here are so big, but are so small. You are forced into a set of four seats with two facing the other two; I think this was brilliant on the part of European train builders. It makes you have to get to know fellow humans whom you wouldn’t otherwise. Most of the time, this gives you faith and stories to be proud of. Just 1 hour of conversation in such a simple place did the same for me.

God bless the European Railways.

The Fondue Pot

Today, I spent my time in purely Swedish land. I was on the island of Djurgaarden and visited the Vasa Museum and Skansen, the first of which houses Sweden’s most famous war ship, the second of which is a huge open-air museum that claims to be “little Sweden”. It certainly does this. Today reminded that despite how small of a continent this is, cultures are vastly different. Shifting only about 5 degrees in latitude gives you new skin tone, new cuisine, entirely new climate and a language that is alien to the Danish I heard for the first two days. However, one thing that I’ve overlooked in this discussion is the unfathomable level of immigrant blood.

I’ve been to cities like London, New York and LA before: the cities where it’s clear that due to their locations on their continents as the first ports of entry, that people will immigrate there first. If it were me escaping persecution, destitution and altogether shoddy infrastructure, I would be afraid to venture too far in; best to settle in the first safe haven. However, in this discussion, I forgot to examine where I’ve been in the past week or so.

Copenhagen and Stockholm are both cities situated on archipelago structure with big bodies of waters seeping into smaller ones caressing the land. It’s just a little extra way down a rather broad strait made up the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Regardless of this relapse in geographical consciousness, I was astonished, not only now, but two years ago when I visited Germany, of how many immigrants were present. Scandinavia has always been portrayed to me as the whitest place on earth. Snow, blue eyes, blond hair, and the whitest people anywhere. Within 4 blocks from my Copenhagen hostel, there were 5 Indian restaurants and within 1 block of my Stockholm hostel, there are 2 kebab shops. Arguably, the best food I had in Copenhagen (and the best Samosa I’ve had) was fed to me by a kind Middle Eastern establishment. And, I’m getting dinner tonight from one of those kebab places.

Like I said before in this blog, European food and culture is nowhere near pure; the purest I found was probably at Skansen today, with all of the farm houses, native dress and home grown industry. Even then, though, there were definite Dutch, Danish and other proximal influences. Everything is effected by immigration; Europe is the regarded overall as toe-to-toe with the [majority] of North America for safety and economic opportunity. So why not have them? If we know that their food is more flavorful at times, the people are sometimes more attractive, why not allow them to assimilate? Why did the colonial powers only move to conquer and usurp, but then scorn actions when the conquered try to become part of that movement? It kinda baffles me. Modern Europe has it pretty together; I must say it’s incredibly weird to see an Indian speaking Hindi one sentence then Danish or Swedish the other. But it’s refreshing not uninviting; it shows that the people are trying. Because of this effort, I think it has become more harmonious.

That being said there are groups regarded with low esteem such as Roma, Eastern Europeans and Africans in general. This is something that every region of the world faces however. It is just up for the continent to give these people space to show their contributive ability, which it is swiftly doing.

Anyway, Stockholm’s pretty much done. My next post will bring to you the joys of the European train, as I will have a foray into the voyage cross-continent.

Till then!