Singing in the Rain … oh wait, wrong song.

When I read that Salzberg literally means “Salt Castle,” I knew this town had to be pretty great. We only had one full day there, and of course, since the rain seems to follow us wherever we travel, it found us yet again in this beautiful city in Austria. Although we had to pull out our umbrellas and slosh our way across the city, we enjoyed our one day in the town where Mozart lived and where Julie Andrews sang. We decided to do the Sound of Music Tour, where we learned some behind-the-scenes secrets about the movie and got inspired to fulfill the eleventh item on my European bucket list by singing “Do-Re-Mi” in Austria—and better yet, we recorded it.

If you’d like to see it….

Another high note of our time in the Salt Castle was when we ate at a restaurant in which Mozart himself frequently dined. I could almost hear his Piano Concerto No. 21 playing as I tasted the traditional Austrian Goulash soup; the rich flavors unfolded on my tongue—beefy broth with a hint of bacon, that peppery kick of paprika and caraway seed, soft potatoes with a savory onion and garlic flavor. Just like our time in Salzberg, it seems the only problem with my soup was not having enough.

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booking it.

We’ve been to Brugge, Belgium—we’ve seen the colorful, quaint city where horse & carriages clomp their way through the main square, where we ran across town to get to the chocolate museum in time, and where we ate Belgian waffles and stocked up on Belgian chocolate. But the Belgian city that we see far too often is Liege. This is where we go to book trains.

At this moment, I’m sitting in the Liege train station with Rachel (listening to her funny comments as she people watches). We got up at 6:30 this morning to come book a few trains for our two weeks of travel, and we’re stuck here for about an hour because a train was cancelled. Luckily this round of train-booking went semi-successfully. If I haven’t already mentioned it, let me just tell you: planning, booking, etc. is a complete hassle. Nobody prepared us for this. We definitely were not warned at all that we’d spend just as much time planning as we do studying and reading.

Basically, there are two things I wanted to tell you.

1-    Rachel is the best planner in the world. Ok maybe that is an exaggeration, but she deserves some serious credit here. If you’ve ever planned travels for three months worth of weekends and then two full weeks WHILE going to school and experiencing the most difficult semester of your college career, then you might be able to understand Rachel’s complete awesomeness. I help her often, but even I can’t touch the surface of understanding how totally ridiculous this planning stuff is. When I get overwhelmed to the point of tears, I have to tap out for a while and work on something else (like writing a blog or reading Donald Miller). I’m sure some of you have planned major things like this, so if I’m preaching to the choir just scroll down and read about my day in the park or something less stressful. But if you want to hear about a part of this trip that has taken up hours upon hours upon hours of our days, let me give you a little summary.

We decide what country we’d like to go to (not always easy seeing as there are three to seven of us deciding) and what cities we’d like to see. We research trains that we can take to get us there, excluding Thalys and other trains that cost an arm and a leg. Another thing we didn’t know at all is that, even though we have a Eurail pass, we still have to pay to reserve certain trains. To me, booking trains is the most difficult part of planning. It’s complicated and irritating to figure out the perfect and cheapest route to take, but Rachel knows the system like the back of her hand by now (and can spout out the military time translations for us as if she grew up with it all her life).

When we (let’s be honest… by we I mean mostly Rachel) figure that out, we have to take a train to Liege and begin the exhausting process of actually attempting to book the trains. Sometimes our plan works out, and we can actually book them all, but sometimes the plan falls to pieces when trains are already booked, and we have to go home and start the train search over again.

Then there’s the flights. Thanks to Ryan Air we can fly decently cheap (anywhere from 33 Euros ($45) to about 70 Euros ($105).) You have to be careful with Ryan Air’s website, though, because it can get you in a bind sometimes. Then there’s figuring out the buses we need to book before we get there. Then there’s the hostel or couch surfing that we search for—making sure it’s in the right place, that we can get to it from the train station/airport, that it’s centrally located in the city, that we can afford it, and all that jazz. Then there’s the events and things we have to plan to do in the city before we leave. And there’s even more than this, but I’ll spare you the drudgery of reading it all.

Let me interrupt this little rant/Rachel praise time to tell you a few of her people-watching comments:

-“Look at that baby’s legs—they’re like little sausages!”

-“Lots of kissing. Can you imagine our guys back home doing that? Daniel walks up to Luis and kisses him on the cheeks. Haha.”

-(About a bald man): “Women marry men like him every day…. One day he had hair. And one day he just didn’t anymore.”

Now for the second thing I wanted to tell you.

2- I absolutely can’t believe this semester is almost finished. I should be studying for a final I have tomorrow and the one I have the next day… or writing the paper that’s due on Wednesday. BUT after all of this (plus two more papers…), I will be finished with this semester. Finished with college. And I’ll be headed to three new European countries before going home. But we will need some serious prayers for our two weeks of travel because we’ve set our sights high on places we’d like to go, and we’re hoping we won’t be too rushed and frantic and will actually be able to enjoy it. For example, we’re stuffing eight Italian cities into five days…. So let’s just say we’ll be booking it through that beautiful country so that we can see (and eat) as much as possible. And that’s just one of the four countries we’ll be seeing in the two and a half week span.

Have a peek at how we entertained ourselves on the train to Liege when we forgot study materials…

a day in maastricht

The other day I was around town by myself, and it was one of those times when I realized that this moment would forever be stashed in my fond memories of Maastricht. I looked all around me at the new foliage and flowers that recently shed their winter blankets. I walked underneath a massive rock archway, crossed a wooden bridge, and found a gated area where goats, long-wool rams, and deer grazed the little grass field. As I walked along the river flowing through this park, geese and ducks waddled and quacked and honked on all sides of me, begging for bread or crackers.

I didn’t have anything for them, but there were plenty of school children skipping along tossing bread to them and elderly couples impressively hand-feeding the feisty geese. Dutch college students sat on the benches, studying or eating lunch, and young couples walked along the river holding hands.

Trees canopied over the edges of the water and the walkway, and the sun peeked through the gaps in the trees; it was warm and windy, and it felt like home. The park was dense with the sound of Dutch chatter, kids laughing, and geese honking. I walked back and forth along the road, watching the animals and the people, engraving those sights and sounds in my memory.

I followed a man walking his Old English sheepdog on my way back to the dorm, and I saw numerous dogs walking leashless beside their owners. Even though I’ve grown used to the city’s cultural tendencies, this day I felt like I was experiencing it all for the first time again. One of the first things I noticed when I got to Maastricht was that everyone owns a dog, and those dogs go almost everywhere humans do. When I first saw a dog inside a restaurant in Maastricht, my eyes darted around the room to see everyone’s reactions, but it was to my surprise that nobody thought the dog was out of place. Almost every building in Texas has “no pets allowed” signs, and seeing an animal on a bus or in a restaurant means it’s a guide dog. In Europe, though, I fawn over the well-behaved puppies riding in bike baskets or trotting alongside their owners in shopping malls. I thought about Puppy, Amanda and Rachel’s (I like to claim him as partly mine, too) little white Shih Tzu back home, and I grinned and thought to myself that this is a place he’d like to live.

I’ve already grown to love the scenery and the buildings in Maastricht, but I guess the winter blanket was lifted off of my eyes, too, because I saw the whole town with new excitement this day. My university back home has some old, beautiful buildings on campus, but none of them compares to the tapering spires, the elaborate cathedrals, and the colorful history and picturesque exterior of the architecture in Maastricht. I’d never even seen a cobblestone street before Maastricht, and now I walk them every day, staring in awe at the beautiful buildings around me. Now, when I catch myself thinking of a 100-year old building as ancient, I feel silly when I realize that it’s just a baby on the European timescale.

As I got closer and closer to the dorm on my walk home, I took a route through a little neighborhood. The set-up of these neighborhoods are nothing like the spacious layout of ones in the States, but they’re cute little cobblestone streets lined with two-story high apartment-style houses on each side. Mothers and children were sitting in their doorways and enjoying the sun on the street. Little boys kicked a soccer ball against the brick wall, and a few other kids raced their bicycles down the road and yelled excitedly in Dutch. A cute old man leaned over the window seal upstairs and shouted down friendly hellos to his neighbors, and then to me.

I smiled and scrounged up the most Dutch-sounding “Hallo!” I could, and success!: he thought I was Dutch. “Hoe bent u?” he asked, and I smiled, unsatisfied with my own English answer, but happy to be talking to the cute old man regardless: “I’m good, how are you?” He nodded his head, smiled, and waved his hand, gesturing what I assumed to be something like, “I’m doing good! Have a good day!” I smiled, waved back, and went on my way down the road. That day I heeded the wordless greeting from the cute old Dutch man hanging out his window– I definitely had a good day.

I’m Irish, y’all.

In a span of four days, I walked the rocky shore of an Irish beach, hiked the hills of an Irish mountain, kissed an ancient stone at the top of an Irish castle, saw traditional Irish step dancing, ate beef & Guinness stew at an Irish pub, and confirmed that I am the fruit of Irish loins.

By the way my mom likes to celebrate her St. Patrick’s Day birthday, I should’ve known for sure long ago that we were Irish, but it wasn’t until I actually stepped foot in Ireland that I discovered my heritage for myself. In Dublin, past the streets full of souvenir shops filled with shamrocks and all things green, we found a quaint little coat of arms & family crest shop on a corner. I immediately saw a variation of my last name on the coasters and key chains they sold; then the shop owner pulled up ‘Cary’ on his antiquated computer, and a few minutes later my family history popped up. From Gaelic and Celtic origin, the name Cary means “to stir or move,” “dweller at the castle,” or last but not least—“descendant of the dark one.”

The other half of me—the Duncan side, offers a little more hope. It’s also Gaelic, meaning “brown warrior” and “strong-headed.” Although we’re not exactly brown, according to our Irish history my siblings and I are strong-headed warriors descending from a castle-dwelling devil with the ability to stir the soul. Y’all better watch out for us.

On our last day in Ireland, the castle-dweller in my blood came out as we climbed the ancient spiral staircase of the Blarney Castle. We were determined to reach the very top so that we could lean down into the parapet and kiss the Blarney Stone. In 1446, a block of bluestone was set into the castle’s battlements up on the top floor, and 565 years later it’s stained with the oil of a million pairs of lips. A germophobe’s greatest fear, the stone is said to have the legendary power to give whoever kisses it the gift of eloquent speech.

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The girl in me who stumbles over her words during presentations hoped deep down that somehow the stone really would give me this gift. Maybe I didn’t pucker enough or kiss long enough, or maybe the stone could tell I’m a descendant of the dark one, but seeing as I still can’t tell a good story to save my life, I can safely say that the stone’s magical powers didn’t work on me. Just in case you’re planning a trip to Blarney Castle anytime soon, don’t get your hopes up about the legitimacy of the stone’s legend, but definitely get your hopes up about the landscape and the history and beauty of the castle.

Unrestored since its use as a medieval stronghold hundreds of years ago, walking into what’s left of the Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland is like stepping back in time. I imagined servants walking the same narrow steps—except they carried boiling pans of water or food up and down them. I imagined elaborate canopy beds in the bedchambers, mattresses made of hay or wool. I imagined men, armed with bows and arrows, peaking out the arrow slits with one eye open, aiming for the approaching enemies. I imagined a Jane Austen-like character, dress flowing in the wind, taking her afternoon stroll next to the winding stream hidden underneath the willowy trees.

Basically, Ireland stole our hearts. At the end of our two week span of travel, we decided we’re going to make our way back up to Ireland to do what we didn’t get to before—ride bikes along the vast green expanse of Northern Irish countryside, and then we’re going to tap into our inner Indiana Jones and walk across a shaky old rope bridge between two mountains.

words just won’t do

Well, it’s about time I tell you about Switzerland. I’ve been a little nervous to actually write this down for fear of doing its beauty a severe injustice. Don’t get me wrong—I feel this way about every city I visit and want to write about, but Gryon, Switzerland had the most awe-inspiring landscape I’ve ever encountered. My first glimpse of the mountains out the train window reminded me of lumpy cake covered with powdered sugar, but as we got closer, I could barely catch my breath from choking back the shock that filled me as I stared into what I imagine is the closest thing to heavenly beauty I’ll ever see on earth. Untainted by skyscrapers or any buildings at all, the skyline of snowy mountains jutted out of the horizon with rich depth and color and life. As we walked up and down the steep hills of the village-like town, we couldn’t help but stop in the middle of the road with our mouths wide open as we stared, absolutely enthralled with the breathtaking view in front of us.

I’m a fan of words, but no words (and really not even pictures) can explain the grandeur, the splendor of the Swiss Alps, but I think my best option is to show you my photo journal of the trip and give you a few captions along the way.

We made friends with a precious little Swiss boy, who wanted to sit in Rachel’s lap as we rode the train up into the mountains.

We decided to brave the cold and snowboard on the slopes, so we strapped on some equipment and attempted to get down some icy hills without breaking any bones 🙂

CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF THE DAY 🙂

After a long day of snowboarding (falling in the snow), we came home to Chalet Martin–a comfy, cozy hostel in the mountains, where we cooked enough spaghetti to feed a small army and then ate almost all of it.

We walked around the little village one day, where we saw charming little cabins set cozily in the mountains.

And I even had time to build my European snowman so I could mark that off of my bucket list!

The next morning we woke up to a winter wonderland that was nothing short of Narnia-esque, and it was the perfect ending to such a memorable weekend.

a sinister side of Scotland

Captivated by the Scottish accent, enchanted by the elaborate architecture lining the Royal Mile, and charmed by every little black Scottish terrier that pranced by, I was almost ready to move to Scotland by the end of my stay there.We stayed just a hill’s climb away from the Royal Mile, which stretches from Edinburgh Castle to Queen’s Park and is the core of the Old Town in Edinburgh. Today, it’s bustling with locals and tourists who all seem to be searching for the perfect kilt, cashmere scarf, or hot plate of haggis. But back in 1707, it was near the setting of witch-hunts and an underground world of wet, dark vaults and corridors where criminals and the homeless lived to escape the brutality of the authority above ground.

Working and middle-class families lived in the alleys right off of the Royal Mile, and, by the eighteenth century, this area became one of the most densely populated areas in Europe. This forced builders to stack more floors on top of buildings in the narrow streets (up to fourteen floors just for housing!) Like in any city, men, women, and entire families became homeless for various reasons, and since homelessness was considered a crime in those days, people found sleeping in the streets were subject to brutal beatings that usually caused fatal infections. In order to escape this awful fate, the homeless would find their way towards the South Bridge and into the abandoned storage vaults underground, finding refuge in this damp network of rooms four stories underground, officially erasing their existence from of the face of society.

But wherever there’s refuge from authorities and punishment, there’s where you’ll find criminals—murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. So families sometimes slept deep underground in these sticky, cold, pitch-black crypts side by side with criminals; children brushed hands with murderers, women were raped, and if any quarrel erupted, people could be killed and the murderer would go unpunished except for what retaliation the people underground could organize.

Our tour guide showed us where to climb into a hole in the wall, and we were instantly inside the wet, stuffy vaults. As we all settled into silence, there was no noise apart from water dripping from the limestone ceiling and echoing down the corridors. Apart from the tour guide’s flashlight and a single modern light fixture on the wall for safety reasons, the only light in each of the rooms was from flickering candles and the reflection of their light in the puddles on the ground. Knowing the history behind a few of the specific rooms in the vaults, it was easy to imagine that unsettled spirits of people who once called this place home might still linger there.

When a fire broke out in the streets above and turned the underground vaults into stone ovens, there were at least 96 suicides in a single room. When the remnants of this room were originally uncovered, in the back corner of the room were found the remains of a mother who had slit her three children’s throats in order to spare them from the suffering they experienced as they were all being shoved into the burning stone wall and suffocating from a lack of oxygen. The guide warned us that, if we wanted to try and feel a ghost spirit in this room, the women should stand with their hands down by their sides; she claimed that many times women on her tours would shriek when they felt the hand of a young child slip into their relaxed palm.

For nearly a hundred years, these vaults were home to thousands of people, but they were sealed up by the end of the nineteenth century and were finally rediscovered in the 1980s when a group of drunken college students busted through their apartment wall and literally stumbled upon this underground capsule of history and horror. For me, discovering all of this history for myself in Edinburgh was like learning about the Holocaust for the first time. It consumed my thoughts for the entire week, and every night I laid in bed empathizing for those destitute people trapped in a life not worth living. I couldn’t help but wonder what other hauntingly true pieces of history are out there waiting to be discovered.

let the party begin

A few weeks ago, clowns started popping out of their hiding places and mounting themselves on building tops, in window seals, and even walking around the streets. Yellow, green, and red flags and balloons whipped in the wind along every road in Maastricht. As the days inched closer to late February and early March, little parades would erupt in the marketplace and people, decked out in colorful costumes and wigs, danced and cheered together in celebration of the European phenomenon that is Carnival.

If you know me, you know I haven’t dressed up for Halloween since third grade, and even then I just threw on my soccer uniform and went as a soccer player. But if you’re going out on the town during Carnival, you’re definitely an outsider if you’re not a furry animal, in a sequin-covered dress and glittery makeup, or in any costume that proves you are someone other than yourself for a night or two. After all, Carnival is all about celebrating the time before Lent—soaking in the splendor of self-indulgence before you say goodbye to it all for a while.

I’ve heard other Americans say that Carnival is like our Halloween and Mardi Gras mixed, but it’s really a festival that can’t compare to either. Whether going all out in dress and drink or just quietly wearing carnival-colored socks, everyone in Maastricht joins in on this celebration that lasts for weeks, unlike Halloween, where candy-hungry children dress up for just one night a year.

When I first saw the clowns make their appearances and the town beginning to transform into a circus-themed party, I researched Carnival and discovered that, as a traditional Roman Catholic festival, Carnival in Limburg (a southern province of the Netherlands), is a huge affair, and it’s especially a big deal in Maastricht. It typically involves a parade, public celebration and street party, and masquerades or costume extravaganzas; the costumes are a way to mark an overturning of one’s daily life, kind of like America’s New Year’s Eve. From Saturday through the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, people show up in the town-square wearing colorful costumes of anything at all or special costumes with Venetian influences (elaborate, gaudy, multi-colored). Of all the creative costumes we saw (and trust me, there are A LOT), my favorite was a set of them worn by a group of friends who’d obviously spent days making them—they were entire outfits made of decks of playing cards taped together with clear mailing tape. That’s when I knew this Carnival thing really means something around here.

And although I wasn’t lucky enough to witness some of the more special parts of Dutch Carnival, like the children’s parade, the parade for the Prince of Carnival, a farmer’s wedding (boerenbruiloft), and the special meal of herring on Ash Wednesday, I still feel like I walked in a Dutchwoman’s shoes (not wooden ones, thank goodness) for a day or two during Carnival. We ventured out into the confetti-covered streets on Saturday night and made our way to the marketplace, where the smell of beer and the sound of Dutch music hung like a canopy over the town-square. There were food stalls serving waffles, frites, fried pudding-filled desserts, and so much more. We walked around in awe of the noises and sights, excited to be experiencing such a vibrant cultural event. As I looked around in admiration of everyone’s elaborate costumes, I almost wished I’d invested in something a little more than just my silly red, yellow, and green outfit. I imagine I’ll have the chance to redeem myself next year, though, when my friends and I throw our own American version of a Carnival party, wishing all the while that we were still at the real thing.

STUDYING abroad

You know those walkways in some airports and train stations that are like escalators except they’re flat on the floor and just move along to make you walk faster? That’s kind of how life is right now. Things can’t slow down because everything is on fast pace—school, social life, travel, and even grocery shopping. Even if I stand motionless, I’m still moving, constantly thinking about the next assignment, the next planning session, the last money-losing mishap, or the upcoming weekend of travel. This study abroad program gives a whole new meaning to stress and time management, and it’s consistently been revealing my weaknesses to me. But I’m so grateful for the chance to even be here, so every day I take a step back from the rush of it all to just appreciate the opportunity Baylor and the University of Maastricht have given me.

I realize this is a little late, but since I haven’t described the structure of this study abroad program yet, let me do that for you now. About forty of us Baylor students came here to the Netherlands at Maastricht University to study and travel on this three-month program. Our very first trip to London was as a large group; we all went to the same place, and there were leaders from Baylor in that city with us, but we split off into smaller groups and were able to travel around the town with our friends.

Every weekend since then, we’ve traveled on our own (meaning without any authority figures and without the whole Baylor group). We naturally split into smaller groups of friends, and we plan our own weekends by deciding where we’d like to go, how and when to get there, what to do while there, where to sleep while there, and how and when to get back. We go with anywhere from 3-7 people, and we trek around the city by ourselves in this group. If you imagined this journey as more like a class field trip, you’re extremely mistaken; it’s such an invigorating and refreshing experience to find your own way around a city, inevitably embarrassing yourself a few times when asking for directions because of the language barrier, but ultimately soaking in the glory that is traveling with just your best friends.

Although it seems all we do is travel, it is true that we’re students first and then travelers. So after our first London trip, we headed back to the university to start school. It’s an accelerated program where we go to school four days a week for eight weeks, taking two Dutch classes and two Baylor classes. Because we’re trying to squeeze in a semester’s worth of work into such a short time period, we are swamped with reading, papers, tests, and homework during the week since we don’t have much time during the weekend to do it. A few people have asked me: “How are you doing all this travel and still going to school?” or “Why don’t you write about school?” Well, the reason I haven’t talked much about school (other than the fact that, really, who wants to hear about textbooks and lectures?) is because I realize nobody truly offers sympathy for people when they talk about school being difficult … especially to someone who’s studying and traveling in Europe. So I try to keep my blogs more focused on the traveling so as to not accidently complain about the stress of school (oops, I let one slip) or the sleepless nights (really, I’m finished now) that we spend during the week so that we can enjoy the weekend of travel.

The best part of the fact that this program is stuffed into eight weeks is that our last month here in Europe will be spent solely traveling. We take our final exams right before April, and then all of April we branch out with our specific groups of friends, make our own travel plans, and backpack our way across Europe. If you’re wondering how in the world I can afford that, let me just tell you. Baylor provided us with a free, three-month, global Eurail pass, which pays for almost every train we take, so this greatly slashes the costs of our trips.They also paid for our housing in London for that week, and they also give us a little sum of money to pay for meals over the weekends and over the month while we travel. This is why we are all taking such advantage of our weekends here—so that we can see as many countries as possible while the train rides are free (because they can be very, very expensive otherwise!) and while we have a small amount of Euros in our pockets for food. Of course, we still have to pay for groceries, some meals while traveling, all hostels, any flights we take, souvenirs, and any extra fun things we decide to do, so the costs really do rack up. But I’ve decided that, since I may never be able to come to Europe again in my life, I need to (frugally) live it up while I have the chance. My future self will thank me, I think.

So as I’m walking on this long, always-moving walkway while studying abroad, it’s the looking ahead to where that walkway is taking me, into the weekends and the month of travel, that keeps me motivated to continue walking. But I must confess that it’s such a relief to look behind me and see the steps I’ve already taken, the places I’ve already seen, and the stress I’ve already overcome.