On to Budapest

I catch a 2:00 a.m. train to Budapest. Hoorah, the adventure continues!

Moday.. and it is RAINING

Always with the rain!

There is a group of Spanish musicians also staying at Schloss Frohnburg, and on Saturday night they cooked a huge meal and did not clean up after themselves. Thus, yesterday night I was forced to heat up my little pizza in a kitchen that was practically knee-deep in filth - wine bottles, spilled sauces, overturned garbage cans. Lovely.

Staying in a mansion with a bunch of other musicians can be a bit tiresome. At 7am sharp the pianists begin practising. At 8:30 am SHARP breakfast is cleared away, and at 8:45 the housekeeper and her toddler son come up to clean the rooms. On Friday she opened the locked door while I was still unndressed, and even though I scooted behind a door and asked her to please leave, I was naked, she insisted on asking if I needed my floor washed or garbage cans emptied, with her toddler running in and out of the door the entire time. Then at night the piano goes on until 10:30 or 11:00 pm. Free concert? Not when I girl needs to concentrate on HER music!

I am out of food, so I am thrilled the weekend is over. Nothing but McDonald`s is open in Sunday.

Raindrops on roses.. and everything else!

I was all ready to take a hike in the mountains today. I had laid out my outfit, boiled some eggs for lunch, and even baked some pillsbury buns. Then I woke up, and it was RAINING! Cry. The mountains were shrouded in clouds. So much for my brilliant Sunday plans.

I dreamed last night that I was in Budapest, then I woke up and was at first disappointed because I was not in Budapest after all, but then I remembered - I'm going there next week. Hoorah!

Sunny Saturday

...and I am stuck inside for a good chunk of the day. Growl, singing obligations...

Oh well, tomorrow I have free, and if the weather holds, I am going for a hike in the mountains. Yes, a hike and I am not being forced to go even! The mountains are more like foothills and I think they are free of bears, so why not?

Nobody commented on my pictures. My heart is broken. Meine hertz ist gebrochen. Mein ruhe ist hin. My German is getting a lot besser, I can verstehen almost alles people sprechen mir!

Still more Pictures

Now, I do not want to post a bunch of pictures of Auschwitz (or of tourists behaving badly at Auschwitz)because I feel that it is really disrespectful for all the people who died there. However, this one picture is a perfect illustration of what it was like to visit the camp...


The Yiddish Theatre!



THIS is how H&M employees dress in Warsaw!!



Okay, HERE is the Borscht. Below, where it says borscht, there are actually gummi candies, which I bought with my remaining 5 Swedish kroner. What a good way to spend remaining kroner, on CANDY!! But anyway, here is the borscht.

Yet More Pictures

This is the way that people in Poland eat Sunflower Seeds. They hold the head of the giant sunflower on one hand and pick out the seeds with the other.



Ha ha, I can read Polish! As anyone who has been to London will know, that says "Mind the Gap!"








These are photos of the house where my Grandfather was born. It is VERY LIKELY the correct house. It is beside an old army barracks and on the street corner. Unfortunately, the houses to the right are gone (now a parking lot) and there were no street numbers. However, I am almost certain it is the right house, as the garage should take up the spaces of two houses (numbers 2 and 4) and this should be number 6.


I am at the computer for a few hours taking care of business. Sigh! It is so hard to be away from the computer when there is much to do. Of course, it is a beautiful day in Salzburg, and will stay nice as long as I am stuck inside. Last night The day was lovely until I finished at the Mozarteum. I stepped outside, free for the afternoon, and suddenly a black cloud covered everything. By the time I arrived at the bus stop for the Schloss it was pouring. I bought soup at the market and sipped it in my little garret room while the lightening flashed. It was very cozy! At one point the thunder echoed around the mountains for over a minute. I adore thunderstorms, and it all fit in well with the Sound-of-Music theme of the Schloss.

I have a free day on Sunday and if it doesnät rain I am thinking of a hike. Okay, more pictures:

More pictures

Gah. BORSCHT. I know that I am probably the last person in the world who would eat borsht, but Adi, my Warsaw companion, insisted that we try the local fare.



No place like ho... but wait, this 7-11 is in SWEDEN (no Slurpees though)




More relatives! (I actually had to rip the pretty ivy off the gravestone to read anything. It was completely covered in sticky ivy and fat snails)



The Synagogue in Malmö, Sweden .It was locked, so this is all of it that I got to see. (The Cemetery was about 400m to the left of the building)

More Pictures

The street where my grandfather was born



All these places Iäve read about, so CLOSE!!



The last remaining section of the Warsaw Ghetto



Lost in the Jewish Cemetery



Pawiak Prison

Holocaust memorials etc. in Warsaw






Oops, obviously that grave below is not me. Anyway, on to more pictures...

Bears in the Nova Praga park in Warsaw, Poland



Me!!



My great-great grandmother´s grave!! In Malmö, Sweden.

Sunshiny Day

It is such a beautiful day here in Salzburg! I have finished with my singing obligations for the day and it is not yet 1pm. Hurrah! What to do?? I donät need to shop (except maybe for a Yoghurt to drink for lunch, or a pretzel that is not made with lard), and I am not dressed for hiking. Probably I will wander around and watch the tourists, and sit on the hill by the river (?? I wonder what river it is.. Danube? Vistula? time to google) SALZACH, and read a book.

It soure would be more fun with my sissy here, but alas she is faar away. She would probably make us hike, which is healthy and a good regional activity.

Living in Schloss Frohburg (where the Sound of Music was filmed) is great fun. I actually got a note from the cleaning staff this morning asking me (in German) to bitte move my bags off the floor so that they can sweep every day. On the floor I had: A bathmat. A second (liberated)bathmat. Two pairs of shoes. My purse. A bag of wool. Not exactly clutter! The whole place is very clean, and this morning while I was boiling eggs in the kitchen three tourists burst through the door, video camera filming. Yikes!

The air is amazing and fresh. I understand why people take "mountain cures". (As long as it is not raining, then the air smells like slugs). I watched the sun set over a nearby mountain last night, and it was so beautiful! I wish I could see some of the operas, but they are all SOLD OUT. Ah well, another singer may be able to get me into the dress rehearsal of one of them.

That is all, time to eat my eggs (some of them even come with feathers stuck to them).

Rain in Salzburg - no WAY!

Guess what? It is raining. Like last year. Like EVERY SINGLE DAY last year. This is the most gorgeous city, if the rain would just stop for a while.

Yesterday I went shopping for my Austrian favourites: choco pudding, Italian grapes, and the low-fat vegetarian pizza. It is some pizza - thin crists with asparagus, peppers, artichoke hearts and pine nuts on top. YUM. And the Schloss Frohnburg has an oven, so unlike last year where I was cooking in a smoky toaster, I can make the whole pizza at once. Hurrah! I am going to buy more today! I even managed to ask someone where the cereal was. My translator didnät understand cereal, so I asked for "Der kinder essen in der morgen. mit milch" and ta-da! Cereal!

The kitchen is actually very nice, and in typical fashion in thie culture, there are RULES. Turn off the light. Keep your things in your own numbered cupboard. We were each issued a plate, a spoon, a mug, fork, knife and a glass, and they are expected to be returned to the cupboard when we check out. The fridges have been divided into numbered compartments, which we can also lock with our room key. I am number 36, room 36. It is wierd but sort of nice. nobody will steal my food after all! I paid for the cheaper, shared-bathroom room. Well, there is nobody in the room next to mine, and so at the moment I get the bathroom all to myself!

At breakfast there are rolls, warm milk and cereal (ugh. I bought some cold milk) and tea. We are allowed 2 buns, 2 butters and a jam. Rules!! When I went into the kitchen later I noticed that the buns were just sitting out on the counter, 8 hours after breakfast. Still, to deter bun-hogs there must be rules!

At least things are clean. When I went to the public phone to call the bank yesterday it was being wiped down and sanitized by two city workers (who began to flirt shamelessly with me in German "Halloo meine shöne frau", etc.) These were people not PEEING in phone booths but cleaning it. Ahhh, Western Europe! So clean, if one ignores the 5-inch long slugs. They are all ove rthe grass. I was taking a short cut to the grocery store last night (probably against some rule) when I thought that around me were bunches of turds. No, just turd-size monster slugs...

The long road to Salzburg

I am actually at the Mozarteum - I cannot BELIEVE everything went smoothly. Relatively.

I last updated the Blog from Krakow. After typing I went out to withdraw cash and then get some sleep. Well, the $ that the bank was supposed to transfer LAST WEEK to my accessible account was not transferred. I should not have expected competency. Luckily I was prepared with back up cash, and I scrimped my way through the weekend. In just a few hours the bank will open up and I can call them and rant.

Sleep went over almost as well as withdrawing money. There was a drinking party in my dorm at 1am. I explained to the hostel staff member that this hostel does not advertise itself as a 'party hostel' (some do) and I expected that I would be able to sleep. She shrugged and answered that partying is what Krajow is all about. I did NOT answer that seeing where my relatives were systematically murdered was what Krakow was also all about, but I appeared angry enough that I was moved to a private room.

The noise continued. I exited my room and pointed to the 10:30 - quiet hour sign, but she said that there was nothing she could do. I told her that it is a good thing that we get to rate the hostels and it is a shame that I am so unhappy in a 96% rated hostel.

The next morning the manager came in especially to apologize to me for the noise and the dirt (there had been toenail clippings on my bed when I arrived), and refunded my money for that night. Hurrah! More cash! I spent the morning walking to all of the synagogues, the 2 Jewish museums and around the Krakow ghetto, and then caught my train to Salzburg (via Slovakia (!) and Vienna) with two whole minutes to spare.

In my compartment was a Japanese student, a talkative Polish lady, and a young mother and her 3-year-old daughter. We communicated with gestures and shared apples that the old lady had brought. The 6-hour ride was not so bad. The 3-hour ride from Vienna to Salzburg was full and loud, but I arrived in Salzburg and splurged on a cab (hurrah!) to take me to the residence.

The doors were locked. There was nobody at my residence. I stood outsied alone after the cab left, contenplated sleeping on the lawn, and heard the buzzing of a mosquito-like creature. Mosquito bites? No! I started banging and calling, and soon another student came and let me in.

He was so nice! There was an unlocked empty room next to his, and I stayed in there. Nobody knew about it, and I saved a night's charge!

Today I was given my actual room, and went to the Mozarteum to audition for the masterclass. It is not a fair system. Everyone pays and auditions after they arrived, and only some are allowed to actually sing. There were 36 people auditioning for 15 places in my class. I am one of the lucky ones, but it is still not fair.

That is all for now, I am so tired and I have to buy some groceries and call the bank. It is so HARD not having computer access when there are things to do!

Bad Tourists

Tourists just can't behave! It is so frustrating and maddening to visit the location of the largest-scale genocide EVER, and find people being impossibly disrespectful.

What not to do at Auschwitz
- Take your little kids
- Let those kids play around the bunks in Birkenau
- Make out of the lawn in front of the punishment blocks
- Have a picnic on those lawns
- Pose for a picture holding on to the barbed wire (teenage boys)
- Pose for smiling group shots under the "arbeit macht frei" sign
- If you are a townsperson living in Auschwitz (and of course, anything starting like that is not going to end well) do not take your kids on a short cut through the camp when you are out biking to the village.
- Smoking
- Eat pork burgers
- Sell pork burgers (there were food stands)
- Sell OR buy posters showing the dead
- Buy or sell postcards
-If you are priest, offer a girl religious tracts, even after she tells you that she is Jewish!

Everyone there was SO disrespectful. They were Asian tour groups (with umbrellas and white-gloved hands and zillions of cameras) and Polish families out for free entertainment (no admission fee to the camps).

Auschwitz ia now called a 'museum'. Apparently 'death camp' is not tourist-friendly enough to draw in the crowds. I signed up for a tour, which started with an extremely graphic but not entirely acurate movie, and then a 3-hour tour of the camps. Things that the guid said included: "The Jews brought all of their things with them because they were deceived into thinking that they were going somewhere to resettle." As if they all had a choice and were stupid enought to be deceived. She also stressed that "Some Jews cooperated because they thought that if they were cruel to their own people they would be released early." The tour was NOT good. There was one other girl steaming on the tour and we soon abandoned the tour and went off by ourselves. She was livid and so was I. I know it was Shabbat, but with no Jews there it seemed like everyone was just gawking.

On the tour (and in Poland in general) there is a lot of the attitude that 'we suffered too and they made us do whatever we did'. NOBODY made the Pole kill Jews. They did that just fine before the Nazis showed up. I am leaving Poland none too soon. Krakow appears to be a fantastic city, but at 1 hour from Auschwitz I can't really enjoy it.

Tomorrow I go to Salzburg. The place I am supposed to stay closes before I arrive. What am I to do?!


(Behind me at the desk someone is 'booking Auschwitz for tomorrow morning'. How horrible does that sound?!)

Evening at the Yiddish Theatre

This has to be brief because I am catching the train to Krakow really early tomorrow and I am not packed yet (big surprise).

I saw a great play at the Yiddish Theatre tonight. It was mostly in Polish and only a tiny bit in Yiddish. That was sort of a disappointment, as the only Polish words that I could recognize were: gindobre, ginquen, (ignore horrible spelling). pan, pani, and Schvetska (which is the name of the street my grandfather grew up on and means 'Swedish' in Polish.) It was a slice of Jewish life in the slums from the beginning of the century. Now, I don't want to make many personal statements on the Internet, because anyone can read them, but I did feel that it was very ironic that the theatre celebrating Jewish life in Eastern Europe (probably the only one) is located only a few blocks from where these people were all shot or shipped away to be gassed. Yup, that definitely defines irony more than anything else I have seen yet.

I even bought a Yiddish magazine for my bubby!

The girl beside me has swelling bites just like I usually do. Eek! That means the mosquito are out - I just saw one while I was typing this. The rain today must have HATCHED them all. Oh NO!

Mum, you would be very proud of me. R too. After the play was over I took a CAB back to the hostel. No walking in the rain! Actually I was late for the play and could not find the theatre (there are two or three streets with almost the same name), so I hopped in a cab and made it just in time. The 2km cab ride (at night) back to the hostel cost (with a generous tip) a whopping 10 zloty. That is 2.50!!! Good thing I did not know about cheap cabs or I would not have had all the fab exercise. I must have walked over 10km today!!

Nothing else. I am very curious how my gerbils are faring at home, but alas nobody has told me.

Day 2 in Warsaw *or* If it doesn't rain, it pours.

It is pouring outside. I just walked 1.6 km in the rain and I am ready curl up in a warm bed and sleep. Alas, I cannot. I need to buy some supper and go to the Yiddish theatre tonight. Actually, I am really excited about that, but I am also really wet...

Today started with a delicious breakfast of sugary Kellogg's exported-to-Eastern-Europe brand cereal. Sort of like cinnamon toast crunch but with more sugar. I figured I would walk it off, and I SO did.

First thing I did after breakfast was to go the Nova Praga, to find the house where my grandfather used to live in. The area was not a great area. I went in an open coutryard and started taking pictures, and the people living in the houses came out and STARED at me. Not saying anything (not that I would have understood them if they HAD), but they just stared. The first few houses on Schwetska street had been turned into a parking lot (if they were ever there), but the house I think was £6 was still there. It had a courtyard and was 3 stories tall. It was awkward to take pictures with so many andgry-looking men around, but I did.. ha!

I went next to the older cemetery, which was just down the street. It was locked, and was mostly ruins. There were not many gravestones, they had been used to make roads, just grass and trees and a few headstones. The cemetery was locked, so I took a few pictures through the gate and caught the tram back accross the Vistula.

Next I went back to the store under the synagogue, where I had bought the neck-turing-green pendant. The man was fine with me exchanging it. I have a new one that happily says .925 and I am not yet green.

After that I walked down the streets where the ghetto uprising took place, down the the Umschlagplatz, where people were taked to be deported. The train tracks were gone, with plaques on office buildings and street corners, often with candles and fresh wreaths of flowers.

I was hungry after the umschlagplatz, but I noticed that I had forgotten my debit card at the hostel and I was almost out of Zloty. Eek! I had enough for admission to museums and a little lunch. I stopped at a farmer's produce stand (they are all around the urban city) and bought a bunch of radishes. What a great 1.50zl purchase!!

Next I visited (and remember, it took at LEAST 30 mins of walking and subwaying and then more walking and maybe a tram or two also to reach all of these locations) the Jewish Historical Centre. I watched their (v. graphic) film on the Warsaw Ghetto, and looked at their displays, then I went upstairs to talk to their offices of geneological research. They were not much help. I told them the names I was searching for and they logged onto Jewishgen. Grr! I can do that at home! They were nice and had interesting things to say but were not much help.

After that museum I went to the Warsaw uprising museum, stopping on the way at a little jewelery store who was selling silver and amber rings for only 23 zl!! I bought the cutest ring, and if it falls apart, I will get my 23 zl out of it. And besides, it has the .925 on it...

The Warsay uprising is a different event than the ghetto uprising, and is supposed to be one of the best museums in Poland. Well, the museum was shiny and there were actually signs in English. The room for children was a little strange though. There were tanks to colour, and they could dress up in an army uniform and pose behind the barracade. A video was playing with a children's choir singing about how good it would be to die for children to die fighting. They had a theatre that showed an interesting film, and entrance was only 2zl (30-40cents), so I was happy.

Then the rain started and the walking started, and here I am. And that is all for now!

Walking around Warsaw

My feet are very glad that I bought that pair of yellow sandals. So much walking for the poor things!

Today was a very eventful day. I am so tired and I wish I was hungry because I want sushi, but I am not hungry. Yet...

I started the day by taking the tram to Nova Praga, my grandfather's old neighbourhood. I was almost at his street when I noticed that my uncle had not provided me with the actual house number. Grr. Plan aborted. Back into central Warsaw, via the island of bears.

The island of bears or bear park or whatever it is called is a gate with a little moat behind it with a bunch of bears on rocks behind that. I know. Cruel for the bears etc. etc. The bears however were quite happy begging for food from the children whose mothers held them up over the fence (!)

I decided that I would spend most of my time in Warsaw visiting Jewish sights. I started with the Yiddish theatre, where I picked up my ticket for tomorrow night. There was a little Jewish shop beside the synagogue where I bought a Jewish charm. The shopkeeper guarenteed that it was silver. I pointed out that it had no stamp and he said that it was too small to stamp. I did not believe it was silver, but it was really cute, so I bought it anyway and my skin is now GREEN. Does green come off? Some of his charms DID have the stamps, so I am going back tomorrow to exchange it. It was only 3$, but HONESTLY!

Next I visited the synagogue, where I met Adi, a Jewish traveler from Melbourne, Austrilia. Who doesn't want to spend the day with someone who apologized for his somewhat ragged appearance, explaining that he had snorted way too much Cocaine in a club the night before...

We spent the rest of the day together, visiting the remnents of Jewish life in Warsaw. There are not many. A bit of Ghetto wall in a private courtyard (we had to ring and yell until someone let us in), a few monuments, the gate from Pawlak prison, a plaque at a mass grave between two apartment buildings. I saw everything except the Umshlagplatz and the museum (tomorrow).

The cemetery was the best I've ever visited. It is a huge walled area beside the Christian cemetery, with 250 000 graves. THAT many. It was crazy. A lot of it was damaged and there were open crypts and smashed headstones, but it was a beautiful place. Really nice to have a companion to trek through the woody cemetery, as it was easy to get lost in the towering brush and masses of stones.

At the cemetery there was a troupe of hasidic students from Brooklyn, only a few blocks away from where I used to live. Adi and I watched them crown around one grave to discuss it, and suddenly there was a crashing and a huge branch fell from the tree right above them. It must have hit them by inches. That would have been horribly dramatic, getting squished by nature in a cemetery... The nice caretaker looked up on his computer for relatives I am looking for. He has catalogued 7000 of the graves - just a beginning, but he found one Machtinger. I wonder if he is a cousin...

Afterwards Adi and I went for traditional Polish food. We had boiled Peirogies (mine with blueberries inside) and borscht with dill and cream. Ugh! The best part about Eastern Europe is that food is so so so cheap. Huge lunch, 3$! I love cheap (good) food!!

That's all for now. I am pretty annoyed about the necklace, but if I can't exchange it tomorrow I will use it for... well, scrapbooking I guess. When I wore it at the restaurant the man at our table (there were long tables) looked at it and then apologized for eating pork at my table. HA! I graciously told him that I did not mind if he ate pork (and then Ari ordered some...;) He explained that his mother had been adopted by gentiles during the war, who had then destroyed all records of her past so they could bring her up as fully theirs. Hmm! There are certainly interesting people to meet! He then told us all about living in the communist era, and how when one wanted to travel they were (hopefully)issued a passport to go overseas, but then had to turn it in when they returned to Poland. Adi made some kind of Secret police joke and got a lecture from the guy. Heh heh, I am so glad it wasn't ME who said anything about the Russian police !!

Okay, time to let someone else use the machine...

7 am in Eastern Europe

...and I am already annoyed!

At 7:00 exactly the banging started from accross the street at the construction site. Metal on metal. Bang banggg. I thought it was the gong for the free breakfast or something (which would be pretty lame as it is just buns and jam), but it did not stop.

I stumbled out of bed, clutching my swelling hand. Yup. Today is disfigurement day. Outside the ground is covered in 2-inch slugs (I had forgotten the slugs).

I came in here to check on my drying laundry, and right beside them the handyman was having his ciggie. My clean laundry in scent-free detergent!!

Conversation with the handyman:

Me: "Ack! My clean laundry will smell like smoke!"
He: "Smoka? Ya! Is Me!"
Me: "I KNOW it is you, you are smoking right besid... groooowl!"

Growl. Oh well, I didn't come to Poland for fruity umbrella drinks.
Handyman sounds consumptive. I hope he doesn't cough up his lung right on my socks.

This hostel...

...is so CLEAN, with new showers and new beds and it smells like wood and not smoke or shoes. Hurrah! And my room is all girls. Less snoring I hope?!

Last night I was bitten by something on my back once and on my hand twice. It keeps swelling and then going down. Tomorrow should be the day when it totally blows up. I AHTE waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning to feel bug venom coursing through my body. I am way too well acquainted with that feeling. And it is supposed to only happen once this trip and that was last week! Oh well, I have Benedryl this time...

Three countries, one day...and WHAT a find!

I ate breakfast (two chocklate-chip buns bought at the train station, and some sugar-free pineapple Fanta left over from the night before) in the train station in Copenhagen, lunch (take-away thai food - super cheap and mostly rice) on the pedestrian street in Sweden, and supper (sushi. I have been CRAVING sushi since R and I had it last week) in downtown Warsaw. That is my kind of day!

Not that it makes any sense at all, but I feel a HUGE sense of relief being out of Copenhagen. It is silly, since Poland is not usually relief-inspiring. I think it is because the Scandanavian countries are cold and rainy and so expensive right now, and Poland is CHEAP, and I understand how things work in Eastern Europe better than in Scandenavia.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I went to Malmo on a mission - no, not a *religious* kind of mission (although I saw two Jehovah Witnesses roaming the Malmo streets - I wonder if they actually had to learn Swedish before they came?). The mission I was on was a relative search. I knew that a bunch of may relatives came from Lithuania to Sweden, and I read on the Internet last night that when they came Jews were only allowed to settle in four places in the country. I had thought the my relatives lived in Landskrona or Lund, but as the closest Jewish centre to those two places (and the only location with a Jewish cemetary) was Malmo, I thought I would try my luck there.

I took an early train to Malmo, stashed my stuff in a locker, and get directions to the Synagogue. I wanted to know if there was a Jewish cemetary (I knew there WAS one, but no idea where) or a community centre. The lady at the information booth had no information about cemetary or centre, but she showed me how to walk to the synagogue. (It was either see the synagogue or go to Ikea, just to say that I had BEEN to Ikea in Sweden, and although a geaneology mission is more important, the Ikea trip would have been funny). I walked to the synagogue, stopping on the way to finish the last few pages of my book (The power and the Glory, by Graeme Greene. SUCH a good book. There were tears. And then I let the book go, on a sunny beanch in a side street...)

Anyway, I arrived at the synagogue and it was of course locked. I snapped a few photos, and then consulted my city map. Jewish community centre? Cemetary?? A few streets down there was a Christian cemetary, with an old caretaker sweeping leaves away. I managed to let it be known what I was looking for (and believe me, it was NOT easy. I don't know how to pronounce Swedish at ALL, so I just repeated 'syanagogen' and 'kirkgard' (cemetary. I think.) and gestured meaningfully. He finally understood, and pointed to the next yard over. I walked out the gate and over to the yard. It WAS the Jewish cemetary, but of course it was LOCKED! Oh, NO! There was no WAY I was going to turn back at this point. I went back to the man and performed a brilliant mime involving a locked gate and my utter desolation. He understood! He led me to the bruch separating the two yards, where there was a hidden path into the small Jewish yard.

Success! And even better, mu hunch had been correct. I spent over 2 hours there, and read all of the graves that had not yet crumbled. And I found...

-A great-great-great aunt and uncle.

-Three 1st cousins 3 times removed and their spouses.

Other names which are relations somehow, I am not sure how exactly though, and....

My great-great grandmother!!

I could not BELIEVE it when I found her little headstone, sitting crookedly in the corner. I had hoped to find relatives, but when I actually did I almost plotzed! Her name is Maria Sorgman, and she is the grandmother of my father's mother. So THERE! I am a brillian geneologist!

Tomorrow I cover all of the Jewish sights in Warsaw, and poke around in the massive cemetary, looking for relatives on my mother's father's side. Good fun.

Tonight I do laundry. Now, THAT will be amazing. It has been two weeks and it is TIME.

I adore traveling! Most of the time...

Off to Malmo (and then Poland)

Hurrah! Terrorist threat lessened, and now hand luggage is allowed. That is fab. Life is easier.

It's all relative...

Today was family day in the traveling life of *Me*. Armed with the luck that always seems to lead me well in my wild goose chases and my family tree printout (filled with highlighter and inked changes) I headed to the jewish museum. I had wanted to poke around the cemetery to look for familiar names but it was too POURING to go anywhere outside.

The museum was a bit sparse but interesting, and when I watched one of the videos I noticed that the producer of the video had a VERY familiar name. I ran back to the cloakroom to grab the roll of tree, and sure enough, the husband of the thrd cousin I was meeting later in the day had made the video. Neat!

I had showed the fam tree to the girl who was selling tickets, and she suggested that I ask the lady in the gift shop for advice about what research I could do. Well, I went to the gift shop, and she showed me a book about the Jews in the Danish town of Randers. The family of some of my relatives (related through marriage) was the last Jewsh family in that town! V. neat. I looked at the other books, and I found some penned by an Edelsten. There are groups of Adelstein/Addlestone/Edelstens on the tree, so I asked the book store lady about them. She asked to see the tree again, and...

Her daughter is married to my second cousin once removed!!

She told me tons of new names and I gav her a bunch of my business cards to pass on to the family, and hopefully they will contact me. How neat is that?! She said that if I had gone to synagogue I would meet them all, as they go every week. Sdly I am leaving tomorrow, but I have spent so much time LOOKING at the names that meeting them would have been amazing. I wonder if there is a Melanie-clone walking around somewhere?...

At 2pm I met one mf my 3rd cousins, who lives in Copenhagen. We went over the tree together and she told me storis about a bunch of the people and about Jewish life here in Copenhagen. She was the sweetest person (that must be where *I* get it!). The Jewish community is very small in Denmark. They generally do not wear Jewish jewlery or read hebrew papers in public, it is just not safe. Wow, I would have not guessed that about Denmark...

Time to eat the cold pizza I bought for dinner (it was not cold when I bought it. It was cheaper to get a huge custom pizza than a slice elsewhere, and I got it with hardly any cheese and tons of veg) and re-pack. Again. I am leaving a magazine and 2 books behind, but I have picked up 2 books (one is an introduction to Philosophy!) at the hostel book exchange. Hurrah for free reading!

Tomorrow I am on to Sweden and then later in the day to Warsaw, Poland. Except for a few things (!!), I have managed to spend very little money in this city. Bus fare, one pizza and a bottle of Fanta, and 4 little things from H&M (I KNOW, but they were 2.50$ each. For sweaters. And it is SOO cold!)

Meeting the relatives

Hurrah, I meet the relatives tomorrow. One of them, anyway. I am tres excited, and am trying to update the fam tree - the one I printed out at home was out of date, drat drat. Just my luck, right?

Copenhagen

The weather may have a lot to do with it, but I donøt like this city. At all. It is dirty and confusing and smoky and expensive. I think that a day and a half will be just right. How clever I was staying longer in Oslo and just a few days here! Maybe I am less urban than I thought.

At the Copenhagen train station I bought my ticket fron Krakow to Salzburg. I figured that it would be easier to do here, where more people speak English (when I ask if people speak English the answer is: Of COURSE I do!) Well, excuuuuse me, assuming that you spoke language that is foreign to you. Eek!!

Tomorrow I meet relatives and maybe visit some Jewish sights, then the next day on to Poland. I am so tired, I wish I was home or with sis.

...from Stansted airport

I am in the WH Smith past security in the Stansted airport. It is a madhouse in here, as nothing but a passport, money and key fobs are allowed past security. They took away my pen about 3 seconds after the Ryanair staffer said that I was allowed to take it. The bag they had was FULL of goodies - makeup and lighters and my grotty but loved pen. Oh well, it is just an old bic.

My face is sort of burning right now. It may be from the thick fingerful of clinique moisture surge I swiped from the duty-free. I look like a slimy monster I bet, but I NEED the moisture.

The airport is MAD. Luckily for me, Ryanair allowed an extra 10 Kilos or weight. I didn't get a lot of sleep, since a group of Rastas were drumming and singing all night. I asked a bobby if he could please ask them to keep it down. He gave me a LOOK and said that they weren't doing anything illegal and it was not that loud (it was). Whn I asked them they gave me a LOOK also and started banging louder. Grr.

It is nice to be through security. I have no idea how long it will take to get to Sweden, so I am going to brave the bookstore queue and buy a book. Nothing else, really, just that I was probably the only one NOT given a body patdown. For ONCE. No disaster, open season on Melanie patting, terrorist threat, and I get no love !!
more from Malmo (or Copenhagen)!

More pictures...

...and wee Lysander, 'cause I MISS him!

Pictures from London

How I had pictured Oslo before I came...



Me in London (tra LA)



Enjoying the Oslo beach (on a VERY hot day)



Vigeland sculptures illuminated by the setting sun - Oslo




Me in Oslo - hurrah, best city ever!



R and I at Vineopolis



Me at the Vigeland museum

New airport regulations (hopefully temporary)

http://www.stanstedairport.com/assets/B2CPortal/Static%20Files/Security_flyer.pdf

A bit weary of terror

There have been 7 flights cancelled on Ryanair for tomorrow, but luckily mine is not one of them. Yet. I am heading there soon and I have no idea what I will find, but hopefully I will get to Malmo Sweden on schedule, with all my luggage...

Ryanair yikes

Guess which airline is no longer allowing carry-one bags, and has reduced the number of checked bags to ONE?!

This means that all of my things need to fit in the one suitcase. Including my purse (full) and my backpack (full). What about my travel pillow and waterbottle? No, it ALL needs to fit, all all all of it.

This is not fair. I could have brought one big suitcase, but I didn't want to haul it everywhere. Drastic measures need to be taken. I am too tired to throw myself off the London Bridge, so r suggested that I ship some of my things to Salzburg. That is a brilliant idea! Tonight I repack. Goodbye extra laundry detergent. Goodbye granola bars and 5 visor hats and cute sewing kit and some of my music. Goodbye everything extrenuous! I think that shipping things to an unknown destination will net necessarily go smoothly, and I would mych rather somehow bring everything with me. It must be possible SOMEHOW. Yipes and yipes again.

I don't want to look suspicious, but I can wear a few layers, especially with the underclothes...

R's London Birthday

We did so much today! It was R's birthda, so we got to have fun all day!

It is late and I am so tired, but here is what we did:

1- R mailed a bunch of her things home. The airlines are not allowing anything on planes, not even bottled water, so R decided to send a bunch of the things home that she would otherwise have carried on the plane. I stuffed a jacket and a shawl into the package, which is fab, since I will have less to carry. I have troubles. I have one small suitcase to check and a purse and a backpack to carry on. Now I cannot carry anything on, but can only check 2 bags. The next flight is not going to be easy.

2- To the Mark and Spencer store to buy a picnic lunch. The store had a deal on - with 4L of food we would get a free lunch box. Free! Lunch box! R and I now have matching birthday lunchboxes.

3- Next, to the zoo! I love the zoo. We looked at all of the animals and I bought the cutest stuffed mouse! Her name is Clementine...

4- To a wine tasting at Vineopolis. When sis and I tried to do wine tastings we had just recovered from 2 days of food poisoning in Cape Town. Oooh! We had fun, but did not taste a lot of wine... This time we tasted wine and absynthe, and then...

5- To Shakespears's Globe theatre! We went as groundlings, which meant that we stood (ugh!) The play was about pirates, not a Shakespeare at all. In the first five minutes one man whipped off his pants and whipped out... yikes!

That is all, time to recover before more walking tomorrow. One would think that I would be extremely skinny with all this walking. Alas, this is not yet the case...

Terror in London

...no, it is not one of my adventures, but there has been a big terror plot uncovered here, and traveling has just become a lot more difficult.

No carry-on bags. No books or water or purses. I am shipping some things home...ykies! Even bottle milk for babies has to be tasted by the babies' mother before it is allowed...

Yikes!

Jolly old

I have been in London for the past day, running around with R and doing everything fun that there is to do! We are off again so this will be brief, with more details later. Yesterday we saw the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels (there is a moving sidewalk going past so there is not any time to SEE them, and that is after lining up forever), a really bad tea and coffee museum (I KNOW. Tea and Coffee in a museum. Should have known), and old operating theatre, where there was a display on trepanning. I think trepanning is fascinating so I was very pleased to see that. The theatre was quite disturbing actually - it is abover a church, no anesthetic was used during the operations and sawdust covered the floor so that the spurting blood would not drip down into the church. We also saw a wonderful museum about Britain at War, with a bomb shelter and the recreation of a bombed street.

Okay, time to go!

Try 3 - Oslo Torp

This post was just erased. SO annoying! I will type fast and be brief so that it will not happen again. Not that I have anything that interesting to say, but the toddler screaming in the airpot terminal has such a piercing voice that the noise makes me break out in a cold sweat. Honestly. Of course she or he will be on my flight. Lucky me. Apparently I cannnot press enter. Got it. I arrived here a few minutes ago on the shuttle from Oslo. I pushed my way off the flight and into the front of the Ryanair line, which means that my boarding card is number 58, and as one of the first 90 to board, I get priority. Perfect. I slept for most of the bus ride, so it went really fast. I have not slept much here, there is just too much to do and to see. I have to go find some beer or mini-drink for R. I looked everywhere in town, but all there was was Tubourg, which we can get at home anyway. The liguor stres are centralized I think, called Likormonopol or something creative, and they were all CLOSED! Instead I browsed in a jewelery shop looking for troll beads. There were not any beads, but there was a water cooler, and I poured a cup of water for myself and then one for the beggar sitting outside. It was at least 31 degrees today! And then I exchanged my kroner into pounds. I had taken out way toomany kroner for my frugal plans, and now it is in tidy overvaluedpounds. The rate was really good, with no commission.Oh, I have learned so many words here - a few: Velkommen is welcome, Utgang is gate, but I have also seen it used as exit. Innland is domestic. And themost important is SALG, which is sale in Norwegien! Thank you mum for many other useful words. I am listening right now ti Bruckner symphony 0 (yes there is one) on my nifty MP3, and that is all, I guess. If this gets erased I will cry. Not that there is much to say in it, but I have typed it so many times. Oh, my wasp bite itches. I went to another apothke to ask why the cream was not workiong and they said they had no idea, it is SUPPOSED to work. The itch/swelling radius is 1.5 inches in every direction from the bite. The bite HURT for 2 days and I was okay with that. Wasp bites are supposed the hurt. Then my sensitive body decided that perhaps it should react. Body, this was not a mosquito. Why are you doing this to me?!?! I did not see ONE mosquito in Norway. I love this country. I am going to murder that baby. Sorry mum, buy HONESTLY. If youcould hear it! One scream after another.. not crying, SCREAMING...

The Scream and other fun

Oh no! My last day in Oslo is almost over. I donæt want to leave, I adore this city!

I started the day at the city hall (maybe?) watching he guards march back and forth for about 10 mnutes. they had been standing there, but suddenly all the guards from all over the grounds began to march. They didnæt change or anything sensible like that, just hefted their bayonets (REAL bayonets!) and marched.

When the National Gallery opened I went to see the paintings and of course, Edvard Munsch´s (NOT pronounced munch I was sternly told when I asked for directions) The Scream. The original is not a happy painging. It is faded and scraped and looks very drab. The Screams we see are touched up considerably. But is it The Scream, after all...

After wandering in the gallery for an hour I was itching for a pad of drawing paper. I decided to see if I could find an art store. I hopped the 11 tram in the direction of Vigeland park, and got off at a posh-looking stationary store. It was full of drawing pens and expensive pads of papers. luckily, this is the time of year where every store has a sale, and some of the more unpopular colours of pencil (such as black. I didn´t want to argue with the shopkeeper, whose English was impressive, but since when is a BLACK drawing pencil unpopular?) were only 5 kroners. There was one pad onsale. i had wanted the pink bound pas with the white princess on the front. This one was coil-bound and blue, with a baby in a carriage on it. Well, I have nothing against babies, of course! Oh joy! Sale art supplies!

My next stop en route to Vigeland was the Apotheke. My yearly visit! This time I needed a pharmacist to help my wasp bite, which has swollen and hardened and is itching so much I just want to BITE someone! The helpful pharmacist looked at it, said that if I had come in right away she could have treated it, but since my body was angry now she could only sell me a soothing cream.

Luckily, the cream was only a few dollars. Unfortunately, the cream does not work, has gotten one leg of my few pairs of pants filthy, and actually attracts more wasps. After applying the cream I spent most of the day dodging more wasps.

At Vigeland part I sat on the bridge railing and sketched for a while (people took pictures of me and asked if they could look. (What, free attention? YOU want to look at ME? Of COURSE!!) The wasp situation was getting unbearable, so I moved myself to the indoor Vigeland museum, and spent around an hour figuring out how to sketch the naked male figure. I felt very artsy. After I got tired of looking at granite genitalia, I ate my usual lunch of hard boiled eggs and jam sandwiches on the lawn beside a rose garden.

On the way back to my hostel, I made the mistake of stopping at H&M. THREE more H&Ms. It is not my fault that they are beside one another and that they are having crazy sales! I bought: A bikini top to go with the bikini bottom I bought the other day (I know. Topless is more fun, but a girl should be able to cover up if she HAS to). 2$. Three summer hats. 2.30$ The cutest tank top. 4$ (I know, that one was expensive). Two black jackets. One that fits me now and one that is a bit small that will go home and wait for me there. 3.60$ EACH. So I spent 14$ or so and had the best time. Well, it is not like I am paying for food. I am worried about paying too much for food in London. I can keep to a budget when I am alone, but I donæt know if R and I have the same ideas about cheap eats. I have spent 16$ TOTAL on food in the last 4 days, and in London, I spent that in the one meal I had there. And Norway is double the price! I am just a bit worried... Of course, hat Thai meal was to DIE for in London and I want some more now!

Okay, time to find a store that sells Noewegian liquor to get R a small bottle of something, and then on to London. We are giong to have so much fun! And r, if you are reading this, I didnæt mean I donæt want to eat, I am just a bit worried, that is all, because when one is with someone else, eating stale bread and egg whites with pepper is less appealing.

Okay, more later! I am going to have to send some things home...

Breakfast time!

I woke up and showered and skipped down to breakfsat, only to find that it was 6:30 and it was still too EARLY for food! I obviously cannot read a watch. Toda is my last day in Oslo. I am going to try to see a few more museums and perhaps go to an island... after free brekky, of course!

Shopping spree

I decided that I had had enough sightseeing and it was time for shopping! i set a reasonable limit: 100 Kroner, or 16$ Canadian. Luckily for me, the stores are having their twice-yearly sales, and I bought:

-A woolen shawl. It is pink and gold and I love it SOO much. Bulky though, so I will have to mail it home.

-Hair barettes, which i desperately need

-A visor hat, which I may return

-A pyjama top, which I sort of need singe I am staying in a communal dorm, but it is so hot I do not really want to war a pyjama top at all. The top was overpriced, so I may return it. I ended up underbudget and pretty pleased with my purchases...

One more day here, then on to London...

Bvgdøy Day

I have had a very enjoyable day thus far, and I did not even step FOOT in an H&M!

I took the 30 bus this morning to Bvgdøy, which is a peninsula (I love that word.. peninsula.. it is so nautical) and visited two museums. The first was a Viking musum, with two massive viking boats that had been later used as burial vessels and subsequently discovred.. like the pyramids, but a boat. Wow, the Noresmen knew how to build a boat. They even had nails back then. I was very impressed with all of the weaving and gold and brass and the decorations on the boats.

I walked down to Huk beach and waded in the water until the loosely tended naked toddler wading beside me gurgled and started peeing. I know that the ocan is not that clean, but ew.

The second museum was like Fort Edmonton Park but with villages and time periods relating to Norway. It was a bit like being in a Sierra game. Buildings were everywhere, and you just had to wander until one was discovered with an open door and some action inside. Some of the buildings closed for a while and then opened againg.. yes, very much like Sierra!

I watched a music demonstration (when I asked what the pretty song was, the `authentic` Norwegian girl sheepishly admitted that she had been retailing us with a SWEDISH fold melody. Oops!

The best part of the museum was the èxtreme makeover`when they chose a girl and turned her into a Norwegian noblewomen. I of course hoped to be chosen to make a specticla of myself, but I was not that disappointed in my role of spectator. The whole thing was just too funny, and I captured it all on tape!

First the authenticlly dressed maid announced that she would be putting on a play. She was the maid, and she was 35 years old (she was really about 24). Unfortunately. even though there was only one audiance member who spoke or understood Norwegian (the chosen girl`s friend) the script was, unfortunately, in Norwegian, but we would be given a piece of paper explaining the action, and we would know that the play began when the authenticlly-dressed girl put on her maid`s cap, and the play would end when the cap was removed.

The English version of the script (excerpt):

"The 17-year-old bride to be dressed for an English-style afternoon tea party arranged to plan the wardrobe for her wedding.

"Karen enters, dressed in her underclothes, to try on her new dress.

"Clean shift, new stockings made from the highest quality cotton all the way up to her knees - and no lice in the hair today!"

I almost wet my pants. "no lice in th hair...today" Poor girl. Then the extremely skinny volunteer was still too large for the dress to do up, so the entire costume had to be removed and the corset strings tichtened until the girl was purple i the face and looked like she was about to faint. And all the time the ddressing was going on the ´maid` was chattering on in incomprehensible Norwegian.

Great morning. I am so tired though!

Nickerman Norseman

... I GET it now! Why was our motto NORWEGIAN explorers?!

Vigeland Evening

I lay down in my room for 3 minutes... and slept for 2.5 hours! When I woke up it was evening and I was not sure what I should do.. I took my nicked eggs to the park for a picnic, and a Assyrian from Rome sat down and started pestering me. I talked to him for a few minutes (meeting people always makes a good story) and was about to get up and leave because he was a bit creepy when he asked me to go for a walk with him. Yikes! I said I had friends coming ANY MINUTE and as soon as he left I scooted back to the hostel. WHY can a girl never just sit...?

With a couple of hours until dark and the goal to spend no money (I have lots of money, but I am curious if it can be done) I set off to the Vigeland sculpture park using my ram pass.

Tha park was absolutely fabulous. I may go back tomorrow to see the museum. these are the best sculptures I have ever seen. I want to be a sculpturer too!

Time to sneak off this computer and go to bed. Tomorrow will probably bring more beach, the national gallery, and Huk, an Island (accessible by public ferry) with a Norwegien tourist village.

No elkhounds yet...

...or trolls

The best things in Norway are...

My entire post just got erased. Not fair, especially since i am not supposed to be using this computer...

Okay.. first i want to reiterate that Oslo is indeed an expensive city. it is ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world, and it is that. Even McDonalds is double the price, with an extra charge if one wants to eat sitting down in the restaurant (I am being generous with the word restaurant)

At breakfast this morning i was reading about all the expensive things that one can do in Oslo, when I had a breakthrough. ¨Just a minute^, I thought, ¨Do I really WANT to see all these museums?¨ Answer: NO! I wanted to do what all fo the Oslo locals were doing, and that was go to the beach.

I took bus 60 to the docks, and rode the ferry to the most populard island on OsloFjord (a Fjord is water, by the way. i always thought it was an island or an iceberg). A nice older couple on the ferry told me to stick to the left side of the island, that the right side was for families and I would not be so comfortable there. When I arrived at the Island i understood. The family beach occupies the right part of the Island. Around a bend to the left is the topless beach, and further around is the clothing optional beach. I settled near the couple of the topless section (as the nice older woman promptly removed her top and bra). Did these strangers know me or what!

As I hiked accross rocks and a field toward this beach, I was in a very good mood. Why was I so cheery?

1- I was nio hungry, and the fab hostel breakfast had been free
2- I had nicked food for lunch, also free
3- I had a bottle of water (well, diet sprite, but it was a hot day and it is nice to have something. The store was all sold out of water)
4- I was about to sunbathe topless (tee hee)
5- Other people were too!

I swam and lay on the rocks, carefully sunscreened. The next time I went for a swim, the nice girl from the next towel (I say next towel but I alas had no towel and raped myself accross the pebbly shald rock face as I lounged) came in too. MUCH more fun to have a swim buddy. She discovered a jellyfish which we carefully avoided, but otherwise the water was scary creature-free. We swam a few more times during the afternoon, and sunbathed on our respective rock faces.

Partway through the afternoon a wasp decided to bit my ankle. Not fair, but what is a trip without an injury Wasp bites HURT! I could not carry on too much, because the nice girl (whose name sounded like a mumble starting with some kind of a vowel) poured some of her special serum on it. She ways that she uses this serum for all injuries. The bottle, written in English, stated that the serum was ecanecia and water, meant to be consumed for a calming effect. Of COURSE it would do nothing when poured upon a throbbing wasp bite. It still hurts, but I am brave!

I did not get burned at all. Thanks for the big bottle of sunscreen mum! Most other people were burned, but I stayed well hidden (at least when the shirt was on) and the sun could not find me.

Iæm not sure what to do for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I am ging to HUK beach. Tuesday probably another beach. These beaches do not have sand or beachy stones. They are shale cliffs ending in water. Getting in and out is awkward and not oo safe, but it is fun.

Email me!

I have not spent even one kroner today! Good for me!!

The only bargain in oslo

I am clandestinely using the hostel computers - as with everything else, they are overpriced.

Expensive city! For example, 6 avocado maki that cost 2.58$ at Sushi Express are 45 kroner, or almost 6$!!

There is, however an H&M, and all their clearance is 70% of! I bought a bikini bottom for 9kroner and wo hats for 26 kroner total. Good deals! My roommates were shocked when I told them that I had found something cheap here!

This is the city of bad fashion decisions. It is hot, and I am all about celebrating different bodies, but not everything has to be worn 3 sizes too small. Flesh bubbles out of the most unflattering places, and bras are optional.

In that spirit, I followed the crowd yesterday morning to a ferry that went to some of the islands narby. I am not a prude and i have skinny-dipped before, but topless at a family beach was a bit of a surprise. A WELCOME surprise, since the day was hot. The bikini bottom came in handy. AT first I swam in my bra but soon that was drying on the rocks and I was exposing a part of my body that has never seen the sun before to some loovely UV rays.

I bought a pizza from the supermarket for supper, and a salad from McD, but I was too tired to eat the salad so I gave it away to a beggar.

Todayæs meals will consist mostly of fliched breakfast goodies. i made an extra sandwich for any beggars I pass.

More later, time to slather sunscreen and explore!

Oslo Torp - Yes, I am at it again!

*Guess where I am? Not at home. Not in England, though I was there yesterday. I am in... OSLO øslø OSLO!!!

I have not slept in almost 3 days. I caught the airplane to London at 8pm on the 3rd of August. Arrived at 2pm on the 3rd. I took the train to Victoria Station and the tube to Astor college, where my friend R is staying. She had left instructions for the security guard to let me in her room during the day, so I slept for about 30 minutes, washed a shirt that had been leaked on by a pen (A NEW shirt. good thing for Shout wipes) and then repacked.

R arived and then we walked for ages and ate the best curry ever (it was expensive though) then I took the Stansted bus to the airport. That was sort of a nightmare, as I had no idea whee to catch the bus, and I had only 3 minutes and everyone kept telling me a different directin. I arrived at the stop finally when a kindly Londoner took pity on me and LED me there (see, being cute helps!). It was chilly and I was all sweaty from running and then in the end the bud was 40 mintues late and I was freezing. My sweater was wet from when I washed it.

VERY miserable bus ride.
Long night at the airport.
Easy plane ride
2-hour bus ride TO Oslo

And I am here! My skin is so dry that I slit of finger with the nail of the ohter... by accident of course. My throat is so dry.... and I realized that I dinæt even know one word of norwegian.

Oh well, time for lunch!