A staycation is a brilliant modern travel plan in which you stay where you live (or, we'll say, within two hours away), but act as if you are new in town.
Reasons to Go on a Staycation:
- No expensive train / plane tickets
- No exhaustive packing / keeping track of luggage
- Travel time is not compressed [it takes no time at all to return because you're still where you were before!]
- No major time agreements have to be made [you don't have to worry about if other people will want to spend time on what you want to do]
- You do not encounter tourist-trap prices or 'scams'
Going on a staycation is an inexpensive way to live it up where you live. You can drop all of your priorities and enjoy yourself for as long as you have in which to do so. You could even stay in bed and watch TV all weekend, if that's what you like to do. It's the best and easiest way in which to do nothing in the truest sense of the phrase.
My travels thus far have been to far-off places (Florence, Cinque Terre, Munich, Prague and Vienna). Each of these places have required spendy transportation and paying attention to details in order to make it back to school on time. There are rules for such vacations that you must remember and maintain.
Not so with a staycation.
This weekend I am going on my own staycation. Some friends and I are going to explore the towns around Paderno Del Grappa because up to now I have been 'too busy,' disinterested, or (some other lame excuse). I have a four-day weekend at my disposal, so now there are no excuses; it's time to rock and roll.
This weekend there are no time constraints and no headaches except for what to do next. I have been to Asolo and Crespano, but only briefly because I had pressing matters that confined my time and attention. I could not fully appreciate the towns because I was in a rush. This weekend I could return to both, and I could even explore entirely new towns like Bassano and Vicenza. I want to make a return trip to Venice (a less-than-one-hour straight-shot once you get to the train station in nearby Bassano), but we'll see if that happens.
It is exciting to have the freedom to make choices from minute to minute and fly by the seat of your pants. There's no time like the present to think of things you might or might not do.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Dachau
The day before we went to Oktoberfest [Saturday] we decided that since we were in Munich we would take a tour of Dachau, the original concentration camp. I was intrigued that we could see it up close and personal, but I was also wary of what part of history it represents.
Dachau was the camp around which all others were modeled. Commanders put in charge of running such camps were trained there. Dachau was the place that people feared worldwide.
We entered through the front gate of the compound, black with a cross-bar design. On the gate door is spelled out ARBEIT MACHT FREI ('Work Makes You Free') This is notable because it is the biggest lie ever told. Those words are there because the Nazis wanted to make Dachau seem clean and efficient, an institution in which enemies of the state were reformed and improved through hard labor and discipline (we know that this was a fabrication as well: it was a place of starvation, cruelty and an asylum in which one was worked to death).
The open pen of the main camp was very scary because I knew that millions of people had been hanged, gassed and tortured without mercy within its walls.
The buildings are a solemn, pale, white, as if they are haunted by reminiscences of the atrocities that they witnessed.
I did not want to speak inside of Dachau because speaking is not appropriate, and there is nothing to say. It is the last place in the world for merriment; rather, it is a memorial of the horrific tragedies the world will never forget.
We watched a black-and-white film about what went on at Dachau. The film was from the '60s and narrated the story of what Dachau was and how it functioned. It was supposed to be informational, to spread awareness of what life was like for a prisoner inside of its walls for those who were uninformed. There was graphic footage of the dead and dying, and you really get a sense that you're sitting in the place that was once the most vile institution ever concieved.
The German nation is eager to let the world see the memorials of what happened, as a statement that they are in no way denying that it happened or that it was a dark period in the history of humanity. They want to stress that the Nazi Era is not representative of the rest of German history, and that those who subscribed to such evils are not the same as the rest of the German people. Dachau survivors are invited to come back to honor the dead and find closure, but why in the world would you ever go back to the place where you were starved, worked, beaten and considered less than a rodent for (most often) years at a time? There are memorial statues all over and the camp, which has been re-established as a museum to honor those who were victims.
After the main building which had maps and displays of the Third Reich's expansion and the different tortures that were carried out, we walked past the plots where the barracks used to be. The barracks were the shacks in which prisoners were jammed shoulder-to-shoulder into bunks with no ventilation and no personal space except for one's weary, unhappy thoughts (why should you be given anything when you are sent there to die?) At the end of the barrack rows are enormous Christian and Jewish monuments, a tower that bears the cross and a shrine with the Star of David.
Down this stretch there are trees which are old and thin and add to the depressing atmosphere of this house of horrors.
From there we saw the crematorium, the long building in which prisoners were forced into taking Zyclon-B showers and suffocated to death with poison gas. The Nazis used Zyclon-B, a rat poison, per Joseph Goebbels' propaganda that equated Jews to rats and other pests:
‘It is true that the Jew is a human being, but so is a flea a living being - one that is none too pleasant . . . our duty towards both ourselves and our conscience is to render it harmless. It is the same with the Jews.'
This very subject is difficult to write about.
We walked through the building and passed through the actual gas chambers and I have never been so creeped out in all of my life. I was standing in a room in which countless people had been showered with acid and gassed before their bodies were put into ovens and cremated. When the camp was functional the room was fitted with fake shower heads to lure the prisoners into a false sense of security. The prisoners were made to disrobe so that their prison clothes could be washed and used for the next wave of prisoners brought to the camp by train. The shower heads have long since been removed, but the grates on the floor and the ceiling remain. The next room had the large brick ovens in which bodies were burned to ash. It was strange to actually see a former concentration camp. One can FEEL the death in the silence around the compound. Though it was intriguing to take a tour of the site, don't feel right calling it interesting because it is a memorial to the evil that once plagued the earth and killed so many. It deserves absolutely no positive review.
Throughout the tour and to my ultimate dismay these two women were posing and smiling for pictures in front of the huge map of all the hundreds of concentration camps there ever were in the Nazi Empire. I could only watch in disbelief as they did because I had assumed that no one would make light of it. My friend and I wanted to say something, but we did not because we were too bewildered. Dachau is NOT Disneyland (in fact it's the exact opposite) and you DON'T trivialize a holocaust museum.
Dachau was the camp around which all others were modeled. Commanders put in charge of running such camps were trained there. Dachau was the place that people feared worldwide.
We entered through the front gate of the compound, black with a cross-bar design. On the gate door is spelled out ARBEIT MACHT FREI ('Work Makes You Free') This is notable because it is the biggest lie ever told. Those words are there because the Nazis wanted to make Dachau seem clean and efficient, an institution in which enemies of the state were reformed and improved through hard labor and discipline (we know that this was a fabrication as well: it was a place of starvation, cruelty and an asylum in which one was worked to death).The open pen of the main camp was very scary because I knew that millions of people had been hanged, gassed and tortured without mercy within its walls.
The buildings are a solemn, pale, white, as if they are haunted by reminiscences of the atrocities that they witnessed.
I did not want to speak inside of Dachau because speaking is not appropriate, and there is nothing to say. It is the last place in the world for merriment; rather, it is a memorial of the horrific tragedies the world will never forget.
We watched a black-and-white film about what went on at Dachau. The film was from the '60s and narrated the story of what Dachau was and how it functioned. It was supposed to be informational, to spread awareness of what life was like for a prisoner inside of its walls for those who were uninformed. There was graphic footage of the dead and dying, and you really get a sense that you're sitting in the place that was once the most vile institution ever concieved.
The German nation is eager to let the world see the memorials of what happened, as a statement that they are in no way denying that it happened or that it was a dark period in the history of humanity. They want to stress that the Nazi Era is not representative of the rest of German history, and that those who subscribed to such evils are not the same as the rest of the German people. Dachau survivors are invited to come back to honor the dead and find closure, but why in the world would you ever go back to the place where you were starved, worked, beaten and considered less than a rodent for (most often) years at a time? There are memorial statues all over and the camp, which has been re-established as a museum to honor those who were victims.After the main building which had maps and displays of the Third Reich's expansion and the different tortures that were carried out, we walked past the plots where the barracks used to be. The barracks were the shacks in which prisoners were jammed shoulder-to-shoulder into bunks with no ventilation and no personal space except for one's weary, unhappy thoughts (why should you be given anything when you are sent there to die?) At the end of the barrack rows are enormous Christian and Jewish monuments, a tower that bears the cross and a shrine with the Star of David.
Down this stretch there are trees which are old and thin and add to the depressing atmosphere of this house of horrors.
From there we saw the crematorium, the long building in which prisoners were forced into taking Zyclon-B showers and suffocated to death with poison gas. The Nazis used Zyclon-B, a rat poison, per Joseph Goebbels' propaganda that equated Jews to rats and other pests:
‘It is true that the Jew is a human being, but so is a flea a living being - one that is none too pleasant . . . our duty towards both ourselves and our conscience is to render it harmless. It is the same with the Jews.'
This very subject is difficult to write about.
Throughout the tour and to my ultimate dismay these two women were posing and smiling for pictures in front of the huge map of all the hundreds of concentration camps there ever were in the Nazi Empire. I could only watch in disbelief as they did because I had assumed that no one would make light of it. My friend and I wanted to say something, but we did not because we were too bewildered. Dachau is NOT Disneyland (in fact it's the exact opposite) and you DON'T trivialize a holocaust museum.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Five Cities by the Sea
Since 1998 the Italian Ministry for the Environment has been taking action to preserve this spectacle that is Cinque Terre. Italy has created the Parco Nazionale delle Cinque Terre to preserve the cities, the coast and their wildlife from pollution and other forms of destruction.
The small towns, Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore, are connected by a hiking trail that anyone can handle. You do not need to be in shape to complete this venture (Look at ME! I did just fine) It's a great walk and you will meet all sorts of people along the way (we ran into a group of American girls studying in Rome).There is a 5-Euro entry fee to walk among the towns, but don't fret: IT'S ABSOLUTELY WORTH IT.
The crown jewel of this hike is what I call the Tunnel of Love, a tunnel carved out of rock that resembles a medieval cliffside fortification. On the walls of this tunnel is a stunning display of graffiti murals of every shape and color. This is not your typical graffiti; these masterpieces reflect the wonders of nature and the human imagination. People have added to the amazing collection over time, adding to the splendor of the rocky visage. At the end of the tunnel is a plaque paying tribute to The Beatles that reads:
And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.
My buddy Charlie and I spent lots of time in there, marveling at the varieties of art and inspiration. I took pictures of every one of the tunnel's wonders because it is something that I never want to forget.
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