{"id":37,"date":"2004-10-01T20:11:38","date_gmt":"2004-10-02T00:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/2004\/10\/01\/good-bye-europe\/"},"modified":"2004-10-01T20:11:38","modified_gmt":"2004-10-02T00:11:38","slug":"good-bye-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/2004\/10\/01\/good-bye-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Bye Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

In case you haven’t
\nnoticed, this trip has become something of an exploration of certain
\nthemes, which has resulted in several somber posts over the last week
\nor so.  Themes like contemporary Jewish life and culture,
\nretracing my family history, learning about the culture that was lost,
\ngenocide, fascism, human depravity.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there are other themes I haven’t mentioned.  <\/span><\/p>\n

One is the great time I had being
\nwith my family for the last half of my trip.  My dad is such a joy
\nto be around and we are so close – it was great to see Rome with him
\nand Sara and Marie, and celebrating the holidays with them over there
\nwas particularly nice.  <\/span><\/p>\n

THANKS DAD!<\/span><\/p>\n

It was also great to be with Sara; as
\nyou know we traveled together for a week after Dad and Marie went back
\nto the U.S.  We had some great experiences together and a lot of
\nlaughs.  Laughing till your sides hurt is always fun. 
\nBecause we don’t live in the same city, we never ran out of things to
\ntalk about.  Sometimes we would spontaneously say the same thing
\nat the same time which was funny and disconcerting at the same time.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

I really enjoyed watching Sara’s mind
\nwork, in part because I know what her experiences have been, such as
\nbackpacking for over a year through Central and South America, and of
\ncourse because she’s my younger sister and I’ve known her my whole
\nlife.  Little things like watching her eagerly devour the Italian
\nphrasebook and copy many words into her own little notebook, or seeing
\nher pronounce perfectly the Polish word for “excuse me,” which is
\n“Pszepraszam” (pron. pshe-PRASH-am).  Or when we were at the Roman
\nForum and she told me to be sure and check out the perfectly preserved
\nmarble floor in the former hall where the Roman Senate met 2,000 years
\nago.  <\/span><\/p>\n

And of course, much of the trip has
\nbeen about just being a tourist, seeing the sights, and all that good
\nstuff.  My main comment here is that no one reading this should go
\nto Europe without including a trip to Krakow.  That is one great
\ncity.  I’ve gushed enough about it to make all of you sick, so I
\nwon’t go on and on again.  But I have to mention my trip this
\nmorning to the Collegium Maius, the oldest building of Jagellonian
\nUniversity, the second-oldest college in Central Europe.  It’s so
\nold that Copernicus went there!  They had some of his astronomical
\ninstruments, some great old globes and astrolabes, and in general it
\nwas just cool to be in such a venerated old institution.  It looks
\njust like you would imagine a very old university to look – dark wood
\nbeams, old scientific instruments, very very old books in centuries-old
\nbookcases with lead glass windows, etc.  Knowledge and learning
\nseemed to seep from the walls.  Don’t miss it. <\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you haven’t noticed, this trip has become something of an exploration of certain themes, which has resulted in several somber posts over the last week or so.  Themes like contemporary Jewish life and culture, retracing my family history, learning about the culture that was lost, genocide, fascism, human depravity. But there are other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1453],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jackstriptoeuropestories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jackstriptoeurope\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}