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“For a capital city, Wellington is really small. Maybe it’s the smallest in the world, besides, like, some place in the Faroe Islands.”

My news analysis lecturer was talking about media markets at the time, but my mind wandered to just how small Wellington really feels. Not as tiny as Torshavn (Thanks CIA World Factbook!), but there is one thing that makes it feel that way. Fewer than 200,000 people call Wellington city home, but because it’s the cultural capital of the country, there are always hundreds of things going on, making it impossible to be bored. No, what makes it feel like the smallest of small towns is my inability to go anywhere without running into someone I know. This often works out in interestingly coincidental ways. After trying to make plans with a friend, we agreed to meet up another day but several hours later ran into one another getting takeaway from the same restaurant. The day before my mid-semester break trip began, I stopped by the public library downtown to pick out a few books for the journey, and my travel buddies snuck up behind me in the stacks. Even when I’m not bumping into friends, I am tripping over the impromptu reunions of strangers on the sidewalks downtown.

Occasionally I spot a person with a particularly egregious hairstyle and then notice the same person on the other side of town several hours later, but sometimes sightings like this lead to confusion. I’m still unsure whether the tough-looking guy in a skirt I saw two days in a row was one person or two of many people in touch with the city’s artsier side. Possibly twins with similar dress sense? Several friends have conclusively determined this is the case with the identical violin-playing boys spotted busking all around town after a few too many double-takes.

Even outside the city center running into people I know is about as easy as spotting sheep, but comparing travel stories with friends shows I’m not the only one. One girl from my program was encountered all around the South Island: walking the Abel Tasman Track, taking the ferry back to Wellington, traveling the east coast. It seems implausible that among four million people and 40 million sheep we’d continue seeing the few people we know, but it keeps happening.

It brings to mind the generally ridiculous question that’s inevitably asked when finding out about hometowns: Do you know (some person who happens to live in the same city/state/country, regardless of how many other people live there too)?

Well, do you know someone in New Zealand? Give me a few days and I just might know them too.

When my plane landed at 8 a.m. exactly four months ago today, it was still dark outside. The sun seemed as if it is was just then considering to come out for the day on our bus ride into the city. When it did, it decided not to stay for long, as it went down a little before 5 p.m., if my memory serves right. Combine that with the fact that it rained eight of my first ten days here, and I was not the biggest fan of Dublin’s weather.

That’s changed now. The last few weeks the weather has been nothing short of perfect. While it still gets a little bit cool at night, the trade-off of no humidity and a constant cool breeze during the day is well worth it. The temperature during the day hovers around 65 Fahrenheit–the kind of weather where you’re not too cold in shorts and not too hot in pants. Perhaps the best part is that the sun goes down at 9:15, which is really nice. It has something to do with being north, but I’m not completely sure about the scientific reasoning for it. I’m sure it’s not that complicated though.

Since I leave here in six days (and counting), I’m trying to make the most of my limited time here. Today I took a long walk to Leo Burdock’s, a Dublin fish and chip restaurant (or “chipper”, as they’re called here) that is somewhat of an institution. It has been around since the 1913 and is known as serving the best fish and chip in Dublin. Celebrities from Bruce Springsteen to Mick Jagger to Russell Crowe have all been there, as is displayed on their “Wall of Fame”. At Burdock’s, you really get the authentic experience: the person who served me was in his 70s at the youngest and was dressed in a white butcher’s coat. He managed to be both pleasantly unfriendly, ala a New York deli, and extremely gracious for my patronage.

I walked about 10 steps past the place on my way there, not expecting it to be so tiny. Before entering, I peaked at the menu through the window so I knew what I wanted when I walked in (as if my accent didn’t give me away as a non-local), deciding upon the cod and chips because it was labeled as “Dublin’s favourite.” There were other options, like haddock and sole, but I didn’t know the difference so I just went with the expert’s suggestion. The chips were put onto a piece of butcher’s paper, then a huge piece of fried cod was placed on top, wrapped up twice, then shoved in a paper bag. The man behind the counter looked at me as I tried to hand him my money, then after a few seconds asked me if I wanted salt and vinegar, as if he shouldn’t have had to ask me (so much for fitting in). I asked for a little vinegar, please, and was on my way.

For something deep, deep fried, the cod tasted unbelievably fresh. The soft fish inside the crunchy batter provided a nice contrast and it was just the right level of salty (I was glad I didn’t have more added). The fries were good but not spectacular, a good compliment to the fish. Because there is no where to sit in the restaurant and no benches nearby, I walked down the street eating out of the bag with my hands before stopping at the beautiful St. Patrick’s park in the shadow of Christ’s Church. The food was more than I could finish and I began my walk back satisfied, hoping my heart would forgive me for what I had done to it.

After leaving Amsterdam on Queen’s Day, I was ready for a more subdued, peaceful experience in Brussels, Belgium. To get there, we took a two hour train that was much more enjoyable than the cramped one we had to take from Budapest to Vienna. Upon arriving, we found our hotel (and ourselves) in the middle of a decidedly un-touristy area, which was both good and bad.

We hadn’t eaten for a while, so we went in search of some food, and stumbled upon a cafe/bar that seemed to be inhabited by only regulars. This was my third time in a French-speaking country, so I have pretty good command of the very basics of the French language (numbers, “pardon”, “oui”, “non”, “au reviour”, “merci”) and can read some words that are cognates of English or Spanish (jamon is Spanish, jambon is French). I found that I could read most of the things on the French-only menu, and between my limited French and the waitress’s limited English, we all got our food and drinks just fine. Our hostel owner in Budapest told us that once you learn three languages well, other Latin-based languages are extremely easy to learn. I’m not anywhere close to knowing three (or even two) languages fluently, but my experience with French leads me to believe he is right.

As for the rest of Brussels, I liked it a lot. The area around the main square is a veritable labyrinth of identical looking seafood restaurants. We didn’t end up going to any, but they all had shellfish out on display and it looked quite good. While we’re on the subject of food, I might as well mention here that the waffles were disappointing. They were relatively expensive (about five euro for a good one with a topping) and really tasted like any Belgian waffle you’d get at any diner in the U.S. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

The beer, however, lived up to every expectation I had. Really, it was better than good. All the bars there have dozens of beers at the least (one we went to have more than 2000), most of which are extremely good. Belgian beer is usually between eight and ten percent alcohol (most beer is between three and five), but somehow manages to have vibrant flavors. Most of the best beers in the world are surprisingly made by Belgian Trappist monks, and while some monasteries do export their brew, it is much easier to find in Belgium.

The E.U.’s headquarters have their own neighborhood of Brussels, where the European Parliament and European Commission, among other bodies, are located. The buildings are all extremely modern-looking, as is the art work in the surrounding yards. We couldn’t go in and see anything, but it was interesting to see.

I leave Dublin for good in exactly 10 days. Not surprisingly, this is bittersweet. But it deserves its own post, so I’ll do that soon. Thanks for reading.

Tomorrow, I will bid farewell to the land that has been my home these three and a half months and return to the good old U.S of A. This may not be my last blog post, as I am spending the weekend in Dublin with Andrew Alberg and experiencing what I can only assume will be the Irish version of Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas. But before I start reminiscing about the 1960s through a haze of hallucinogens and raw ether, I thought that I should first reminisce about my time in the Czech Republic, specifically the things I’ll miss about Prague, as well as the things I won’t miss.

Things I’ll miss:

Cheap, cheap beer.

The buildings that were constructed when the Pilgrims were surviving their first New England winter.

The high school I go to once a week to talk with Czech students.

The guy who’s always singing in Old Town Square

The phenomenal public transportation system.

Bramborak and Smazeny syr. Also goulash with potato dumplings.

The view at night from the Charles Bridge.

Ondrej, my Modern Poetry professor. I’ve had some great professors at GW, but not one has ever taken the class out to a bar.

All of the people I’ve met here. Well, most of them.

Things I won’t miss:

Not speaking the same language as 99% of the population. Basically a given.

The fact that literally everything is a la carte at most restaraurants. You actually have to pay extra for ketchup here.

The lack of good Mexican food and cheeseburgers.

The insanely expensive price for certain commodities, like contact lense solution.

In the end, though, I think we’re all happy to be going back. I hear a lot of people talking about how much they’re going to miss Prague, but in the next breath they discuss what they’re going to get for dinner their first night at home (sushi is a popular option). It’s true that a few people might come back for an extended period of time to work, live, maybe even get married and raise a family. But for most of us, it’s time to take our experiences back to the U.S. and enjoy the all-night diners, gas-guzzling SUVs and 4^th of July fireworks we love so much.

Along with the rest of the Eastern Bloc, Hungary got rid of Communism in 1989. One would think that the ensuing twenty years would have given them ample time to adjust to capitalism. However, after a weekend in Budapest I discovered that the country and its citizens are still working out the kinks of the free market, at least at one particularly ironic attraction.

On Friday afternoon, my companions and I decided to go to the Soviet Statue Park. After the fall of Communism, the town decided to preserve the Soviet-era statues of Communist leaders and other symbols in a park outside of town. The park was on the Buda side of the Danube, out past the end of the metro lines. Thanks to the poor directions listed on the guidebook ad, it took nearly two hours to finally reach our destination. The last leg was a trip on a bus that did not accept Budapest tickets, so everyone was required to purchase a new one.

Once we finally made it to the ticket office at the park, we learned that they did not have any discounts for students, seniors, kids, etc.- a policy that stands in contrast to nearly every other place in Central Europe. Furthermore, a map of the park was necessary if you wanted to know what you were looking at (all the signs were in Hungarian) and it cost about $4. The statues in the park did provide an interesting look at the 40-year Communist regime. But with only 40 statues to look at, we were gone in about half-an-hour. I left the park with the feeling that my time and money should have been spent elsewhere.

Now it’s true that the park made good money by recognizing the inelasticity of the demand for tickets for those who make the effort to get there. Once I had spent two hours in transit, I wasn’t going to leave because they didn’t offer a student discount. Nonetheless, they clearly had yet to absorb the importance in a capitalist economy of person-to-person marketing. I, a foreign student who likely knows a lot of people who might be going to Budapest for a few days, am not going to recommend to them that they visit the park if I don’t think the quality of the product is comparable to the price. And, in fact, that’s what I’m telling you right now. If you are ever in Budapest, skip the Soviet Statue Park. There are so many other things to see in the Magyar Capital that you shouldn’t make the trip to the outskirts of the city for an overrated and overpriced experience.

A few nights ago, I got back from my trip to Amsterdam and Brussels, which are very different cities despite being so close. I’ll talk about my experience in Amsterdam today then give Brussels its own post sometime soon.

By coincidence, it turned out that we decided to visit Amsterdam during its busiest week of the year. Queen’s Day, a holiday celebrating the former Queen’s birthday, is now a massive street party that occurred the day we left. The actual day of the holiday consisted of a bunch of people drinking in the streets, but the buildup to it was noticeable from the time we got there. The color orange, which represents the House of Orange dynasty of the Netherlands, was all over the city and the city’s main square (Dam Square) was overtaken by a carnival that lasted our entire visit.

The first thing we noticed upon arriving in the city was how busy the streets were. We thought it was because of tourists coming in for Queen’s Day but later learned it was just because of the nice weather (Dublin is the same way). The canals are beautiful and nicely break up the whole “city” atmosphere, since you can peacefully sit by the water in the middle of the city.

Now to what you really care about: the sex and drugs. I consider myself a pretty liberal person who is not easily shocked or bothered by a lot of things. I don’t do drugs, but don’t really mind if other people do them on their own time as long as it doesn’t affect me. But when it comes to Amsterdam, they really took the “turn the other cheek” motto too far, in my opinion. The city center, which is supposed to be a representation of the city, is overrun by sex/pornography shops and a “coffee houses”, which sell marijuana. I wouldn’t mind walking by those places if they had a discreet sign and blacked out windows or something, but the smell of weed is noticeable when you walk by the store and windows of sex shops are filled with obscene videos. Interestingly, the places where they sell mushrooms (which I’ll get to later) are the nicest. Coffee shops tend to be dark, seedy, and invariably blasting Bob Marley. No thanks.

All this wasn’t even necessarily in the Red Light District, where it is much worse. Walking by prostitutes in their places of work was extremely depressing–I literally felt dirty after. The outer part of the city is lovely and peaceful–I’ve never seen so many bicyclists in a city–but if I had a family, I would not bring my family to Amsterdam. To me, that’s a shame.

Judging by a recent de-liberalization movement, it seems like I’m not the only one. The law banning mushrooms in the Netherlands will soon be enforced and an “extinction” policy on coffee shops has been in place for a few years. A recent law banned the sale of alcohol and marijuana in the same store and if a coffee shop breaks the rules, it will be immediately shut down and never allowed to open again. In addition, no new coffee shop can open up. Prostitution, which was only made officially legal in 2000, seems to be here to stay.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mind if people smoke marijuana or do mushrooms. But there reaches a point where enough is enough. There is no need for the center of a major European city to be overrun with prostitutes, dildos, and blunts. If there is a demand for that stuff and the Dutch want to maintain parts of their liberal culture, a limited number of licenses should be granted in a specific area outside of the city center. That way, the drug-addicts and sketch-balls are away from the places genuine tourists want to visit. I think the citizens of Amsterdam would agree with me.

I’m not sure what I expected of Sydney, but it was more overwhelming than I had anticipated. Not in any uncomfortable way, but how you might imagine any city of 4.5 million people to be. Normally, I am a fairly confident urban navigator and the person my friends throw the map at when they’ve lost hope, but a week around the mostly rural South Island of New Zealand must have softened me. New Zealand cities are great big small towns, but Sydney is a real city, more Americanized than New Zealand. It has a real skyline, an immense immigrant population and a tangled public transport system that travels through diverse suburbs.

After several frustrating bus rides and some time exploring the central business district (bustling and interesting, but more upscale and thus less welcoming to backpackers than NZ), I found I liked it better from a distance, looking at it from the Botanical Gardens jutting out into the harbor, especially because my wanderings provided an excellent opportunity to view Sydney’s most iconic building. Yep, the Sydney Opera House. It is completely riveting. I could not stop staring at it, whether across Sydney Cove on a park bench, walking across the Harbour Bridge or right on the Opera House steps. I told myself that I really should step away from the city’s most obvious landmark and dig a little deeper in my travels, but I liked watching the clouds shift and light change over the roof.

Though gravitating toward green space is very Kiwi of me, my devotion to the touristy reminds me more of D.C. You may be jaded, but I still find myself peeking at the Lincoln Memorial whenever I cross 23rd Street on my way to Safeway, and I feel lucky to be able to do so. In Sydney, I was close to 10,000 miles away from the District, but I liked being able to trade dodging important people on the pavement for tramping on the grass and admiring an extremely famous gleaming white building or two. I did end up tearing myself away from the first thing in the guidebook to get a feel for Sydney’s neighborhoods, but some things are iconic for a reason.

Yesterday early afternoon I got back from a morning trip to Asda (a.k.a Walmart) and could barely walk from the bus stop on the west side of Trafalgar Square to the east side, where my flat is located.

At first my friend and I moaned about the beginning of tourist season, but then we noticed the plethora of police officers walking in groups of 3 to 6 all around the area; this we thought, is not just an increase in tourism.

It wasn’t a holiday, St. George’s day was last weekend, and May day isn’t until next Monday, so what was going on?

Turns out it was Election day.

As someone who is usually on top of the news and has lived in London over 7 months now, not knowing that it was election day produced a strange out-of-touch feeling I hadn’t known since I stepped off the tube for the first time and tried to navigate my way to my flat.

I told myself I was only out of touch with British politics because I can’t participate it in - I mean, if you can’t vote, why remember when other people can?

You can imagine my surprise when I found out I could have voted.

London, being such an international city, has progressive voting requirements for its mayoral election. Having a valid London address is all it takes to vote - no citizenship or visa required.

I was surprised. I always thought you had to be a citizen to vote in a county’s elections. But now that I think about it, it makes sense. London is one of the most diverse cities in the world - as the video on the Heathrow Express will tell you over and over again during your 20 min ride into Paddington - and it makes sense that all you have to do is live in London to get a voice in how the city is run.

So for all those who find themselves living in the international cities of the world, see if your city is following in London’s footsteps and, as P Diddy would say: rock the vote.

There have been so many things I’ve wanted to write about recently and not nearly enough time to do it! My recent trip to Israel: rafting down the Jordan River, driving up north and ending up a stones throw away from Damascus, seeing the Wall in the Jerusalem, visiting the holy city of Zefat. These were all incredible experiences, but what I really must inform you about is an experience I had right here in Copenhagen.

First, I must remember that none of you are here with me, and thus a brief history lesson is in order. Within the city limits of Copenhagen lies a neighborhood called “Christiania” in the borough of Christianshavn. Originally a military area in the 1970s, it has since become a partially self-governed, hippie enclave famous for its open cannabis trade, coffee shops and live music. There has always been a struggle between residents of Christiania and the Danish government, but this conflict has escalated the past few years, with Christiania’s independent status being threatened.

Stepping into Christiania is like an out of body experience: you walk through the entrance gates and are met with stray dogs, intricate murals (no doubt the product of halucinogenic substances), and kiosks of drug pushers (on the appropriately named “Pusher Street.”) Reggae music pumps constantly and locals gather around fires in a rusty trash bins. This may sound extremely sketchy, but I swear it is a thing of wonder. There is nothing like it. It is Neverland.

Back to my story. So yesterday two of my classmates and I went on a mission to Christiania to complete a short media piece on the recent troubles in the area (including a young dog being mercilessly shot by a police offier.) As the token journalist in the group I was sent into a cafe called The Opera House to see what dirt I could dig up. As I was about to step through the arched entrance, I was asked by a middle-aged Danish woman with bleached blonde hair, ice blue eye shadow, jeans a few sizes too small and a paterned halter top if I would like to buy marijuana. I kindly declined, and ascended the stairs of the cafe. Having no luck, I came back down and decided to start chatting up the drug dealer, whose name happened to be Tina. Tina was as lovely as can be, though admitedly a bit cracked out. She said she didn’t have much to say about the dog incident but maybe her friend did, a woman named Inge with big curly hair who lived in a yellow house on a farm across the lake, and had witnessed the dog being shot. This was too good: I had to investigate.

My classmates and I took the tip, crossed over the pictareqsue river and set out on our search for Inge. Having little luck, we thought perhaps Tina had been yanking our chain. That was until we stumbled upon Stace: a British expat who has lived in Christiania for over 30 years. He had a thick, scraggly red and grey beard, and what was left of his hair was tied into a neat bun on top of his head. He was wearing a North Face fleece.

Stace led us to Inge’s house, which doubles as a kiosk for ice cream and cigarettes. She was not home. However, we continued about half a mile down the road to Stace’s residence which was, as expected, made entirely of recycled wood and had no furniture. There were animal skins on the floor and a small indoor garden for meditation. He switched on a CD of soothing music from the Far East and we chatted with him about his travels to Berkeley and Peru and his dismay about the future of his home. Before we knew it, the sun was setting on his lakeside abode and it was time for us to make the trek down the dirt path back to the real world.

Ultimately, Stace was not much help to our project for he would not allow us to videotape him. But I wouldn’t trade our time spent with him for anything.

This past weekend I visited a friend in Vienna, which is an easy five-hour bus ride from Prague. And for nearly the entirety of my time in the city, as the title of this post suggests, Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” was playing in my head.

Austria has a strong economy and an exceptionally high standard of living. The United Nations, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the International Atomic Energy Commission all have headquarters in Vienna. Besides touring the capital city, visitors use Vienna as a base for sightseeing around the Austrian countryside, and as the arrival point for trips to the country’s famed ski resorts.

But Austria, particularly Vienna, used to be so much more. The Habsburg dynasty, the rulers of Austria for centuries, presided over an empire that included Hungary, Bohemia, northern Italy, the Holy Roman Empire and parts of the Balkans- a big slice of Europe. Vienna was the center of the Habsburg domain, and it was clear to me from the second I arrived that Vienna wasn’t built for the present-day little country of eight million people.

Vienna is, in a word, opulent. Wherever you go, especially in the center of the city, you see wide boulevards, neatly designed public parks, and palatial baroque buildings. It’s a city appropriate for kings, for the seat of a world empire. It’s a city for men like Metternich to wield power over an entire continent. It’s a city for artists like Gustav Klimt and Otto Wagner, for composers like Gustav Mahler and Franz Schubert. It’s not a city for a country that has only the 23^rd highest GDP in the world.

The discrepancy between Vienna past and Vienna present was illustrated Thursday night, when my friend and I walked past the magnificent Parliament building. My friend told me at length about the history of the building and the history of the government itself.

“Cool,” I said. “Who’s the president now?”

He shrugged. “No clue.”

This coming from a guy who talk for hours about the policies of Nicholas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel.

I’m sure some of you are thinking I’m being unfair to Austria and Vienna and diminishing the country’s contemporary importance. If so, try thinking up a list of Austrians from previous centuries. Chances are a lot of names will immediately come to mind, Mozart, Freud and Franz Ferdinand among them. Then try to come up with a list of Austrians alive today. And Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t count.