Get Thee to a Pilgrimage!!

Today is the day. I am leaving my house in about 15 minutes to go to the train station and on to Spain! This blog will be updated only rarely during the pilgrimage, but I hope to post photos and full details here when I get back to the United States.

To everybody who sent their prayers, thank you for allowing me to carry them with me. For those of you who sent prayers for me, thank you for your thoughtful and incredibly moving words. I haven't been able to write each of you individually, but I have loved every prayer that each of you has sent.

If you are interested in following along my journey, I will try to do brief little "I am here" updates, and this can be the first one.

Today, I take the train from Brno, Czech Republic to Bratislava, Slovakia. From Slovakia, I am flying to Barcelona, Spain, where I will have a few hours before I take a night bus to Irun. I will start the walk in Irun and plan to sleep my first night in San Sebastian/Donastia and then on to Zargauz.

I have all of my friends and loved ones in my thoughts. I love all of you, and thank you for everything you have all done for me in preparation for this journey, and throughout the journey of my life.

See you on the flip side!

Megan

P.S. See attached the pictures of my new hair!!

Mourning a Dictator, Protesting a Leader

I spent last weekend visiting Amanda in Serbia, and it was an absolutely unbelievable experience. I planned the trip before Milosevic died, but happened to be there on the day that his coffin was being sent out of Belgrade to the funeral in his home town. It was not like anything I have ever experienced. This post will be about Milosevic and I'll post a second post to talk more about Belgrade and the rest of my time in Serbia.

My first morning in Belgrade (Saturday March 18th), Djordje (Amanda's Serbian boyfriend) and I went to have coffee while Amanda was teaching an English class. We were sitting in the second floor window, so that we could watchg the people go by. We spent the morning having some really interesting conversations about Serbia and about Milosevic. I'm not saying that my mind has changed, but hearing a Serbian perspective on the situation, especially a moderate Serbian perspective (neither extremely nationalist nor extremely anti-Milosevic) was very eye opening for me. It was hard, given the background that I have on the situation in the former Yugoslavia, to hear such a drastically different view, but it really challenged me to think more broadly about the complexity of such situations, and I think any conversation which challenges me to think in new ways is positive. It was difficult for me as well though, and I don't know that my opinion of Milosevic has really changed...

While we were having our coffee and pastries, Djordje pointed out a group of people walking below the cafe window. They were carrying Milosevic signs and big red flags and marching towards the demonstration which was being held in front of the parliament to send off Milosevic's coffin for his funeral. The group was fairly small, and I wasn't sure how big the whole demonstration would be, but I asked Djordje if he would mind walking towards the parliament just to see what was going on.

Taken From the Cafe Window,
People Walking to the Milosevic Demonstration



Flags Leading People to the Milosevic Demonstration



I think Djordje was a bit uncomfortable taking me, but he agreed to go for a few minutes just to see what was happening, so after coffee we walked in the direction that the small group of protesters had gone. As we walked through the streets of Belgrade towards the demonstration, there were more and more people, some with flags, some just walking, but all headed in the same direction. As we walked Djordje told me not to speak in English, because it could cause problems. He told me that he would speak Serbian to me and I could respond in Czech.

We came upon the actual demonstration rather suddenly, and it was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. I later read on the BBC that their were 50,000 people at the demonstration, and it's easy to believe. The people were endless. As far as I could see people were crammed together trying to see the small stage which had been set up in front of the parliament. A group of men had climbed into the trees that filled the park around the parliament to try to get a better view of the coffin itself and of the people on stage.

Our First View of the Demonstration



"Strange Fruit",
Men Sitting in the Trees Trying to Get a View of the Stage



We entered the crowd and were almost immediately engulfed. The people became very quickly thicker and thicker until it became almost entirely impossible to move. It was overwhelming. The people surrounding me shouted slogans, declaring "Kosovo is Serbia" and chanting "Slobo, Slobo" (Milosevic's nickname). One group of people standing near me held a huge banner with a slogan about "NATO Fascists" and swastikas drawn on it. Women clutched pictures of Milosevic to their chests as if they had lost a child and many people were crying.

Being Engulfed by the Crowd



The Fallen Hero/The Evil Dictator



The Demonstration



The Parliament Building



Flags Waving at the Demonstration



Djordje held my hand as we tried to push through the crowd, but it was like trying to push through rock. People were packed so tight that at times we had to simply stand still because no matter how hard you pushed, there was no where for people to move to. Eventually, some older Serbian men began trying to help people get through the crowd. It felt as though you had become only one cell in a huge organism, your movements were completely linked and determined by the movements of the other cells. I later learned that at least 1 person died and another 10 were taken to the hospital after being trampled by the crowd.

I felt for the first time in my life what it meant to be in a place which teetered on the edge of chaos. In the middle of that crowd, on that day in that city you just had a feeling that you walked on the edge of a very thin razor, and any moment somebody could slip and everything would just explode. Luckily, this time, nobody slipped.

When we finally made it out of the bulk of the crowd, we looked back on the crowd from the park. We could see the stage where the coffin was sitting. There was a screen set up on which they were projecting pictures of the crowd. The people waved their flags and chanted and the people on the stage seemed to be standing watch over the mass of people below them.

This day is one of those days that you know, with complete certainty as it happens you will tell your children about. Djordje and I were standing in the middle of history that day, and it was one of those rare occassions where we knew where we were standing while we stood there. For the rest of the day, Milosevic haunted our steps. Every where you walked, you saw people coming from the demonstrations, or heading towards them (both the one we were at and the anti-milosovic demonstration staged as a celebration of his death which I didn't see except on television). When the demonstrations finally ended, the people heading home blocked traffic along many roads, walking en masse through the middle of the streets.

Trolley Buses Lined Up Because of Blocked Roads



People Blocking the Streets on Their Way Back From the Demonstration,
After the Coffin Left



The BBC's article about this day was entitled A Tale of Two Cities: Milosevic Divides Belgrade in Death and I think this is quite an appropriate title, reflecting the division you can see in the two demonstrations that day, but I think that the author's comment at the end of the article is the most telling of all. Hawton comments:

But perhaps, on reflection, it was a tale of three cities. Because in Belgrade most people were not at either demonstration. They were shopping or watching sport on TV or drinking coffee. Most people do not want to think about the former president. They want to forget him and get on with their lives.

This was my experience of Serbia. Most people there didn't have the demonized view that most of us in the US have of Milosevic, and yet neither are they ultra-nationalists who support genocide. Instead most see Milosevic the way he was in their own lives. As a leader, flawed and imperfect, who did both good and bad, and who has been blamed for more than they believe he ever did. Torn between anger at western retaliation against their country which infuriates them, and the charges laid against Milosevic by exactly those who destroyed huge parts of their lives with bombs and sanctions, most Serbs choose to look towards a future in which Serbia can be prosperous, instead of focussing their energy on the horrors of the past.
Note: Taking pictures was impossible, and Djordje just grabbed my camera and began taking pictures over the heads of the people. Most of the pictures on this page were taken by him as we tried to move out of the crowd.

Zagreb

I have been so busy lately that I haven't been very good about posting, so I'll be posting quite a bit in the next day or so to get up to speed. Two weekends ago, I was in Zagreb, Croatia with my roomate Krisztina and her boyfriend Marko, who is Croatian and lives in Zagreb.

Mostly, I will let the pictures from that trip tell their own story, but I will say that I loved the city. Being there, you had the sense that things were changing quickly; that you were in a place that was both ancient and somehow reinvented in the same breath. Beautiful winding cobblestone streets lead to huge modern buildings, the wide avenues, lined with trees which walk you through parks and past old buildings, also lead to modern cinemas and Italian restaurants. The outdoor market is still -the- place to buy fruits and vegetables, but supermarkets are all over the city as well. The modern and the traditional seem to exist together in this beautiful city, and unlike in some other cities, they still seem to work together, not against one another. In ten years, I'm sure Zagreb will be a very different place, but this weekend I fell in love with the way Zagreb is today.


Rooftops of Zagreb




Little Rooftop Restaurant in Zagreb




Small Beautiful Street in Zagreb



A Memorial to a Famous Croatian Poet in Zagreb



Weights in the Outdoor Market in Downtown Zagreb



The Hills Behind Zagreb

Pictures of Me or Some Much Nicer Looking Things

OK, so I thought some of you might like to see pictures from Hungary. All of these and more are available at my photobucket page which is at: http://photobucket.com/albums/e319/meganicka/

But here are a couple to whet your appetitie...like a nicely aged wine just before a nice meal...you know, or, whatever.




The Hungarian Parliament from across the River.



The castle in Bratislava, Slovakia.

OK, enjoy. That's all for now.

Megan

Garrison Keillor Can Speak For Himself; I Wish Congress Could...wait...

Impeach Bush: When the emperor has no clothes

Garrison Keillor Tribune Media Services International

FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2006


ST. PAUL, Minnesota These are troubling times for all of us who love the United States, as surely we all do, even the satirists. You may poke fun at your mother, but if she is belittled by others it burns your bacon.

A blowhard French journalist writes a book about America that is full of arrogant stupidity, and you want to let the air out of him and mail him home flat.

You hear young people talk about America as if it's all over, and you trust that this is only them talking tough.

And then you read the paper and realize America is led by a man who isn't paying attention, and you hope that somebody will poke him. Or put a sign on his desk that says, "Try Much Harder."

Do we need to impeach him to bring some focus to this man's life? The man was lost and then he was found and now he's more lost than ever, plus being blind.

The Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker carries an article by Jane Mayer about a loyal conservative Republican and U.S. Navy lawyer, Albert Mora, and his resistance to the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. From within the Pentagon bureaucracy, he did battle against Donald Rumsfeld and John Yoo at the Justice Department and shadowy figures taking orders from Dick (Gunner) Cheney, arguing America had ratified the Geneva Convention that forbids cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners, and so it has the force of law. They seemed to be arguing that the president has the right to order prisoners to be tortured.

One such prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtani, was held naked in isolation under bright lights for months, threatened by dogs, subjected to unbearable noise volumes and otherwise abused, so that he begged to be allowed to kill himself.
When the Senate approved the Torture Convention in 1994, it defined torture as an act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Is the law a law or is it a piece of toast?

Wiretap surveillance of Americans without a warrant? Great. Go for it.

How about turning over American ports to a country more closely tied to 9/11 than Saddam Hussein was? Fine by me. No problem.

And what about the war in Iraq? Hey, you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie. No need to tweak a thing.
And your blue button-down shirt - it's you.

But torture is something else. When Americans start pulling people's fingernails out with pliers and poking lighted cigarettes into their palms, then we need to come back to basic values.

Most people agree with this, and in a democracy that puts the torturers in a delicate position. They must make sure to destroy their e-mails and have subordinates who will take the fall. Because it is impossible to keep torture secret. It goes against the American grain and it eats at the conscience of even the most disciplined, and in the end the truth will come out.

It is coming out now.

According to the leaders of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, America is practically as vulnerable today as it was on 9/10. Its seaports are wide open, its airspace is not secure (except for Washington), and little has been done about securing the nuclear bomb materials lying around in the world.

They give the administration Ds and Fs in most categories of defending against terrorist attack.

Our adventure in Iraq, at a cost of trillions, has brought that country to the verge of civil war while earning us more enemies than ever before. And tax money earmarked for security is being dumped into pork barrel projects anywhere somebody wants their own SWAT team.

Detonation of a nuclear bomb within our borders - pick any big city - is a real possibility, as much so now as five years ago. Meanwhile, many Democrats have conceded the very subject of security and positioned themselves as Guardians of Our Forests and Benefactors of Waifs and Owls, neglecting the most basic job of government, which is to defend the country.
We might rather be comedians or daddies or flamenco dancers, but we must attend to first things.

The peaceful lagoon that is the White House is designed for the comfort of a vulnerable man. Perfectly understandable, but not what is needed now.

The Constitution provides a simple ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense.

Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence.

(Garrison Keillor is the host of the American public-radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." This article was distributed by Tribune Media Services International.)

Drunk People Are Usually Unattractive, Especially if Their Football Team Just Lost a Match

Drunk British people are the bane of my existence. Well...any large group of drunk tourists is the bane of my existence, but somehow I always seem to enounter obnoxious drunk British tourists while living in Central Europe. Adding a new dimension of stupidity, this week it was a drunk British football team, burying their sorrows after a devestating loss (read: their team sucks) and trying to get laid by attractive Hungarian women who are obviously just dying for a quick hookup with a guy so drunk he'd probably hit on a lamp post if it were skinny enough. Oh yes, I have to tell you, Hungarian/Czech women spend their lives sitting around lonely in bars hoping, just hoping that one day a drunk American/Brittish/German tourist will come along and ask them to come have a quicky with them in their hotel room before they have to leave the next day. In addition to which, just a few pointers on how to get laid:
1. Refrain from using obscenities, especially those referring to particular parts of the body, in your pickup lines.
2. Don't stand around fighting over which of you is "gay" and which of you wants to touch the other's ass. I don't know in whose world calling each other gay is funny or cute, but it doesn't seem to positively effect any of the girls I know.
3. Don't surround people. One only mildly tipsy guy with a cute accent could concievably be very atrtactive, but five of you crowding somebody into a corner and yelling loudly, mainly amongst yourselves is just down right irritating, not to mention claustrophobic.
4. Finally, how about one less beer, man. Seriosly. I know it's cheap, I know you have a good exchange rate, but you should preferably be able to walk while trying to "pick up chicks". Also, you look stupid enough sober, and nobody wants to help you out while you vomit.

In slightly happier news, my cousin just joined a band called Particle People and this is a write up about them:
http://www.jambase.com/headsup.asp?storyID=8050

And this is their homepage:
http://www.particlepeople.com/

I have as yet been unable to hear their stuff, but the general concensus seems to be that they rock so check em out.

Lata Folks. History beckons and I shall answer the call.

Megan

Late Night Quotables from the Void

I dont know much about fashion, but I just feel like fake fur in weird places shouldn't be considered attractive. -Dan

Thank you Dan.

The Attack of the Killer Dust Bunnies from Outerspace

Ok, so, I haven't posted in a REALLY long time, and I suspect that I'm basically not very good at this whole blogging thing. But now, I have made a commitment to blog on a semi-regular monthly, weekly, perhaps even daily basis. Not that anybody is reading this by now, but hey, you never know...that guy that stalked me last year is probably still checking obsessively every day to make sure I haven't perhaps posted new words of love and wisdom for the masses.

I've been in Hungary now for a month basically, and that's too much to tell in one post, so let's just put it this way: If you really care about what I'm doing, you've emailed me/talked to me on AIM/sent me a telepathic message by now and know that things here are great, I have great roomates, Hungarian is for crazy people, and that I was visited by the spirit of George Washington in a somewhat thought provoking nightmare. OK. The last part is a lie. But it sounds good right? If you haven't emailed me/talked ot me on AIM/sent me a telepathic message by now then I conclude that you don't really care about me. In which case, why are you reading my blog? Consider that carefully before continuing won't you.

Still reading? It's ok, I probably don't care about you either, but I would probably read your blog too. No worries.

And now, moving on to more interesting things. We cleaned our room tonight and I am not joking, those dust bunnies were enormous. I think one of them was actually growing teeth. Why don't we clean our room more often, you may ask? Well, isn't the better question why in God's name are we cleaning it tonight? And the answer to that is:

INSPECTION.

Yes folks, inspection. Apparently they are coming to our room tomorrow to inspect it, and not just the good old fashioned American way to see if we are smoking pot or breaking windows (in fact, I don't really think they care about these things). They are in fact inspecting to see if we are nice clean little Hungarian girls taking good care of the maintainence of our floor and ruthlessly executing dust bunnies on site. Of course, we meet none of these criterea and that means we are on a cleaning spree the night before hoping to trick them into thinking that that shoe is actually a dust bunny execution chamber.

Besides enormous dust bunnies, things here are going really well. I go to school a lot. I work a lot. I go out a lot. Last night I went to see a man in leather pants with a red mask painted over his eyes do some performance and got into an argument with a fairly obnoxious Australian about the American/European/Australian social welfare system or lack thereof. Whatever. Yawn. Please pass the bad Hungarian beer. Then he tried to pick up my roomate. Whatever. Yawn. Please pass me a glass of "sorry, you're not getting laid tonite". And then we left...

We also have a student pub that happens every Thursday and is pretty cool, especially since they have CZECH beer which is, of course, superior to Hungarian beer. The Hungarians make up for it though by having better wine and a harder language...actually...DOES that make up for it? Tomorrow I'm going to Karaoke.

So, really, the point of this post is to let everybody know that I am getting my party on and drastically improving my study habits here in Budapest. In a month I will go to Romania and start learning a language that actually has cognates. Until then, please keep reading for updates on other useless goings on in my life. Actually...these will probably get more interesting if I start writing them more often.

Trying to ignore the cries of the dying dust bunnies,

Megan