All About Krakow

Hello all,

So, for the past two weeks I've been in Krakow, studying out of an organization called eFKa. I didn't update all that much because, well frankly, I didn't have a very good time there. The state of feminism and of the LGBTQ rights movements are startlingly beak. Abortion is illegal except in the case of rape, or threat of health to the mother, but even these exceptions have been challenged and thereby narrowed. Violence against LGBTQ folks is common, especally toward gay men. Pride parades are literally stoned by "counterprotestors." Racism, too, is rampant, and I found much anti-semitism as well. Pics will be up on facebook soon, but right now I'm in an internet cafe and I can't figure out how to upload them. So, without further ado, the Krakow pros and cons!

Pros:
Dirt cheap: this actually had kind of a negative effect because I ended up spending more money than I wanted to, but I got a lot of good stuff in exchange, so it was worth it
the Krakow mall: absolutely gorgeous
lots of nice tea places, suitable for a tea snob like myself
pretty archetecture and a REALLY COOL castle

Cons:
every -ism you can possibly think of is really rampant
we stayed in a very touristy part of town, so there was lots of noise and annoying people
no cool museums
everyone got sick at the same time, but that really has nothing to do with Krakow itself

So now I'm in Prague, staying with a host family. They are really chill and have an awesome flat. Katy A and I are staying in the daughter's room (she's gonna be staying with her grandparents) and we have already fallen in love with her via her room. She has a sick stereo system and we're gonna ask her next time we see her if we can use it. Also, best part is THERE'S A KITTY! It's name is Iggy and it's kinda grouchy, but I still like her.

Well, that's about all, until next time

Leila

Final Reflections on Utrecht

Okay, yeah, I've been a bit derelict in updating, but that's mostly because stuff was pretty run of the mill. I went on this gorgeous bike ride out into the countryside along the Udegracht (last part pronounced the way you say yacht, though I'm not positive on the spelling here) which is an old old canal that runs through Utrecht and eventually flows into a river that flows to Amsterdam. So, theoretically I could have biked to Amsterdam, however the fact that everyone in The Netherlands is a giant precluded me from finding a rental bike that was small enough for me, so I struggled along on a bike that was a bit too big because, damnit, I wanted to go on a bike ride. I only made it a couple miles out before I had to turn around because I was really thirsty and I couldn't find anyplace to get water. In anycase, it was lovely. Here are a few highlights:

-The complete and total gorgeousness, as seen in the picture to the left. Also, the paths were flat as hell, so it was really stress free biking (except for the fact that I couldn't get a handle on the brakes and I was on my tiptoes pedeling). There were few places to look that weren't just plain beautiful. It was a sunny day and that just made it all the better.

-the amazing houseboats and with them












-houseboat window prostitutes! Some woman came out and started yelling at me for taking this photo, a reasonable reaction, to be sure. However, I took special care to not have any pictures that showed people themselves in it, but just the stretch.








Apart from that, I went to Amsterdam twice. Once was just with friends, and the second was to get a lecture from the founder of Women on Waves and the founder of the Prostitution Information Center. Also, a bunch of drunk tourists. Ewww. It made me thankful to be staying in Utrecht and not Amsterdam.

So now, my boiled down list of pros and cons of The Netherlands:

Pros:
drinking age (though that's true all over Europe)
other illicit things...
gorgeous archetecture
great conceptual museums
nicest people I have ever met
everyone spoke english
NOISE program
biking everywhere
french fries for lunch every other day

Cons:
shelf toilets (I don't need to see my poo that up close)
always in danger of being run over by overzealous bikers
narrow streets where you couldn't tell where the road stopped and the sidewalk began
the Euro

NOISE week 2: Posthumanism

I absolutely LOVED the academics this past week. In addition to just that, I got to know a lot of the NOISE students better and just generally had a good time.

Before this week, I had no clue what posthumanism is. Frankly, I'm still foggy on the concept; most philosophical theories that begin with post- are just a bitch to get a grasp of (except for postfeminism [the idea that feminism is no longer necessary] and postcolonialism [dealing with the aftermath of political colonialism], those are pretty much straightforward). In anycase, posthumanism is the concept that the idea of the human as a separate, unitary being is flawed. Rather, humans can be thought of as cyborgs (cybernetic organisms) that have human, animal, and technological components (for an awesome essay on the topic here's a link). This is already a reality, what with pacemakers and norplants, and we've known that humans were animals since Darwin, so that's nothing new. However, we all still have a tendency towards "human exceptionalism" or the idea that humans are better than animals. This idea of human exceptionalism not only because it justifies cruelty towards non-human animals, but also because it allows for more oppression to exist. For example, if someone characterizes certain race, or ethnic group, or gender as animalistic or closer to animals, that group is rendered inhuman and thus not deserving of human rights. In short, it's yet another way of rationalizing the -isms. Because of this, trying to shake the idea of human exceptionalism is key. The only problem is, that would mean I'd have to be vegan. I've already pretty much gone veggie, but I really want to enjoy the cheese and pastries and such here. So for now, I think I'll be a hipocrite. When I get back to the states, though, I'll re-evaluate.

Anyway, my tutor group (GO GROUP YELLOW!) created a game of the Sims that had all of our group members in it in Sim form. I had to be a kid because it was the version that couldn't adjust height (bah on that). It was a lot of fun, and just plain awesome, to play the Sims and claim it as work time.

Also this past week we had a feminist pub quiz at an Irish pub in town. Even though our team got 3rd place, it was loads of fun and hey, we still beat two of the teams :P. Without a doubt, though, the most fun of the week was the make some NOISE party last friday. Lots of dancing, amazing food, and really really really good music. Also, as a whole, the NOISE students are just really cool people and I met many an awesome individual. A lot of them are going to school at Universeit Utrecht so we are still hanging out with them as long as we're in Utrecht.

For the next week and 1/2, we'll be recieving lectures from Iveta as well as other scholars from the Universeit Utrecht women's studies department (it's supposed to be one of the best in Europe!). I have a lot more free time now, which allows for wandering and such. Honestly, the more I see of Utrecht, the more I love it. One of these days I'm gonna rent a bike. I'll be sure to fill y'all in on that when the time comes.

Until then, Adios!

NOISE Week 1: Postcolonialism and Europe

To start off this trip, we have all been enrolled in an intensive gender studies summer school program at Universeit Utrecht called NOISE (I have no clue what it stands for so don't ask me). In this program, which we do 5 days a week for two weeks, we hear two lectures in the morning, have a discussion session with our tutor groups (mine is the yellow group. Go team yellow!) and then reconvine to bring everything to a close. All said and done, it's about 6 hours a day of classes, not including readings.Very draining but very cool stuff. I like the complete emmersion in feminism. When I hang out with other NOISE students, we can just be chatting, and then very easily fall into a feminist discussion and then back to casual banter. There are people from all over Europe (and a couple, like us in the WGSE program that aren't) in the program, which adds a really cool dimension. Everyone's always asking one another about cultural differences and such. In conclusion, I have yet to meet a truly assy individual in this program, they're just all very chill people and I really like that.

Our first week, we concentrated on the idea of Postcoloniality, as the title to this entry aptly states. We spent some time talking about the significance of the category of whiteness and aspects of the colonial memory, but for the most part all we discussed was the media representation and political reaction and theoretical implications of the veil. Lots and lots of talk about the veil. People got pretty fed up with it. I did too, not because we were talking about it, because I think it's important to explore the ways in which the west reacts to this marked difference and uses it to demonize muslim men, but because there was such a uniformity to the discussion that there was no way to really argue and parce out the ideas. It felt like one big cirlce jerk of "media coverage of the veil is bad" If there had been some opposing viewpoints to this, that perhaps our discussion would have movied beyond this to address larger issues of European identity and masculinity and orientalized hypersexualization of muslim women, but alas, there were none. It gave me the distinct impression that European postcolonial feminism may perhaps be stuck in the rut of this issue. Then again, as evidenced by France's outlawing of religious emblems in schools, this might just be a bigger issue in Europe and I, an outsider, am just not getting the full picture here.

This week we're studying posthumanism and I am all kinds of excited about this. I'll explain exactly what posthumanism is as soon as I figure that out :P

Cheers all

Mayonnaise and Big Butts (not as closely related as previously thought)

Mayonnaise and french fries. Some scorn it, others fear it. But few have conquered it. Actually, that's a lie, lots of people eat it. But I, my friends, can now count myself one among that number. Fellow americans that are squiged out by the idea of this, I ask you to reflect: haven't you ever had cheese fries, poutine, or chili fries? Honestly, if you've had those, you're just a closeted french fries and mayo eater, hiding behind your concept american superiority of processed cheese product. Shame on you. Give mayo a chance.


But now the gory experience itself: I didn't get these at anyplace fancy, it seemed like a pretty standard fast food place. They did, however have a gigantic selection of sauces, but not being able to understand anything but mayonnaise and curry, I decided to go for the mayo, though I plan to try the curry sauce, because that intruiges me a lot. In anycase, I order the smallest size, which still turns out to be this monster cone of fries and then the server put two large squirts of mayo on top; there must have been at least a quarter cup of mayo on there, if not a half cup. They had these little wooden forks to eat it with, but silly me I didn't take one and instead, just dug in.

They mayo definitely was a different creature from that globby, gelatinous stuff we get back in the states. It was smoother and creamier, more like the consistancy of nocho cheese. Mayonnaise is sold in squirt bottles here, like kechup. And ketchup is sold in these nifty metal tubes, which makes all sorts of sense and I don't know why we don't have it in america, but instead struggle with those silly glass containers. But I digress. I really appreciated the flavor of the mayo, too. It was a bit milder than american mayo but at the same time had a nice bit of flavor from the taste of the olive oil along with a subtle sweetness. In short, it really worked well with the fries, which were so phenominal that they could have just been sauce free and I would have thoughly enjoyed my fries experience.

Without the aforementioned fork, things got quite messy as I dug deeper into the cone. I ended up not finishing it, partially because it was basically impossible to finish it and partly because my hands were getting covered in really sticky viscous greese (the mayo managed to be sticky and greasy at the same time, an engineering feat to be sure!). After all that heavy fat, to which my tummy strenuously objected to afterwars, a long lovely walk along a canal was totally in order, so that was what I did.

There is a little park that runs the length of this canal, which made the whole experience extra super-duper pretty. The only thing that I had to watch out for were the bikers. Honestly, they're like NYC cabbies but with bikes instead. There is one lane on the street (and sometimes the sidewalk) for bicyles and one on the sidewalk for pedestrians. If there is a bike lane on the sidewalk, for the love of god watch where you're walking and, as I learned, don't walk and look at a map at the same time. I mean, they'll swerve around you, maybe slow down a touch, but they are for the most part pretty agressive and out for the blood of tourists.

As I was walking back, I noticed something about the cars here that I had also noticed in France; their big butts. There's really no other way to discribe it. Here's a picture of a small "butt":

Notice how the chassie of the car starts to protrude further back at the point where the headlights are. It is almost as if it's an attempt to mimic the chassie of a sudan in a hatchback style car, which basically all the cars here are (though I have seen a few SUVs). If I find some more really prominent ones I'll show you all. For now, over and out.

Officially in Europe

And all kinds of jetlagged!

They have us living in a dorm style arrangement (kinda like hampshire mods) with everyone getting a single (yay!). The supermarket was a harrowing experience. Pics to come of that soon. Can't think of anything funny or witty to say, but I'm well situated and nearly everyone is here and full of awesome. This is gonna be a fun trip, I can just tell. The area, too, is just gorgeous. I think the word 'adorable' came out of my mouth about a thousand million times. There is a blackberry bush (in full blackberry mode) in the back of the building and also chickens somewhere around here. It's a two second walk from a park with a garden and lounge chairs and a five minute walk from said grocery store. Everyone bikes everywhere here. I might rent a bike just for convenience sake. I will have photographic evidence of this as soon as I get around to doing the whole loading onto the computer thing.

T-minus 3

Hokay,

So I'm home from Newark (where I was interning as a peer educator/sex-ed teacher at the newly founded Masakhane Center) and tying up all the loose ends of my travel...like finishing the 3 essays that I need to do before I get there. Ah well, but now is time for procrastination. A week ago, I was really nervous about the trip, but now I'm more excited. The only thing I'm worried about now is my project proposal, and even then I'm not too worried about it. I'll be back when there's more actual information to be had about the great adventure that's waiting for me ahead (extra points if you got the South Park reference).

It begins...

Hey All,

It's about a week before I set off, so I figured I'd set up this little travel blog to keep everyone informed about my travels and such. I'm both eagerly anticipating and slightly terrified about this trip. I'll probably write more about that in the week to come, as I assure you I will become steadily more excited and terrified. But before we start anything, here are some facts about the trip itself:

*The name of the program is Women's and Gender Studies in Europe, or WGSE (wogsie!) for short. I'll probably refer to it as WGSE or wogsie, just because I'm a lazy typist.

*On this very special journey, we will be visiting five different countries in this order: Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, and Turkey.

*Along the way, we will be studying, you guessed it, women's and gender studies! We will be going to lectures from all kinds of feminist types, as well as working on 2 courses taught by a professor that travels with us and completeing and independent project of our choosing.

*The project of my choosing is going to be about transnational sex work in Europe, and the varying levels of agency and autonomy these individuals have (from people who freely chose sex work to human trafficking, though I think that dichotomy is kind of false, as I plan to examine).

So those are the facts. I'll be keeping y'all updated along the way.