By Anthony Russo During all of our travels the one thing I was most taken back by was the synagogues we visited. I was raised in a very catholic/Christian household. I had been to a number of different churches from a variety of different denominations of Christianity. Baptist churches were much more laid back and […]
By Hanz Valbuena “Asgard is not a place, it’s a people.” Thor: Ragnarok may have been heavily and rightfully criticized, but when I heard this line, it hit home. My concept of nationality and identity is ever so inconsistent and fluid, but I want to believe that a nation lives through its people, not its […]
By Alexander Wilgocki Depending on your age, it may be difficult to imagine a world where the Czech Republic and Slovakia were one nation. Today, two nations exist with their own flags, languages, currency in use (Slovakia uses the Euro while the Czech Rep. has the koruna), and beautiful cities and landscapes. However, when the […]
By Tayla Myree “We need a Malcolm X,” said Ladislava Gaziova, a Romani activist and one of the founders of Prague’s Romafuturism Library. She went on to describe the many acts of discrimination that the Romani people have had to face such as unequal access to education, unemployment, housing discrimination, colorism, and many other issues. […]
By Ciera Moore The influence of Jewish culture and religion is apparent all throughout Europe to this day, despite the efforts of the Nazi regime to destroy it. Even if there were no remaining synagogues or religious places, there are monuments commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. Every city we visited in Europe thus far […]
By Abbey Metzler Let me tell you a story. The year is 1963. You live in a town up in the hills outside of Budapest. Your country, the Hungarian People’s Republic, is run by the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. Or really it is run by men in Moscow who have never been to your town, […]
By Edward You The year of 2018 marks the 5th anniversary of the “Belt and Road Initiative”. The name of this program itself is an attempt to echo the very early contact between China and Europe along with other neighbor countries. The “Road”, as you may imagine, refers to the famous Silk Road trad web […]
By Meredith Conway How can we accurately and fairly recount history? Who should be memorialized and who should not be? These questions ran like a constant thread throughout our first two weeks of traveling to four different cities. The first time I found myself trying to find answer these questions was after visiting Szabadsag (Freedom) […]
By Sarah McLafferty There are certain elements of European history that even those disinterested in the subject are familiar with. Among the most prominent are the events of World War II, and specifically the Nazi perpetration of the Holocaust. While this is discussed throughout middle school, high school, and beyond, oftentimes the history of how […]
By Kristen Varganova Although all the countries we visited throughout our first two weeks of travel were exceptionally beautiful and filled with unique history; the city that resonated most with me was Prague. From the delicate architecture to the painful stories of the Czech-Roma, Prague was the hardest goodbye yet. As soon as we got […]