Molly's European Travels

                   Going to the Reichstag building was so amazing. This place has seen so much history and gone through so many things to get to where it is today.  Right now the Reichstag is being used as unified Germany's parliament building! Something I learned from my professors in the prep class is that the giant glass dome at the top of the building signifies that the government is not hiding anything. The people of Germany are a part of the government and they can look in on it. I love this representation so much. Knowing this makes seeing the dome that much more cool. Inside the dome there are ramps that wrap around the entire inside, leading you to the top. It felt like these ramps were never ending. I think that this could represent how Germany may have had some bad things in the past and they are never going to forget it but they will keep marching up these never ending ramps of becoming better. Another thing I loved about this building was how the exterior of the buildi

                           While in Germany I was able to go to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe. When we were talking at the edge of the monument at the beginning I thought it looked big but not too big. It wasn’t until I found myself walking through the paths that I realized how big of an area this monument covers. I can not believe that each stone represents the deaths of 3 9/11s. When I heard this and then saw how many stones there were, my heart hurt. It is so sad to think about all the lives that were lost due to someone's terribly wrong decisions. I feel like the taller stones in the middle represent how the more you learn about the history of this terrible time, the more you feel overwhelmed and like you can't breathe. The looming stones represent how this tragedy looms over Germany and the world. I pray that nothing like this ever happens again.       This monument has deep historical and cultural importance. This monument represents a terrible time in histo

     My Berlin women of choice blog is about Luise Greger She was an amazing piano player. Professor M. McFardland told us that she was 6 when she started playing and by the age of only 10 she played for the Zar of Russia!! That is absolutely insane. She even started composing music at age 12. I can't imagine doing those things at such a young age. Luise made her money from playing. Eventually she became old and wasn't able to perform anymore so she moved into an old folks home. It was around this time that the Nazi’s came up with the idea of killing anyone they thought was useless to society. This included elders and people with disabilities. Despite being a brilliant player, Luise was euthanized. Someone else thought she had no more value and therefore killed her. This is so terrible, I can’t believe that humans thought they had the right to do this. She was in her 80’s when this happened to her. Her life ended unjustly.       To be honest… I don’t think she made a big cont

     While we were in Paris some of my friends and I went to a jazz club. I loved this experience so much!! There was a dimly lit upstairs where you could get food and sit in comfy booths, and a small downstairs room with live musicians, nice places to sit, and room to dance. Well actually there wasn't much room to dance when we were there because it was packed!!! The band we saw perform was incredible. I am not a huge jazz person but watching them play made me love it! The vibes in that room were so good. Everyone was cramped together enjoying great music. The bottom floor architecture was so cool. It was like a cave that had been hollowed out. The walls were stone and they had it lit with orange lights which gave it such a nice glow. I literally loved this experience and look forward to keeping it as a special memory.       After doing some research I was able to find that Caveau de la Huchette has some great cultural significance. One way it is culturally significant is that man

     Y esterday we had the opportunity to go to the Käthe Kollwitz museum in Berlin. Käthe Kollwitz was an amazing artist who had a very distinct style, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. Along with going to the museum I was able to learn more about her! From a young age she had great artistic talent and so she was able to work alongside a good artist. One fact about her that I loved was that her family didn’t want her to get married because they were scared she wasn't going to be able to do her art anymore. Her husband made sure that this didn’t happen when they got married by doing more of the household work! I like that she found a man that didn’t dull her shine and make her hide her talent. Käthe Kollwitz had some very depressing events happen in her life and you can see them translate into her art. It was very sad to see them.      I think that Käthe’s style of art was a big contribution. She depicted real life things, hard things, not just sunshine and rainbows. Peop

     On our walking tour yesterday we stopped outside of Humboldt University of Berlin. While we were stopped we got to talk about Lisa Mintier because her statue was just inside the gate! Here are some of the things I learned from Professor M. McFarland! She was born in Austria and was the 2nd woman to graduate in physics. She ended up moving to Berlin because it was the only place where she would be given a lab. This “lab” was literally a woodworking shop. Yikes. One of my favorite facts I learned about her was that despite being given this crappy lab, she still went on to be one of the only two women to have a periodic element named after her. Lise discovered nuclear fission with her partner Otto Hahn. Otto Hahn ended up winning the Nobel prize, but of course Lise didn’t. Classic. Throughout her life, Lise was nominated 49 times but never won. This is crazy to me. I wonder if she would have won in today's world. Lise sounds like a very cool woman to me and I am very glad I had t

     This day was so snazz! We got to go to the Skansen Open Air Museum which is this giant area full of things to do and see. While I was walking around I saw cute little old fashion houses and barns. When I saw these it made me think of my ancestors. I have quite a few Swedish ancestors so It got me thinking about if any of them ever lived in houses that looked like these. I also saw a cute merry go round that was so colorful and fun and just reminded me of my childhood. Sammy and I were talking about the simple joys that children have and it made me miss it. Going along with the simple joys, we went into an aquarium and I did feel like a kid haha. I love the Ocean so the other girls had to drag me out of there. I loved this place!       I think the Skansen museum is important both historically and culturally. Cultrailly, it is a place where people can gather, practice/see some of their culture that is no longer a part of day to day life. I wish desperately that the USA had some cult

She is the blondie back there     While I was in Sweden I was able to go to the ABBA museum! I absolutely love ABBA so this was such a fun experience! I was first introduced to a lot of their songs through the Mama Mia movies, which are some of my favorite movies. I literally want to be Donna. Anyways, the museum was so fun and I was able to learn a lot about the individual singers so I am choosing to write this blog on one of them! Agnetha fältskog was one of the singers of ABBA. She was born in Sweden and totally has the classic Blonde hair, blue eye look. Something that I didn’t know was that she had a solo career both before and after the band was formed. In my opinion I think they should have stayed together longer because I had never heard of her solo career before this day, but obviously I had heard of ABBA. Another thing I was able to learn about her was that she dated and even ended up marrying one of the members of ABBA. Actually, she was with him before they formed the band

     Great isn’t like any other woman we have learned about, in the fact that she is still alive. I am sure some people expected me to say it's because she is young but we learned about some other young girls that made a difference. We learned that Greta started her journey by protesting outside the parliament every Friday. She is very passionate about the environment and stepped up because she felt like no one was speaking up. Something I learned about her that makes me feel a little off about her is that she uses selective mutism. She only speaks when she thinks it’s important. When I think about that it makes me wonder if I were to try to start a conversation with her, would she just not respond because she doesn’t think it’s important enough? I think it’s the things like these that turn people away from liking Greta and not respecting her.       To be honest… I am not totally sure if she actually has affected the climate in any way. But I think she has raised a lot of awarenes

     While in Sweden we went to their modern art museum. It was in this museum that I found a piece to do my art of choice blog on. The piece is titled “To my sister” and it was done by Asher Jorn. I am not the biggest fan of modern art but I kinda liked this piece. Modern art is complex because a lot of the time it is up to the viewer's interpretation of what the painting is and what story it is telling. When I first looked at this painting I saw a big quill, which after finding out what the name of the piece was I knew I was correct. The painting is full of colorful swoops and shapes with some black spaces in the background. My eyes were drawn to the colorful parts of the painting, but it is hard not to notice the dark parts. A story I came up with while looking at this painting is that someone is writing amazing life stories out to their sister that lives far away from them. On paper this person's life seems perfect, but in reality all of the stories they have written out ar

*This picture was taken of the buildings right across from the Opera house and where we talked about her.      For this final Vienna blog post I am choosing to write about Alma Mahler. She has a complicated history. She has been known to be slut shamed throughout history. She was a fabulous lady who liked to have relations with men. If a man had done that, and they do, then they would be praised for their “game”. She is proof of the double standard that was present back then and even today. She is so much more than this label. She was a gifted composer and when Professor R. McFarland showed us some of her work, I totally thought she deserved the gifted part of that title. I may not totally agree with the choices she made in her personal life, I think she is a very skilled composer and deserves to be remembered as such.       I think her biggest contribution is how her story can serve as an inspiration and comfort for other women. In today's world, as a woman, It is hard to go throu

     While in Vienna we got to go to their imperial treasury. I thought this exhibit was so cool because there was so much history in such a small space. I am a sucker for jewels and gold and so I was loving seeing all the fancy artifacts. There were a few jewelry pieces that I was dying to try on, one in particular was a set that seemed to have my birth stone as the main jewels. Another thing I loved getting to see were the giant cloak/outfits they would wear. They looked like they weighed a ton!! They were rich shades of red and blue with very intricate designs sewn into them. Some of them even had matching shoes and hats! It was so cool to be able to look at the little description by all the displays to be able to see where these artifacts originally came from.       The national treasury contains so much history and cultural importance. Like I said above, the amount of rich history the artifacts contain is unreal. Everything in there holds a unique story and there is a unique story

     On our first day in Vienna Professor M. McFarland told us about Empress Elisabeth (Sisi). She sounds like a very glamorous lady. She was known as the most beautiful woman of her time with hair down to her ankles and an 18 inch waist! From what we learned though I think she was quite vain. She didn’t let people take her photo after she turned 30 even though I’m sure she still looked amazing. She was married at age 16 to her first cousin. I can not believe that people used to be married that young, I can barely even imagine being married now at the age of 21. Something I thought was sad was that her mother in law would take her children away from her and raise them how she wanted. I can not wait to be a mom so if my mother in law did that to me I would be very mad. It also is sad how tragic her death was, being stabbed to death is not how I want to go. She was a very interesting woman to learn about.       One important thing I was able to learn about her was that while she got her

     This blog post is about Maria Theresia, the “Empress” of Austria. I put that in quotations because apparently she never actually received that title even though it’s what she was. I have learned a lot about her this past week in Vienna and been reminded of other facts I learned back in the prep class. Here are some of the things my professors taught me: She became queen at the age of 25 and things were not looking too good. Everyone thought she was going to be a weak queen so she had to fight many wars in her first years to defend herself and her country. She was able to recreate the Austrian Hungarian empire from her victories. During the years of these wars she was also having many babies. When her kids grew up she ended up getting the name “The mother in law of Europe '' because she married them off. Apparently she only let one child marry for love. That was very smart of her when it comes to a political standpoint but not so great from a mother standpoint. She sounds l

     Today we went to the Belvedere Palace Museum! While we were there we were able to see many paintings by the great Gustav Klimt. This blog post is about his painting titled “Mother with two children (family)”. This painting really stuck out to me because I feel like you can see the exhaustion on the mothers face, it is kind of heartbreaking. The way Gustav painted everything in dark colors except for the peoples faces made your eye go directly to them. When you look up closely you can see the brush strokes Gustav made which to me made their clothes look rough which made them look poor. Also, when I looked up close I could see that all of them have rosy cheeks. This makes them look like they have been wind blown from being out on the streets all day and night. This painting really pulled on my heart strings and I hope that all the people who are living this in real life are doing okay and things will get better.       I think this painting is important culturally because it is done