travels – Page 2 – Kim Koelling

mal organisée

I think I’m scared of writing because it makes me organize the thoughts in my head. Thus the long hiatus.

It’s not that things aren’t happening in my life. Quite the contrary—the world is turning, the snow is melting, finally. I’ve started my internship at Willoughby, which has really changed my views on working for a design firm in the future. I’ve been losing sleep over what to do with my life after I graduate. My grandparents and my parents are always asking what my plans are, and its just so easy to tell them what they want to hear. “Oh, you know, just going to stay in the safe mid-west, work for a big secure design firm and settle down as far away from Africa as I can.” Blah. Lets make a list of my least desirable life course:

1:settling down

2:not being in Africa

3:getting a real job right after I graduate

The thought of staying places that are considered “safe” is not my main priority when I think of what I wan’t to do with my life. It’s not that I’m reckless or not educated about all the dangers that exist in foreign countries. Life isn’t about always wanting to feel safe, or comfortable. I want to throw myself into situations that I’m completely unprepared for. I want to learn the unordinary life lessons and come out with stories I’m still telling when I’m 80. I want to get rid of the romantic views of foreign places that I’ve filled my head with from Hollywood, Disney movies and saturated Travel Channel vignettes. I want to meet real people, and see real places—the good and the bad. And hopefully along the way do some good.

People are so scared of everything. Oscar Wao said it best, “Fear is the mind killer.” Fear keeps people from moving forward and changing anything. I’m not going to promise to stay in America, or not travel alone, or not talk to strangers, or not hitchhike. I will. I already have. And I’m going to keep doing it until I’m old and wrinkly, and people can look in my eyes and know that I’ve been places, and see my hands and know that I’ve done a lifetime of work.

Get out of my head scared-y cats! I’m GOING to live in Africa. I’m GOING to help people who need it no matter where they are, and I’m GOING to be alright without a “real job”. But for now I’ll keep lying because it’s just so much easier.

pelo de gato

almost

INDUBITABLY

every time

i go somewhere

for the

first

time

on the

first

day

it is

guaranteed to

RAIN..

I think I posted about this a long time ago when I first started my blog. The first week I lived in Nashville it greeted me with ceaseless showers; then Germany, then Ireland, then Krakow etc. I like to think that I like it, that I get to see the city without its pretty shine for the tourist-gaze.* The de-romanticized version of the place that people will not undeniably fall in love with. Australia is no exception. We watched he rain from our restaurant, where we could see the boats going by on the river, and all of the young Brisbane sophisticates meeting for lunch and looking like models straight out of Topshop. Lets hope it clears up so I can stop being so darn phosphorescent..

a letter of love

Dear Morocco,

I will come again someday to watch your sunsets and sunrises, sleep on your sand and drink peppermint tea with you.

But you cannot make me eat your food. Ever again.

Love,

kim

adventures

hello hello! I´m still alive mom 🙂

We arrived in Barcelona last night right at sunset. It´s really huge, but the buildings are beautiful. It was death trying to find parking so I´m glad we got to turn the cars in early this morning. France was breathtaking. Every picture I took is a postcard.. and I was in >FRANCE for BASTILLE DAY! awesome. We had pizza and wine on the beach and watched fireworks- and shot some too in which i burned a good sized blister on my thumb. scar memories make good stories.

My butt has nevr been more sore from hiking across an entire coast of cliffs, but I´ve been getting enough nutrition from nutella and french bread. yumm. I missed Harry Potter last night.. no one here undersands me. I think I´m going to have to separate from the group to see it sometime today. We´re still searching for a hostel for one night right now, but we looked so tred at this hostel that they´r letting us use their internetz! i´m working it.

I bargained for a barcelona jersey for half price today. And got a postcard 🙂 just getting my practice in for morocco. hopefully I´ll get internet again before I get back to frankfurt for another update.

till then

Thpain

i’m alive

pamplona spells like pee, and is stained with sangria.

san sebastian is one of the most beautiful beaches i’ve ever seen. i teared up watching the sunset behind this lighthouse on an island. mm. Slept on the beach <3 Of course i forgot to get a postcard.. Arles is today. Can’t wait to see where Van Gogh went crazy. I forsee myself doing the same, but we´ll see. It’s so fun galavanting around Europe in a red mini cooper!!! almost like I’m home

“Last Day”

It’s my last day in Trier for school and with classmates!

Tomorrow I embark upon an epic journey. I leave for Madrid tomorrow to meet africa matt and his international groupies. I haven’t had time to get excited yet though, because I’ve been so busy finishing up with school projects and such. The semester wasn’t too terribly productive for portfolio pieces, though I am walking away with a font that I designed all by my big girl self, and knowledge of how to print intaglio and that I don’t really want to do it again. I also picked up a lot of German and am sad to leave it.. there has to be someone in Lawrence I can practice with..

anyway, since I won’t be updating for a good 2 weeks and 1 day, and as a more elusive way of bragging, here’s an itinerary of my next adventures:

8/7- meet in Madrid
9/7- get to Pamplona by the car we rent in Madrid and ¡run with the bulls!

12/7- leaving Pamplona late afternoon and driving to San Sebatian to hang out on the beach
13/7- driving to Arles, France making lots of stops along the way in Toulouse, Montpellier, Avignon, with lunch in Carcassone.
14/7- Bastille day in Marseille!
15/7- lunch in Cassis and hanging out on the beach- then to Nice for HARRY POTTERRR!!!!!!!!!
16/7- touring Monaco, then driving to barcelona making stops along the way-Antibes, Cannes, dinner in Avignon
17/7- Barcelona until our flight to Grenada at 17:30h
18/7- touring Alhambra then training it to Malaga for the ferry across to Morocco!

19-23/7- Morocco- Chefchaouen, Casablanca, Fes, desert trek, dune boarding, camel riding, hookah smoking, etc.
23/7- flying back to frankfurt for my last 4 days!!

Lux City

An old friend from High School (Tommers!) wrote on my facebook a couple weeks ago saying that he had just been in Trier for dinner, had no idea that I was studying here, and that he was studying in a small village in Luxembourg. So of course I hopped on the train early friday morning and 45 minutes later we met up in Lux City. He had never really been there, since he was in a village outside it, so we explored together! We wandered around trying to find the Gründ, which was the one place I’d heard I needed to go to. Lux City was an old fortress town with walls and everything, but after all the wars and medieval times they started building all around the walls and in the valley, which is now the Gründ. The town is really cute and pretty, and we played on a playground and tried to stay in the shade since it was probably 85 without a cloud in the sky. Tommers remembered where a chocolate shop was so of course we had to go, and we tried all the little chocolates under the glass and they would start to melt the second you picked them up.

We met up with one of Tommers friends, Javo, who was also from Miami University, and searched for a place for lunch. We found a bistro, and after our lunch and our beers we revived the search for the Gründ. We found it pretty quick and walked down the narrow cobblestone road into the Gründ. We walked and walked and came to a dam where I had to stick my feet in. The water was so cold and wonderful, and it just felt like summer in Texas. That was my favorite part. The heat had drained our energy so we walked to a pub we’d passed on the way to the dam, and sat outside with another round of beers watching people walking over the bridge and listening to the plethora of languages being spoken under the shade of the umbrellas.

We went back to the train station and headed to his host family’s home in Noertzange. His host mom, Dani, was ironing on the porch with her 3 year old, Sam, next to her playing with a bowl of water and squirt toys. Max, the next oldest son was so friendly and shook my hand and showed me all the instruments he played and a mini recital with each one. His mom told us it was his birthday tomorrow and he promptly invited us all to come because they were having burritos, and the Dani invited me to stay the night if I wanted. We played with the kids, and then left to take the train to the next village to see the chateau they study in. We came to Differdange and rain started pouring down. When we got to the castle soaking wet it was locked of course so we waited for the rain to let up and ran to the italian restaurant we’d passed for dinner. After dinner they took me to their usual bar where we ordered beer in the glass boots from Beerfest! We drank and played darts, while the barkeepers kids played computer games next to us and Michael Jackson played on the radio. I decided to stay the night, so that I could have burritos for the birthday brunch, and we headed home on the last train to Noertzange.

In the morning I went downstairs first, and helped Dani vacuum and prepare for all the family that was coming in for the party. We met the grandparents and aunts and uncles, and I learned a little Luxembourgish. We had burritos on the porch, and followed it up with some strawberry shortcake. I played with Sam, running away from his squirt guns and speaking in charades, faces and funny noises since he didn’t know enlgish. It was time to leave and I gave everyone a big hug, and Dani invited me back anytime. Tommers, Javo and I got on the train to Lux City, and I annoyed them with my comments of how much I want to babysit for them. They came with me all the way back to Trier since there was a big annual Trier festival going on called Altstadtfest. There were rides and carnival food stands everywhere and stages in every square. Javo was meeting up with his german au pair that he hadn’t seen since he was 4. Crazy. And Tommers and I went to eat at the only restaurant I’ve been to in Trier, but it’s so cheap and good, and we needed to get out of the rain. We talked for 2 hours just eating and catching up. We met up with Javo and walked around a little more before they had to go back to the train station. It was so nice to see an old friend! And one more country down :p

Köln: chocolate&surfing

I’m heading up to Köln for tuesday and wednesday—my very first solo abroad trip. I’m couch surfing with a girl named Annika, and another couch surfer from Lithuania! I planned the trip from a spontaneous need to visit the chocolate museum they have up there. Excitment!

……………………………………………………………………………………….

Köln/Cologne was sooo fun! I arrived after a really nice train ride, I read a lot of my book and slept a little and saw all the cute little german villages in the hills. When I walked out of the train station I was greeted by the gigantic Dom cathedral. It’s so impressive, and I walked all around it then off to the Ludwig museum, because I had no time to waste. It was a modern art museum with a really impressive collection! They had an entire room filled with Picasso’s and other big names that I had studied in Art History. They even had a Louise Nevelson sculpture (one of my favorites!) and I felt like I was back home at the nelson atkins standing in front of Sky Cathedral. I stayed as long as I could and ran around at the end to try and see everything, but I had to get to the Chocolate Museum before it closed! So I walked along the Rhine until I came to the glorious building. The outside was surrounded with kids on field trips, and the air was perfumed with chocolate. I bought my ticket and received a complimentary lindt chocolate square, which was delicious, and perfect since you can’t help but crave chocolate right when you walk in. I learned all about where the beans come from and the process of making the chocolate. After this there is a giant chocolate fountain and lady in a chef hat handing out wafers that she dips in the chocolate. I took one and headed up to see the packaging room—the part of the museum (minus the fountain) that I was the most excited about! There was packaging all the way back from the early 1900’s when the first german chocolate company, Stollwerk, started, as well as the candy machines they initially used to sell bite size samples. Things that just take a designers breath away.. or maybe just mine.

Naturally, I went back to get another sample pretending like it was my first, and then went to the last room which was a rainforest immitation. They had the room set at an ungodly temperature and the humidity to the max, too, so right when I walked in the lens of my camera fogged up and sweat started flooding out of my pores. There was a pond and real cocoa plants growing in the room that took up 2 stories. I ended the dream at the gift shop where I got lots of treats and strange flavored chocolates to share with Annika and for souvenirs.

My next stop was at the biggest bookstore in Cologne and I bought a mystery book, and thumbed through a book solely dedicated to Lucas Podolsky <3>

Annika woke me up with a breakfast of rolls and nutella and frishkäse (cream cheese) and juice, and we laughed at the guy on the radio and talked about where we wanted to go before her class at 1. A vintage shop around the corner was the first stop, and it was so cool and we opened all the drawers in the random furniture to find secret things like fur hats, white gloves and feather boas, pirate eyes and gold! The next place was the gellato place that she said was the best ice cream in the world, so obviously we had to go. And it was. I got FERERRO ROCHE gelatto.. soooo freaking good. It was already almost one now, so we had to say goodbye and I felt like I was leaving a friend I’d had for years 🙁 We got along so well, and I hope someday I can meet up with her again! I got to the train station with enough time to look inside the Dom and buy the coolest hollographic postcard of Köln. Such a good trip!

part:KRAKOW

At the castle Namedy I got a crush on a boy, and decided to visit him in Krakow after hearing how awesome it was from Kuba, the boy, and bunches of other people. Pretty silly and spontaneous of me, because I wasn’t planning on really ever going to Poland but I did now and I’m glad I did and glad I recruited Jenn to be adventurous with me. 🙂

We arrived to Krakow from London at 830pm ish, and Kuba was waiting with a friend and a borrowed car right outside. He hasn’t passed his driving test after 2 tries now, but we couldn’t say no to a free ride.. He took us to his friends apartment to drop her off and we went in and met her boyf and kuba’s GIRLFRIEND. I know what you’re thinking. How could he have never mentioned this. But as much as I want this post to resemble something I would have blogged about in 7th grade I’ll just settle with this picture, and then say that I’m over it. obviously.

He dropped us off at one of the 300 bars krakow offers in the Jewish square, Kazimierz, which was called Baraka, and we had some traditional Polish drinks with a couple of Kuba’s friends, Łukasz and Mihow(Michael), while he left to take back the car. Both guys had really good english and we had some good conversation, and they introduced us to Zwiecz (the polish beer) and 3 popular polish vodkas:

Wisniovia (cherry vodka that tastes 100% like cherry cough syrup- VERY popular)

Zoladkowa (vodka made with herbs and such)

Żubrówka (bison grass vodka) This one we didn’t try, but Silke told me you can find it in Luxembourg and that it really is amazing.

A couple hours later Kuba caught back up with us and we all headed to Piekny Pies, one of the many clubs Silke had told me about before coming, and it ended up having horrible music and Jenn’s phone got stolen, but we found a way to dance for an hour or so despite this. We left and headed to another club, down some stairs and into an underground room that felt a lot like it could have been an old dungeon back in the day. It was dubstep night which was fitting in this dungeon-like setting and we danced for hours feeling the bass shake our bones, and at one point I tried to teach Jenn how to 2-step.. I try. When we finally left (for Kuba’s sake) we stepped out to a new day, it was 7am and raining, and we had no idea. We walked back to Kuba’s getting soaked along the way, and people in the square were preparing and setting out things to sell for the sunday markets even though everything was getting rained on. We picked up some polish mushroom ramen on the way back, ate, and slept for hours.

When we finally woke up, Kuba left to take his girlfriend to the train station so Jenn and I went exploring and stumbled upon an old Jewish graveyard that was filled with gravestones. It was rainy which added to the creepiness and serenity of the walled in graveyard, and we tried to find the entrance without any luck. We kept walking until we found the market that was being set up those hours before and looked around and the rain soaked junk wishing we had money, or could at least pronounce what the money was called in Polish.. We went back to Kuba’s after we realized we had forgotten to lock it, and then met up with Silke’s friend, Anna, who I had talked to a few days before to arrange to get together. Anna was from Poland, but moved to the states with her parents and lived there 17 yrs and graduated from UT before going back. She was so cool.

We met up with her and walked to a big warehouse where the last day of a big photography exhibition was being held. It was really interesting and comprised of photos from Poland’s government archives. The photos were all over the place ranging from pictures of different turnips with rulers for scale, inventory pics of jewish belongings left behind, and old personal pictures of army boys goofing off. We took the tram to her neighborhood and walked through a carnival going on in the field next to her apartment. The biggest field in europe allegedly. We got some greasy potatoes and mushrooms, and drank some beer with raspberry syrup which is my new favorite, and followed it up with a carnival ride that spun us in circles and making a little girl cry, and the three of us almost throw up. I laughed so hard I was crying most of the ride. We walked the rest of the way back to the Jewish Square, stopping at the Collegium Maius, one of the last surviving medieval colleges. It was awesome how much Anna knew about the history of everything—she was an amazing tour guide.

We made it to Pauza, another nice bar, and Kuba met us and from there we went to another place where I got more berry beer and we got to see Adam, another Krakow kid from the Castle project. Then we met up with more kids from their Art school at cafe Dym. Everything was closed because it was Sunday so we went back to Kuba’s and stayed up talking about computer things and downloading cs4! The next morning we realized we hadn’t eaten since the potatoes the day before so we headed to Kuba’s favorite place to eat, a milk bar, which was just a grandma serving up home cooking, but we stuffed our faces with some polish specialties I’d never had before: pierogi, these fried potatoe and cheese patties, and stewed cabbage. My mouth is watering typing this.. We walked across the bridge to the other side of town that used to be a different city but merged a long time ago, and we walked all the way up to Krakus Mound, one of 5 man made hills legends say are tombs for kings where we saw all of Krakow in one rotation. It was really incredible, and we watched the hot air balloon full of tourists go up and down. We walked to the huge wawel castle through preserved medieval streets from there and saw the fire breathing dragon statue; one of Krakow’s coolest stories in its history. On the way back to Kuba’s we grabbed one of the Krakow must-haves, the Zapiekanka, a hot baguette sandwich with mushrooms, fried onions, cheese, ketchup and tzaziki sauce and chives. SO GOOD. We met up with Łukasz (from the beginning of the story) at a cafe with little secret rooms and couches and furniture, and followed him to his flat and met his girlfriend and had coffee and conversation about the fashion show he was putting on in a few days.

Last day. Jenn and I were on our own again the next late-morning so we nervously went to a restaurant for lunch, and used our tiny bit of polish and got lunch. We went back to the cemetery and found the entrance and while the rain started to pour and the lightning cracked we stood huddled under my umbrella standing in the middle of the graveyard and taking it all in..

It cleared up and we went to the Wawel castle with Kuba. Krakow was starting to grow on me and it was already time to leave. We met up with Anna again to say thanks and bye and give hugs, and then left for the airport. Kuba had seriously underestimated the time it took to get there with trains and trams so we ended up getting to the airport 20 min before our flight. Somehow we got in easily using our “we’re going to cry a lot if you don’t let us in” faces, and flew to london spent the night in the aiport then finally on to frankfurt in the morning.

Minus the Kuba sitch and me being too nervous to form sentences like a normal native english speaker, Krakow was a really interesting place and completely different from the obvious “pretty” europe I’ve been used to. Its a really well preserved old town, and we couldn’t have gotten shown around town any better way.

Krakow: the “hidden jewel of europe”.

Part: LONDON

So we arrived in London in the morning after a night without sleeping and running amuck in Dublin. Needless to say we were extremely tired, and we still had an hour and a half bus ride to get to the center of London. I used someone’s last few minutes at an internet cafe in the airport to find a hostel, and then we came across our money saving strategy for the week; Boots. Boots was a store that was everywhere in london- kind of like a Walgreens- that had a meal deal for a sandwich, a side and a drink for 3£ so Jenn and I shared this for about 5 meals on the trip. This was also good because Jenn’s card didn’t work in London.. bummer

We finally got to the center of town, and were so tired that when someone handed us a flyer to a hostel right out of the bus station as well as a free shuttle to get there we jumped right in the shady white van without hesitation. False, we hesitated a lot and I prayed the whole way there that we wouldn’t get sold into sex slavery, but we made it and it was cheap and the hostel people were really nice and even gave us our own room for the same price as the 8 bed room. We put our stuff down and slept for about 3 hours before finally leaving and exploring Jenn’s dream city.

We had pre-ordered tickets to go see OBJECTIFIED on its opening day. We were too late to get tickets to the later one that had a Q&A with the director to follow the showing.. Oh well. It was still an awesome movie, and I thought about how much my dad would like it too while I was watching. It really cool and strange how our areas of expertise are overlapping nowadays. (He makes CNC Routers that are huge machines that can cut through all kinds of things for signs, furniture, etc.) We walked all over that part of town after the movie, liverpool and old street, just people watching all the young adults outside the pubs just after work. We got really lucky because London weather was beautiful while we were there. Then we took the Tube back to Notting Hill, where our hostel was, and found a thai restaurant where we spent the last of our pounds on a bottle of wine and a dish to share. We ended up talking to the table that was next to us who happened to be 2 engineering teachers from New Jersey who were leading a summer study abroad trip. They ended up pouring the rest of their wine in our glasses, which didn’t help the strange conversation Jenn and I had previously been discussing:

If you were on Death Row and were choosing your last meal before your execution what would you choose. You get an appetizer, a main course with 2 sides, a dessert and a drink. Also, who did you kill and why?

We went to sleep that night with the light and tv left on and slept like babies.

The next night we spent the entire day in the Tate Modern! They really had some amazing pieces that I had seen in my art history books, and the whole thing being in a big warehouse was really neat too! We spent a good part of the day there, and an even bigger part in their gift shop, which was extremely fair priced! We had all our stuff with us because we had to move hostels, so we made our way to a different part of town, kings cross st pancras, and dropped it all off at the new place and took another nap. On our way out a guy from the hostel told us he had free tickets to a rock show at a bar down the road, so we said we’d be back in an hour from eating to join them. We searched for an ethnic restaurant like ethiopian or something, but settled on a bar with thai food because it was called the Queen’s Head pub. (Which I just read about in High Fidelity!! He went to the same bar we did!!) It was really good and so was the Guinness and we were sad to leave while they were setting up for karaoke night..

The rock concert turned out to be real garage and real bad, but one of the bands was a little Muse-like and more bearable. Very novelty british though, so it was a good time. We left to get ready for Fabric, a dance club Jenn had heard about from friends, and we made a quick stop at an internet cafe where a huge black lady was skyping with a boy/just looking at him typing and vis versa and chatting with 5 people on aim and giggling a lot. Soo awesome.

We got to the club by using a night bus and found the place by following other people. A girl named Tamoko followed us too, and we ended up dancing with her the whole night . Fabric was really awesome, and consisted of a giant room with lights shows and a huge crowd dancing to.. I’m still learning all the genres of music.. but lots of bass and lots of beats, but the DJ’s talked a whole lot which was the only weird thing. Im not of fan of “ok everybody put your hands up and yell ___! woo!” over and over. We ventured to the other room at 4ish and it was much smaller but the DJ was totally different and we had a good time there as well. London is also completely different than Germany in that boys are more like Americans and try to dance with you/talk to you in London. Silly. I can’t hear a bloody thing with music that loud, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. In Trier, everyone just dances because they like dancing. Hardly ever any couple-dancing. Just friends and Lone Rangers.

The next day was Camden Town, where we shopped in the cheap markets and I got a new handmade ring from an artists stand, and Jenn got a fake leather jacket! We then headed to our last “sight” which was Shoreditch and Brick lane, and we walked along it smelling the indian restaurants and looking at the sweet graffiti as we searched for a gallery opening Jenn had found online. It seemed they were late in opening so we went to a different gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, and it had some really nice things.

Turned out Jenn was an hour behind on her time, and we ended up running (seriously running) from the tube to the hostel to get our stuff, back to the tube, and to the bus stop, and made it on time! Krakow here we come.

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