So to pick up where I left off, last week was our spring break, and I spent it in Oslo, Prague, and Berlin. Oslo was mediocre. I mainly just went there because I found a really cheap flight, which, thanks to French train strikes and various other things, I had to change to a much more expensive flight, making the city that much less enjoyable. It was definitely a one-day city, which was exactly the amount of time I spent there, and I found myself wishing I had skipped it altogether and just gone hiking in the fjords or the forests to the north.

Prague was beautiful. I was by myself there so I unfortunately missed out on the nightlife and the sit-down dinners but I saw all the touristy things and went to a bunch of lookout points with incredible views. It seemed very preserved, but in a slightly fake way, clearly meant to appeal to tourists. Still, it was an awesome place, and its magnificent steeples and ornate bridges surrounded by red-topped buildings and softened by the constant rainy mist made it perfect for the solitary traveler looking to drink in the spectacular atmosphere of the city.

Where Prague seemed old and compact, however, Berlin seemed new and spread out, with monuments and historical sites integrated into a modern metropolis. Being the history buff that I am, I loved standing at the Berlin Wall and the WWII sites and trying to imagine what the city must have been like in that turbulent era. I couldn’t really picture it, but I really could feel the weight of the city’s past, and was impressed with how it seemed to acknowledge that weight, to condense and solidify it in the form of well-placed memorials and to force people to look at it and remember it and carry it with them. But, in direct contrast to all that, Berlin retained a level of lightness and fun, embodied in beer gardens and bands of old men playing outside and Ampelmann lawn chairs lining the river and squatting artists displaying quirky art in outside galleries surrounded by graffiti and live blues. It had a lot of interesting contrasts that made the city one of my favorite places that I’ve visited since I’ve been here (and having friends with me after almost a week of traveling by myself didn’t hurt).

So that’s the rest of Europe for you. All is well here in Nantes, and it’s nice being back after having spent less than a week here all month. We returned to beautiful weather and in the middle of the city’s carnaval, which, although not a welcome surprise after getting off a two-hour train that followed a 14-hour bus ride with a suitcase and a cranky attitude, has definitely displayed the city at its weirdest. I cannot believe how quickly things have passed, and how fast the end of my program is approaching. Time to stop running around Europe and spend my last few weeks in France. I guess I can do that.