After a few days to recuperate from the trip to Poland, the group headed to France for another opportunity to learn about adaptive management, resilience, and role-playing games. We boarded our flight in the afternoon and arrived in Montpellier at about 11pm. From there we almost took taxis, but they wanted to charge us too much, so we swiftly boarded the waiting airport shuttle, drove into town, boarded a tram (after much deliberation about where we were supposed to be), and then had to walk for about 30 minutes from the tram stop to our hotel. It was a miserable time, we were all exhausted, and we didn't know how far the hotel was from the tram stop (no buses were running to take us directly to the hotel). Then, we had to be ready to go by 7:30am, meaning we were all exhausted for our first day of meetings.

Wednesday we spent the day with Olivier and Francois, learning about Companion Modeling and participatory research, which are interdisciplinary forms of research that tend to be helpful to the participants involved (e.g., communities, organizations, etc.). In some types of research, scientists go to a place, collect their data, and leave, the community having nothing to show for the experience. With participatory research, communities are heavily involved and have positive outcomes from the research.

Listening to a lecture given by Olivier

Playing the Wat-A-Game

Our lunch this day was in the faculty canteen, where I had the most delicious focaccia with various toppings, and crème fraîche with chestnut paste. It was really yummy (a word that our French hosts did not understand). Monday afternoon we played another role-playing game, called "Wat-A-Game", which was more simplified that "Lords of the Valley", but just as useful. After the workday, we stopped in Montpellier for dinner of seafood crepes (mine weren't that awesome, I found out only later that Montpellier is not known for crepes, but Paris is!).

Thursday we had a chance to meet with French PhD students for lunch. Most PhDs in Europe are only 3 years long, whereas mine will probably take 5 years minimum! We ate pizza with goat cheese and really delicious fresh grapes. It seems like the food is ten times better in Europe than in the US. Friday we had a short field trip to see the river system around Montpellier, where the role-playing game has been used to develop alternative scenarios for water management.

The Mediterranean Sea near Bezier, France

Me and the sea...it was a bit chilly.

The whole group!

After our work was done in Montpellier, most of the group went to Paris for the weekend (Saturday and most of Sunday) before heading back to Vienna. I won't write too much about Paris since this blog has taken me way too long to write. I will say that it was AWESOME and I couldn't understand why Paris gets such a bad rap.

The Eiffel Tower is realllllly big.

Subway trains are fun!

The Louvre at night...never went in but had to see the Pyramid!

The Arc de Triomphe, also HUGE. Noelle and I went to the top and the view was awesome...you can almost make out the people standing at the top of this, that's how big it is.

On the top of the Arc der Triomphe with the Eiffel Tower behind us!

Me with nutella all over my face...now this was a crepe!

It's really beautiful when lit up at night, but not too pretty during the day.

Sorry for the shadowy photo...this was such a delicious dinner. Guinea Fowl wrapped in pistachio phyllo dough over a parsnip puree. It was so amazing.

And a light almond cake with citrus sorbet for dessert.

I saw Notre Dame!

Yet another love-lock bridge.

This old man was playing awesome music on his little piano-type instrument. He even played some rags!

Apparently the bathrooms in Paris used to be disgusting. Now they have these weird pods on the streets that are cleaned and disinfected after each use! And they're free!

A beautiful pond in the Luxemborg Gardens, where Parisians go to relax.

I finally ate some wine and cheese, and it was delicious. Paris is a good place if you love food. :)

On October 19th I went on a half-day tour to Auschwitz. I can't say I was excited to go to a place where millions of innocent people lost their lives, but my grandfather had fought in World War II and I knew I had to see this place with my own eyes. I was with 5 others from my group, and we all traveled together on the same tour group and bus. On the bus ride to the concentration camp, we watched a video that was filmed by a Soviet army cameraman during and after the war.

Once we arrived, we toured Auschwitz I, the first of the three camps located in the area. We entered through a gate that said "Arbeit Macht Frei," which is meant to convince the prisoners that this was in fact a work camp and if they worked hard they might some day be free. The day was cool and foggy, making the tour of this place even more chilling. This first camp was smaller and was more for political prisoners than for exterminating races of people, but the buildings have been partially turned into museum exhibits displaying the items that were found after the camps were liberated. Most of the items were taken from warehouses that the prisoners called "Canada" because this is where all their stolen items were stored, and these were places of wealth. The various rooms showed the thousands of eye glasses, clothes, shoes, and kitchen items that were confiscated once the prisoners arrived at the camp.

Our tour guide under the sign "Work Makes Free"

Two sets of barbed-wire fence surrounded the camps.

Prisoners in Auschwitz came from all across Europe

There were at least four items in these rooms that were particularly disturbing to me. First were the baby clothes--most, if not all young children were immediately exterminated because they were not fit for working in the concentration camps. My Dad was born in 1941, so he was just a baby and would have been wearing clothes like the ones I saw on display. Second were the women's shoes, which looked just like shoes we would wear today--many of them were sandals, which reminded me that the days some women were forced to leave their homes and travel to the camps were probably sunny and warm. Nature kept doing what it always has even in the face of horrific events. Thirdly, there was a room displaying tons (literally, thousands of pounds) of human hair. When prisoners arrived at the camps, their heads were shaved and the hair was stored. The hair was going to be used in making ropes, fabric, and other items, examples of which were also displayed. Finally, there were hundreds of suitcases, many had last names written on them. I was half expecting to see a name I knew, but thankfully I did not.

[I did not feel comfortable taking photos of the exhibits, so there are none to put here.]

After we toured these rooms, we walked by the part of the camp that was the infirmary, which among camp prisoners was known as the waiting room for the crematorium. Although technically these were for sick prisoners, the Nazi doctors carried out experiments on their patients that often resulted in death or permanent injury. Also in one of these buildings were the torture rooms, where prisoners who disobeyed or escaped and were caught were sent to die. There were suffocation rooms, standing rooms, and starvation rooms. Finally, we walked through one of the gas chambers and crematoriums, which were in fact retrofitted from Polish army arsenals. I could not bring myself to take pictures inside this building.

One of the "infirmary" buildings.

Outside one of the gas chambers and crematoriums. At the time, I didn't fully understand that we were headed inside a gas chamber, and only fully understood when I saw the holes in the ceiling where the German soldiers would have dropped the deadly gas.

After this first tour, we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the majority of the murders took place. This camp had room for 100,000 prisoners at a given time, while there were less than 7,000 German soldiers in charge of the camp while it was operational. Here we could see the train tracks that brought in the prisoners, the location where "selections" were made (if you were chosen for work or sent directly to die), and the remains of the barracks that housed the thousands of prisoners. We also saw the remains of the major crematoriums and gas chambers, of which there were four originally. The Germans did their best to destroy evidence of their misdeeds once they realized how close the Soviet army was, so there was only walls and rubble remaining. However, architectural plans of the camps were found so the world knew what had been there.

The gates through which prisoners entered in livestock cars.

Prisoners exited the trains here and were made to stand in line for selection (work or death).

Ruins of a gas chamber/crematorium.

Ruins of a gas chamber/crematorium.

Our last two stops in this tour were the barracks, where 700 prisoners slept in horrid conditions, and the toilets, which were simply rows of holes on a concrete slab over a common sewage area--no privacy whatsoever, and prisoners were allowed very limited time to finish their business. The German prisoners were adept at taking away any semblance of a normality, the prisoners never had a way to escape the horrors of their situation. 

These were the bunks where people slept, 6 to a bunk, on hay.

At the end of the tour I saw a bird flitting around the ruins. It's amazing to me that such horrid things can happen in a place that was so beautiful. When I was there, the grass was green, the breeze was blowing lightly, and the sky was blue with white puffy clouds. What I tend to imagine are grayscale images that are in textbooks and on video, but the reality is that the Holocaust happened in color. I can hope that the beauty of nature, of a passing bird singing its spring song, gave hope to the prisoners...but Auschwitz was a hopeless place. I'm glad I went, but I hope I never have to go back.

This past week I had the good fortune to travel to Poland as part of the IGERT program (meaning that the trip was paid for). I spent a full week in Poland, we arrived on Sunday at about 10am and left on Saturday at 10pm. I was really excited about this trip, because I associate most with my Polish heritage since my last name is Polish and my grandpa was Polish. It was a bit of a whirlwind tour, but it was a lot of fun. Since I'm short on time (we're leaving for France tomorrow), this post will probably have more photos and less text.

Four of us decided to start the trip a day early so we could have extra time to explore Wrocław, the first city on our itinerary. We took the overnight train on Saturday to arrive Sunday morning, and it was definitely worth the less-than ideal night of sleep. We dropped our stuff at the Boogie Hostel, and then headed off into town. Our first priority was finding some food for breakfast. We located a nearby cafe that served omelets and toast, which was exactly what we needed. It also gave us a chance to get our bearings in the city. We spent the day searching for the town's gnome population, checking out various churches and bridges (Wrocław is known as the Venice of Poland because it has so many bridges), and enjoying the Fall foliage. We also went to see the Panorama Racławicka, a famous and gigantic painting of an important battle in Poland's history. After a brief meeting with the trip organizers (Piotr and Magda) and the rest of the group that had come in later in the evening, we hit the hay to be well-rested for the first day of work.

First views of Poland

I wasn't lying about the population of gnomes.

Beautiful Fall foliage around the rivers.

Yet another love lock bridge. They're everywhere!

One of many churches.

Fall colors in ivy on the art and history museum.

The museum had spatulas, made me think of my Dad!

The panorama we went to see was massive!

One of the scenes of the panorama telling about a Polish battle.

Market Square in town was bustling on a Sunday afternoon.

On Monday we headed to a local University to be observers of the game. I wrote about our role-playing game in a previous post but this time we got to observe the game being played (and would do so twice more while in Poland). Having played the game already, and knowing some details that would lead to better outcomes, it was somewhat difficult to keep my mouth shut while observing what the participants were doing. But it was also fun to watch because the outcomes were so different from when we played. It was probably hampered a little by the fact that the participants, who speak Polish, were required to speak in English for our benefit. I'm guessing this had at least a minor impact on the results of the game, or at least on our observations of the relational activities.

Getting ready to play the game!

Observing the game being played.

Some night shots of town.

Ilonka and I at the fountain in the square.

On Tuesday we had a free tour of the city before heading off in vans to our next city, Rzeszów (try saying that one!). The road trip lasted about 5 hours if I remember correctly. When we got to
Rzeszów it was pretty late and most of us simply stayed in the hotel and relaxed so we'd be prepared for another game day on Wednesday. In the hotel I actually had one of the most delicious desserts I've had in Europe, it was an apple pie sort of thing, but not pie exactly. Whatever it was I want more.

Foggy morning for the tour.

Europe is beautiful!

Town hall in the square, with the oldest restaurant in Europe in the basement!

One of the nice buildings (can't remember what it is)...

Lots of gnomes in this town!

Foggy river!

Wednesday we had another full day observing the game. The purpose of having us observe the game is to try to better understand how people communicate in complex systems. Developing an understanding of the system is important when there are many actors and no single actor has complete information. In the real world, this happens frequently, but because humans seem to be so bad at communicating, we need tools to help us understand complex and complicated situations better. For me, playing and observing the game is a good way to learn how to communicate better, not just in work situations, but also in other relational situations.

Observing the game in Rzeszow

Observing the game in Rzeszow

Wednesday after playing the game we got straight into the vans and headed for Krakow, our last city. Upon arrival, once again, I was too pooped to go out. I had a shower and went to bed. Our hotel was a little different this time as it was a cross between a hotel and a dorm (at least I think). During breakfast, there was an odd mixture of tourist types (us and older couples) plus local students who couldn't have been past sophomore year. Breakfast the first day was normal, scrambled eggs, but on the second day it was hot dogs! It was fine though, they actually tasted pretty darn good. :)

After playing the game the last time, I had two days to spend in Krakow. The morning of the 18th (and most of the afternoon) was spent on a guided tour of the city. We saw churches, the Wawel Castle, the walls and park that surrounds the inner part of the city, and a lot more. It was really cold and rainy, so we ended up with 5 people left at the end of the tour, but that was fine since we were five of the six staying an extra night. I'll post some photos from the day, and then my next blog post will be about my final day in Poland, part of which was spent on a tour to Auschwitz. 

It was a beautiful evening in Krakow

The market area lit up at night.

We went to the Jewish District for dinner on Friday night, the food was delicious. I had a traditional Jewish pasta meal.

A view of the old town, on a rainy-day tour.

One of the gates leading out of the walled part of the city.

A lot of buildings have "coats of arms" like this one, the animal depends on who lived in the building or owned the building.

It was chilly!

There is an interesting story behind this knife. Two brothers were competing to have the tallest building in Krakow, the younger won, but then he was murdered (apparently with this knife) by his older brother. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it.

A cool lion in front of a church (I think it was a church...?).

The thing hanging behind the big chain, which are both attached to a church, was used for punishing people. It was at the perfect height so a person could not stand or sit, although I was able to stand when I tested it out...

A really beautiful old church.

Cobblestone roads are common.

A view of Wawel Castle.