The Volcano

Berlin and Munich, Germany

Like any good adventure story, this one had it all: faraway lands, fascinating people, long buses, missed trains, accidental hitchhiking, and a natural disaster.

The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) was holding a conference in Berlin on "God and the Use of Power." It was free. Absolutely free. Flight, accommodation, food. Free. In Berlin. There was no way we weren't going.

We stepped off the airplane into the German sunshine and walked onto the tarmac. I love the feeling you get when you step into a new place like that. You take everything in at once: the orderly procession of people in straight lines, moving into the airport. The German vehicles taxiing here and there, in perfect precision. And... Pip left his camera bag in the airplane. He ran back, zigzagging across the runway, running up to the plane. "You can't do that!!" a German security guard shouted, before nearly tackling Pip to the ground. Thus was born an Irishman's cultural conflict with Germany.

We took a series of trains to an address we'd scribbled on a sheet of paper. We knew nothing more than that. We arrived at a hostel in a wide-open part of Berlin, and were greeted by two very friendly people who spoke perfect English. Like everyone there, they would turn out to be close friends of ours by the end of the week. We took our stuff to our room, and then went out to explore Berlin before the opening ceremony of the conference.

Berlin seems kind of strange, because so much of it is empty. Empty courtyards, vast green spaces. Steel and glass buildings sit in lonely squares. Soon enough you realize why, and then your heart stops for a second. Welcome to World War II.

After a good German bratwurst and a beer, we wandered back to the hostel for our opening ceremony. There was no way we could have expected the people we were about to meet.

Imagine 60 students from all around Europe. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Belarus, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, England, Italy, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia, Armenia (Armenia! really?), Poland, Russia, Ukraine. All like-minded Christian students, some of whom had never traveled much outside their home countries, all of whom were thrilled to be there. I had never been in a group like that. I had never had personal one-on-one experiences with people from the former USSR, or from eastern Europe, or chatted about Lutheran theology with a seminarian, or talked about the Catholic Church in Slovakia with a Dominican friar.

All of them were inspiring. I learned about Moscow and their population crisis in the summer, when 3 million people unofficially work there and live in overcrowded flats. I heard stories about a 3-day train ride to the middle of Russia, learned firsthand about Siberian gulags under Stalin. I talked with a Polish friend about her grandparents saving a Jewish girl in WWII, and heard stories about people's family being in the Nazi party. I learned more about Orthodoxy than I ever could have before, listened to a group of guys practice a Bulgarian chant, learned how cheap beer is in Romania, and finally figured out what the deal is with Finland and their saunas. (And everyone's English was incredible.)





We had Bible studies and guest speakers, all around the topic of Church and State. We'd break into small groups and get to know each other better, and it wasn't long before we were all friends. Pip was hilarious. He used the Irish card quite a lot, and people loved it. "Potatoes!" they would all say, doing an Irish accent. We had a saying: "It's all gravy." By the end of the week, the whole conference was saying "It's all gravy," which even evolved into things like, "Lunch today wasn't so gravy."

We went on a couple excursions as a group into the city, to the German Parliament building, where we actually got to sit in and talk to the VP of the Parliament who spoke about his Christian faith as a politician. (We had professional translators speaking through headphones and everything. It was like we were sitting in the UN!)

We had dinner one night at an Italian restaurant in the city, and the Italians translated for us. Afterward, we wandered around the city late at night, and went into a Bohemian artist colony, filled with artists living in an abandoned old warehouse. We walked through the rooms, amongst their paintings, past graffiti and old photographs, the smell of beer (and other things) in the air, guys chilling out in the stairwells with guitars. People sat around a fire in the courtyard, and a blues band played from inside an old shed. It felt like 1970s San Francisco.

I was part of a panel discussion on Church and State, and I spoke about the situation with Christianity and politics in the US. Four other people highlighted their respective countries. It was really interesting for me, because I was the only American student, since it was a WSCF Europe conference. (A couple people had never met an American before.) We had an "intercultural night" where everyone presented their own country. Some people showed video clips, others sang songs. I taught people the Hokey Pokey. All in all, I had so many revelations about the opinion of America from the Eastern European perspective.

I also led a workshop on a paper I had written for Trinity on the Church's role in the postmodern world, and how it can remain relevant for young people, and also how important it is to embrace the Global South and their blooming Christianity. From a European perspective, it's very very interesting. Western Europe is so secularized now, but in Eastern Europe, deep religious traditions live on, especially in Orthodoxy. Some of those guys had very unfavorable views of Islam. Some of their churches are operated by the state. Some of their priests are appointed by politicians. America really is a different system. Europe has been the center of Christianity for 1600 years, and now the center is shifting southward, into Africa and southeast Asia, and other places. By 2050, only one in five Christians will be white.

I felt like I knew these guys my whole life. We got to know each other so well, and now I feel like I have so many people I can visit all around Europe. It was one of the best weeks of my life, hands down.





Then the volcano happened. At first, no one knew what to expect. It seemed harmless enough. We were having a great time, and so what if a few flights are canceled? But a few flights became a few more, became all flights. Suddenly everyone was in a panic. Many of the guys had visas until only Monday, and now they had to figure out how to extend their visas when everything was backed up. Airlines weren't answering their phones, so a few of us went out to the airport to actually talk to them in person. Some success stories, but mostly people were forced to take trains for days back home, or to take buses over shady borders, or to stay in Berlin with other now-refugees. Imagine taking a train from Berlin to Sweden, standing for 48 hours because there aren't enough seats. It was the biggest human migration crisis since World War II.

It just so happened that Pip and I were taking a bus to Munich to visit a couple friends we had met on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin. And it just so happened that three people from the conference had friends in Munich they could stay with until the volcano was over. And it just so happened that they were able to get on the bus with us. Armine and Lusine from Armenia, and Maria from Russia.





The German bus was half an hour late, an irony not lost on Pip who celebrated every second of it.

We took the autobahn south to Munich. I've never seen cars go so fast. Of course our bus still took eight hours. When we arrived in Munich, our friend Sebastian was there waiting for us. It was time to explore Munich!

We dropped our stuff off with a friend of Maria's where we were staying the night. It's crazy how it worked out: we were originally supposed to stay with another friend, but with the volcano, her flight was grounded in Liverpool! She was en route on the train, but she couldn't make it until the next day. Luckily Maria's German friend and her parents welcomed us as refugees, and we spent the night there. Her English was perfect, of course, like every freaking other European, and her family was very accommodating of us all.

Sebastian showed us his city. First thing of course was to check out the beer gardens, where you sit outside and eat sausages and drink delicious and cheap beer. Then we explored the Hofbräuhaus, which was everything I hoped it could be. The weather was perfect, and we sat outside with our litres and Sebastian told us about Bavaria. Many Bavarians would say that they're not part of Germany. The culture is so distinct, the food is different, the music and dress is different. It was such a change from Berlin. We wandered around that night, admiring the buildings, the ancient architecture, the stone plazas, the statues. Maria explained to us the tradition where you have to touch the nose of three out of four of the lions on this particular street as you walk by. And sure enough, I stood near and watched as a middle-aged guy, walking by himself in the dark, touched the lions' noses, automatically, without even looking, as if he had done it every day for his entire life.

The next morning, we had a Bavarian breakfast (white sausage and a beer) in the beer garden under the trees. The weather was warm, and the trees were blossoming. Spring flowers, the sound of running water in the fountain. Sebastian brought his guitar and we chilled out there for awhile, playing guitar, along with an Irish bodhrán that Sebastian owns. Sebastian plays in a traditional Irish band, which is what brought him to Dublin on St. Patrick's Day to meet us in the first place!

Sebastian led us into churches, up bell towers, into crypts. We saw so many things. It was incredible. We sat in a park called the English Gardens and played guitar and bodhrán for a little bit, before hiding from the rain under a pavilion with some more sausages and potatoes for dinner. Two of Sebastian's friends joined us too. It was a blast.













That evening, our friend Sonja arrived from her 2-day train ride from Liverpool. She was exhausted, of course, but she had come all that way to see us, and there was no way she was going to sleep yet! We met up with her and hung out for awhile in a beer hall near Sebastian's college. While there, Armenie told us about her idea for a student ecumenical movement that she's been thinking about starting. We brainstormed for a name, and Maria thought we should use G.R.A.V.Y. (of course!). We then came up with the perfect acronym: Global Religious Association of Vigorous Youth.

We stayed that night with Sonja and her sister at their flat. The next morning, Sonja, Maria, and Sebastian came to the airport, and we all said goodbye. It was really hard to leave! Such good friends. I will miss all of you! We need to get together again very soon! You're welcome to visit Pittsburgh anytime!

Many more tales to tell! As the train pulled away, Pip and I waved out the window. But we knew it wasn't the end, by any stretch of the imagination. We were off to continue our adventures in Switzerland!