Brussels, Amsterdam, and My New Village

Bless me blogspot for I have sinned. It has been 3 weeks since my last blog.

It has been a while. I have almost passed the point where I don't want to talk about all the things that I've done. So I get everything out of the way, I am just going to word vomit all over this blog. It's going to be a long one.


So after 2 months of german for four hours a day, I now had a good long break. The first night I had free, I went with Megan, Federico, and Eric to Starkbierfest. Josan and a friend also met up with us. Now this day was the last day we could check out….so we were supposed to be back by 9. That didn't happen.


Starkbier : A seasonal bock bier that is around 9% or higher.


The definition should give you a good enough impression of how I was after 3 liters of it. At that point it was around 11 pm. The fest was AWESOME!! We started outside in the biergarten. Earlier that day I had bought a nice new pair of Lederhose (leather pants) with a bavarian colored shirt and the wool socks. It cost a pretty penny, but I'm definitely going to be using it the rest of my life. We ate and drank our first Maß then went inside to the fake tent that held Starkbierfest. The room was full to the max with 3,000 people, so we got a table just outside it. We played cards for a little bit and drank another Maß, then found room inside right next to the band.


Germans don't really get belligerent when they drink. They just get…happy. I can't quite describe it. They sing, they toast, they dance, they revel. All 3,000 were doing all of these. Now, this whole time we knew we weren't going to make it back to check out, so Federico texted Erich the Zivi and he said we can check out because he'll be up.


The night before, our last night in the Wohnheim, Erich allowed us to go on the roof. We observed Bavaria's largest village as it slowly went to bed. Since all the buildings in Munich are 6 or 7 stories tall, we could see so far as Olympia Turm and Marienplatz. It was a perfect last night in a perfect city.


After a rushed check out at midnight, we met the next day to start our journey to Brussels and Amsterdam. The train to Brussels was funny just because we didn't have reservations, so we had to move seats practically every stop. It took a little over 7 hours to get to the Brussels Central Station. We then walked to our Hostel before meeting up with Paola and her fiance, Sebastian. When we got off the metro in the area of our hostel, there stood the Atomium, which I did not know was in Brussels. I knew I was going to have a great time even though I only had 24 hours in this city. It took a long walk, stopping at a gas station, and getting a ride from a nice Brusselian (spelling?) to get to our Hostel, but we eventually got there. We quickly put our stuff down on our beds and went straight into town. We had a great dinner with Paola, who comes form Colombia, and her fiance Sebastian from Germany. I tried my first Belgian beer in Belgium, a Duvel. Like my trip to Ireland, it was nice tasting non-purist beer. Whenever I say something like this I feel like I'm dissing German beer. I just have to say the types are completely different.


We then headed to the birthday party of one of Sebastian's colleagues. Now in Brussels they speak French. This was the first time during my stay abroad that I had been in a country that doesn't speak a language I know. They also had different traditions. I walked through the door of Martin's (Sebastian's colleague) apartment and was bombarded with those cheek kiss things. Now I had gotten somewhat to the Saudi Arabians doing the three kiss thing to greet but that was just them…and maybe that would happen once every other week. I was not used to all this French culture.


The party was really cool. The party was "M" themed after Martin's name so everything was M - Martinis, Margaritas, mustaches you could wear, wigs, a Marilyn Monroe, and Martin who was a militant. We used his balcony for some time which overlooked his street and the young, hip neighborhood that he lived in.


The party was all good and fun but then we needed to get home. I have been completely spoiled with the Munich S-Bahn. the Brussels system stopped at 12:30 and we got to the station a little after 12. We waited forever for a streetcar to come and none of them were the right one. We ended up taking a taxi, having to get out because of some sort of police checkpoint, walking through their Central Park-sized park, and walking under the Atomium to get to our hostel. A good adventure.


The next day, we got a nice Belgian breakfast and walked around the city. Unfortunately my camera had been acting up so I got NO pictures of Brussels and all its grand platzes. After walking around I had time for one other thing so we went to the Music Instrument Museum. You wore a headset and when you went in front of an instrument, a song or piece using the instrument played through them. Most of the them were field recordings that made you beat your head or tap your foot along with whatever folk tradition the instrument came from. Of course the folk instruments were cool, but my favorite part was the evolution of the piano, which was one whole floor. There were six keyboard interments that ranged from the 1600's to the 1800's and when you stood in front of each one it played a piece from that time - maybe a Bach Brandenburg Concerto, a Mozart Piano Concerto, a Beethoven Sonata, a Chopin Waltz. After a day of relaxation and music, I boarded the train for Amsterdam. Megan and Federico stayed behind to spend more time with Paola and to go to Bruges the next day. I got into Amsterdam in the evening and was met by the two screams, from Peter Brown and Momo. Since most of this has been a text-full blog entry, from now on it will mostly be pictures. By the way, my camera wasn't acting up anymore...so I DO have pictures of Amsterdam. I'll tell the story along the way.


PB, Momo and I ate dinner that night then woke up the next morning ready to do a city tour. Thanks for being my tour guides!

The view form Momo's room

Nieuwmarkt

All the houses were gorgeous, but leaned...

I wish I were that guy...

Since only 1/3 of Amsterdam is religious, some of the churches have been changed into museums, clubs, or shops.

A wooden tower WITHIN a church

Open bridge over the Amsel River

No drinking on the streets. Germany + 1

The I AMsterdam sign

Momo modeling for her new town

Struggle bus on the way down

PB being his usual awkward self

A gorgeous bipolar day with sun and rain clouds

The CONCERT GEBOUW!

Banksy art.

Momo in front of her restaurant

Bikes bikes bikes

We took a canal tour one day 

Woman just riding the canals

The houseboats are basically only gotten by inheritance

Anne Frank's house

The oldest building in Amsterdam. Its really freakin wonky

Amsterdamers enjoying the day

Bike parking garage

Hole in the wall beer store that had every type of beer....(wait for next picture)

.......including ANCHOR STEAM!

Button store?

Old people rowing crew

They follow us everywhere

Our last full day, we took a free tour. Jo was our awesome tourguide

The Dutch East India headquarters

So, those were the pictures. If you want the explanation of amsterdam, you need to ask me. There are some pretty good stories.

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EICHSTÄTT

I got back to München, picked up the rest of my bags, and headed to my new town. Imagine me, on a train, wondering how I acquired so much stuff, when I look up to a sun-drenched river valley greeting me with its forests, mountains, town brewery, and charm. This is Eichstätt.

There are 14 churches in Eichstätt, countless trails, the largest private and only Catholic university in Germany, 13.000 Inhabitants, and even a place where you can find and keep your own fossils. Andy, a helper for the exchange student department, picked myself and another girl who I met on the train up and drove us to our apartments. Google Earth and Maps did not show well the beauty of this city, it also didn't convey well how far up a mountain my apartment is. I am now, after 2 weeks, extremely fit. I have 3 ways fo walking down, 2 use trails, and the other is a road that takes me by a farm. In the new spring weather, I have been exploring all the trails around me since Eichstätt (ayck-shteht) is in the middle of a State Park. Today, I went by their tourist office and as I was explaining where I am from and that I want to backpack and camp in the area, a nice lady was pulling off all the price stickers from the maps and eventually gave them to me for free. So come to Eichstätt everyone! I think I owe the tourist office at least that.

Yesterday, there was an Ostermarkt (Easter Market) in the main platz and I walked around with all the new people I've met, Stephanie and AnneMarie (Buffalo, New York), Jack (Saint Louis), and Fernando (Brasil - the correct spelling everyone). I then met up with my tutor for the first time since he was at a model UN meeting. We walked to the castle and up the mountain right next to it. Now Eichstätt sits on one side of this mountain on one side of this loop in the Altmühl River. A map would explain better:

View Larger Map

Even though my semester doesn't start until May, I still have yet another class with 4 or more hours of german per day. I've realized I can understand mostly everything, but my speaking is still god awful. I often wonder how the Germans hear my German, broken and unmusical. I always say, as long as they can understand me, all is good.