Yes, another gorgeous day and no alarm. We planned to go to the Prado Museum because it was supposed to be free on Sundays, but signs said that was not the cfase. We decided to go to the botanical gardens right next to the museum instead. WE had another picnic there and enjoyed the weather more. After spending quite a while there it was time to get our tickets for the bullfight. The ticket office was supposed to close at 4 and I was afraid we wouldn't get there in time, again, that learning curve. We rushed there and even though it was after 4 we got our tickets just fine. It was an hour and a half until the bullfight but we didn't want to take any chances so we went to the stadium right away. Our seats were much better than we'd expected for what we paid. Turns out you pay more to sit in shade and the distance from the ring isn't the important part. Now, I went in knowing that bullfights are violent but I didn't know the extent. First, they have the bull chase pink capes around the stadium, then they bring out a man on a horse and the bull charges the horse and the man stabs the bull with basically a big poking stick. After that, some of the men with the pink capes stab these barbed pinata-looking sticks into the bull, it ends up with maybe 10 of those in its back. Finally, it's time for the matador and his red cape. There's a period of the sterotypical bullfighting business and then, the matador gets a special sword, gets the bull to stand still using his cape, and gives a hopefully fatal stab. There are 3 matadors for the fight and they're each supposed to kill 2 bulls. The first matador got injured by the bull though. He could still walk and managed to kill the bull, it was on the news the next 2 days, I was like "hey, we were there!" Really though, kinda serves him right. I probably won't be going to another bullfight, but it was definitely interesting and I can appreciate it as a cultural experience.
After the bullfight we had some tortilla espanola bocadillas for dinner, which is just an egg and potato quiche-type thing on a baguette, it was tasty. I also managed to find Kilometer 0, woohoo! Back at the hostel, after getting ready for bed, one of our roommates started talking to us and invited us down to the hostel bar for a drink. Hanging out in the hostel bar was fun, one of the guys, pretty drunk, climbed under the curtain they put in front of the bar after it closed and got himself kicked out, kinda uncalled for I think since he didn't do anything back there. After all this, we ended up going to bed around 3.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Spring Break - Day 2 (still in Madrid)
More amazing weather and no alarm clock. We decided to go to the grocery store and get some food for lunch rather than eat at a restaurant. I got a 1.5 L bottle of water for 40 or 60 cents, usually you pay 2 euro for 0.5 L, so that was great. We had a picnic in Plaza Mayor after discovering that Plaza del Villa wasn't really a picnic-having place. Next, we went to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, which is free after 2:30 on Saturdays. This is the museum where Guernica is kept. It's HUGE, we saw a temporary exhibit and the floor with Guernica and were ready to leave, there were two more floors. We didn't want to stay inside on such a nice day though. Afterwards we had no plans so Becky got a Starbucks and we just sat outside for a long time. Then we went up to Puerta del Sol, it wasn't much to see, especially since it had a big construction wall around it. I searched for Kilometer Zero for a while, in vain. Km 0 is the marker from which all distances in Spain are measured, kinda cool I thought, but apparently nobody else cares because there wasn't a mass of people around it. Oh well. There was supposed to be a "paella party" at the hostel so we'd planned on that for dinner. Well, it turned out to be buy-a-drink-and-get-a-scoop-of-paella party, at least it was good paella and I had some sangria. During this we were chatted up by a film major from Ithaca University. After dinner, sitting in the common area, another guy started talking to us. Apparently Becky and I are very approachable people.
It begins...Spring Break
To cover my entire spring break in one post would be absurd, I think I'll do it one day at a time as that's how my journal is formatted. This means 17 posts will be coming your way, prepare yourself. I'll set you up with a basic overview of the trip: Madrid Friday, April 3 through Monday, April 6; Barcelona Tuesday, April 7 through Thursday, April 9; flew into Rome, day trip to Florence Friday, April 10; Rome Saturday, April 11 and Sunday, April 12 (Easter Sunday); Naples and Pompei Monday, April 13 and Bari (Italy) Tuesday, April 14; overnight ferry to Greece and a bus ride from Patras to Athens, then Athens the night of Wednesday, April 15 and Thursday, April 16; Paris Friday, April 17 through Sunday, April 19
Ok, now you're all set...
Day 1
Well, spring break started out wonderfully when I missed the shuttle bus to Charleroi Airport. My learning curve when it comes to time management is about the same as a doorknob's, I just never learn. No worries though, I caught the next bus and made the flight with time to spare, even after spending some time trying to stuff my purse into my carry on because of Ryan Air's ridiculous one bag policy. No problems finding the hostel in Madrid and the weather was BEAUTIFUL! I fell in love instantly, narrow streets, cobble stone roads, colorful apartments each with a little balcony and shutters, exactly what Spain should be. It was quaint even while being the largest city in Spain. Our hostel used to be a "palace" or something fancy so it was really pretty inside. It had free internet too, always a plus. After we (Becky and I) checked in, we headed out with no real direction in mind - the hostel didn't have maps. We found a nice place for lunch and some Spanish fare - chorizo and iberico ham, I'm a big fan of cured meat. After that we went to Plaza Mayor, Madrid's version of the Grand Place. It was such a nice day, we got some ice cream and just sat soaking up the sun. Then, after buying a map, we got a free one, of course. We had no desire to go indoors so we went to Parque de el Retiro for some R & R. I'm so used to go-go-go on these trips that it felt weird just to sit around and do nothing, but it is spring BREAK afterall and the rest of my trip was going to be busy.
We went back to the hostel before dinner, we'd talked about bull fighting earlier and how it would be really amazing to see one while we were in Spain, so we decided to look up prices. It was pretty reasonable, so we got tickets, more on this later...After that it was time for dinner and we went on a hunt for paella - not hard to find in Spain. In Spain, they eat dinner much later - at 9:30 or 10 - so we were there around 6 or 7 and the restaurant was completely empty. The paella was good, it's a rice dish with some vegetables and usually seafood and maybe meat, ours had seafood and meat. A good day one.
Ok, now you're all set...
Day 1
Well, spring break started out wonderfully when I missed the shuttle bus to Charleroi Airport. My learning curve when it comes to time management is about the same as a doorknob's, I just never learn. No worries though, I caught the next bus and made the flight with time to spare, even after spending some time trying to stuff my purse into my carry on because of Ryan Air's ridiculous one bag policy. No problems finding the hostel in Madrid and the weather was BEAUTIFUL! I fell in love instantly, narrow streets, cobble stone roads, colorful apartments each with a little balcony and shutters, exactly what Spain should be. It was quaint even while being the largest city in Spain. Our hostel used to be a "palace" or something fancy so it was really pretty inside. It had free internet too, always a plus. After we (Becky and I) checked in, we headed out with no real direction in mind - the hostel didn't have maps. We found a nice place for lunch and some Spanish fare - chorizo and iberico ham, I'm a big fan of cured meat. After that we went to Plaza Mayor, Madrid's version of the Grand Place. It was such a nice day, we got some ice cream and just sat soaking up the sun. Then, after buying a map, we got a free one, of course. We had no desire to go indoors so we went to Parque de el Retiro for some R & R. I'm so used to go-go-go on these trips that it felt weird just to sit around and do nothing, but it is spring BREAK afterall and the rest of my trip was going to be busy.
We went back to the hostel before dinner, we'd talked about bull fighting earlier and how it would be really amazing to see one while we were in Spain, so we decided to look up prices. It was pretty reasonable, so we got tickets, more on this later...After that it was time for dinner and we went on a hunt for paella - not hard to find in Spain. In Spain, they eat dinner much later - at 9:30 or 10 - so we were there around 6 or 7 and the restaurant was completely empty. The paella was good, it's a rice dish with some vegetables and usually seafood and maybe meat, ours had seafood and meat. A good day one.
OK, first thing's first, Han-Sur-Lesse, Dinant and Geneva
As I said I would, I kept a journal over spring break so I wouldn't forget anything, good for me. I can't jump into that right away without telling you about this weekend first though. Alrighty...
Another ISA excursion with the same van from the previous weekend. Sabine's francaphone uncle drove both times. We started at the caves at Han-Sur-Lesse. They were really impressive and there was even a river inside (which we were supposed to have a boat ride on, but didn't). When we arrived in Han-Sur-Lesse it was raining, by the time we went into the caves it had stopped and by the time we came out it was even sunny. Encouraged by this we had lunch outside. I ordered fondu de fromage, but it was not the bowl of hot melty cheese I was expecting but rather 2 blocks of fried cheese which my host family often makes in far more massive quantities. They were good, but not worth the money at all and I really don't understand how restaurants can charge what they do for them. Oh well, another learning experience for me.
After lunch, we headed for Dinant. Driving in was really cool, we went in through this narrow passageway between 2 cliffs, it looked like they'd chopped out a massive chunk of what used to be one cliff just so a road could pass through, that's probably not what actually happened but it looked like it. Fun fact - Dinant was the homtown of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, so there was saxophone-themed stuff all over the place. Our destination was the citadel situated on top of a cliff, naturally. On the drive to Dinant it had already rained and become sunny again, that happened another two times that day. The weather was crazy, basically. The citadel tour was pretty cheesy overall, they used manicans to set up displays and didn't seem to really take care of them. After the tour we rode down the cliff in a cable car (in the rain) and had a snack in a cafe (while it was sunny) and returned home.
The next morning I had to get up early for my flight to Geneva. I'd booked the flight in January and wasn't very excited about going anymore, I wouldn't have if easyjet allowed you to cancel your flight. I booked the tickets with Maren but she wanted to do her own thing so it really ended up being another shot at travelling solo. I tried to walk to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, but ended up overshooting it by a lot and then taking another wrong road for a while. My navigation skills are amazing. No big deal, I don't mind walking. I finally found the museum, I learned a lot about the ICRC. For example, I'd never heard of the red crescent but I learned that it started during WWI when muslim Ottoman soldiers were offended by the crosses. I thought that was really interesting. After all my walking I was ready for a nice trip on public transportation to St. Pierre's Cathedral. Besides the steeple, it's not very impressive from the outside nor on the inside either. I did learn that John Calvin preached there though. The cathedral redeemed itself with its tower tourists can climb. It was really windy but the view of the lake and the alps was amazing. This was also during the only sunny part of my trip, it never rained but it was overcast. After St. Pierre's, I wandered into Place du Bourg-de-Four at the heart of Old Town in Geneva and decided to have some REAL fondue for dinner after my previous fiasco. I was in Switzerland, afterall. I wasn't sure what to do after dinner, I wandered down to the lake, looked around a few souvenir shops, there's not a lot to do in Geneva. The grey was really starting to wear on me too. After a while I decided to head back to the Place du Bourg-de-Four because I liked it there, can't argue with cobblestone streets, order a drink in a cafe and read for a while. For the third time that day though, I got seriously turned around for a long time. I accomplished my goal in the end.
Day 2 - I didn't get lost this morning. I started my day at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, they give guided tours. My tour guide was from Mexico and really enthusiastic about the UN. I was in a much better mood than the day before and enjoyed the tour. It was interesting to see all the gifts given to the UN from different countries. After my tour, I headed to the Art and History Museum, however, in planning my day the night before I forgot to take into account that most museums are closed on Mondays, including this one. I walked around for a long time after that trying to find or think of something to do. In the end I decided to ride the bus into France because it was so close. The view of the alps on the ride was amazing and I could now say that I've been to France.
Much more to come soon.
-Lauren :)
Another ISA excursion with the same van from the previous weekend. Sabine's francaphone uncle drove both times. We started at the caves at Han-Sur-Lesse. They were really impressive and there was even a river inside (which we were supposed to have a boat ride on, but didn't). When we arrived in Han-Sur-Lesse it was raining, by the time we went into the caves it had stopped and by the time we came out it was even sunny. Encouraged by this we had lunch outside. I ordered fondu de fromage, but it was not the bowl of hot melty cheese I was expecting but rather 2 blocks of fried cheese which my host family often makes in far more massive quantities. They were good, but not worth the money at all and I really don't understand how restaurants can charge what they do for them. Oh well, another learning experience for me.
After lunch, we headed for Dinant. Driving in was really cool, we went in through this narrow passageway between 2 cliffs, it looked like they'd chopped out a massive chunk of what used to be one cliff just so a road could pass through, that's probably not what actually happened but it looked like it. Fun fact - Dinant was the homtown of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, so there was saxophone-themed stuff all over the place. Our destination was the citadel situated on top of a cliff, naturally. On the drive to Dinant it had already rained and become sunny again, that happened another two times that day. The weather was crazy, basically. The citadel tour was pretty cheesy overall, they used manicans to set up displays and didn't seem to really take care of them. After the tour we rode down the cliff in a cable car (in the rain) and had a snack in a cafe (while it was sunny) and returned home.
The next morning I had to get up early for my flight to Geneva. I'd booked the flight in January and wasn't very excited about going anymore, I wouldn't have if easyjet allowed you to cancel your flight. I booked the tickets with Maren but she wanted to do her own thing so it really ended up being another shot at travelling solo. I tried to walk to the Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, but ended up overshooting it by a lot and then taking another wrong road for a while. My navigation skills are amazing. No big deal, I don't mind walking. I finally found the museum, I learned a lot about the ICRC. For example, I'd never heard of the red crescent but I learned that it started during WWI when muslim Ottoman soldiers were offended by the crosses. I thought that was really interesting. After all my walking I was ready for a nice trip on public transportation to St. Pierre's Cathedral. Besides the steeple, it's not very impressive from the outside nor on the inside either. I did learn that John Calvin preached there though. The cathedral redeemed itself with its tower tourists can climb. It was really windy but the view of the lake and the alps was amazing. This was also during the only sunny part of my trip, it never rained but it was overcast. After St. Pierre's, I wandered into Place du Bourg-de-Four at the heart of Old Town in Geneva and decided to have some REAL fondue for dinner after my previous fiasco. I was in Switzerland, afterall. I wasn't sure what to do after dinner, I wandered down to the lake, looked around a few souvenir shops, there's not a lot to do in Geneva. The grey was really starting to wear on me too. After a while I decided to head back to the Place du Bourg-de-Four because I liked it there, can't argue with cobblestone streets, order a drink in a cafe and read for a while. For the third time that day though, I got seriously turned around for a long time. I accomplished my goal in the end.
Day 2 - I didn't get lost this morning. I started my day at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, they give guided tours. My tour guide was from Mexico and really enthusiastic about the UN. I was in a much better mood than the day before and enjoyed the tour. It was interesting to see all the gifts given to the UN from different countries. After my tour, I headed to the Art and History Museum, however, in planning my day the night before I forgot to take into account that most museums are closed on Mondays, including this one. I walked around for a long time after that trying to find or think of something to do. In the end I decided to ride the bus into France because it was so close. The view of the alps on the ride was amazing and I could now say that I've been to France.
Much more to come soon.
-Lauren :)
Friday, April 3, 2009
Christine's Visit, Breendonk and Antwerp, Villers-La-Ville and Waterloo
I'm heading off for Spring Break in a few short hours and I didn't want to leave you all hanging for another 2 weeks. So I'm going to try to be more brief than usual as I purge my camera's memory card in preparation of the pictures to come in the next 2 weeks.
Before leaving, way back in December and even before then, I'd talked with my other friends who are currently abroad about how we were going to meet up in Europe and have adventures together. My friend from Creighton, Christine, and I had talked about Europe at lunch all through last semester. Naturally, I was excited when she suggested coming to visit as it would be the culmination of all our talks. I took her around Brussels and even to a brewery and we indulged in a couple of Belgian delicacies, i.e. gaufres and frites and beer at the brewery. The weather was even sunny. The next day was another ISA excursion which Christine joined. This time to Breendonk concentration camp and Antwerp. Breendonk was FREEZING and it just made me so glad to be able to live in safety and comfort, I thought about how people lived in those conditions every day in thin clothing, starving, exhausted, tortured. It was a good precursor for Auschwitz later. Fortunately, it was a sunny and relatively warm day in Antwerp. The day kinda focused on Rubens, first we saw his painting in the cathedral and then we saw his house and studio. After that we went on a "ghost walk" which I thought was going to involve gruesome Jack-the-Ripper-esque tales but ended up being completely suitable for even an 8 year old. It was pretty cute, actually. There were a lot of people in Antwerp and festivities for the first day of spring. I enjoyed it. After arriving back in Brussels Christine and I went out for a drink and not to the usual haunt but to a very different new place that I'd stumbled across the day before and I'd remembered it was in my tour book. We were the youngest people in the place by far, but that was ok. We had a good long talk and lost track of the time, those kinds of talks are the best kind.
As we had rented a van for the trip and would have it for the next week, Sabine decided to have a Sunday excursion to the abbey at Villers-La-Ville and Waterloo. Christine had to leave for France in the morning, but I was very happy she got to visit. The abbey at Villers-la-Ville is a mass of ruins from around the 1200s maybe. They were beautiful, especially the church. After that we headed to Waterloo to see the site of the famous building which is something I'd wanted to do for a while. Really, it's just a big man made hill with a statue of a lion on top and a few cheesy tourist trap exhibitions. None-the-less, it was enjoyable and interesting trying to picture fighting with horses and rifles and bayonets taking place in that exact place a couple hundred years ago. I'd never been to a battlefield before either.
I'm sorry I've been so bad at keeping you all up to date here, but all the pictures are up on facebook and photobucket. I have much more to report on Han-Sur-Lesse and Geneva but that will have to wait. Spring break is upon me and I'm really excited to see the places I'm going to, more so than I have been for my other travels. I'm really hoping everything goes smoothly over the next two weeks. I'm bringing a journal with me and I'll do my best to actually write in it so I don't forget any details and I can report back to you when I come home. Until then...
-Lauren :)
Before leaving, way back in December and even before then, I'd talked with my other friends who are currently abroad about how we were going to meet up in Europe and have adventures together. My friend from Creighton, Christine, and I had talked about Europe at lunch all through last semester. Naturally, I was excited when she suggested coming to visit as it would be the culmination of all our talks. I took her around Brussels and even to a brewery and we indulged in a couple of Belgian delicacies, i.e. gaufres and frites and beer at the brewery. The weather was even sunny. The next day was another ISA excursion which Christine joined. This time to Breendonk concentration camp and Antwerp. Breendonk was FREEZING and it just made me so glad to be able to live in safety and comfort, I thought about how people lived in those conditions every day in thin clothing, starving, exhausted, tortured. It was a good precursor for Auschwitz later. Fortunately, it was a sunny and relatively warm day in Antwerp. The day kinda focused on Rubens, first we saw his painting in the cathedral and then we saw his house and studio. After that we went on a "ghost walk" which I thought was going to involve gruesome Jack-the-Ripper-esque tales but ended up being completely suitable for even an 8 year old. It was pretty cute, actually. There were a lot of people in Antwerp and festivities for the first day of spring. I enjoyed it. After arriving back in Brussels Christine and I went out for a drink and not to the usual haunt but to a very different new place that I'd stumbled across the day before and I'd remembered it was in my tour book. We were the youngest people in the place by far, but that was ok. We had a good long talk and lost track of the time, those kinds of talks are the best kind.
As we had rented a van for the trip and would have it for the next week, Sabine decided to have a Sunday excursion to the abbey at Villers-La-Ville and Waterloo. Christine had to leave for France in the morning, but I was very happy she got to visit. The abbey at Villers-la-Ville is a mass of ruins from around the 1200s maybe. They were beautiful, especially the church. After that we headed to Waterloo to see the site of the famous building which is something I'd wanted to do for a while. Really, it's just a big man made hill with a statue of a lion on top and a few cheesy tourist trap exhibitions. None-the-less, it was enjoyable and interesting trying to picture fighting with horses and rifles and bayonets taking place in that exact place a couple hundred years ago. I'd never been to a battlefield before either.
I'm sorry I've been so bad at keeping you all up to date here, but all the pictures are up on facebook and photobucket. I have much more to report on Han-Sur-Lesse and Geneva but that will have to wait. Spring break is upon me and I'm really excited to see the places I'm going to, more so than I have been for my other travels. I'm really hoping everything goes smoothly over the next two weeks. I'm bringing a journal with me and I'll do my best to actually write in it so I don't forget any details and I can report back to you when I come home. Until then...
-Lauren :)
Friday, March 20, 2009
Berlin, Bruges and St. Patty's
SO...Berlin. When Maren, Allison and I were planning out our schedule in January, we'd decided on a weekend for Germany, but as that date came closer plans changed. Planes were expensive, trains were even more expensive, so nobody wanted to go. I found an overnight bus ticket for a decent price, but still had nobody to go with me. I was worried about traveling alone because of the general atmosphere of paranoia I was raised in, but after talking to Christine who went to Vienna alone and had a wonderful (and safe) time, I decided to do it. I booked my hostel and my bus ticket Wednesday night and left late Thursday night. I'm sick of being so afraid of the world and I've been trying to live more fearlessly. Of course bad things happen, but they're few and far between, that's why they're on the news, because they're rare. I felt like traveling alone was something I had to do as part of my process of overcoming my ingrained fear.
The bus ride to Berlin was not bad at all, I didn't sleep much, but I didn't expect to. I'd looked up directions to my hostel before I left, so getting there was no problem. I had planned to check-in and change since I was wearing the same clothes as the day before, but check-in wasn't until 2, so I just put my luggage in the luggage room and headed out. I got a big pastry and a coffee and made my way to Alexanderplatz, formerly part of East Berlin. They have this big TV tower there, but it was pretty cloudy so I couldn't see the top of it very well. I based my trip iternerary off my Europe travel book, it said that the church in Alexanderplatz was free and I'm all about free things. As I've said before, I'll never get sick of old European churches, and I'm still the only person who feels that way. What did I do after exploring this church? Explored another church, of course! The Berliner Dom, or, the Berlin Cathedral. It was HUGE and beautiful. After Italy, I've just grown accustomed to thinking that every church I enter is Catholic, but the Berliner Dom is protestant. It was interesting to see the differences from Catholic churches, they had statues of prominent figures in the reformation like Luther and Calvin and as my audio guide informed me, the only old testament figure in the church was David. I got to go up into the dome, too, which you never seem to get to do in these big old domed churches. After the dome, the tour takes you down into the crypt where a number of Prussian kings' tombs are. I found that the chronology of the Prussian monarchy is difficult to follow, since the only names are Friedrich, Wilhelm and Friedrich Wilhelm, that's just confusing, thank goodness I'll never be tested on it. That was the end of my church explorations. On to Checkpoint Charlie.
The metro system in Berlin was a little confusing at times because they didn't always have maps showing the stations between where you were and the end of the line. My hostel map was helpful in this aspect, it drew lines between metro stops, but it still didn't say what the end of the lines were...despite all this though, I never had any major difficulties using the u-bahn and only found myself going the wrong direction once. Anyways, I took the u-bahn to Checkpoint Charlie. They had this big informational wall in the area with stories about the Berlin Wall on it in German AND English. Berlin was a very English-friendly city overall. At one point, I walked over a brick line in the road, I wouldn't have noticed it if other people hadn't been talking about it. It marked where the Wall used to be, there was a little plaque that read "Berlin Mauer 1961-1989". Walking across that I just thought of how my mom was there 35 years before me when East Berlin was a reality and the Wall was actually there and Checkpoint Charlie was operational. Just seeing that line was really moving. The Haus am Checkpoint Charlie is the museum dedicated to the Wall. I was surprised to find out that it opened before the wall fell. It was really cool to see all the escape attempts throughout the years. If you were the soviets in East Berlin, and saw how many people were trying to escape the government you'd established, wouldn't you take that as a sign that your government kinda sucks? Maybe that's just me...I'd seen a special on the Berlin Wall a while ago, kinda in passing, probably very late at night, so I knew about some of the escape attempts. One man hid people in his car quite a few times, some students dug a hole under the wall, one family made a hot air balloon and actually managed to escape with another family. But amongst all this, I felt really sick and had to sit down for a good 10 minutes. I'd felt sick since the Berliner Dom, but this was pretty bad. After I got up I still didn't feel great and continued to sit down throughout the museum. Once I'd made my way through the museum, I got some 7up from Subway...that just made me feel worse, but I still drank the whole thing for some reason. When I went to bed, I thought I felt better, but apparently not because I sat up in the middle of the night and threw up...in bed...yeah, it was gross. That made the night pretty miserable, because I was wet and cold. The next morning I took a shower and felt slightly better, but still not great. Oh well, I'm not going to let illness spoil my trip.
I started my day with the East Side Gallery, which is pretty much just a long section of the Wall that's still standing. I actually found the brick line more moving than the actual wall, which is odd, but maybe that's because the brick was my first interaction with it. Either way, it was strange to think about life back then, and how the wall was still standing during my life, not for very long, but still within my lifetime. Next I headed off to the Topographie des Terrors, which had to do with the 3rd Reich and WWII. Berlin's seen a lot of difficult times in its day. At some point during all this, I realized that my hostel was in the former East Berlin, 30 years ago I would never have even thought of staying in that area but now it's just the same as West Berlin, still boggles my mind. I had my hopes up that the Topographie des Terrors would be an indoor thing, it wasn't. They're working on creating a building for it, though. It was just a series of informational posters and pictures describing life during that time. Apparently 3rd Reich headquarters were in a palace built in the 1700s by one of those Prussian kings. It was bombed severly during the war and then completely demolished afterwards. There were informational signs throughout Berlin explaining what building used to be in that spot. I was always disappointed when the building wasn't there anymore, but I suppose keeping Hitler's bunker from being vandalized to the point of destruction would be pretty impossible, and he'd deserve it. I walked down to the Brandenburger Tor and then completely out of my way to take a picture of a statue of Friedrich (Frederick) the Great that was in my tour book and then back to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). It used to be in no-man's land but today I can pass under it freely. Another one of the many things that made me think of my mom wandering around Berlin 35 years ago (yep mom, it was that long ago) and how different it was then. I proceded to wander through Tiergarten, which used to be stocked with boars and other game and used as a hunting ground back in the day, now it's just an expansive park. Tiergarten was a lot bigger than I expected, I reached this big obelisk in the center of a massive roundabout, I know it has a fancy name and purpose but I don't know either, and made my way to the nearest u-bahn station to head to Schloss Charlottenburg.
Schloss Charlottenburg was Sophie-Charlotte, the first queen of Prussia's summer home. I learned that schloss means palace in German. No pictures allowed inside and they monitored you very closely. The best room was the china room, it had vertical stripes of mirrors all the way around and was filled with china of all shapes and purposes. There were jugs, if you can call them that, the size of my pinky to jars that reached my waist and a whole lotta plates of varying sizes as well. The Germans really loved chinese things. The palace also had a legitimate church inside it, complete with organ. Next I hopped back on the u-bahn to see the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtnis-Kirche, which they left unrestored after the bombing raids of WWII. I can't imagine living somewhere in the midst of a bombing raid, how awful and utterly terrifying. The church was definitely cool to see and I managed to get in right before it closed, there wasn't much to see inside anyways. I headed back towards the Brandenburger Tor to see the Reichstag after. The Reichstag building houses some other government something these days, it was on one of the many informational signs I encountered in Berlin. The highlight of going to the Reichstag is this big glass dome you can walk inside, but of course, it had closed that day for maintenance, I could've gone the day before and it would've been open, but no. Oh well, I still got to explore the rooftop for a while and marvel at the dome. By the time I got back to my hostel, I was actually hungry for the first time since the previous morning. I finished off the pastry I'd bought. I was very happy to feel better.
My European cell phone does this weird thing where I have to activate the alarm after I set the time for it to work, I must've forgotten to do that because I woke up much later than I'd planned to (still at a very reasonable hour though, thank you very much). However, this would come back to haunt me later. Anyways, I headed out to Potsdam to see some more palaces. First was Sanssouci, "without care" in French...don't ask me why this German palace has a French name, either way, it's beautiful. Again, no pictures allowed. My favorite room in this palace was the last room, a bedroom decorated with 3D flowers and animals all over. It reminded me of my brother's room because it was yellow and kinda jungle themed and his walls are yellow and there's a jungle-themed border. If I was a guest in Sanssouci, I definitely would've chosen to sleep in that room. Afterwards I had lunch, thankful to be well enough to eat and have an appetite. I got a bratwurst, potatoes and gruhwein, which was a "hot wine punch" and delicious, gruhwein everyday, please. This was at a booth of sorts, not high quality but still German and good and not too pricey. I was happy. I explored sanssouci park for a bit, there are palaces scattered throughout it, most of which are only open during the summer. Fun fact: Friedrich the Great had artificial ruins built to house the reservoir for the fountains in the park. Nicer to look at than a water tower, I suppose. Walking through the park it hit me that this was my history. My not so distant ancestors were German, they lived and breathed in Germany and I was there. That's another reason I decided to go to Berlin, it was important to me to get in touch with my family history like that and Belgium is adjacent to Germany, how could I NOT go? My dad likes to pretend like he's not German and just all Italian, but that's just not fair. First of all father, you enjoy brats and beer, both of which are pretty German (I've talked to people who don't even know what brats are...inconceivable) and second of all, ignoring half your heritage is just disrespectful AND our Italian ancestors probably lived super close to GERMAN speaking Austria since Grandma said her parents spoke Italian and GERMAN to eachother. Mother, why don't you ever talk about Germany, you were there. You're always like "poor me, you went to Italy and I stayed home" and I felt bad until I remembered that you went to Germany in high school, and I only remembered very recently. BUT, the point is, my heritage is largely German and I am very thankful I got to experience part of that culture first hand.
One more palace before calling it a day, the Neues Palais, New Palace. I really liked the exterior of this palace, it was the largest palace yet, red brick and covered in statues at the ground level. Inside we had to wear these big slippers that went over our shoes. Again, of course, no pictures. My favorite room this time was the grotto room, I'll call it. It was a big hall with horizontal stripes of minerals, like a mosaic of really fancy rocks. I've never seen anything like it. After a pleasant day, the best yet, I was destined for failure.
I said my failed alarm would haunt me, WELL, I thought I had enough time to get back from Potsdam, grab my luggage from the hostel and make my 7:15 bus. I was very wrong. If I had woken up when I'd planned to, I probably would've made my bus. I was hoping the bus would be late, and the book I had from the bus company made it seem like another bus would be leaving at 9:15. No, of course not. So, what now? I figured I had two options, either catch a train back to Brussels that night or go back to the hostel, book another night and take the bus back the next night. The first was definitely the more desirable plan, I had no desire to arrive in Brussels at 6am and then go to class at 11:30. During this process, I just wanted to burst into tears, I was so angry at myself, I've never wanted to go home (home being Brussels in this scenario) so much before in my life. This was the one and only time I got messed up on the metro during my trip and I ended up going back and forth on the s-bahn a number of times. Allison called in the midst of this and it was so nice to hear a familiar voice. Honestly, traveling alone hadn't been as rewarding as I'd hoped. I proved to myself I could do it and it was safe, and I did manage to problem solve through my epic fail, but there was just something missing the whole time. I don't know if it was something about Berlin or something about me but the remainder of my weekends in Europe won't be spent alone. Anyways, I finally found the train station and by that time I had NO intention of going back to option two, I was going home as soon as possible. Allison looked up trains after I told her I'd missed my bus and said there were trains leaving around midnight, so that was the plan. I had to sit in the station for a good 2.5 hours, and it was cold, but I had reading for school to do, so I managed. The train was late, of course, but it was mostly empty and I could charge my phone (which had died during my conversation) and I actually got some sleep. However, they don't announce when they arrive at stations at all, so I was pretty paranoid I was going to miss my stop and kept waking up. I didn't miss it, and even though the train left 20 minutes late we got into the station exactly as scheduled, dunno how we made up those 20 minutes. I had 3 short layovers during this trip but I didn't have any problems with them.
I was so happy to be home. I hadn't shed a tear through that whole experience, but the closest I came was when I arrived home after everything. It was pretty awful and definitely puts a black mark on Berlin. My tour book says that Berlin is not a very German city, having been there I understand exactly what it means. I really want to see more of Germany now, especially Bavaria, and some castles, German castles are the best. Alas, I have no time left this semester to do so. I'm still glad I got to experience part of it, though.
Next weekend: Bruges
There's a movie about Bruges, "In Bruges", starring Collin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes, if you like "Fargo", you'd probably like it. Another ISA trip. Bruges is supposed to be "the Venice of the north". My trip was complete with boat ride on the canals and a horse drawn carriage ride. We also climbed a series of narrow sprial staircases to the top of the belfry tower. I love gorgeous views from high-up vantage points and I was not disappointed. We saw an old church they used as a hospital and another with a statue by Michelangelo in it. Allison had a friend from home and Dallin had a friend who'd studying near Geneva visiting so they both came with. The night before our host family made a huge Indonesian dinner for all of us and it was AMAZING by all accounts. Back to the point, Bruges was lovely, but I preferred Ghent. However, I'm sure that has something to do with the fact that it was sunny in Ghent and overcast in Bruges. After Berlin, I was happy to have a relaxed weekend without planning and extensive traveling anyways.
With Allison and Kreesta in Geneva this past week and Maren in Dublin, and Regina, Rachel and Dallin not being drinkers I had no idea what I was going to do for St. Patrick's Day. I had no plans to get drunk, but I had to go out for the first time I could legally drink on a holiday dedicated to drinking. Thank goodness for my Bentley friends, I had people to go out with. At one point during the evening, they invented Beerga, a game where you stack as many coasters as widely as possible on top of a beer glass and you basically play jenga with them. It was entertaining to watch. Plus, the boys were wearing ridiculous hats. All in all, it was a fun night and I was glad I got to go out, even though St. Patrick's Day is not a big deal in Belgium at all. Understandable, since I doubt many Belgians have an Irish heritage, but I've never seen so little green on that day in my life.
You might forget I have school amidst all this, (psh, school) but we just had midterms. I thought I'd done better than I was graded in two of my classes, the other two were exactly what I expected, one good the other eh (history is hard, my brain doesn't work like that). My grades don't transfer back to Creighton, as long as I get a C, I get the credit for the course. The grading system here is in my favor too, 85%-100% is an A and I'm pretty sure 81%-84% is an A-, but that just makes me feel worse about my midterms really. I like to tell myself that the profs grade with this system in mind, so they think "this is B work" and grade accordingly and if I was in the states I get the same grade and not the same percent...yes, that makes me feel better. I'm so ready to be done with school, not ready for the real world, not at all, but definitely ready for school to be over.
Sorry for another extremely long post, but at least I'm no Kant here.
-Lauren :)
The bus ride to Berlin was not bad at all, I didn't sleep much, but I didn't expect to. I'd looked up directions to my hostel before I left, so getting there was no problem. I had planned to check-in and change since I was wearing the same clothes as the day before, but check-in wasn't until 2, so I just put my luggage in the luggage room and headed out. I got a big pastry and a coffee and made my way to Alexanderplatz, formerly part of East Berlin. They have this big TV tower there, but it was pretty cloudy so I couldn't see the top of it very well. I based my trip iternerary off my Europe travel book, it said that the church in Alexanderplatz was free and I'm all about free things. As I've said before, I'll never get sick of old European churches, and I'm still the only person who feels that way. What did I do after exploring this church? Explored another church, of course! The Berliner Dom, or, the Berlin Cathedral. It was HUGE and beautiful. After Italy, I've just grown accustomed to thinking that every church I enter is Catholic, but the Berliner Dom is protestant. It was interesting to see the differences from Catholic churches, they had statues of prominent figures in the reformation like Luther and Calvin and as my audio guide informed me, the only old testament figure in the church was David. I got to go up into the dome, too, which you never seem to get to do in these big old domed churches. After the dome, the tour takes you down into the crypt where a number of Prussian kings' tombs are. I found that the chronology of the Prussian monarchy is difficult to follow, since the only names are Friedrich, Wilhelm and Friedrich Wilhelm, that's just confusing, thank goodness I'll never be tested on it. That was the end of my church explorations. On to Checkpoint Charlie.
The metro system in Berlin was a little confusing at times because they didn't always have maps showing the stations between where you were and the end of the line. My hostel map was helpful in this aspect, it drew lines between metro stops, but it still didn't say what the end of the lines were...despite all this though, I never had any major difficulties using the u-bahn and only found myself going the wrong direction once. Anyways, I took the u-bahn to Checkpoint Charlie. They had this big informational wall in the area with stories about the Berlin Wall on it in German AND English. Berlin was a very English-friendly city overall. At one point, I walked over a brick line in the road, I wouldn't have noticed it if other people hadn't been talking about it. It marked where the Wall used to be, there was a little plaque that read "Berlin Mauer 1961-1989". Walking across that I just thought of how my mom was there 35 years before me when East Berlin was a reality and the Wall was actually there and Checkpoint Charlie was operational. Just seeing that line was really moving. The Haus am Checkpoint Charlie is the museum dedicated to the Wall. I was surprised to find out that it opened before the wall fell. It was really cool to see all the escape attempts throughout the years. If you were the soviets in East Berlin, and saw how many people were trying to escape the government you'd established, wouldn't you take that as a sign that your government kinda sucks? Maybe that's just me...I'd seen a special on the Berlin Wall a while ago, kinda in passing, probably very late at night, so I knew about some of the escape attempts. One man hid people in his car quite a few times, some students dug a hole under the wall, one family made a hot air balloon and actually managed to escape with another family. But amongst all this, I felt really sick and had to sit down for a good 10 minutes. I'd felt sick since the Berliner Dom, but this was pretty bad. After I got up I still didn't feel great and continued to sit down throughout the museum. Once I'd made my way through the museum, I got some 7up from Subway...that just made me feel worse, but I still drank the whole thing for some reason. When I went to bed, I thought I felt better, but apparently not because I sat up in the middle of the night and threw up...in bed...yeah, it was gross. That made the night pretty miserable, because I was wet and cold. The next morning I took a shower and felt slightly better, but still not great. Oh well, I'm not going to let illness spoil my trip.
I started my day with the East Side Gallery, which is pretty much just a long section of the Wall that's still standing. I actually found the brick line more moving than the actual wall, which is odd, but maybe that's because the brick was my first interaction with it. Either way, it was strange to think about life back then, and how the wall was still standing during my life, not for very long, but still within my lifetime. Next I headed off to the Topographie des Terrors, which had to do with the 3rd Reich and WWII. Berlin's seen a lot of difficult times in its day. At some point during all this, I realized that my hostel was in the former East Berlin, 30 years ago I would never have even thought of staying in that area but now it's just the same as West Berlin, still boggles my mind. I had my hopes up that the Topographie des Terrors would be an indoor thing, it wasn't. They're working on creating a building for it, though. It was just a series of informational posters and pictures describing life during that time. Apparently 3rd Reich headquarters were in a palace built in the 1700s by one of those Prussian kings. It was bombed severly during the war and then completely demolished afterwards. There were informational signs throughout Berlin explaining what building used to be in that spot. I was always disappointed when the building wasn't there anymore, but I suppose keeping Hitler's bunker from being vandalized to the point of destruction would be pretty impossible, and he'd deserve it. I walked down to the Brandenburger Tor and then completely out of my way to take a picture of a statue of Friedrich (Frederick) the Great that was in my tour book and then back to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). It used to be in no-man's land but today I can pass under it freely. Another one of the many things that made me think of my mom wandering around Berlin 35 years ago (yep mom, it was that long ago) and how different it was then. I proceded to wander through Tiergarten, which used to be stocked with boars and other game and used as a hunting ground back in the day, now it's just an expansive park. Tiergarten was a lot bigger than I expected, I reached this big obelisk in the center of a massive roundabout, I know it has a fancy name and purpose but I don't know either, and made my way to the nearest u-bahn station to head to Schloss Charlottenburg.
Schloss Charlottenburg was Sophie-Charlotte, the first queen of Prussia's summer home. I learned that schloss means palace in German. No pictures allowed inside and they monitored you very closely. The best room was the china room, it had vertical stripes of mirrors all the way around and was filled with china of all shapes and purposes. There were jugs, if you can call them that, the size of my pinky to jars that reached my waist and a whole lotta plates of varying sizes as well. The Germans really loved chinese things. The palace also had a legitimate church inside it, complete with organ. Next I hopped back on the u-bahn to see the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtnis-Kirche, which they left unrestored after the bombing raids of WWII. I can't imagine living somewhere in the midst of a bombing raid, how awful and utterly terrifying. The church was definitely cool to see and I managed to get in right before it closed, there wasn't much to see inside anyways. I headed back towards the Brandenburger Tor to see the Reichstag after. The Reichstag building houses some other government something these days, it was on one of the many informational signs I encountered in Berlin. The highlight of going to the Reichstag is this big glass dome you can walk inside, but of course, it had closed that day for maintenance, I could've gone the day before and it would've been open, but no. Oh well, I still got to explore the rooftop for a while and marvel at the dome. By the time I got back to my hostel, I was actually hungry for the first time since the previous morning. I finished off the pastry I'd bought. I was very happy to feel better.
My European cell phone does this weird thing where I have to activate the alarm after I set the time for it to work, I must've forgotten to do that because I woke up much later than I'd planned to (still at a very reasonable hour though, thank you very much). However, this would come back to haunt me later. Anyways, I headed out to Potsdam to see some more palaces. First was Sanssouci, "without care" in French...don't ask me why this German palace has a French name, either way, it's beautiful. Again, no pictures allowed. My favorite room in this palace was the last room, a bedroom decorated with 3D flowers and animals all over. It reminded me of my brother's room because it was yellow and kinda jungle themed and his walls are yellow and there's a jungle-themed border. If I was a guest in Sanssouci, I definitely would've chosen to sleep in that room. Afterwards I had lunch, thankful to be well enough to eat and have an appetite. I got a bratwurst, potatoes and gruhwein, which was a "hot wine punch" and delicious, gruhwein everyday, please. This was at a booth of sorts, not high quality but still German and good and not too pricey. I was happy. I explored sanssouci park for a bit, there are palaces scattered throughout it, most of which are only open during the summer. Fun fact: Friedrich the Great had artificial ruins built to house the reservoir for the fountains in the park. Nicer to look at than a water tower, I suppose. Walking through the park it hit me that this was my history. My not so distant ancestors were German, they lived and breathed in Germany and I was there. That's another reason I decided to go to Berlin, it was important to me to get in touch with my family history like that and Belgium is adjacent to Germany, how could I NOT go? My dad likes to pretend like he's not German and just all Italian, but that's just not fair. First of all father, you enjoy brats and beer, both of which are pretty German (I've talked to people who don't even know what brats are...inconceivable) and second of all, ignoring half your heritage is just disrespectful AND our Italian ancestors probably lived super close to GERMAN speaking Austria since Grandma said her parents spoke Italian and GERMAN to eachother. Mother, why don't you ever talk about Germany, you were there. You're always like "poor me, you went to Italy and I stayed home" and I felt bad until I remembered that you went to Germany in high school, and I only remembered very recently. BUT, the point is, my heritage is largely German and I am very thankful I got to experience part of that culture first hand.
One more palace before calling it a day, the Neues Palais, New Palace. I really liked the exterior of this palace, it was the largest palace yet, red brick and covered in statues at the ground level. Inside we had to wear these big slippers that went over our shoes. Again, of course, no pictures. My favorite room this time was the grotto room, I'll call it. It was a big hall with horizontal stripes of minerals, like a mosaic of really fancy rocks. I've never seen anything like it. After a pleasant day, the best yet, I was destined for failure.
I said my failed alarm would haunt me, WELL, I thought I had enough time to get back from Potsdam, grab my luggage from the hostel and make my 7:15 bus. I was very wrong. If I had woken up when I'd planned to, I probably would've made my bus. I was hoping the bus would be late, and the book I had from the bus company made it seem like another bus would be leaving at 9:15. No, of course not. So, what now? I figured I had two options, either catch a train back to Brussels that night or go back to the hostel, book another night and take the bus back the next night. The first was definitely the more desirable plan, I had no desire to arrive in Brussels at 6am and then go to class at 11:30. During this process, I just wanted to burst into tears, I was so angry at myself, I've never wanted to go home (home being Brussels in this scenario) so much before in my life. This was the one and only time I got messed up on the metro during my trip and I ended up going back and forth on the s-bahn a number of times. Allison called in the midst of this and it was so nice to hear a familiar voice. Honestly, traveling alone hadn't been as rewarding as I'd hoped. I proved to myself I could do it and it was safe, and I did manage to problem solve through my epic fail, but there was just something missing the whole time. I don't know if it was something about Berlin or something about me but the remainder of my weekends in Europe won't be spent alone. Anyways, I finally found the train station and by that time I had NO intention of going back to option two, I was going home as soon as possible. Allison looked up trains after I told her I'd missed my bus and said there were trains leaving around midnight, so that was the plan. I had to sit in the station for a good 2.5 hours, and it was cold, but I had reading for school to do, so I managed. The train was late, of course, but it was mostly empty and I could charge my phone (which had died during my conversation) and I actually got some sleep. However, they don't announce when they arrive at stations at all, so I was pretty paranoid I was going to miss my stop and kept waking up. I didn't miss it, and even though the train left 20 minutes late we got into the station exactly as scheduled, dunno how we made up those 20 minutes. I had 3 short layovers during this trip but I didn't have any problems with them.
I was so happy to be home. I hadn't shed a tear through that whole experience, but the closest I came was when I arrived home after everything. It was pretty awful and definitely puts a black mark on Berlin. My tour book says that Berlin is not a very German city, having been there I understand exactly what it means. I really want to see more of Germany now, especially Bavaria, and some castles, German castles are the best. Alas, I have no time left this semester to do so. I'm still glad I got to experience part of it, though.
Next weekend: Bruges
There's a movie about Bruges, "In Bruges", starring Collin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes, if you like "Fargo", you'd probably like it. Another ISA trip. Bruges is supposed to be "the Venice of the north". My trip was complete with boat ride on the canals and a horse drawn carriage ride. We also climbed a series of narrow sprial staircases to the top of the belfry tower. I love gorgeous views from high-up vantage points and I was not disappointed. We saw an old church they used as a hospital and another with a statue by Michelangelo in it. Allison had a friend from home and Dallin had a friend who'd studying near Geneva visiting so they both came with. The night before our host family made a huge Indonesian dinner for all of us and it was AMAZING by all accounts. Back to the point, Bruges was lovely, but I preferred Ghent. However, I'm sure that has something to do with the fact that it was sunny in Ghent and overcast in Bruges. After Berlin, I was happy to have a relaxed weekend without planning and extensive traveling anyways.
With Allison and Kreesta in Geneva this past week and Maren in Dublin, and Regina, Rachel and Dallin not being drinkers I had no idea what I was going to do for St. Patrick's Day. I had no plans to get drunk, but I had to go out for the first time I could legally drink on a holiday dedicated to drinking. Thank goodness for my Bentley friends, I had people to go out with. At one point during the evening, they invented Beerga, a game where you stack as many coasters as widely as possible on top of a beer glass and you basically play jenga with them. It was entertaining to watch. Plus, the boys were wearing ridiculous hats. All in all, it was a fun night and I was glad I got to go out, even though St. Patrick's Day is not a big deal in Belgium at all. Understandable, since I doubt many Belgians have an Irish heritage, but I've never seen so little green on that day in my life.
You might forget I have school amidst all this, (psh, school) but we just had midterms. I thought I'd done better than I was graded in two of my classes, the other two were exactly what I expected, one good the other eh (history is hard, my brain doesn't work like that). My grades don't transfer back to Creighton, as long as I get a C, I get the credit for the course. The grading system here is in my favor too, 85%-100% is an A and I'm pretty sure 81%-84% is an A-, but that just makes me feel worse about my midterms really. I like to tell myself that the profs grade with this system in mind, so they think "this is B work" and grade accordingly and if I was in the states I get the same grade and not the same percent...yes, that makes me feel better. I'm so ready to be done with school, not ready for the real world, not at all, but definitely ready for school to be over.
Sorry for another extremely long post, but at least I'm no Kant here.
-Lauren :)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Holy Crap, It's March! At Least My Camera Charger Has Arrived
I can't believe it's March already! Time is flying, like I knew it would. All of a sudden I'm very conscious of my academic obligations...ugh. I have a book review due the 12th...so I should probably start reading that...I also have midterms this week, I feel ok about 2 of them and not so great about the other 2, I definitely have some studying to do. I'll be productive for the rest of the day, fold my laundry, change my sheets, I should probably wash my sink too...and study, of course. According to my french professor, colleges in Europe base their entire grading system on one final exam. Grade point averages don't really exist, it's pretty much just pass or fail. I would hate having my entire grade hinge on one massive test, that would be awful. I've heard the students get a month off or something like that to study, but studying for five weeks straight would be horrendous. Basically, I prefer the American style, break it up into smaller bits and give people more opportunity to succeed. However, the competetive nature of getting the best grades and going to the best college is pretty stupid, then it's not about learning at all...actually, the whole school system makes it difficult to want to learn, but that's a completely different topic.
Anyways...LONDON!
I was only gone for 3 days, but it feels like a week. Maren and I left Thursday night around 7:30 and got back this (Monday) morning around 9. No expensive taxi rides like the Ireland trip, we took the train (Chunnel!) and arrived at St Pancras in London about 2 hours after we left. St Pancras is very pretty, it was just liked the many revamped train stations in America, except it's actually still used for its intended purpose. We woke up early Friday morning and left around 9:30 for Madame Toussaud's wax museum. We decided to walk there, it was easy to get to, just had to take a left on Euston St, but it was a long walk. Fortunately, the weather was lovely and sunny, sun is a rare thing in Brussels but it's been nice for a while now, perhaps it's a sign that spring is coming. These wax museums are essentially a building filled with photo opps, you just stand next to a wax model of some famous person and have your picture taken over and over and over. Nonetheless, it was really cool, it's amazing how realistic the figures look, (also, really expensive). After that we had some time to kill before Kristin, my friend from Wisconsin studying in Spain, arrived. There was a park next to the museum so we explored that, it was quite lovely and would've been stunning if it was summer and everything was in bloom. We had lunch outside in one of the cafes in the park. London seems to have a lot of expansive parks (according to my free map from the hostel we stayed at). It's always nice to be able to get away from the city without actually leaving it. This park even had a college in the middle of it.
After lunch we walked back to St Pancras to wait for Kristin. It took a while, but she finally got there. That was around 5 maybe, and we had a show to see at 5:30. We decided there was no time to go back to the hostel and after some confusion, managed to hail a cab. I knew the cab couldn't be too expensive because the theater was only about a mile and a half away from where we were. We got to the theater just in time. I'd bought the tickets Thursday night and expected them to be in the highest balcony all the way back to the left or right because they were the cheapest tickets available, but we were on the floor in the middle of the row. What luck that the show I really wanted to see was the cheapest. What show? Avenue Q, of course! It won best new musical in '04, so I'm surprised it's still showing anywhere, but I'm really happy I got to see it. It's essentially Sesame Street for adults, puppets interacting with real people and all. Seeing a play in Westend was on my list of things to do while in Europe, so, mission complete! Finding dinner afterwards was rather difficult, it was pretty late and we couldn't seem to find a restaurant anywhere. Eventually we found a place and I had some fish and chips.
Day 2, another early start. We planned to see Westminster Abbey and then head over to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. However, we weren't the best navigators and eventually it was too late for Westminster. Then we decided to head to Picadilly Circus...again, poor navigation led us in the opposite direction. Oh well, we ended up at Wellington's Arch, which was impressive. At that point it was time to get to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. Weeellllll, they do it every other day from August to April and even though the hostel had information saying it would happen that day, it was wrong. Bummer. Also, the guards are not out in the open where you can bother them, like they show in the movies, which really isn't surprising, and they didn't have their red coats on because those are their summer coats. Their winter coats are grey. At least while we were there a bunch of horseguards, (at least I think they were horseguards, they were riding horses), rode past in red, that was neat. Also, even though in the end it's just a building that you can't even go in, not all that impressive of a building either, I don't think you can go to London for the first time and not see Buckingham Palace.
After that confusing and slightly disappointing morning we headed over to Westminster Abbey and didn't get lost at all. Westminster Abbey is the grave of many previous kings and queens and other famous English people and is also the place where the coronation ceremony has taken place for centuries. It was amazing. I saw the tombs of King Henry VII, Elizabeth I, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, a few King Edwards who died about 800 years ago and many more. Westminster Abbey is a 10th century church, making it 900 years old, people, that's insane. As I mentioned, Westminster is where coronations take place, they've been using the same chair for coronations since 1308 and it's on display. It doesn't look very nice, but the fact that it's 700 years old makes it incredible. I've been to the Santa Croce in Florence, which houses the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli and Michelangelo, but it doesn't hold a candle to this place.
Westminster Abbey is immediately next to Parliament and Big Ben, which is a beautiful building. Right as we were crossing the bridge to get to the London Eye and had a better view of Parliament, my BRAND NEW battery died. As you can imagine, I was NOT happy. Fortunately, the charger I ordered is here and I can pick it up tomorrow, hooray! Well, Maren and I had bought combined Madame Toussaud's - London Eye tickets at Madame Toussaud's so we just had to exchange our vouchers but Kristin had to wait in a much longer line. So after lots of waiting we made it onto the Eye. For those that have been to Chicago, this is a lot like the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier where you just have a very slow ride to the top and a nice view and then come back down, except instead of typical ferris wheel carts you stand in giant pods that can hold about 20 people. Maren thought it was a waste of money, I'm not sure what she was expecting because it was exactly what I was expecting. I will admit that it is outrageously overpriced though. London in general is outrageously overpriced. I spent a LOT of money this weekend and I'm not a fan, but I'm very very glad I got to see London.
After the Eye we had lunch and headed over to Tower Bridge. Maren was convinced that London Bridge was THE bridge to see. It's not, Tower Bridge is the famous one. I'd thought that perhaps London Bridge was impressive too, before the trip, but figured out pretty quickly this was not the case. It took Maren a bit longer...the map showed that Tower Bridge and London Bridge were right next to eachother, we crossed over Tower Bridge and had a clear sight of London Bridge and could plainly see that it was just another average bridge. Even still, she didn't get that we were at the main event. ANYWAYS, once that was cleared up we continued to the Tower of London. Unfortunately, despite the signs saying the last admission was at 5, the last admission was actually at 4, apparently they're changing their hours and had the new signs up. Well, it was 4:30. It was ok for Maren and I since the Tower would be open on Sunday, but Kristin had to leave early that morning. I don't understand why there was no indication that the tower was closed anywhere but the information center. Putting big ol' signs up that say "tower closed for the day" wouldn't have been very difficult and would've saved the woman working at the information center from hearing many questions on the subject. Oh well.
So no Tower. We tried to find the Underground station to take us to St Paul's, but ended up walking most of the way there instead and so just continued. St Paul's is MASSIVE, more important people are entombed in it but we didn't go inside. It cost money anyways, everything does in London, and it costs a LOT of money too. We stood in awe for a bit, walked over to Millennium Bridge, (which they call the wobbly bridge, but I didn't find it wobbly at all), and I bought some delicious sugary roasted peanuts before we walked over it. On the other side was the Tate Modern, an old factory tranformed into a modern art museum, not very pretty on the outside, and Shakespeare's Globe Theater. That would've been cool to see on the inside, I did go to the bathroom in the visitor's center, which was a very nice bathroom. They had a model of the theater in the lobby so that was good.
We had some more difficulty finding the Underground, but of course got there eventually. It didn't help that the two most useful lines were closed for the weekend and at least one other had issues all three days. We went to Trafalgar Square which had a large obelisk dedicated to Horatio Viscount Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, where he died. The National Gallery was lit up with a rotation of abstract paintings which was pretty awesome. It was good that we were there at night to see it. On to Picadilly Circus, one Underground stop away, very easy to find. Picadilly Circus is the Times Square of London with a big wall lit up with giant ads, also awesome to see at night. Again we had difficulty finding a place to eat, this time there were multiple options but they were out of our price range. Eventually we found a TGIF, and yes, ate there. We were exhausted, it was a long day. Apparently TGIF is the place to be on a Saturday night though, the place was packed and included two birthday parties (as in groups of girls, not little kids with balloons). The bar was downright hoppin'. I had a delicious Amaretto drink which involved two scoops of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, mmmmm.
Day 3, Kristin left for her flight early and Maren and I decided to sleep in a bit since the Tower of London didn't open until 10 anyways. A bit was about an hour, haha, it still felt like a more relaxed morning. Again, we had difficulty getting where we wanted to go. We tried to use the busses, to no avail, but we got there. Thank goodness the Tower was closed on Saturday, because it's HUGE! There's SSOOO much to see, we got there maybe around 12:30 and didn't leave until around 5. We went on a guided tour first and got to see the chapel where Anne Boleyn is burried. Then we saw the Jewel Tower where the crown jewels are kept. They're incredible, I saw the biggest diamond I'll probably ever see in my life, the first star of Africa, about the size of an ear. The crown the queen wears for addressing the parliament was remarkable, it had 3 impressive stones in it, the second star of Africa, the black prince's ruby and a sapphire with some fancy name and story that I've forgotten. Coronations must be exhausting for the person ascending the throne, they have to bear a lot of weight. A crown full of gem stones and gold on their head, a sceptor, an orb, a massive cloak, a big ol' ring, multiple swords throughout the ceremony, these gold cuffs...it's crazy.
Next we saw the White Tower, the castle where the royal family used to live back in the day. After that we made our way through the rest of the towers, each of which had its own story. It was fascinating and incredible to be in a place with so much history. We were there so long we completely missed lunch, I had most of a brownie Maren bought that she didn't like and she had some shortbread. I didn't mind spending the day there at all, this was one place where I think I actually got my money's worth, and let me tell you, admission wasn't cheap.
So we had another transportation adventure while figuring out what we wanted to do next. It involved an old double decker bus, I'm happy I got to ride on the upper deck of an old bus, the new ones just aren't as cool. We ended up at Camden Market JUST as it was closing, I managed to snag a pair of sunglasses. I keep on losing my sunglasses, I hope I don't lose these. We shopped for a little longer, until everything else started closing, and had dinner at an Asian buffet and I do love my Asian food. The train left at 5:57am the next (this) morning. All in all, an excellent weekend, despite often getting lost and that it was rrreeeaaalllllyyy expensive. I swear I'm trying to be frugal! I'm gonna need an amazing summer job...
-Lauren :)
Anyways...LONDON!
I was only gone for 3 days, but it feels like a week. Maren and I left Thursday night around 7:30 and got back this (Monday) morning around 9. No expensive taxi rides like the Ireland trip, we took the train (Chunnel!) and arrived at St Pancras in London about 2 hours after we left. St Pancras is very pretty, it was just liked the many revamped train stations in America, except it's actually still used for its intended purpose. We woke up early Friday morning and left around 9:30 for Madame Toussaud's wax museum. We decided to walk there, it was easy to get to, just had to take a left on Euston St, but it was a long walk. Fortunately, the weather was lovely and sunny, sun is a rare thing in Brussels but it's been nice for a while now, perhaps it's a sign that spring is coming. These wax museums are essentially a building filled with photo opps, you just stand next to a wax model of some famous person and have your picture taken over and over and over. Nonetheless, it was really cool, it's amazing how realistic the figures look, (also, really expensive). After that we had some time to kill before Kristin, my friend from Wisconsin studying in Spain, arrived. There was a park next to the museum so we explored that, it was quite lovely and would've been stunning if it was summer and everything was in bloom. We had lunch outside in one of the cafes in the park. London seems to have a lot of expansive parks (according to my free map from the hostel we stayed at). It's always nice to be able to get away from the city without actually leaving it. This park even had a college in the middle of it.
After lunch we walked back to St Pancras to wait for Kristin. It took a while, but she finally got there. That was around 5 maybe, and we had a show to see at 5:30. We decided there was no time to go back to the hostel and after some confusion, managed to hail a cab. I knew the cab couldn't be too expensive because the theater was only about a mile and a half away from where we were. We got to the theater just in time. I'd bought the tickets Thursday night and expected them to be in the highest balcony all the way back to the left or right because they were the cheapest tickets available, but we were on the floor in the middle of the row. What luck that the show I really wanted to see was the cheapest. What show? Avenue Q, of course! It won best new musical in '04, so I'm surprised it's still showing anywhere, but I'm really happy I got to see it. It's essentially Sesame Street for adults, puppets interacting with real people and all. Seeing a play in Westend was on my list of things to do while in Europe, so, mission complete! Finding dinner afterwards was rather difficult, it was pretty late and we couldn't seem to find a restaurant anywhere. Eventually we found a place and I had some fish and chips.
Day 2, another early start. We planned to see Westminster Abbey and then head over to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. However, we weren't the best navigators and eventually it was too late for Westminster. Then we decided to head to Picadilly Circus...again, poor navigation led us in the opposite direction. Oh well, we ended up at Wellington's Arch, which was impressive. At that point it was time to get to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. Weeellllll, they do it every other day from August to April and even though the hostel had information saying it would happen that day, it was wrong. Bummer. Also, the guards are not out in the open where you can bother them, like they show in the movies, which really isn't surprising, and they didn't have their red coats on because those are their summer coats. Their winter coats are grey. At least while we were there a bunch of horseguards, (at least I think they were horseguards, they were riding horses), rode past in red, that was neat. Also, even though in the end it's just a building that you can't even go in, not all that impressive of a building either, I don't think you can go to London for the first time and not see Buckingham Palace.
After that confusing and slightly disappointing morning we headed over to Westminster Abbey and didn't get lost at all. Westminster Abbey is the grave of many previous kings and queens and other famous English people and is also the place where the coronation ceremony has taken place for centuries. It was amazing. I saw the tombs of King Henry VII, Elizabeth I, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, a few King Edwards who died about 800 years ago and many more. Westminster Abbey is a 10th century church, making it 900 years old, people, that's insane. As I mentioned, Westminster is where coronations take place, they've been using the same chair for coronations since 1308 and it's on display. It doesn't look very nice, but the fact that it's 700 years old makes it incredible. I've been to the Santa Croce in Florence, which houses the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli and Michelangelo, but it doesn't hold a candle to this place.
Westminster Abbey is immediately next to Parliament and Big Ben, which is a beautiful building. Right as we were crossing the bridge to get to the London Eye and had a better view of Parliament, my BRAND NEW battery died. As you can imagine, I was NOT happy. Fortunately, the charger I ordered is here and I can pick it up tomorrow, hooray! Well, Maren and I had bought combined Madame Toussaud's - London Eye tickets at Madame Toussaud's so we just had to exchange our vouchers but Kristin had to wait in a much longer line. So after lots of waiting we made it onto the Eye. For those that have been to Chicago, this is a lot like the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier where you just have a very slow ride to the top and a nice view and then come back down, except instead of typical ferris wheel carts you stand in giant pods that can hold about 20 people. Maren thought it was a waste of money, I'm not sure what she was expecting because it was exactly what I was expecting. I will admit that it is outrageously overpriced though. London in general is outrageously overpriced. I spent a LOT of money this weekend and I'm not a fan, but I'm very very glad I got to see London.
After the Eye we had lunch and headed over to Tower Bridge. Maren was convinced that London Bridge was THE bridge to see. It's not, Tower Bridge is the famous one. I'd thought that perhaps London Bridge was impressive too, before the trip, but figured out pretty quickly this was not the case. It took Maren a bit longer...the map showed that Tower Bridge and London Bridge were right next to eachother, we crossed over Tower Bridge and had a clear sight of London Bridge and could plainly see that it was just another average bridge. Even still, she didn't get that we were at the main event. ANYWAYS, once that was cleared up we continued to the Tower of London. Unfortunately, despite the signs saying the last admission was at 5, the last admission was actually at 4, apparently they're changing their hours and had the new signs up. Well, it was 4:30. It was ok for Maren and I since the Tower would be open on Sunday, but Kristin had to leave early that morning. I don't understand why there was no indication that the tower was closed anywhere but the information center. Putting big ol' signs up that say "tower closed for the day" wouldn't have been very difficult and would've saved the woman working at the information center from hearing many questions on the subject. Oh well.
So no Tower. We tried to find the Underground station to take us to St Paul's, but ended up walking most of the way there instead and so just continued. St Paul's is MASSIVE, more important people are entombed in it but we didn't go inside. It cost money anyways, everything does in London, and it costs a LOT of money too. We stood in awe for a bit, walked over to Millennium Bridge, (which they call the wobbly bridge, but I didn't find it wobbly at all), and I bought some delicious sugary roasted peanuts before we walked over it. On the other side was the Tate Modern, an old factory tranformed into a modern art museum, not very pretty on the outside, and Shakespeare's Globe Theater. That would've been cool to see on the inside, I did go to the bathroom in the visitor's center, which was a very nice bathroom. They had a model of the theater in the lobby so that was good.
We had some more difficulty finding the Underground, but of course got there eventually. It didn't help that the two most useful lines were closed for the weekend and at least one other had issues all three days. We went to Trafalgar Square which had a large obelisk dedicated to Horatio Viscount Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, where he died. The National Gallery was lit up with a rotation of abstract paintings which was pretty awesome. It was good that we were there at night to see it. On to Picadilly Circus, one Underground stop away, very easy to find. Picadilly Circus is the Times Square of London with a big wall lit up with giant ads, also awesome to see at night. Again we had difficulty finding a place to eat, this time there were multiple options but they were out of our price range. Eventually we found a TGIF, and yes, ate there. We were exhausted, it was a long day. Apparently TGIF is the place to be on a Saturday night though, the place was packed and included two birthday parties (as in groups of girls, not little kids with balloons). The bar was downright hoppin'. I had a delicious Amaretto drink which involved two scoops of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, mmmmm.
Day 3, Kristin left for her flight early and Maren and I decided to sleep in a bit since the Tower of London didn't open until 10 anyways. A bit was about an hour, haha, it still felt like a more relaxed morning. Again, we had difficulty getting where we wanted to go. We tried to use the busses, to no avail, but we got there. Thank goodness the Tower was closed on Saturday, because it's HUGE! There's SSOOO much to see, we got there maybe around 12:30 and didn't leave until around 5. We went on a guided tour first and got to see the chapel where Anne Boleyn is burried. Then we saw the Jewel Tower where the crown jewels are kept. They're incredible, I saw the biggest diamond I'll probably ever see in my life, the first star of Africa, about the size of an ear. The crown the queen wears for addressing the parliament was remarkable, it had 3 impressive stones in it, the second star of Africa, the black prince's ruby and a sapphire with some fancy name and story that I've forgotten. Coronations must be exhausting for the person ascending the throne, they have to bear a lot of weight. A crown full of gem stones and gold on their head, a sceptor, an orb, a massive cloak, a big ol' ring, multiple swords throughout the ceremony, these gold cuffs...it's crazy.
Next we saw the White Tower, the castle where the royal family used to live back in the day. After that we made our way through the rest of the towers, each of which had its own story. It was fascinating and incredible to be in a place with so much history. We were there so long we completely missed lunch, I had most of a brownie Maren bought that she didn't like and she had some shortbread. I didn't mind spending the day there at all, this was one place where I think I actually got my money's worth, and let me tell you, admission wasn't cheap.
So we had another transportation adventure while figuring out what we wanted to do next. It involved an old double decker bus, I'm happy I got to ride on the upper deck of an old bus, the new ones just aren't as cool. We ended up at Camden Market JUST as it was closing, I managed to snag a pair of sunglasses. I keep on losing my sunglasses, I hope I don't lose these. We shopped for a little longer, until everything else started closing, and had dinner at an Asian buffet and I do love my Asian food. The train left at 5:57am the next (this) morning. All in all, an excellent weekend, despite often getting lost and that it was rrreeeaaalllllyyy expensive. I swear I'm trying to be frugal! I'm gonna need an amazing summer job...
-Lauren :)
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Fat Tuesday
Today we went to Binche for Mardi Gras, or Carnival as they call it here. It was another ISA excursion but a few of the Bentley kids were there as well, Angela, Christine and Mike, plus Jackson who's just on his own (he's from Alabama). Regina, Rachel and Kreesta also tagged along and Becky's mom and sister who are visiting her. We found a novelty store right away and a few people bought plastic tiaras and those tinfoil-y wigs. Then we went to the bar. It was strange to be in a bar at 2 in the afternoon, but it was Carnival. I had no desire to spend my dwindling funds on beer so Christine gave me one of her alcohol supplies from Brussles, a water bottle filled with wine, a smaller one folks, not a nalgene or anything like that. Normally, this would be a sign that someone has a problem, but when it's Carnival, it's all good. The ground was covered in confetti when we started waiting outside for the parade. The parade was supposed to start at 3 but didn't get to us until maybe 4:30. They where these traditional costumes with these giant feather hats (for reference, check my manneken pis photos for the traditional small-town Belgium costume). The big thing in Binche is throwing oranges into the crowd. I didn't catch any but I picked up 5. The pattern was fairly repetetive, costumed folk throwing oranges closely followed by a band playing flugel horns, valve trombones, e-flat clarinets (I think, they looked smaller than normal ones), snare drums with huge sticks and a two-person bass drum operation (one person carried the drum on their back, another hit it). We had separated very early so it was Allison, Jackson, Mike, Christine, Angela, Maren and me. After a while, Jackson and Mike had to leave and the rest of us were ready to eat. We had pizza, I've had a lot of Italian, I don't think I need much more. Anyways, after that we headed home. A fairly uneventful Carnival, but more than I've ever done to celebrate, and it was fun. However, I've accomplished no homework tonight...ooohhh well, c'est la vie.
-Lauren :)
-Lauren :)
Long Awaited Update
Well, there's been demand for a new post (and I have been slacking) so I shall deliver!
First of all, Le You:
Friday the 13th the college hosted a party at a club (Le You). Originally we (Allison and I) weren't going to go (because it was 15€ and I'm cheap) and we went to a bar near campus instead. It was LAME, we met two other American students there and when they left for Le You we decided to go with them. Good idea, we got there at just the right time, there was a HUGE line but since there was a veco (VEsalius COllege, my school) party, we were VIP and got let in with a couple other full time students courtesy of another student who came out from inside. It ended up being only 10€ and that included a drink, woo! I don't know about other European clubs, but this one wasn't full of creepy men like American clubs, everyone just seemed to be dancing to dance. That was refreshing, very nice to see. Most importantly, we had a BLAST and stayed until about 3am despite the fact we had to wake up at 8am for our first ISA excursion...
Ghent!
If you're following closely, you'll have noticed that this trip took place on Valentine's Day, which hasn't been exciting since 3rd grade when everybody gave everybody else cards and candy (I really think that should be reinstated at the college level). Anyways, as it was an ISA excursion it was just us ISA folks, Allison, Maren, Dallin, Becky, Sabine and myself. Ghent is lovely, complete with castle and canal. We toured the castle first, it seemed to be mostly used as a prison, people were brutal back in medieval times, the torture methods were horrific. After that we had lunch...at pizza hut...I've had quite a bit of pizza on this trip. Then, we had a city tour and eventually arrived at the Alijns Huis, a museum of folklore, or everyday life in Belgium over the years. Life in Belgium didn't seem too different from life in America in the 20th century, which isn't that surprising since the early 20th century was a time of mass-immigration and the Europeans brought their culture with them. They had some interesting board games though, one involved little yodelers in leiderhosen climbing on a mountain, it didn't lie flat though, it stood up and the yodeler pieces straddled the 2D mountain...basically, I want to play it. After that we wandered around for a little bit and Sabine bought us some traditional Ghent candies, Becky calls them Ghent nose candies, they're cone shaped raspberry flavored candies with a gooey center, they taste like pure sugar with a little bit of flavoring. Then we headed home for Valentine's Day dinner with Regina, Rachel and Kreesta.
We met up in the Grand Place but couldn't decide where to eat. Eventually we ended up at a nice Thai restaurant, it was delicious. When we were done eating and waiting for the bill, this man comes up selling roses, he was a little sketchy and the roses weren't great. Nonetheless, Dallin buys EIGHT of them, one for each of the girls...yes, 8 girls (including Sabine) and 1 guy, that's our main group, poor Dallin. All in all, it was a lovely Valentine's Day.
Next weekend was Amsterdam with Madame Delsemme's art class. This class consists of 8 kids from Bentley (a school in Boston) Regina, Rachel and another girl, Marian. Allison, Maren, Dallin, Sabine and I tagged along. The Bentley kids did not make the best first impression on our tour of Brussels, so I was skeptical. They have to take the class, their program covers the cost for all the trips, so they're not necessarily taking it because they want to. Despite a bad first impression, they're not bad. Marian, on the other hand, has no social skills at all. She purposely separates herself from the group and she has a tendency to be very short with people, she also can't seem to take a joke. She's engaged after 3 months of dating her boyfriend she found online, he's the topic of most of what she says. Even Sabine isn't fond of her, and it's Sabine's job to like students...that's a sign. ANYWAYS...Amsterdam has quaint houses, lots of canals and more bike's than you could ever hope to count. Unfortunately, I couldn't label most of the major landmarks if I went back because Madame Delsemme talks FOREVERRRRRRR. If she just said, "This is the Old Church, it was originally called St. something until the protestant reformation when they were anti-Catholic and iconoclasts..." something along those lines, I'd know what's what, but that doesn't happen. She talks for about 15 minutes on each landmark, it's impressive that she knows so much, but it's intolerable to listen too, especially since English is her second language. By the time she's done talking, I've forgotten what the landmark is.
We had a jam-packed schedule, leaving at 9am on Friday and going until 10pm that night. We saw one of the churches, either old or new, dam square where the old town hall/palace is (it has unicorns on it, which is just plain cool), the university court yard, an example of Amsterdam school of architecture style, the Amsterdam Historical Museum, had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant (west indies trading company, that was Dutch) and went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was one of my favorites, I love Van Gogh. They had a special exhibit displaying a number of his night time paintings, so I got to see the real Starry Night, which is one of my favorite paintings. Silly me, I thought that the cyprus tree was a church for a long time...until I saw the painting in person, actually...After that the Bentley kids had arranged to go on a pub crawl, Rachel and I came late so it took us a while to find them and we weren't officially part of it...but it was still fun. After a few bars, some members of the group wanted to partake in some usually illegal activities that are legal in the Netherlands, so we began a quest to find a coffeeshop. Success of course, there's one almost every 10ft afterall (the smell is [not] lovely). It was the Dolphins, really cool interior I have to say, a coral-like wall, a few fish tanks and TV screens displaying an aquarium (like those shots of a burning log in a fireplace, but with an aquarium). It is essential that you know that NO, I did NOT partake in any activities, unless you count sitting inside a coffee shop partaking. Also important to remember, it's legal (as if you could forget, we're talking about Amsterdam afterall). We walked home after, following my directions. It was a long walk but we got back just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Saturday, another full day. Left around 9:30 for our boat tour, I'm a big fan of boat tours, especially when I'm not freezing (and I wasn't). There's a housing shortage in Amsterdam so many people live in houseboats. I enjoyed seeing those, I'd live in one. It was very difficult to stay awake though and I definitely dozed off a couple times, I think everybody else did too. After that we saw the Our Lord in the Attic museum, an example of a Catholic church hidden in the attic of a merchant's house. The protestants in Amsterdam outlawed public Catholic services, so they had to hold mass in these kinds of churches. It was pretty neat to see a full fledged church in someone's house. Next was lunch which included a very awkward conversation between Maren and Marian...oh well...then the Rijksmuseum. I've had my fill of audiotours, I don't have the patience for someone to describe 2 works of art to me for 5 minutes, especially on a trip with Madame Delsemme. Hence I stopped listening to the audio tour very quickly. I definitely preferred the Van Gogh museum to the Rijksmuseum, but it still had highlights, two huge and very ornate dollhouses, for example. They were decked out with mini-china meticulously decorated plates and mini-silver cooking utensils. They were symbols of status, not toys, and apparently cost more than some people's real full-size homes. I also saw Rembrandt's most famous painting, Night Watch, which I was completely unfamiliar with. It was massive and I tend to like large paintings just because the only place you really see them is in art museums. That was the end of our planned activities for the day, the Bentley kids and Maren headed off to a tour of the Heineken museum and the rest of us ended up ice skating. The ice badly needed a zamboni, all the bumps and gashes made me very precautious, but eventually I got over that. It was fun. Afterwards we had some tasty mini-pancake-like pastries for a snack and headed off to find Maren, which proved difficult, but we found her. Italian for dinner and there was a mouse in the restaurant, which surprisingly didn't phase me at all. Maren wanted to go to the red light district, the rest of us didn't go in, but the outer wall, if you like, was quite graphic. The rest walked around for a bit, visited a souvenir shop, and went back to the hostel. Everyone had been in a weird mood all day, Sabine was pretty loopy (she fondled the 3D chest of a coffee cup) and Dallin was thoroughly annoyed. Maren had been pretty pissy the whole time as well. It spoiled the evening a little bit. When Maren returned from the red light district she shared her new self-discovery with us, that perhaps prostitution is disgusting and dehumanizing. I'm glad she felt that, because I can't believe that any prostitute truly loves their work and that there's nothing else they'd rather do. If there is such a thing as universal truth, that's one, prostitution is evil. The Dutch don't endorse drugs and prostitution, they tolerate it. Their theory is that it's going to happen anyways, might as well have it safe as possible. This tolerance has turned into a legitimate business market, every other store is either a sex shop or a coffeeshop (which don't sell coffee, apparently it sounded better than "weedshop"). Of all the places I've visited thus far, I think Amsterdam is the first I couldn't live in. If you ignore the sex and drugs, it's lovely, but those two things are unavoidable.
Sunday (finally), aka Jewish day. We started off with the Anne Frank House, my other favorite museum of the weekend. It was very moving and I'm so thankful I can live in relative safety, without worrying for my life everday. They lived there for two years until they were betrayed. The saddest part of the whole museum was a picture of Anne Frank's father returning to the empty house after the war, his entire family died in the concentration camps. After that happier things, the tulip museum, half of it was the gift store. Regina gave her speech for class, a single tulip blub used to sell for 10 times the annual income of the average family back in the 1630s, ridiculous. After that lunch and then, continuing on the Jewish theme, we visited a synagogue. It was freezing, and again Madame Delsemme talked for a good 20 minutes, but it was very pretty. Not as pretty as gothic Catholic cathedrals, especially the ones in Italy, but still pretty. Next the Jewish Historical Museum. It was also interesting, apparently there was a large settlement of Portuguese and Spanish Jews in Holland back in the day. Some were very rich and the others were very poor. After WWII they were not supported by the community at all, which is awful. When Israel was established, many left to live there. I'd never thought of the timing of that before. Israel was founded in 1948, right after WWII, after the holocaust, of course Jews are going to immigrate to the promised land after their homes and lives have been destroyed elsewhere. We then learned about water levels in Amsterdam, courtesy of Madame Delsemme, in a metro station with big water-level-indicating tubes inside. Apparently there was a huge flood in 1953. That was basically the end of the day, we were all itching to get home after such a long weekend so we grabbed our bags and got on the next train. On the way back I learned there's a red light district in Brussels, clearly visible from the train. The girls stand in windows, you can go window shopping for a hooker. Sabine, in her loopy state on Saturday night, was saying how it was odd how they stand in windows, but then she said "well, I suppose you look at shoes in the window before you buy them" which was funny at the time, but in retrospect it's awful. The fact that a human being can be compared to a pair of shoes like that is awful. I guess prostitution is legal in Belgium too.
Sorry for the painfully long post, but I had a lot to catch you up on. Lindsay and Erin, I hope this is an adequate distraction for you.
-Lauren :)
First of all, Le You:
Friday the 13th the college hosted a party at a club (Le You). Originally we (Allison and I) weren't going to go (because it was 15€ and I'm cheap) and we went to a bar near campus instead. It was LAME, we met two other American students there and when they left for Le You we decided to go with them. Good idea, we got there at just the right time, there was a HUGE line but since there was a veco (VEsalius COllege, my school) party, we were VIP and got let in with a couple other full time students courtesy of another student who came out from inside. It ended up being only 10€ and that included a drink, woo! I don't know about other European clubs, but this one wasn't full of creepy men like American clubs, everyone just seemed to be dancing to dance. That was refreshing, very nice to see. Most importantly, we had a BLAST and stayed until about 3am despite the fact we had to wake up at 8am for our first ISA excursion...
Ghent!
If you're following closely, you'll have noticed that this trip took place on Valentine's Day, which hasn't been exciting since 3rd grade when everybody gave everybody else cards and candy (I really think that should be reinstated at the college level). Anyways, as it was an ISA excursion it was just us ISA folks, Allison, Maren, Dallin, Becky, Sabine and myself. Ghent is lovely, complete with castle and canal. We toured the castle first, it seemed to be mostly used as a prison, people were brutal back in medieval times, the torture methods were horrific. After that we had lunch...at pizza hut...I've had quite a bit of pizza on this trip. Then, we had a city tour and eventually arrived at the Alijns Huis, a museum of folklore, or everyday life in Belgium over the years. Life in Belgium didn't seem too different from life in America in the 20th century, which isn't that surprising since the early 20th century was a time of mass-immigration and the Europeans brought their culture with them. They had some interesting board games though, one involved little yodelers in leiderhosen climbing on a mountain, it didn't lie flat though, it stood up and the yodeler pieces straddled the 2D mountain...basically, I want to play it. After that we wandered around for a little bit and Sabine bought us some traditional Ghent candies, Becky calls them Ghent nose candies, they're cone shaped raspberry flavored candies with a gooey center, they taste like pure sugar with a little bit of flavoring. Then we headed home for Valentine's Day dinner with Regina, Rachel and Kreesta.
We met up in the Grand Place but couldn't decide where to eat. Eventually we ended up at a nice Thai restaurant, it was delicious. When we were done eating and waiting for the bill, this man comes up selling roses, he was a little sketchy and the roses weren't great. Nonetheless, Dallin buys EIGHT of them, one for each of the girls...yes, 8 girls (including Sabine) and 1 guy, that's our main group, poor Dallin. All in all, it was a lovely Valentine's Day.
Next weekend was Amsterdam with Madame Delsemme's art class. This class consists of 8 kids from Bentley (a school in Boston) Regina, Rachel and another girl, Marian. Allison, Maren, Dallin, Sabine and I tagged along. The Bentley kids did not make the best first impression on our tour of Brussels, so I was skeptical. They have to take the class, their program covers the cost for all the trips, so they're not necessarily taking it because they want to. Despite a bad first impression, they're not bad. Marian, on the other hand, has no social skills at all. She purposely separates herself from the group and she has a tendency to be very short with people, she also can't seem to take a joke. She's engaged after 3 months of dating her boyfriend she found online, he's the topic of most of what she says. Even Sabine isn't fond of her, and it's Sabine's job to like students...that's a sign. ANYWAYS...Amsterdam has quaint houses, lots of canals and more bike's than you could ever hope to count. Unfortunately, I couldn't label most of the major landmarks if I went back because Madame Delsemme talks FOREVERRRRRRR. If she just said, "This is the Old Church, it was originally called St. something until the protestant reformation when they were anti-Catholic and iconoclasts..." something along those lines, I'd know what's what, but that doesn't happen. She talks for about 15 minutes on each landmark, it's impressive that she knows so much, but it's intolerable to listen too, especially since English is her second language. By the time she's done talking, I've forgotten what the landmark is.
We had a jam-packed schedule, leaving at 9am on Friday and going until 10pm that night. We saw one of the churches, either old or new, dam square where the old town hall/palace is (it has unicorns on it, which is just plain cool), the university court yard, an example of Amsterdam school of architecture style, the Amsterdam Historical Museum, had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant (west indies trading company, that was Dutch) and went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was one of my favorites, I love Van Gogh. They had a special exhibit displaying a number of his night time paintings, so I got to see the real Starry Night, which is one of my favorite paintings. Silly me, I thought that the cyprus tree was a church for a long time...until I saw the painting in person, actually...After that the Bentley kids had arranged to go on a pub crawl, Rachel and I came late so it took us a while to find them and we weren't officially part of it...but it was still fun. After a few bars, some members of the group wanted to partake in some usually illegal activities that are legal in the Netherlands, so we began a quest to find a coffeeshop. Success of course, there's one almost every 10ft afterall (the smell is [not] lovely). It was the Dolphins, really cool interior I have to say, a coral-like wall, a few fish tanks and TV screens displaying an aquarium (like those shots of a burning log in a fireplace, but with an aquarium). It is essential that you know that NO, I did NOT partake in any activities, unless you count sitting inside a coffee shop partaking. Also important to remember, it's legal (as if you could forget, we're talking about Amsterdam afterall). We walked home after, following my directions. It was a long walk but we got back just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Saturday, another full day. Left around 9:30 for our boat tour, I'm a big fan of boat tours, especially when I'm not freezing (and I wasn't). There's a housing shortage in Amsterdam so many people live in houseboats. I enjoyed seeing those, I'd live in one. It was very difficult to stay awake though and I definitely dozed off a couple times, I think everybody else did too. After that we saw the Our Lord in the Attic museum, an example of a Catholic church hidden in the attic of a merchant's house. The protestants in Amsterdam outlawed public Catholic services, so they had to hold mass in these kinds of churches. It was pretty neat to see a full fledged church in someone's house. Next was lunch which included a very awkward conversation between Maren and Marian...oh well...then the Rijksmuseum. I've had my fill of audiotours, I don't have the patience for someone to describe 2 works of art to me for 5 minutes, especially on a trip with Madame Delsemme. Hence I stopped listening to the audio tour very quickly. I definitely preferred the Van Gogh museum to the Rijksmuseum, but it still had highlights, two huge and very ornate dollhouses, for example. They were decked out with mini-china meticulously decorated plates and mini-silver cooking utensils. They were symbols of status, not toys, and apparently cost more than some people's real full-size homes. I also saw Rembrandt's most famous painting, Night Watch, which I was completely unfamiliar with. It was massive and I tend to like large paintings just because the only place you really see them is in art museums. That was the end of our planned activities for the day, the Bentley kids and Maren headed off to a tour of the Heineken museum and the rest of us ended up ice skating. The ice badly needed a zamboni, all the bumps and gashes made me very precautious, but eventually I got over that. It was fun. Afterwards we had some tasty mini-pancake-like pastries for a snack and headed off to find Maren, which proved difficult, but we found her. Italian for dinner and there was a mouse in the restaurant, which surprisingly didn't phase me at all. Maren wanted to go to the red light district, the rest of us didn't go in, but the outer wall, if you like, was quite graphic. The rest walked around for a bit, visited a souvenir shop, and went back to the hostel. Everyone had been in a weird mood all day, Sabine was pretty loopy (she fondled the 3D chest of a coffee cup) and Dallin was thoroughly annoyed. Maren had been pretty pissy the whole time as well. It spoiled the evening a little bit. When Maren returned from the red light district she shared her new self-discovery with us, that perhaps prostitution is disgusting and dehumanizing. I'm glad she felt that, because I can't believe that any prostitute truly loves their work and that there's nothing else they'd rather do. If there is such a thing as universal truth, that's one, prostitution is evil. The Dutch don't endorse drugs and prostitution, they tolerate it. Their theory is that it's going to happen anyways, might as well have it safe as possible. This tolerance has turned into a legitimate business market, every other store is either a sex shop or a coffeeshop (which don't sell coffee, apparently it sounded better than "weedshop"). Of all the places I've visited thus far, I think Amsterdam is the first I couldn't live in. If you ignore the sex and drugs, it's lovely, but those two things are unavoidable.
Sunday (finally), aka Jewish day. We started off with the Anne Frank House, my other favorite museum of the weekend. It was very moving and I'm so thankful I can live in relative safety, without worrying for my life everday. They lived there for two years until they were betrayed. The saddest part of the whole museum was a picture of Anne Frank's father returning to the empty house after the war, his entire family died in the concentration camps. After that happier things, the tulip museum, half of it was the gift store. Regina gave her speech for class, a single tulip blub used to sell for 10 times the annual income of the average family back in the 1630s, ridiculous. After that lunch and then, continuing on the Jewish theme, we visited a synagogue. It was freezing, and again Madame Delsemme talked for a good 20 minutes, but it was very pretty. Not as pretty as gothic Catholic cathedrals, especially the ones in Italy, but still pretty. Next the Jewish Historical Museum. It was also interesting, apparently there was a large settlement of Portuguese and Spanish Jews in Holland back in the day. Some were very rich and the others were very poor. After WWII they were not supported by the community at all, which is awful. When Israel was established, many left to live there. I'd never thought of the timing of that before. Israel was founded in 1948, right after WWII, after the holocaust, of course Jews are going to immigrate to the promised land after their homes and lives have been destroyed elsewhere. We then learned about water levels in Amsterdam, courtesy of Madame Delsemme, in a metro station with big water-level-indicating tubes inside. Apparently there was a huge flood in 1953. That was basically the end of the day, we were all itching to get home after such a long weekend so we grabbed our bags and got on the next train. On the way back I learned there's a red light district in Brussels, clearly visible from the train. The girls stand in windows, you can go window shopping for a hooker. Sabine, in her loopy state on Saturday night, was saying how it was odd how they stand in windows, but then she said "well, I suppose you look at shoes in the window before you buy them" which was funny at the time, but in retrospect it's awful. The fact that a human being can be compared to a pair of shoes like that is awful. I guess prostitution is legal in Belgium too.
Sorry for the painfully long post, but I had a lot to catch you up on. Lindsay and Erin, I hope this is an adequate distraction for you.
-Lauren :)
Monday, February 9, 2009
My Trip to Ireland (or How I Spent the Most Money Ever Spent on a Taxi)
This weekend was my trip to Ireland, a short trip since the cheap flights left for Ireland Friday night and left for Brussels early Sunday morning. The flight was scheduled for 9:35pm on Friday, we left the house around 6, should've been plenty of time, right? Well, we got on the metro for Gare du Midi/Zuidstation, but when we got there, we had no idea where to go. We were supposed to catch a bus to the airport Charloi, not the main airport. However, there weren't any signs telling us where to go, and even though we asked for directions several times, they didn't help at all. We did find out that the bus leaves every hour and fifteen minutes though, so when it was after 7 and the next bus wasn't coming until 8:15 and it would take about an hour to get to the airport, we decided to take a taxi...oy. The taxi driver was very nice, but a 40 minute taxi drive costs a LOT of money, this was probably the most expensive taxi in the history of taxis...except maybe in movies. Thank goodness there were two of us to foot the bill, and he did round down, which was nice but really didn't help.
So we were at the airport, apparently they didn't stamp my visa when I flew into Europe the first time so the security man was very skeptical, fortunately, he let me through anyways. The flight was delayed around an hour, but they didn't really tell us that, we just sat around waiting until they let us board an hour later than we were supposed to. We befriended an Italian woman during the wait though, she spoke French and English as well as Italian...these Europeans and their language skills astound me (the taxi driver had taught himself English). Our plane ride was the noisiest plane ride I've ever been on. There was a big rugby match between Ireland and France in Dublin on Saturday, everybody was singing and shouting, it was crazy. Ryan Air seats are very close together too, not much leg room. Once we arrived in Ireland we had to show our passports again, luckily we don't have EU passports so we were able to go in the shorter line where we met an Australian man who told us about the 45 degree C weather in Australia and I told him about the -20 degree F weather in Minnesota. Allison has a converter on her phone, so we found out that 45 degrees C is about 114 degrees F and -20 degrees F is about -28 degrees C...tell me how that conversion makes any sense. Anyways, the Australian was shocked by that kind of cold. We found the bus we were supposed to take to our hostel without any problems, it was clearly labelled.
Once we got off the bus, we tried to find our hostel. Well...that was an adventure. The hostel was very poorly marked, online it was the Morehampton House Hostel, in person it was something completely different. After walking around for about half an hour and calling the hostel a few times (while feeling very safe, Dublin is a lively city) we found the right address. The woman who ran the hostel was outside to confirm this is what we were looking for. Our booking was hand written on a sheet of paper, it was like a house converted into a hostel. It was clean and pretty cheap though, and we got moved from a 4 person bedroom to a 2 person bedroom for no extra cost which was nice.
Next morning we had to wake up early for our 7am tour to Limerick, Galway Bay and the Cliffs of Moher. We got a taxi to the meeting place, a decently priced taxi, well anything would be compared to Friday. Taxis are EVERYWHERE at ALL hours in Dublin. There were 8 of us on the tour, at least 4 of the other people spoke Spanish, one woman at least spoke ONLY Spanish and talked like we could understand her. We got a huge coach bus. It was a sunny day and the drive was beautiful. We were only in Limerick for about 5 minutes, long enough to take a picture by King John's Castle. Then on to Galway Bay, which was gorgeous. There were fuzzy cows and sheep all over during the drive. The Atlantic Ocean smelled so good too. After lots of picture taking and wandering, it was time for lunch. We had lunch in Doolin, I had seafood chowder, mmmm. Then it was on to the Cliffs of Moher. They were gorgeous, of course, especially since it was sunny. I bought a claddaugh ring right before we left and sampled some mead (yum) a few wines and soda bread. Then began the long ride back to Dublin.
We got dinner once we were back in Dublin at a pub/restaurant, of course the pub part was packed what with the rugby game just over (the streets were flooded with people, Ireland won). The waitress looked at me like I was crazy when I asked how much water cost, water isn't free in Brussels, it wasn't free in Italy either, but it is in Ireland. The lamb stew I had was delicious. After that we walked around for a while, took a few pictures and ended up in the Temple Bar area (don't worry, we had a map). There was a band playing in the street, real Irish music, it was pretty cool. Then we ended up at The Temple Bar and each had a half-pint of Guinness, no money for more than that, although I would've liked to have some whiskey, oh well. We walked back to the hostel, it was very safe, people were everywhere, maybe because of the rugby match, maybe because that's just how Dublin is, it was great though. Our flight was scheduled for 6:50am and we had to catch the bus to the airport at either 4:30 or 5:30, we chose 4:30 which meant waking up at 3:45, sometimes I go to bed at 3:45. Oh well, we found the bus stop pretty easily. Check-in was easy, self service kiosk. Allison had breakfast at the airport, I was unwilling to spend anymore money. The plane was on time, aerlingus this time, not ryan air, so we had more space, we both slept through the flight. Once back in Brussels, we had to show our passports once more and the security man stamped mine this time after a few questions, so that shouldn't be an issue in the future. We hopped on a bus...which we had to pay for despite our public transportation passes...sigh...oh well. We got off near a metro stop and rode back home, then took long naps.
All in all it was a nice weekend, but very expensive...at least that taxi was. However, I have a cold, and my ears are pretty messed up from all the pressure changes. My camera charger still hasn't arrived, I borrowed my hostsister's camera and stole a few pictures from Allison again. If it doesn't arrive this week I'm just buying a new one.
All pictures are on facebook and photobucket, as usual, take a look!
-Lauren :)
So we were at the airport, apparently they didn't stamp my visa when I flew into Europe the first time so the security man was very skeptical, fortunately, he let me through anyways. The flight was delayed around an hour, but they didn't really tell us that, we just sat around waiting until they let us board an hour later than we were supposed to. We befriended an Italian woman during the wait though, she spoke French and English as well as Italian...these Europeans and their language skills astound me (the taxi driver had taught himself English). Our plane ride was the noisiest plane ride I've ever been on. There was a big rugby match between Ireland and France in Dublin on Saturday, everybody was singing and shouting, it was crazy. Ryan Air seats are very close together too, not much leg room. Once we arrived in Ireland we had to show our passports again, luckily we don't have EU passports so we were able to go in the shorter line where we met an Australian man who told us about the 45 degree C weather in Australia and I told him about the -20 degree F weather in Minnesota. Allison has a converter on her phone, so we found out that 45 degrees C is about 114 degrees F and -20 degrees F is about -28 degrees C...tell me how that conversion makes any sense. Anyways, the Australian was shocked by that kind of cold. We found the bus we were supposed to take to our hostel without any problems, it was clearly labelled.
Once we got off the bus, we tried to find our hostel. Well...that was an adventure. The hostel was very poorly marked, online it was the Morehampton House Hostel, in person it was something completely different. After walking around for about half an hour and calling the hostel a few times (while feeling very safe, Dublin is a lively city) we found the right address. The woman who ran the hostel was outside to confirm this is what we were looking for. Our booking was hand written on a sheet of paper, it was like a house converted into a hostel. It was clean and pretty cheap though, and we got moved from a 4 person bedroom to a 2 person bedroom for no extra cost which was nice.
Next morning we had to wake up early for our 7am tour to Limerick, Galway Bay and the Cliffs of Moher. We got a taxi to the meeting place, a decently priced taxi, well anything would be compared to Friday. Taxis are EVERYWHERE at ALL hours in Dublin. There were 8 of us on the tour, at least 4 of the other people spoke Spanish, one woman at least spoke ONLY Spanish and talked like we could understand her. We got a huge coach bus. It was a sunny day and the drive was beautiful. We were only in Limerick for about 5 minutes, long enough to take a picture by King John's Castle. Then on to Galway Bay, which was gorgeous. There were fuzzy cows and sheep all over during the drive. The Atlantic Ocean smelled so good too. After lots of picture taking and wandering, it was time for lunch. We had lunch in Doolin, I had seafood chowder, mmmm. Then it was on to the Cliffs of Moher. They were gorgeous, of course, especially since it was sunny. I bought a claddaugh ring right before we left and sampled some mead (yum) a few wines and soda bread. Then began the long ride back to Dublin.
We got dinner once we were back in Dublin at a pub/restaurant, of course the pub part was packed what with the rugby game just over (the streets were flooded with people, Ireland won). The waitress looked at me like I was crazy when I asked how much water cost, water isn't free in Brussels, it wasn't free in Italy either, but it is in Ireland. The lamb stew I had was delicious. After that we walked around for a while, took a few pictures and ended up in the Temple Bar area (don't worry, we had a map). There was a band playing in the street, real Irish music, it was pretty cool. Then we ended up at The Temple Bar and each had a half-pint of Guinness, no money for more than that, although I would've liked to have some whiskey, oh well. We walked back to the hostel, it was very safe, people were everywhere, maybe because of the rugby match, maybe because that's just how Dublin is, it was great though. Our flight was scheduled for 6:50am and we had to catch the bus to the airport at either 4:30 or 5:30, we chose 4:30 which meant waking up at 3:45, sometimes I go to bed at 3:45. Oh well, we found the bus stop pretty easily. Check-in was easy, self service kiosk. Allison had breakfast at the airport, I was unwilling to spend anymore money. The plane was on time, aerlingus this time, not ryan air, so we had more space, we both slept through the flight. Once back in Brussels, we had to show our passports once more and the security man stamped mine this time after a few questions, so that shouldn't be an issue in the future. We hopped on a bus...which we had to pay for despite our public transportation passes...sigh...oh well. We got off near a metro stop and rode back home, then took long naps.
All in all it was a nice weekend, but very expensive...at least that taxi was. However, I have a cold, and my ears are pretty messed up from all the pressure changes. My camera charger still hasn't arrived, I borrowed my hostsister's camera and stole a few pictures from Allison again. If it doesn't arrive this week I'm just buying a new one.
All pictures are on facebook and photobucket, as usual, take a look!
-Lauren :)
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