Hey everybody!
I know it has been awhile since I left Europe but it has been a busy month since I returned to Atlanta. Anyways I'll jump right into the 8 day adventure Kris and I had after we finished our exams. We left Metz after cleaning up our room, packing, and leaving that crappy dorm behind. We caught an afternoon train to Munich that got us there around 9:30 pm on Thursday August 2nd. We then met up with a friend of Kris's Dad (thanks alot for this by the way Eric Moen) and dropped our massive suitcases off at his friend's appartment just a couple of blocks away from the main train station. We then took a break before our night train and grabbed a couple of half liters of Munich's finest Augustiner Helles beer and then headed out for Budapest.
After not too terrible of a night train in a six person car with only one other German guy we went to the closest ATM and pulled out 10,000 Hungarian Florins... I had previously looked up the exchange rate (Exchange Rate) but it's still really weird to get used to the price levels in a new city and know how much we would need. When we finally found the hostel and set all of our stuff down we just sat down on the beds and napped for about 3 hours to catch up on the lost night train sleep.
When we finally woke up from our nap we went out to get some coffee and explore our surroundings. We found plenty of monuments and statues from the Soviet Era of Budapest all over the place and found a nice place to eat dinner while watching some Olympic action on a nearby TV. We were going to go on a beer tour that night, but it ended up falling through and we just explored the night life around town and had some drinks at a couple of the famed bars and clubs in the area.
The next morning we decided to relax for the day so we took the metro up to the Szechenyi Baths and Pool just north of us which was amazing. The complex is set up with a massive rectangle building filled with locker rooms and changing rooms in the front and different temperature baths and saunas scattered around inside. The middle of the building was an open air pool area with one dedicated for swimming lanes, and two for recreation. We spent the next four hours of our day going in circles around the building and trying out different temperatures to see which ones we liked best. It was a super relaxing day and I can only imagine what it would be like to party there at night which is also an option. Afterwards we grabbed some lunch at a neighborhood place nearby and decided that we would go for some hammock relaxation time in the park surrounding the baths for the early afternoon.
Around 5ish we decided to walk back to our place and go get some dinner before deciding on a plan for the night. We had found a map of the city with a list of famous bars around town and decided to go bar hopping at a couple on the list. The first two were a bit quiet but it was still early so we just figured the party hadn't started yet. Then we stopped in at a bar called Szimpla Kert which was rated by Lonely Planet as the 3rd best bar in the world. We got some drinks and ended up talking to some girls on vacation from Amsterdam and had a fun time in my favorite 'Ruin Pub' I had been in. We headed back at the end of the night and crashed for the night.
On Sunday we decided to go on a walking tour of Budapest that we were following from an app. Kris and I managed to walk around plenty that day... All the way to the town center and across the river only to climb a small mountain. We did get to see plenty of cool sights including the Budapest liberty statue and an array of soviet anti-aircraft guns and artillery left over from the city's occupation. We managed to get a great view of the parliament building from across the river and then made stops at the Hungarian National Gallery and the beautiful Matthias Church up the river. We then followed the river to a bridge crossing back over to the side we were staying on. We took a small detour when we found out that there was a park on the island in the middle of the river on the way back and set up hammocks next to a large fountain and relaxed after a long several hours of walking. We then headed back to our hostel and decided that we wanted to go see The Dark Knight Rises that night. We found a theater that was showing an original version with Hungarian subtitles and after getting some dinner took the metro to the theater. We had to wait around for awhile, but the movie was awesome and not to mention ridiculously cheap! It was a great relaxing end to our stay in Budapest.
The next morning we grabbed a ride on a train to Vienna that wasn't too long. We had lunch and some nice Austrian beer at a local cafe and then took another walking tour that Kris downloaded off the internet for us to follow. We checked out a slew of famous statues, cathedrals, and buildings in the city and even had some locally famous cappuccinos at a coffee house. After finding another park next to the train station, we set up our hammocks and enjoyed the warm afternoon. Honestly, by this point we were tired of doing touristy things and we were relatively broke so hammocks were a common alternative to having to actually do anything. That evening we hopped on yet another train bound to take us back to Munich and one step closer to our final destination and flight back home.
We arrived late that night in Munich and stayed in the local Wombat Hostel right across from the train station. It was one of the nicest places we had stayed at so far due to some recent renovations but nevertheless we were crammed into a 6 person room and since there wasn't much to do around the neighborhood we just shot some pool and drank beer with some guys we met in the hostel bar and lounge. The next day we managed to move over to the apartment that Kris's Dad's friend Uli was lending to us for the remainder of our stay. (Thank you very much Uli and Eric Moen!) We found a local grocery store and found food to cook for ourselves and set our stuff up in the nicely located flat right on the corner across from the tents of Oktoberfest that were being set up in preparation for the festival coming up. We also discovered that the Augustiner brewery was a 10 minute walk down the street... We ended up spending more than a couple of meals there drinking their amazingly tasty and smooth beers. We also purchased souvenir glasses from them which compared to most other places in Munich were cheap.
During our three full days in Munich, we most often went to the English Garden and Augustiner Brewery for drinks and hammock relaxation time since we had previously seen most of the tourist attractions in the city. We did however make sure to stop by the Deutsches Museum and check out all of the awesome exhibitions they had to offer. Student prices were only 3 euros or so and we managed to spend almost 5 hours in there being engineers who were interested in all of this science and technology on display. They had exhibitions on everything from music instruments, to aerospace, to tunnel construction, to electricity and engines. I would highly recommend this as a must see in Munich since all of the displays are interactive and very interesting and educational.
To finish up, my summer was filled with new and exciting adventures all over Europe. I saw new places, met plenty of new people, had new food, had great beer, and enjoyed every second of it. I would go back in a heartbeat and I know there would still be more for me to see because you could spend a lifetime wandering the different countries of the world. I will definitely have to go back as I didn't make it to all the cities or countries I wanted to including London, Berlin, Croatia, Madrid, Copenhagen, Portugal, Ireland and Scotland, but that will have to be another journey and another blog! Thanks to everyone for reading and keeping in touch with me through all of it and thanks to my parents for helping me make this possible because this entire trip would have been a nightmare if I hadn't had someone to help me prepare for it.
--Brian
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Reaching New Heights in Interlaken
Hi all!
On my last weekend, I wanted to do something crazy fun, something out of the ordinary... I had heard from many people throughout the summer that when you are looking for this kind of fun, go straight to Interlaken, Switzerland. Interlaken is a quiet town in eastern Switzerland that is surrounded by two lakes to the east and west and towering mountains to the north and south. This location is unique because of all the amazing terrain it offers. You can do anything from skydiving, to ice climbing, to whitewater rafting, and much more. I chose two events out of the list and decided on Canyoning and Hang Gliding.
The only tricky thing about this town is that there are only so many places to stay, and I wasn't able to book too far in advance so I ended up staying in a town further down the lake from Interlaken called Iseltwald. The Lake Lodge we stayed at was right on the banks of the glacier melt water with amazing views and cozy rooms (compared to most of the other places I had stayed this summer).
Saturday morning I headed out to go canyoning in the Grimsel canyon about an hour outside of town. Canyoning is a combination of rock climbing, rappelling, zip lines, and swimming all through about a kilometer of a canyon. When we started it was extremely foggy, raining, and cold but luckily they put us all in wet suits, life jackets, and helmets to keep us safe and warm. We started off rappelling into the canyon from the side of a road over 50 meters above which was a scary feat with the fog all around us. We then walked, waded, swam, jumped, slid, and zipped our way across rock formations through the canyon. The total length was only about a kilometer or so, but still the adventure took the better part of 3 hours. There are pictures to come of the whole trip, but it was a bunch of fun and I would definitely recommend it to anyone going to Interlaken.
The only other bad part about Interlaken (and Switzerland in general) is that the food is really expensive so eating out wasn't exactly an option. I managed to find the local grocery store and grab some food and snacks for the weekend though and it didn't turn out too bad at all.
Sunday I had arranged to go Hang Gliding, in the hopes that the fog and bad weather would clear up by then. When I got picked up for the trip out to the take off site, I met Birdman Bernie (The dude in the videos that is flying me around) from Australia and he gave me all the necessary instructions and preparations for taking off while we were still in the last of the fog on top of the mountain. (The videos that he taped are all in the Interlaken album with the pictures) When we were done setting up the hang glider the fog finally lifted in such a short time that it just seemed like luck. We took about 5 running steps and lifted up into the air, quickly ascending over 100 feet above the mountain. The entire ride was crazy to watch from that high up and was actually rather serene until we started diving down towards the lake and making all sorts of sharp turns. I was absolutely thrilled the entire time and after our quick landing I could only think about going up for round 2. Unfortunately, hang gliding is rather expensive so there was only one trip for me this time, but who knows... maybe there will be more later in life!
I then went kayaking when I got back to the hostel so I could explore the lake around me. I paddled to a small island, almost flipped over countless times, avoided the ferry, watched some local kids jump into the lake on a rope swing, and admired the beauty of the surrounding forests and mountains on what turned out to be a windy, but clear and sunny day.
After that, it was still only about 4pm so I decided to catch the ferry I had seen earlier to tour through another town on the other side of the lake called Brienz. The ferry was a spectacular ride with great views and restaurant/bar service on board if you felt like paying for it. Upon arriving in Brienz, I realized that just like all the other towns around the lakes this one was kind of small and didn't have much in it besides a small movie theater and a couple of restaurants. So instead I grapped some ice cream and rode the ferry back to Iseltwald.
I then headed out on Monday morning, but all in all Interlaken is a great area to stay in if you are looking for adventures or if you just want to relax and kick back. 10/10 I would go back (maybe with more money next time... haha).
P.S. - This was my last weekend trip because I have finals coming up next week, but Kris and I will be going out to several cities after finals since we aren't scheduled to fly out until August 11th. Budapest, Vienna, Munich, and Frankfurt here we come!
Cheers!
Brian
On my last weekend, I wanted to do something crazy fun, something out of the ordinary... I had heard from many people throughout the summer that when you are looking for this kind of fun, go straight to Interlaken, Switzerland. Interlaken is a quiet town in eastern Switzerland that is surrounded by two lakes to the east and west and towering mountains to the north and south. This location is unique because of all the amazing terrain it offers. You can do anything from skydiving, to ice climbing, to whitewater rafting, and much more. I chose two events out of the list and decided on Canyoning and Hang Gliding.
The only tricky thing about this town is that there are only so many places to stay, and I wasn't able to book too far in advance so I ended up staying in a town further down the lake from Interlaken called Iseltwald. The Lake Lodge we stayed at was right on the banks of the glacier melt water with amazing views and cozy rooms (compared to most of the other places I had stayed this summer).
Saturday morning I headed out to go canyoning in the Grimsel canyon about an hour outside of town. Canyoning is a combination of rock climbing, rappelling, zip lines, and swimming all through about a kilometer of a canyon. When we started it was extremely foggy, raining, and cold but luckily they put us all in wet suits, life jackets, and helmets to keep us safe and warm. We started off rappelling into the canyon from the side of a road over 50 meters above which was a scary feat with the fog all around us. We then walked, waded, swam, jumped, slid, and zipped our way across rock formations through the canyon. The total length was only about a kilometer or so, but still the adventure took the better part of 3 hours. There are pictures to come of the whole trip, but it was a bunch of fun and I would definitely recommend it to anyone going to Interlaken.
The only other bad part about Interlaken (and Switzerland in general) is that the food is really expensive so eating out wasn't exactly an option. I managed to find the local grocery store and grab some food and snacks for the weekend though and it didn't turn out too bad at all.
Sunday I had arranged to go Hang Gliding, in the hopes that the fog and bad weather would clear up by then. When I got picked up for the trip out to the take off site, I met Birdman Bernie (The dude in the videos that is flying me around) from Australia and he gave me all the necessary instructions and preparations for taking off while we were still in the last of the fog on top of the mountain. (The videos that he taped are all in the Interlaken album with the pictures) When we were done setting up the hang glider the fog finally lifted in such a short time that it just seemed like luck. We took about 5 running steps and lifted up into the air, quickly ascending over 100 feet above the mountain. The entire ride was crazy to watch from that high up and was actually rather serene until we started diving down towards the lake and making all sorts of sharp turns. I was absolutely thrilled the entire time and after our quick landing I could only think about going up for round 2. Unfortunately, hang gliding is rather expensive so there was only one trip for me this time, but who knows... maybe there will be more later in life!
I then went kayaking when I got back to the hostel so I could explore the lake around me. I paddled to a small island, almost flipped over countless times, avoided the ferry, watched some local kids jump into the lake on a rope swing, and admired the beauty of the surrounding forests and mountains on what turned out to be a windy, but clear and sunny day.
After that, it was still only about 4pm so I decided to catch the ferry I had seen earlier to tour through another town on the other side of the lake called Brienz. The ferry was a spectacular ride with great views and restaurant/bar service on board if you felt like paying for it. Upon arriving in Brienz, I realized that just like all the other towns around the lakes this one was kind of small and didn't have much in it besides a small movie theater and a couple of restaurants. So instead I grapped some ice cream and rode the ferry back to Iseltwald.
I then headed out on Monday morning, but all in all Interlaken is a great area to stay in if you are looking for adventures or if you just want to relax and kick back. 10/10 I would go back (maybe with more money next time... haha).
P.S. - This was my last weekend trip because I have finals coming up next week, but Kris and I will be going out to several cities after finals since we aren't scheduled to fly out until August 11th. Budapest, Vienna, Munich, and Frankfurt here we come!
Cheers!
Brian
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Bastille Day Weekend in Paris
Hi everybody,
Now that I'm back from my last weekend trip I need to catch up on some blogging. Two weekends ago was our Paris trip and when we scheduled it we found out that it was Bastille Day on that Saturday! It's basically their day of Independence celebrated on the day the people stormed the Bastille prison back at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. So when we got into town and got settled in our hostel on that Saturday morning, we decided to partake in as many events as we could. Number one, the Louvre had free admission all day so we couldn't pass that up. We walked through as much of the museum as we could manage in the four hours or so that we were inside and saw hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and ancient egyptian artifacts. We had most of it explained to us by the audio guide for the museum which turned out to be a Nintendo 3DS of all things (I got a good laugh out of that one). The Louvre is a massive three story museum with a couple of sub basements for special exhibits and the entire building covers a massive plaza in the center of Paris. There are enough works of art to keep anyone busy for several days or even a week depending on how often you stop to examine different art works. By the end of the day I had seen some of the famed paintings from school art books, including The Oath of the Horatii and Liberty Leading the People. Unfortunately I didn't manage to see the Mona Lisa because they closed that section of the exhibit right as I walked up to it around closing time, but overall the Louvre is a must see if you enjoy almost any kind of art.
Later that evening we had to deal with some rather crappy service at a restaurant that resulted in us leaving after two ridiculously overpriced beers. This ended up being a small theme in our trip which made us realize why Paris is NOT our favorite city. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is really expensive, and a lot of the service was unfriendly, or just plain rude. It may have been simply because we were just another two American tourists, but whatever the reason I didn't appreciate it at all.
On a sweeter note, Saturday night's main attraction was the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. We showed up about an hour early to find seats, only to discover the place was already packed with what seemed like well over 100,000 people if not more. When the sun finally dipped down around 11pm they started the awesome show of fireworks behind and around the Eiffel Tower, a giant 20 ft. diameter disco ball suspended between the two levels of the tower, and shimmering lights all over the tower's metal skeleton. The funniest part of all of it was that the music choice was almost all American 80's pop music (I guess it hasn't died just yet).
Sunday was our day of walking around the city. We made it up the walking section of the Eiffel Tower (They let you go 2/3 of the way up and then ask for more money to take the elevator to the top... No thank you) and ironically managed to find a cheaper cup of coffee at the restaurant up there than we had anywhere in the park surrounding the tower. We then walked to the Arc de Triomphe and the shopping strip leading away from it (which happened to include several concept car stores which Kris and I couldn't pass up). Next we visited the Cathedral Notre Dame which was an astounding view from the outside but we didn't make it in the building because it was close to closing and the line outside was over an hour long. We then grabbed some beers and a cheap dinner at an Irish Pub and a sandwich place nearby, respectively. Seeing as everything is really expensive in Paris we just decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel after that.
Monday was our last half day in Paris and we spent it walking around the Lafayette Galleries and visiting the Opera house, and the Church of the Madeliene, followed by a trip to a carnival set up on the park of the Louvre museum. We rode the massive and ridiculously fast centrifuge ride that swings you around in a giant circle (with around 5.5g's) and spins your seat upside down at the same time. That was a really fun time and Kris managed to get a short video of it to explain it better. (I'll get him to post it to Youtube later so I can share it) Then we spent the rest of the day lounging in a couple of chairs by the fountains in the Louvre park since, you know, that was FREE.
To sum it up, Paris is fun but really expensive and the people have a tendency to not like tourists at all so it's not my favorite city I've been to.
Brian
Now that I'm back from my last weekend trip I need to catch up on some blogging. Two weekends ago was our Paris trip and when we scheduled it we found out that it was Bastille Day on that Saturday! It's basically their day of Independence celebrated on the day the people stormed the Bastille prison back at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. So when we got into town and got settled in our hostel on that Saturday morning, we decided to partake in as many events as we could. Number one, the Louvre had free admission all day so we couldn't pass that up. We walked through as much of the museum as we could manage in the four hours or so that we were inside and saw hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and ancient egyptian artifacts. We had most of it explained to us by the audio guide for the museum which turned out to be a Nintendo 3DS of all things (I got a good laugh out of that one). The Louvre is a massive three story museum with a couple of sub basements for special exhibits and the entire building covers a massive plaza in the center of Paris. There are enough works of art to keep anyone busy for several days or even a week depending on how often you stop to examine different art works. By the end of the day I had seen some of the famed paintings from school art books, including The Oath of the Horatii and Liberty Leading the People. Unfortunately I didn't manage to see the Mona Lisa because they closed that section of the exhibit right as I walked up to it around closing time, but overall the Louvre is a must see if you enjoy almost any kind of art.
Later that evening we had to deal with some rather crappy service at a restaurant that resulted in us leaving after two ridiculously overpriced beers. This ended up being a small theme in our trip which made us realize why Paris is NOT our favorite city. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is really expensive, and a lot of the service was unfriendly, or just plain rude. It may have been simply because we were just another two American tourists, but whatever the reason I didn't appreciate it at all.
On a sweeter note, Saturday night's main attraction was the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. We showed up about an hour early to find seats, only to discover the place was already packed with what seemed like well over 100,000 people if not more. When the sun finally dipped down around 11pm they started the awesome show of fireworks behind and around the Eiffel Tower, a giant 20 ft. diameter disco ball suspended between the two levels of the tower, and shimmering lights all over the tower's metal skeleton. The funniest part of all of it was that the music choice was almost all American 80's pop music (I guess it hasn't died just yet).
Sunday was our day of walking around the city. We made it up the walking section of the Eiffel Tower (They let you go 2/3 of the way up and then ask for more money to take the elevator to the top... No thank you) and ironically managed to find a cheaper cup of coffee at the restaurant up there than we had anywhere in the park surrounding the tower. We then walked to the Arc de Triomphe and the shopping strip leading away from it (which happened to include several concept car stores which Kris and I couldn't pass up). Next we visited the Cathedral Notre Dame which was an astounding view from the outside but we didn't make it in the building because it was close to closing and the line outside was over an hour long. We then grabbed some beers and a cheap dinner at an Irish Pub and a sandwich place nearby, respectively. Seeing as everything is really expensive in Paris we just decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel after that.
Monday was our last half day in Paris and we spent it walking around the Lafayette Galleries and visiting the Opera house, and the Church of the Madeliene, followed by a trip to a carnival set up on the park of the Louvre museum. We rode the massive and ridiculously fast centrifuge ride that swings you around in a giant circle (with around 5.5g's) and spins your seat upside down at the same time. That was a really fun time and Kris managed to get a short video of it to explain it better. (I'll get him to post it to Youtube later so I can share it) Then we spent the rest of the day lounging in a couple of chairs by the fountains in the Louvre park since, you know, that was FREE.
To sum it up, Paris is fun but really expensive and the people have a tendency to not like tourists at all so it's not my favorite city I've been to.
Brian
Friday, July 13, 2012
Prague, I'll take the Czech please!
Hey guys,
Once again a busy week at school with two tests so I didn't have too much time to write until now, but here was the synopsis on last weekend in Prague.
Kris and I took a night train (with slightly more comfortable seats than usual) on Friday last week and got into Prague around 10:30am. We managed to get the usual city metro/tram passes and found our way to the Hostel we had booked. The place we stayed at was called the Clown and Bard with a full bar and lounge area for reception which really fit to the "college kid traveling through town" atmosphere. We had a provided breakfast there around 11 and then headed into the Old Town to find a tour of the city. We were planning on doing a New Europe tour which are supposed to be very good, but unfortunately their English speaking guide was sick, so we had to find a different company. We ended up going with a local guide who owned her own company and honestly, I wish the other dude hadn't been sick. Our replacement guide spoke moderately (I'm being nice here) good English and had a decent knowledge of the city's history since she had grown up there. We walked around the Old Town and saw the famous astronomical clock, the remnants of the destroyed town hall where the resistance met during WW II and some other cool sites. After the tour was finished around 4pm, we stopped at a local restaurant for food and drinks. We were able to splurge a little bit this weekend because everything is ridiculously inexpensive compared to most foreign currencies. For example, we each had three beers and a full entree plus and extra side for about 10 euros per person (which by Czech standards is a massive meal). We then headed back to the room to change clothes and prepare for Saturday night.
For our Saturday night, we bought tickets to go on 'The Prague Pub Crawl' which was the biggest pub crawl in town, by far! There were around 250 people signed up for the night total, so they split us up into three groups. We went in the second group with some other GTL kids we ran into on the walking tour and had an hour of unlimited drinks at the Pub Crawl Bar followed by a crawl to two different bars, each with a welcome shot (literally the worst vodka I've ever had. I should have just thrown it away and done them a favor) followed by music and dancing at each place. Kris and I had a couple more beers in the night, but nothing too crazy meanwhile everyone around us was going berserk! We ended the night at the biggest club in Central Europe called 'Karlovy Lazny'. This place has five stories of bars, dancing, and loud music with a different theme on each floor. The basement was a typical modern age club with a light up floor and a bar, the first floor was the Ice Bar (which I wish I had the money to get into, but we didn't have free entry to that part) and a Lazer room (the only way I know how to describe it) with all sorts of colored lazers and light decorations shooting around the room. Moving on up, the second floor was an oldies dance club with an even bigger light up floor and plenty of retro decorations everywhere while the third floor was a hip hop club with a bar surrounding a dancing pit with a ceiling of LED lights that flowed over us in coordinated colors and patterns. The fourth floor (I guess this is five and the basement counts as one) was a chill bar area with some slightly less loud music playing and plenty of chairs and couches to lounge out on. Needless to say it was the biggest club I've ever been to and it was crazy fun!
Sunday was the day Kris and I decided to just walk around the city on our own and do some shopping. We first took the tram across the river from the Old Town to see the area we hadn't been to yet. We visited St. Nicholas Cathedral and climbed to the top of the spire which was around 70 meters of stairs. We got some great views of the city and learned the history of how the tower was used by the Communist regime to spy on the locals as well as diplomats and politicians who stayed in town. (Creepy right?) We also read some history about the construction of the tower and how the bell was moved into place. My favorite paragraph I read had a hilarious joke in it about how they got the boys of the town to remember the momentous occasion: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QvGvFb0Al37K_bVVRIvRztMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
We then walked across the historic St. Charles Bridge where we browsed through souveneirs, and listened to the local 'Bridge Band' and listened to a couple of songs. They have some songs and performances on YouTube if you want to look them up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedRtvynJLU&feature=related).
We then went souvenir shopping at some local stores and noticed that the Bohemians are famous for their glass work. All the shops we went into were astounding and if I could afford anything in there I probably would have jumped on it. Instead I got a nice half liter ceramic beer mug that was rather cheap and looks awesome. I'll have to show it off when I get back haha. We also passed one of the few tourist traps that I let myself fall into... A LEGO MUSEUM! Kris and I couldn't help but reach back to our childhood as we walked through the multi-story musuem with over 2,000 models of many ages of lego sets. Including many of the ones we build as kids! We almost weren't able to leave the top floor solely dedicated to Star Wars models but we finally made it out of there. For the full synopsis of the place check out the ridiculous amount of pictures I took on my Picasa page.
We then walked around and found another place to grab food that was once again really cheap. I had an amazing breaded chicken breast and potato dumplings with assorted veggies and a nice beer to wash it down for the low price of about six euros. The rest of the night wasn't too exciting except for the umteenth Irish Bar we ran into that had 35 Czech Crowns for a large beer, and 50 Crown Jagerbombs. I couldn't resist! but then we called it a night after not too long and got a full night's sleep before taking the bus/train combination 15 hour ride back on Monday. The ride back never seems to work out the way you want it to.
Heading off to Paris for Bastille day tomorrow!
-Brian
Once again a busy week at school with two tests so I didn't have too much time to write until now, but here was the synopsis on last weekend in Prague.
Kris and I took a night train (with slightly more comfortable seats than usual) on Friday last week and got into Prague around 10:30am. We managed to get the usual city metro/tram passes and found our way to the Hostel we had booked. The place we stayed at was called the Clown and Bard with a full bar and lounge area for reception which really fit to the "college kid traveling through town" atmosphere. We had a provided breakfast there around 11 and then headed into the Old Town to find a tour of the city. We were planning on doing a New Europe tour which are supposed to be very good, but unfortunately their English speaking guide was sick, so we had to find a different company. We ended up going with a local guide who owned her own company and honestly, I wish the other dude hadn't been sick. Our replacement guide spoke moderately (I'm being nice here) good English and had a decent knowledge of the city's history since she had grown up there. We walked around the Old Town and saw the famous astronomical clock, the remnants of the destroyed town hall where the resistance met during WW II and some other cool sites. After the tour was finished around 4pm, we stopped at a local restaurant for food and drinks. We were able to splurge a little bit this weekend because everything is ridiculously inexpensive compared to most foreign currencies. For example, we each had three beers and a full entree plus and extra side for about 10 euros per person (which by Czech standards is a massive meal). We then headed back to the room to change clothes and prepare for Saturday night.
For our Saturday night, we bought tickets to go on 'The Prague Pub Crawl' which was the biggest pub crawl in town, by far! There were around 250 people signed up for the night total, so they split us up into three groups. We went in the second group with some other GTL kids we ran into on the walking tour and had an hour of unlimited drinks at the Pub Crawl Bar followed by a crawl to two different bars, each with a welcome shot (literally the worst vodka I've ever had. I should have just thrown it away and done them a favor) followed by music and dancing at each place. Kris and I had a couple more beers in the night, but nothing too crazy meanwhile everyone around us was going berserk! We ended the night at the biggest club in Central Europe called 'Karlovy Lazny'. This place has five stories of bars, dancing, and loud music with a different theme on each floor. The basement was a typical modern age club with a light up floor and a bar, the first floor was the Ice Bar (which I wish I had the money to get into, but we didn't have free entry to that part) and a Lazer room (the only way I know how to describe it) with all sorts of colored lazers and light decorations shooting around the room. Moving on up, the second floor was an oldies dance club with an even bigger light up floor and plenty of retro decorations everywhere while the third floor was a hip hop club with a bar surrounding a dancing pit with a ceiling of LED lights that flowed over us in coordinated colors and patterns. The fourth floor (I guess this is five and the basement counts as one) was a chill bar area with some slightly less loud music playing and plenty of chairs and couches to lounge out on. Needless to say it was the biggest club I've ever been to and it was crazy fun!
Sunday was the day Kris and I decided to just walk around the city on our own and do some shopping. We first took the tram across the river from the Old Town to see the area we hadn't been to yet. We visited St. Nicholas Cathedral and climbed to the top of the spire which was around 70 meters of stairs. We got some great views of the city and learned the history of how the tower was used by the Communist regime to spy on the locals as well as diplomats and politicians who stayed in town. (Creepy right?) We also read some history about the construction of the tower and how the bell was moved into place. My favorite paragraph I read had a hilarious joke in it about how they got the boys of the town to remember the momentous occasion: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QvGvFb0Al37K_bVVRIvRztMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
We then walked across the historic St. Charles Bridge where we browsed through souveneirs, and listened to the local 'Bridge Band' and listened to a couple of songs. They have some songs and performances on YouTube if you want to look them up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedRtvynJLU&feature=related).
We then went souvenir shopping at some local stores and noticed that the Bohemians are famous for their glass work. All the shops we went into were astounding and if I could afford anything in there I probably would have jumped on it. Instead I got a nice half liter ceramic beer mug that was rather cheap and looks awesome. I'll have to show it off when I get back haha. We also passed one of the few tourist traps that I let myself fall into... A LEGO MUSEUM! Kris and I couldn't help but reach back to our childhood as we walked through the multi-story musuem with over 2,000 models of many ages of lego sets. Including many of the ones we build as kids! We almost weren't able to leave the top floor solely dedicated to Star Wars models but we finally made it out of there. For the full synopsis of the place check out the ridiculous amount of pictures I took on my Picasa page.
We then walked around and found another place to grab food that was once again really cheap. I had an amazing breaded chicken breast and potato dumplings with assorted veggies and a nice beer to wash it down for the low price of about six euros. The rest of the night wasn't too exciting except for the umteenth Irish Bar we ran into that had 35 Czech Crowns for a large beer, and 50 Crown Jagerbombs. I couldn't resist! but then we called it a night after not too long and got a full night's sleep before taking the bus/train combination 15 hour ride back on Monday. The ride back never seems to work out the way you want it to.
Heading off to Paris for Bastille day tomorrow!
-Brian
Thursday, June 28, 2012
When in Italy...
Hey all,
I know this post is a little late but I had some school work to finish when I got back and this is the first chance I've had to write about our big five day weekend. I've already uploaded the pictures to Picasa so feel free to check them out!
Our mid-summer break started last Thursday with a long train ride to Rome through Strasbourg, Basel Switzerland, and Milan. We had only one delay but we managed to get to Rome by 9pm. We didn't have too much time to wander around but we grabbed some dinner and planned out our next day and a half in Rome. We rented bikes on Friday to ride around and check out the sites. Although it was very dangerous because Rome isn't exactly a biking city we did manage to cover a much bigger area of sites in a shorter amount of time. Most of the day was like playing Frogger and trying not to get run over, but on the way we stopped at the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Trevi Fountains, The Pantheon, among others, and took a tour of the Vatican and its museum, as well as the famous Sistine Chapel.
The Vatican was rather expensive, but we took a guided audio tour through the museum consisting of thousands of scupltures, paintings, tapestries, and other works of art. We were told detailed histories of some of the more popular pieces since it would have taken the entire day to go through all of them. I took as many pictures as possible while we strolled through the museum to give you all and idea of its vastness. The Sistine Chapel itself, is supposed to be off-limits to cameras and noise as the frescoes on the walls and ceiling are extremely delicate and are vulnerable to camera flashes and vibrations. I turned off my flash at the recommendation of our guide and snapped a couple of photos, but those few were all I could manage before a security guard told me to put my camera up. We also toured through St. Peter's Basilica and Piazza San Pietro and I was literally amazed by the size of all of it and the fact that it has been standing since 1626.
One of our last stops in Rome that night was not exactly mentioned as one of the top tourist attractions, but Kris and I decided to go visit Villa Borghese. It was a wonderfully designed park with African style trees, long and open bike paths, a zoo, dozens of fountains, and many beautiful ruins and buildings to explore. But before we knew it, it was 6:30 and we had to be back downtown to return the bikes at 7pm. We quickly found the nearest metro station (which we had day passes for) and managed to get our bikes down the series of escalators and stairs. One of which was a downward sloping moving sidewalk, so we couldn't resist riding our bikes down the length of it! Literally one of those moments that doesn't seem like it should be fun but it was unbelievable exciting.
We managed to return the bikes only a couple minutes late after many evil stares on the metro for taking up too much room. We had planned to go on our first pub crawl of the summer that evening and after we had some dinner and showers, we headed down to the metro only to discover that Rome metro workers had decided to go on strike that evening... At least we didn't pay to reserve anything, but we couldn't make it in time so we went to the local Irish Pub (which seems to exist in every major European city). After getting our first round of drinks we sat down with two German guys who had some extra room and talked while the Greece vs. Germany soccer match was on. During the course of the match we made two new friends who bought us all the drinks after that first round which was astoundingly polite. All of this was made even better when Germany advanced to the Semifinals by beating Greece 4-2! (Although I'm watching them play Italy right now and it's not looking too good...) So overall our night turned out much better than we expected.
Saturday morning we only had a couple of hours and the one major site we hadn't seen yet was the Spanish Steps. Since they happened to be next to the Villa Borghese that we visited the previous day, we decided to spend a little more time there afterwards. The steps were amazing with a great view over the city of Rome to the south due to the higher elevation of the park. When we were walking over, we heard some music and assumed that there might be an outdoor market or festival that morning. To our surprise, we happened upon the Italian 2012 Crossfit Championships which is simply put a cross section of many kinds of fitness including weight lifting, running, gymnastics, and overall craziness. We sat down for awhile and watched some of the most jacked dudes I have ever seen in person do some of the most ridiculous combinations of exercises I could imagine. We didn't stay for the whole event, but it still was something I wasn't expecting at all. We then went and explored another section of the park and set up our hammocks before lunch in the shade of a group of trees. All together, Rome is a great city and proved itself as a rival for my favorite city in Europe, on par with Munich.
Venice was the second part of our trip which was a four hour train ride away to the northeast. We showed up on Saturday night and took the waterbus to the outlying island of Lido where I had gotten us into a nice Hotwire hotel for the night. By the time we checked in, it was already 9pm so we just decided to stay on the island and check out the live music and restaurants that Lido had to offer. We ate a very classy three course meal at one place consisting of a liter of the house red wine, two types of spaghetti, a pizza with mushrooms, pepperoni, and avocado, followed by famous Italian gelato for dessert. Needless to say, the food in Venice is well known for a good reason even though it is rather expensive.
Sunday was our day for exploring Venice itself. We started by taking the waterbus from Lido to Piazza San Marco where we toured in the Doge's palace (no cameras allowed unfortunately), and saw the famous Clocktower and surrounding buildings in the massive plaza. We then grabbed a bite of lunch in a nearby restaurant and decided to go visit a local Music Museum (which was an easy choice because it was free). They had many famous instruments of past musicians on display and I was amazed by the curious design of some of them. Including guitars that had three extra bass notes attached above the normal six strings, weirdly shaped mandolin looking instruments, and violins and harps. We also bought student passes to a Vivaldi concert that night there which we were extremely excited for.
The only bad part of the weekend was the second Venice hotel, which we had to book last minute because we couldn't book the night train out of Venice that we had originally planned for. It turns out this place was in the middle of nowhere with a 30 euro taxi ride to get there and a shuttle that was anything but convenient. In the end we decided to skip trying to get there because it would be cheaper for us to just pay the full price for cancellation and stay out in Venice for the night. We ended up walking around to a restaurant for dinner followed by a bar for some lemoncello before the concert.
The Vivaldi concert was amazing in its own right. The group playing was a bunch of ex-symphony players and included three violinists, two violas, a cello, a bass cello, and pianist. They played four works from Vivaldi, one from a composer I didn't know, and one piece from Mozart. All of it was beautiful and enjoyable to listen to (unlike earlier in my life where I would often fall asleep during symphony concerts). If you ever stop in Venice, I would recommend seeing these guys play. After that, we found some local bars where we grabbed some drinks and watched Italy play England in the last Euro 2012 quarterfinal. It was quite uneventful until the shootout at the end but the bar went crazy with Italy's victory! We then found some friends to follow around for the night including a guy from St. Louis, one from Michigan, two German girls, and two British 'Blokes'. Through the course of the night I realized that the British guys were actually the most impolite and drunk of all of us so we managed to get away from them after awhile. We ended up going to Piazza San Marco one last time at 2am and played a couple games of cards with our group to kill some time. We then walked all the way across town to the train station and slept until our train the next morning at 8:30.
The ride back was a story in itself.. sadly. We took a train from Venice to Milan to catch a train to Zurich followed by a one last connection to Metz. We made it onto the Zurich train just fine, but then less than halfway through the ride we were informed that there had been a landslide on the tracks ahead and we would half to get off the train and take another route. We were shuffled onto a train going to a nearby town where the Swiss train company had hired buses to take us to another station where we could catch a train to Zurich. From there we had missed the last connection to Metz, so we had to take a train to Basel where we found a ride to Strasbourg. We were on the final train from Strasbourg to Metz, when at the last stop before Metz we were forced to get off the train because of unexplained 'Security Reasons' on the tracks ahead of us. Needless to say this French excuse was nowhere as good as the Swiss's reason. After boarding the bus, we rode around the country side with a driver who obviously didn't know his way around Metz or the surrounding area. After a 16 hour day of traveling, we made it back to the room at midnight.
Thats why America doesn't do trains.
Brian
I know this post is a little late but I had some school work to finish when I got back and this is the first chance I've had to write about our big five day weekend. I've already uploaded the pictures to Picasa so feel free to check them out!
Our mid-summer break started last Thursday with a long train ride to Rome through Strasbourg, Basel Switzerland, and Milan. We had only one delay but we managed to get to Rome by 9pm. We didn't have too much time to wander around but we grabbed some dinner and planned out our next day and a half in Rome. We rented bikes on Friday to ride around and check out the sites. Although it was very dangerous because Rome isn't exactly a biking city we did manage to cover a much bigger area of sites in a shorter amount of time. Most of the day was like playing Frogger and trying not to get run over, but on the way we stopped at the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Trevi Fountains, The Pantheon, among others, and took a tour of the Vatican and its museum, as well as the famous Sistine Chapel.
The Vatican was rather expensive, but we took a guided audio tour through the museum consisting of thousands of scupltures, paintings, tapestries, and other works of art. We were told detailed histories of some of the more popular pieces since it would have taken the entire day to go through all of them. I took as many pictures as possible while we strolled through the museum to give you all and idea of its vastness. The Sistine Chapel itself, is supposed to be off-limits to cameras and noise as the frescoes on the walls and ceiling are extremely delicate and are vulnerable to camera flashes and vibrations. I turned off my flash at the recommendation of our guide and snapped a couple of photos, but those few were all I could manage before a security guard told me to put my camera up. We also toured through St. Peter's Basilica and Piazza San Pietro and I was literally amazed by the size of all of it and the fact that it has been standing since 1626.
One of our last stops in Rome that night was not exactly mentioned as one of the top tourist attractions, but Kris and I decided to go visit Villa Borghese. It was a wonderfully designed park with African style trees, long and open bike paths, a zoo, dozens of fountains, and many beautiful ruins and buildings to explore. But before we knew it, it was 6:30 and we had to be back downtown to return the bikes at 7pm. We quickly found the nearest metro station (which we had day passes for) and managed to get our bikes down the series of escalators and stairs. One of which was a downward sloping moving sidewalk, so we couldn't resist riding our bikes down the length of it! Literally one of those moments that doesn't seem like it should be fun but it was unbelievable exciting.
We managed to return the bikes only a couple minutes late after many evil stares on the metro for taking up too much room. We had planned to go on our first pub crawl of the summer that evening and after we had some dinner and showers, we headed down to the metro only to discover that Rome metro workers had decided to go on strike that evening... At least we didn't pay to reserve anything, but we couldn't make it in time so we went to the local Irish Pub (which seems to exist in every major European city). After getting our first round of drinks we sat down with two German guys who had some extra room and talked while the Greece vs. Germany soccer match was on. During the course of the match we made two new friends who bought us all the drinks after that first round which was astoundingly polite. All of this was made even better when Germany advanced to the Semifinals by beating Greece 4-2! (Although I'm watching them play Italy right now and it's not looking too good...) So overall our night turned out much better than we expected.
Saturday morning we only had a couple of hours and the one major site we hadn't seen yet was the Spanish Steps. Since they happened to be next to the Villa Borghese that we visited the previous day, we decided to spend a little more time there afterwards. The steps were amazing with a great view over the city of Rome to the south due to the higher elevation of the park. When we were walking over, we heard some music and assumed that there might be an outdoor market or festival that morning. To our surprise, we happened upon the Italian 2012 Crossfit Championships which is simply put a cross section of many kinds of fitness including weight lifting, running, gymnastics, and overall craziness. We sat down for awhile and watched some of the most jacked dudes I have ever seen in person do some of the most ridiculous combinations of exercises I could imagine. We didn't stay for the whole event, but it still was something I wasn't expecting at all. We then went and explored another section of the park and set up our hammocks before lunch in the shade of a group of trees. All together, Rome is a great city and proved itself as a rival for my favorite city in Europe, on par with Munich.
Venice was the second part of our trip which was a four hour train ride away to the northeast. We showed up on Saturday night and took the waterbus to the outlying island of Lido where I had gotten us into a nice Hotwire hotel for the night. By the time we checked in, it was already 9pm so we just decided to stay on the island and check out the live music and restaurants that Lido had to offer. We ate a very classy three course meal at one place consisting of a liter of the house red wine, two types of spaghetti, a pizza with mushrooms, pepperoni, and avocado, followed by famous Italian gelato for dessert. Needless to say, the food in Venice is well known for a good reason even though it is rather expensive.
Sunday was our day for exploring Venice itself. We started by taking the waterbus from Lido to Piazza San Marco where we toured in the Doge's palace (no cameras allowed unfortunately), and saw the famous Clocktower and surrounding buildings in the massive plaza. We then grabbed a bite of lunch in a nearby restaurant and decided to go visit a local Music Museum (which was an easy choice because it was free). They had many famous instruments of past musicians on display and I was amazed by the curious design of some of them. Including guitars that had three extra bass notes attached above the normal six strings, weirdly shaped mandolin looking instruments, and violins and harps. We also bought student passes to a Vivaldi concert that night there which we were extremely excited for.
The only bad part of the weekend was the second Venice hotel, which we had to book last minute because we couldn't book the night train out of Venice that we had originally planned for. It turns out this place was in the middle of nowhere with a 30 euro taxi ride to get there and a shuttle that was anything but convenient. In the end we decided to skip trying to get there because it would be cheaper for us to just pay the full price for cancellation and stay out in Venice for the night. We ended up walking around to a restaurant for dinner followed by a bar for some lemoncello before the concert.
The Vivaldi concert was amazing in its own right. The group playing was a bunch of ex-symphony players and included three violinists, two violas, a cello, a bass cello, and pianist. They played four works from Vivaldi, one from a composer I didn't know, and one piece from Mozart. All of it was beautiful and enjoyable to listen to (unlike earlier in my life where I would often fall asleep during symphony concerts). If you ever stop in Venice, I would recommend seeing these guys play. After that, we found some local bars where we grabbed some drinks and watched Italy play England in the last Euro 2012 quarterfinal. It was quite uneventful until the shootout at the end but the bar went crazy with Italy's victory! We then found some friends to follow around for the night including a guy from St. Louis, one from Michigan, two German girls, and two British 'Blokes'. Through the course of the night I realized that the British guys were actually the most impolite and drunk of all of us so we managed to get away from them after awhile. We ended up going to Piazza San Marco one last time at 2am and played a couple games of cards with our group to kill some time. We then walked all the way across town to the train station and slept until our train the next morning at 8:30.
The ride back was a story in itself.. sadly. We took a train from Venice to Milan to catch a train to Zurich followed by a one last connection to Metz. We made it onto the Zurich train just fine, but then less than halfway through the ride we were informed that there had been a landslide on the tracks ahead and we would half to get off the train and take another route. We were shuffled onto a train going to a nearby town where the Swiss train company had hired buses to take us to another station where we could catch a train to Zurich. From there we had missed the last connection to Metz, so we had to take a train to Basel where we found a ride to Strasbourg. We were on the final train from Strasbourg to Metz, when at the last stop before Metz we were forced to get off the train because of unexplained 'Security Reasons' on the tracks ahead of us. Needless to say this French excuse was nowhere as good as the Swiss's reason. After boarding the bus, we rode around the country side with a driver who obviously didn't know his way around Metz or the surrounding area. After a 16 hour day of traveling, we made it back to the room at midnight.
Thats why America doesn't do trains.
Brian
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Our First GTL Field Trip
Hey everyone!
Wednesday this past week was the first time in a long time I've had a school field trip. We had the whole day off from classes but met at GTL to get on buses at 8:15am. I was in Group 1 with Kris which put us on the bus to go to Hackenberg in the morning. For those of you who don't know about it, Hackenberg is the largest underground fort on the Maginot line. The Maginot line was a series of strategic defenses put in place by the French after World War I from Italy all the way to Belgium on the French border. We got to take a tour of the fort and see all of the machinery that was used in its operation, some of the defensive weapons that the French installed, and some of the damage caused by the Germans when they captured the base. We rode on an electric train that was used as a troop and ammunition transport from the supply entrance of the base to two of the gun blocks and one ammunition storage area. We also were taken through the kitchen area which was supposed to have been extremely modern for its time. I took pictures of every gun I could find on the tour and boy were there alot of them! Everything from 135mm Howitzers down to the smallest German, British, and French pistols and rifles. I even managed to get a good picture of one of the anti-aircraft guns the French had used during the fort's defense that had markings on it for the two German planes it shot down. Overall a really cool place to visit, although it was deep underground so it was very cold the entire time.
The second half of our day took us to the Lorraine American Cemetery where over 10,000 American soldiers are buried as a result of the battle for Metz and the surrounding region. This cemetery is actually larger than the one even at Normandy and is an impressive site to see. We were given a short lecture on some of the famous soldiers who were buried there as well as many compelling stories of how they died. The cemetery was a very moving place to visit and it gave me a good understanding of the battle for Metz since most people don't remember it nearly as much as the other famous battles of the war. I have uploaded pictures of both sites onto my Picasa so feel free to check them out.
Brian
Wednesday this past week was the first time in a long time I've had a school field trip. We had the whole day off from classes but met at GTL to get on buses at 8:15am. I was in Group 1 with Kris which put us on the bus to go to Hackenberg in the morning. For those of you who don't know about it, Hackenberg is the largest underground fort on the Maginot line. The Maginot line was a series of strategic defenses put in place by the French after World War I from Italy all the way to Belgium on the French border. We got to take a tour of the fort and see all of the machinery that was used in its operation, some of the defensive weapons that the French installed, and some of the damage caused by the Germans when they captured the base. We rode on an electric train that was used as a troop and ammunition transport from the supply entrance of the base to two of the gun blocks and one ammunition storage area. We also were taken through the kitchen area which was supposed to have been extremely modern for its time. I took pictures of every gun I could find on the tour and boy were there alot of them! Everything from 135mm Howitzers down to the smallest German, British, and French pistols and rifles. I even managed to get a good picture of one of the anti-aircraft guns the French had used during the fort's defense that had markings on it for the two German planes it shot down. Overall a really cool place to visit, although it was deep underground so it was very cold the entire time.
The second half of our day took us to the Lorraine American Cemetery where over 10,000 American soldiers are buried as a result of the battle for Metz and the surrounding region. This cemetery is actually larger than the one even at Normandy and is an impressive site to see. We were given a short lecture on some of the famous soldiers who were buried there as well as many compelling stories of how they died. The cemetery was a very moving place to visit and it gave me a good understanding of the battle for Metz since most people don't remember it nearly as much as the other famous battles of the war. I have uploaded pictures of both sites onto my Picasa so feel free to check them out.
Brian
Monday, June 11, 2012
Amsterdam, the Orange City
Hey everybody!
This past weekend was a short one for us, but I went to Amsterdam on an overnight train on Friday. When we arrived on Saturday we walked around the city visiting some of the local cathedrals and historical sites, including the Anne Frank House in the western part of the city. I wish I could have shared some of the Anne Frank museum with you guys but they did not allow photography in the building. To give a brief description, the house has been restored to almost an exact replica of how it was while she was hiding in its Secret Annex. There were two bed rooms, and a small washroom hidden by a bookcase secret door. This link gives a good virtual tour of the place: http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/Enter-the-3D-house/#/house/20/
Saturday was a bit cold and windy so we stayed inside at a bar most of the afternoon watching the Netherlands take on Denmark in the first round of Euro 2012. The match went back and forth for the longest time and even though the Dutch looked like they had the upper hand, they could not score any goals. Finally, to the Dutch's horror, Denmark scored the only goal of the match. I couldn't believe how upset some of the locals got, but I guess we do the same for our football games back home.
Later that night Kris and I walked to a Jazz bar called Mellow Moe's in town. I can vouch for the fact that sometimes the smallest 'hole in the wall' can hold some of the biggest surprises. We walked in, paid a small cover, and listened to a band led by a guy named Aldwin London. He was on bass guitar and singing the blues with an accompanying drummer, while his friend (whose name I didn't get unfortunately) just wailed away on his electric guitar. The music they played was amazing and everybody in the room couldn't help but dance and nod their heads to the groove these guys put together. We stayed there for several hours unable to leave and glued to the performance. My favorite part was during the last song when the guitarist wandered off stage, thanks to his wireless amp connection, and jammed right next to us. He then proceeded to order a shot from the bar, and while soloing with his left hand, finished his glass with his right. I could do nothing but stand with my mouth wide open and speechless.
After that, we walked back to the hotel and passed through the Red Light district to get a glimpse of the night scene which was slightly sketchy to say the least. After getting lost a couple of times, we finally found the red LED street posts that mark the edge of the district and left it all behind. A long night's sleep was exactly what I needed because the next morning we woke fully rested and ready to go explore one last time before we headed out that afternoon. We walked around, got lost another couple of times, and passed many coffee shops and bars as they were taking down their orange banners and other soccer decorations from the previous day. After grabbing a bite of lunch, we got on the train and headed back to Metz.
Sidenote: 5 star hotel this weekend brought to us by Hotwire.com
-Brian
This past weekend was a short one for us, but I went to Amsterdam on an overnight train on Friday. When we arrived on Saturday we walked around the city visiting some of the local cathedrals and historical sites, including the Anne Frank House in the western part of the city. I wish I could have shared some of the Anne Frank museum with you guys but they did not allow photography in the building. To give a brief description, the house has been restored to almost an exact replica of how it was while she was hiding in its Secret Annex. There were two bed rooms, and a small washroom hidden by a bookcase secret door. This link gives a good virtual tour of the place: http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/Enter-the-3D-house/#/house/20/
Saturday was a bit cold and windy so we stayed inside at a bar most of the afternoon watching the Netherlands take on Denmark in the first round of Euro 2012. The match went back and forth for the longest time and even though the Dutch looked like they had the upper hand, they could not score any goals. Finally, to the Dutch's horror, Denmark scored the only goal of the match. I couldn't believe how upset some of the locals got, but I guess we do the same for our football games back home.
Later that night Kris and I walked to a Jazz bar called Mellow Moe's in town. I can vouch for the fact that sometimes the smallest 'hole in the wall' can hold some of the biggest surprises. We walked in, paid a small cover, and listened to a band led by a guy named Aldwin London. He was on bass guitar and singing the blues with an accompanying drummer, while his friend (whose name I didn't get unfortunately) just wailed away on his electric guitar. The music they played was amazing and everybody in the room couldn't help but dance and nod their heads to the groove these guys put together. We stayed there for several hours unable to leave and glued to the performance. My favorite part was during the last song when the guitarist wandered off stage, thanks to his wireless amp connection, and jammed right next to us. He then proceeded to order a shot from the bar, and while soloing with his left hand, finished his glass with his right. I could do nothing but stand with my mouth wide open and speechless.
After that, we walked back to the hotel and passed through the Red Light district to get a glimpse of the night scene which was slightly sketchy to say the least. After getting lost a couple of times, we finally found the red LED street posts that mark the edge of the district and left it all behind. A long night's sleep was exactly what I needed because the next morning we woke fully rested and ready to go explore one last time before we headed out that afternoon. We walked around, got lost another couple of times, and passed many coffee shops and bars as they were taking down their orange banners and other soccer decorations from the previous day. After grabbing a bite of lunch, we got on the train and headed back to Metz.
Sidenote: 5 star hotel this weekend brought to us by Hotwire.com
-Brian
Friday, June 8, 2012
Barcelona Last Weekend
Hey everybody!
Sorry it has taken so long for me to post, but I got back from Barcelona late on Tuesday night and immediately had to hit the books as I had three tests and a homework set due today for classes. Also, bad news is that all my Barcelona pictures were deleted because my camera memory card freaked out and froze. I guess I won't be using that one again... Sorry Kate! I am working on getting pictures from the other four people in our group so hopefully it won't be a total loss.
Anyways, this past weekend I flew to Valencia on RyanAir, the infamous low cost college student airline. We had enough time in Valencia to eat lunch at a place outside the train station where we had our first taste of the local Paella and Tapas. Shortly after finishing there, we had to jump on a train to Barcelona which was cool because we had a good view of the ocean for the entire four hour ride! Upon arrival, we decided to walk to our hotel through town and stumbled upon a closed off market street where there were hundreds of tents for shopping and a few stages with musical performances going on.
We made it to the hotel after not too long, but it was already late in the day so we just walked around Las Ramblas for the night and checked out the local scenery. The next morning we woke up and went on a free walking tour of the city which was very cool and focused on the history and culture of the Old City all the way from its Carthaginian foundings through to its modern revolution after hosting the Olympics in 1992. We also got to see the remnants of several Roman aqueducts and buildings that had been a part of the original fortifications. After that, we took a short train ride to the famous Sangrada Familia, the largest church ever built that is still under construction today. You could easily tell the difference between the sections built over the last hundred or so years and which ones were finished recently. However we were reminded that it is still a vast work in progress when we counted three construction cranes perched on different sections of the church.
Monday was my day of relaxation which I spent most of at the Barceloneta beach just a little ways away from our hotel. It turned out to be a perfectly sunny day and the beach was beautiful! (An interesting fact, the sand used to create the man-made beaches was purchased from Egypt for the Olympics in 1992.) I did end up with a slight sunburn, but I have since recovered and I was glad I was able to relax for the day.
-Brian
Sorry it has taken so long for me to post, but I got back from Barcelona late on Tuesday night and immediately had to hit the books as I had three tests and a homework set due today for classes. Also, bad news is that all my Barcelona pictures were deleted because my camera memory card freaked out and froze. I guess I won't be using that one again... Sorry Kate! I am working on getting pictures from the other four people in our group so hopefully it won't be a total loss.
Anyways, this past weekend I flew to Valencia on RyanAir, the infamous low cost college student airline. We had enough time in Valencia to eat lunch at a place outside the train station where we had our first taste of the local Paella and Tapas. Shortly after finishing there, we had to jump on a train to Barcelona which was cool because we had a good view of the ocean for the entire four hour ride! Upon arrival, we decided to walk to our hotel through town and stumbled upon a closed off market street where there were hundreds of tents for shopping and a few stages with musical performances going on.
We made it to the hotel after not too long, but it was already late in the day so we just walked around Las Ramblas for the night and checked out the local scenery. The next morning we woke up and went on a free walking tour of the city which was very cool and focused on the history and culture of the Old City all the way from its Carthaginian foundings through to its modern revolution after hosting the Olympics in 1992. We also got to see the remnants of several Roman aqueducts and buildings that had been a part of the original fortifications. After that, we took a short train ride to the famous Sangrada Familia, the largest church ever built that is still under construction today. You could easily tell the difference between the sections built over the last hundred or so years and which ones were finished recently. However we were reminded that it is still a vast work in progress when we counted three construction cranes perched on different sections of the church.
Monday was my day of relaxation which I spent most of at the Barceloneta beach just a little ways away from our hotel. It turned out to be a perfectly sunny day and the beach was beautiful! (An interesting fact, the sand used to create the man-made beaches was purchased from Egypt for the Olympics in 1992.) I did end up with a slight sunburn, but I have since recovered and I was glad I was able to relax for the day.
-Brian
Sunday, May 27, 2012
That's it. I'm getting a house in Bavaria
This weekend has been jam packed with traveling. Kris and I rode our first night train to Munich this weekend and both of us agreed that it was miserable. We were crammed into a small, and hot room with four other people for 8.5 hours. I managed to get about one or two hours of sleep before the sun rose at around 4:45am over the German countryside. Nevertheless when we arrived in Munich at 7:30 we immediately headed to Castle Neuschwanstein after being picked up by Kris's dad Eric and his boss George who works in Munich.
We arrived at the castle around 10 and decided to go for a couple of rides on a sled/luge ride that was built into the side of the hill. Kris and I didn't realize how fast we were moving until we almost crashed into the person in front of us on the first ride down. But on our second try we waited at the top until we had enough room to go full throttle. Kris managed to get both rides on video with his camera so I will post those soon, but to give you an idea we were shooting down the aluminum track at what felt like over 30 mph at top speed. Banks were built into the turns and with every lean I could feel the blades of grass slapping the top of my head. It was a great thrill and start to our weekend!
We then hiked up the mountain to Castle Neuschwanstein (which is the castle Walt Disney designed his after) and toured through the nicknamed Swan Castle because of King Ludwig II's favorite animal. Trust me when I say there were swans everywhere... Everything from sink faucets, to tapestries, sculptures, and chandeliers was covered with Swans.
Even with the ridiculous interior decorations, the castle was extremely impressive even though the second floor of the interior was never finished. I have attached a picture of a postcard I picked up to give a view of the castle since my camera magically ran out of battery on the night train but don't worry I had Kris take plenty of pictures for me. After the castle tour we took a sky lift to the top of the nearby mountain for lunch while we watched hang gliders take off in the afternoon sun. The food was a welcome relief and the view of the town, castles, and lake below was breathtaking.
I had already been convinced to buy a home in Bavaria by this point no matter the cost simply because it would be worth every euro cent! And my decision would only be reinforced throughout the weekend. Next we drove to find a certain Herschberg Castle south of Munich because of a letter my Mom showed to me before we left for Europe from my grandfather who was stationed there at the end of World War II. The letter mentioned vague descriptions of the surrounding area and the view of the alps as well as the fact that the room he stayed in had been used to hide Mussolini after he was evacuated from Italy late in the war. We figured it would be worth a try to investigate but whoever lives in the castle now wasn't home and the private property was not accessible. I don't know if that was the castle mentioned in the letter but I will be looking into it further this summer to know for certain.
We then drove to a nearby lake and sat down at our first authentic biergarten on the shore and had a half liter of the famous Augustiner Helles beer which was so smooth and refreshing it was hard to believe. The company is one of the last privately owned breweries in Munich and has been in operation since 1328. Needless to say it was very impressive, especially since the only sell their beer to bars and restaurants that have been personally inspected to ensure the purity and quality of every aspect of its service so as to keep up their reputation. After a day in the Bavarian countryside we thanked George for escorting us and went back to the guest house we were staying at in Furstenfeldbruck. When we had recovered from a day of walking the three of us went out for dinner and local biergarten hopping where I tried my first Weissbier and Dunkel which were both so good that before we knew it we had made it to four different small biergartens and had accumulated almost three liters of beer in my stomach. But soon after that we called it a night in preparation for our excursion in Munich the next morning.
SOOO...... That was Saturday!
Bright and early Sunday (7am) we took a train into town to taste a local white sausage that is served with spicy mustard and I think is considered a local delicacy (Fact checking needed). We sat down next to a couple young German guys who turned out to be in high school and invited them to our table for beer and breakfast. We quickly befriended them and ended up finishing a liter of Weissbier for each of us as we talked. They recommended some of the local attractions as well as which tourist traps to skip which was very helpful throughout the day.
We then watched a puppetry scene of sorts built into the clock tower that went off at 11am, followed by a steep climb up another clock tower dubbed 'Old Peter'. The views were amazing and we could only begin to imagine what else Munich could offer us. Next we decided to take the train to BMW World north of us near the Olymic Park from the 1968 games. The pictures speak for themselves, but the entire complex was Mind-blowing! We got to sit in a few cars and motorcycles on display on the main floor before crossing the street to the BMW museum. Its hard to describe how amazing it all was but in a few words, BMW designed their buldings as beautiful, stylish, and bold as the cars that were in them. On the tour we went through the history of the company and the different cars, motorcycles, and engines they had designed and as an upcoming Mechanical Engineer I came to understand how much they appreciate innovation, quality, and the absolute perfection of everything that carries the BMW logo. This museum was a must see in Munich and I would especially recommend it to any architects and engineers out there.
(Side Note: Munich has an unbelievable train and bus system compared to Atlanta and most other American cities which is why we and all the German citizens are able to drink this much on a regular basis. Simply because they don't need a designated driver thanks to public transportation.)
Next up was a visit to the English garden and Chinese tower just east of us. While the names sound strange for a German city, the park was filled with locals enjoying the afternoon sunshine and beer at the biergarten surrounding the Chinese tower where a band was playing for all to hear. After another half liter there we took the train north to visit the infamous Dachau concentration camp memorial site. It was certainly a change of mood for the day but it was definitely worth it and it left a great impression on my mind that I will remember for a long time. I also hope to add to the list of World War II sites that I visit this summer past this one, including Normandy and Bastogne if I can fit in trips to them.
Back to Sunday evening... We spent the end of the day in downtown Munich again before heading back to our hotel and even though we thought we had seen everything exciting nearby, we stopped for several street bands including one that absolutely blew our minds with creativity and stage presence. I will post a link to a youtube video of them that was taken at their performance, but I would recommend taking a couple of minutes to listen to these guys because they were excellent. We then ended the night at the tourist trap called the Hofbrauhaus where I tried my first Radler beer which isn't particularly strong since it is mixed with half lemonade, but it was certainly refreshing after a full day of walking around. And that, was the end to my crazy full weekend.
Cheers!
Brian
We arrived at the castle around 10 and decided to go for a couple of rides on a sled/luge ride that was built into the side of the hill. Kris and I didn't realize how fast we were moving until we almost crashed into the person in front of us on the first ride down. But on our second try we waited at the top until we had enough room to go full throttle. Kris managed to get both rides on video with his camera so I will post those soon, but to give you an idea we were shooting down the aluminum track at what felt like over 30 mph at top speed. Banks were built into the turns and with every lean I could feel the blades of grass slapping the top of my head. It was a great thrill and start to our weekend!
We then hiked up the mountain to Castle Neuschwanstein (which is the castle Walt Disney designed his after) and toured through the nicknamed Swan Castle because of King Ludwig II's favorite animal. Trust me when I say there were swans everywhere... Everything from sink faucets, to tapestries, sculptures, and chandeliers was covered with Swans.
Even with the ridiculous interior decorations, the castle was extremely impressive even though the second floor of the interior was never finished. I have attached a picture of a postcard I picked up to give a view of the castle since my camera magically ran out of battery on the night train but don't worry I had Kris take plenty of pictures for me. After the castle tour we took a sky lift to the top of the nearby mountain for lunch while we watched hang gliders take off in the afternoon sun. The food was a welcome relief and the view of the town, castles, and lake below was breathtaking.
I had already been convinced to buy a home in Bavaria by this point no matter the cost simply because it would be worth every euro cent! And my decision would only be reinforced throughout the weekend. Next we drove to find a certain Herschberg Castle south of Munich because of a letter my Mom showed to me before we left for Europe from my grandfather who was stationed there at the end of World War II. The letter mentioned vague descriptions of the surrounding area and the view of the alps as well as the fact that the room he stayed in had been used to hide Mussolini after he was evacuated from Italy late in the war. We figured it would be worth a try to investigate but whoever lives in the castle now wasn't home and the private property was not accessible. I don't know if that was the castle mentioned in the letter but I will be looking into it further this summer to know for certain.
We then drove to a nearby lake and sat down at our first authentic biergarten on the shore and had a half liter of the famous Augustiner Helles beer which was so smooth and refreshing it was hard to believe. The company is one of the last privately owned breweries in Munich and has been in operation since 1328. Needless to say it was very impressive, especially since the only sell their beer to bars and restaurants that have been personally inspected to ensure the purity and quality of every aspect of its service so as to keep up their reputation. After a day in the Bavarian countryside we thanked George for escorting us and went back to the guest house we were staying at in Furstenfeldbruck. When we had recovered from a day of walking the three of us went out for dinner and local biergarten hopping where I tried my first Weissbier and Dunkel which were both so good that before we knew it we had made it to four different small biergartens and had accumulated almost three liters of beer in my stomach. But soon after that we called it a night in preparation for our excursion in Munich the next morning.
SOOO...... That was Saturday!
Bright and early Sunday (7am) we took a train into town to taste a local white sausage that is served with spicy mustard and I think is considered a local delicacy (Fact checking needed). We sat down next to a couple young German guys who turned out to be in high school and invited them to our table for beer and breakfast. We quickly befriended them and ended up finishing a liter of Weissbier for each of us as we talked. They recommended some of the local attractions as well as which tourist traps to skip which was very helpful throughout the day.
We then watched a puppetry scene of sorts built into the clock tower that went off at 11am, followed by a steep climb up another clock tower dubbed 'Old Peter'. The views were amazing and we could only begin to imagine what else Munich could offer us. Next we decided to take the train to BMW World north of us near the Olymic Park from the 1968 games. The pictures speak for themselves, but the entire complex was Mind-blowing! We got to sit in a few cars and motorcycles on display on the main floor before crossing the street to the BMW museum. Its hard to describe how amazing it all was but in a few words, BMW designed their buldings as beautiful, stylish, and bold as the cars that were in them. On the tour we went through the history of the company and the different cars, motorcycles, and engines they had designed and as an upcoming Mechanical Engineer I came to understand how much they appreciate innovation, quality, and the absolute perfection of everything that carries the BMW logo. This museum was a must see in Munich and I would especially recommend it to any architects and engineers out there.
(Side Note: Munich has an unbelievable train and bus system compared to Atlanta and most other American cities which is why we and all the German citizens are able to drink this much on a regular basis. Simply because they don't need a designated driver thanks to public transportation.)
Next up was a visit to the English garden and Chinese tower just east of us. While the names sound strange for a German city, the park was filled with locals enjoying the afternoon sunshine and beer at the biergarten surrounding the Chinese tower where a band was playing for all to hear. After another half liter there we took the train north to visit the infamous Dachau concentration camp memorial site. It was certainly a change of mood for the day but it was definitely worth it and it left a great impression on my mind that I will remember for a long time. I also hope to add to the list of World War II sites that I visit this summer past this one, including Normandy and Bastogne if I can fit in trips to them.
Back to Sunday evening... We spent the end of the day in downtown Munich again before heading back to our hotel and even though we thought we had seen everything exciting nearby, we stopped for several street bands including one that absolutely blew our minds with creativity and stage presence. I will post a link to a youtube video of them that was taken at their performance, but I would recommend taking a couple of minutes to listen to these guys because they were excellent. We then ended the night at the tourist trap called the Hofbrauhaus where I tried my first Radler beer which isn't particularly strong since it is mixed with half lemonade, but it was certainly refreshing after a full day of walking around. And that, was the end to my crazy full weekend.
Cheers!
Brian
Friday, May 25, 2012
Munich here we come!
Kris and I are going to Munich this weekend to meet up with his dad. We are planning to visit several castles in the surrounding area, including one in particular that is special to my family. My grandfather (on my Mom's side) was in the Army during World War II and one of the last places he stayed in Germany was at Castle Hirschberg (not sure on the spelling at the moment). We will be going on a hunt tomorrow morning to see if we can find that castle and then ask for a tour of it. This will be a short post since we are heading to downtown Metz soon on the last bus, but I plan to have tons of fun this weekend in and around Munich and I will make sure to take plenty of pictures to post for when I get back on Monday.
Until next time,
Brian
Until next time,
Brian
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Made it Back
Well, I'm back from my first weekend trip to Luxembourg and Brussels and everything went well. Our group woke up at 7:00am on Saturday to catch a 9:00 train for Luxembourg where we walked around taking lots of pictures. We found a map of downtown with a walking tour outlined for us at the tourist office and spent until lunch seeing the sights in Luxembourg. My pictures include a World War II memorial, the 14th century city walls that were constructed by the Spanish, as well as the ravine/park that ran underneath the city's bridges. The sights were beautiful but there was a lot of walking and elevation change, so after we had Kebabs for lunch we decided to head back to the train station and catch a train to Brussels.
After a three hour train ride to Brussels with some annoyingly loud french kids next to us, we found our hotel in the heart of downtown. We grabbed lunch at a cafe nearby while listening to a street performing band in the square next to us. We also walked around to the different shops in the area to see what was near us. That night we made sure to stop by the Delirium Cafe (since the brewery wasn't near us), and tasted some of the local micro-brews along with the famous Delirium Tremens. We then bar and club hopped for the rest of the night until we were too tired to continue.
The next morning was rather quick since we do have to get back for school work, but we did stop for a Belgian waffle for breakfast and took some pictures of the major square nearby. Overall it was a fun weekend that wasn't planned out at all and turned out great. With all the things we crammed into a two day weekend it's hard to imagine what our upcoming three, four, and the one five day weekend could be like. Well I'm off to do homework and learn some French for class this week, but I hope you guys enjoy the new pictures I posted from this weekend.
-Brian
After a three hour train ride to Brussels with some annoyingly loud french kids next to us, we found our hotel in the heart of downtown. We grabbed lunch at a cafe nearby while listening to a street performing band in the square next to us. We also walked around to the different shops in the area to see what was near us. That night we made sure to stop by the Delirium Cafe (since the brewery wasn't near us), and tasted some of the local micro-brews along with the famous Delirium Tremens. We then bar and club hopped for the rest of the night until we were too tired to continue.
The next morning was rather quick since we do have to get back for school work, but we did stop for a Belgian waffle for breakfast and took some pictures of the major square nearby. Overall it was a fun weekend that wasn't planned out at all and turned out great. With all the things we crammed into a two day weekend it's hard to imagine what our upcoming three, four, and the one five day weekend could be like. Well I'm off to do homework and learn some French for class this week, but I hope you guys enjoy the new pictures I posted from this weekend.
-Brian
Friday, May 18, 2012
First Weekend Trip
Hey everybody!
It's Friday in Metz and I am super excited for the weekend now that I'm out of class. Our group went to the train station last night to reserve train tickets for the weekend and we managed to plan out a weekend in Luxembourg and Brussels with most of the other GTL kids since it's only a two day weekend. I will be leaving tomorrow morning for Luxembourg for the day and then Brussels tomorrow night and Sunday before we return. My personal plan is to make sure to visit the Delirium brewery in Brussels which is one of my favorite beers I've ever tasted. (you should try it if you haven't)
On another note, Kris and I also managed to book our Munich trip for our next 3 day weekend which should be fun but for now we don't have any events planned. We have also come up with the idea to go to Barcelona on our four day weekend after Munich which is still in the process of planning, but we are booking it soon.
This week has been a hectic one overall, with a trip to the grocery store Cora literally every day to get supplies and food for the room, but with our first weekend trip so close, everything is looking up. I will post again with pictures on Sunday when we get back. For now we are going to downtown Metz for the night to walk around and party.
Peace
-Brian
It's Friday in Metz and I am super excited for the weekend now that I'm out of class. Our group went to the train station last night to reserve train tickets for the weekend and we managed to plan out a weekend in Luxembourg and Brussels with most of the other GTL kids since it's only a two day weekend. I will be leaving tomorrow morning for Luxembourg for the day and then Brussels tomorrow night and Sunday before we return. My personal plan is to make sure to visit the Delirium brewery in Brussels which is one of my favorite beers I've ever tasted. (you should try it if you haven't)
On another note, Kris and I also managed to book our Munich trip for our next 3 day weekend which should be fun but for now we don't have any events planned. We have also come up with the idea to go to Barcelona on our four day weekend after Munich which is still in the process of planning, but we are booking it soon.
This week has been a hectic one overall, with a trip to the grocery store Cora literally every day to get supplies and food for the room, but with our first weekend trip so close, everything is looking up. I will post again with pictures on Sunday when we get back. For now we are going to downtown Metz for the night to walk around and party.
Peace
-Brian
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Metz and First Day of Classes
Hello People!
Yesterday was a really cold day for our first visit to downtown Metz. We took a bus tour of the city and saw alot of the sights and buildings, but it was muggy and raining so I didn't take any pictures. Not only did it rain, but it hailed and was sunny again all in about an hour, so needless to say I was freaking cold as hell. Also dad, that umbrella you gave me was either broken already or one of the metal things broke on the flight over.
I had my first experience ordering coffee and now I'm very glad I am taking a French class here because otherwise I would never be able to feed myself! Also, the food portions here are much smaller than America so I have been perpetually hungry for the past several days.
While it is difficult to get a decent meal, it is very easy to find beer around town. While we were in downtown Metz, I went to a bar literally called 'IRISH PUB' where they had a happy hour and I managed to have my first 2 pints of Guinness in Europe but then when it ended we moved to another bar up the street where Kris, Cori, Alex, and I sat for a couple hours watching a looped Red Bull extreme sports video while trying new beers including Buffinger and Floreffe.
Today was my first day of classes and I quickly figured out that I have a very hectic schedule... I have four classes back to back to back to back from 11:15 to 3:15 so I don't have a good chance to get lunch during a normal class day which only adds to my constant hunger. (I'm probably going to lose a decent amount of weight because of this)
This entire week our group has been trying to figure out where to go this weekend since our first plan of wine tasting didn't work out and our second plan to go to the beach at Nice, France looks like it might be too far away for a two day weekend trip since the earliest train we can catch would take almost 12 hours to get there. Needless to say we are absolutely typical clueless Americans on this trip right now and it could take us awhile to get used to things over here... Oh well we will figure it out somehow.
Signing off the blog for the night, but remember to subscribe to my posts by entering your email addresses at the bar at the top of the page! you will be notified anytime I add a new post so you can stay updated.
-Brian
Yesterday was a really cold day for our first visit to downtown Metz. We took a bus tour of the city and saw alot of the sights and buildings, but it was muggy and raining so I didn't take any pictures. Not only did it rain, but it hailed and was sunny again all in about an hour, so needless to say I was freaking cold as hell. Also dad, that umbrella you gave me was either broken already or one of the metal things broke on the flight over.
I had my first experience ordering coffee and now I'm very glad I am taking a French class here because otherwise I would never be able to feed myself! Also, the food portions here are much smaller than America so I have been perpetually hungry for the past several days.
While it is difficult to get a decent meal, it is very easy to find beer around town. While we were in downtown Metz, I went to a bar literally called 'IRISH PUB' where they had a happy hour and I managed to have my first 2 pints of Guinness in Europe but then when it ended we moved to another bar up the street where Kris, Cori, Alex, and I sat for a couple hours watching a looped Red Bull extreme sports video while trying new beers including Buffinger and Floreffe.
Today was my first day of classes and I quickly figured out that I have a very hectic schedule... I have four classes back to back to back to back from 11:15 to 3:15 so I don't have a good chance to get lunch during a normal class day which only adds to my constant hunger. (I'm probably going to lose a decent amount of weight because of this)
This entire week our group has been trying to figure out where to go this weekend since our first plan of wine tasting didn't work out and our second plan to go to the beach at Nice, France looks like it might be too far away for a two day weekend trip since the earliest train we can catch would take almost 12 hours to get there. Needless to say we are absolutely typical clueless Americans on this trip right now and it could take us awhile to get used to things over here... Oh well we will figure it out somehow.
Signing off the blog for the night, but remember to subscribe to my posts by entering your email addresses at the bar at the top of the page! you will be notified anytime I add a new post so you can stay updated.
-Brian
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
First Day
I finally made it to Europe! After a smooth 9 hour plane flight, I landed in Frankfurt at 7:00am this morning. I was crossing my fingers in the hopes that nothing else would go wrong, but the buses arrived late (they were supposed to be there at 9) and then we had to sit and wait for all the GTL students to arrive which took until almost 11am.
We stopped for lunch along the way and overwhelmed a German Burger King, where I had my first foreign Whopper and Coca-Cola... Let's just say it doesn't taste the same. I also noticed that personal space isn't too important here when I went to the bathroom and found three urinals in a 5 square foot room without any separating panels. This trip could get very interesting...
After arriving at Metz, I moved into my room with Kris Moen and we have since unpacked our stuff and thrown it all in the closets and desks. The room itself is actually very large and should work just fine for the time we will spend here during the weekdays. (I will attach pictures that I took when I get a chance)
All in all, I'm doing well and can't wait for my first trip this weekend which should be to Nice, France. The beach sounded like a swell place to start the summer off, and I might even get a chance to visit the famed casino town of Monte Carlo although I probably don't have enough money to bet on anything serious since the place is full of millionaires and billionaires. Oh well!
Orientation starts tomorrow morning and then first day of classes on Wednesday and hopefully by then I will have recovered from the severe jet lag and bus ride that kept me up for over 24 hours today with about 1 hour of sleep scattered around somewhere.
Until next time,
Brian
We stopped for lunch along the way and overwhelmed a German Burger King, where I had my first foreign Whopper and Coca-Cola... Let's just say it doesn't taste the same. I also noticed that personal space isn't too important here when I went to the bathroom and found three urinals in a 5 square foot room without any separating panels. This trip could get very interesting...
After arriving at Metz, I moved into my room with Kris Moen and we have since unpacked our stuff and thrown it all in the closets and desks. The room itself is actually very large and should work just fine for the time we will spend here during the weekdays. (I will attach pictures that I took when I get a chance)
All in all, I'm doing well and can't wait for my first trip this weekend which should be to Nice, France. The beach sounded like a swell place to start the summer off, and I might even get a chance to visit the famed casino town of Monte Carlo although I probably don't have enough money to bet on anything serious since the place is full of millionaires and billionaires. Oh well!
Orientation starts tomorrow morning and then first day of classes on Wednesday and hopefully by then I will have recovered from the severe jet lag and bus ride that kept me up for over 24 hours today with about 1 hour of sleep scattered around somewhere.
Until next time,
Brian
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)