Das Boot?

Ok, so I'm sitting in poli sci, writing this blog post right now - probably not the most effective use of class time - but it's Friday at 8:32 am, and I'm tired and not interested in listening right now. Ergo, I decided to write a short commentary on my experience last night at the most frequented bar by Miami students in all of Luxembourg - Cafe le Notre - better known as "Das Boot."

I should explain my hesitations before I delve into the night's activities. I had never been to "the boot" before last night. One of the reasons I had not been there is that I viewed it as a somewhat unclassy place. I don't want to seem pretentious, but it is just one of those places that just reeked of all that is bad about Americans abroad. I personally had just not wanted to associate myself with the debauchery that oft occurs there.

Anyhow, it was a Thursday. Specifically, it was the Thursday after a week of midterms. More specifically, it was the Thursday after a week where I had four rather challenging midterms. So I had the intention of returning to Pitcher (see my previous post), but that wasn't happening. Apparently, the boot was happening. So, after having gone home to pack for my weeklong trip to Italy with my parents and grandparents, and noticing that it was only 7:30 pm. I elected to return to Differdange, and make my maiden voyage to the boot.

So, Erin, Alyssa, Jerica, and I walked in at about 8:30. My notes refresh my memory and indicate that I immediately noticed that it was much quieter and smaller than I had expected. Also, there was nobody smoking inside - I guess I just assumed it would be, but it seemed to me that anyone who wanted to smoke just went outside. So yeah, my initial impressions were surprisingly favorable. I purchased my first beverage, which was Battin (a beer from Esch) served in a .5 liter glass boot. It cost me a grand total of 2.2 euros (which is rather cheap).

So we just sort of hung out, listened to music, and chatted. There is a certain curve to drinking - as in, some people feel a distinct need to "catch up" to everyone else there. This is not always the best idea, I would advise against it. Anyhow, everything was pretty chill, we even had a euchre game going! So, as per usual for Americans - things went downhill when the birthday girl got there.

No names will be used, but let's just say that one student was celebrating her 21st birthday in true American fashion: by drinking to excess. Approximately 15 people rolled in with the birthday girl, and all of a sudden the place was much more crazy. I have written down in my notes, "Drunk people can still dance on top of tables/chairs." So yeah...

Then later, after getting my second .5 liter boot - while the debauchery continues with everyone else drinking heavily, I was invited to partake in a game of "Flip Cup." Now, I'm going to be honest here: I've never really played a lot of drinking games before, so I was mildly hesitant. Turns out there is really not that much drinking involved in the team sport that is flip cup. While I had seen the game before, I had never known the rules or details. Basically, in teams, you compete via a sort of relay race wherein each person has to drink a small amount of beer in a plastic cup, place their cup on the edge of the table, and attempt to flick the bottom of the cup to get it to land flatly upside-down on the table. It's by no means a difficult task, but it can be quite challenging at times. Anyways, my team was Bobby, Bridget, Gwendy (Greg's host brother's girlfriend), and I. Our opponents, who won in a close 8-6 match, were Greg, Ben, Philippe, and Jacques. So it was fun, I was decent, at least. Don't worry, there was no excessive consumption or anything like that. It's actually really easy to be responsible if you want to be.

Overall, another thing I noticed is that Americans like loud music. It definitely was loud, but I think all bars are like that. I sometimes wish it weren't so - when you can't even hear the person next to you, it's too loud. But, it was nice to hear lots of good ole American music blasting on the speakers. I miss that. I miss people driving in their cars blasting loud thumping bass.

But yeah, then we took the 11:30 train home (late night, I know, especially considering I had class the next morning at 0800), but totally worth it. I'd probably go back, as it wasn't nearly as vile as I had imagined. But, I suppose that's life - trying new things, opening your mind, stepping out of your comfort zone? At least, that's one thing I've done better here in Europe - get out of my comfort zone. Anyway, I need to go to my other class now, and then I'm getting on a train to Italy! Peace out.

One Night at Pitcher...

The cheers went up again as the guys put some sort of gel on Christophe's uncle's head. As they took the razor to his hair, more and more cheering filled the crowded bar - poor guy: he was already wearing a tutu that did not complement his portly physique; shaving his head and eyebrows was not gonna help his image at all. Wait, let's rewind:

We walked into the bar around 8 pm - Megan, Devon, and Pat were already there, and had established position at a small table near the door. We (Erin, Tiffany, Brad, and I) squeezed in around a few other chairs and the bench by the window. Of course, Pitcher was hopping. Turns out it was this guys' bachelor party, which means things were gonna get wild.

Apparently, as we learned from the guy sitting at the table next to us, bachelor parties are a little different in Europe. It's supposed to be no fun for the groom-to-be, and when I say "no fun" I mean, "humiliating." They made the poor guy wear a two piece tutu frilly thing, so his beer gut was hanging out, and I can only imagine he was cold.  Oh, and I forgot to mention - he was handcuffed to a pole in the bar. All his friends had t-shirts on that had been made for this occasion. They were in Luxembourgish, but we had our friend Christophe translate for us: the shirts said something to the effect of "Why solve problems with another person that I don't have by myself?" Basically: mocking the institution of marriage.

Christophe was an interesting character: to say the least. He was 21, smoked like a chimney, played bass and guitar, didn't know who his dad was, spoke great English, was still in high school, and it was his uncle who was the lucky (read: unlucky) bachelor. He had lots of things to say about America: such as how it's crazy that everyone feels the need to own weaponry, how it's insane that 21 year-olds can be so immature, or that you can drive when you're 16. He was real chill though, plays in a band - maybe he'll make it big someday? His life's dream was to be a producer in Nashville, Tennessee. Christophe also had an interesting understanding of the social nuances of Americans...

Case in point: when the bar was getting pretty crowded and chairs were becoming a hot commodity - he asked if Tiffany would sit on his lap. Tiffany, being the upstanding citizen and lady, respectfully declined. I mean, that seemed a little odd to me, but then Christophe turned to me, and asked if I would sit on his lap... (uh...no?). He kept saying, "It's just for the experience. It's ironic, isn't it? Every guy wants a girl on his lap, and I want a guy." I mean, I personally was just not comfortable sitting on this stranger's lap. Anyways, he continued later on, when he asked Megan if she would go on a walk with him, just the two of them. Luckily here, Megan had her wits about her and was wise enough to decline going on a walk with this strange, Luxembourgish boy into the dark streets of Esch. Like I said, Christophe was chill for a while, but then it just got weird.

Sidenote: I taught Christophe the important aspects of American culture, such as:
1. How to fist pound (with the help of Tiffany and Brad, Christophe learned such classics as The Octopus, The Spaceship, The Parallel-Park, The Snail, and The Explosion / Black Hole / Theoretical White Hole)
2. Slang - I taught him the words swag, bro, shred, and chill. Pretty much all the basics.

Speaking of chill - for the guy's bachelor party, the bar staff at Pitcher had cooked up a bunch of chili. So they just started passing around bowls of chili to everyone at the bar - it was delicious (and tasted like America). So that was pretty awesome, as is all free food.

Oh, and we were drinking this whole time (I mean, we were at a bar, so yeah). We started off with a pitcher of Black Nickel, each had a couple of shots, then moved on to Purple Nickel, had a couple more shots, and finally we had some Red Nickel and more shots. For reference: Purple / Black / Red Nickel are some of the house specialties of mixed drinks. Christophe was trying to explain what was actually in them - he said it was like Mayella (sp?) some Brazilian liquor that's not vodka, and that the rest was secret. But anyways, I don't think it's very strong - as I (a barely amateur drinker) had 10 or 11 shots in the three hours we were there and felt (almost) completely fine. I mean, it was either that the drinks weren't that strong, or my Irish genetics are finally kicking in (haha, thanks for those Blue!). Either way, I was fine.

All in all, a superb evening. It was a lot of fun to just hang out, chat, relax, and meet and talk to new people. Pitcher is so cool, I'll be going back for sure (as in like Thursday, once midterms are over). Oh, speaking of midterms - I need to go study for my econ exam tomorrow...Oops!

What Happens in Amsterdam Stays in Amsterdam...

So this past weekend, I traveled to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Now, you should know a few things about Amsterdam before you continue reading - first, Amsterdam has…let's say, "looser" regulations about certain things that are less acceptable in America. For example, prostitution is one of Amsterdam's biggest industries, and is quite prevalent. Also, the use of marijuana is widespread amongst the "coffeeshops" of Amsterdam.

So we rolled out of Luxembourg Friday afternoon and caught a 14:20 train toward Namur, where we changed trains. Then, our train from Namur to Liege-Guillemins got late, and we missed our next train. But, we eventually got on a train from Liege-Guillemins to Maastricht, and then on to Amsterdam.

We pulled up at about 21:00 into the main station at Amsterdam, and had to figure out how to get to our sketchy bed and breakfast. Turns out we have to get on this ferry across the river, and then we just had to walk up the street to get to this lady's house. Luckily, we found the place without any problems, and met Linda - the hippy lady. Backstory - so we ended up at this B&B because someone's marketing professor heard we were going to Amsterdam, and recommended this place, and actually made our reservations for us (turns out Linda was an old friend of his).

So, our rooms were very interestingly decorated: lots of strange black paintings and funky decorations. Also, though there was a bathroom in the hall, we had a shower in our room - but it was like a free-standing unit, with an umbrella on top. After we set our stuff down, we headed back into the city to get dinner - because we were starving and it was almost 22:00.

So we rolled into the city, and wandered around for a while looking for someplace to eat. Unfortunately, as we were getting into the city late, the only real option was McDonald's (well, there was a KFC across the street, but that just seemed too American for us). We got some cheap food, and then walked over into the Red Light district. It was not really what I expected. Basically, there are just streets lined with these places where girls have like their own little booths, with glass doors. And they just kind of stand there, and from my understanding, if you want to uh…make a transaction, you have to go up, knock on the window, negotiate the price, step into their office…I think that's about enough detail. Anyhow, I actually thought it was hilarious at one point, because this one girl was in her booth, not paying any attention to all the people outside - she was texting on her phone. What the heck? I mean, it's not like I was interested, but she wasn't even trying.

We strolled around for a little bit longer, and then ended up at Bulldog, the hostel that a bunch of other Miami students were staying at. We sat around and just hung out for a bit - many of the students were in different states of mind, so it was quite entertaining. 

When all the other Miami students were clearing out, we decided to follow suit, but while they went to the Red Light District, we just went back to our place.  After about probably 5 minutes, we were asleep.

I woke up at 6:45 on Saturday morning, because I had thought that the established game plan was to be up and ready to roll at 8 am. Again, miscommunications about waking up led me to just chilling and getting some work done Saturday morning. We had breakfast with Linda at around 9:30, which consisted of bread, a nutella-like chocolate and marshmallow spread, eggs with ham, coffee, and orange juice. It was awesome to get a hearty, warm breakfast.

We got back to the dock, got on the ferry (which I'm still not sure if it cost anything to get on, but we never paid for it, so whatever), and got back to the main train station. We then took a leisurely walk to the Anne Frank house. The city is very pretty, much more so during the day than it was the night before. Here is a picture of one of the canals in the city:

We eventually got to the Anne Frank house, and noticed that there was a substantial line, but heard it was going fast. Our group actually split up at this point, as several members were uninterested, and several were. I was among those who stayed and waited in line. It was only about a 40 minute wait to get in, but it seemed faster. So unfortunately, you were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum / house, but I can tell you all about it:

So it's actually quite a large facility, because the front part is a warehouse area, and in the back, where the 8 people actually hid, was a sort of annex house. Throughout the museum they had quotations from Anne Frank's diary on the walls, and a ton of artifacts or relevant news publications. They still had the original newspaper cutouts and posters that Anne and her family had put on the walls hung up in place. When you walk through the bookcase into the secret annex, you really do feel like you can connect with what they did for two years. They had the curtains drawn all the time, they could never go outside, and had to maintain silence as much as possible.

Basically, it was really cool. At the end especially, they had a ton of stuff about Anne's actual diary. They had a bunch of original pages and stuff - it seemed as though she was quite the prolific writer. It's a shame, such inspiration and hope, lost because of a genocidal maniac and his oratorical skills.

So then, we went to go meet our friends at the Heineken Brewery. Unfortunately, we went the wrong way and ended up going like 20 minutes out of the way before turning around and power-walking all the way to the Brewery. The 15 euros it cost to go on the "Heineken Experience" tour was a little steep, but I'd do it again for sure.

The first part of the tour was all about the history of Heineken. It discussed the company's founding, their awards, and the evolution of the business. Then, we got to see how they make the actual beer, and even got to taste the raw hops and barley (which were bitter and terrible). Next, we got to see all of the brewing facilities, which were large and cool but I had no idea what any of it was for. The next part of the tour was called "Brew U" and it was like an interactive ride in which they demonstrated what it would be like to become a bottle of Heineken beer. While interesting, all I wanted to do was get something to drink. We hadn't had lunch, and I was really thirsty from the power-walking. Finally, we got to have our tasting of freshly made Heineken beer. So they let us go into this room, and they just passed out glasses (15 cl, which means they were small), of beer to taste. The guy explained that there is a lot of foam in Heineken beer, and that's intentional to protect the flavor of the beer underneath. They instructed us to tilt the glass back when we drink so that the beer can get under the foam into our mouths - and how drinking foam would indicate your inexperience and overall lameness. It was harder than I imagined, but I managed to not drink all of the foam. Whatever. But my thirst was still not satisfied. Here is a picture of Heineken's tasting bar area:

So we continued on the tour, and got to see several exhibits about the marketing of Heineken and of all the stuff they sponsored. There was an exhibit about James Bond and another about the Champions League - both were really cool. Finally though, at the end of the tour, we got to the Heineken World Bar. We each were given two tokens upon entrance to the experience, and each token was good for a beer at the World Bar. So, that's pretty much what happened. We sort of skipped the line and just went up and grabbed our drinks. These were bigger glasses (maybe 25 or 30 cl - I honestly don't remember). But we got our second drinks, and had those too. And then I remember some strangers just left their full beers on our table, and I seem to recall somebody pouring some of that into my empty glass. 

Moral of the story: Jimmy is a lightweight / beer has greater effects on you if you haven't eaten lunch. So then, we exited the brewery. Now, several of our friends had gone and rented bikes without us, so we had to take the tram back to the train station and get bikes of our own. That tram ride was probably the most fun I've had in a while - due to the fact that I was definitely beyond the point of "just feeling it" and would even go as far as to say I was "tipsy." Anyway, for some reason I let (Name removed for liability purposes) convince me that it'd be fine to get on bikes. I can't even believe the guy let me rent them, and even encouraged me to not get the 3 euro insurance! Probably not the best decision I've ever made in my life, but luckily nothing bad happened. I somehow managed to be able to bike around solidly for the rest of the evening - how, I'll never know.

We settled on going to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. Some of the other Miami students had told us that all of the Chinese and Indonesian food was really good in Amsterdam (don't ask me why), but we ended up at a Tibetan restaurant. I had mixed meat and rice, which was warm and delicious. Also, it was cheap, I think it ended up costing like ten euros for the whole meal. So anyways, we paid, and headed back out into the city.

After getting our bikes, riding through the crowded streets, and parking them shortly thereafter, we decided it was time to go to another bar. So we ended up at the Blarney Stone, an Irish pub. It was by far the lamest Irish pub I've been to yet. I mean, there was like ten people there, most of them were already drunk, and they were all guys. If there is not a single woman in the entire bar, you can be sure you're at the wrong place. Anyhow, they did have cheap beer, so I somehow managed to procure a pint of Guinness (funny how that just happens). 

So we were pretty tired, and after biking through the Red Light district at night, we had all had plenty of Amsterdam and were ready to sleep. So we made our way back to the train station, got on our ferry, crossed the river, and rolled up to our B&B. So, after such a long day, we still faced the challenge of getting into our place - Linda had supposedly left a key for us in the mailbox, but it was the wrong key, and we were supposed to use the back door. Ergo, we ended up knocking on the door, and Linda had to come let us in. Then, after a long and challenging day, I at least, had relatively little challenges in getting to sleep.

We awoke late Sunday morning, around 8:30 or so. After a quick shower in our room, we heard Linda calling us down for breakfast. Again, we had some delicious bread, coffee, and warm eggs. It is so clutch to get warm breakfast - they just don't do that in Europe very often. So then we got on our bikes, and rode back into the city (after taking the ferry of course). Here is a picture of our little ferry dock area (with the train station centered in the background):

We shopped around for touristy souvenirs (I really should buy people some gifts…). After that, we returned our bikes, went back to our B&B to pick up our backpacks, and hopped on a train after snagging some sandwiches for lunch. So after approximately seven hours of relatively uneventful train travel, we got back to Lux City, and thus ended another interesting weekend in Europe.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to check out more pictures on facebook (I'll put them up shortly after I post this blog). 

Ich Finde Berlin Sehr Gut!

Listen: Berlin is awesome. Go there. This past weekend, Megan, Devon, and I traveled to the wonderful and historic capital of Deutschland. It's fair to say that it was one of the coolest places I've been.

Friday - got out of class around noon, figured out the game plan, got all my stuff together and took the 13:00 train from Differdange into Lux city. Rolled up at 13:40, went to the grocery store and got sandwiches, wine (we didn't end up drinking it on the train - that's just so not classy) and snacks for the train. Got on the train headed toward Koblenz, which was chill. But then - DISASTER STRIKES - our train from Koblenz to Frankfurt is 20 minutes late. Ergo, we're gonna miss our connection from Frankfurt to Berlin. Anyhow, we got into Frankfurt late (our train to Berlin had left), but we managed to get on another, later train to Berlin thanks to an Icelandic guy at the train station. That train was an ICE train (one of the high speed German trains) and it was really crowded but we snagged some seats. It was a rather chill ride, and we got into Berlin at around 00:30. Yikes. 

So our hostel was pretty far away from the Hauptbahnhof. We had to get on an S-Bahn (suburban train) to another station, Alexanderplatz, where we got off. Then, we went to look for the M5/M6 tram stop. As we stood there, trying to figure out whether the tram would actually still be running, Devon decided to go up and ask this stranger how to get to our hostel (i.e. she tells him where we're staying - do not do this). He's like "yeah sure, I'm going that way, I'll take you there." Now, at this point, for about five seconds, I was relieved. But then my sense of danger got cranking - all of a sudden I realize me and two girls are following this stranger through the dark streets of Berlin. He told us he was a police officer, which made me feel better, but I wasn't letting my guard down - I mean, I literally had my hand on my swiss army knife in my pocket (I would recommend carrying one wherever you go). But everything worked out fine, he took us to where the actual tram station was, and told us where to get off. So we got off the tram right by our hostel - Generator Hostel Berlin - which turned out to be a giant mega-hostel. Like, this place had 900 beds or something like that. Anyways, we checked in, and went upstairs to our room. We were in a 6 person room with just 2 other strangers. At this point it's 02:00 and we're exhausted, so we call it a night, and conk out.

Got up on Saturday morning, showered, and when Megan and Devon were ready we headed downstairs for our free breakfast. We had to take all our stuff out of our room because we had to switch rooms between Friday and Saturday night, so we left our stuff in the hostel's locked luggage room. From there, we got on a tram - oh wait, you don't know how to use a tram? I've never explained that before? Oh, well, let's pause for a brief synopsis of tram etiquette and knowledge:

How to Pay For and Get on a Tram:

1. Find the tram stop

2. At the larger, main tram stops, they will have small electronic kiosks where you can go to purchase tickets. You need to know what kind of ticket you want, so check the surrounding area for posters that have information about them. Most places offer simple, one-way tickets, day-long passes, or even group passes. Evaluate which one you need, and if there is a machine at your stop, purchase a ticket. If there is a machine and you now have a printed ticket in your hand, proceed to step 3. If not, proceed to step 4.

3. You need to validate your ticket. What that means is that you need to get a little stamp on it that says the date and time. There will be machines that do this at every single tram stop. They look kind of like orange posts, but they all have a slot with an arrow pointing into the slot. All you need to do is put your ticket (in the correct direction) into the slot, and it will stamp. Then, you can hop on the tram.

4. If there is not a ticket machine, get on the tram you want, and buy your ticket on the tram - all of them will have both a machine and validation system onboard. 

5. Sit in a seat if possible, but if none are available, it's perfectly acceptable to stand - just remember to hold on.

6. Watch for when your stop is - when you see it come up as the next stop (on the overhead screens that you'll find on every tram), and push the "Stop" button that you'll see on all of the handles in the tram. It will just signal that someone for sure wants to get off the tram.

7. At your stop, push the "door open" button on the door itself (it should look like a green button, and it will likely be flashing, even before you push it). Exit the tram. Congratulations - you made it!

Now, where was I? Ok - so we got off the tram, got on another S-Bahn into the main part of Berlin, and took a leisurely breakfast stroll over a river and on down to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). It is really cool:

The story behind the statue on the top is really funny and interesting: So I guess they had this statue here, and then Napoleon came and jacked it when he was conquering and stuff. Napoleon took it back to Paris with him, but later, the Germans got it back and made some slight changes to the statue. They renamed it "The Goddess of Victory" and actually changed the angle of the goddess's head on the statue, so now she is staring right at the French Embassy, which is located in this square, as a reminder to the French. I thought it was hilarious. 

From there, we waited at the Starbucks for our FREE (English) walking tour. That's right, free and in English. So we then got to go on an almost four hour walking tour of Berlin. It was really cool, and our tour guide was awesome. Turns out he was from Atlanta originally, and loved America and Germany. So Adam, our tour guide took us all around the city - one of our first stops was just at the Brandenburg Gate going over the history of the city. I'll try to sum it up quickly - It was founded as a Slavic fishing village called, "Brrl"and is built on a swamp. Fast forward, since communists don't like people who like freedom, they built a wall in the city. In 1989, everybody finally realizes what's up, and the wall goes down (more on that story later). 20 years later, the city is still coming back together and is full of history from Nazi Germany among other things. 

So we went to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe, which is right in the middle of the city. It's rather abstract, but I personally found it really powerful. Here is what it looked like:

It's basically row upon row of these stones, and they're all different sizes. There are exactly 2,711 of them - which is an absolutely (and purposefully) a meaningless number. The artist wanted it to be an abstract work. You can kinda tell from this picture that the floor is not flat - it moves up and down, which adds to the intrigue. You should check it out.

We then went onwards, and ended up in a parking lot. Turns out that we were standing on Hitler's bunker. So weird, and a little surreal to be standing on top of the bunker of a man who murdered millions of people. Here is me standing on Hitler's bunker:

We then visited the Luftwaffe headquarters, which was one of the few surviving buildings from the Nazi regime. It's a huge building, literally it takes up a city block, so it was interesting that the Allies never bombed it. Two theories exist as to why that was: first, there may have been a "gentlemen's agreement" between the UK and Germany about not bombing the air force headquarter's (b/c the RAF headquarters in London had survived the war also), second, it is a huge landmark, so allied bombers might not have bombed it so that they could use it as a marker in orienting them towards their other targets in Berlin.

We also saw the Berlin Wall, but I have better pictures of it from later on that day, so for now, just be patient. The wall is surprisingly not intimidating. It's not as tall as I thought it would be, but again, it was surreal just to be there, literally touching history. We also walked past Checkpoint Charlie, which was a place along the Berlin Wall where people with the correct documentation could cross. Next, Adam took us to this little cafe for a break (I'm sure the tour guides must get some kind of kickback from that place, since they brought like a hundred people in). I had a chicken sandwich, it was excellent. 

From there, we walked over to what was described as one of the most beautiful squares in the city. The official national concert hall was located there, as were both a French and German church. My memory fails me hear, but I think basically a bunch of French Huguenots had come to Berlin and helped do something, so the Berliners built them a church. Then, the Germans decided they needed their own church, right on the same square - so they built basically the exact same church as they had for the French, but the Germans made their church just a little taller and just a little bigger. Hilarious, the German sense of humor. 

We then walked to a much darker place in German history. Another square, where the former library of Humboldt University is located - where the Nazis gathered books by Jewish authors and burnt them publicly. It was an awful feeling, knowing the atrocity that this book-burning predates, especially because many of the people who burnt books were professors at the University - the very people who are supposed to protect free thinking and open discussion. There was a memorial there to the books lost, but it's not what you might think. Basically in the middle of the square, there is a glass square, probably 4 feet by 4 feet. Through the glass, you can see a large white room under the ground, and you can see row upon row of empty bookshelves. Adam told us that it was the designer's intention to convey the "presence of absence." Also, there was a small plaque with a quotation on it, it reads: "DAS WAR EIN VORSPIEL NUR, DORT WO MAN BUCHER VERBRENNT, VERBRENNT MAN AM ENDE AUCH MENSCHEN" which means "That was only a prelude, where they burn books, they ultimately burn people." Craziest thing about it? The guy, Heinrich Heine, who wrote these words wrote them in 1820, over a hundred years before the Nazis burned books there. Just goes to show you that if you don't learn from history, you really are doomed to repeat it.

We then walked over to this cool little memorial. All it consisted of was an empty room with a statue of a woman holding her dying child in her hands, and then has the graves of a Nazi soldier and a German Jew at the statue's feet. Pretty powerful stuff.

We then walked over to the Berliner Dom, our last stop on our tour. It's basically just Berlin's cathedral. It was pretty cool though. Then Adam told us the final story of our tour. He had mentioned early on in the tour that he would tell us how two words brought down the Berlin Wall.

Listen: so apparently in November 1989 the leaders in East Berlin had been feeling some pressure about this whole wall issue (I already apologize for lack of details, but it's been a hectic and crazy week of schoolwork and such, so I've been putting writing this off). Anyway, so they decided, at this secret meeting, to tell everybody that they were gonna allow people to cross the wall, but not really allow that to happen. So as it turns out, this one guy missed the secret meeting, and is scheduled to give this press conference. Right before the press conference, this guy's aide hands him the notes from the secret meeting he missed - which he doesn't get a chance to read. So he gets up there, gives a spiel about something, but then some reporter asks him point blank about the wall issues. He doesn't really know how to answer the question, so he starts looking at this paper (summary of secret meeting), so he just starts reading off the part about how they're going to open up the wall and let everyone pass freely. He never really gets to the part about how they weren't actually going to do that, so all the reporters pounce. Turns out Tom Brokow is the one who asks, "When?" And so this guy looks down at the paper, scans it, can't find a date anywhere - except for in the corner where it reads, "November 9, 1989" (which was that day's date, b/c that is the day the memo was written). So he then utters the two words that bring down the Berlin Wall: "Effective immediately." It blew my mind that the Berlin Wall fell because of a communication error and fortunate mishap. The world is funny like that sometimes, I suppose.

This is a video of our tour guide from the conclusion of our tour:

After our tour, we tipped Adam, and went on our merry way. By our merry way, I mean we walked around to a little flea market on the other side of the Dom. then, we stood around and watched some sort of parade/demonstration. We think they were all football fan clubs and supporters, but not really sure - if it was a riot then it was a very happy riot. After that, we took the S-Bahn a couple of stops over to another part of the Berlin Wall. For 1.3 km, the wall is intact, and has been painted on by over a hundred muralists. The murals themselves all represent in some way the feelings the artists had about the Wall. Here are a couple of pictures I took of these parts of the wall: Hmmm...ok, well it appears as though it won't actually let me upload these pictures (it says something about only using pictures I have a license to use? I think I should be able to use them - well, I'll put them on facebook, so you can see them there, I guess). 

We then walked up to a neighborhood Adam had told us about, and decided to find some dinner. On the way though, we stopped at a German bookstore so Megan could buy some children's books in German. Then, we ended up at dinner in this suedo-mexican place (?) because they were having happy hour when we walked by. Happy hour in Germany = 3,90 euro for a pina colada. Score. Ok, so it was nice and warm in our restaurant, but as soon as we got outside, we realized how cold it really was. So our "pub crawl" turned into us going into the first bar we found and chilling. We had some typical German beer (typical as in the brand name was "Bier"), and then took some trams / trains / sidewalks back to our hostel. After getting on the internet in the lobby downstairs to wish my mom a happy birthday, headed back upstairs and got to sleep after a long day.

Sunday morning we got up early, so that we could get breakfast. Now, there may have been a slight miscommunication about when everyone was supposed to get up, but no serious problems arose (although we did end up stealing some rolls and nutella from breakfast). Then we got all packed, and headed out to try to go to the Reichstag. The Reichstag is the German parliament building (akin to the Capitol Building in D.C.). Here is what it looks like:

The architect was real cool - you see, he built this glass dome on top of the Reichstag to symbolize, "transparency in democracy," so you can climb up into this glass dome and look out over the entire city. Also, from the top, you can look directly down into the German Parliament chamber and see actual government proceedings. As you can see, there is quite a long line, and even though we waited for an hour or so, we never even got close to the door, so we bailed (I guess that just means I'll have to go back!). We then walked around Berlin for a little while, strolled back through the Brandenburg Gate, hung out at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, and then walked back to the train station. Berlin really was a rather beautiful city, definitely more so than I had expected going into the weekend. Here is a pretty picture of the city:

Our train ride home was relatively easy. We all got to sit together, which was nice, and then whilst Megan and Devon slept (or "train-slept" which is the kind of sleep you get on trains - you know, where you are never really fully asleep and every twenty minutes or so you wake up), I talked to the other guy sitting with us. He was a PhD student at Humboldt University on his way to a conference in Essen (another German city). He was trying to explain to me his studies, which I was barely able to converse about - so he was a geography major in his undergrad work, and he was currently working on his PhD thesis on leather workers in Bangladesh and how global value chains are affected by that specific industry. Basically, he was real sharp. We got to talking a little bit about the university system in Germany, and I learned a few interesting things - like how most Germans do undergrad work for 5 years. Also, he was explaining to me that there is a huge trend nowadays of shifting from more traditional styles of teaching (i.e. large lectures), to more seminar-based learning that focuses on students. I talked with him about how Miami University is a sort of unique and interesting mix - we're not a liberal arts college, but we're not some giant mega-university. He thought that was really cool.

So I ended up getting home around 11:30 or so on Sunday night. Not a bad weekend, in fact, it was quite a good weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and would say that Berlin is the first place I would go back to in a heartbeat.

First Study Tour Week

Allow me to introduce this blog post about my week long study tour by explaining what exactly our study tour is in the context of my MUDEC semester. Each student at MUDEC is required to take 3 specific types of classes: a language class (German or French), a "Base Course" (History, Business, or Anthropology), and a "Mini Field Study Class" (Business, Art, Music, Anthropology, or Theatre). For both the Base Course and Mini Field Study Class, all students get a week long break, part of which consists of a "Study Tour" where one travels with their class to relevant destinations around Europe and part of which consists of independent travels. So, our chocolate business class study tour began on Monday in Differdange.

Day 1:

I left Esch on the 10:14 train toward Differdange, where I met everyone else at the Chateau, and proceeded to board our chartered bus. Due to some stragglers, the bus was held up, and we left a few minutes later than expected - at approximately 11:25. We drove straight from Differdange to Koblenz, Germany, which took a little over two hours. The bus ride itself was relatively uneventful, because the only real entertainment consisted of watching the movie Chocolat, but it was in German, i.e. no one understood any of it. Luckily, we were however, provided a delicious packed lunch of sandwiches, water, and chips. We disembarked and walked around on this little pier in Koblenz, because (and this was a surprise for us), we were taking a boat up the Rhine River for the rest of our journey to Köln. As it turns out, the other 3 Miami students who were supposed to meet us in Koblenz didn’t make it on the boat, so Kelley (our student activities coordinator) had to stay behind and retrieve them. Turns out we had to change boats halfway through our voyage, so luckily the lost students and Kelley were able to meet up with us then. Our second boat was actually a dinner cruise, so we had a lovely meal aboard a very fine vessel. I had the fish and chips.

We docked in Köln at around 20:00. From the dock, we had to get back on the bus and took a short drive over to Hotel Leonet, where we were staying. The hotel was really nice and fancy, which I had not expected. After checking into my single room (I just kind of happened to get a single since I was the last student to sign up for a room), I met some friends in the lobby and we proceeded to head out into the city. We probably walked for about an hour through the streets of Köln without finding any interesting places to stop, so we ended up buying some Radler (a mix of beer and lemonade), and going back to our hotel where we played some purportedly fun (but rather uninteresting in reality) pictionary-esque game. I returned to my own room, and promptly slept.

Day 2:

I woke up at 6:45, showered, shaved, and headed down to breakfast at 8:00. As I was finishing breakfast, Professor Rollins came up and told me he needed a favor. Of course, being the responsible, young professional that I am, I said no problem. Now, I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time. Turns out he needed someone to get in a taxi with Hoover (our chartered bus driver) and go with him to the buspark (where our bus was parked overnight), and then "spot him" (i.e. help Hoover maneuver our massive bus around the narrow streets of downtown Köln,) and get Hoover back to the Hotel to pick the rest of the class up. Ok, so first of all - the taxi driver was a crazy driver; I'm talking like weaving in and out of tramlines crazy. I did learn some interesting things on the taxi ride though: Hoover was pointing out the fact that a ton of the city of Köln had been destroyed during the allied bombings of WWII, and that you could actually see some buildings where parts had been rebuilt from previously leveled buildings. I also learned that Hoover had gone out the night before, wandered into some Turkish bar, and ended up doing some hookah with some strangers. Yeah, that was the guy in charge of driving our bus. So the taxi guy drops us off at the buspark, and I learned a few more interesting (read: terrifying) things about Hoover. He notices a large scrape on the side of the bus and says, "Shit - I must have hit something last night." I'm speechless at this point. He then tells me about how last night he got lost trying to get to the buspark, and ended up on a bridge where the bus couldn't actually fit, so he ended up having to pull a u-turn and almost got hit by a tram. That being said, I was almost hesitant to get on the bus with him. We left the buspark and began our trek back to the hotel. Unfortunately, Hoover's GPS was a piece of junk, so we almost got lost. Thankfully, I remembered parts of the city from walking around the night before and was able to get us close to our hotel. Hoover then illegally parked in a taxi stop, and called Professor Rollins to get everybody to walk to us. Madness ensued as 33 students had to throw all their luggage back onto the bus amid traffic in downtown Köln. It got so crazy that Kelley (again, our student activities coordinator filling in as a sort of chaperone) was hit by a biker. No injuries though.

Schokolademuseum) in Köln. It was awesome - as in they gave us free chocolate as we entered the museum. So we had like an hour-long guided tour of the building, which actually housed a chocolate factory as well. I learned a few interesting things, like that Ireland is the world's highest consumer of chocolate per citizen (about 10.5 kg per person per year). We also were able to taste more chocolate straight from a giant chocolate fountain (I had four of these "samples"). Because we had learned so much about the history of chocolate from our class, we as a tour group were able to ask some very solid questions to our tour guide. We even were able to spot some discrepancies between what the museum said about chocolate and what we had learned in our studies. Anyways, got out of there without buying any actual chocolate, and rolled out into the city, where we were supposed to meet at the Dom (cathedral) at 1:30 pm. We found some lunch, schnitzel and French fries, for a reasonable price, and then wandered over to the Dom. So, we got to take an hour-long guided tour this time, and I learned a lot of cool new things that I had not learned the first time I had walked through the Dom (a week earlier). I learned that the difference between a church and a cathedral is home to an Archbishop (which is apparently a big deal). Let's see, so we also saw the apparent remains of the Three Kings (like the ones who gave Jesus presents), which were housed in the Dom. Oh, and there was this cool sarcophagus of this one guy, who apparently just wanted to be buried in the cathedral, though he was of no real importance and just thought it would help him get into heaven, so he left all his money to the church in his will and was thusly buried in the Dom. His grave had small statues of dogs at his feet, which apparently indicated that he was of the lower nobility - if he was a king or part of the king's family, he would have had lions at his grave, and if he was an emperor, then he would have had eagles at his grave. That's what I'm getting on my tomb - eagles (America!). So after our tour, we had like 45 minutes before we had to get back on the bus. So of course, all the students decided to climb to the top of the South Tower again, which implied that I had to as well, again. This time though, it was a quite a bit easier. The 509 steps to the top flew by considering I wasn't lugging my backpack and a bottle of wine this time. Took some more pictures at the top, which wasn't as nice the second time since it was considerably foggier. After a nice, leisurely descent we hopped back onto the bus, and headed for Brussels.

That bus ride was much more swag - considering we watched one of the greatest movies ever produced in American cinema: Top Gun. We got into Brussels, checked into the Hotel du Congres (where I had stayed a few weeks earlier), and got settled. Now, I was staying in a room with 5 other guys, so it was quite cramped. Anyways, we didn't have much downtime as we had to run out to make our 7:30 reservation… at Pizza Hut. Yeah, we had reservations at Pizza Hut, which was actually really nice. It was also the first place we had been with free refills and an actual soda fountain like in America. After dinner, a bunch of Miami students (I included) headed to this bar, Delirium. As the name suggests, it was a happening place. We snagged a table and headed to the bar to order some Belgian beer. Basically, I chose my beer because there was an ad for "Delirium Tremens - elected best beer in the world!" on the wall. And by god, it was right up there. Now, I know I don't have a lot of experience with beer, but it was by far the best beer I've had in Europe; it had a sort of fruity flavor with a smooth and crisp finish - just wonderful. Also, it was cheap and strong (9% alcohol by volume). We then walked back to our hotel and called it a night.

Day 3:

I woke up at 6:45 (as per usual, the first one in our room up), showered and headed down for breakfast. I was supposed to meet some friends at 8:00 am for breakfast and because they were late and didn’t show up, I ended up eating with Professor Rollins and Kelley, the only other conscious people I knew at the hotel. I also got to meet Mark, our chocolate guide for the day, and learned that he had just returned from a trip to Nepal where he had been guiding a glacier-climbing tour. Basically, Mark = awesomefest. Here's a picture of him leading us around Brussels:

 He knew everything about chocolate and took us around the city of Brussels, stopping in and tasting chocolate at the best shops. We started in the Grand Place at Godiva - where I had one of the best chocolates I've had yet - an 85% dark chocolate truffle that came as the recommendation of the guy working there. Truly majestic it was. Next, we went to Pure, an all-natural, organic, and fair-trade chocolate shop where I had some sort of like espresso shavings thing. It was again, solid. Next, we walked to Whitamer's, which is a very famous Belgian chocolatier. It was there that we had these white chocolate, cassis-flavored truffles; it was incredible. I was in heaven. Next, we traveled to Laurent Gaudot's chocolate shop, where we actually got to make our own chocolate. It was so chill (as in sweet - no pun intended). I ended up buying a small assortment of chocolates from there, since we got to taste 8 different chocolates from their shop. Their specialty was adding interesting new flavors to chocolates, so we had like some with apricot in it, some with ginger, some with speculoos (which is like graham cracker taste), some with nuts - all of it delicious. Then, we got back on the bus after having a quick sandwich for lunch, and drove to a suburb north of the city.

So for the last chocolate stop of the day, we went to Manon's chocolate factory and shop. The proprietor was this old guy who looked like Jepeto - the guy from Pinocchio. Anyways, he was super cool - he learned the chocolate business from his grandpa, who opened the shop in the early 20th century. He makes all his chocolate by hand, which is real cool, and though he runs a really small factory (as in he has one other employee), he has won several international awards for his chocolate. He told us he had never entered any competition for these awards, they just came to him because people had learned of his incredible chocolate. This guy was quite the character, turns out he's also a magician, so he did some sweet magic/chocolate tricks. For example, he asked for a volunteer to come up and pick a card from the deck. So this girl picks a card, and he asks her to show everyone the card (the 8 of hearts). Next, he takes his "magic cocoa powder" and rubs it on the card before putting it back into the deck. He shuffles the deck for a little bit, and then builds the anticipation by again describing how "magical" the cocoa powder is. He then takes some of the powder, pulls up the sleeves of his shirt, and rubs the cocoa powder onto his arm - the powder then exposes on his arm "8 Hearts" and he asks if that was her card. Amazing. Also, he was all about his dark chocolate - he told us he eats 250g every day for energy. Oh, and he was very particular about what was chocolate and what was not - "White chocolate" as we know it actually contains no cacao beans, it's simply milk, sugar, and cocoa butter. He said they don't call it "white chocolate," the just call it "white." So after getting more free chocolate (and a business card so I could order some online to send home?), we left Manon's and headed back to our hotel.

After chillaxing at the hotel, we headed down to dinner with the rest of our class at Chez Leon, a nice restaurant near the city center. We had an appetizer of rabbit (Yum! - seriously, it was quite nice), salad, some superb Belgian beer (Grivermacher or something like that), turkey for dinner, and a cherry sorbet (possibly with alcohol) for dessert. All in all, a splendid feast. We then just sort of chilled around the Grand Place, watched the light show for the second night in a row, and walked back to the hotel. We played cards for a little bit before going to sleep. As it turns out, some of my roommates made the immature and foolhardy decision to go to a strip club that night. They got really drunk, got back to the hotel at like 3:00 am, made a bunch of noise, ran around and caused a ruckus in the hallway, woke a bunch of people up, and caused several other guests to complain to the hotel staff - thus embarrassing Professor Rollins, our entire class, Miami University, and America. To all you out there, please don't blatantly disrespect people like they did. It's not even that it was a cultural thing - you wouldn't do that in America and it shouldn't be done in Europe, especially when you represent our university and our nation.

Day 4:

Woke up at 6:40, tired from being woken up several times during the night. Ate breakfast early, and got on the bus to Bruges. We finished watching Top Gun on the bus, which started the day off right (except for the fact that Goose died again). After arriving in Bruges, we started our walking tour of the city right away. I learned a lot more from the walking tour than I did from wandering the city when I was there a few weeks before. Actually, I take that back, I didn't necessarily learn more, I just learned different things. So I learned a lot more about the history of the city - for instance, Bruges was once the largest port in northern Europe (which is crazy considering it is landlocked now, and 50 km from the North Sea). So apparently the North Sea used to come all the way to where Bruges is now and boats could literally pull right into the market square and dock. I also learned a lot about the architecture of Bruges, which is a very medieval city. So I guess what happened is that Bruges was pretty much all Gothic architecture, and as the renaissance spread northward from Italy, some cities (like Antwerp in Belgium) started changing their architecture to be more renaissance-y. Bruges however decided that they wanted to preserve their own unique identity as opposed to their rivals in Antwerp, so they just kept up the Gothic architecture. Even today they have strict standards as to how buildings must look in the city (kind of like Oxford?). Our walking tour ended in the market square of the city, and we had lunch as a class right there. We yet again had a delicious meal provided by MUDEC: I'm talking carrot soup, chicken with pureed peas, and a Belgian waffle for dessert.

Then we walked to two other chocolate shops - first we went to Dumon Chocolatier, an apparent favorite of the infamous Rick Steves. There, I chatted with the proprietor and asked her the few key questions to ask in a chocolate shop - "What is your specialty?" (to which she replied, "chocolate," not very helpful), and "What is your personal favorite?" (to which she directed me to a dark chocolate crème brulee truffle). So I had to try this crème brulee truffle (and for 60 euro-cents, it was awesome). From there we walked to Chocolate Line, an interesting store to be sure. Ok, to set the scene, Professor Rollins had mentioned the day before that in Bruges there was a store where we could snort chocolate. That's right, snort chocolate. I was intrigued, even mystified as to what this would entail. So when we get to Chocolate Line, we find out that this is where we can supposedly snort the chocolate. I was thrilled. So we ask the lady at the counter, and she says for one euro we can do "a sniff." Of course, it was worth it - so we made it happen. She busted out this small plastic contraption, into which she put a scoop of powder. We could choose either ginger or raspberry mix - I went with ginger because she said it was stronger. Then, she held the contraption up to my nose, and told me to inhale on the count of three. On three, she like launches the powder and I inhaled deeply. It didn't hurt or anything like that, it just smelled very chocolatey and minty (not very much ginger). And, it felt like there was something stuck in the front part of my nose. It was awesome. So yeah, I snorted chocolate. Here is what the set-up looked like:

We then hustled back to the bus for yet another adventure with Hoover - I'm talking a 2 hour trek through downtown Brussels rush hour traffic, which got so bad that at one point we started going into a tunnel and realized the bus wouldn't fit, so we had to stop all traffic, get the police to move cars, and back out through a roundabout so we could get going in the right direction. Anyway, finally got back to the hotel at around 5:30 or 6 (my memory is a little fuzzy now). After chillaxing / showering / sneezing a bunch, rallied the troops and headed down to the Grand Place, both to meet some friends who had flown into Brussels from the end of their study tour in Madrid as well as to find food for dinner. After rendezvousing with our friends (who were wearing shorts by the way - much nicer weather in Spain than in Belgium, apparently), we ate at some gyro shop near the Grand Place, before going back to watch the light show. Now, we actually had an interesting experience at this point. So we saw a group of college-aged kids in white shirts walking around, apparently covered in dirt, flour, and a variety of other crap. It appeared as though they were being directed (read: yelled at) by several other college-aged kids in blue uniforms with funny hats. So when they started marching and chanting in the Grand Place, I had to know more. So, I did the easiest and most difficult thing to do when you're in a foreign country - ask someone. So I asked one of these guys with a hat on what the dealio was - turns out it was basically an initiation of new students into the university. He told me it was different for each type of student (as in each different school or major), so he was pointing out that his group of 15-20 students were all new education majors ("people who want to be teachers"), and that he had been put through it himself in his first year at the university. He said that this tradition had been going on for over 100 years. I was intrigued at the acceptability of such public humiliation. I asked him if he knew anything about fraternities or sororities - and he said he just knew what they saw on television. So, I explained to him the striking similarity of the group hazing and ritualistic behavior between American fraternities and what his organization seemed to be doing. It was interesting, to be sure.

So went back to our hotel, where we may or may not have let our friends stay in our already overcrowded hotel room (which may or may not have been ok with the Miami chaperones who had held our room for us), so I ended up sleeping sideways across two twin beds pushed together so that they could accommodate three people. Not exactly the most comfortable night I've ever had, but it wasn't bad at all.

Day 5

Unfortunately though, two of the guys in our room had to get up at 3:15 am to make a flight, so I was woken up then, and then again when our friends left for Oktoberfest at 6:30 am. After a leisurely 8:00 am wake up, breakfast, and shower. I got all packed up, and headed towards the train station at around 11:00 am. Turns out it was just going to be Tony and I headed to Zurich, Switzerland, and our train didn't leave until 13:13 (unlucky train?).

So we ate lunch in the train station, and hopped aboard our direct train from Brussels-Centraal to Zurich HB. It was a long 8 hours and 11 minutes, but it was very calming and relaxing to sit on a train all day after having been running around the continent for the past few days. We even had outlets on our train seats, so I got to work on writing this blog entry then. We also met this girl on the train who was a Miami student who had just graduated in the spring, but was doing her student teaching in Luxembourg City. So we at least had someone else to talk to on the train. It wasn't very crowded except while we were going through France (stops in Strasbourg and Metz), and then the train pretty much emptied out for the last two hours between Basel and Zurich.

NOT A GOOD SITUATION: So it kind of hits me all at once that Tony and I are in deep. Upon arriving in Zurich, we have several problems that need to be resolved:

1. We have no money - Switzerland uses the Swiss Franc, not the euro (note: 1 Swiss Franc = about 1 US dollar).

2. We have no idea where our hostel is - I forgot to print off directions to our hostel from the train station. 

3. We have no idea where we are - I know we're at the main train station, but I have no idea where that is relative to the city.

4. It's 21:30 on a Friday night - all the shops are closed, as is the tourism office at the train station.            5. Zurich is close to the Swiss-German border, so they were actually having an Oktoberfest celebration and concert going on in the train station, which only furthered our disorientation.

6. We're starving - we should have packed some dinner for the train ride, but we didn’t and now everything is closed.

HOW WE SURVIVED: Obviously, we didn't die or panic or get lost forever in Switzerland, here is how we handled the problems we faced, and what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation.

1. There was still a currency exchange window open at the train station, so Tony and I ran up and exchanged some euros for Swiss Francs. Even if the currency exchange had been closed, we would have just needed to find an ATM and we could've scored some cash.

2. We followed a mob of people out of the train station, and just kind of walked in the same direction as a bunch of people. Then, majestically, we spotted a Starbucks across the river. We walked to it, and when I got inside the first question we asked was, "Do you have wifi?" Thankfully, they did, and we were able to find the directions online to our hostel, which we then transcribed onto paper. Oh, and we got some Swiss hot chocolate albeit from Starbucks.

3. This was pretty much solved by using Google Maps at Starbucks.

4. Not really an issue, since we had managed to walk over to the student district of the city (near the University of Zurich), so everything, or at least Starbucks, was open later.

5. We just didn't panic. It's important not to panic.

6. As we walked the 4 km from the train station to our hostel, we made our way down some busy streets, and as fate would have it, passed a McDonald's. Yes, that's right, at like 23:00 on a Friday night, the McDonald's was still open. America (as in Starbucks and McDonald's) saved us that night.

So we checked into our hostel, and after having a quick and much needed drink at the bar in the hostel's lobby, we called it a night.

Day 6

Got up around 7:30, never saw the other two guys who had stayed in our four-person hostel room. We had a nice little breakfast provided for us in our hostel - bread, jam, coffee, and orange juice. We then headed out for the city at about 9:00 am. We walked down to the lake shore before walking north into the downtown area (now I was nice and oriented correctly!). It was quite a sight, you could see the Swiss Alps off in the distance beyond Lake Zurich, here is what it looked like:

and this:

and this:

Anyway, so we rolled into town, and walked around for a little bit at a flea market. It was sweet, lots of stuff for sale, and huge, considering that they put the whole show together every Saturday. We didn't buy anything, but that was chill. We walked around for a while, and strolled over the Grossmunster, the typical large church for the city. Our hostel receptionist had recommended that we climb it to get cool views of the city, which was spot on. It looked like this:

Yeah, it was pretty cool. Then Tony and I made our way over to the University of Zurich. On the way, we grabbed lunch at this little bakery/butcher shop. We then got the Zentrum (which I believe is the equivalent of the Shriver Center, our student union back in Oxford). It was pretty deserted, but there was some kind of little reception going on there. Anyway, I had my computer, and we saw some students working on their laptops, so I decided to try to get the interwebs. I was able to hack onto their internet, and we found out some interesting things about the University of Zurich. Apparently it's the 11th most prestigious university in Europe - oh, and Albert Einstein went to school there. So yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

Then we walked across campus (up the street) to the University Library. Turns out they were having an exhibition on algebraic surfaces in the library that day (oh boy - math!). So Tony and I went up and started asking questions to one of the students who was working the exhibit. She quickly turned to English, and we ended up having like an hour-long conversation with her and her friend. Here is what we learned from them about Zurich and Switzerland:

1. People in Zurich speak Swiss German, which is a strange dialect. They told us that even if we spoke German fluently, we would still have problems understanding the locals.

2. People in Switzerland do not like people from Germany. Apparently, they view Germany as an aggressive and arrogant nation, and since Zurich is relatively close to the border, it's especially bad in Zurich.

3. There is nothing cool to do in Zurich - they said that most people just sit around all day and look at the alps. We asked what students do on the weekends, and they said, "study."

4. University of Zurich students have class on Saturdays - we heard a bell ring in the middle of our conversation, and asked what that was. Turns out it was the 15:00 bell releasing kids from class. I thought that was hilarious / unfortunate.

5. There are similar cross-cultural understandings of what constitutes an "easy major," I talked to them about math, because they were both math majors, and we were able to joke about communication majors (no offense to communication majors - I was just using what I perceive to be the most stereotypically understood "easy" major, based on no factual evidence of my own. So don't get mad at me). 

So that was really cool, it's always nice to talk to locals, and the most friendly people are always other students. They even invited us to a big university party that was going on that night downtown (we did not end up going). Then we walked all the way back to our hostel. We started chilling in our room, and decided to take a little siesta. Just as I was about to fall asleep however, Roy showed up. Turns out one of the guys staying in our room that night, the aforementioned Roy, wanted to make a lot of noise when he walked in. So we talk to Roy for a while - he's a cyclist from New Zealand. Apparently he spends a lot of time in Europe, and has biked all over the continent, which is pretty cool (but it kept me from my nap). 

So we got up and headed back into the city around 4:45. Casually strolling through the downtown, we found this cheeseburger take-out place on the Niederdorfstrasse, the main shopping street in the old town. So we got some burgers and fries to go, and then ate dinner on a bridge, looking at the Swiss Alps. Awesome. So then, on the suggestion of our friends at the University of Zurich, we had to go to the grocery store and get some Feldschlossen (a Swiss beer). So we went to the store, got some free samples of chocolate (which was delicious), and bought some Swiss beer. We then walked down to the river, sat on a bench, people-watched, and drank. We had a sweet view of the river and Zurich at night:

Swiss beer could not really hold a candle to Belgian beer, but it wasn't a problem. Then, around 20:30 or so, we decided to try to find this Irish Pub, Nelson, downtown. Unfortunately, the map had it mislabeled, but we found it. No big deal. After a pint of Murphy's (an Irish beer, which was cheap because it was Happy Hour, apparently). We took the long road back to our hostel and crashed.

Day 7

The last day of the trip was quick. We got up, ate, and headed out the door at 10:00. Strolled into town, chilled at this park, had really cheap hot dogs for lunch (as in, mine only cost 50 Swiss franc cents since the guy gave me too much change back - not sure how that makes me feel about the whole Swiss bank thing...), and went back to Starbucks to check the internet and make sure we had the right time for our train. We got on the train at 14:36, and had a straight five-hour train ride back to Lux City. It was a long week indeed.