Here's another late post, sorry for the gaps between posts, but I have been über busy. The days have gotten longer, the nights much shorter, and life is moving faster than Ricky Bobby in
Talladega Nights.
The following takes place between 17.4 and 21.4 aka Österlich Wochende or "Easter Weekend" if you will.
The first half of the new year seems to be filled with holidays in Germany. Back home I remember my birthday always falling between Good Friday and Easter. Fresh outfits, ridiculously long amounts of sitting in church for easter ceremonies and nonstop Passion of The Christ marathons on almost every major network. Of course an American Easter would not be complete without the traditional egg hunt, where for some reason, parents made their kids search for hard-boiled eggs in the sun (yes this is a thing that happens). Although granted sometimes there were hollow plastic eggs filled with candy or (if your parents/church felt really generous) MONEY!
Nevertheless, I have not had to search for a hard-boiled egg in quite some time. I decided to celebrate my 23rd Easter holiday with a roadtrip through Beligum!
Honestly I do not know when I will ever be able to say that again. Both the friday before and the monday after Easter were holidays, which made for a perfect opportunity to explore more of Europe.
I started my adventure by traveling to Heidelberg to meet up with another PPP'r and good friend, Britt and his former host sister during the Language School Phase, Elisa. Heidelberg is just an hour away from Stuttgart and is a really beautiful city just on the uppermost northwestern edge of the German state Baden-Württemberg.
We began our journey on Friday morning around 7 or 8am and shot through Mannheim (nearby city) within the hour. Pretty soon we were passing through a very small, but important country: Luxemburg! Unfortunately we did not stop and see the
Chambre des Députés du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (The European Parliament) maybe next time?
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| Panorama view of a quick rest stop in Luxembourg. I guess that's another country to mark off the list :) |
Now I should briefly mention that the people of Belgium speak up to 3 different languages. German, Dutch (or Flemish), and French depending on which region of the country you are currently in. Below is a map to illustrate.
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| I find that Dutch is very similar to German, just with extra vowels, k's instead of "ch", and unnecessary j sounds. |
About 4hrs later we arrived in our first stop on this trip: Brussels!
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| It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood... |
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| candid with Elisa |
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| Add caption |
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| Making our way downtown... towards that gigantic gate thingy. |
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That gigantic gate thingy turned out to be a huge part of beligian history. It was once the center of the World exhibition of 1880 (similar to the World's Fair).
Dutch name: Triomfboog van het Jubelpark
English name:Triumphal Arch of the Cinquantenaire |
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| This place is huge in retrospect, there's an auto museum on the left. An airplane museum on the right. A military museum off in the distance and if you walk a bit farther through the enormous park, you will reach a Mosque. I'm telling you, it's HUGE! |
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| chalk outline of two dancers who probably died battling each other |
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| Eerie how similiar the Beligium flag is so similar to the Germany one... |
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| The beginning of the park. Like I said, HUGE. |
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| A hoe garden. HA!!!!! |
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| Government building |
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| quick #selfie at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula |
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| Brussels city center. |
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| Manneken Pis graffiti |
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| schwag. |
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| Most famous attraction in Brussels. Thousands of tourists from all around the world to watch this little boy pee. Pervs. This is actually #3 on the World's 10 Most Overrated Travel Attractions. (Link can be found here) |
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| A delicious Nutella & Strawberries belgian waffle. Eating a delicious waffle in the birthplace of waffles really made my tastebuds harmonize and sing doo-wop. |
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| caught Britt off guard. Look at that face, he could hardly contain his love for that waffle. |
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| I love the style of these streets. |
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| Everard 't Serclaes was a famous Brussels born hero. For more infor click here. He was slashed with swords and died 10 days later. This statue is called Dying Everard 't Serclaes. People say that touching his right arm brings 1 year of love and good luck. |
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| the market square. (still in Brussels haha) |
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| Market square, simply breathtaking. |
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| Did you know that the Smurfs orginated in Belgium? |
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| Passing through the neigborhood heading to the car to rest up and leave Brussels. |
That night we stayed at a super cool hotel near Antwerpen. Saturday morning we checked out and set forth to the beauty that is Antwerp (also known as the Paris of Europe)! First stop: Centraal Station.
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| Antwerpen Centraal Station has 4 levels of train tracks. Here you can see the first 3, and there's yet one more that runs underground. It is the only station like this in all of Europe. |
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| Antwerpen Centraal Station, beautiful is it not? |
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| A closer look. |
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| it's like a royal palace.... but for trains. |
We walked out of the train station and into the main street and were taken away by the beautiful architecture, but more importantly this caught my attention quicker than the sights did.
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| Cheese. burger. pizza. LOOK AT IT. |
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| Making our way downtown.... walking fast. faces pass. |
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| This equisite castle of a building is just an Armani Jeans store. THIS PRINCE WILLIAM LOOKING PALACE IS JUST AN ARMANI STORE. WUT. |
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| Posing with the statues near the Cathedral of our Lady |
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| So this statue/fountain is really cool. It depicts a man on atop of a platform and beast while holding a severed hand where the water spews from. The story goes that there was a giant guarding the Schelde river, demanding a toll
from all the ships. If a captain didn't pay, the giant would cut off his hand
and throw it in the river. So this hero slew the giant, cut off it's hand, and
threw it in the river. A statue had to be erected (as seen above). And that's how the city "Hand
Twerping" got it's name but the people of the city don't know where the H went to make it "Antwerp". |
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| Did you know it was in fact the Belgians who claim to have invented Fries and not the French? the on-going dispute between the French and Belgians about where they
were invented is highly contentious, with both countries claiming
ownership. Regardless these were the best fries I ever tasted and you can find fry shops ALL over Belgium. Best served with mayo. (Don't knock it until you try it). |
After a day of venturing through Antwerp we were on to our next destination. Elisa found a campsite which happened to be in a town on the coast of the North Sea called "De Haan". At this point we were in the Dutch (and sometimes bilingual) speaking part of Belgium, but our landlady only spoke French. This made things a bit tricky when we had to speak with her about staying for the weekend. She only spoke French. Now my Francais is rusty seeing
that I only took 2 years of it in highschool and highschool was
centuries ago. Fortunately I still knew a few phrases, Elisa's knowledge
was managable and I also snagged a French to English dictionary and
downloaded it to my phone before we left Germany.
The combination of these factors helped us manage our way into the place, grab the keys, and move our stuff in without too much trouble.
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| The coast of the North Sea |
After a quick walk along the beach, feeling the sand between my toes, we went back to our campsite which was more like a trailer park but still pretty cool. It even had bunk beds!
That next morning we were off to visit yet another city. This time it was Bruges! We picked up a few Belgian beers and were on our way.
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| Some strong Belgian Beer. This stuff was about 8 or 9% alcohol. |
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| Postcard photo perhaps? |
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| #selfie Britt practicing his LL Cool J lips. |
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| #selfie |
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| the type of #selfie to annoy Britt haha |
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| huge Cathedral just off into the distance. |
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| city center of Bruges. |
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| this couple was so cute I had to capture the happy moment. (hope they're still together) :o |
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| There was a kid behind me pouting and i was trying to imitate him it was so cute, you can see his mom bending down trying to get him to shut the hell up. |
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| probably one of the best photos I've taken, it looks like it came from Pinterest! |
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| This is the first statue to be erected in 19th-century Bruges. The sculpture
commemorated Bruges mathematician and scientist Simon Stevin (1548 -
1620) who introduced decimal fractions.
His motto was ‘Wonder is no wonder’. |
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| perfect smiles on a perfect day. |
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| horse drawn carriage |
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| I chased after this horse and carriage trying to get a photo but the Black Stallion was just too fast for me. |
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Monday morning, on the beach one last time before heading back to Germany.
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| check out the Earthbending skills.Wrote my name in the sand with just one foot lol. Eat your heart out Toph. |
Seeing the beach one last time leaving was bittersweet. The water was freezing but walking on that soft sand and feeling it between my toes made it that much more enjoyable and had me ready for summer to arrive.
We said goodbye to De Haan and ventured to our final Belgian city before departing... Next stop was Gent (pronounced Ghent). I cannot say I know much about this city other than it's nice to look at, has great fries, and the altstadt (oldest part of town) is essentially enclosed around all of the newer parts of the city. So you basically have to go through a maze of modern buildings and shops before you reach the epicenter of this traditional medieval style part.
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| oh Dutch... you so crazy... From what I can decipher (context clues and German knowledge), it says "Free Concerts every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday in the basement" |
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| I can happily say I do not. |
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| Gravensteen Castle, also known as "Castle of The Counts". It costs about 9 euros to go inside, so this is about as good as it gets for free. |
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| Beautiful view |
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| typical european street corner pose |
So in all of just 4 days we were able to cover so much of Beligum and visit FIVE cities! Those cities included: Brussels, Antwerpen, Bruges, De Haan, and Gent. It's been one hell of an adventure and I cannot believe how this time abroad has changed me. My first time leaving the United States and I can now cross off the following countries off my list with ease.
GermanySwitzerlandLiechtensteinAustria FranceSpainCzech RepublicLuxembourg Belgium
I still have about 28 days left in Germany and then it will be our "vacation" portion of the program. Although everyday is probably a vacation when you're living abroad (at least I like to think that way). I have a lot of work to finish up and some amazing trips planned in July during those two weeks of vacation. Cannot forget that I have even MORE planned once I return to the states.
Bis nächstes mal, Tschüss!
(Until next time, goodbye!)
(as if an angel pisses on your tongue)
One way to say the food tastes great. The expression evolved from an angel that fietst
(cycles) on your tongue, replacing "fietst" with the childish funny
word "piest" while preserving its meaning. - See more at:
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/a-taste-of-dutch-idioms-and-expressions#sthash.8Y5PyTnl.dpuf
(as if an angel pisses on your tongue)
One way to say the food tastes great. The expression evolved from an angel that
fietst
(cycles) on your tongue, replacing "fietst" with the childish funny
word "piest" while preserving its meaning. - See more at:
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/a-taste-of-dutch-idioms-and-expressions#sthash.8Y5PyTnl.dpuf
(as if an angel pisses on your tongue)
One way to say the food tastes great. The expression evolved from an angel that fietst
(cycles) on your tongue, replacing "fietst" with the childish funny
word "piest" while preserving its meaning. - See more at:
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/a-taste-of-dutch-idioms-and-expressions#sthash.8Y5PyTnl.dpuf
(as if an angel pisses on your tongue)
One way to say the food tastes great. The expression evolved from an angel that
fietst
(cycles) on your tongue, replacing "fietst" with the childish funny
word "piest" while preserving its meaning. - See more at:
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/a-taste-of-dutch-idioms-and-expressions#sthash.8Y5PyTnl.dpuf
(as if an angel pisses on your tongue)
One way to say the food tastes great. The expression evolved from an angel that fietst
(cycles) on your tongue, replacing "fietst" with the childish funny
word "piest" while preserving its meaning. - See more at:
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/a-taste-of-dutch-idioms-and-expressions#sthash.8Y5PyTnl.dpuf
(as if an angel pisses on your tongue)
One way to say the food tastes great. The expression evolved from an angel that fietst
(cycles) on your tongue, replacing "fietst" with the childish funny
word "piest" while preserving its meaning. - See more at:
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/a-taste-of-dutch-idioms-and-expressions#sthash.8Y5PyTnl.dpufaf
(as if an angel pisses on your tongue)
One way to say the food tastes great. The expression evolved from an angel that fietst
(cycles) on your tongue, replacing "fietst" with the childish funny
word "piest" while preserving its meaning. - See more at:
http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/a-taste-of-dutch-idioms-and-expressions#sthash.8Y5PyTnl.dpuf
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