An Update:

Life is really busy back in Austin. I don’t ever find myself with enough mental strength during free time to write anything on my blog.

I feel like I am constantly holding my fraternity from imploding, my grades from slipping and my social life is almost inexistent. But, I am making good grades.

I have noticed since being back in Texas that I have been doing much better in my German courses. I have a higher level of confidence in speaking than I did before I left. Not just that I have gotten better as a speaker, but also that I realize I am better at it than many of my peers. Sounds foolish, but it helps in participation during class.

I am simultaneously trying to get a job. The job market in the US is tough these days, but some companies are still hiring Economics majors. I went to a career fair last week and met some great firms who are hiring college grads. I need to follow up with a few right after I finish this post.

My parents and brother were here last weekend for Parent’s Weekend. It was really fun having them in town and getting to spend a little more time with them since I’m never home. It is always nice when your mom “volunteers” to hang up your clothes in your closet.

Tomorrow is my registration for classes for the spring semester. It is my last semester of undergrad and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I think I am ready for a new experience, but it will be tough leaving the college scene behind.

I’ve done a few cool things in Austin since being back. I attended Austin City Limits music festival and got to witness Kanye West wow the crowd. It was quite a concert. I have also discovered a few food trucks that I like too.

My intramural soccer team won its first game in three tries. I didn’t allow a single goal, but then again, my defense played very well to prevent shots. Very proud of our team, FC Scott Fitzgerald (clever name).

All I have left besides academics and social events this semester is transferring credit back to Austin from Freiburg. I got a 2,3 on my paper in German poetry, which is like a B+. I am certainly satisfied with that grade after all the work on that paper.

Lastly, I want to mention why I am writing anything at all today. A friend of mine that I met in Esbjerg, Denmark during the Women’s Curling Championships has asked me to keep writing. Simon is a curling prodigy, who will one day win the men’s championship. I’m kind of glad he made me write this, it’s nice to blow off a little steam during a stressful week.

That’s all for now, hopefully I write again soon,

AK

Road to Orlando

Hi,

So, I guess I am no longer "The Freiburg Kid" but I still do interesting things in life.

On Tuesday, I left Houston by car on my way to Orlando, FL for the AEPi Fraternity national convention. We stopped in New Orleans overnight to hang out and stay with a brother in the fraternity, named Yaakov. He just moved out to Tulane for law school.

We hit up Bourbon St. and ate some delicious Creole specialties. I didn't eat the crab, shrimp, crawfish and catfish with the others, since it isn't kosher, but my meal was delicious. After that, we bar hopped and had a good time.

Leaving Bourbon street was an interesting story. As we waited near the trolley car stop at 3 AM, we were approached by a guy who offered to drive us where we needed to go in his car in exchange for gas money. It was late and we decided to take him up on the offer. All 5 of us plus the driver, Shannon, got into his 1997 Dotson Cutlass. What a piece of crap. But, it got us home eventually. The trunk kept opening on its own and the engine kept sputtering every time we came to a stop.

Next day, I woke up early in order to try to motivate the other brothers to get on the road more quickly. Unfortunately, we still didn't get going until 12:15. New Orleans to Orlando is pretty, pretty far and all I will say is we made it in at 11:30 PM. Long long day.

Now that I have a had a few days to settle in Orlando, I'm not so angry about making it late to convention.

All for now,

AK

By the numbers:

In sports illustrated magazine, they do this really cool section every week where they say a number, followed by what in sports has had to do with that figure. So, I will try to do something similar with my last year.

2 - Times I went to Hamburg, my new favorite city

3 - Concerts I attended while in Europe (a Led Zeppelin cover band, Yuck and Tame Impala)

4.03 - The number of Euros I still have left

5 - Number of Bundesliga (German soccer league) games I attended (4 in Freiburg, 1 in Frankfurt)

6 - Roommates I had in my apartment

7 - Number of currencies I had to use while abroad (Swiss Francs, Euros, Danish Kroner, Israeli Shekel, Jordanian Dinar, Hungarian Forints, Great British Pounds)

10 - Number of flights I took throughout the year, including to and from the US

12 - Countries visited (Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Israel, Jordan, England, Ireland and France)

161 - Hours I spent on a train this past year, the equivalent of 6 days 17 hours

302 - Days I had a residence in Freiburg, Germany

There may be more to come. These are just some I thought of for now.

AK

Cleaning my life away

In a good and bad way, today was productive.

My parents helped me clear out my room. no easy task.
It involved painting splotches on the walls, sweeping underneath my bed and throwing many, many things away.

But, once the day was over, my room, which demonstrates my personality, was completely bare. In a way, my parents I had transformed this personal space of mine into a blank slate, ripe for the next person to move into. Strange how things can change so quickly in such a short time.
After all the time I had spent making the room my own, it was destructed in such fashion.

The blank slate is also my future, to a point. I go back to a life I left and try to take back things I have learned this year. How have I changed? How have my friends changed? Will anything ever be the same again? I'm not looking forward to finding out the answers to the those questions.

I only like to worry about things I have the power to change. Things will be how they will be. So I'll comment on things that already happened.

Dinner tonight was very cool. My parents and brother joined some roommates and I in eating delicious pizza from a local chain. Topics of conversation were a little lame, especially because my mom insisted on asking Richard, my Australian roommate, how to say some words in his variation of English. Got old fast. That doesn't mean I didn't get a kick out of it though.

My night got interesting when I was surprised by Richard that I was getting some visitors. A few friends from my building came over and chatted for a while. They made some pancakes, which we topped with nutella, bananas, almonds and whipped cream. Really good and nice of them to do. Quite an appreciated surprise.

Lastly, I went over to Joe's, an English friend of mine who was at the pancake surprise, to watch the new episode of Top Gear. The show was really good and fitting that it was the end of the season the same night it was the end of my adventure in Freiburg.

On to Munich for 2 days before flying home.

AK (2 days left)

Strasbourg!

I know it's been a few days since I've written, but I have been tired and busy with my family in Freiburg.

Today, we decided to drive over the border to Mexico France. We spent the day in Strasbourg looking through stores and seeing the city center. Since we had rented a car, we got to experience trying to park a car. We ended up driving on the tram tracks and a bicycle lane by accident. We got weird looks, but it was over after a minute.

I got to go the Adidas store and try on my favorite jersey. I think it looks really really nice and I want it so badly. But, I reserved judgment and will just buy a fake one online for a lot cheaper. 80 Euros is just out of my price range.

We ate lunch near the huge cathedral, which played a very impressive chime at 12 noon. I had pizza with salmon and capers on it. so good.

We left around 2 and made our way easily back to Freiburg.

I went to play in a league soccer match at 5. We got beaten 6-2, and I felt like I played okay in the 1st half. 2nd half, I was rubbish. But, for the final time to play on the HUGE, official size goals was a blast. Sunburn on my face will last a few days.

Went to dinner with my parents and brother at a delicious pirate/music/bar themed place. The theme isn't overbearing and the food is delicious. They also serve the best beer in the world on tap, Augustiner. Too bad you can't find it in the US.

Tomorrow is clean up my room and pack day. Can't believe it's here.

AK (3 days left)

Last Week in Freiburg

Sorry about no blog post yesterday. I got back from Berlin pretty late and passed out immediately. Or at least it seemed like that.

I had to wake up this morning at 8:30 to meet with the Hausmeister (person in charge of my building) about my official move out and room inspection. August 1st is my move out date and at 9:30, the room will no longer be mine. So sad.

I didn't go back to sleep like I should have after that, so I just caught up on some YouTube videos and TV shows. Entourage is in its final season and the premiere was last night. I enjoyed it, but it is no where near the quality of previous seasons.

After lunch, I got back to working on my essay. I knocked out a page and a half today, putting me right at 9 pages. If I am just as productive tomorrow and Wednesday, I can be done before my parents arrive on Thursday. That'd be really nice, not to mention, I'd actually get a month of summer vacation. Crazy.

I played soccer this afternoon, but unfortunately not that many people showed up. Later on, when we were playing 2 vs. 2 on the smaller goals, I had some really good moments and scored quite a number of goals. My teammate is a much better player than me, but he is German, so I have a good excuse.

I always manage to eat dinner so late after soccer. Spaghetti at 11:30 was delicious. I have mastered the art.

That's the beginning of the end,

AK (10 days left)

Last Tour of Berlin

I woke up this morning at 4:45 to catch the train at 5:46, like I described yesterday. I made everything on time and had a fairly easy travel.

I decided to book a specific seat on the train, because I know that they get full early in the morning. I ended up getting a good window seat and having to kick some man out of my place. A little rude, but I paid for that seat.

I changed trains once in Hannover and then two hours later I was in Berlin.

I went to the hotel that we are staying at to find my parents and brother. Right as I walked in I saw my mom through the door and she embraced me.10 months is a long time to go without seeing your favorite son, so of course she cried...a lot, well maybe not THAT much. (my brother saw me write this sentence, just pointing out I'm definitely the favorite).

I took my mom to the cool shopping areas and to other places around the city. We don't have all that much time here (leaving tomorrow at 5 PM), so trying to make the most of it.

I ate the most delicious Döner Kebab tonight at Mustafa's, supposedly the best Döner stand in all of Berlin. We had to wait in line nearly 45 minutes, and by the time we got to order, the line was longer than when we had joined it. They add really yummy vegetables that you don't see at other places, plus a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of goat cheese are included. Not to mention, it was also the CHEAPEST Döner I have ever had.

Alright, that's my day, tomorrow night back in Freiburg,

AK (12 days left)

Hitting the Hay

I am going to see my parents and brother tomorrow for the first time in 10 months.

They are in Munich right now and are flying to Berlin tomorrow for the weekend. I've gotta hop on a train at 5:45 tomorrow morning from Freiburg to get there, so I have to go to sleep quite early tonight.

They will be doing some navigating on their own in a foreign country in a foreign language to get to their hotel tomorrow, so hopefully we are able to meet up as planned. Kinda scared about that. I tried to prep them as much as possible for their adventure.

I had a meeting today with my teacher from my poetry course. She said I had been doing a good job on my essay in terms of form and topic, but she didn't actually read it. That makes me a bit queasy. I should be able to finish it all next week after I get back. She gave me some really good ideas for the last few pages, so I will be able to avoid writer's bloc to the finish.

The weather here is like October or November, not what I expected of July. It has rained the last whole week and is barely 60 degrees. Why can't I just have a normal summer? Not really the most conducive weather to playing soccer, but we try anyway.

Gotta sleep now,

AK (13 days left)

Work and Play

Thursdays have a theme each week and that theme is University.

Today I went to school to my classes. My first class of the day was Tendencies of present day german language poetry. I actually really enjoyed the session because the poet we were covering was quite unique and her writings were intricate.

She had this one poem called Jot. Jot in German means the letter J (pronounced yot). Jot in English means to write something down. The other word play in the poem was from the word Just. The english word, Just means exactly or correctly or fair. The poet wrote down something about a "hit to the breast"
which is a common result from the sport of Jousting. See where the Just and Jousting thing play off each other?

Anyway, as I said, I really liked that poet. If you can read German and English, check out the book Falsche Freunde by Uljana Wolf. You won't be disappointed.

During my break between classes, I worked on homework due later in the day. After completing that with some errors, I went to that class, Sentence Semantics, and managed to be extremely bored out of my mind. It was the first time in that class that I didn't understand the concepts. Ruh Roh.

I went home and chilled for a bit until it was time to hit the field. A few friends had planned on playing soccer today, so I joined in. We only managed to get 6 people total, so we only played on the small goals with no goalies, but it was nonetheless fun. Very tiring too, I would say.

I scored a few nice goals, but those don't count as actual game goals, because we play on just a small portion of the whole place and with tiny nets. I was quite dead after.

Planning to go see my parents and brother in Berlin during the weekend. I think I am at a good place in my essay where I can take two days off. We'll see how that goes.

Bye for now,

AK (14 days left)

Good Hair Day

I woke up this morning and got ready for the rest of the day.

After combing my hair, I discovered I was having one of the best hair days of my life. Maybe the best ever. (No pictures were taken of course),

Besides that miracle, today was another slow day. I worked on some stuff for a few hours, but I have a lot more to do before class at 4 PM tomorrow.

I really don't have anything more to say about today than it rained and I watched more soccer on TV. FC Bayern won the meaningless 3rd place game of the LigaTotal Cup in penalty kicks. That was rather underwhelming.

Time to sleep,

AK (15 days left)

Productivity Prevails!

Hey y'all,

Been working most of the day on my paper. Not the most exciting thing in the world, but I got a page and a half done today. Progress is good. I am on my 8th page of 12. 2/3 the way done is a lot better than just a few weeks ago when I had barely started. Maybe I'll make it to Berlin to see my parents.

Today was one of the first preseason soccer tournaments for the German club teams, called the LigaTotal Cup. FC Bayern, my favorite team ever, lost 2-1 to Hamburg SV. Not the most amazing feeling in the world, but at least it's just a preseason game.

I made more rice with curry today, but this time I added some marinated chicken. Quite delicious, but I made too too much rice.

The only other exciting thing in the world today was the release of Rebecca Black's new single and video, called My Moment. I actually enjoyed the song, believe it or not, but the video was quite a snoozefest. At the very least, it wasn't funny, which is what everyone was expecting.

Tomorrow, I gotta work on some other homework and continue on the paper too. Doesn't look so bright, not to mention the weather is supposed to suck again. Rain rain go away....

It is unbelievable that I am moving out of my apartment in 2 weeks. It is gonna be terrible to clean my room up and pack all of my stuff up. Maybe impossible.

But for now,

AK (16 days left)

2:45 IN THE PM

After yesterday's shenanigans, I was dead.

Literally dead.

I went to bed at 2:30 in the morning, just about after writing my post from yesterday and I managed to wake up this "morning" at 2:45 PM.

I created a new system to help me write my essay. I write 100 words, then take a 15-30 minute break (hey, I earned it), then repeat. Today was pretty productive. I didn't meet my goal of 500 words, but 300 isn't so bad. I got rudely interrupted during my work by people playing soccer outside. I just had to join in.

Too bad I played terribly. The weather was so nice, but my feet just didn't want to kick the ball anywhere it was supposed to go.

After those 2 hours, I made dinner, which consisted of rice, onion, bell pepper, curry powder and salt. I think I actually did quite a good job making it. Pretty surprising for a first try and first time.

My parents and brother arrived yesterday in Germany, then traveled to Italy for a week-long vacation on Lake Garda and Verona. I would be joining them if not for this essay and class. I hope to join them in Berlin next week if I can finish everything by then. It could happen if I write a page a day or so.

Imma run along now. It's nearing that 2:30 time again so that means bed.

AK (17 days left)

Frankfurt with Olga

Hi,

Today, I woke up really early (6:30!!!) and hopped on a train to Frankfurt.

As you may or may not know, there was this sporting event going on in Frankfurt this evening. The US was playing in it and so was my future wife, Hope Solo. The women's world cup came to an end with the US being defeated in penalty kicks. But more on that later....

I met Olga for the first time in London when I was traveling with my friend Tony in June. They knew each other from some summer program in middle/high school. I decided it'd be cool if we hung out and maybe try to buy tickets to the World Cup final match.

After we met up in the train station, we went over to the Palmengarten, a huge botanical garden in North-Central Frankfurt. It was quite cool with plants from all over the world, plus large ponds with the cutest baby ducks ever! Olga really wanted to kidnap one, but we didn't have any bread to use as a lure.

From there, we went over to the Römer Platz and looked at a few gift shops for touristy items. She got a shirt for her dad, and I found nothing worthwhile there.

We ventured down by the Main river to see if anything cool was going on, and there happened to be food tents and a stage set up for entertainment to World Cup visitors. We sat down and grabbed something to drink and chatted. She attempted to teach me something about what she is doing in her Neuroscience lab in Frankfurt, but in the end, I really didn't catch much. Complicated stuff if you ask me.

Next was Sachsenhausen, one of my favorite parts of town. I mentioned the Frankfurter grüne Soße in the past, and I really wanted to have more tonight. I took us to the same place that Zach and I ate at in February and it was delicious.

We then hopped on the U-Bahn and S-Bahn in an attempt to score tickets to the match. We get to the packed area around the stadium and there were more people looking for tickets than people selling them. WAY MORE. We heard some people being quote 200 Euros a ticket, so we decided to pass and just ended up documenting that we stood outside of where the match was going on.

We went back to the train station and watched the first half at an Irish Pub across the street until I had to catch a train at 10 PM tonight. I didn't get to watch the 2nd half unfortunately, which turned out to be some of the most amazing soccer this year. Congrats to Japan on winning the World Cup too!

I got home at about 1 AM after a long long long day. Time to pass out.

AK (17 days left)

Lazy Saturday

I woke up around 12:30 to hear Max 1 rummaging through his stuff. He was packing. The first thing he says to me is "I need to leave in 20 minutes." Semi-surprised, I woke up fully and helped him get everything together.

He is on his way to Weimar today to visit a friend, but will be traveling to Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki before going back to Munich at the beginning of August. I am damn jealous.

I ate leftovers from the spaghetti I made two days ago, then proceeded to waste my entire day on nothing. I formalized my plans to go to Frankfurt tomorrow, maybe to see the Women's World Cup final, but probably just to hang out with a friend.

I messed around on Photoshop today, making a few cool pictures look even cooler. Here is an example:

Swagger Pose

Red Swagger

Radioactive Swagger

I should really get back to my essay, don't you think? Anyway, gotta wake up in a few hours to make the train to Frankfurt.

AK (18 days left)

Mini Golf and More

It's been quite a long day. Very exhausted.

Max 1 and I woke up relatively late for a normal human being, normal for us. We grabbed some lunch at a Turkish restaurant. He is a vegetarian and I knew they would have something perfect for him there.

Once we were completely full, we went up to the Schlossberger Turm (Schlossberg Tower) to get a view of the whole city. I didn't take any pics today because I had been there a ton of times already. On the way down, we saw a mini golf course and decided to play a round.

After back and forth, Max 1 and I were pretty close in score. Leading up to the last 5 holes, he had a 4 stroke lead on me, but after I hit 2 hole-in-ones in a row, I managed to steal back the lead. It was close until the end, but I came up victorious with a 63 to 69 stroke win.

After we walked around the city center a bit more, we borrowed a bicycle from Richard, my Australian roommate who's birthday party I mentioned last week. The weather was absolutely perfect for a ride, so we went to down to Vauban, the really green, environmental part of town.

I showed him the hippie village, which is literally a ton of trucks and makeshift homes that have been claimed by squatters. Max 1 talked with this one hippie/Marxist and took a lot of photos of Vauban. He said that if he lived in Freiburg someday, it would definitely be in Vauban. (I think he really just wants to be a hippie)

After that, we still had Richard's bike (thanks Richard, if you ever decide to read this) and wanted to check out some cooler places. We road down the river side for quite a bit to the east. The ride was absolutely beautiful and the ride itself was pretty cool. There are a nice amount of hills and slopes for going fast.

When we got back to Händelstrasse, where I live, I saw a bunch of friends playing some Fußball (soccer) so I went downstairs for an hour to play. It wasn't a full game, but I enjoyed playing with these specific people, since we are all friends and can mess around and joke with each other. If someone messes up during a play, we didn't make a fuss about it. Definitely worth playing even after all the bike riding plus soreness from yesterday's soccer game.

Alright, enough for now. Max 1 is planning on leaving tomorrow afternoon, so maybe it will return to a normal weekend for me. Although, I am thinking about going to Frankfurt on Sunday for the Women's World Cup final between USA and Japan. If I can get tickets for a reasonable price, I may go to the game. If not, I have a back up plan to visit a friend who is working in a lab there.

AK (19 days left)

Surprise, I'm Here!!!

Hey,

I had my presentation today in class and it went really well. I found out a lot of good things in class from the other students that I can use in my paper. That was really the goal of the presentation anyway, at least what I had discussed with the grad student who leads the class.

I went back to my apartment later and caught up on some YouTube vids, like I do everyday. I finished them and decided to take a nap between then and my next class. As soon as I set my alarm, I get a text message and a loud awakening. Max 1 texts me, "I'm Here"

I was like, say whaaaaat! I was expecting him to come later in the afternoon, and since we hadn't really discussed when he was coming, there were a lot of unknowns about the situation. I called him and gave him directions to the nearest tram stop to my place and met him there about 20 minutes later.

After making lunch, I decided not to go to my class later in the day so I could play host a little bit. I took him around the city and we grabbed a coffee at a cafe near the river. Nice to catch up since I hadn't seen him since March when I went to Vienna.

After me playing soccer and him taking a nice walk to the city, I made the most delicious spaghetti ever created and we ate way too much. Not too sure what we will do tomorrow, but the weather should be a little better than today.

That was my day.

AK (20 days left)

Presentation tomorrow

Hey,

It's been a pretty boring day. I have a presentation tomorrow about a certain poem by this crazy poet, named Thomas Kling, that I have been reading and studying for the past 8 weeks. Some of his poems make 0 sense and somehow I am writing a 12-15 page paper on them. Yay me!

I've gotta wake up in like 6 hours and give this talk, plus I really have nothing else to say. It rained again today, but no crazy thunder and lightning. I really want to get back on the soccer pitch, but I just can't seem to find the time, not to mention the weather.

Long-aforementioned Max 1 is coming to visit me for a few days starting tomorrow evening as I said yesterday. Definitely excited about that, but I need to find a few things for us to do/ways to chill while he is here.

I appreciate all of my readership. I have gotten some great feedback about my new set of posts and I will continue this until I leave Freiburg. I promise my next few posts will be more interesting than today's. But until then....

Peace out,

AK (21 days left)

She's Thunderstorms

So the title of this post is just a title of the first song on the new Arctic Monkeys album, Suck It and See, but there is a reason.

Aliens have invaded Freiburg! But not really. For a while now, it sure has seemed like it though. The past 3 hours have been filled with crazy lightning strikes and a fury of thunder. The wind and rain make it sound like I live in a wind tunnel they use to test a car's aerodynamics.

This is my attempt to show you what has been going on. Tonight was definitely one of the largest storms I have ever seen. The lightning bolts are huge and light up the sky for seconds upon seconds at a time. It's a good thing something interesting happened tonight because today was just one of those boring old days of working.

Here is a longer video I uploaded to YouTube: Freiburg Lightning Storm

I have a presentation on Thursday, then Max 1 is coming to visit during the weekend. I'm definitely going to make him read and edit my paper while he is here

AK (22 days left)

TORRRRR!!!! (GOOOAAAALLLL)

Hi again,

The weather has never been nicer. 80s with tons of sun!

I heard there was going to be a pick-up soccer game today because the weather was too good not to play, but I kept telling people I couldn't play because I have to write my paper.

By 8 PM, I couldn't take it any longer. You can hear the people playing, kicking the ball and having fun from my window. I put on my gear and headed out to the pitch. I was ready to go

They had been playing for a little while, so some of the players were already tired. A few wanted to stay back and play goalie to catch their breath. I took off my gloves and went on attack. For all 9 months of living here, I have played goalie all but a few times. I was rearing to go and score a goal.

And I did! TORRRRRRRRRR!!! (that means goal in German). I got a great pass from a teammate and completed an easy finish into the back of the net. It was especially awesome since I had never scored on the big (sorta big, but nowhere near regulation size) goal in a game. But that wasn't even my top highlight of the evening.

Late in the game, the ball popped up high in the air and I settled it in one bounce. I was on the left side, probably a good 15 yards away from the goal. I manage to get by the defender who was trying to steal the ball from behind as I settled it. I then headed towards the byline and crossed the ball through the legs of another defender. A teammate was on the receiving end and forcefully struck the ball top shelf. Highlight of my life....

I'm up pretty late now. It's 1:25 AM, normal for me though. Still working on my paper for the day, since I spent 2 hours of prime working time playing footy.

Til next time,

AK (23 days left)

Sunday, Rainy Sunday

Sunday was supposed to be my productive day, and for the most part it actually was.

My goal was to write 3 or 4 pages toward my paper, but I was only able to manage 1. I wouldn't call the day a failure though, because it was the most I've written on any single day thus far.

Today was an interesting day in sports too. At 2 PM, I turned on the Formula 1 English Grand Prix to see my favorite driver, Sebastian Vettel come in 2nd place. Overall, a pretty good day to that point.

After getting some work done, I caught the very very end of the US-Brazil Women's World Cup match. The US leveled the match at 2 a piece in the 120 +2 minute mark. The goal was an amazing cross from 30 yards out for a Abby Wambach header. The game went to penalty kicks, which is always the most exciting and intense thing in all of soccer.

The first taker for the US had her shot saved. I was actually crushed, knowing that was the end of the US at the World Cup. BUT! The referee whistled that the goalie had come off her line too soon and therefore the kick must be retaken. The US then proceeded to make all 5 of their chances. Brazil had great penalty takers too, but the third shot was saved beautifully by a diving Hope Solo. The US had one of the greatest last minutes in all of sports.

Later on after dinner, I went over to my English friend, Joe, to watch Top Gear live on BBC 2. It was a pretty good episode, but especially awesome because they had a whole segment where they interviewed none other than, SEBASTIAN VETTEL!!! Great way to spend the day.

I'm done now. Trying to put a few words together on my essay before I call it quits for the night.

AK (24 days left)

Party Party Party

Some people say that studying abroad is about partying in a different country. And after the past few hours, I can somewhat confirm that.

I'm not the biggest party-goer in the world, but June-July is the "Sommerfest" schedule. All of the main student living places have their own summer festivals with live music, DJs, soccer tournaments and more.

I live in the Händel-Studentwohnheim, and we had our Sommerfest two weekends ago, but I missed it because I was in Berlin with a friend. Last weekend was the StuSie (Studenten Siedlung (Student Settlement)) Sommerfest. The party was really fun and I got to meet some cool people throughout the day.

Today was the last of the three, Vauban Sommerfest. Vauban is a part of town notorious for their hippie lifestyle and crazy environmental habits. It's the place all the REALLY environmentally friendly people live. Every building has solar panels on the roof and was built to some high "green" standards.

Anyway, I played in the 3 on 3 soccer tournament this afternoon. It was pretty fun, but unfortunately, we didn't perform so well. The team I was on drew 2 games and lost 2, so we didn't move on to the semi-finals. Still had a good time and didn't get all cut up by the gravel like a teammate of mine did.

Just now was the party. I was there for a few hours and had a good time. I hung out with lots of people and just chilled. A pretty good time until it started raining. It's pretty insane how at these big summer parties you run into every single person you have met in Freiburg from every little activity you ever participated in. Mindblowing.

That's all. Tomorrow gotta hit the books and write some pages for my paper. I'm thinking I should write 3-4 pages. That would be awesome!

AK (25 days left)

Richard's Birthday!

Hi again,

I'm staying true to my word with posts everyday.

One of my flatmates, Richard from Australia, is having a birthday party in our apartment as I type. I'm taking a small break from the wine and the delicious guacamole I made to write this.

Richard is the only other flatmate of mine who is an exchange student, so we relate to each other pretty well in our situations. He is much more outgoing than I am, but it doesn't stop us from being friends. We only talk in German, which has been really healthy for the development of my german. Maybe his too.

He organized a shindig at our place, as I mentioned, and made so many delicious things to eat. He also has such a wide and diverse group of friends. Quite impressive.

This afternoon, I went searching for the best avocados in all of Freiburg to make the perfect guacamole for the party tonight. I went to 8 grocery stores all around the city to hunt them down. Unfortunately, I had to settle at the end of my adventure for some only decent ones. Didn't matter, I got a ton of exercise riding my bike around town and the guacamole turned out excellent! I'll have to make it for people when I get home.

Anyway, gotta get down on Friday (thanks Rebecca Black),

AK (26 days left)

Thursday = Class

Hi again,

I may have mentioned in the past few days that I only have classes one day a week. That day is Thursday. Today is Thursday. I am currently in between class times, so I get to take a little nap or watch YouTube vids. In 40 minutes, I gotta leave and go to my final session of the day, Satzsemantik (Sentence Semantics). I find it somewhat interesting, but sometimes the professor doesn't engage the class. I generally enjoy it though.

My first class of the day was Tendencies of present day german-language poetry. I wouldn't say I generally enjoy sitting in a dark room for an hour and a half, but today's class was kind of interesting. The poet we were covering has a really unorthodox style when she reads her own poetry. In the recordings we listened to, she used strange tones and similarly spelled/sounding words to confuse the audience. Her allusions to Greek Mythology were interesting too.

I grabbed lunch afterward in the cafeteria with two Swedish friends. Scandinavians are by far the coolest people ever. I never described my love for Denmark on here, but one of the best weeks I had this entire year was my week in Esbjerg, DK. I have some Finnish friends, too. I just need to meet some Norwegians now (just kidding, Norwegians are terrible people (kidding again)).

After class, I need to do a little bit of essay writing. The weather will probably determine that, since if it isn't raining, I'm going to be obligated to playing some soccer outside (like everyday). I should probably still try to get in 100 to 200 words to call today productive.

That's it for now. I'm planning my first road trip right now. I'll report on that once the details get more concrete.

Later,

AK (27 days left)

Swiss Evening

Hello!

I just got back from office hours with my teacher about my paper and presentation (next week) for class. I think it went pretty well, and now I have to prepare for class tomorrow. I have done about 500 words on my essay of the 3000 needed, so I am slowly but surely getting there. We talked about deadline for turning it in and decided there is no actual hard deadline for me. My two goals are to get it in before I leave Germany or before I leave Houston for Orlando on August 8th or 9th.

My last month in Europe is about trying new things and doing new things (and writing my paper). Last night, I went to a "Swiss Dinner" that some friends of mine organized. What do the Swiss make best? Fondue!!! I tried cheese fondue for the first time ever and loved it. Better to eat it made by actual Swiss people than by an American restaurant. (Note: Fondue is a winter food, so it was strange to make it in the middle of the summer, but nonetheless was it delicious.)

There were around 20 people there and I think each person brought at least a bottle of wine. Maybe we all thought it was some sort of house gift, but we managed to down a lot of them. They say that white wine goes well with Fondue. We were just putting that to the test. The bicycle ride home wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.

Gotta stop procrastinating for now. Hope this new blog writing that I'm doing is fun and easy to read. Let me know if I should change my style

AK (28 days left)

Happy 5th of July....

No parades today. No fireworks. Everyone back to their jobs.

I took my "holiday" yesterday and only managed to write about 150 words on my paper. Today is much more productive, yet maybe a little off topic in my writing. I might get it proofread tomorrow during office hours.

Besides that, I have been taking advantage of some nice weather the past few days. I played some fußball (soccer) the last 2 afternoons and took a small stroll through the city yesterday.

I just got the new Google+ social network, so I have been wasting a lot of my "valuable" time messing around with that. Uploaded some pictures from my trip to London on there for my circles to see. If you don't know what that means, sign up for Google+. I recommend it so far

My last thing of note is my new eating addiction. I was told by a roommate that I don't eat enough vegetables, so I set out to prove him wrong by making and eating a salad for dinner. I mixed some lettuce with diced tomatoes and slices of freshly cut Mozzarella cheese. I added olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil leaves and salt/pepper for taste. I proceeded to eat that for dinner for 4 straight days.

Anyway, back to my paper

AK (29 days left)

ONE MONTH REMAINING

Hi,

I am only in Freiburg for one more month. Absolutely insane. I can't believe anything anymore.

The worst part right now is that I am slightly double homesick. Has that ever happened to anyone else? I want to go home sometimes, but I don't actually want to be there. I want to leave Freiburg sometimes, but I don't actually want to leave. It's a strange sensation that quite frankly, makes no sense at all. I guess I want to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

So what am I doing in my last month here? Writing my essay. That's my goal. I have a 12-15 page paper to write before I leave in 30 days. I started yesterday, only 11-14 pages to go! It's a slow process, but gotta work hard now that time is up.

I am stealing an idea from a newly-formed friend of mine who has her own blog. I am going to post small tiny things multiple times a week up until I leave.

In that case, today is July 4th!!! U S A! U S A!
To celebrate, I ate lunch at Subway. Yummy.

Trying to keep it short and sweet

AK (30 days left)

I am a terrible person. (Part 1)

The title of this post says it all.

In reality, I am just a terrible blogger.

I realize that I am about a two months behind on posts about my whereabouts. When you've done as much traveling as I did in this period of time, you just get caught up not blogging. Or maybe I just got too lazy. For your sake, let's go with the former. I started writing a blog post about my travels to Hamburg. I got about halfway done....3 weeks ago, and somehow I never finished it. I think the amount of time it takes for me to upload all the pictures and write my entire stories out hinders me from keeping up.

We all know that my blog is better than others because of my depth of story and incredible wit. That's why I have readers in Brazil, Switzerland, Luxembourg (AWESOME!!!), Thailand, Mongolia, Italy, Norway and Russia...JUST THIS WEEK.

So what have I been doing instead of blogging...

I won't go into my normal depth because it will take me three weeks just to write everything. I do want to be able to move back to the future, or do I mean present. Whatever.

I went to Hamburg in early March and toured the city. I fell in love with the different districts and the general feel to the place. I went to the infamous Reeperbahn, the red light district. I haven't been to Amsterdam, but I have heard the Reeperbahn is similar but smaller.

I also attended a concert by the band Yuck. They aren't a huge indie band...yet, but the show was incredible and I spoke with the drummer and guitarist after the show. A friend of mine, Jordan Platt was roommates with the drummer in Israel during their gap year. It was a great time and my ears rang for 3 days afterward.

One city district in particular that is a must-see is St. Pauli. Made famous by the Beatles (yes, those Beatles) and the Reeperbahn, St. Pauli is the rebellious district in the western part of the city. It is home to pirates and rowdy soccer fans (A few weeks ago, a fan threw a full cup of beer at the linesman at the 88th minute of a game against Schalke. The head referee decided to call the game thereafter, and FC St. Pauli had to play their next home game with no fans in the stands.)

I got back to Freiburg and enjoyed another Shabbat dinner at the Amitai's beautiful house. The food was insanely good. I refuse to describe it right now because it is Passover.

March 10th began my next journey. I took a 10 hour train from Freiburg to Vienna to visit Max 1. Altogether it took about 12 hours to get there with delays and missed connections. I also broke my headphone cable getting off my final train of the day. Luckily, I could buy a new one in Vienna.

I spent five wild days with Max 1. We experimented with coffee, met with some of his friends and did a few touristy things, but not too many. That isn't our style (This comment is for Max 1). We went to the extremely wide Danube River and took some cool pictures.

Here is an artsy one of him:

One of my favorite things in Vienna is the Naschmarkt. It is an open-air market with a large Arabic influence. You can buy several "flavors" of hummus to go with your falafel (2 Euros for 20 pieces and 5 for 50). I tried the Wasabi hummus and it was quite delicious and great for vegetarians like Max 1.

After my five days there, I ventured into the semi-unknown, Budapest. I had been there once before in 2007 but only for one day. I was going there to see some friends from AEPi and UT. I decided to spend 5 days there as well. I booked a hostel for a very cheap price, but only ended up using it as a storage locker for my stuff. I met up with the group of friends who were on an alternative Spring Break trip. They did stuff in the community during the day and we met up to go out at night.

I traveled around the city seeing different things while they were busy. I went to the Hungarian National History Museum...which was overwhelmingly exciting, but I really did enjoy my time in eastern Europe. Beside the rain, I had no complaints about it. I also accidentally ended up at an anti-Semitic fascist party rally in downtown Budapest... to be fair, I didn't understand what they were saying or where I was.

Stupid Fascists....and me

THE TWO BEST THINGS ABOUT BUDAPEST ARE: Escalators and Subway Doors

The escalators in Budapest subway stations move 5 times the speed of normal escalators. They are really really long and so fast. You have to concentrate very hard to get on one without falling. I found them to be fun and amusing. The subway car doors slam like a butcher cutting a slab of meat: fast, hard and with conviction. I always made sure to get on right as the doors open because if you get caught in the door....well, I don't want to know what happens.

One really cool thing that happened in Budapest was running into a girl I went to high school with that I hadn't seen or talked to in two and a half years. It wasn't completely a coincidence since we were looking for the same people, but the timing was insane. We ended up having a hard time finding the people we were looking for and ended up catching up. She is studying this semester in Vienna (kinda jealous since I love that city too).

I ended this journey by taking the ICE from Budapest back to Freiburg. Yes, it was a long 13 hours, but I watched American Gangster with Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington and Josh Brolin. Good movie.

I spent one full day at home in Freiburg. I played a little bit of soccer since I hadn't in 10 days and the weather was finally getting nice. The next day was the start of the end of my European adventures for the time being.

I will be adding a second part to my I am a terrible person. catch-up post. I will be talking about my lengthened trip to Esbjerg, Denmark and my two weeks in Israel/Jordan.

If you are still reading my blog at this point, thank you very much for the support. School starts up again in a week. Life will get back to normal. I hope to stay consistent in my future posts and I need to finish planning my trip in June to London.

AK

My Time Between Benelux-Germany and Hamburg

I got back from dropping Zach off in Frankfurt on Sunday, February 13^th. We had spent a whole day in Frankfurt, which was very nice. In the grand scheme of things that I include on my blog, Frankfurt was not worth its own blog post. We went to a soccer match, saw Goethe’s house and ate some crazy good food (Frankfurter Grünesoße).

February 13^th left me with exactly one week until Tobias went back to Australia. Being gone for two weeks may have been a little unfair, but unfortunately, there was no other good timing for my previous trip.

On Monday, we played our usual basketball at the university sport hall, but for the last time together. Of course, we whooped the other teams.

On Tuesday, we went to an Eis Hockey game (That’s ice hockey in German). The EHC (That’s Eis Hockey Club) Freiburg Wölves were playing against the Ravensburg Towerstars (yeah, terrible name). The tickets were pretty cheap so we got standing places and enjoyed the game.

Freiburg started out very well, scoring two goals in the first period to take a 2-0 lead. It wouldn’t last long, as Ravensburg knotted it at 2 during the third period. At 2-2, the game went to a rather exciting 5-minute overtime. Neither team managed a goal, so the game was to be decided in the shootout.

Freiburg managed to stop the first shot and score their own, to take the advantage early. After both teams scored in the second of three rounds, Freiburg took the win by stopping the third attempt by Ravensburg.

I have always wanted to see a shootout at a hockey game. It was pretty cool and tense as well.

The weather was starting to get nice. I took to the Fußball pitch outside with some of the other lads. We are finally playing outside again on more than just Sundays. It is still a bit cold, so it still depends on the weather a little bit.

On Thursday (February 17^th), I cooked spaghetti (like every single day I have spent in Freiburg), but this time for Tobias and I. He was struggling and rushing to finish his essays to turn in before he left. Because of his work, we weren’t able to complete all the things on his “bucket list.”

Friday was his going away party. He and his roommates made Spätzle from scratch. Spätzle are these typical german noodles that short and thick. I think they are made of wheat, but I’m not too sure. I usually just cook spaghetti. I went over to his place and ate some dinner.

Afterward, I threw down all my Mario Kart skills on his roommates. They have the Wii version, but I still managed to win 98% of the races I drove in. That is quite a small exaggeration. It was more like 100%. But actually, it wasn’t that competitive and we all had a fun time.

We said our goodbyes and he flew home on Sunday. Life in Freiburg is definitely different without my partner in crime. I am taking new applications though. You have to like soccer or basketball, be willing to put up with me, speak German and like to do random things. I haven’t received any applications so far.

Fast forward about a week and I receive a facebook message from someone that has Zach (from all my other posts) as a mutual friend. His name is Seth and he explained how he was in Freiburg studying this semester. He told me he had read a blog post of mine in which I talked about not being involved in enough Jewish “things” in Freiburg. Seth told me about this Jewish family in Freiburg that hosts students for Friday night Shabbat dinner if they are in town.

This sounded awesome, so I emailed the mother and she saved a place for me. I met Seth (for the first time at this point) at the Straßenbahn station close to the house. We walked from there and I met the world famous Uschi Amitai. Apparently, she has been hosting Shabbat dinners for students for many years. She told me a story about two college students in the US meeting for the first time in their lives, but having something already in common; both had eaten Shabbat dinner at Uschi’s house in Freiburg.

I stayed for about 4 hours.

There was so much delicious food and nice people. After dinner, we talked for a long time about random things in English, German and Hebrew (well, I didn’t speak Hebrew). Upon leaving, I said I would try to make it back the next week, but I wasn’t sure if I would be arriving back from Hamburg in time. Uschi told me to tell her by Thursday afternoon. I would try my best.

My time between February 26^th and March 1^st was spent organizing plans for trips and trying to memorize songs from the band Yuck before I was to see them live in concert in Hamburg.

Thanks for reading my significantly shorter post than the previous few. I am on a train from Vienna (after an extremely fun and cool 4 days with Max 1) to Budapest to meet some friends who are spending their spring break helping the Jewish community.

Bis dann (Until then),

Adam

Benelux-Germany Trip Series - Munich (Part 4)

Hi,

I first want to say I’m sorry that I haven’t finished all my Benelux-Germany blog posts yet. I was too busy #WINNING. But seriously, Charlie Sheen doesn’t apologize to anybody, so neither do I. I’ve got Tigerblood going through my veins, so it’s time to get down to business.

We left off last time with a specific number in mind, 220. I will get to that in a second. Zach and I find our sleeper car in Berlin that will deposit us in Munich around 7:30 AM. At first, there is barely anyone in our car, so we kind of just chill for a while. A South Korean kid about our age gets on and I start talking to him. For some reason, he decides to give me some Korean and Chinese currency as a souvenir. I told Zach to pull out his wallet and give the kid a dollar. After having to pay Zach to give me the dollar bill to give to the kid, we all split some Reece’s peanut butter cups and eventually went to sleep.

Zach set an alarm for 6:45 AM, so we could wake up and have enough time to get ready before we had to get off the train. Usually, the conductor will come by wake you up in the morning, but we wanted to make sure. Come 6:45 Zach’s alarm goes off, but the conductor is nowhere in sight….

After getting dressed and brushing our teeth, I hear over the loudspeaker in German that our train has a delay of 220 minutes. That’s almost 4 hours, which is absolutely ridiculous for a train ride in between Munich and Berlin (which generally only takes 5 or so). They gave us some connections to Munich via Wurzburg as to save time.

Finally, we arrive in Munich around 11:00, which seriously hinders our plans for the day. We get to the city center right in time to hear the Glockenspiel at the Neues Rathaus (new town hall) play. We also went to the top of the town hall to get a great view of the city, as well as climbed the 297 stairs to the top of Old Peter’s Tower to get a similar view.

Neues Rathaus

Frauenkirche from Neues Rathaus

North of Neues Rathaus

Neues Rathaus from the Alte Peter Tower

I want to preface the rest of this post with a little refresher course in my Munich experience. In the summer of 2005, I took part in a small exchange program in the area of Munich. I saw all the sights, ate all the food, drank all the beer, and had a great experience in the city. In the summer of 2008, I did the same exact thing again. We did a few different activities around the city, but things didn’t change that much.

Come 2011, I am a better tour guide than tourist in Munich. Maybe I don’t remember the history of all the old buildings, but I do know where they are. Being in Munich trying to be a tourist is not a normal role anymore. Showing Zach all of the cool things about my favorite city was fun, but doing the same things for the 3^rd or sometimes more time isn’t as exciting.

Nonetheless, we strolled around the city a little and grabbed a bite to eat for lunch at the Viktualienmarkt. This open-air food market has traditional Bavarian eats and beer that the city prides itself in.

We found ourselves in quite the rush to get over to a landmark that holds a special place in my heart. It isn’t so much a landmark as it is an important religious site for me. No, it’s not a synagogue…

ALLIANZ ARENA!!!

It’s ALLIANZ ARENA! Home of FC Bayern Munich, the Fußball (soccer) team I obsess over, Allianz Arena hosts 69,000 fans every weekend. Zach and I scheduled a tour (something I have already done, but wouldn’t mind doing everyday for the rest of my life) into our plans at 1 PM. It takes quite a while to get there from the city center and I was pretty worried we wouldn’t in time. As soon as we get off the train, I dash over to the stadium and try to buy us tickets, while Zach nonchalantly moseys on behind me. I go up the wrong staircase and have to make my way over to the correct entrance. At this point, lazy Zach has caught up and we make it to the counter in time for the tour.

Your's truly near the field

Changing Room

Media Background for post-game interviews

After the tour came the thing I anticipated most about our entire trip, the fan shop. The FC Bayern fan shop is where you can get everything FCB that you could ever dream of. I could spend days in there and they do even have small food items, so I could probably live there. I limited myself to just buying a personalized goalie jersey, a soccer scarf with my favorite player’s face on it, a car sticker, coasters and a keychain/bottle opener. My wallet left the store relatively unscathed compared to what I was prepared to purchase before I walked in.

From there, we struggled to find the Oktoberfest and Beer museum. After finding it just in time, we learned about the major breweries of Munich. Today, most of them have merged and now the Big 6 stake a claim as the best beer in Munich and perhaps (definitely, in my opinion) the best beer in Germany (or even further, the world). They have old mugs and items from Oktoberfests of the past.

Afterward, we went to the train station, got our things from the locker and checked into the hostel. We found a chic Italian place, which had quite a long wait, but was definitely worth it. From there, we caught up a little bit from the time lost in the morning,. We went by a few of the old churches and the university, LMU.

Ludwig Maximilian Universität is known for the original White Rose Society. During World War II, a group of students printed anti-Nazi fliers and handed them out around campus. Famously, they threw their fliers off a balcony at the University, only to found out and turned in to the Nazis by a janitor. They were tried and executed within the same day. Sophie Scholl, her brother and the other students now have a memorial at the school and are praised for their resistance to Nazism. They were also mentioned at the German Resistance Museum in Berlin that we saw a few days prior.

White Rose Papers

White Rose Papers

We went to sleep in preparation for another long day.

Waking up early was the most effective way of getting everything done. Our second day in Munich was no exception. We hit S-Bahn around 7:30 to get to Dachau, a concentration camp turned memorial and museum.

Upon arrival, we got an audio guide and took to walking around on our own. Concentration camps are obviously very somber places for all people, but Dachau no longer incites those feelings for me. Going there for a 3^rd time made me apathetic to the exhibition itself, but obviously not to the Holocaust in general. I don’t want to detract from the place, so if you want to go see what a concentration camp is like, I definitely think Dachau is a place of note.

I didn’t take any pictures there. I decided I had enough from there already and that it is a place I will always have a clear mental image of.

From Dachau, we moved on to our tour of the BMW plant in Munich. I had done this back in 2008, but I decided it was worth it to take Zach and do it again. How often do you get to see the production of luxury cars? Unfortunately and expectedly, pictures are not allowed of the factory. I swear that I had the same exact tour guide back in 2008 the first time. Afterward, I asked him if he had been doing the tours that long and he said yes.

We walked around the rest of the BMW Welt (BMW World), the business center and showroom of everything BMW. There are a few cool games and driving simulators. The best part of the building is the architecture itself. Here is what it looks like:

Inside BMW Welt

A classic BMW

Just nearby to BMW Welt is the Olympic Park from the 1972 summer games. The stadium and surrounding areas function as places for daily sporting activities. The TV Tower has an outside deck and a rather expensive restaurant. We went to the observation deck and snapped some shots. If you zoom in a lot to some of the pictures, you can see Allianz Arena.

BMW Welt (left) and the Headquarters Building (middle) from the Olympic TV Tower

Allianz Arena from the TV Tower

Back to the hostel we went. I asked the lady at the front desk for a suggestion for Chinese food in the area and she gave us a good place. Dinner was delicious and they have this deal (which we didn’t get) for 12,90 all you can eat sushi on this platter they bring to your table. This group of 6 people next to us ordered it. A few minutes later, I see on their table two huge platters full of sushi rolls and other assorted fish and rice. It had to be at least 250 pieces. The whole thing looked absolutely ridiculous and insane. I should have snapped a photo of it.

Back at the hostel, we tuned in to coverage of Hosseni Mubarak speaking to the Egyptian people. Our TV had CNN so we watched that. My oh my, CNN had possibly the worst commentating and reporting I have ever seen. I had no idea what actually happened until I went online later. Mubarak said he wasn’t stepping down that night, but by the time we would get back to Freiburg, he was gone.

Again, we knew we had to be up early again, so early into bed again.

The main difference between our time spent in Munich and our time spent in Berlin was that we really never spent more than 2 hours at the same place in Berlin. In Munich, we were doing tours and activities that lasted quite a while longer. Our final day in Munich was no exception.

We boarded the S-Bahn en route to Andechs Brauerei (Brewery). Once you get off the train, you take a 4 km hike through the forest to the monastery and brewery. There was a threat of rain, which made the hike pretty risky. We waited an hour for the bus instead, and decided meanwhile to check out the beautiful Ammersee.

Ammersee (SW of Munich)

We get to Andechs pretty early in the morning, quite the inappropriate time of day to drink beer. We walked around, peered inside the monastery and went to the gift shop, which is pretty much filled with Christian keepsakes (no thanks).

The Andechs Monastery

Eventually, the restaurant opened and we grabbed lunch and beer. I started with a liter of Weißbier (translated to “White” beer, but refers to the use of wheat in fermentation)

Andechs Weißbier

After trying a half-liter of the Doppelback Dunkel (strong dark beer), I capped my drinking off with an additional half-liter of Weißbier. We were done…but still had a museum to see in the afternoon??? Oh god.

Zach passed out as soon as we got on the S-Bahn back to the main part of town and I drifted in and out of consciousness during the hour ride. The Deutsches Museum is a world-renown science museum with spectacular fighter plane, U-Boat and Nanotechnology exhibits. Having arrived at 4 PM, the info desk lady tipped me off about not security not checking tickets at the gate after 4. We “snuck” in and spent the last open hour of the museum checking these exhibits out. Definitely a place to go to if you have even the slightest interest in history or science.

Not having much time before our train to Freiburg, we hit up the same Asian restaurant as the night before (delicious again) and ate quickly. We said goodbye to my favorite city and were off into the night…

And so ends my Benelux-Germany Trip Series. The good news is I am travelling a lot more right now. I have already travelled to Hamburg for a few days last week and am currently on a train (11:00 AM CET, Thursday, March 10, 2011) en route to Vienna via Nurnberg to visit Max 1. After a few days there, I will be visiting some friends on an alternative Spring Break trip to Budapest. Finally, my current travels will end in Esbjerg, Denmark on March 25^th, on my trip to the Women’s World Curling Championships. I am really excited about everything coming up in the next two weeks (ESPECIALLY CURLING and Madeleine Dupont).

I will also include a small post about what I have been doing in Freiburg since coming back from Benelux-Germany. My weekly routine has changed for the better I would say, with a few new things in my life.

Adam

Benelux-Germany Trip Series: Berlin (Part 3)

Hi again,

I don’t even know where to begin. We spent 4 days in Berlin doing as much as possible while we were there. In such a historical city with such a high importance in the 20^th century, you have to divide and conquer; something we tried to do.

I guess I can start with the train ride to Berlin. We left Brussels around 10 PM, and for the first time, I was to experience a sleeper car. 6 tiny beds compacted into a small room made for an interesting night of sleep. I kept feeling the stopping and starting of the train throughout the night. I almost fell out of my bed a few times too.

We arrived at the train station at 4:30 AM. Yes, I said 4:30 AM. Not really the time of day I like starting at, but I really had no choice. I changed clothes and tried to wake up, but nothing was even open for breakfast yet. After waiting in the train station for several hours, Zach and I ventured out to the Reichstag, Tierpark, Victory Column and Embassy row. 

Reichstag at 8 AM

Siegessaüle (Victory Column)

Egyptian Embassy (During the protests and revolution)

We walked through the part of the southern area of the main city for a while. We found the residency of the German president, as well as the building in which Operation Valkyrie, an assassination attempt on Hitler and coup on the National Socialists, was planned.

There was a memorial to the people involved in the plot as well as a museum of Nazi Resistance with artifacts and records of the plots. The main conspirator, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who was portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 2008 film, Valkyrie, and his co-conspirators were actually executed in the courtyard of the building. The exhibit was quite cool, but artifacts were all in German, a little tough for non-speakers and myself.

"Here died for Germany on July 20th, 1944...." at the planning site of Operation Valkyrie

We grabbed a quick bite to eat near the Jewish Museum. It is grandiose and huge and modern and abstract. I really liked the bottom floor. It was very stunning. The upstairs portion was well designed too, but even to a Jew, it was too much to take in.

Around 3 PM, we went in search for a bar or restaurant to watch FC Bayern and other German soccer matches. The place we saw first and decided to go to was a Turkish place, in which we were the only two white people there. It was very smoky, but sufficed. Everything was great until Bayern decided to blow a 2-0 lead and lost to Cologne 3-2.

That was pretty much our Saturday. Not sure if I explained this before, but our best friends on the trip were the lockers at the train stations. For 5 Euros a day, we could leave our things safe until check in time at our hostel. Generally, we would go get our stuff late in the day and check in at night, making the lockers invaluable to us.

We got our stuff from the Hauptbahnhof, made it to the hostel in the rain and got some delicious Italian food. That was just the first day…

We woke up early and determined to accomplish a lot because of our time wasted during the day before watching soccer. However, we didn’t seem to get as much done on Sunday, as we had wanted to.

We went to Museemsinsel (Museum Island) to go to 3 of the 5 museums there. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to fit in one of those because we also visited the German History museum. We would have to save the Pergamon museum for Tuesday because museums are closed on Mondays.

At the history museum, we went through the Hitler exhibit, something that used to be completely taboo for Germans. I would say it was very well done and very thought provoking. The Neues museum, filled with Egyptian artifacts, was also really cool. I’m not a huge fan of ancient history, but it was still nice to see. The third museum we saw was the Old National Gallery, which was very cool.

German History Museum

Zach’s favorite artist, Caspar David Friedrich, was featured in a hall there, so we had to see it. We saw some realism and impressionism galleries. I was glad to spend a rainy day indoors seeing great works of art.

Our plans of doing anything else productive were shot. Liverpool FC was to play Chelsea in a very important match. We went to an Irish pub and barely found a table. We were there from 4-6 and ate a really early dinner consisting of potato wedges and nachos (not really the best thing). There was something else going on at the bar that night. I am trying to remember what it was…oh yeah, THE SUPER BOWL!!! No big deal

Hours later, we walked back to the pub to try to get a table. Again, it was already pretty crowded (11:30 PM for a 12:30 start) and we ended up in the same spot as earlier in the day. We met some other Americans there, one kid from Stanford and one from Ohio State.

Because of where my seat was, I actually ended up spending more time talking to some of the people we met, including this German girl that Zach and I would later have conflicting opinions on. (He thought she was a bitch, I thought she was funny) All in all, the game was good and I had a fun time meeting people. Since the game started at 12:30 and it is the super bowl, we ended up leaving the pub around 4:30 AM. It wasn’t a huge deal, but we decided to sleep in the next day.

Everyday along the trip, we were constantly waking up before 7 AM in order to maximize daylight. So we “slept in” on Monday like I said, but only until 9:30. It turned out to be one of the best days on the trip.

We decided to first go to Checkpoint Charlie and the Topographie des Terrors. The Checkpoint Charlie museum costs 9.50 Euros, so we did the free open-air exhibit. The Topographie des Terrors hosts parts of the Berlin Wall and was on the exact street as the SS administrative buildings. The foundations remained with small plaques explaining which SS building had been there.

Checkpoint Charlie (albeit a reconstructed version)

Where the Berlin Wall stood (near Checkpoint Charlie)

Topography of Terror
(The wall in the middle is the Berlin Wall and underneath is where the SS headquarters were)

From there it’s just a short walk over to Potsdamer Platz. Once a part of desolate East Germany, it now has some of the country’s most modern buildings and stores. The Canadian embassy happened to be right there too for Zach’s edification.

Potsdamer Platz

As we headed north, we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It is a bunch of granite slabs of different heights. Rant: The design is cool, but if you don’t go to the exhibit underneath, which was closed when we went by, you don’t really get the whole message. It turns into a playground for kids and even their parents. Games of hide and go seek can be fun, but this isn’t particularly the most appropriate venue. End of Rant Take a look for yourself!

Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe

US Embassy

We moved on to the Brandenburger Tor and Pariser Platz, which is absolutely incredible and an icon of Cold War and present Germany. We walked from that point all along Unter den Linden (Under the linden trees) seeing the amazing sights and historical buildings. The sun was out for maybe the second time all trip, and the weather was nice. I’m including tons of pictures all along the street. So many historically significant landmarks are along the street that I will only describe them in the annotations of the pictures.

Pariser Platz (Former No Man's Land during Cold War)

Hook 'em Horns at the Brandenburger Tor

Neue Wache (Outside)

Neue Wache (Inside)

Bebelplatz
(Site of the first Nazi book burnings and located directly at Humboldt University)

Humboldt University (Founded in 1810)

St. Hedwig's Cathedral (AKA The Upside Down Teacup)

Gendarmenmarkt
Französische Dom on the left (French Cathedral)
Deutscher Dom on the right (German Cathedral)
Not pictured: Konzerthaus in the middle (Concert House)

Reichstag made of Chocolate
Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers

Berliner Dom (Left) and Fernseher Turm (Right)
(Berlin Cathedral on the Left and TV Tower on the Right)
I did a little bit of photo editing to make this look really cool

It really was an incredible day. After walking around pretty much all day, we went to the DDR Museum. They had so many different nostalgic items from East Germany that you could touch, play with and watch. At times, I felt the museum was a little too juvenile, but for 4 Euros (student price), it was well worth it.

Next was the Rotes Rathaus (Red City hall), Nikolaiviertel (Nicholas Quarter), a part of the old city and the Fernseher Turm (Television Tower) at Alexanderplatz. Let’s just say I appreciated knowing where Alexanderplatz was later on in the night, when I would get lost by myself.

Rotes Rathaus
(Red City Hall)

Alexanderplatz at the base of the TV Tower

Central Time Zone on the World Clock

Central European Time Zone on the World Clock

The look from the top isn’t nearly as cool as the TV tower in Munich because you aren’t outside up there. You are stuck behind windows, which unfortunately have glare at night.

On the way back to Hackescher Markt, where our hostel was, I saw something fall onto the ground. I ran over and saw it was two passports. I ran after the guy I thought they belonged too. He boarded a Straßenbahn (street car) and I got on as well.

I catch up to him and it turns out, they don’t belong to him….what now?

The passports were of the same guy, but one was Israeli and the other Hungarian, as well as an Israeli drivers license. I got off the Straßenbahn at the first stop I was able to. It wasn’t too far away from our hostel and I recognized a few buildings so I walked a familiar way, or so I thought.

I kept going for a while, expecting to run into other familiar buildings; however, I straight up walked all the way to Alexanderplatz. Knowing this is just east of Hackescher Markt, I followed the train path back to our place. Zach had done the right thing in going straight to the hostel and using the phone to call me. We had a plan in place just in case.

We decided not to worry about the passports for now and went to sleep. We would deal with it in the morning and we still had plenty of things to do.

We called Tuesday our “miscellaneous catch-up day.” Since we didn’t have anything formally planned for the day, we spent it doing (almost) everything that we had forgotten or skipped in the day’s prior.

First thing to catch up on was the Reichstag. We had only seen it briefly the first day on the way to the Tierpark. Unfortunately, the dome was closed, so it was impossible to go in without an actual arranged group. I took some really good pictures to make up for it.

Reichstag

Reichstag in full

Our next plan was to see some less modern Jewish parts of the town. We travelled a little bit north of Hackescher Markt to the new synagogue. With its large dome, the new synagogue also boasts a museum of artifacts from before the war and an exhibit about the reconstruction of the building. We went up in the dome, but weren’t allowed to take pictures.

New Synagogue

In the area around the synagogue is the Jewish cemetery, which used to be a school for Jewish boys in the 1800s, but was turned into a holding facility for the Jews of Berlin before being transported to concentration camps. That building was eventually destroyed and the cemetery was formed. Not many of the headstones still remain, but the main purveyor of Jewish life in Berlin before World War II, Moses Mendelsohn’s grave is found there.

Grave of Moses Mendelsohn

In the same area of town is the house of Bertold Brecht, a famous communist writer during the early stages of East Germany’s existence. Before World War II, Brecht fled Germany because he was a dissident of Hitler’s and feared he would be held prisoner. He finally settled in Los Angeles. Interestingly enough, one of the funniest things to watch is his testimony during the McCarthy Trials in the early 50s. With his German accent, he remains adamant that he is not a communist. When socialist East Germany was formed, Brecht moved back to Berlin and began writing more and working at a nearby theater that he opened with his wife.

The Brecht house is one of the coolest places in Berlin because of the magnificent condition that has been kept. Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel lived separated on different floors of the apartment. They fought terribly, but never got divorced. After his death, Weigel kept everything on his floor exactly how he had it.

The same furniture that Brecht kept while he lived there for 3 years had been maintained. His widow even paid for all his books and works to be scanned and archived. For a wife that didn’t get along much with her husband, she seems to understand the importance of his work. She died in the 80s and since then, the house has been a museum and archive of Bertold Brecht’s life.

Just outside of the house is a cemetery, in which Bertold Brecht is buried. He always said that enjoyed looking out his window and seeing a cemetery. It was comforting for him. Unfortunately he died at a relatively young age (56), but they didn’t have to take the body very far.

Grave of Bertold Brecht and Helene Weigel
They are buried just yards from their house

After this great exhibition, we headed back to the Unter den Linden to the Neptune fountain and location of the destroyed former city castle on our way to the Pergamon museum.

Neptunbrunnen (Neptune Fountain)

The Pergamon is an incredible museum with reconstructed walls and columns of the ancient city/fortress of Pergamon. I was walking around inside when I happened to run into the same people we watched the super bowl with. Zach and I had split up at the museum to do our own thing, and it turned into me talking to these two girls instead of really seeing much there. I think I got the gist of the place.

Part of the Great Altar of Pergamon

From the museum island, we decided to hand deliver the passports (yes, those passports) to the Israeli embassy. While we had seen many an embassy in Berlin, the Israelis like to keep a low profile in the city. Their embassy is miles away from the main area of town. We took the U-Bahn and tried to find it from there.

However, we got slightly confused by the names of the train stations and ended up not very close to the embassy. We were going to try to walk it and get there before 5 to hand the passports in. It was a lot further than we thought, so we luckily grabbed a cab and he took us there. Once at the embassy, the guards outside said they couldn’t take the passports from us… which was disappointing.

We hopped on a bus which took us to a U-bahn to one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, KaDeWe. Kaufland des Westens is a signature of Berlin boasting 380,000 different items within 7 floors, the first 5 of which are clothing. The 6^th is the most amazing selection of food items that exists in the world today. The best part of which was THE AMERICAN SECTION!!!!

KaDeWe (Kaufland des Westens)

Just as we were about to leave, I see a display with tons of items imported from the US. Being in Germany for 5 months makes you susceptible to missing certain food items. I got my Reece’s peanut butter cup, Hawaiian punch and buttered popcorn fix satisfied. Other products there include JIF peanut butter, Smucker’s Grape jelly and some Canadian beer brand that Zach got upset seeing in the “American section.” I would have purchased every last thing there had it not cost a fortune.

(I also got to go to the Berlin flagship Adidas store. Blew my mind)

We went back and caught the sleeper train to Munich. In the next blog post, the number 220 will be significant. But until then, thank you for putting up with my long rambling post about Berlin. It may have been the most writing I have ever done in my life (Just kidding Adam’s former English teachers if you are reading this and have not yet had a coronary from all the grammar mistakes). I will certainly have to go back because you can’t do everything in 4 days.

Adam