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