Since I’ve been quiet for so long I decided to put together a concise little geographical representation of my adventures this past summer. It has been, by far, the most fun summer of my life (even with a day job!):

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However, I highly recommend you download a KML overlay to be used in Google Earth here. Make sure to right-click and save as… Then just open it from Google Earth.

Enjoy!

I was in Berlin for four days and four nights near the end of February.  Most cities would not be able to provide four days’ worth of entertainment for your typical 21-year-old American male.  Well, in fact I didn’t cover even close to everything I wanted to.  And this was four days of my ridiculously fast, subway-cruising tourist pace.

My Mom and Dad graciously came to visit me for a week in February, and we made our way from Amsterdam to Osnabrück, Hannover and finally Berlin.  Amsterdam was nice but brief.  The Van Gogh museum was fantastic; I would call it my favorite art museum (and artist) of all that I have seen.  After a single night there we took a train to Osnabrück in the late afternoon.  I was a bit curious as to how we would keep busy in Osnabrück but it actually wasn’t bad; luckily, we claim a few very fine restaurants.  Unfortunately I had a million clerical things to do those last couple of days, so finally leaving Osnabrück was bittersweet yet relieving.  So on Wednesday we drove to Hannover as kind of a pit stop on the way to Berlin.  We didn’t have much time to do anything and just kind of walked around the city for awhile before dinner.

Finally on Thursday we made it to Berlin.  First stop was Checkpoint Charlie and it’s adjacent museum, which was fascinating.  It provided a good, quick history of the city that would end up being supplemented and reinforced several times at the other myriad tourist attractions.  Afterwards we walked to Unter den Linden, the main street of former East Berlin.  This street contains several of Berlin’s many museums and is terminated at one end by Berlin’s icon, the Brandenburg Gate.

At this point it sounds like I’m just going to be retelling each of the touristy things we did in chronological order.  Well, that’s boring so I’ll just hit the high points: 

• That first night we ate at a fantastic authentic Greek restaurant down the street from our hotel.  I forget the name of it, but I do recall everything down to the little detail was great: the gorgeous waitresses, modern decor, delicious fruity wine, fresh baked bread, even the bottled Greek mineral water was very much above average.  My taste buds relished the finest calamari they had ever experienced, and to top it off they provided a complimetary Ouzo shot at the end.  All for under 25 euro apiece.
• Giant, life-size foosball.  Somehow we wandered this huge foosball field complete with about 20 people playing it.  I can’t really describe it; check out the photos.  Needless to say it was awesome.
• The VW dealership had a Bugatti on display.  Not just any Bugatti but a 1001-horsepower V16 exotic supercar.  Needless to say it was awesome.
• "Siegesäule" (victory tower) in the middle of the Tiergarten.  It provides a very nice view of Berlin and it’s surrounded by a massive park making it all the more impressive.  Best of all, entrance was €1.50.  Eat that Eiffel Tower.
• Jewish Memorial.  My pictures don’t really do it justice, you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Several things stood out for me in this city:

• Incredibly varied architecture.  The reunified Berlin is only about 16 years old, yet the city itself is thousands of years old.  The development going on there at the moment is unreal.
• Price.  Food in general was super cheap, arguably half the standard prices of Amsterdam.  Beer was like 2€ a bottle (this is unheard of in a western European city of 1.7 million people)
• Ridiculous nightlife.  Keep reading.

After two nights my parents needed to get back so they could make it to work on Sunday.  I wanted to get on the same flight but it was prohibitively expensive, so I hung around for an extra couple of days to catch a cheap mid-week flight back to the USA.  Naturally, I stayed at a youth hostel for dirt cheap and hung out with a bunch of like-minded traveling international kids.  The first night I met a few kids at the hostel bar and we ended up going out at around midnight.  After wandering around for a while we stumbled upon one of the hundreds of techno clubs of Berlin.  It was big and very open, but at the same time had a bit of a cold atmosphere.  I chalked up the lack of dance floor inhabitants to the fact that it was a sunday.  Eventually we ended up at this reggae club down the street, and it was pretty much the exact opposite of the first club: warm, small, chill, and absolutely packed with people.  Mind you, this was at 4 AM on a sunday night, and there were at least 150 people.  I didn’t make it back to the hostel til after 5 (which, apparently, is early for Berlin).  The next night I kinda took it easy since I had to get up early for my flight, and ended up downstairs at the bar singing karaoke with and to a rather large crowd of Dutch kids.  This reaffirmed my opinion that Dutch people are cool.

The flight home was long and boring, and the initial jet lag really took it out of me.  I was quite depressed near the end, especially when we finally touched down in New Jersey and it was completely clear that my European journey had at last come to a conclusion.  All good things, alas, must eventually come to an end.

Last Friday Kevin and I embarked on our long-envisioned trip to
France.  Kevin had mentioned wanting to go to Normandy to check out the
beaches and museums and whatnot to appease his self-proclaimed "WW2
geek" self; I figured it would be a cool trip, and said "what the
hell."  So after not mentioning it for a few months we decided a
post-finals trip was in order.  In typical Alec fashion, I organized
the logistics for the trip: transportation, accomodation.  We would
both use rail passes and stay in cheap hotels/hostels.  After
discussing the matter with our French friends, we decided to stay in
Caen, probably the largest city in Normandy, and then stay a couple
nights in Paris.  After all, you can’t go to France without visiting
Paris.

Unfortunately we had to take separate trains, since my rail pass didn’t include Benelux (Belgium + the Netherlands + Luxembourg).
He booked a night train, while I couldn’t since I had to go way the
hell down to Frankfurt and then cut over so I wouldn’t go through
Belgium.  This added an extra four hours to the trip, which sucked.
Thirteen hours on three separate trains wastes a good chunk of a day.

At around four PM we rendezvoused in our hotel in Caen, then promptly
took off to check out this castle in the middle of the city.  It was
pretty sweet, and enormous.  The walls were fully intact and the (dry)
moat remained.  Soon thereafter it got dark so we started wandering the
city scouting out restaurants.  After walking around a corner, we saw
this:

Just
in case you had any doubt as to the heritage of my name.  Oh, and a
Brasserie is a type of Restaurant (actually we never quite figured out
what the distinguishment meant).  It even had the space after "La" like
I was taught to spell it.  However it was too expensive for our
tastes so we ended up having dinner near the castle, an exquisitely
delicious three-course meal complete with wine.  I had this
potato-ground sausage concoction and Kevin tried the duck.  Both were
fantastic.  My escargot and sorbet were equally delicious; in fact, I
have never had a finer sorbet in my life.  The hostess even called up a
friend who spoke English so we could have the menu translated.  I
didn’t see this as necessary but Kevin actually wanted to know what he
was eating.  I just assumed anything I ordered would be fantastic.  I
think I would have been right.

The next day we got up early and headed to the car rental place down
the block.  After 20 minutes we were cruising around Caen in a Renault
Twingo.  It was a very basic car, but sufficient.  We had a couple
pastries at a nearby bakery (you haven’t had a real croissant until
you’ve tried a French one, they are amazing).  Afterwards we went to a
WW2 museum, and then took to the highway to the beaches.  Unfortunately
speed limits exist in France so I only pushed the Twingo up to 160 or
so, briefly.  Not driving for four months made me giddy.  It was fun.

So we went beach-hopping for the rest of the afternoon.  It was really
interesting; remnants of most parts of D-Day had been preserved, from
bombed-out fields to German artillery to the artificial port and
bridges constructed by the allies.  Pictures are abound in the photo
album at left.

The next day we took off for Paris.  Our amazing streak of good weather
came to end that day (I had been 4 for 4 with weather in France) and it
ended up being rainy and/or cloudy the entire time we were in Paris.
After adeptly navigating the Metro we found our hostel and checked in.
The hostel was tiny with about 5 floors of rooms, but only 2-3 rooms
per floor.  It was noticeably cramped and our room hadn’t even been
cleaned before we got it.  Whatever, it was cheap.  So we took off for
lunch and to do some sightseeing.  First stop was the Louvre.

The Louvre is one of the, if not the most well-known museum in
the world, and for a reason.  The place is absolutely gigantic.  It
takes up about five city blocks.  However, I wasn’t really that
impressed.  I can only see depictions of Jesus so many times before I’m
bored to tears.  And there was so much to see it was rather
overwhelming.  Somehow I wandered into the Italian wing, which was
noticeably more popular.  I didn’t even know the Mona Lisa was there
until I saw the crowd of people gawking at it.  I was unimpressed: it’s
about the size of a pillow and I had seen a million prints beforehand.
Not sure what the big deal is with that painting. 

Afterwards we checked out the Arc d’Triumphe, this enormous arch built
to celebrate the French revolution.  Surrounding it is the largest
traffic circle I have even seen, with room for about 15 lanes of cars.
Watching the traffic was hilarious since there aren’t any lanes for
cars and about 10 exits on the outside; we witnessed about five
near-accidents in as many minutes.

Next was the Eiffel Tower.  We approached it from the Metro so it
really snuck up on us; when turning a corner it just presented itself
about 100 yards away.  By this time it was dark and the Tower was lit
up spectacularly.  We declined to go up to the top since it costed
11€.  Friggin tourist attractions anyway.  We only basked in the glow
of the Tower for a few minutes since it was cold and raining, and
subsequently headed back to the hostel to watch the Olympics over a few
(overpriced) beers.

Having already seen the main things we wanted to see, we slept in on
Monday.  At around 10 we went to a bakery for some breakfast goodies,
and in the process of ordering I left my wallet on the counter.  I
didn’t notice this until we had left, and started freaking out.  After
a quick deduction of possibilities as to where the hell I had left it,
we went back to the bakery, where the cashier had seen it and
graciously placed it behind the counter.  A string of "Merci"s later,
we hit the Metro again. First stop: cemetery.  "Why the hell would you
go to a cemetery" you ask?  Why, to pay my respects to Jim.  Morrison.
And apparently the guy’s still quite popular, because there were a
couple dozen bouquets of flowers on his grave.  Afterwards we trained
over to the Notre Dame.  It was remarkably similar to the other large
churches I have visited throughout Westerm Europe: large, ornate, and
swarming with tourists.  We didn’t stay long, and after lunch, walked
about 50 blocks to the Musee d’Orsay.  This was actually the museum I
had had in mind when we went to the Louvre, since it has more of the
stuff I’m interested in.  Unfortunately it’s closed on Mondays.  This
pissed me off quite a bit since we had walked for about 40 minutes to
get there, and instead resumed wandering the streets of Paris.  I tired
of this after a few hours and we headed back to the hostel to shoot the
shit with the French bartender and watch more Olypics.  That night
Kevin took off on his night train back to Osna and I hung out with a
few backpacking Aussies and Canadians down at the bar. 

I wasn’t really impressed with Paris; in fact, I enjoyed Caen more.
Maybe it was the weather, maybe the fact that I got to drive a car, or
maybe because it was cheaper and less touristy.  In a broader sense, though, I really liked France, and solidified my outlook on it’s people, cuisine, and appreciation of the finer things in life.  And I can’t get enough of that super sexy French accent.  Yum.

This trip had been envisioned for quite a while…from the first time I looked at a map of Europe and found Osnabrück. Amsterdam is about 3 hours directly west (via train), tantalizingly close to Osnabrück. I decided that if I was ever going to get there for a decent price I would need to organize everything myself, which is exactly what happened. We needed six people to get the group discount (50% off) and managed to spend only 40€ apiece for the train there and back. The group consisted of me, two other Americans, two of our Swedish friends, and a friend from China. Quite worldly.

Having experienced the Netherlands twice now, I can say that it is thus far my favorite country in Europe. Their attitudes towards so many social issues align with my own. Amsterdam is well-known as the most liberal city in the world, and it was quite apparent. Prostitution is legal and regulated by the government, soft drugs are sold in shops, and pornography is almost entirely unrestricted (it’s kind of weird looking for magazines at a newsstand and seeing porno mags on the shelf). This is not to say I indulge in or even recommend such things, I just believe that individuals should have the freedom to do whatever they want to themselves. These policies were adopted for the betterment of Dutch society, and it shows. Amsterdam is a remarkably safe city with hardly a trace of the homelessness that terrorizes with an icy grip of black death the large cities of the US.

On to the adventure. We took off from Osnabrück around 3 PM or so and arrived in Amsterdam in time for dinner (I love trains). Upon leaving the train station I realized I had never looked at the directions to the hostel, just where it was on a map. No worries, I thought, and wandered around for a few blocks. Eventually I bit my pride and asked directions; on the second try we were successful and checked in to our hostel without a hitch. Next we got a bite to eat, then decided it was time to have a coffee or two. Well the coffee ended up being pretty strong (albeit delicious) and the time came to do some wandering. Unbelievably, nobody had the initiative to lead so I took it upon myself to, uh, guide us around the city for a few hours. My sole objective was finding a canal to follow; luckily, that’s not difficult in Amsterdam since just about every other street is parallel to a canal. At this point I was pretty wired from the coffee and almost incapable of meaningful communication, but somehow found our “destination.” The canal took us through part of the red light district (unbelievably surreal!) and at some point we wandered back to the hostel due to Lina’s map-reading skills. There we met up with Kevin who had been unprepared for such caffeinated coffee and went back early. The rest of the night was spent playing foosball, pool, and having a few pints of Heineken at the hostel. At some point we met a couple of coffee-enthusiast Aussies and chatted for awhile.

Saturday was a bit more tame. We had breakfast next door at this restaurant and I had a downright weird “Naturel” omelet with a cup of tea. From there we walked to the Rijks Museum, which had been recommended by an old German dude we were talking to on the train. It was expensive but I was quite impressed with the paintings on display (mostly Rembrandt and his students, all Dutch). Afterwards we got some pizza at a shady back-alley Italian joint and I elected we go to a pub and watch some football (apparently nobody else had any sort of decision-making abilities, so I was appointed “fuhrer” and sole decision-maker). Several pubs on our street were showing English Premier League games so we took a seat and watched Chelsea take on Wigan over a couple pints of Heineken. There we ran into a large group of drunk British arseholes (they seem to be everywhere, there’s even a group in Osnabrück) which started to tick me off. Why come to Amsterdam if you’re so damn intolerant and completely un-chill? After the game we wandered around a bit and found a Chinese restaurant for dinner, where Han ordered us some Chinese specialty. Twelve plates of food later we were ready to dig in. It was damn tasty, but to the flavor of 90€. Afterwards we did some more wandering and eventually ended up hanging around in our increasingly-cooler hostel, playing cards, foosball and pool. Most people were drinking coffee at the other tables, it was pretty late so I couldn’t really figure out why. I wasn’t really thirsty so I decided to have a poorly-crafted coffee-stick instead, and we lounged about until it was time for bed.

Sunday was warmer albeit busy. Han wanted to experience the sex museum, so we did. It was pretty funny, and surprisingly full of actual historic elements. We also wandered about a bit more and did a little shopping before making our way back to the train station. Then we boarded the wrong train (ours was going the same place but two hours later) so the conductor kicked us off in Amersfoort. There we sat around in a coffee/tea shop reading magazines and drinking tea until our train came. The rest of the trip went off without a hitch (well except the unexpected 1.5-hour wait in Bad Bentheim) and we were back in Osnabrück by 930 or so.

It’s sunday afternoon and the snow has diminished to 3-4 inches. I have been told countless times how Osnabrück (and most of Europe for that matter) hardly ever gets snow, and when it does, it melts quickly. Well I am currently witnessing the latter, but the former doesn’t seem so credible. On friday I took a bus east to Wolfsburg to tour VW’s Autostadt there. It had snowed most of thursday night so there were a couple inches already by the time we left. By the time we returned (a 3 hour bus ride turned into 4.5 on the way home) there were 6-8 inches of the stuff. Lord knows I’m no stranger to the white stuff, but apparently the Germans are. Three days later our road still hasn’t been plowed. Apparently their only defense is salt, and lots of it.

About the Autostadt…what I got out of this was a grandiose attempt by VW to sell more of their cars, and their subdivisions’ cars. I did thoroughly enjoy everything, though, and will post pics soon. The Autostadt is this large complex with dozens of different “pavilions” (some built half-underground and covered by a mound of earth), towers, museums, and restaraunts. Each of VW’s subdivisions (Seat, Lamborghini, Audi, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti) had their own pavilion to show off their cars. Think a lot of snazzy architecture, dim lights, lasers, fog machines, and shiny spinning prototype cars. Some were more interesting (Bentley) while others were just downright weird (Audi). I am partial to Audis but was a little disappointed by their presentation. All glitz, little substance.

The most interesting building of the complex was the auto museum. It’s this skinny, 4-5 story glass building showing off both VW and other autos throughout the 20th century. I could have spent all day in there reading about the history, and there were probably 100+ models to guide you through the museum. Naturally, this is where I took most of my photos 🙂

All in all a fairly interesting weekend…stay posted

I’ve done quite a bit of travelling in the past week, going to three cities in the span of seven days. It all started last weekend when I suggested going back to Bremen to see a bit of the city. The Akademische Auslandsamt had organized another trip to go to Bad Iburg, a tiny hamlet fairly close to Osnabrück. I never signed up because I had zero desire to see a place smaller than Osnabrück. So instead, Kevin and I returned to Bremen. After barely missing the train (it left literally 5 seconds after we boarded) we arrived to a nice sunny day in Bremen, one of the three city-states left in Germany.

The day was mostly uneventful, we wandered around and eventually made our way to the Beck’s brewery (it’s freakin huge), but unfortunately all the tours were booked for the day. So, since I had donned by newly purchased Werder Bremen hat, we decided to see if we could catch the game in a pub nearby. After some random wandering we stumbled upon a completely packed Irish pub with several TV projectors. Werder was playing Bayern München for the top spot in the Bundesliga. Unfortunately Werder’s lack of defense killed them again and they ended up losing 3-1. The crowd was noticeably subdued for most of the match.

Last week I had almost zilch homework to do so we ended up going to a bar and/or club every night of the week. On thursday I went with a group of AEGEE’ers (this Europe-wide club promoting European integration) from our Osnabrück chapter to a party across the border in the Netherlands, Enschede to be precise. Unfortunately it was raining so we only hit about 90 mph on the autobahn, but made it there in 1.5 hours or so. I was amazed at the complete lack of border control, you literally just drive across as if entering a different state in the US. At that point I realized Germany would never have a shortage of marijuana or other soft drugs.

The party was initially pretty tame, yet it was interesting being with a bunch of Germans who didn’t speak the native language. AEGEE’s official language is English, though, which made things easier. However the entire party was conducted in Dutch. The facilities were fantastic, at one end a band played and at the other was the bar, dishing out 80 cent beers. Midway through the night the Enschedens decided the crowd wasn’t lively enough and started handing out free beer. The tactic was quite effective, after an hour just about everyone was dancing. It ended up being a fantastic night filled with all sorts of boogeying. However we didn’t get back to Osnabrück until 4 AM, which made friday’s 8 AM class pretty awful.

Since most everyone had devoted the weekend to preparing for/attending the Uni-ball on Saturday (think prom, but a lot cooler) there wasn’t all that much going on in terms of nightlife. I declined to go to the ball since I didn’t have proper attire (I regret not going, it sounded pretty great). So instead Brittany and I headed to Hannover. The day involved wandering around the city and checking out what it had to offer. There were a few art museums I wanted to check out but we never ended up finding them. The city was laden with modern art sculptures which I enjoyed. Overall the day was fairly uneventful. Once again (two Saturdays in a row now) I found myself on a train filled with drunk football hooligans, carrying on and smoking the whole way. I didn’t understand how this had happened, since there weren’t even any games on Saturday, nevertheless there they were. Maybe they forgot there wasn’t a game and just went through the normal Sat. routine, who knows. I have had about enough of their carrying-on, incessant smoking, and general idiocy.

I think further travel will have to involve surveying the night life as well.