more heidelberg + stuttgart

Before heading back to the train station, we ascended the surrounding mountain via tramcar to the Schloss (castle!). I thought the view it offered was more interesting than the inside. A lot was in ruins, and the gardens used to be a lot more built up but now it's just grass. ~my first castle~

It was Dad's birthday.

Inside, there was an apothecary museum. The English signs were not translated very eloquently so it got annoying to read, but apparently someone discovered morphine there. Also we saw the world's largest wine cask (Große Haß!). It was…large. 228,000 liters of wine can fit in there.

Okay, as I'm typing this it is Friday afternoon. I just realized that the above happened yesterday morning, but it feels like at least two days ago. It's because we've been in at least one different city every day for the last seven days, and we get up early and do stuff all day every day. It's going to be a relief to get a routine going in Vienna, in some ways.

About an hour of train travel from Heidelberg to Stuttgart.

We immediately headed out to make my brother's dreams come true via the Porsche Museum. I don't care about cars, but the museum itself was really slick. I do appreciate Porsche more because of it. They had these pads you could stand on which would vibrate and make noises to emulate the feel of sitting in different Porsche vehicles, which I thought was smart. Good design helps everything!

 

Later I ate some very delicious risotto and then apricot chocolate mousse. I did not really like Stuttgart – it is a lot more generic than these other cities, a lot more modern in less nice ways. Although I can't really complain about it, because Stuttgart was one of the cities that got really damaged by bombing in WWII…sorry guys.

another day, another city.

heidelberg

Heidelberg was really pretty and ties with Leuven as my Favorite City So Far. As soon as we got off the train and taxied over to our hotel, it seemed to be more alive than the other places. Lots of young, interesting people walking everywhere. It seemed more artsy, although we didn't really leave the more touristy areas.

We walked around Hauptstraße, which I could compare with Carytown, except the street is 99% pedestrian traffic. This seems to be consistent through most of the cities we've been through – a lot of the main streets/squares are wide and cobblestoned, but there are no cars. Very different from American cities, which are designed around traffic instead of around people.




Heidelberg Universität is the oldest university in Europe, or something, according to my mom. We did a brief tour of the former student jail. It was looked down on if you didn't get thrown in here at least once. Every wall and ceiling was covered in graffiti:




A three legged cat saw us out (this one is for you, June):



For dinner, we ate our first meal of German specialties, which I thought was pretty delicious. I'm still not used to water not being free. The Mineralwasser does taste more pure, though, but I want more free things. We have only seen one water fountain so far.

We walked around a little bit more, and previewed the castle we'd be going to the next day:

köln

Traveling today was one of my least favorite things I've ever done. We left Leuven this morning on the train, aiming for Köln/Cologne in Germany. We had to transfer trains in Luik/Liége, but the one we were trying to get on was BROKEN. So we ended up waiting in the oppressive heat (seriously Belgium what is this) for about 45 minutes for a bus to pick us and the rest of the displaced passengers up and take us to Aachen where we would supposedly catch another train to take us to Köln. Eventually the bus came, which was more like a city bus than a greyhound bus, so everyone was pretty crammed on. Something I've learned in the last few days is that Europe really doesn't do air conditioning, which makes an hour long bus ride down a highway rather awful.

About 30 minutes in, the bus pulled over into a parking lot. It turns out an elderly passenger fainted or something and probably had heat stroke, so we waited outside for another half hour or so for an ambulance to pick her up. …In the end we made it to Köln, slowly but surely. Erik said Americans really like cold blasts of air in their faces, which I guess we do because that sounds like the nicest thing ever right now. Icy cold baths will have to suffice.

As we were getting into Aachen, I became very excited because I realized I can read more German than I thought I could, based on the signs and ads I could make out. This does not mean I don't panic every time someone talks to me. I just keep saying "danke schön", but I think it's worked so far. I can see how the immersion experience is going to make my German a hundred times better in these two months, because it's like practicing/studying every time you go outside! I'm self-conscious about my accent because I have no idea what I sound like to them.

Our hotel is about two blocks away from the Dom cathedral. It is the most amazing building I have ever seen. Pictures don't do it justice, especially not this one because I can't get it all in one frame. Also there's a really ugly modern building blocking the view from the Platz, good job guys. It is one of the few great Gothic cathedrals left unscathed by WWII and it took 600 years to build. It's really dirty right now, but I think that makes it look more awesome, in the literal sense of the word. It's both a design appreciation and a feeling I get when I look at it that makes it so impressive. We are going inside tomorrow, can't wait.



We also went to the Schokolaadmuseum. It was fun, but the chocolate we were given was too…milk-chocolately heavy-sweet. Not that I'm complaining. I am really amused that they sell liquor in the museum shop, albeit chocolate liquor.



At dinner I decided to take advantage of my parents paying for everything + being of legal drinking age in this country + its reputation and order EIN BIER. I got a Weißbier, which is the best beer I have ever tasted! It was embarassingly large, but I got through it.



Köln has a lock bridge. Soooo many locks, so much love.



Even though my German is pretty basic, I'm increasingly excited for living in Vienna and getting better. I've decided that this is too much effort to waste and Europe is too great to just stop/postpone this language study and I'm going to figure out how to register for a 201 class next semester.

brussels

Slightly disappointing, although I attribute that mostly to it being REALLY HOT and REALLY MONDAY, i.e. all art museums are closed (during the summer, too? really???). We saw the Mannequen Pis (a small statue of a little boy peeing, pretty funny if only because…why is this so famous, Belgium?) and ate legit Belgian waffles. Surprisingly crispy. They serve them with lemon juice, which was really good.

The trains getting back were horrible. However, Mary's family brought the day back up by demonstrating a real Belgian meal -- they are about 4 hours long, which gives you some idea about the food. Appetizers of cheese + bread + olive oil + salts, main course (chicken, mashed potatoes with almonds, salad, sthis Belgian cole slaw-esque dish I don't know the name of, etc), dessert (créme brulée), and mojitos (which are apparently All The Rage in Belgium), and it would have gone on even longer if we didn't have to get up early to catch our Köln trains.

brugge

So far, the weirdest thing about this trip is the time adjustment. So in addition to my body thinking it's 16:00 instead of 22:00, the sun doesn't set here until about 22:30. Right now, it looks like 20:00 in Virginia. Basically, I have no idea what time it is, but probably as soon as I lay down I will fall dead asleep.

Today we took the train out to Brugge, about an hour away. It was much more touristy than Leuven, a quality I definitely try to stay away from when traveling. We saw some good stuff, though. I ate a good amount of Belgian specialties, including Freitjes (french fries + mayo. The Belgians are really into this, to the point of having Frituur, restaurants for only this), mussels, and truffles. Expecting to gain weight over (at least) this part of the trip, whatever.

The highlight was climbing 366 stairs in the Belfry of Brugge to a fantastic view of the city. Red roofs forever, and then some windmills:

Tomorrow we're going to Brussels and I am going to eat a Belgian waffle. From what I've seen, the waffle : whipped cream ratio is about 1:1. Belgians really like whipped cream.

first day, leuven.

I now know what jetlag really feels like. Being a student, I'm used to not getting much sleep for periods of time, but this is really weird. It's 19:15 here in Belgium and it should feel like 14:00, but it actually feels like I'm really tired, like 2:00 tired. And I'm not allowed to sleep for like three more hours...but it'll be worth it to get on schedule.

The flight was okay. We disembarked around 8:30 this morning in the Brussels airport and my mom's high school friend Mary picked us up and brought us to her home in a suburb of Leuven. Ever since I got off the plane I kind of really feel like I'm in a parallel universe – so many things are just slightly different. For example, curbs, toilets, light switches, the shape of cars, street lights... and this is only the beginning.

Later we drove out to the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KaU), where Mary's two daughters and daughter's boyfriend go to school. It was pretty beautiful, but abandoned. They told me it's typical for students to go home Friday mornings and come back to school Sunday evenings because living on a campus is much more expensive than in the U.S. This means that they party hard on Thursdays!

Then we went into the actual city part, which I thought was really beautiful but apparently it won an award for "worst architecture". I am just dazed at how effortlessly aesthetically pleasing everything is. Or not so effortless, in terms of the giant Baroque churches that will suddenly appear as you turn a corner. We stopped in a Brauhaus and I drank my first legal alchohol drink - a Kreik (cherry beer), mmmm. Thanks, parents.

This church is ridiculously detailed. It made me a little nauseous to look at. The entire façade is covered in minutely rendered sculptures:

 Here is a typical square (Platz, I think) in Leuven. I guess the squared off roof lining, as seen in the building on the far right, is a common feature in Belgian architecture. It is also rare for the sky to be blue, which apparently gets really depressing in the winter when there's only four hours of daylight.

leaving

Okay, now I can cross this thing off of my frantic to-do list. In four hours, I will be leaving my house for two months. In six hours, I will be boarding a Brussels-bound plane with my family. I have a bunch of stuff to do yet, but it's okay. Hopefully this plane has free internet.

For those of you who have no idea what is happening, which I've found is a lot of you, it is this:
I got an international study grant from VCUarts to study bookmaking in Germany. Since I've only taken one semester (and one month in high school (another story)) of German, I'm taking advantage of the German language study abroad program VCU offers in Vienna, Austria for a month before doing the research.

So, here's my itenerary:
• June 24-28: Belgium with family, staying with family friend
• June 28-July 1: Colonge/Heidelberg/Stuttgart in Germany with family
• July 2-31: Vienna, Austria with study abroad program
• August 1-21: Hamburg/Mainz/Leipzig all alone!

Henceforth, I will refer to places in their German names, e.g. Vienna = Wien. I guess that's important, because at least I didn't know that Vienna is not always called Vienna.

I'll post photos, drawings, and stories here when I can. Tschüss, Freunde!