Alright, so after my slightly deep ramblings on the Battle of Normandy, let’s shift to battles the Normans have been in: the Battle of Hasting, the 1066 invasion of England, and the most recent time England was successfully overtaken by a foreign power. We saw the Bayeux Tapestry, a football-field long tapestry illustrating the lead-up to and the actual battle of Hastings. I hadn’t known much about it before hand, but the audio tours we took while looking at it, piece by piece, really pulled the whole thing together. It was a lot cooler than I thought it would be, and I should also note that it’s not actually a tapestry but rather a hell of a lot of embroidery. We also made a quick stop in a grocery store, to get some drinks for the night, which leads to all sorts of disaster later. But imagine me now walking through a small French city with two bottles of wine in my purse. Not enjoyable.

Okay, back onto the bus! To Arromanches, a shore town closer to the British and Canadian beaches. We saw a pretty cool 360 degree movie, with a lot of still shots and video from the invasion juxtaposed with modern day scenes of the area. We then visited Mulberry harbor, which was created just for the supplies needed after the invasion. By now we were all pretty burnt out, so we got some ice cream and sat on the promenade for a while.

Now to Bayeux again, where we’ll be staying for the next few nights. So, a run-down of this place. It’s kind of shitty—we have a bathroom in our room, but the sink is the only part that works. In fact, the toilet flushes once and then continues to run for the next 3 days, without flushing ever again. There are only 4 toilets we found in the whole place, which complicates things. It’s mostly our group in the hostel, but there are others. We’re eating dinner there in a weird family-style restaurant…thing. There a giant chess board in courtyard. Oh, and the group before us forgot to turn in their keys and are in Germany now, so we can’t have our rooms for a few hours. Say whaaaaat?

Our dinner was pretty good, and we got to drink some of our professor’s wine, which was nice of him to share. Shortly after this, we all wound up in the courtyard for some chess and wine. Followed by a run to a durum shop for some beers. The night went in much the same way, with people wandering in, contributing liquor, playing chess, starting arguments sometimes. We were out there till about 2, and all pretty far gone—I mean a friend walked into a glass door that was closed and I thought we were on a boat. Craaaazy. To some up these bad decisions, one friend has the quote of the weekend from the next day: “Taylor, your gin makes me hate myself.”

The next morning, many of us woke up still under the influence, which led to really badly timed hangovers later. However, we pushed onward and went to Mont St. Michel, a 13^th century abbey on an island; it doesn’t seem like an island, until the tide comes in. It’s this amazing mix of castle and museum and tourist town, and it was wonderful. I don’t think I’m doing it justice…

The tide comes in from 18 km away and you can no longer just walk up to it then; it's pretty crazy.

After our time there, we went to an apple orchard, which might not sound too exciting, except them make a TON of stuff there--cider, alcoholic cider, this liquor called Calvados, native to the region, and a weird apple spread. The tour was fun, and the cider was really good, but I couldn't even stomach the alcohol after the previous night. It was really acidic too, and I didn't enjoy it, but others apparently did since a ton of people bought stuff to take home. We returned to our hostel for dinner and a much calmer night, which for me included some wanderings around town and chitchat.

Our last day in Normandy was a pretty busy one. We left the hostel that morning and drove to Caen, a city in France that was liberated after Normandy. We went to the Peace Memorial, which was pretty incredible--great exhibits on the build-up to World War II, a lot of cultural stuff on the occupation, and the Cold War. We also saw a great film using a lot of old footage, and it was really moving. I also saw a wedding dress made out of a parachute--like I said, a lot of interesting stuff.

We stopped at the Abbaye aux Hommes church, founded by William the Conqueror; he is, in fact, buried there. The tour guide didn't know English, so his basic French tour coupled with our professor's translation was pretty good. It was really interesting, but we were all exhausted by then.

I won't get into the next few hours, as they're just a horrible traffic jam because the French loves tolls yet don't know how to do them right. There were also awful movies, though there was a parking lot picnic which was pretty sweet.

In the end, the trip was amazing and I'm so glad I went! Now to enjoy my final week in Belgium!

Norman Conquests

By which, of course, I mean our tour group sufficiently overran Normandy and emerged victorious. This wasn’t one of our normal excursions—it was a trip for my history class which we had to pay for ourselves, and though they took good care of us, this was not to be the three-course dinners and bottomless wine bottle to which I’d grown accustomed. It was a four day trip—we had Thursday and Friday the 1^st and 2^nd off for a public holiday—and believe me, there was still more to see even after that time! I have to cheat and look at our itinerary now just to try to write these chronologically…here goes!

Thursday was an early departure, and, as we boarded the bus, it became clear this was not our usual group. Our professor and his professor wife had organized the trip; there were a dozen kids from our program, a few other study abroads, some full time VeCo students, and a ton of graduate students, who ranged from really annoying to mostly good people. It was to be an odd, multilingual group for us. The grad students were all in their 30s and were pretty good for accidentally making you feel bad, since they had disposable income and refined tastes, and we did not. But I’ll get to that.

Normandy is itself a large region of France; its 525 km from Brussels to Bayeux, where our hotel was. I’m not exactly sure what that means in miles, but believe me when I tell you it was a very, very long ride. We stopped at Beauvais, in France, to look at the St. Peter Cathedral—all that’s left of the original structure is its choir. It’s also the tallest gothic structure, I guess in the world—it was even taller, but when it fell apart, the townspeople assumed they had gone as high as God would let them. So the giant choir area has been converted to a church; unfortunately, we entered during services, and apparently Ascension Thursday is a big deal here. Feeling awkward, dozens of us left and engaged in an elaborate coffee-buying scheme to get access to free bathrooms (free refills and free toilets, two of my most missed loves of America!)

From here, we went to Chateau-Gaillard, the ruins of an old French castle. I haven’t gotten pictures up, but you need to see this place; it was obviously well defended in its past, and it was quite a hike to get too. Plus, we were pretty high and could SEE the rain clouds approaching our gathering. We also had a picnic there for the whole group, which had a strange combination of homemade sandwiches (the joys of traveling with someone else’s parents!), vegetables, boxed wine, and fruit. Yummy. We didn’t have much time there, though we encountered our first terrible bathroom of the weekend, a trend which would sadly haunt us our entire trip.

A few hours later, and we’re disembarking at Rouen. You may know Rouen for being the place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. It was a pretty nice city, and had great crepes, but was marred by that rain storm finally catching up with us. At this point, we were supposed to drive to Bayeux; unfortunately, our hostel couldn’t accommodate us, so they worked something out with a pseudo-motel in a small town along the Channel. It was weird being in a legit hotel, with other guests and functioning facilities. Our goal was to get some beer and sit out by the docks, just taking it all in. Instead, every store was closed for the holiday! Think Jersey shore in the off-season. After paying 6 euro for giant beers, we just walked along the pier, which included a few friends climbing up in a makeshift lighthouse—I was terrified of the French Coast Guard finding us and arresting us for reasons I couldn’t translate. After this, we scaled a really muddy hill in the dark to explore an old fortress structure and check out the view of the city. This trek was very worth it, though I could without so many near-death incidents in one night. We left this town in the morning, though we should have stayed—a lot better than the hostel we wound up in later!

Friday was also a really busy day, and really varied in terms of the sights we saw. First we stopped at a German cemetery; of course, allied casualties were not the only ones in the battle of Normandy, and over 21,500 Germans were buried at cemetery de La Cambe. I can’t remember if it was a world war I or II edict, but German soldiers cannot be buried under white crosses; it’s a weird part of the guilt clause. So these headstones were all very dark, in sharp contrast to the American cemetery I had seen earlier, and the one we would see later that day. This was a very brief stop, and from there we went to Isigny-Sainte-Mere, a dairy production…place. Normandy is not just the site of bloody conflicts, but also of dairy products, and Normandy cows are a pretty big deal. I’m not a big fan of gourmet cheese (I live in Europe and still buy their equivalent of kraft singles for all my grilled cheese needs…), but I learned a lot and enjoyed the experience. I had to stop myself from buying a can of whipped cream for the ride; the deliciousness of it would not cancel out the digestive havoc it would wreak. However, a number of people bought cheese with the coupons they gave us and some, stupidly, put them in our overhead compartments on the bus. This was forgotten for about 6 hours, when we all boarded the bus for dinner and couldn’t stand the smell any longer…

We then drove to the actual beaches of Normandy, specifically to the American cemetery, which is built on the grassy land adjacent to Omaha Beach. I’m sure we all know Omaha Beach and Utah Beach were the American beaches of the Normandy invasions; the Brits and Canadians split Sword, Juno, and Gold. Utah had these huge cliffs to scale, but Omaha had the most casualties due to a few logistical failures. Their floating tanks were destroying by the currents, leaving the infantry without artillery cover; on other beaches, this strategy worked fine. Also, bombs were supposed to be dropped on the beach the night before to leave large holes to use for cover, like giant foxholes; sadly, these were misdirected and dropped in fields inland. I hadn’t know any of this before the trip, and after hearing all this, it makes the thousands of deaths all the more sad; however, it also made me wonder how anyone survived it at all. Any family members reading this know Grandpa was discharged from the army before WWII started; I don’t have a personal connection to these events, which in many ways is fine. However, a few of the kids we were traveling with had grandfathers who landed at Normandy; Eric’s grandfather was artillery who landed at Omaha in the second wave of the invasion. I pretty much lived vicariously through his families stories for the weekend. Having seen the American cemetery in Luxembourg, I didn’t spend too much time touring this one; instead, a few of us wandered on the actual beach, which is gorgeous beyond words. The tide was very low then, so we had to go out pretty far to dip our feet in. It’s one of those painful ironies I’ve experienced while being in Europe; so much of the countryside, and the coast, is absolutely beautiful, and you just can’t reconcile it with the horrors that occurred there. During the summer, these beaches are recreational just like all the others; but how many men, from whatever country, died here? Though Omaha doesn’t have the cliffs of Utah, there’s still marshland and a large hill to scale even after surviving the trip across the sound and the landing on the beach. I have so much more respect for the men involved in that invasion, and even the tactical maneuvering behind it. It’s the most well-orchestrated large-scale invasion in history, and its hard to imagine anything else after claiming that title.

[I’m going to leave you guys hanging here—something to mull over. As you can see, this is going to be an extremely long post, so it’s best to do it in sections. Plus, I’m having friends over for dinner and need to get into the kitchen. The weather is incredible here in Brussels, classes are over, and exams haven’t started yet, so it definitely calls for a celebration of sorts.]

Belgium Insanity

A few of us were discussing the insanity that is Belgium on our way back from Belgium class today. How things are so random if you're a visitor, but once you live here, it all becomes part of the charm. And to that end, I want to offer that it is 2:58 Beligum time, and I finished a beer about 10 minutes ago. And I have class in an hour. AND, this beer was given to me, and the rest of the class, as a prize, by a teacher. Something that would never happen in the states. And I drank my beer in the hallway and no one thought it was weird.

I'm also looking down the barrel of a four day weekend, courtesy of Ascension Thursday, and my class trip to Normandy, which I'm pretty psyched about.

So on that slightly buzzed note, I'm off!

Alsace--a little France, a little Germany

This weekend marks our last big group excursion; this means it was paid for by our program (bottomless wine bottle included!) and was most of our group of study abroads. In fact, this was the end of my travel for the most part; next weekend, I have a class trip to Normandy for four days (really exciting, actually), and after the program, I have a few day trips in and around Belgium. But this excursion was our last big group hurrah, until the farewell dinner, and it was well worth the trip.

I’m still not exactly sure what we were going to see—we ambled around the Alsace region of France and the Black Forest region of Germany for three days, looking at wine country and cutesy villages. It was a great tour of areas I wouldn’t have seen on my own, but I don’t feel like we had a central purpose. But, well, that’s okay.

Excursions mean an early start, and our “space bus” left Brussels about quarter to 8 on Friday morning. I forgot to tell my teacher I’d be excused from class, but eh—the general consensus is that most of us have given up on non-essential workload. Anyway, it was a very long ride to Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace. We stopped once for an awkward picnic, but I slept most of the ride; I had a pseudo-stomach bug for the weekend that kept me from feeling top notch. Please note I ate rich local delicacies anyway, but I did in fact feel bad.

Anyway, Strasbourg is a cute little city, without too much to do. Like I said, it’s the capital of the Alsace region; we’re probably all aware of the historical tug of war between Germany and France over Alsace & Lorraine (until this weekend, I didn’t know you could have one without the other!). Strasbourg briefly served as a national capital, when Alsace declared its independence on November 11^th, 1918, as WWI was officially ending. This only lasted about 12 days, but hey, give credit where credit is due.

Our day in Strasbourg was nothing too special; a terrible bus tour followed by a better walking tour. Our guide was really great, and managed to dress up a city that may otherwise be a bit dull. The weather was gorgeous, too, so a few of us took the opportunity to catch some sun sitting on the town square; it was really relaxing to just sit still and enjoy a nice pretzel.

Dinner was quite an affair—we went to this traditional Alsatian restaurant, built into the basement of an old house. There, we drank wine from the region, had an appetizer of tart flambé (which is kind of like a pizza), and had these tremendous main courses. There was, of course, the ice cream and dessert, by which point everyone is either half asleep or half drunk (including our resident director, who was at our table). A large group of us (again, program directors included) decided to go out for a drink, since it was only 10 pm, which led to 20 Americans winding their way through the streets in search of a bar large enough.

When we found one, we didn’t know what to do—Belgium is known for its beer, but what the hell we were going to do in France? To be economically, two friends and I split a bottle of sangria, complete with tiny dishes of fruit. Then a wave of my friends came in, saying the hostel had been boring…so we got more sangria. We were there a very, very long time, with shenanigans ensuing—a saucy French waitress, some sort of hole in the time-space continuum on the way to the bathroom, and a former professor rambling at a group in French for about an hour.

Upon boarding the bus the next morning, most of our group was hungover; a few exceptions were still drunk. This was really promising for the day we had ahead of us. By now, with my hangover and stomach thing, I felt like death. We visited a medieval castle that had been refurbished by Wilhelm in the 19^th century, back when that territory was German. It was fully furnished from the time and meant to serve as a museum. The best part was not realizing how high in the mountains we were until we got to the castle. The view was incredible, as the fog rolled off the mountains.

As we departed the mountain on a sickening roller coaster ride in our space bus, we took in the view; there was a nearby monkey preserve (Monkey Mountain!) but it was just not going to happen. We made our way to a nearby small town, after driving through the vineyards for what felt like forever. We had lunch there, with the meanest sandwich counter man ever (I don’t even speak French, and I can hear the differences between the numbers 1 and 2!) then hung out in a tea room for a while—we were all to exhausted to take in the small town charm. After this, our group made its way down the hill to the beautiful Dopff Winery, where we had a tour (I was pushed into the French group with the promise of translation, to make the groups smaller) and a wine tasting. Maybe they do a special college student tasting—we got to drink our small glasses instead of the spitting out and cleansing of the pallet. At this point, my hangover was gone, proving that alcohol is the cure for that disease. We also got to keep the glasses too, with their logo on it. The wine was all fantastic—as someone who’s been enjoying the occasional 3 euro bottle, this wine was an incredible treat! It was a really nice experience, even if I felt underdressed for the occasion.

After this, we crossed into Germany—if you look at a map, you’ll realize this isn’t really a big deal! It was about an hours drive. We stopped in Freiburg for the evening, which was perhaps my favorite place on this trip. It’s a very small city outside the Black Forest, with a pretty cathedral and good ice cream (cheap!). We took a brief walking tour, and then had dinner at a modern brewhouse. We very rarely go anywhere modern, but this was the kind of place I know the Carolan clan would love. Dinner was also excellent, with mugs of the house beer and a giant leg of pork too difficult for me to fully attack. Since we had to head back to Strasbourg, this was a faster dinner than usual.

We got back to Strasbourg around 10 and decided to go out. This whole night became a big bust, including the 4 euro I paid for a beer. Also, there were skinheads from Lichenstein in our hostel. Oh, and were like 14. And drunk. And weren’t just being annoying but offensive and hostile towards a ton of women in our group. I came downstairs really shaken from it, and as soon as someone asked me what was wrong, I launched into a tirade, resulting in our program directors going upstairs. One of them told them off in German while the other was, I guess, just his muscle. In the end, we had no real serious encounters with them, though I was possibly angrier than any other single instance in my life. This kind of set the ton for the night, which is not worth going in to except to say that we drank and played texas hold ‘em on a boat.

By the next day, everyone’s spirits were much higher. It was kind of a pointless day, spent exploring the German town of Trier. Trier’s big attraction is a roman arch from over 2000 years ago, which has been used and resued throughout the town’s history. It was a nice city and all, but it took as longer to get there then we actually spent there. Also, after 3 days with the people you also have all of your classes with, you kind of want to just get back home. We got in around 8 pm after being stuck in my first Belgian traffic jam.

My cousin Alysssa’s confirmation party was Sunday—I was supposed to be her sponsor and couldn’t, so my mom stepped in. Figuring out the time difference, I decided to call her for her day and talk to whoever else was there. Little did I know that this was apparently an event of Thanksgiving-like proportions, and I was on the phone for 90 minutes talking to family I barely even talk to when I’m in New Jersey! It was good, though it made me a bit homesick.

This week has been a lot of work—I was originally supposed to have a ton of papers in the next 7 days, but some rescheduling was led to the same amount of work spread out much better. So I haven’t completely pulled my hair out yet. I have, though, reached that point in the semester where I just want to be done with school—which is sad, because that’ll mean I’m done with Belgium! But I will be glad to return to the states, which will occur in a month. Get excited!

Bruges

Bruges is a small picturesque town in Belgium, close to the North Sea. Sometimes known as the Venice of the North, thanks to an abundance of canals, it was also recently the setting of Colin Farrell's movie "In Bruges." In case that wasn't obvious. It was also the site of our recent one-day excursion.

Bruges had been hyped to me for a while, even before I got to Belgium, so I went in with pretty high hopes. I'm not sure they were quite met; we didn't really spend too long in the town itself and while our tour was good, I don't feel like I saw a lot of what it had to offer. It was very Ghent-ian, if I may. The weather also didn't help; it was supposed to be fifty, but was instead close to freezing, with intermittent rain storms.

But here's the big deal of the day: the 12 mile bike ride through the Flemish countryside. I was pretty nervous about this; sure, the area is pretty, and flat, but can I ride a bike?? See, I didn't get a bike until I was 9 or 10, and didn't spend much time learning to ride it. There was an embarrassing period involving training meals, and then I only had maybe a summer on it as a normal bike before I outgrew it. So I never really comfortably rode a bike. During my driver's license ordeal, my dad would frequently tell me driving was like riding a bike--you never forgot how to do it. And then he would remember that this was a meaningless metaphor for me.

But the important thing here is not childhood regrets, but rather that I successfully did this entire bike ride without falling! There were some touchy moments: in the populated town square on the wet cobblestone; down the street as a bus silently crept up on me; on the rocky path when I jumped off in time to avoid a fall, mostly out of fear of ending up in the canal. But all in all, things went very well. This was a four hour ride, with over 30 of us in our group, and people were so supportive and kept cheering me on! We did stop for a break and had a beer, which is perhaps a strange choice while out biking. Let me tell you, though, that by the end of this, we all desperately wanted to get back to Bruges for our multi-course program-paid dinner. We were all horrifically sore afterwards, and the bathroom being on the second floor didn't help things!

After dinner, most of the group hoped on the train home, but a dozen of us, our tour guides, and our program directors stayed in town to grab a local beer. It was a pretty low key thing, and we couldn't stay long since the last train left at like 10:30 back to Brussels, but it was a nice night out. I'd like to go back to Bruges to spend some more time exploring, but I don't think that's going to happen this trip. I'd also love to see the countryside when it was actually nice out (though the weather did eventually clear up for us!); however, it'd be nice to see trees blooming again finally!

This weekend: two night program trip to Alsace and the black forest region of Germany. Finally, I can see Alsace for myself and understand why it has been such a hot spot in European territory disputes! I'll come back with a full report.

Self-Improvement Scorecard

Pretty much as long as I've known people who had studied abroad, I've been hearing about how much it changes you. Characteristically, I figured that wouldn't affect me; I've changed a lot during the course of college, it's something you can't avoid, and I kind of figured I'd reached the end of that. It's always hard to see the changes in yourself, but being in this new environment has given me a much better backdrop against which to examine this. It's been almost exactly three months since I first landed at Brussels National Airport and I think it might be about time to examine some of the things that have changed about me, and to think a little bit about the things I'm still eager to get back to.

Food: I eat a much greater variety of things since I've got here. Fun new foods have included goat cheese and rabbit, as well as the raw herring episode, which will never be repeated. I can't afford to cook like a gourmet and certainly not to go out to eat like one, so when we have program-paid dinners, I've learned to appreciate whatever comes with my meal, regardless. I figure, these people make food for a living--I can probably trust what they come up with.

Also on the food note, I find myself cooking better and healthier than before. Not having a microwave has required I learn to cook, for real--I'm using fresh ingredients and new recipes, including trying some combinations of my own. I'm learning that oil can be used for so much more than just cooking, and that measuring cups are in fact for chumps. I've also cut meat out of my diet almost completely for financial reasons; this has led to me searching a lot of vegetarian sites for recipes and to make sure I'm staying healthy. While I'm not swayed enough to make the jump to vegetarianism, it has me thinking a lot more about what I put into my body. Hopefully the healthy trend will keep going at home. I've also remembered to take my vitamin the whole time I've been here.

All this talk about healthy eating brings me to health in general. I've lost about 6 pounds since I got here, but that may be a bit off since I can only estimate based on kilogram conversion. I walk a lot more, including the four flights up to my apartment every day. Since it's gotten warmer here in Brussels, I'm trying to walk more; my 30 minute c-wayommute to school everyday translates to a 45 minute walk, and the walk is often less frustrating. I'm going to try to walk it at least one-way on these nice spring days. It's exercise that has really been lacking from my routine since I graduated high school. It's not very intense, but I feel how tired I am afterwards and know I have to overcome this. Ideally, I'd like to be able to start running again; thanks to my knee and being out of shape, running is incredibly unenjoyable for me. I'd like to overcome at least one of these hurdles.

Also on this note, I'm thinking about yoga. I've tried a yoga class before and didn't love it--perhaps because it WAS so much more taxing on my body than I'd like to admit--but I'm thinking that incorporating a little bit into my day couldn't hurt. At the very least, stretching before and after bed couple really help me sleep. I know when I get home, all the resources I have available will pale in comparison to working and class, but I have to get into the habit now and hope that I can just follow the routine when I get home. I read recently that 50% of skinny people are still considered unhealthy based on their BMI, and I have no doubt that is the case with me. I'm young--there's no reason I shouldn't be healthier.

I think I've also gotten smarter in my time here, if we can look past how egotistical that sounds. I'm more savy in terms of how I act--living in a city will do that for you--but I've also been reading a variety of things I hadn't had time for in my busy life back home. I've really found my passion in women's studies and politics and can often talk circles around people in those areas; I'm learning that focusing on those passions can take me pretty far. I'm also surrounded here by a lot of smart people who LIKE being smart; I have this back home, too, but here we all have the luxury to sit over coffee and actually spend time trying to be intellectuals. It's nice. All of this has led to me being more devoted to my beliefs.

Making friends from a variety of new places has also been good for me; it's no surprise for anyone that Fairfield is lacking in all sorts of diversities. I think it's interesting to look at all the American kids over here and try to figure out how we could all have wound up in Brussels considering what different lives we all come from. It's funny, when you have a familiar group and a familiar environment, you forget what it's like to start all over. I was really pleased it was as hard as I was afraid it would be.

So, I'm feeling better than I have in a while. I've got a great new group of friends here, and hopefully that can hold true when I get home. My relationship has only been improved by being here together. All in all, I've feeling comfortable and confident.

Being here isn't without its pitfalls, of course. To review:

-Money! Not making it, and spending a lot of it, sucks. Not to mention the exchange rate (I initially type that as rape, which may be a more accurate depiction at this point) of $1.60 to a Euro. My last few weeks here have the added pressure of living on a crazy limited budget. Also, I don't yet have a summer job lined up, a fact which is causing no short supply of anxiety.

-Coffee! European coffee still pales in my comparison to what I'm used to back home. I miss coffee being my go to staple: a $2 bottomless cup would have me set for the night! By that token, I miss diners and all our adventures in them. I miss Dunkin, and I miss my tiny little coffee maker all to myself.

-Friends and family. I've been really homesick since spring break; I wish I could see everyone for like a week and then come back to my life over here. Missing Alyssa's confirmation, when I was supposed to be her sponsor, along with Kevin's college choice and other family things, has made me really want to be home. I miss Fairfield friends and New Jersey kids alike. However, I'm so psyched to come home in six weeks and see everyone! I expect to see some tears of gladness, people!

-My wardrobe. This sounds superficial, but I can't afford to buy new over here, and I'm really sick of everything I have here. This especially applies to shoes. Also, with the weather changing, I'm wishing I had more in terms of warm-weather wear.

-Nice weather. Brussels has gotten better lately, but Rome gave me a taste of forbidden fruit. I'm excited to go home, wear skirts and sandals, work on my tan, go to the beach. In short, European adventure or no, it's almost the end of the semester and I'm ready for some summer vacation.

-Language! An Oxfam rep tried to get me to sign up for something the other day; I had headphones on, and though he probably asked me in French, I thought it might be Dutch, especially since I was at the Dutch-speaking campus. Since I didn't know what language he used, I didn't know how to explain that I couldn't speak it. For I mumbled awkwardly and then said Sorry in English, and left. Cause saying "no thanks" in any language would have been so hard...

That's a brief review of how my thoughts have been bouncing around lately. I've loved the travelling, but I think come the end of May, I will be more appreciative of home than ever before!

I've got an appreciation for John Mayer right now--he has a lot of songs about the glamour of something new wearing off. And I've always liked Why Georgie, but here's a snippet of why:

I rent a room and I fill the spaces with
Wood in places to make it feel like home
But all I feel's alone
It might be a quarter life crisis
Or just the stirring in my soul
...
Everybody is just a stranger but
That's the danger in going my own way
I guess it's the price I have to pay
Still "everything happens for a reason"
Is no reason not to ask yourself

If you are living right
Are you living right?

Munchen

Munich, for those of you who just thought it was a funny sounding word I made up. I'm pretty sure my last entry left off with the train ride--the all-night sweat box followed by the journey through the alps I slept through? Excellent, so that brings us to Tuesday, round noon. We had to take the S-bahn to get to our hostel, but had no freakin' clue what this was--we'd heard of the U-Bahn, was I sure the website hadn't said that? Knowing these are very different letters, I assert that what's we needed; the S-bahn is like an above-ground subway (the u-bahn is, of course, Underground), and once we learned this, bought tickets for the week from an agent whose "little bit" of English puts some native speakers to shame.

I was glad we could check into our hostel at that time, because I desperately needed a shower and to stretch my legs before we started our explorations and got some food. We were staying in a 14 person room--intense I know, but cheap!--but it was a former suite, and really was more like two rooms, which helped with the privacy a bit. We all shared one bathroom, which was an issue for me--anytime I had to pee, there was ALWAYS someone in there. But over the few days there, we met an interesting cast of characters and even took the tour with a few of our rommates. It was nice to get in at night and compare notes, where to get a cheap beer, etc.
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After settling in and getting cleaned up, Eric and I wandered into the downtown area. We had no bearings of the city, or a map, so we just wandered and got sandwiches from a little deli type place. I also engaged in some window shopping--most of the stores were the same as we have in Brussels, but I hadn't been in so long! My Converse are still holding out, though after spring break, there are noticeable holes and scuffs; my ballet flats have long outlived their $7 lifespan, but I will continue wearing them (and coloring in scuff marks with a black marker) until their end. Regardless, I thought I'd look into a new pair of "everyday" shoes, and sadly fell in love with a pair. I won't get into details, since they were haunting my dreams and I've only now gotten the image out of my head, but I was almost suckered in by the exchange rate! 19 euros? Sounds like a bargain! Until realizing that means more like 30 USD, and they're not even built to last...this was a sore spot of my trip to Munich, and my financial situation means I cannot possibly by new shoes while I'm here. So if anyone starts calling my Joe Jackson, I shan't be surprised...

Anyway, we wandered around this area, looking at what we thought were important buildings (and they were, we just didn't know WHAT they were). We cooked dinner at the hostel to keep things cheap, after a long strange voyage in search of the elusive ALDI. That evening, we went across the street (literally, though it was quite a bitch since there were tram tracks and you had to walk allll the way down the block to the crosswalk...) to the brewery and bar there. It was a pretty sweet place--nothing like a half liter of beer and homemade pretzel served by a surly own in traditional beer wench attire--to make you really FEEL like you're in Germany. We were there until last call, and this was quite enough for me.

Tuesday was the free tour through the freezing cold and occasional driving rain. It was probably the best way we could have spent the day, though--we did a free tour with this company in Paris too, and they just know such great little facts about the city. We saw the glockenspiel, the hofbrauhaus, and lots of historic places in Munich, especially as it related to the Third Reich. As you might imagine, Hitler is a sensitive subject there, especially since he got his start in Munich. The general opinion is that people are getting more open about it, as everyone who lived through the horrors are getting older and out of the public discourse. So it was interesting, and I'm glad we did it.

Eric and I then got some coffee, to get feeling back in our fingers, and I "read" German-language Glamour. Oh, how I wish someone had english magazines I could thumb through! After this, we went to the city museum and were informed it was free admission. Sweet, why? Oh, because it's under construction and all the good stuff wasn't available. After going through a really freaky exhibit on puppets and amusement park things, which was mostly in German, we wandered across the way to the Third Reich Museum. Here, the item descriptions were also in German, but enough was in English that I could understand. They had a lot of artifacts and reproductions of propaganda, etc, so it was really interesting.

I didn't feel well, so I went back to the hostel to sleep, apparently for two hours. I'd been sick the whole trip, and I think travelling had caught up with me. For dinner, we went to this super trendy young professional restaurant called Gast; it's all rice and pasta, and they make it in front of you; we had a pretty friendly chef, and some delicious food. It was relatively cheap, and so nice to do something different both in terms of the food and where we were. We stayed and had a half liter of beer there; I didn't realize that at our next stop, Hofbrauhaus, you could only order by the liter. So it was big night for me. At Hofbrauhaus, we got see pricey pretzels, chatted a bit with the international group next to us, and then spent a while talking with this mom and her son from Toronto who were travelling Europe for her 50th birthday. By the end (and I mean the end, we closed the place downn), I was a little bit tipsy--like being loud and silly on the S-bhan--but amazingly, not drunk. Thanks, Belgium, for the iron liver.

Thursday was an emotionally draining day. Eric and I took the train to Dachau, which is a charming small city outside of Munich. It also houses the Dachau Concentration Camp, the only one functional during all 12 years of the Third Reich. It was not an extermination camp, though thousands died there; it was built within months of Hitler's move to power as a place for his political opponents. I didn't know what to expect there; most of our day was spent in the incredible museum there, which highlights the story of Dachua and some of its particular prisoners, as well as tells the whole story of the Holocaust. We didn't even get to see it all, because by the end, you just couldn't take in any more information. After this, we spent an hour or two exploring the grounds--the rebuilt bunkers, the administrative buildings, the crematoriums, and the various religious memorials now built there. An additionally level of horro was there, because the camp was used for things AFTER its liberation--Nazi officials awaiting trial were held there; it served as a prisoner for US soldiers convicted of crimes in the area; and in the 1960s, was used to house refugees. All of this played through my mind during our visit, and the sentiment of "never again" was never resounded more strongly in my head. What was most striking for me, and why I think everyone should visit a concentration camp, is understand how it all started, and how there were so many chances to stop it. The violation of civil rights in the beginning of the Third Reich was like nothing ever seen before--no one envisioned it could possibly get worse, so they just dealt with it and hoped it would be over. We all known 12 million were killed in the Holocaust; this is part of the total of 55 million killed as a result of World War II. Think about how different the world would be with those 55 million, all the promise that was lost. It's made me more aware to the current political climate and revived by dedication to the idea that nothing like this can ever be allowed again. We can never allow people's rights to be trampled, assuming it will end there.

Now that I'm off my soap box, the rest of the day: it was pretty sobering and powerful, and its hard to transfer to other things after that. We were, though, pretty hungry, so we grabbed an early dinner at this very authentic place in Dachau. Back at the hostel, we spent the night in, planning the rest of the trip, taking care of registration stuff, etc. Which was okay after that day.

Friday, our last day, we went to Neuschwanstein Castle, which is near Fussen; it's a two hour train ride from Munich, and Fussen is the last stop before you get in Austria. After this, it was a bus ride to the village, then a 40 minute walk up to this fairytale castle. It was built by crazy, crazy Ludwig II who bankrupted his kingdom of Bavaria to build it. He died suspiciously shortly after he moved into it, and it was never finished. The whole thing is an homage to Wagner's operas, and really creepy in that way. However, it WAS gorgeous, especially with the snow. We tried to go to the really scary bridge nearby to check out the view, but it was closed because of the snow, and, already terrified of this bridge, I wasn't about to circumvent that. We stayed in Fussen a bit, having dinner there, and then took the ride back with some American kids studying in Denmark. We meant to go have a drink, but we wound up downtown seeing the sights and enjoying a great street performer.

Back at the hostel, we packed; our flight was at 8:30 the next morning, and we had to leave by 5 am to make it there on time. Since we no longer had a working alarm, I slept (terribly!) for four hours while Eric stayed awake and watched the time. Munich's airport sucked, and we both slept soundly through the flight. We got back to Brussels by 9:30, and home by noon. Since then, I've caught up on my sleep, bought myself food for the apartment again, done a ton of work, and am now looking down the barrel of a Belgian weekend! Going to a friend's house for dinner and a girl's night tonight; tomorrow, program trip to Bruges, which is supposed to be amazing, but will include a 4 hour bike tour. I'm not quite sure I CAN ride a bike, so a full report and an injury update will be sure to follow this week!