Living a Movie

[Opening Scene]

Fade in to: Two friends walking through an old, medieval city

Ben: Bruges is a shithole.

Kenna: Bruges is NOT a shithole.

Ben: Bruges IS a shithole.

Kenna: Ben, we've only just got off the f*&king train, can we reserve judgement on Bruges until you've even SEEN the f&*king place?

Bruges, Belgium: April 9th - 13th

For those of you that haven't seen the movie In Bruges, you're missing out. Its excellent, and that exchange above is how the first scene of the movie begins. So, we stepped off the train and naturally started quoting the movie. Of course. That was part of the reason we were going there in the first place, because Kenna had loved the movie so much (I loved it too, but I didn't see it until she showed it to me shortly before our trip). As our tourist map stated in its "Five minute history of Bruges" area, someone calls Bruges a shithole and the tourists come flocking.

Bruges is really NOT a shithole at all. It is a beautiful, old, perfectly preserved medieval city. It is also one of the most touristy places I've ever been in my life. A city is like an ecosystem: there are certain niches that need to be filled for the city to survive, and if they are overfilled then natural selection will take over and weed out the weak. Unfortunately, tourism changes the equation: in Bruges, there was a drastic hypersaturation of restaurants. In any other city, none of them would survive because there are simply too many for any one to do well. In a tourist city, people need places to eat. Thus Bruges provides.

We stepped off the train and made our way over to the north side of town and our hostel, a lovely little place called "Snuffel Backpacker Hostel". It was more of a complex, really, consisting of a couple of different adjacent buildings all connected together. It had a pretty decent bar on the ground floor, through which one had to walk in order to cross the courtyard to the shower building. Other than that journey, which was usually made as the bar was filling up around 10 pm, it was a pretty solid place to stay.

The first evening we were there we got in pretty late. Thus, the first thing we did was go off in search of food. We found food at a wonderful little bar/grill/restaurant entitled "De Hobbit". Win. :) I first encountered the complexity and length of a Belgian beer list here, and didn't really know what to do about it. A word to the wise: Bavaria, and Germany in general, may be known for beer, but it has NOTHING on Belgium. Bayern is more quantity (as in, go in, order a Maß, which means liter, drink it, order another, repeat), whereas Belgium is about variety. Some of the bars we went to, which should really be classified more as 'beer cafes' or 'beer pubs', served upwards of 400-500 different styles and varieties of beers. All of the beers I tried were delicious, but more on this later. Food at De Hobbit was tasty, but nothing exceptional. We then went to the center platz and took artsy pictures of the tower at night, followed by returning to the hostel and passing out with exhaustion from traveling.

The second day we got our start early: up and out and down to the canals in time for the first boat tour at 10 AM. The boat tour, while extremely touristy like the rest of the city, was actually really cool. There are some places in this little medieval city that are far better when seen from the water of the myriad canals that criss-cross the Altstadt. Included in our sightseeing were many places used in the movie, so pictures were naturally captured. These you can see on facebook as soon as I get them up there.

After the boat tour, we climbed the highest tower of the city, the old city bell tower. They still use the bells in there to ring out the time, and it was to the misfortune of our ears that bells rang while we were in the tower. They had some sort of musical instrument set up to play the bells, much as one would play an organ or piano, only instead of pipes/strings the keys control the hammers in bells. The view from up top was wonderful - we could see the entire city, as well as much of the surrounding country. Upon our descent from the tower we decided to search out some lunch.

After lunch, we decided to do some more of the stereotypical touristy things in Bruges: the Groeninge Museum, containing artworks of the 'Flemish Primitives', which is a school of art in the late middle ages/early renaissance, then the old palace (Gruuthuse), then the Church of Our Lady, which has a Michelangelo sculpture within. The Flemish primitives were actually really impressive. I'm not particularly an art aficionado (alright, lets face it, I get bored quickly in art museums), but I found it really cool how the painters were able to capture very realistic hair/clothing textures. The Gruuthuse was underwhelming. What we thought was a Schloss was actually a museum - it WAS the old palace, but had since been turned into a historical museum about human occupation of that area of Belgium. Boring, rather. The church was also slightly underwhelming. It was BEAUTIFUL, of course, and the statue was impressive, but it had totally sold its soul to tourism. I'm not religious, but I think its terrible how all these giant, gorgeous old cathedrals have become completely enthralled by tourism. I don't think that they should stop letting in visitors, but I do think they should enforce quiet and above all allow FREE entry. I think it is terrible how churches force visitors to pay to see most of the inside of a church. Absolutely awful. Ok. Rant over.

Following our tourist afternoon, we went and walked along the outer canal of Bruges, in a park that took the walker around the outskirts of the old city. We saw a couple medieval city gates, the only parts of the city walls to remain standing, as well as a skull mounted on one of the gates to warn of the consequences to traitors. We took our time heading through the park, and during one of our many stops I attempted to teach Kenna how to juggle, using chestnuts. It was difficult to teach with chestnuts. :( There was also a cute little Belgian girl who came running up and wanted to learn - I tried to teach, but she spoke neither English nor German, and its hard to teach without language. Oh well. I juggled in Bruges :)

Dinner that evening was at a local little hole in the wall recommended by a guy at our hostel - it was fantastically delicious. After dining, we returned home for the evening.

Day two began early again with a visit to the Basilica of the Holy Blood. This Basilica claims to have a vial of Jesus' blood that magically becomes liquid every time a certain ceremony is invoked. Naturally, we weren't allowed to see it other than during the ceremony, but the Basilica was really pretty. For those of you who have seen In Bruges, what they call the Basilica of the Holy Blood in the movie is actually NOT the right place - we believe that what is shown is actually the Jerusalem Church, but that has not been confirmed.

After the Basilica was the Lace museum. Bruges, and Flanders in general, has historically been a center of production of Lace. The museum was cool, and showed how lace is made as well as a bunch of impressive examples. After lunch, we meandered through the city, taking our time (and finding incredible Belgian waffle street food) on our way to a local brewery of Bruges, that is called "De Halve Maan." We had a tour of this brewery, as well as samples of their delicious beer :) If any of you have a chance to try it, I recommend the Straffe Hendrik - a tripel beer, darkish, strong and flavorful.

Our well irrigated bodies then found their ways to the diamond museum of Bruges. Belgium was, and to some degree still is, a center of the worlds diamond industry. I believe that it is Antwerp which is one of the largest diamond processing centers in the world. Bruges was a huge economic powerhouse in the medieval period, so before Antwerp it was Bruges that was the center of the diamond industry - hence the so dedicated museum. Lots of shiny things. Lots of history. :)

Finally, we walked through a park - but not just any park. Those of you familiar with the movie will of course remember zee alcoves, zee little nooks und crannies: Konigen Astrid Park. It was very similar to the movie, a beautiful little park, and the blue gazebo was there just as it was in the movie. Unfortunately, the playground was different so we could not re-enact that scene. It was a beautiful day, though, and the park was nice just to hang out for the remainder of the afternoon.

The last two days are, unfortunately, blending together in my mind. Overall, we went to the hospital museum (one of the first hospitals), Benguinage (some sort of nunnery with a cool church and grounds), chocolate museum, frite museum, Konigen Astrid Park (again), and a park with stereotypical windmills. The chocolate museum was cool - it traced the history of chocolate through the perspective of Belgium, being as it is famous for chocolates. Unfortunately, in this museum we ran into some little french children.

Those of you that know me know that I'm not a fan of kids in general, but these kids were little monsters (and it was made worse by the fact that they were speaking french, an unattractive jabbery slurry language). They were loud, running around the whole museum, uncourteous, piggish, and rude. There was a chocolate demonstration (showing how to make pralines, the delicious little filled chocolates that Belgium is famous for), and they crowed the railing and literally pushed people out of the way so they could be up front. They also migrated to the free chocolate like homing beacons even though it was being passed around evenly. The teachers need lessons in keeping control of their brats.

Ok. Back to the awesomeness of Bruges :) Our last evening there we (relatively) splurged on dinner, going to a delicious restaurant where Kenna tried rabbit for the first time, and I had a pretty good steak (along with two delicious glasses of the house-brewed beer). After dinner, we went to a famous beer-bar/cafe/pub type place called 'de Garre,' and hung out there while having their delicious house beer, a 'Tripel de Garre'. Yum.

Our last morning in Bruges, we visited a wonderful farmers market on the main square in order to procure sustinence for our long journey back to Regensburg that afternoon/evening. We found the most delectable cheese: it was a Brie-type cheese, but flavored with wild herbs, garlic, and onion. It was SO good, and spread it on a baguette with a little ham....it was a tasty lunch. :) Our train left Bruges early afternoon, about 1.30, and we began the cross-europe train journey to get back; 8 hours later, we arrived in Regensburg for the night. We decided to do it this way so that we didn't have to spend the entirety of one of our days travelling; not only is it difficult to get an overnight train to Vienna, but we wanted a short time at home to do laundry, repack, and (for me) pick up my computer.

12 hours after we got in, we were right back out: 9.30 in the morning our train left for Wien. Four hours later we alighted in a city that was for a time the political power center of Europe, and is still a major cultural center for the entire world.

Reisen - to travel.

So. I've been away from teh interwebs for the past two weeks for one simple reason - I have had no computer. Why have I had no computer? Because I've been travelling through Germany, Belgium, and Austria. It was ok. Well, more than ok. It was AWESOME. So prepare for a mind-numbingly long series of blog posts as I attempt to regurgitate all of what I did before I forget.

April 5th - 9th: Frankfurt

The first city we visited. I traveled there with two of my friends, Rebecca and Kenna, and we there we met up with two of Rebecca's friends who are also studying abroad. There are some of you that may say "Why Frankfurt? What is there to do in Frankfurt?" Those some of you that may say that are correct - there really isn't much to do in Frankfurt. Still, it served its purpose - a vacation before the trip. We basically spent the 4 and a half days of Frankfurt relaxing. The three of us on my program had just finished writing research papers, and we wanted time to do nothing, thus Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is a city unlike any other I've visited thus far in Germany. It is far more international, far less homogeneous, and felt very much like a large American city. It had lots of street food, lots of markets, lots of parks, and lots people that didn't speak German. Basically our plan was to have to plan; we decided what to do the day before or the day we did it, and most of the times we just spent wandering around the city or hanging out in a park.

As for where we stayed, well....lets just say we weren't in the most savory part of town. About one street away from the train station, and exactly on the street of our hostel, was Frankfurt's small but bustling red light district (yes, prostitution is legal in Germany). This made for both loud nights in the hostel due to street noise one floor below us as well as rather sketchy walks back to the hostel anytime after dark. The hostel we stayed in was actually really nice, though. It had a cool hang-out/bar area on the ground floor, all the rooms were nice, and the bathrooms were well kept. About the only issue with the bathrooms is that the showers didn't have doors or curtains, but that wasn't a huge deal....it just meant one had to be careful with one's gaze upon entering the bathroom lest one be scarred forever.

So, what did we actually do in Frankfurt? Well, thats a difficult question to answer. Not only does it feel like months ago, but we didn't really do all that much. The first day we were there (we got in late afternoon on the 5th) we simply checked in and hung around waiting for Rebecca's friend to arrive. We then met her at the train station and proceeded to explore the city of Frankfurt on foot.

ASIDE: Why I love Europe

Because even in the worst parts of town, such as the area in which we lived in Frankfurt, there are things such as local food markets where one can get fresh, healthy foods at a reasonably low cost. Right outside the hostel, on one of the main pedestrian streets that turned into sketch-heaven at night, we found a really cool food market with stands selling all sorts of artisanal food products, most of them locally made. This includes sausages, wines, breads, cheeses, and and even produce markets. In the bad parts of town in America all one finds are fast food chains and gas station quick-marts.

RETURN TO NARRATION.

After walking through said food market (where I tended to be far more distracted than my travelling companions, even to the point that I had to stop and buy myself a wild boar bratwurst), we walked into and around the center city. We took lots of pictures, obviously, these you can see on facebook. We also walked down around the river, ate dinner at a reasonably quick/cheap pizza joint, and made our way back towards the hostel. We stopped at a bar on the way back to just hang out for a bit, and at this bar one of the primary non-beer drinkers of our small group (I'm talking to you, Kenna) made an interesting find: Schöfferhoffer Wheat beer mixed with grapefruit juice. It may sound disgusting, but it actually doesn't taste bad. It just doesn't taste like beer. We then made an early night of it as we were all exhausted.

The following day started off badly for the two of us not in the VWW program; in their hostel room, apparently one of the roommates snored the entire night, and they got no sleep. Thus, they decided to sleep in while the three of us German students forged out to explore the city on our own that morning. Initially, the plan was to go to the Museum of German film. Unfortunately, that museum was closed for renovations. Subsequently, we decided to check out the museum of applied arts - an interesting choice, as they had a really really cool temporary exhibit on the history of Apple (the computer company) and the history/art of technology such as music players, computers, and cell phones. Its weird to think that the first iPods only came out in something like 2002.

We then explored the Römer (the old town square), the cathedral, and the parts of the city along the river before walking up to the north side of town for lunch. There is a whole drag in Frankfurt full of little cafes and little shops, and we found lunch at a little asian restaurant here. After lunch, we met up with Lena and Jenny (the two other friends of Rebecca) and satisfied a great necessity of life (ice cream) before wandering back down into and around the center city. We then found a park and hung out before dinner, and after dinner wandered back to the hostel where we spent the evening hanging out, playing cards, and generally chilling.

The third day was, if possible, even more chill than the second. We spent the morning at the Frankfurt zoo (childish, I know, but none of us had visited a zoo in years). The afternoon, after lunch at a farmers market wurst stand, was spent enjoying ice cream, the sun, and the myriad of parks in and around Frankfurt. I have come back from this trip with a tan, and at the time was sunburned. Did I go to the beach? No. I went to Frankfurt. It really tells you how pale I am, doesn't it. The late afternoon we spent wandering over towards the opera house, a beautiful structure designed to look old like the original, but was actually flattened during the second world war along with the majority of Frankfurt. Dinner was Thai, actually a pretty tasty meal, and after dinner we went to see the movie "The Fighter" auf Englisch. This entire day, by the way, was the first that I had spent outside entirely in a t-shirt and shorts with no need for long sleeves or long pants. A first for my stay here :D

The fourth day was spent (if possible) even lazier than the third. In the morning we walked to the Stuwwelpeter museum. This is translated as "slovenly peter," and is basically a collection of stories for children to impart morality and obedience. For example, the plot of one of them runs thus: "A little boy constantly refused to eat when his mother told him to eat. Even when she made his favorite foods, he refused to eat. Even when she gave him sweets, she refused to eat. Eventually, he wasted away and died. Nobody mourned his death, because he was a disobedient little boy." I'm glad I wasn't raised on these tales. There is another one where a child who sucks his thumb gets it cut off. Chilling. Our afternoon was spent in the Palmengarten, essentailly a botanical garden, in which we took lots of pictures, saw lots of flowers, had a picnic lunch, and rowed a rowboat around the pond while avoiding nasty, vicious swans. It was enjoyable. Dinner was a nice dinner at a traditional Hessan (Frankfurt is in Hesse, a bundesstaat and its own country until 1871) restaurant.

The final day we woke up late, got lunch, and went our separate ways: Lena to another hotel awaiting her return flight to the UK early the next morning, Rebecca and Jenny to the airport to catch their flight to the UK that day, and Kenna and I proceeded to the train station in order to progress onwards to our next destination: we were soon going to be In Bruges.

Hallochen

Thats a disgustingly cute way of saying "hi" that we've made up. I don't think any Germans actually say it....its like "hey", but with a diminutive.

So I am done with academic pursuits until May 2nd. O_o I'm not gonna lie, it feels pretty awesome to have a month-long brain break (which in German would certainly be one word, Gehirnsferien....I hope it is a real word), especially after just completing a week of incredibly intense academic work. Normal when working on papers its not that bad, because it is mitigated by the fact that you have other work to do - a cross-training effort for your brain, if you like, instead of intense workouts of certain muscle groups. For the past week, I've done nothing productive except for read, write, and think about the Franco-Prussian war. Which, mind you isn't that bad - it is a fascinating subject. However, it is EXHAUSTING to have to be so intensely focused on one thing only, day in, day out, and have it be entirely in a foreign language. Oh well, I sent in my paper this afternoon and I feel pretty good about it.

Now - Break plans! Because I know you are all fascinated.

First: Frankfurt. I'm going with 2 friends, one of whom is meeting 2 of her friends there. We are staying there for four days, during which we will do....something fun, I'm sure. We haven't exactly ironed out the details yet. But its a cool city! One thing I'm going to make sure and do is check out an "eppelwoi" (Apfelwein, or apple wine) tavern that Frankfurt is apparently known for.

Next: Bruges, Belgium. For those of you who have seen the movie In Bruges, thats the place. It will be just two of us going there, and exploring small town Belgium. Apparently, the place is known for Beer, Chocolate, and Lace. Two of the three interest me in a direct, gastronomically beneficial manner, and the third might make a cool gift. There is a neat looking chocolate museum, as well as a whole mess of artisan chocolate shops. Also, there are all sorts of local breweries, and most local pubs serve literally hundreds of local or regional microbrews. :) (PS - If you don't already know me well enough to figure this out, I plan my vacations largely around what and where I eat).

Lastly: Four days in Wien, or Vienna for those of you not lucky enough to speak German. In Wien we have a little bit more of a plan than in Frankfurt, but not much. We will certainly go see the Spanish Riding School dressage horses perform (the really famous white dancing horses). Unfortunately, the opera was sold out. Fortunately, my parents want to go to Wien when they come visit, and the opera is NOT sold out that far in advance. We bought tickets for Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, by Mozart) today. ANYWAY, back to April. We will also, I'm sure, take part in a Wiener tradition of delicious coffee at one of the many coffee houses scattered throughout the city, as well as many of the local pastry delicacies. A non-food related thing that I'm excited about is possibly seeing Schloss Schönbrunn, the seat of the Hapsburg family for many centuries and still contains many treasures of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which was in existence from 962 - 1806. YES I just got that beginning date right! I only just now double-checked it on Wikipedia...yes I'm a nerd. ANYWAY Wien looks awesome. There is a LOT to do there, and we'll only have four days before heading back to Regensburg.

Upon arriving back in Regensburg on the 18th, I have no definite plans for the rest of the month. I know that one of my friends from home who is also studying in Germany is going to come while on a trip with his younger brother and visit for a day (shout out at Thomas and Thane Jones, if either of you happen to read this). There are also discussions afoot (that is such a great word, 'afoot') about going to visit Dachau (the concentration camp outside of Munich) and Neuschwanstein (Ludwig II of Bayern's fairy-tale-esque castle) through day trips, but nothing official. I also wouldn't mind going to Salzburg, as it is so easy to get to from Regensburg.

So. Now I think it is time I bid you Adieu, as I won't be posting for the next two weeks or so. I won't have my computer with me, so I get to be cut off from the world for a lengthy period of time! Yay!

Anyway. I hope all of you back in America are writhing with jealousy. I promise I'll take lots of pictures for you.

Tschau!