Im Baaaaaccckkkkk!

Hey everyone! Sorry again for the hiatus, I was really down for the count for a while there. I have since gone to a doctor and received antibiotics, which, from what I hear, they do not give out as frequently as they do in the US. Anyways, Im on the mend. I will get to all that in a later blog, this one is about my amazing trip to Berlin!

The trip started with 9 hour bus ride from Maastricht to Berlin. The bus left at around 12:30am and it was...cozy. Needless to say sleep was infrequent on the trip there. Lack of sleep seemed to become a theme of this trip. European law requires overnight bus drivers to stop every 2 hours for an increasing amount of time. The bus drive seemed to be a very nice man, he didn't speak any english but seem to take joy in the fact that he got to wake us up every two hours. As soon as the bus was stopped he would get on the intercom and say, in a very think accent, something along the lines of "you love to pee!" as which point a few students would stagger off the bus and pay 70 cents to use the bathroom while the bus driver would indulge himself in a smoke and a coffee.

We were famished and exhausted when we got to Berlin and the restaurant where lunch was served was a site for sore eyes. I felt obligated to the schnitzel. When in Rome, right?

As a self proclaimed schnitzel connoisseur it was not the best I have ever had but it certainly hit the spot after the bus ride. After the meal we had a 4 hour tour of Berlin. Berlin is a historians dream. You can just feel the history oozing out of every building, road and monument. Germany has done amazing job addressing the dark spot in their country's history that is WWII and the holocaust. I will show some examples of this later on.

After the tour we were able to go back to our hostel and rest up for a few hours. I knew that I was in Germany when I saw this bad boy in the lobby of our hostel.

It goes without saying that this vending machine has a lot of my 2 euro coins.

A few hours later my group was picked up and taken to the Reichstag building, or the Germany Bundestag, which is the parliament building.

It is such an amazingly historical building. As soon as I saw I remembered the iconic photo of the soviet  soldier waving the flag on the roof showing the fall of Berlin and basically the end of the War. The inside of the building was even more impressive than the outside. There we so many things that stood out to me, but I don't want to bore you guys so ill give you my top 2.

First, the graffiti the Russian soldiers left when they took over they building. And second, the parliament mailbox of Adolf Hitler.

Both were amazing to see, and were great examples of how Germany successfully address that the past happened. Hitler's mailbox was a very emotional thing to see. Our guide told us that they keep everyone's mail box and they did not want to make Hitler an exception.

After this stunning tour of the Bundestag we headed back to the Hostel. I could hear my bed whispering my name. But unfortunately I ran into some friends getting ready to explore Berlin's nightlife, so how could I refuse? 

After a long night out on the town we got up early and were driven to "Museum Island" in Berlin where we went to a Greek museum and Egyptian museum. Both we actually very interesting and informative.

Once we were done at the museums we were able to take a pit stop at Dunkin' Donuts. That was amazing. 

After a few donuts we were given a tour of the memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. It was...depressing. The above ground part is an abstract memorial create by Peter Einseman. It was a powerful thing to walk through and was quite a controversial thing to construct. You can find more info by clicking here. 

I thought the memorial was powerful, but then we were taken downstairs. It consisted of four rooms honoring dead Jews. It was really depressing. 

Once our emotions couldn't take anymore we headed over to the Berlin wall, which at sunset, was quite a majestic site.

Afterwards we went out to a nice traditional German meal of some kind of meat and beer. As always, it was amazing. When we were done eating we once again decided to partake in the Berlin nightlife.

The next morning consisted of a lecture with a German politician and a trip to the Willy Brant Meseum. Mr. Brant was a very famous, important and well loved politician in Germany during the cold war era. He is credited with helping bringing East and West Germany together. After that we went to the Sachsenhaus Concentration Camp. I don't really want to say to much about it. You all have some kind of perception of how bad it was and I can guarantee you it is 100x worse. It is impossible to leave a place like that without shedding a tear. And the Sachsenhaus Concentration Camp wasn't "that bad" of a concentration camp. I can't even imagine. Here are some pics. This is where the SS executed people.

A student asked about the ash on the oven to which our guide responded "Yeah, thats ash from humans."

After this I went a fed a bunny. That made things a little better.

Since it was out last night in Berlin we all decided that we needed to go out. So we did. 

On our last day we went to the Soviet jail which again was just depressing. The phycological torture that political prisoners endured is simple incomprehensible. After the visiting the jail we lounged around Berlin until it was time to load up the bus and drive back to Maastricht. 

Overall it was an amazing trip. Berlin is probably the most interesting city I have ever been to. I would highly recommend everyone go there, but just be ready to have you emotions rocked. 

As always, thanks for reading!

My Apologies

Hey everyone. I want to apologies for the lack of posts since since I returned from Berlin a few days ago. I have been knock on my butt with some kind of illness and I haven't been able to muster up the energy to do much roll over in bed for the past few days. Anyways, I will blog about my amazing Berlin trip in the coming days. My lovely friend Sarah is also on the way to the store to buy me some soup and juice. What an angel!

Mom, Dad, Nannan and Poppy (and everyone everyone else), don't worry. Still happy to be here in this amazing place and hoping to make a speedy recovery.

See? Don't I look happy?

Lets Get Orientated

Monday and Tuesday marked the first official days of orientation here at the Maastricht University. It was really rough getting up at 8 after having nothing official to do on the weekend. Both Monday and Tuesday consisted of a lot of important handouts, which I should probably read at some point, and three  tours of the city. I was able to break out some serious knowledge about what the Netherlands is because of this video my dad showed me a while back. My intelligence really knocked the girls off their feet!

Anyways, I actually did learn a lot about the city. For example, the reason the "coffee shops" are closed to tourist is because the French, Belgians and Germans would all drive up to purchase...goods and were illegally parking all around the city causing too much traffic. Thus the mayor of Maastricht made it illegal for foreigners to purchase said good.

My lovely mother showed me this article before I left which has ranked the most beautiful book stores in the world. A book store in Maastricht is actually number 1 on the list. Mom instructed me to go so obviously I obliged, because as Dad always says, "Mom is always right." Low and behold it was actually quite an amazing place. It is actually located in an old church. However nothing is bolted into the foundation, walls and floors so it could actually be turned back into a functioning church in a moments notice. It even has a Cafe with a multiple beers on tap inside. Needless to say I will be studying there.
For those to lazy to click on the link here are a few of my photos:

So... I leave for Berlin tonight at midnight. Our group is taking an 8 HOUR bus ride. 8 HOURS! Should be fun. Anyways, I will be there until Sunday morning and I do not think I will be bringing my computer so I might not make another post until then. I might be able to post something small from my phone so keep checking back anyways!

As always, thanks for reading!

Slow Sunday

A long Saturday night turned into a lazy Sunday. Sunday was highlighted by a trip to the Bonnefanten museum. Happy mom? It was...interesting. Maastricht University has given us a museum pass so we can get into any museum in the Netherlands for free. The museum seemed to be a mix between modern and classical art ranging from 600 years old to present day. On the way home we stopped at a local spot to consume some waffle and ice cream.

This deliciousness was followed by a triple-decker PB&J for dinner. Hey I got some fruit in the there!

Dinner was follow by festivities at the local bar, the detail of which I am going to leave to your imagination. So for the lame post. was a pretty slow day.

Cheers!

A Day Full of Discoveries

I forgot to mention a little disclaimer in my first post. I will try and post as much as possible but and I cannot promise a post every day. I will keep you guys updated on all of the important event that occur.

As promised here are the pictures of my dorm room, relatively simple but nice. No complaints here. (Don't worry mom, I hung up my nice clothes right away)

I do have a roommate so the other half of the room looks exactly identical. Additionally, we have a communal bathroom and kitchen on the floor.

   

We were also we given the opportunity to rent a phone for a twenty Euro deposit (which I will get back if I don't destroy the phone). And the phone had 20 Euros pre-loaded onto it so how could I refuse? It is a really cool phone! It even has the ability to text!

Anyways, we spent our first day here wandering around, trying to find downtown to get some lunch. we made quite a few wrong turns and stumbled on a zoo and many "coffee shops." Don't worry guys foreigners are not allowed in the coffee shops.

Eventually we stumbled on a nice cafe a enjoyed some lunch and coffee with Sarah and my roommate Tyler.

The city is really beautiful and has crazy small allies that go in circles, we found out it is really easy to get lost.

After our self-guided tour of the city we had to head to the grocery to get some food. I am going to have to shop and cook for myself while here because the dutch don't believe in cafeterias. Here is the haul from my first trip.

In honor of the Special Sam (SS) and Pretentious Pat (PP) moments from their blog I introduce the Netherland Noob (NN) moment.

My NN moment occurred while shopping at the local shopping market. I grabbed all of my food and proceeded to the check out line. After all my food was scanned the lady told me that the line I was in was for people with a shopping ID card, which of course I do not have. So I was the jerk holding up the line. Fortunately the Dutch are all really nice and they guy behind me payed for my stuff on his card and I gave him cash. Of course I could have avoided this problem if I had look and the large sign above the check-out line with a dollar bill with a dash through it. Well... live and learn I guess. 

Thanks for reading!!

The Adventure Beings

Hey everybody! Well, I guess this is it. After the abundance of pressure from family and the desire to keep my Nannan updated on study abroad experience I have created this blog. For those of you who are not completely in the loop, I will be spending the next 4.5 months studying at Maastricht University in Maastricht, Netherlands.

The long treck to Maastricht University started with a 5am alarm, a flight from SFO to ATL, a layover, a flight to Brussels, and a bus ride to Maastricht. Of course it wouldn't be an adventure without a bump in the road. Unfortunately this bump occurred before I even boarded the plane in San Francisco. As I was checking my bags at the lovely Delta Airlines kiosk I was informed that I was not allowed to check-in because I did not have a visa to stay in Belgium for 3+ months. If you are playing attention, I am not staying in Belgium, I am simply flying there. Of course I didn't have any paperwork printed out to prove I wash't staying in Belgium. I was sent over to the special services desk and half an hour and a few supervisors later I was able convince them of my final destination and they let me check it.

The first leg of my flight, from SFO to ATL, ended up being a breeze but not before my worst nightmare almost came true. As I took my seat (window seat in a 2 seat row), plugged in my iPod and got ready to snooze the flight away I saw a very, very large man making his way down the plane. It was still early in the boarding process and there were still a few empty seats on the plane so I wasn't too worried. As he approached my row my fears were realized. He sat down next to me. However, he soon realized that our row did not have declining seats and requested a seat change, which was granted. So I ended up with a row to my self for the first leg!!

When I arrived in Atlanta I had a few hours to kill so I decided to got search for some food. I was able to find a small brewery called Qdoba. They had their own micro-brew called Corona! It was amazing!

After my lovely meal at the local brewery I boarded my 8 hour flight to Brussels. A pretty uneventful flight highlighted by the above average brownie I was served with my dinner. 

When I landed in Brussels I had to stand in the passport control line for a solid hour and a half. An email I had previously received told me to meet my group at the Java cafe in by the baggage claim. However the only person who was there when I showed up was my lovely friend from Denver who is also studying abroad in Maastricht. So we decided to enjoy our time at a local bar while we wait for the rest of our group, and our bus to show up.

 After a 5 hour wait we boarded our bus a were shipped off to Maastricht! I will show you guy my dorm and the really cool, high-tech phone they gave us next time! But for now thanks for reading and have a great day!