stranded in belgium

so i bet you're all wondering where the hell the picture updates are? well, unfortunately my camera decided to die, so i doubt i'll have any good picture updates anytime soon. i can steal pictures from other people, though!



i didn't really tell anyone that i was traveling to belgium, mainly because we didn't know where we would be going until 15 hours before we left. we left for brussels at 9.45 am on sunday, and i pretty much slept the entire way, nursing a slight hangover.





we arrived around 3 pm, and found a hostel and dropped our stuff off. most things are closed on sundays, so my travel companions (wendy and brittany) and I just walked around the city for a while, looking at the arcitecture and monuments.

we ended up finding a realy odd little hookah bar, and decided to venture inside. i swear this place was probably some sort of arab mafia front. they had early 90s hip-hop music playing, and there was some large arab man in a suit smoking hookah in the corner talking on his cell phone. it was pretty odd. we found their hookah selection pretty hilarious. belgium is the country of three different languages, and in brussels, everyone speaks french. their hookah flavors were "pomme" and "raisin," and we had no clue what these meant. in german, "pommes" are french fries, so as far as we knew, they only had french fry and raisin flavored hookah. it was pretty hilarious.

brussels is in general a pretty disgusting city. there is quite a bit of trash littering the subways and streets, and i think i will always be haunted by the putrid smell of the sewer drains. it is the kind of city where you should always avoid touching walls or handrails.

the next day we decided to visit a flea market in the middle of the city. luckily we didn't expect it to be anything too glamorous, because it really wasn't. it was mostly a bunch of people who put a bunch of junk into boxes and onto bedsheets, and haggle with people to sell their trash. there were definitely some fun treasures within the flea market. wendy ended up buying a bongo with some sort of animal hair all over it (maybe it is goat? or horse?).

the second day we ventured to the cute city of Brugge. my initial impression of this city was that it seemed a little fake. everything was very clean and touristy, but it was actually a pretty pleasant contrast to grungy brussels. everything around us was so bustling and picturesque, and we even had a great experience with our hostel. we got ice cream, did some shopping, walked around to some cathedrals, drank some beer. it was great. for dinner i had the regional specialty -- mussels! although i had no effing clue how to eat them, i still loved loved loved it! we ended up tipping our waiter 5 euro, but later we learned that no one tips in belgium. lucky waiter!

the third day we went to the city of antwerp to visit one of wendy's fiance's friends, dennys, and his wife, fraya. antwerp is such an interesting city. the people of antwerp don't speak french. they speak one of the strangest languages i have ever encountered -- flemish. it sounds like someone took german, english, and french, and put them in a meat grinder, and out came the flemish language.

we found our hostel pretty quickly, and it turned out that it was right in the middle of the jewish district. pretty much everyone who was out an about was wearing traditional jewish clothing and hair. dennys and fraya showed us some of the famous monuments, parks, and statues around the city, and then we got some dinner at an italian restaurant. something interesting about pizza in europe is that no one shares pizza -- you always get your own (and they're not tiny, either!).

after dinner and a few belgian beers (all for me, haha), we decided to go see a movie. most of us had never seen Slumdog Millionare, so we bought tickets and went in. the movie was in english, but with french and flemish subtitles. i loved loved loved the movie, and i can definitely see why it won best picture of the year!

our last day we went back to brussels. brittany felt like going back to germany early, but wendy and i wanted to stay and check out some of the sights of brussels. our first destination was the museum of musical instruments. on our way there, we walked through a beautiful park (later we found out the park is nutorious for people having gay sex there in the evening, haha). the museum was wonderful! we were given headphones, and you can walk around different parts of the museum and tune into different instruments playing. probably one of my most favorite museums ever.

after the museum we decided to go see the famous statue of the peeing boy. it wasn't anything too spectacular. it was smaller than i expected.

the craziest part of the trip happened when we were trying to get back to germany. we got on our train alright, but when we arrived in our connection city, wendy decided to buy some last minute belgian chocolate at the tiny train station before we left. we didn't realize how little time we had between trains, because we ended up missing our train! to kill some time in between our next train, we went to a little bar/restaurant near the train station.

after a couple of Duvels and some cheese appetizer, we went back to catch the next train into germany. we were waiting for our train at the advertised track, and wendy even asked one of the train controllers if this was the right train to get back to Aachen, Germany.

"the next one," the controller said with a smile. so we waited at the track for the next train to arrive. we got into some deep conversations, and then didn't realize until it was too late that we had missed the train. i also realized that maybe the controller meant the next track over, not the next train. without panicking, i went into the station and tried to ask the person at the ticket booth about train information.

"hi, do you speak english?" i asked.
"no," said the man behind the desk without looking at me.
"umm..." i hesitated a little, "aachen?"
"tomorrow."

ahhh shit. the next train wasn't leaving til the following morning. after weighing our options, we decided to save our money and just bum around the city and the train station til the next train to Aachen, Germany left at 5.57 am. we went back to our favorite bar, ordered a few espressos, and just hung out til they closed.

then we went and sat around the train station for a couple of hours. luckily the men working at the train station were very friendly, and they allowed us to stay in the station while the night custodian worked (and he ended up speaking some german, so we were able to talk to him throughout the night while he cleaned).

when the sun came up, we FINALLY caught our train back to germany and made it back to dortmund safely, 12 hours later than we had expected.

so all in all, it was a very exciting, beautiful trip to belgium. of course when i told my mom about this, she asked, "and what did you learn from all of this???"

and i think the only thing that i learned is that sometimes when you mess up, more fun things can happen.

and sorry i don't have more pictures. like i have said before, my camera pooped out on me. i will hopefully get it fixed soon, but until then i will just have to steal pictures from other people.

a month down.

hi again! i feel like working backwards, telling you recent stuff first.

the pre-session language course ended yesterday, and i think it ended well. although my grade wasn't as good as I would have liked to to be, I am happy with the progress that i made in the course. and it also helps that my grade will be pass-fail, so the actual grade won't transfer. it will just show that i PASSED :D

for the end of the course, we all made groups and did little plays about our experience so far in germany and with german stereotypes. our group did a sketch were we were riding on a train to oktoberfest, and instead of showing tickets, the kontroller(the person who goes through the train making sure everyone has tickets) was more concerned with making sure everyone had their german beer on the train.

in the evening most of the exchange students went out to Platz an der Sonne, and then a club called The Keller. this club had three different rooms for dancing, and each had different music playing. a few other students and i chose to go to the room with the 90s/current alt rock. i think german clubs are better than american clubs for a couple reasons....
1. German clubs usually have more than one kind of music playing. if you don't like the song in one room, you can usually go to another and hear something you do like.
2. Germans can't dance....and i like this because i can't dance either! they don't even attempt to bump and grind, they groove around with very little rhythm or talent, which is exactly my style!
3. German clubs are open very late, like 6 am. more time for fun! me and a few of the other students got home around 4 am, and it felt like we left earlier than everyone else.

on a different note...the weather was absolutely beautiful all week, so Alexander decided to show me around some of the parks in Bottrop. This region isn't known for being too beautiful, but the parks in Bottrop were spectacular! Trees everywhere, art sculptures, ponds, playgrounds, large lawns for relaxing..it was nice! (Oddly enough, there are ditches that are dug specifically for people to throw their beer bottles in. I think that either homeless people or city workers come and clean out the ditch every night.) We just walked his little beagle , Yoshi, around the park for a few hours in the sunshine.

I think that my family would love Germany because it is a VERY dog friendly country. Everyone brings there dogs everywhere with them -- into shops, on the train, everywhere except for restaurants and grocery stores. I always feel like running up and cuddling strangers' dogs because I miss having a dog around! (but after that incident in high school with the chihuahua at Valley West Mall, I know better than to hastily embrace a strangers' dog)

on wednesday we all visited the only brewery left in Dortmund, the Dortmund Actien Brauerei. did you know that the factory workers used to be able to drink up to 3 liters of beer during their shift? whoa, i don't know how anything ever got done at that place! we also had a beer tasting at the end where we sampled four different dortmunder beers. all of the exchange students left all giggly and happy.

next week i think wendy, brittany, and i will be visiting brussels and the netherlands. i don't know how long we will be there, but i will come back with lots of fun stories to share.