Thursday, November 25, 2010
PreThanksgiving
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Belgium continued
After one of the better breakfasts that I had at a hostel we headed off to an art museum called Groeninge Museum. My super hipster Bruges map that I picked up described it as a museum of art “called ‘Flemish Primitives’, but actually they were imitated all over Europe. Why?” Although the description provided some answer along the lines of realistic techniques and surrealism, I got stuck on the “Why?” This art did not appeal to me in the least. Painting after painting of Jesus on the Cross or Mary weeping or some sinner repenting did not keep me interested in the least, not to mention the so called perfect proportions and realism showed hands the size of heads and feet distorted to awkward angles. Now I realize art is subjective, but really I just felt subjected to an hour of torture as I walked among these medieval examples of
the Bible ruling all. It probably goes without saying I spent the better half of our duration at the museum sitting in the lobby reading Harry Potter 2 in Spanish.
After what felt like an eternity, we left the museum and said farewell to Bruges as we hopped on the next train headed back to the capital. We explored a bit more of the city, made dinner in the hostel and then found a theater showing the Harry Potter 7 movie. We bought our tickets and went back to Grand Place, having a few hours to kill before the show started. We wandered the old streets, passed by more and more chocolate shops that made my mouth water and sought out Manneken Pis, the most famous statue in Belgium, comparable to their version of our Statue of Liberty. Now, what it lacked in size it made up for in spunk. It was this really tiny fountain of a little boy or cherub or whatever peeing into the water below. The boy was probably no more than a foot tall, while the entire piece couldn’t have been more than 8 feet tall. Impressive, right? Well there was a crowd around it standing taking pictures, so it must have some type of elusive draw.
Anyways, we headed back toward the theater, wanting to get good seats for the show. On our way we encountered what I could only describe as if Slope Day had a parade. A mass of drunk college students blasting club music passed down the streets riding in the backs of semis or following alongside them, all dressed up in their given outfits. People were peeing everywhere, no matter whether they were male or female. I guess it makes sense their most famous statue is of a boy peeing in public.
Anyways, we passed through the crowds toward the theater. After standing in line for a bit, the usher came out of the theater, removed the velvet rope and basically allowed everyone to run for the doors in mass madness. People bolted toward the door, eager to get a good seat. Feeling a little too mature to follow the mass of people, we casually entered the theater and sat down in what was probably the nicest movie theater I had ever been in. The walls had frescoes of safari scenes and there was a giant gold sun at the front. The seats were super comfortable and didn’t flip up if you left. It’s the little things that count.
Well, the movie was great and left us with questions mounting, but we had more of the city to see. After stopping back at the hostel we searched for some bars. Now, I like maps and guides as much as the next guy, but it comes to the point that if you don’t look up from these things, you are going to miss the entire city, and this is what I felt our friend Alex was going to do. For the entire trip he had the map from the guidebook in hand, telling us where to see, where to eat etc. At that point, Josh and I were a little fed up with Alex. We tried to tell him that even if it wasn’t in the book it would be okay, and even told him that he had to pick a bar to visit without the aid of the map. Sadly, after a few minutes of walking he went back to the map (I think he thought we didn’t notice) to select a bar. We hopped among some bars and finished our night with some of the best fries I have had in a while. They were probably average or just a bit above, but I haven’t had many fries since being in Spain, and the sauce was killer. It was this spicy mustardy mayonaissey sauce that went great with the fries. I want to find out what that was so I can make it back in the states, because it was just so good.
Day 4: Brussels (What? A day without travelling?!!?)
We took advantage of our only full day in Brussels right off the bat by seeking out some waffles for breakfast. We had noticed that around Manneken Piss was waffle Mecca, so we went back to the peeing statue and found a great hole in the wall walk up place. It wasn’t nearly as good as the first waffle I had in Bruges, but it was still great.
Content with an actually filling breakfast we made our way toward
the Cantillon Brewery/Museum, famous for its Gueuze beer. The tour was interesting and we got two samples at the end of the tour. To be honest, as involved a process as making Gueuze beer seemed to be, I really wasn’t a fan of the beer. It was very sour, almost like a beer with lemon juice added. My palate probably isn’t developed enough to appreciate the flavor, but I probably won’t order that type of beer any time soon (although it beat Keystone by a mile).
On our way back from the brewery we stopped by this falafel place aptly named Mr. Falafel. If you visit Brussels anytime soon, I would for sure recommend this place. For only 3.50 euro you get a pita with 4 pieces of falafel. This sounds like a terrible deal, I know, but then you see the open bar with all the fixing you could want for your falafel pita. Dozens of toppings, sauces, and vegetables are just waiting to fill that toasted pita of yours.
Not knowing what to do, we wandered some more, seeing one of the cathedrals, the Palace of Justice, the Royal Park and the Congress Column, and this plaza near the Musical Instruments Museum that had a great view of the city.
We got back to the hostel after stopping at a Chinese Supermarket for dinner fixings, and I was happily surprised to see the Wisconsin – Michigan football game on all the TVs. I watched the game, feeling a little bit like I was home, while the other guys prepared dinner (I helped out between plays of course). We ate our chow mien (it could have been better), watched a bit of Iron Man, and headed out again to take advantage of our last night in Brussels. We only went to two or three bars including this bar called Kafka that had quotes from his books in German scrawled across the wall, got our last thing of fries and returned home early.
Day 5: Brussels > Charleroi > Santander
Tired and not having any real plans for the day, we slept in until we needed to check out. We split up in the morning, Alex headed for another art museum (no more medieval portraits for me!) while Josh and I wandered more of the city (you picking up a theme here?). We stopped back at the waffle place for one last Belgian waffle and then headed toward a fl
ea market in the direction of the train station where we had to catch the bus back to Charleroi. This flea market was everything that Rastro wasn’t, it was disorganized, unregulated, and just a collection of other people’s junk (which could become someone else’s treasure?). I tried to find some decent sweaters or flannel without any luck (apparently only women wear sweaters and only giants wear flannel), while Josh tried to find some leather jackets (in an attempt to become more badass, perhaps?). Cold and disheartened from our flea market failure we headed back to the train station to catch the bus to the airport, but not before happening upon another market. This market was great. It had a ton of fresh fruit and all the vendors were shouting to get your attention. It felt alive in comparison to the really subdued Ithaca Farmers’ Market. Either way, I finally found flannel that I liked, and it only cost 5 euro! Score? I think so. I bought my flannel and returned home with flannel and Belgian chocolates in hand.
Belgium!!! Days 1 and 2.
Heeding some advice from a friend, I am going to write this blog entry in English first. She feels like my entries could use some emotion or creativity, which as an engineer I already have trouble with, and writing in Spanish just adds to this. Now don’t worry (Diego) I will still write in Spanish too, but I will probably be more in depth or maybe relay some of my humor through the English version, but all you Spanish speakers will have to deal.
So as you probably know, if you are an avid reader of my blog, which I am sure most people are, I visited Belgium this past weekend. Yes, Josh and our Austrian friend Alex headed for the land of waffles, chocolate, beer and fries to spend five cold days exploring the capital of the European Union and a city probably most famous for being interesting to only people who are slightly retarded and grew up on farms.
Day 1: Santander > Charleroi > Brussels
We rushed out of an evening class to the Santander Airport. Not enough time to walk to the bus station and take the bus, so we had to spring for a taxi. Let me say this is indicative of the costs of Belgium compared to Santander, I just had to prepare to spend my money. Anyways, we made it to the airport with time to spare, about an hour and a half before the flight (essentially I missed the flight in my mind) and the Austrian was hungry so we hung out outside of security so he could eat a sandwich. With 30 minutes until boarding I started to get nervous. We were still on the other side of security and the line was growing, snaking back and forth. I made the Austrian shove the rest of his food into his mouth and we made it through security just in time to… stand in line to board the plane for about another half an hour. Well, better safe than sorry.
After having advertisements for Ryanair’s fresh food or electric cigarette or whatever else they were trying to market to me, we touched down in Charleroi, or “South Brussels.” We took an hour bus ride to Brussels’ south train station and then a metro ride up to around our hostel.After what was basically a three hour trip, half plane, half public transportation, we arrived at our hostel. I have only been to five hostels in my life as of yet, but I can easily say this place was one of the nicest hostels I will stay in. The beds were comfortable. The kitchen was well equipped. The lounge was decked out with flat screens, great local art, a modern fireplace and a bunch of computers. They even showed Wisconsin football and Iron Man on the TV.
We dropped off our things, and despite being tired from travelling, we headed out to Grand Place, the main square in Brussels. Pretty much all roads lead to Grand Place, and we pretty quickly made it there. To quote my friend Jamie, I really had a “Wow, I am in Europe” moment when I got there. The place was seriously beautiful. It looked exactly what I thought a European square should look like. Every building was perfect, fitting in with the Gothic, neoclassical, or whatever style architecture style (help me out Adrianne) that permeated the area. We sat down to soak in, I don’t know, the “European-ness” of the square for a moment before heading towards a bar. Everything was pretty much closed, a huge change from Spain. We ducked into the first open bar we found, had a beer and went home.
Day 2: Brussels > Bruges
We headed to Bruges pretty early in the morning. We took an hour long train from the north station to Bruges and headed to the hostel. If you have never seen “In Bruges” before, you probably didn’t catch the reference I made earlier, but the movie starred Colin Farrell and was about how he hated being in Bruges. He stated had he been retarded or grew up on a farm he could have liked the city. I loved the city. I am not sure how much this speaks to my mental capacity, but I didn’t grow up on a farm.
Anyways, the city is so picturesque, with canals and bridges throughout the city. We explored the city pretty easily on foot and walked into different chocolate shops, over dozens of bridges and found the best waffle place that we visited in Belgium. We returned to the main square and went up the belfry, basically a tall clock tower. The views were amazing from up there. You could see the entire medieval town from up there, but the climb was a bitch. It was 366 steps. The way down was actually worse. I felt like I could fall down 40 stories with one false step. But check out the view!
We ate dinner at our hostel’s restaurant and drank some beers we picked up in a store and then headed out with a guy we met in our room. He was from Seattle and was travelling Europe while working for a wine company. He was a pretty cool guy and came to a Celtic bar with us to hear this band belt out 90s ballads and then to another place close to our hostel where the bartender brought me a banana flavored beer in a half coconut cup. It was delicious, but I felt kind of like a woman after it. Oh well, no worries.
Oh, I forgot. Before we tried going out that night we went to a few theaters in Bruges to see if they were showing Harry Potter because it came out early in Belgium. We found out that the only theater showing HP7 close by was actually out of town, so we decided we could wait to see it in Brussels. I was okay with this, but it would have been nice to see it earlier than the Cornell girls who went to London to see the movie. They are far more obsessed than I am and it would have been ironic had we gone to a non English speaking country only to see the movie before them.
Days 3, 4 and 5 to follow.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
San Sebastian con Chloe
14 Noviembre 2010
El fin de semana pasado mi amiga Chloe, quien está estudiando en Paris, me visitó. Conozco a Chloe de escuela secundaria. Pues, ella vino por un tren y nos reunimos en San Sebastián. San Sebastián es una ciudad bellísima situada en un cabo en el océano en País Vasco. Nos quedamos en un albergue se llama Urban House que está en la Parte Vieja de la ciudad.
Cuando llegamos al albergue, llamé a la puerta y cuando alguien contestó, empecé a hablar español, explicando que estabámos allí para hacer check in. La persona respondió, “¿Hablas inglés?” pero no la oí y continué a explicar porque estábamos allí. Después de un rato abrió la puerta y entramos el edificio.
Al llegar al albergue, una chica Australiana confundida preguntó en inglés si tenemos una reservación. Respondí, “Yes, it’s for Wachtl.”
Otra vez me miró confundida y me preguntó, “Do you speak English?”
Un poco molestado, respondí, “Yes, it’s under Wachtl.”
Obviamente no comprendió que estaba hablando inglés y de nuevo me preguntó, “Do you speak English?”
A este momento pensaba que la situación era un poco rara. Estaba en España y después de tratar de hablar español e inglés todavía ella no me comprendió. Mi amiga y yo empezamos a reír un poco. “Yes, my reservation is under Wachtl.”
Había algunas otras personas en la sala y un chico dijo, “He is speaking English.”
Pues, respondió, “Oh, well it’s too early to check in now. But you can come back in an hour or so and check into your room. I’ll get you a map and you can drop your stuff off under the benches over there.” Continuamos a reír un poco, porque la situación era tan ridícula y nos preguntó, “Why are you guys laughing?”
Dije que no estábamos riendo de ella y salimos para ver la ciudad y esperar hasta la hora que pudimos entrar nuestra habitación.
Caminamos para la playa y era tan bellísima. La playa era en la forma de un medio círculo protegida por una isla y colinas en ambos lados de la playa. Era muy limpia y prístina. Pues, caminamos en la playa y nos sentamos un rato antes de regresar al albergue. Eran las once y media, más o menos, más de una hora después, y las habitaciones todavía no estaban listas, pero pusimos nuestras mochilas en la habitación y fuimos al acuario.
Nunca había visitado un acuario antes (si no cuentas la vez cuando fui a Chicago para ver el acuario y tenía 3 años más o menos y no puedo recordar), entonces, era muy interesante. Había tantos tipos de peces y tiburones y tortugas y animales como eso. También el acuario tenía una parte que era como un museo naval. Tenía modelos de barcos famosos y algunas cosas raras como trajes de equipos de regatta. Parecía como si ponían todo que relacionó al agua que pudieran encontrar en el acuario.
Pues, después del acuario subimos una colina grande que tenía vistas bellísimas de la ciudad, pero la atracción de verdad era una estatua de Jesús. Estaba situada en el techo de un “castillo” que estaba encima de la colina. Era tan alta pero, si estoy siendo honesto, no es una estatua muy impresionante. Es verdad que siempre se puede ver la estatua, pero he visto mejores.
Bueno, al ese momento teníamos mucha hambre. Bajamos la colina y comimos. Después, puesto que teníamos demasiado sueño a dado que viajar, dormimos un rato hasta la noche. Otra vez dimos un paseo por la playa y también fuimos a ver la catedral de la ciudad. Nos sentamos en el parque un rato y regresamos al albergue para dormir de nuevo, pero después de hablar con algunos viajadores. Me sorprendí de que cuantas personas hubiera allí que solo estaban viajando algunas semanas. Había una chica de Sudáfrica, quien ya había estado viajando para un mes, una chica de Sur Korea, quien ya había estado viajando para unas semanas, y un chico de Australia, que estaba en como su tercer mes de viajar. No podía imaginar cómo podían viajar para tanto tiempo solos, me sentiría tan solo.
Pues, nos despertamos tarde, desayunamos y fuimos a la otra playa. Había tanto viento que las ondas eran altísimas. Había hondas en el río que chocaron sobre las paredes. Quería ver algunos surfers, pero solo había uno nuevo surfer que no podía levantarse en la tabla para más de un rato.
Después, fuimos a la estación de autobuses pero perdimos el primero autobús, entonces buscamos unos postales (estoy comprando postales de cada lugar que visito para enviar a mi hermana, pero todavía no he enviado ninguno, soy un hermano malo, ya lo sé) y tomamos el autobús siguiente.
Llegamos a Santander un poco tarde. No podíamos ver mucho de la ciudad, pero fuimos a la playa y cocinamos la cena. No salimos porque el autobús de Chloe salió a las 7 por la mañana. ¡Qué lástima! Pero nos disfrutamos la viaje y viendo alguien que conocíamos de los EEUU.
La próxima viaje: BELGICA
14 November 2010
This past weekend my friend Chloe, who is studying in Paris, visited me. I know Chloe from high school, and we have kept in contact since graduating. Well, she came in an overnight train and we met up in San Sebastian. San Sebastian is a beautiful city situated in a cove on the ocean in Basque Country. We stayed in an hostel called Urban House that is in the old part of the city.
When we arrived at the hostel, I rang the bell and when somebody answered I started to speak Spanish, explaining that we were there to check in. The person responded, “Do you speak English?” but I didn’t hear her and I continued to explain we wanted to check in. After a moment the door opened and we went into the building.
Upon arriving at the lobby of the hostel, a confused Australian girl asked in English if we had a reservation. I said, “Yes, it’s for Wachtl.”
Again, she looked confused and asked, “Do you speak English?”
A little annoyed, I responded, “Yes, it’s under Wachtl.”
Obviously not understanding that I was speaking English, she asked me again, “Do you speak English?”
By this time I thought the situation was a little weird. I was in Spain and after trying to speak English and Spanish she still did not understand me. My friend and I started to laugh a little. “Yes, my reservation is under Wachtl.”
There were some other people in the room and a guy said, “He is speaking English.”
She responded, “Oh, well it’s too early to check in now. But you can come back in an hour or so and check into your room. I’ll get you a map and you can drop your stuff off under the benches over there.” We continued to laugh a little at the ridiculousness of the situation and she asked us, “Why are you laughing?”
I said we weren’t laughing at her and we left to see a bit of the city and wait until we were able to get into our room.
We walked to the beach and it was so pretty. The beach was in the shape of a half circle, protected by an island and hills on either side of the beach. It was really clean and pristine. So we walked on the beach and sat in the sand for a bit before returning to the hostel. It was around eleven thirty, more than an hour later, and the rooms still were not ready, but we put our bags in the room and went to the aquarium.
I had never visited an aquarium before (if you don’t count the time I went to Chicago to see the aquarium when I was three and can’t remember), so, it was really interesting. There were tons of fish and sharks and turtles and the like. The aquarium also had a part that was kind of like a naval museum with models of famous boats and some other random things like team uniforms for regatta. It seemed as if they put everything that they could find related to the water in the aquarium.
So after the aquarium we climbed this huge hill that had great views of the city, but the main attraction was the Jesus statue. It was situated on the roof on a “castle” that was on top of the hill. The statue was huge, but if I am being honest, it wasn’t very impressive. Yes, you can see the statue from everywhere in the city, but I have seen better.
Well, at this moment we were really hungry. We went down the hill and ate. Afterwards, since we were really tired from travelling, we took a siesta until it was night. Again, we walked along the beach and then also went to see the cathedral. We sat in a park for a while and then went back to the hostel to sleep again, but only after talking with some other travelers. It surprised me how many people they were that were just travelling, for a month or two. We met a girl from South Africa who had been travelling for over a month, a girl from South Korea who was on her second week and a guy from Australia who was on like his third month of traveling. I couldn’t imagine how they could travel for so much time alone; I would feel so lonely after awhile.
Anyways, we woke up pretty late in the morning, ate and went to the see San Sebastian’s other beach. It was super windy that day and the waves were huge. The waves going up the river were crashing over the walls which are several meters high. We wanted to see some surfers, but there was only one beginner surfer who wasn’t very good and couldn’t stay up on his board for very long.
Afterwards we headed for the bus station, but we missed the first bus so we looked for some post cards (I am buying a postcard from everywhere I visit and sending them to my sister, but haven’t sent any yet, I know, I am a terrible brother) and then caught the next bus.
We got back to Santander a little late. We couldn’t see much of the city, but we went to the beach and then cooked some dinner. We didn’t go out because Chloe’s bus left at 7 the next morning. What a shame! But we enjoyed ourselves quite a lot and it was nice to see someone from home.
Next up: BELGIUM