So as a continuation of the previous post....
After we had checked into the hostel and put our bags down we decided to check out downtown Galway. We asked the girl at the front desk where to go eat and if there were any good pubs to check out. We both decided on the bus we really wanted some greasy food like hamburgers and what ever we ate must involve fries. However we were on the coast of Ireland so we also realized the possibility of some very good fish and chips. She gave us suggestions for both places that we should see. So we start to walk around the city, with dinner as the final destination. Galway is a small but nice looking city, with a mix of old and very old buildings in the downtown area often built with dark grey rock (mostly granite) that is native to the area.
After wandering around for a while we ended up in the cultural part of the city called the latin quarter where most of the good restaurants and bars were. It was getting late and starting to rain so we decided to look for the restaurant we were told to go to. On the way we look at other restaurants and a lot of them are surprisingly expensive many charge 20 Euro ($30) for a standard dinner, which was interesting because I thought Ireland was a cheaper place to visit and our 3 hour bus ride to Galway from Dublin round trip only cost 23 Euro each... However despite the price we found the place and it looked to have good stuff and so we decided to check it out. We had not really gone out for a nice meal since Lyndsay arrived (not that there is anything wrong with my cooking) so as we are waiting in what looks like the line to be seated a host comes up to us and asks us which restaurant we want to eat at. Turns out there are two restaurants in one... A sit down restaurant with Wine and expensive menus and fried seafood restaurant that is far more affordable with indoor pick-nick tables and a much better fish selection. Since we wanted greasy we opt for that restaurant and get two dinners and drinks for the price of one on the other side, and oh it was delicious. She had fish and chips and I did as well except my fish was entirely cod and hers a combination of cod, haddock and sale.
After stuffing ourselves we decided to check out more of the city. We went to a famous place called the Spanish arch which was actually very boring.. It was just a 500 year old tone arch all by itself that was not really that impressive but I am guessing it is part of the original wall around Galway. And we saw the coolest thing, a Grey Heron was standing on a handrail outside the window of a Thai restaurant looking in very hungrily. It was almost pacing back and forth hoping that a patron would toss some food out to it. And it did not mind us standing quite close behind it watching it in amazement.
We eventually found ourselves back in the latin quarter because it is the cultural hub of the city and went to a bar called the Kings Head. It is a pretty unique place. Story has it that the original owner was given the property and a lot of other property with is as a payment from Oliver Cromwell. What was the payment for? We when Cromwell took over England he set out to execute King Charles but no one had the guts to execute a King. He sent out messengers far and wide and finally found a guy who would. As payment for beheading the King, Cromwell gave him the building in downtown Galway and several large tracts of farmland. And that building has still been there for almost 500 years, also hence the name of the bar... We sat down and got a drink. Apparently there is live music every night but it wasnt for an hour so we decided we would wait and chat until the band came. I got a pint of a beer called the Galway Hooker. It was fantastic, and I will show you a picture of a Galway hooker in the bottom of this post... Lyndsay got a Carlsberg and I can confirm that the rumor is true, Carlsberg outside of Denmark are not as good as Carlsberg inside Denmark... Finally it was 10:00pm and the band had arrived, just a guy on an amplified acoustic guitar and a girl with a large African drum. After playing one song of their own the starting asking for requests. And boy they were good, he was asked to play everything from Britney spears to Eminem to U2 to foo fighters and he was really good at all of them. He often new many songs from each band and he could just play it. The girl was mostly for back up vocals as he was lead singer and guitarist but some people requested she do a song, and it was clear she was a great singer as well. We were going to leave after 1/2 an hour but instead we decided to stay until the band called it quits around midnight. All in all it was a very fun first night in Galway.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Ireland Part 1-We Made It!
So after recovering from Karneval, I had to quickly study for an exam on Monday. I was taking it on Monday because on Tuesday morning Lyndsay and I were heading over to Ireland for five days. This is the tale of the very long and exciting first day of the trip...
At 7:00 in the morning on Tuesday, Lyndsay and I are walking out my front door to walk to the bus stop. We are packing only what can fit in our carry on back packs, since Ryanair charges ridiculous fees if you have checked luggage etc and we already had spent well over $100 on fees after purchasing the tickets(Moral of the story: dont ever use Ryanair, it is not as good as it may seem... EasyJet is a much better option for cheap flights) However to get to Ireland the easiest way was to fly from Arhus, DK to London to Dublin so that is what we did. We catch the bus into the center of Aalborg where we travel to the train station (80 to 90 min travel time to Arhus) to take the train to Arhus center from which we will take a bus to the Airport (~45-50 min bus ride). At 7:45 we have our train tickets and are sitting in the train station looking for the train when I check our plane tickets...
OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had mixed the tickets up! I thought that we were supposed to take a flight from Arhus to London with a take of of 1:35 pm but instead that was the ticket from London to Dublin. Or Arhus flight takes off at 10:30... Thanks to Lyndsay we decided to take the 8:01 train to Arhus so after the train and bus ride we would arrive with plenty of time... Even worse was there is only one daily flight from Arhus to London so if we missed it we would have been screwed....
Lyndsay tries to calm me down after I am freaking out.. We decided we would give it a try and maybe if everything worked out we could catch our flight... If the train departs Aalborg at 8:01 and it is an express it should arrive in Arhus at 9:20. If we catch a taxi instead of the bus (which would be far more expensive..) then maybe if he drives fast then we could make it to the airport by10:00. Ryanair however requires a check in procedure where the check your passport and they say that the desk closes 40 minutes before the flight. And the gate closes 30 minutes before the flight. So we knew it would be close but maybe if we called the Airport we could ask to check in late. I asked the woman at the train station if she had a computer with internet but I had no luck. Luckily I had my cell phone and so I knew I could call a friend at home, but it was still early in the morning so I decided I would wait until 9:00 before I called.
Then 7:55 rolls around the corner and a train pulls into our track, however it is not ours and it leaves and by 8:00 our train still had not arrived. Then at 8:01 a train arrives, everyone on board gets off and they say that that train is the end of the line... Where is our train??? Every precious minute counts and we need to be getting to Arhus. At 8:02 a train pulls up to the adjacent track but it was traveling other way and is supposed to be the train to Fredrickshavn a city north of Aalborg unlike Arhus which is south. So I am freaking out even more...
At 8:04 we notice that some of the people waiting for the same train as us are heading to the other train that is bound for Fredrickshavn but both trains are just idling in the station. We follow them and ask where the train is going, they say that there was a mix up and this train is bound for Copenhagen and Arhus is a stop on the way and it is an express!! Excited we jump on board and the doors close right behind us and the train departs at 8:05! Well we succeeded at step one...
As the clock struck 9:00 we were hurtling through the Danish countryside and making great time. We had already passed Randers and it looked like the train was going to make it to Arhus shortly before 9:20. I called up Vincent to ask for the telephone for the airport. No answer! I didnt give up so I called Kathi hoping she was awake... No answer!!! Now as I am looking through my contacts about to call Sandro, I get a call from Kathi, "you rang?"!! So I tell her quickly the situation and she says she is going to look for the number and text me it.. By 9:04 I am on hold at the Airport. I talk to the guy who had this very interesting mix between a Danish, Middle Eastern, and English accent. He tells me that if we get to the Airport by 10:05 he can check us in and we should make our flight! Awesome that extends the check in by 15 minutes, a window large enough for us to just make it if the taxi ride is only 40 mins.
At 9:17 the train rolls into Arhus station. Lyndsay and I are impatiently waiting by the door.We hop out onto the platform and run to the stairs and through the station. I have been before so I know where the taxis wait. We go over to them and I ask "how long to get to the airport?" They respond 45 km and I ask how long in time and they say with luck 40 mins. So we hop into a nice Mercedes Benz taxi and by 10:22 we are driving the streets of Arhus. I try to explain to the driver we are in a hurry but his english is not great, but it was shortly evident that he understood.
In the city we hit literally every light, but the driver made every possible move to speed the trip up. Unfortunately we end up on a highway with lights and literally every single one was red. But before long we are on the main highway. He is where I knew he got the picture. the speed limits in Denmark are generally low and I believe this highway was alternating between 90 km/h (~55mph) and 110 km/h (~70mph). However on one straight away we hit 150km/h (95 mph)... At 9:55 we rolled into the airport. The ride cost exactly 500 DKK and I didnt even think about a tip (oops) I just handed him the even 500 and we booked it into the airport. We may make it!!!
Unfortunately there was no one at the Ryanair desk. But there is someone at the adjacent Cimber Sterling desk but she is with other people so we decided to wait because they are the only ones in line. (Arhus Airport is very small it is even small than Aalborg Airport) Finally at 9:59 she finishes with them and we explain our situation. She tells us to go over to another desk and we do. There we meet the guy I spoke to on the phone and he quickly stamps us through so we can get to security. And by 10:05 we are standing in the line getting ready to board the airplane!!!
Phew!! amazingly we made it. We cut 3 hours out of the travel time to the airport and by shear luck we were there. A few hours later we experience another snafu because we didnt factor in the time difference so we just had to wait an extra hour for out plane to dublin, no big deal. And by 4:00 we were on the bus from Dublin Airport to Galway where we were going to spend the next few nights. What and exhausting trip....
In 12 hours our trip consisted of a crazy amount of transportation:
Foor-City Bus-Train-Taxi-Plane-Plane-Bus... Luckily the hostel was literally right next to the bus station so that was easy. And we put our stuff down after some room confusion (We ended up paying for a 8 bed dorm but sleeping in a 4 bed dorm ensuite and no one joined us so we paid 10 Euro a night each for a private hostel room...) we decided to go downtown for dinner..
The beginning of the Galway story will begin on the next post..
At 7:00 in the morning on Tuesday, Lyndsay and I are walking out my front door to walk to the bus stop. We are packing only what can fit in our carry on back packs, since Ryanair charges ridiculous fees if you have checked luggage etc and we already had spent well over $100 on fees after purchasing the tickets(Moral of the story: dont ever use Ryanair, it is not as good as it may seem... EasyJet is a much better option for cheap flights) However to get to Ireland the easiest way was to fly from Arhus, DK to London to Dublin so that is what we did. We catch the bus into the center of Aalborg where we travel to the train station (80 to 90 min travel time to Arhus) to take the train to Arhus center from which we will take a bus to the Airport (~45-50 min bus ride). At 7:45 we have our train tickets and are sitting in the train station looking for the train when I check our plane tickets...
OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had mixed the tickets up! I thought that we were supposed to take a flight from Arhus to London with a take of of 1:35 pm but instead that was the ticket from London to Dublin. Or Arhus flight takes off at 10:30... Thanks to Lyndsay we decided to take the 8:01 train to Arhus so after the train and bus ride we would arrive with plenty of time... Even worse was there is only one daily flight from Arhus to London so if we missed it we would have been screwed....
Lyndsay tries to calm me down after I am freaking out.. We decided we would give it a try and maybe if everything worked out we could catch our flight... If the train departs Aalborg at 8:01 and it is an express it should arrive in Arhus at 9:20. If we catch a taxi instead of the bus (which would be far more expensive..) then maybe if he drives fast then we could make it to the airport by10:00. Ryanair however requires a check in procedure where the check your passport and they say that the desk closes 40 minutes before the flight. And the gate closes 30 minutes before the flight. So we knew it would be close but maybe if we called the Airport we could ask to check in late. I asked the woman at the train station if she had a computer with internet but I had no luck. Luckily I had my cell phone and so I knew I could call a friend at home, but it was still early in the morning so I decided I would wait until 9:00 before I called.
Then 7:55 rolls around the corner and a train pulls into our track, however it is not ours and it leaves and by 8:00 our train still had not arrived. Then at 8:01 a train arrives, everyone on board gets off and they say that that train is the end of the line... Where is our train??? Every precious minute counts and we need to be getting to Arhus. At 8:02 a train pulls up to the adjacent track but it was traveling other way and is supposed to be the train to Fredrickshavn a city north of Aalborg unlike Arhus which is south. So I am freaking out even more...
At 8:04 we notice that some of the people waiting for the same train as us are heading to the other train that is bound for Fredrickshavn but both trains are just idling in the station. We follow them and ask where the train is going, they say that there was a mix up and this train is bound for Copenhagen and Arhus is a stop on the way and it is an express!! Excited we jump on board and the doors close right behind us and the train departs at 8:05! Well we succeeded at step one...
As the clock struck 9:00 we were hurtling through the Danish countryside and making great time. We had already passed Randers and it looked like the train was going to make it to Arhus shortly before 9:20. I called up Vincent to ask for the telephone for the airport. No answer! I didnt give up so I called Kathi hoping she was awake... No answer!!! Now as I am looking through my contacts about to call Sandro, I get a call from Kathi, "you rang?"!! So I tell her quickly the situation and she says she is going to look for the number and text me it.. By 9:04 I am on hold at the Airport. I talk to the guy who had this very interesting mix between a Danish, Middle Eastern, and English accent. He tells me that if we get to the Airport by 10:05 he can check us in and we should make our flight! Awesome that extends the check in by 15 minutes, a window large enough for us to just make it if the taxi ride is only 40 mins.
At 9:17 the train rolls into Arhus station. Lyndsay and I are impatiently waiting by the door.We hop out onto the platform and run to the stairs and through the station. I have been before so I know where the taxis wait. We go over to them and I ask "how long to get to the airport?" They respond 45 km and I ask how long in time and they say with luck 40 mins. So we hop into a nice Mercedes Benz taxi and by 10:22 we are driving the streets of Arhus. I try to explain to the driver we are in a hurry but his english is not great, but it was shortly evident that he understood.
In the city we hit literally every light, but the driver made every possible move to speed the trip up. Unfortunately we end up on a highway with lights and literally every single one was red. But before long we are on the main highway. He is where I knew he got the picture. the speed limits in Denmark are generally low and I believe this highway was alternating between 90 km/h (~55mph) and 110 km/h (~70mph). However on one straight away we hit 150km/h (95 mph)... At 9:55 we rolled into the airport. The ride cost exactly 500 DKK and I didnt even think about a tip (oops) I just handed him the even 500 and we booked it into the airport. We may make it!!!
Unfortunately there was no one at the Ryanair desk. But there is someone at the adjacent Cimber Sterling desk but she is with other people so we decided to wait because they are the only ones in line. (Arhus Airport is very small it is even small than Aalborg Airport) Finally at 9:59 she finishes with them and we explain our situation. She tells us to go over to another desk and we do. There we meet the guy I spoke to on the phone and he quickly stamps us through so we can get to security. And by 10:05 we are standing in the line getting ready to board the airplane!!!
Phew!! amazingly we made it. We cut 3 hours out of the travel time to the airport and by shear luck we were there. A few hours later we experience another snafu because we didnt factor in the time difference so we just had to wait an extra hour for out plane to dublin, no big deal. And by 4:00 we were on the bus from Dublin Airport to Galway where we were going to spend the next few nights. What and exhausting trip....
In 12 hours our trip consisted of a crazy amount of transportation:
Foor-City Bus-Train-Taxi-Plane-Plane-Bus... Luckily the hostel was literally right next to the bus station so that was easy. And we put our stuff down after some room confusion (We ended up paying for a 8 bed dorm but sleeping in a 4 bed dorm ensuite and no one joined us so we paid 10 Euro a night each for a private hostel room...) we decided to go downtown for dinner..
The beginning of the Galway story will begin on the next post..
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Karneval!!!
So for those of you who don't know Karneval is a festival held in many cities across Europe as a celebration of spring. However my small city of Aalborg does it bigger and better than anywhere in Northern Europe. In fact the Karneval in Copenhagen and even in London pale in comparison to the one in small little Aalborg. Over 100,000 people flock to a city of about 120,000 to take part in the festivities so it is a pretty big deal.
So what it is exactly? Well imagine the wildest and craziest Halloween party you have ever been to or seen on TV. Then add in all of your friends and over 125,000 other people and it goes all day long from 10:00 when the parade starts until people are passed out from drinking when ever that happens but long into the night and really the next day. The entire city is shut down and the streets are filled with people in costumes carting around little carts full of beer etc. The festivities began around 7:00 am when people start to wake up, eat their only real meal of the day and put on their costumes...
Most people start drinking early in the morning and have stocked up enough that they can keep going all day long and into the night. There are floats and bands playing live music and trucks with speakers playing other music. And everyone starts at a place called NordKraft and walk through the city and end up at a park. At the park there is a area that you can enter for a small fee of 100kr ($20) where they have more live music and food and drinks for sale.
It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen the streets were completely packed with people, a surprising number from the UK, I guess it is really popular for them to come to Aalborg since it better then the one in London... Everyone was in costumes and some of them were very elaborate, and many times there were groups of people that had a theme of sorts. The theme of this years Karneval was called Sex Zoological, I do not know what that means but most people dressed up as some type of animal... It is what I imagine Mardi Gras in New Orleans to be like but instead of it being warm and sunny it was unfortunately cool and misting rain all day. However that did nothing to kill the mood and every had an awesome time. Most people I knew returned home from exhaustion in the evening but a few strong soles stayed downtown until night time. Below are some pictures that try to capture the madness...
All in all it was an awesome day....
So what it is exactly? Well imagine the wildest and craziest Halloween party you have ever been to or seen on TV. Then add in all of your friends and over 125,000 other people and it goes all day long from 10:00 when the parade starts until people are passed out from drinking when ever that happens but long into the night and really the next day. The entire city is shut down and the streets are filled with people in costumes carting around little carts full of beer etc. The festivities began around 7:00 am when people start to wake up, eat their only real meal of the day and put on their costumes...
Most people start drinking early in the morning and have stocked up enough that they can keep going all day long and into the night. There are floats and bands playing live music and trucks with speakers playing other music. And everyone starts at a place called NordKraft and walk through the city and end up at a park. At the park there is a area that you can enter for a small fee of 100kr ($20) where they have more live music and food and drinks for sale.
It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen the streets were completely packed with people, a surprising number from the UK, I guess it is really popular for them to come to Aalborg since it better then the one in London... Everyone was in costumes and some of them were very elaborate, and many times there were groups of people that had a theme of sorts. The theme of this years Karneval was called Sex Zoological, I do not know what that means but most people dressed up as some type of animal... It is what I imagine Mardi Gras in New Orleans to be like but instead of it being warm and sunny it was unfortunately cool and misting rain all day. However that did nothing to kill the mood and every had an awesome time. Most people I knew returned home from exhaustion in the evening but a few strong soles stayed downtown until night time. Below are some pictures that try to capture the madness...
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| Waiting at NordKraft for the parade to start, only a few people participated this year... |
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| Yep the buses tried to get as far as they could but the gave up and were shortly overwhelmed my throngs of drunk people who not surprisingly found it a great idea to be on top of them. I will note that the driver is still in this bus at the time... As for a police presence to end the fun, non-existent, pretty much they just let everything go as long as it is not too wild. |
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| One of many group costumes that were quite impressive, this one is obviously a caterpillar |
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| Down by the Fjord is where we began to encounter the floats, you can see some in the background above the heads of the people |
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| On of the live bands on the back of a truck, they were actually a very good rock/ alternative rock band... |
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| On the main street of Aalborg it was craziness... |
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| The very last float arrived at the end around 3:30 considering they only had to travel 1 maybe 2 km from the start it was impressive the achieve such a task in 5 1/2 hours... |
I am back!
Yes I know I have had quite a hiatus from blogging, but now I have some time to sit down and recount the very many things that have happened since I last wrote. I guess I will start with a quick status update as of right now, then I will go and outline Karneval, Ireland, Finals and my big up coming trip. Each of those will be separate posts so that should keep them from being too lengthy.
So currently I am enjoying my last weekend in Aalborg. The weather here has been pretty good, some days are warm and cloudy, others warm and sunny and others warm and rainy but it is never very cold even at "night." I have finished all my finals except for my project defense which I am doing on Monday starting at 8:00am! That involves a group power point presentation that should last ~35 minutes and then one by one we each go in front of the panel (Made up of our faculty adviser and a professional from the field, in our case a guy who works for Vestas, since we are dealing with wind turbines). We each talk to the panel for about 30-45 minutes and afterwords we will receive our grade... I am not really nervous for it though, which may not be a good thing, but I have spent so much time on the project that I feel that I do really know all I need to do well.
I want to address the concept of night time, in Denmark as in all of Scandinavia they don't really get the concept, especially in the summer months. This is due to the fact that currently the sun sets sell after 10:00 pm but it dusk until well past midnight and since the sun rises a little after 4:00 am it starts to get light around 2:00-2:30. Therefore it is only dark for a short amount of time but even still it is actually never really dark it is just not light and if you look north even around 1:00-2:00 when it should be "darkest" you can clearly see light. It is kind of weird an crazy, especially now as we are approaching the longest day of the year... Going home is going to feel like I am heading into winter because of the lack of daylight. It does throw me off sometimes because I am used to eating dinner in the summer around when the sunsets, so sometimes I kinda forget to eat dinner because it is still light out and I eat dinner at night, when it is dark out. Which doesn't really happen so I end up eating dinner some nights at around 10:00 pm when I finally realize how late it is...
I am also starting to plan the whole packing thing and returning to the US etc. I have enjoyed my time hear and I am really excited for my trip, but I am definitely ready to return home. There are somethings that I do miss about the US, like goldfish... I know it is going to be a little weird to have everyone speaking a language I can understand, and not having accents, and stuff like groceries will be in English. In Ireland I had this realization and after so many times of buying Kylling instead of Chicken or Ost instead of Cheese, it was weird to see the english names on food.
Ok thats about all for this bit, next is Karneval.
So currently I am enjoying my last weekend in Aalborg. The weather here has been pretty good, some days are warm and cloudy, others warm and sunny and others warm and rainy but it is never very cold even at "night." I have finished all my finals except for my project defense which I am doing on Monday starting at 8:00am! That involves a group power point presentation that should last ~35 minutes and then one by one we each go in front of the panel (Made up of our faculty adviser and a professional from the field, in our case a guy who works for Vestas, since we are dealing with wind turbines). We each talk to the panel for about 30-45 minutes and afterwords we will receive our grade... I am not really nervous for it though, which may not be a good thing, but I have spent so much time on the project that I feel that I do really know all I need to do well.
I want to address the concept of night time, in Denmark as in all of Scandinavia they don't really get the concept, especially in the summer months. This is due to the fact that currently the sun sets sell after 10:00 pm but it dusk until well past midnight and since the sun rises a little after 4:00 am it starts to get light around 2:00-2:30. Therefore it is only dark for a short amount of time but even still it is actually never really dark it is just not light and if you look north even around 1:00-2:00 when it should be "darkest" you can clearly see light. It is kind of weird an crazy, especially now as we are approaching the longest day of the year... Going home is going to feel like I am heading into winter because of the lack of daylight. It does throw me off sometimes because I am used to eating dinner in the summer around when the sunsets, so sometimes I kinda forget to eat dinner because it is still light out and I eat dinner at night, when it is dark out. Which doesn't really happen so I end up eating dinner some nights at around 10:00 pm when I finally realize how late it is...
I am also starting to plan the whole packing thing and returning to the US etc. I have enjoyed my time hear and I am really excited for my trip, but I am definitely ready to return home. There are somethings that I do miss about the US, like goldfish... I know it is going to be a little weird to have everyone speaking a language I can understand, and not having accents, and stuff like groceries will be in English. In Ireland I had this realization and after so many times of buying Kylling instead of Chicken or Ost instead of Cheese, it was weird to see the english names on food.
Ok thats about all for this bit, next is Karneval.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
I know it has been a while
Sorry to those of you who are avid readers of my blog but my hiatus from writing has come to an end. Lyndsay was here and we were generally too busy for me to just sit down and write on my blog but now she is gone and I have time to recap what has happened in the last two weeks as well as address the future which for me in Denmark is now just one more month.
However due to the large amount of information I want to share there will not just be one post which covers this time period, instead there will be many. However I will go in chronological order of when the various events occurred. First off, last time that I wrote Lyndsay was on her way to Denmark.
She arrived safely on Wednesday morning, after a long journey across the pond. My head was still spinning with the project, which I had put in 110% effort into the previous three days so that I could take off the time to go get her from the Airport and not feel as though my group was in dire need. The report was in very good condition, and we had finished all we were doing was making final corrections and edits. It came out to being nearly 130 pages long plus all the information from labs and the source code for the computer model which were on a separate CD. I did go and help my group with the finishing edits on Wednesday because Lyndsay was soo tired she needed a nap. However I breathed a great sigh of relief on Thursday morning when I signed and handed in the final copy of my report. I then took Lyndsay down town and showed her all around the small but nice city that is Aalborg.
Friday I was hoping to do something fun and interesting with Lyndsay such as take her out somewhere, however the weather was no cooperating so we had a relaxing day in an around my collegium. This was good because we had to prepare for Saturday which was Karneval, an event which I will describe on my next post.
However due to the large amount of information I want to share there will not just be one post which covers this time period, instead there will be many. However I will go in chronological order of when the various events occurred. First off, last time that I wrote Lyndsay was on her way to Denmark.
She arrived safely on Wednesday morning, after a long journey across the pond. My head was still spinning with the project, which I had put in 110% effort into the previous three days so that I could take off the time to go get her from the Airport and not feel as though my group was in dire need. The report was in very good condition, and we had finished all we were doing was making final corrections and edits. It came out to being nearly 130 pages long plus all the information from labs and the source code for the computer model which were on a separate CD. I did go and help my group with the finishing edits on Wednesday because Lyndsay was soo tired she needed a nap. However I breathed a great sigh of relief on Thursday morning when I signed and handed in the final copy of my report. I then took Lyndsay down town and showed her all around the small but nice city that is Aalborg.
Friday I was hoping to do something fun and interesting with Lyndsay such as take her out somewhere, however the weather was no cooperating so we had a relaxing day in an around my collegium. This was good because we had to prepare for Saturday which was Karneval, an event which I will describe on my next post.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Skagen
I have to mention one mix up. I told you I was going to the highest point in Denmark. But that was a mis-translation, when the highest point was meant it meant the most northern place, called Grenen. I did go there on this trip as you will see below.
On Saturday I participated in an ICS (international cultural studies) trip to Skagen as part of my ISCAN course and because I was interested in visiting the northern most tip of Denmark. Skagen is a small little fishing town that is inhabited my few year round residents all of which are either fishermen or artists. However in the summer it is inhabited by throngs of tourists and beach goers. It sounds quite familiar to another place that I am quite familiar with, Cape Cod. In fact, it is, to a point it is almost scary. There were more similarities between Skagen, Dk and Truro, MA then I ever could have imagined. Between the shifting dunes covered in sea grass, to the cold sting of the ocean water, Skagen brought me back to the my annual summer retreat. However, it had its own danish twists that made it a unique location that was very fun to visit.
Maybe there is something to be said about remote sand covered places, but they sure seem to attract two types of people, artists and fisherman. Like the outer Cape, Skagen is more or less deserted in the off season with only a tad over 8,000 year round residents. As you will see, the fishing industry in Skagen is quite substantial, and despite the small town feel Skagen had a harbor that looked as if it could rival major Massachusetts fishing ports like Gloucester or Rockport. As we arrived in the morning we were traveling through terrain similar to the border of Truro and Provincetown. The ground was covered in small scraggly trees and sandy dunes broke up the otherwise flat terrain. The dunes were smaller and more grass covered than at home. I am guessing that is due to the much windier climate in Skagen, only the sand held down by grass can remain.
In the town there was a nice walking street with small little shops much like one would see in downtown Wellfleet. However instead of the small wood covered houses turned to a tanish brown from the sea salt, the houses were all painted yellow bricks with red clay roofs. Many of the roofs had a white outline so that the houses could be seen from far out at sea. However more so than any other place in Denmark that I have seen there were wood houses. Almost all of them were painted red and were close together almost as if they made a little community of fisherman's shacks.
One thing that was unique about Skagen was pretty much only noticeable in town but it was the smell. It smelled like fish, sometimes really bad fish. This was due to the giant fish factories in the harbor but wow it really did smell there. However that did not take away from the charm of the little harbor side fish restaurants that were serving up the best fresh catches of the day.
We went to the Skagen musuem to learn more about the artists and the history of Skagen. The museum was full of interesting paintings many of them I recognized from other Danish things because they are quite famous here in Denmark. A few of the more famous painter have world-wide recognition. Below is a classic by P. S. Krøyer.
We also briefly peeked in at the Teddy Bear museum before heading out to Grenen, the northern most point in Denmark. I was told that the light in Grenan is very unique and it is always bright there. This is true and is most likely due to the reflection from the sand and ocean that is on both sides. At Grenen the Baltic and North Seas meet on a little spit of sand that juts out into the sea. As I quickly determined they are surrounded by sandbars which explains the need for the rescue crew that was made up of fisherman which we learned about at the museum. Additionally there was a very tall but perhaps not the most beautiful light house protecting the point. Additionally Skagen was protected by many Nazi bunkers constructed in WWII when the Germans occupied Denmark.
Overall Skagen was a really neat place to visit. If you ever come to Denmark I would highly recommend it. It felt so much like cape cod it was almost surreal yet at the same time it was completely different. For instance the buildings at the beach at Grenen (the tip of Denmark) had the same design and roof top as the ones at Race Point (the tip of Massachusetts).
Ok, Lyndsay is in the air flying to visit me and I have less than a day and a half to finish my project so it is time to work. I will write more after all my stress has been released...
On Saturday I participated in an ICS (international cultural studies) trip to Skagen as part of my ISCAN course and because I was interested in visiting the northern most tip of Denmark. Skagen is a small little fishing town that is inhabited my few year round residents all of which are either fishermen or artists. However in the summer it is inhabited by throngs of tourists and beach goers. It sounds quite familiar to another place that I am quite familiar with, Cape Cod. In fact, it is, to a point it is almost scary. There were more similarities between Skagen, Dk and Truro, MA then I ever could have imagined. Between the shifting dunes covered in sea grass, to the cold sting of the ocean water, Skagen brought me back to the my annual summer retreat. However, it had its own danish twists that made it a unique location that was very fun to visit.
Maybe there is something to be said about remote sand covered places, but they sure seem to attract two types of people, artists and fisherman. Like the outer Cape, Skagen is more or less deserted in the off season with only a tad over 8,000 year round residents. As you will see, the fishing industry in Skagen is quite substantial, and despite the small town feel Skagen had a harbor that looked as if it could rival major Massachusetts fishing ports like Gloucester or Rockport. As we arrived in the morning we were traveling through terrain similar to the border of Truro and Provincetown. The ground was covered in small scraggly trees and sandy dunes broke up the otherwise flat terrain. The dunes were smaller and more grass covered than at home. I am guessing that is due to the much windier climate in Skagen, only the sand held down by grass can remain.
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| The road to Grenan the northern most point if Denmark |
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| Two of many huge fishing trawlers (on is directly behind the other), These boats look like they could catch a serious amount of fish. The "little" boats in the front are about the size of the big clamming boats found in Wellfleet harbor (40 -50 footers) |
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| Classic Denmark: a man on a bicycle, but this time in front of the small village made of wooden fisherman's shacks that are all painted red. |
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| Fiske (fish) restaurants, right on the pier where the fishing boats pull in, can 't get more fresh caught than that |
One thing that was unique about Skagen was pretty much only noticeable in town but it was the smell. It smelled like fish, sometimes really bad fish. This was due to the giant fish factories in the harbor but wow it really did smell there. However that did not take away from the charm of the little harbor side fish restaurants that were serving up the best fresh catches of the day.
We went to the Skagen musuem to learn more about the artists and the history of Skagen. The museum was full of interesting paintings many of them I recognized from other Danish things because they are quite famous here in Denmark. A few of the more famous painter have world-wide recognition. Below is a classic by P. S. Krøyer.
We also briefly peeked in at the Teddy Bear museum before heading out to Grenen, the northern most point in Denmark. I was told that the light in Grenan is very unique and it is always bright there. This is true and is most likely due to the reflection from the sand and ocean that is on both sides. At Grenen the Baltic and North Seas meet on a little spit of sand that juts out into the sea. As I quickly determined they are surrounded by sandbars which explains the need for the rescue crew that was made up of fisherman which we learned about at the museum. Additionally there was a very tall but perhaps not the most beautiful light house protecting the point. Additionally Skagen was protected by many Nazi bunkers constructed in WWII when the Germans occupied Denmark.
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| Standing in the water a Grenen |
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| The lighthouse at Grenen |
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| One of the well hidden Nazi bunkers that is slowly being swallowed by the dunes |
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| The "sandworm" which drove us out onto the beach |
Ok, Lyndsay is in the air flying to visit me and I have less than a day and a half to finish my project so it is time to work. I will write more after all my stress has been released...
Friday, May 20, 2011
T-minus 6 days for the project
This week went by so very fast. Every day was a work day on the project. We have made some great progress although there is still so much to do. Unfortunately we have had very minimal time with our group supervisor recently due to him being so very busy.
The weather was pretty lousy until yesterday so there was not much else to do. Yesterday was the first day of consistent sun in about a week. Lousy spring weather in Denmark is quite different from back home, but as the same time very similar. Here is cloudy with sporadic periods of rain and sun. I think this is partly to do with the wind. The wind moves the weather patterns very quickly so just as fast as the break in the clouds lets the sun through to Aalborg, it is pushed further east. The same happens with the rain. Last week I was biked to Fakta to get some groceries. When I biked there it was cloudy and windy and by the time I arrived the sun came out. I shopped for no more than half an hour and while I was waiting in line to check out I looked outside. To my horror it was pouring out. I was not thrilled at the prospect of biking home with a backpack and another bag full of groceries in that weather. Yet by the time I had finished paying and bagging the rain had stopped and it was beginning to look as if the sun was going to come back out. This reminds me of the saying "If you don't like the weather in New England, wait five minutes..."
Luckily this weekend despite being another working weekend will have some fun involved. Tomorrow as part school assignment part recreational trip I will be traveling to Skagen the northern most tip of Denmark. There we will go and check out the beach (too cold to go in) and see a museum as part of the International Cultural Studies class that I took called ISCAN. After we will go to the tallest "mountain" in Denmark, about the size of a small hill in New England say Nashoba Valley...
The weather was pretty lousy until yesterday so there was not much else to do. Yesterday was the first day of consistent sun in about a week. Lousy spring weather in Denmark is quite different from back home, but as the same time very similar. Here is cloudy with sporadic periods of rain and sun. I think this is partly to do with the wind. The wind moves the weather patterns very quickly so just as fast as the break in the clouds lets the sun through to Aalborg, it is pushed further east. The same happens with the rain. Last week I was biked to Fakta to get some groceries. When I biked there it was cloudy and windy and by the time I arrived the sun came out. I shopped for no more than half an hour and while I was waiting in line to check out I looked outside. To my horror it was pouring out. I was not thrilled at the prospect of biking home with a backpack and another bag full of groceries in that weather. Yet by the time I had finished paying and bagging the rain had stopped and it was beginning to look as if the sun was going to come back out. This reminds me of the saying "If you don't like the weather in New England, wait five minutes..."
Luckily this weekend despite being another working weekend will have some fun involved. Tomorrow as part school assignment part recreational trip I will be traveling to Skagen the northern most tip of Denmark. There we will go and check out the beach (too cold to go in) and see a museum as part of the International Cultural Studies class that I took called ISCAN. After we will go to the tallest "mountain" in Denmark, about the size of a small hill in New England say Nashoba Valley...
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
My little accident
So unfortunately I have no pictures to document this, however I had a small accident this weekend. On Friday I was biking home when I made a series of poor decisions that lead to my situation. Here is how it all played out:
I was approaching a rotary that I would have to cross to get home. I was traveling with a good amount of momentum that I wanted to keep up because there was a long flat section after the rotary that leads to a downhill and I wanted to be efficient (lazy) and not have to work very hard in that section. So here were my errors, I slowed a bit as a approached but the path makes a sharp curved turn left so that it goes around the rotary and then to cross the street it makes an immediate 90 Degree turn right. I decided that I would try to perfectly execute the straight line maneuver to minimize turning and therefore be able to do this at higher speed. This is something I could have easily accomplished at home due to my nice mountain bike. Especially because at home I would just blast off the curb and ignore the path in this situation. However here in Denmark I have an old (i am guessing it is older than me in fact) road bike with, bad brakes, low tires, and a lose chain and no suspension. So I knew if I went off the curb I would derail my chain and have to come to a stop anyways. So I went for it. Turns out my bike is really not good enough to make that type of precision movement so as I attempted to make the right angle right hand turn I turned my wheel to much and at too great a speed and when flying into the road head first...
Amazingly I got up and felts my arms and legs and noticed that I was virtually unscathed. I had a small bit of "road rash" on my right palm and a bump on my left knew from hitting the bike as I fell, but that was it. Then I felt around with my tongue... And boom the real damage was apparent, I had chipped one of my front teeth. I was no a stranger to chipped teeth in fact the other front tooth, I have chipped four times. I knew it was not a bad chip because it did not hurt even when I poked it with my tongue but I knew it was till a bummer because it meant a trip to the dentist to get it repaired. And the real bummer was that now I had come to a complete stop and I still had to do all the pedaling I tried to avoid in the first place...
After some help from my Danish group mates I contacted a dentist the next day but unless I wanted to pay a lot of money I was advised to wait until the week because the weekend dentist is extremely expensive and I was not in pain so I did jut that. Today I am happy to report that my mouth now again has a good set of teeth. After a quick and nearly painless procedure (no Novocaine etc due to lack of damage near the root= it didn't hurt to eat etc) but the drilling wasn't so pleasant. All I can say is I have chipped my teeth 5 times in 21 years so about once every four years, doing that math out when I am 80 that would be 20 chipped teeth or more likely at that age dentures... Hopefully not but it was pretty funny to think about.
PS my bike suffered slight damage in the crash as well, the front reflector broke off but it is a non-essential part so it just adds to something else broken on my bike...
I was approaching a rotary that I would have to cross to get home. I was traveling with a good amount of momentum that I wanted to keep up because there was a long flat section after the rotary that leads to a downhill and I wanted to be efficient (lazy) and not have to work very hard in that section. So here were my errors, I slowed a bit as a approached but the path makes a sharp curved turn left so that it goes around the rotary and then to cross the street it makes an immediate 90 Degree turn right. I decided that I would try to perfectly execute the straight line maneuver to minimize turning and therefore be able to do this at higher speed. This is something I could have easily accomplished at home due to my nice mountain bike. Especially because at home I would just blast off the curb and ignore the path in this situation. However here in Denmark I have an old (i am guessing it is older than me in fact) road bike with, bad brakes, low tires, and a lose chain and no suspension. So I knew if I went off the curb I would derail my chain and have to come to a stop anyways. So I went for it. Turns out my bike is really not good enough to make that type of precision movement so as I attempted to make the right angle right hand turn I turned my wheel to much and at too great a speed and when flying into the road head first...
Amazingly I got up and felts my arms and legs and noticed that I was virtually unscathed. I had a small bit of "road rash" on my right palm and a bump on my left knew from hitting the bike as I fell, but that was it. Then I felt around with my tongue... And boom the real damage was apparent, I had chipped one of my front teeth. I was no a stranger to chipped teeth in fact the other front tooth, I have chipped four times. I knew it was not a bad chip because it did not hurt even when I poked it with my tongue but I knew it was till a bummer because it meant a trip to the dentist to get it repaired. And the real bummer was that now I had come to a complete stop and I still had to do all the pedaling I tried to avoid in the first place...
After some help from my Danish group mates I contacted a dentist the next day but unless I wanted to pay a lot of money I was advised to wait until the week because the weekend dentist is extremely expensive and I was not in pain so I did jut that. Today I am happy to report that my mouth now again has a good set of teeth. After a quick and nearly painless procedure (no Novocaine etc due to lack of damage near the root= it didn't hurt to eat etc) but the drilling wasn't so pleasant. All I can say is I have chipped my teeth 5 times in 21 years so about once every four years, doing that math out when I am 80 that would be 20 chipped teeth or more likely at that age dentures... Hopefully not but it was pretty funny to think about.
PS my bike suffered slight damage in the crash as well, the front reflector broke off but it is a non-essential part so it just adds to something else broken on my bike...
Monday, May 16, 2011
Berlin
Ok I know this took a while, sorry folks here is Berlin, I am going to change my style this time. Rather then a long chronological ramble I will have themes for the what I did in the city but first I will give general and brief intro:
So in order to get the reasonably cheap flights to Berlin I had to make a 6:25 flight from Aalborg. Unfortunately there is only one bus running at that hour and if I miss it I miss my flight to Copenhagen and Berlin and if I make it I have to run through the airport and security etc because there is very little time before the flight. Due to the nice weather I decided I would bike to the airport especially because I only had a backpack because my trip was only from tuesday til thursday. So I had an nice early morning 12 km ride to the airport made my flights and by after a little gamble with the train 10:45 I was in downtown Berlin. It was cold when I left Aalborg so I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt but in Berlin it was 28 C (83 F) Without a street map, I decided to wander using my instincts to guide me and I was very successful. However now I will talk about what I saw based on "themes."
"Historical/ Famous Buildings"
I managed to find my way to the Reichstag (German Parliament) which was one of the few beautiful grand older looking buildings in Berlin. Most of the buildings were new and there were no sections of similar buildings or houses like in Copenhagen or Stockholm because they were all destroyed by WWII or more likely during the Soviet rule of East Berlin. In fact most of the old main part of the city was in East Berlin and the Reichstag was included as well as the Brandenburg Gate and the Berliner Dom. These are some of the few old majestic buildings left in the city that were rebuilt (Reichstag) or survived the war. In fact in many places across the city they were still excavating remains and foundations of old buildings. I also saw the famous statue (Siegessäule) that lies 1.5 km down the road from the Brandenburg gate and Bellevue, the Whitehouse of Germany...
"The Wall"
In the early afternoon I checked into my hostel, and I got a street map that had all the inner city attractions listed on it which was very useful. I took the subway over to Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie is now a histroical tourist attraction and all the military establishments on both sides have been removed yet it was still nice to learn about the intense day to day struggles that went on there. In fact WWIII almost started when the US and the USSR started lining up tanks on either side of the border crossing as a result of a minor political standoff. Afterwords I went to the only part of the wall that has been unaltered in anyway since 1989. It was pretty cool. However the really interesting part of the wall that was now a museum, they had rebuilt and reinforced some sections to make it a permanent exhibit was on the other side of the city so I saw it on Wednesday. The wall was more than I thought I would be, it was in fact two and sometimes three or four walls that were separated by kill zones (no man's land) that could be several hundred meters wide and were gaurded by men in towers and outposts. In fact East Berlin was more of a Fortress/ jail then a city. Many of the kill zones still have not been developed and are just fallow scars that cut the city. The wall was very destructive in part of the city. It was built across roads and through cemeteries and neighborhoods. In fact much of the wall was just the facade of old buildings that were torn down after the wall was complete and became part of the no mans land but the first floor of the wall was still the front of the building. This changed when Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and he rebuilt the whole exterior wall to look like it does today.
Transportation
So due to the fact that the city was cut into chunks the transportation system is organized (as per typical german engineering) but at the same time slightly awkward. For one there is no central part of the city or city center, like Times Square in New York city or Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. I have a feeling that the trains and subway system from before the war are in use today because the city is well connected. However it is interesting to see which stations are new connections from east to west and which clearly are only in one part. The trams for instance generally only exist in east Germany. Also there are looks of great cars driving around, however the drivers are neither as patient, passive or friendly as their danish counterparts. I will say that the central train station (hauptbahnhof) was so huge it was crazy I mean central station has a lot of tracks but it is nothing compared to the multi story train station/ mall that towers over the border of east and west Berlin (yea it is very new, most likely a connection between the networks of the two parts of the city.
Food
So like in the other European countries I have been to "street meat" is both good and popular. In Berlin there are many carts and stands that sell Bratwurst and my new favorite Currywurst along with small buns. They are both cheap and delicious. I saw several guys who were selling them from grills that were a backpack that held the gas and extra food and a grill in front with all the condiments, that must be a tiring job, but there they were. Also I was told a great place to get "the best Kebab every" as well I was told it is the best city for Kebab in Europe. So far both were true. I went to that place which conveniently was right near to my hostel. I also saw another place with a huge line even though it was a tiny little kebab stand. So I got in line and it was even better than the first. America we need to sell these things they are cheap and fantastic and so much healthier than subway etc...
Hostel
My hostel was absolutely fantastic. It was cheap and fun and full of interesting people. They offered so much to do for the young traveler on a budget including free walking tours but I had already done my own self guided tour so I did not part take. They also offered pub crawls and had suggestions about music scene etc. But I really enjoyed hanging out in the common area with the other world travelers and meeting people from all over. And best of all they had 1/2 liter german and czech beers on sale for one euro from 8-10 every night... Thank you East Seven Hostel for a great stay and if any of you who read this ever go to Berlin and are staying in a hostel go here, the staff are great and it has a great environment.
So that is in short what I did in Berlin, I hope you liked this new format. If not I can change to the old one or maybe I will try something new next time... I find this whole blogging thing is all about trial and error
So in order to get the reasonably cheap flights to Berlin I had to make a 6:25 flight from Aalborg. Unfortunately there is only one bus running at that hour and if I miss it I miss my flight to Copenhagen and Berlin and if I make it I have to run through the airport and security etc because there is very little time before the flight. Due to the nice weather I decided I would bike to the airport especially because I only had a backpack because my trip was only from tuesday til thursday. So I had an nice early morning 12 km ride to the airport made my flights and by after a little gamble with the train 10:45 I was in downtown Berlin. It was cold when I left Aalborg so I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt but in Berlin it was 28 C (83 F) Without a street map, I decided to wander using my instincts to guide me and I was very successful. However now I will talk about what I saw based on "themes."
"Historical/ Famous Buildings"
I managed to find my way to the Reichstag (German Parliament) which was one of the few beautiful grand older looking buildings in Berlin. Most of the buildings were new and there were no sections of similar buildings or houses like in Copenhagen or Stockholm because they were all destroyed by WWII or more likely during the Soviet rule of East Berlin. In fact most of the old main part of the city was in East Berlin and the Reichstag was included as well as the Brandenburg Gate and the Berliner Dom. These are some of the few old majestic buildings left in the city that were rebuilt (Reichstag) or survived the war. In fact in many places across the city they were still excavating remains and foundations of old buildings. I also saw the famous statue (Siegessäule) that lies 1.5 km down the road from the Brandenburg gate and Bellevue, the Whitehouse of Germany...
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| Reichstag- the glass dome on the top was recently rebuilt and is now a restaurant for the public |
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| The Brandenburg gate entrance to one of Berlin's old causeways that is now just a nice street to walk on that cuts through the city |
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| Berliner Dom- a beautiful old church at the other end of Unter den Linden (the road the Brandenburg Gate is on) |
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| Siegessäule, which stand proudly in the western part of Tiergarden which is a beautiful garden that lies in West Berlin |
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| Bellevue, the house of the Prime Minister |
"The Wall"
In the early afternoon I checked into my hostel, and I got a street map that had all the inner city attractions listed on it which was very useful. I took the subway over to Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie is now a histroical tourist attraction and all the military establishments on both sides have been removed yet it was still nice to learn about the intense day to day struggles that went on there. In fact WWIII almost started when the US and the USSR started lining up tanks on either side of the border crossing as a result of a minor political standoff. Afterwords I went to the only part of the wall that has been unaltered in anyway since 1989. It was pretty cool. However the really interesting part of the wall that was now a museum, they had rebuilt and reinforced some sections to make it a permanent exhibit was on the other side of the city so I saw it on Wednesday. The wall was more than I thought I would be, it was in fact two and sometimes three or four walls that were separated by kill zones (no man's land) that could be several hundred meters wide and were gaurded by men in towers and outposts. In fact East Berlin was more of a Fortress/ jail then a city. Many of the kill zones still have not been developed and are just fallow scars that cut the city. The wall was very destructive in part of the city. It was built across roads and through cemeteries and neighborhoods. In fact much of the wall was just the facade of old buildings that were torn down after the wall was complete and became part of the no mans land but the first floor of the wall was still the front of the building. This changed when Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and he rebuilt the whole exterior wall to look like it does today.
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| Checkpoint Charlie from the American side looking into East Berlin, 22 years ago there would have been tanks, barricades, and barbed wire here |
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| The last untouched part of the wall that is now a part of an outdoor museum |
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| The wall exhibit that shows what it looked like 25 years ago, not the tall wall, guard tower, barbed wire fence and the short wall, in fact this section was built atop an existing cemetery and they just :moved" the graves.... |
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| Part of the kill zone that is just nothingness right now near Nordbahnhof |
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| They are now rebuilding the wall, as a memorial to what happened and the 136 confirmed dead because of it(1000s were wounded and many people are still unaccounted for as dead, wounded, or alive) |
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| Over 300 streets were closed because of the wall, this is the only street in Berlin that is still obstructed by the wall and as part of the memorial will remain that way |
Transportation
So due to the fact that the city was cut into chunks the transportation system is organized (as per typical german engineering) but at the same time slightly awkward. For one there is no central part of the city or city center, like Times Square in New York city or Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. I have a feeling that the trains and subway system from before the war are in use today because the city is well connected. However it is interesting to see which stations are new connections from east to west and which clearly are only in one part. The trams for instance generally only exist in east Germany. Also there are looks of great cars driving around, however the drivers are neither as patient, passive or friendly as their danish counterparts. I will say that the central train station (hauptbahnhof) was so huge it was crazy I mean central station has a lot of tracks but it is nothing compared to the multi story train station/ mall that towers over the border of east and west Berlin (yea it is very new, most likely a connection between the networks of the two parts of the city.
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| Inside the Mercedes Benz store, a classic... |
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| The top station at Hauptbahnhof which had both local trains and commuters bustling through |
So like in the other European countries I have been to "street meat" is both good and popular. In Berlin there are many carts and stands that sell Bratwurst and my new favorite Currywurst along with small buns. They are both cheap and delicious. I saw several guys who were selling them from grills that were a backpack that held the gas and extra food and a grill in front with all the condiments, that must be a tiring job, but there they were. Also I was told a great place to get "the best Kebab every" as well I was told it is the best city for Kebab in Europe. So far both were true. I went to that place which conveniently was right near to my hostel. I also saw another place with a huge line even though it was a tiny little kebab stand. So I got in line and it was even better than the first. America we need to sell these things they are cheap and fantastic and so much healthier than subway etc...
Hostel
My hostel was absolutely fantastic. It was cheap and fun and full of interesting people. They offered so much to do for the young traveler on a budget including free walking tours but I had already done my own self guided tour so I did not part take. They also offered pub crawls and had suggestions about music scene etc. But I really enjoyed hanging out in the common area with the other world travelers and meeting people from all over. And best of all they had 1/2 liter german and czech beers on sale for one euro from 8-10 every night... Thank you East Seven Hostel for a great stay and if any of you who read this ever go to Berlin and are staying in a hostel go here, the staff are great and it has a great environment.
So that is in short what I did in Berlin, I hope you liked this new format. If not I can change to the old one or maybe I will try something new next time... I find this whole blogging thing is all about trial and error
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Austrian Dinner and the weekend
I know this is out of order but the Berlin post will come next ( I am currently uploading my photos as I type). After returning home from a very fun but exhausting trip. I had to dive right back into my project. However I knew the weekend would be busy due to an abundance of social events and work. For instance on Saturday night I partook in wonderful dinner prepared by my Austrian friends.
The prepared traditional Austrian food, like cooked cabbage, knödel, and a roast pork with potatoes. For dinner we had a traditional Austrian cake, strudel and a very yummy vanilla pudding sauce. It was all fantastic and I excitedly returned for seconds afterwords due to an abundance of knödel (basically a ball of bread and spices and other ingredients that is first boiled then bakes, similar texture to a matzah ball but different taste). The dessert was awesome as well, the warm vanilla sauce made the fruit cake melt and it was so very good. And to wash it all down with a cold Tuborg Golden Lady was a perfect dinner experience.
After dinner we had some very intense ping pong action as Vincent and I formed an alliance and took on six others in the "running" ping pong game.
Today I had yet another early morning working on my project. However I left early so I could catch the tail end of a brunch that was organized by the same group of people that had done the dinner. Luckily for me both events took place in my collegium. Even though I showed up about 2 hours late there was still some food left and it was all amazing. I dont think I have ever had such an unhealthy brunch but nevertheless it was still awesome. There was two types of banana bread, apple turnover, home made strawberry rhubarb jam( it was awesome), chocolate chip muffins, danish cinnamon cake, strawberry charlotte cake... you get the picture. And I had to sample all of them of course... So this weekend has been all about food or work but it was still a good one. This next week is gonna be a real hard work week as we try to get a most of the project finished because it is due in only 10 days
The prepared traditional Austrian food, like cooked cabbage, knödel, and a roast pork with potatoes. For dinner we had a traditional Austrian cake, strudel and a very yummy vanilla pudding sauce. It was all fantastic and I excitedly returned for seconds afterwords due to an abundance of knödel (basically a ball of bread and spices and other ingredients that is first boiled then bakes, similar texture to a matzah ball but different taste). The dessert was awesome as well, the warm vanilla sauce made the fruit cake melt and it was so very good. And to wash it all down with a cold Tuborg Golden Lady was a perfect dinner experience.
After dinner we had some very intense ping pong action as Vincent and I formed an alliance and took on six others in the "running" ping pong game.
Today I had yet another early morning working on my project. However I left early so I could catch the tail end of a brunch that was organized by the same group of people that had done the dinner. Luckily for me both events took place in my collegium. Even though I showed up about 2 hours late there was still some food left and it was all amazing. I dont think I have ever had such an unhealthy brunch but nevertheless it was still awesome. There was two types of banana bread, apple turnover, home made strawberry rhubarb jam( it was awesome), chocolate chip muffins, danish cinnamon cake, strawberry charlotte cake... you get the picture. And I had to sample all of them of course... So this weekend has been all about food or work but it was still a good one. This next week is gonna be a real hard work week as we try to get a most of the project finished because it is due in only 10 days
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