Carnival Week!!!

Well, last week was a fun yet busy week. I'll try to keep it short since I have a week to cover. Brace yourself. It was Carnival week! In other words, it was my spring break which meant a bit of traveling, costumes, and a little craziness here and there. Carnival is a celebration that is held in different cities throughout Europe. It's similar to Mardi Gras in the states in which it's leading up to the Lenten season, but Carnival is a little intense, to say the least.
Everyone dressed up crazy all day everyday beginning Friday until Tuesday. It was an interesting experience, and I really liked getting to dress up and see everyone's crazy costumes. On Sunday, we tried to catch the parade, but it turns out we had just missed it by the time we got to the square. It's okay though, we got to see everyone's cool costumes and dress up ourselves! Even at twelve in the morning, people were drinking at the parade. It was pretty funny. So we stayed in Maastricht to celebrate Carnival since they make a huge party out of it, but then on Monday noght we headed to Prague. I got my first night train experience: it wasn't the best. I literally got no sleep, so when I arrived in Prague, I was exhausted.

The World Famous Astronomical Clock

 

However, my tiredness did not deter me from enjoying the splendor of Prague! I am going to start off saying I loved it! It was absolutely gorgeous. We did another one of the free, Sandman tours which I always love because they really do give you so much information about the city and give you a feel for its history. The best part about it? It was beautiful weather. It brightened my spirits immediately, and the sun was shinning all day. Afterwards, some of us took a relaxing boat ride down the Vltava River. It was absolutely gorgeous. I loved walking around the city, plus the food was super cheap which was great to not be spending a ton on food for once! It is such an old city, and it's cool to think I was walking around the city that was once the center of the Holy Roman Empire.

The next day we decided to take a tour of the Praha (Prague) Castle. I really enjoyed it. When we reached the top, we had a gorgeous view of the city. It was also another beautiful day making all our walking around the castle great. When I say castle, I mean a small little village. The King evidently went to church a lot back in the day because we went to about 5 different churches just within the castle itself. Despite being a little worn out, it was great fun! Then a few of us decided to go to church since it was Ash Wednesday, so we went to The Church of Our Lady which is a huge church that we weren't allowed to go in previously. I couldn't take pictures of the inside, but it was really neat to attend a mass in Czech (even though I had no idea what they were saying). The down side? The church was absolutely freezing. I forgot that European churches don't heat their old cathedrals, so it had ended up being colder inside than it was outside. I wasn't adequately dressed. It was really neat. Afterwards, we did a little bit of shopping in the market where they had a bunch of shop and grabbed a bite to eat.

Now, the next day we left Prague and headed to Vienna. At first, I was a little miserable. I was sick and when we arrived it was raining and quite honestly, all I wanted to do was sleep. I resisted the urge, and I'm glad I did. First we went to the palace of the Hapsburg Palace which was huge to walk around. It made me think a little bit of Potsdam and Versailles combined. Following, most of us decided to go to the city center which was really fun. We found a place to eat and walked around the city. It has this really neat architecture and nearly all the buildings in the City Center are white. The downtown area was really beautiful. We had packed a lot of walking and sight seeing in one day, so we were all pretty exhausted so we went back to our hostel to relax for a bit. We were staying at The Wombat which had recently opened a few weeks before. It was lovely. Everything still smelled new. (We had stayed at The Wombat in Berlin which had been really nice). At night, we all hung out and then some people had to leave early the next morning since our group had split up a bit.
The rest of the weekend was something like sleep, a little bit of homework, more sleep and yes, sleep, as I tried to recuperate from being sick. (I know, it was so unfortunate to be sick in Prague-I loved it so much!) I'm feeling slightly better, but I think some naps may be in order this week as I try to get through the plethora of papers I'm going to have to write. This weekend? Paris! And I get to see my friend, Cara, so I'm super excited!!! :)

Preggo?!

Fun Fact of the trip: Meaning of the word "Preggo".  In Italian, so nothing like short for pregnant or something silly. Anyway, our entire time in Milan people kept saying "Preggo!" We kept speculating different possible definitions. At first we were convinced it was "You're welcome" or then "How are you?" or maybe even "Whoever's next" (I deduced that one from the grocery store). Anyway, it seemed like with anything, they would just throw in the word Preggo. Maybe it meant "um" or "like". In all honesty, I was so lost to the actual meaning by the end of the weekend, that I was totally surprised when I came back and looked up the word. It means "Please". Well, that makes a lot more sense (most of the time). Either way, people in Milan used the words way too much for it just to mean "Please" so we made a fun guessing game out of that word. I was amused anyway. 

But I digress. As you might have detained, I returned this week from Milan, Italy. Last Friday, we flew (and I slept) to Milan where the group of us 5 attempted to find our hostel and figure out the Milanese transportation system. It was more difficult than it sounds. Eventually, however, we made it there, and I'm sure you can imagine the first thing we did: we ate pizza. Yum. After that, full of good food and wine we did what any normal people would do...nap. We had a really nice hostel though, so it was okay. We were just making use out of it! It even had a balcony. It was super nice!

So after a quick nap (in my defense, I was running on very little sleep), we headed to the city center to see the City Center and the Duomo. It was very cool. There was a huge mall that had all of the designer brands in it such as Gucci and Prada. It was also the prettiest mall I'd ever seen which I guess I should have expected coming from the fashion capital of Italy. We also ended up seeing the end of a fashion show which we thought was cool before hitting up some gelato and doing a little more of shopping before dinner. Let me tell you now-I'm in love with gelato. I'm convinced that if I lived in Italy, I would be diabetic for that sole reason: eating gelato with every single meal. Absolutely delicious. 

Now, on top of food and shopping, we found out the next day that there was another fashion show that we were allowed to sit in on. Why? It was fashion week! It was so cool because afterwards we just walked around seeing all sorts of people that were in, watching models make their ways from one place to the next. It was pretty good timing to spontaneously to go to Milan. We had gone to Milan because we did something called "blind booking" where you pay up front and then it takes you to a random place of their choosing-nerve racking, I assure you.  Anyway, I had more pizza this day too, but it was still very good, and then early Sunday  morning we made our way back to Maastricht. 

Additionally, Saturday we had a picnic on the steps of the Duomo which was wonderful (despite the vile pigeons surrounding us). It was great fun even though our plans to visit Pisa had fallen through. It was nice to have a more relaxing trip. Besides, it was sunny! You have no idea how wonderful the sun is when it’s been so rainy here. It was absolutely beautiful. All and all, a fantastic last evening in Milan.  

Now, this next coming post will be all about Carnival which I'm excited for since it's supposed to be all sorts of levels of craziness. Apparently it's similar to Mardi Gras + some. I can only imagine. I promise to take a lot of pictures (since I've been stealing photos due to some camera issues). No worries and I'm also excited for a week off of school! This week I guess I should be buckling and down to get it all out of the way. Besides that, Milan was fabulous, and I'm anxiously awaiting for Carnival. On that note, until next time! :)

Doe a deer, a pretzel, and a beer...

Hello everyone! Time to sum up my last weekend of travels which included southern Germany and Salzburg, Austria. It was great fun, and we left right after class on Thursday for Munich. We got in late and checked into our hostel which fit thirteen people! It was the biggest room I'd stayed in so far, but it wasn't too bad. The next day, we all woke up early to go to Neuschwanstein Castle. It was a two hour train ride outside Munich which wasn't too bad and let me assure you, it was well worth the trip. This was the castle that inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle in Disneyland. Oh my goodness, it was so beautiful. We really had the fairytale day, you could say because we took a carriage ride up to it which was fun (considering all the walking we would do later).

When we arrived, we got to go inside which was also gorgeous. We actually didn't get to see the entire castle because it was never actually finished. It was ordered to be built by King Ludwig II who incidentally was a bit mad and had plans to build numerous castles out in the Alps and all over Bavaria since he had envisioned up this fairytale world for himself due to his distaste at becoming King. Anyway, King Ludwig died before it was finished and then his family immediately cancelled all plans to continue finishing the castle, despite that it had been worked on for the past 17 years. Poor Ludwig. He only got to spend a little over 100 days living in his dream palace. Well, as you can see by the picture, we got a pretty fantastic view. We ended up hiking up to this bridge from across the way that was actually made to go over a waterfall, but it provided us with the perfect view. Stunning. Afterward, we ate in the cute little town. I was excited because I got mulled wine which is delicious. It's pretty similar to cider but better (in my opinion-not everyone was fond of it).

The Glockenspiel

Then, that night, we returned back to Munich. Following that, some of our group split up. Some people went to Salzburg early the next day in order to do the Sound of Music tour. I stayed with the others in Munich, however, because I really wanted to see more of the city. We did another one of the free city tours (which is awesome-I really love these tours, they're so great and you see so much). It was fun because we saw a lot of history from both WWII and from Munich as Bavarian Kingdom. We also got to see the huge market square which was neat (tons of people on a Saturday day afternoon). The best part of Munich? The fact that they could turn in any story into something about beer. Ridiculous-in an absolutely fantastic way, of course. I got to try the pope's beer. Yes, I know. The pope has his beer specially imported from Munich which I thought was hilarious. I mean, I guess the pope is German...haha. It was actually really good (coming from a girl who isn't a huge fan of beer).

Then, I ate the largest pretzel I'd ever seen in my life. See? My friend, Olga's, face could fit inside of it! It was huge...so I shared since we'd already eaten a large lunch. It was pretty awesome though, in my opinion. So after a lovely afternoon in Munich, which is a really pretty city in general, we made our way to Salzburg. The hostel we stayed at was the nicest I've been at so far. The beds were...comfy! I slept wonderfully. It was called the Yo-Ho (which is pretty funny in my opinion. I just imagine people yodeling up in the Alps now).

Then, the next day, we toured Salzburg. I went with the later group (because I was lazy and there was no way I was waking up before 8 o'clock). There were three of us, and they'd made friends with these girls from South Africa, so we climbed up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress which was not as easy as I thought it would be (particularly with my backpack on). I was glad I did it, but once we got into the Fortress, it turns out that the roads inside it are incredibly steep as well. Joy! Ah, but it was really fun. Besides, it looks like the motto of our trip is becoming "Legs of Steel", so I'm sure all this walking is going to benefit me someway. In addition to the fortress, we also saw the Mirabell Gardens where they sing "Doe, a deer, a female deer..". It was pretty, and I can only imagine what it looks like in the summer when everything is in full bloom.

All in all, it was a really fabulous trip. My midterms were this week, so it's kept me busy as well! (which explains why I took forever to write this). I really enjoyed Munich and Salzburg. They were two beautiful cities, and it was all great, despite the cold!

Rainy Days and Waffles

Well, I'm a little late on the blogging...my deepest apologies. Last weekend, I had a much more relaxing weekend. I stayed the nights in Maastricht. We went to dinner at a pretty good Thai place-my favorite! Then, the next day a few of us who had hung back went to Brussels for a day trip.

It was rainy and cold in Belgium, but it's okay because when I got there we got to eat. You can guess what I got...waffles! They were delicious. Please...look at the picture as a reference. But seriously, they were the best waffles ever (and not only because I was starving). In addition, they had some amazing Belgium hot chocolate to accompany it, so there's a good chance I might catch a train to Brussels one day...just to get waffles. The rest of the day we took some pictures, walked around, visited the EU building and the King's Garden. It wasn't until we got a bit lost did we run into any problems. Remember the cold, wet, rain? Yes...we ended up in North Brussels and failed at trying to get a bus back. We eventually got on the subway and took it back to the train station. Funny thing? We didn't pay for any transportation. They didn't charge us on the bus. We were confused because we paid earlier, but then we just got off and no one stopped us. Later, on the subway, we didn't know where people were getting their tickets, so we just got on without them! No harm done, though. We made it back to Maastricht without getting irrevocably lost or arrested.

The next day we went to Amsterdam and did some of the regular touristy things. We grabbed a bite to eat and walked around. We also went to the Anne Frank house which was my favorite part of the trip (one because we were inside). I think I might go back another day when it isn't rainy and cold (oh and boy was it cold. Even though it's only two hours north, it was a lot colder than Maastricht and I was not wearing enough layers!)

 This week in Maastricht has been busy, busy, busy! Schoolwork is keeping me on my toes, that's for sure. Next week, I'm already starting midterms (so we all know what I'm doing on my six hour train ride). Today, however, was one of the prettiest days we've had so far. It warmed up by the afternoon, so I went on a run (where I surprisingly didn't collapse). It was my first run in Europe which I was excited about. It was fun to run through the city. Everyone was out in the plaza as I ran past them, going in and out of streets. I'm definitely someone who's mood is effected by the weather. Therefore, sunshine=happiness. In other word, an absolutely fabulous way to end the week! This weekend...Salzburg and Munich! An update to be anticipated :) !!!

Pinky's

Hello again! So I decided that while I've been giving everyone a little taste of my adventures, I haven't really gone into any details about what I'm really supposed to be here for: school.

Yes, I know, I had sort of forgotten about it too myself. This thing called homework? Yes, it still exists, unfortunately. However, this semester is a little easier than most, thankfully. I'm not taking as many hours as I usually do because I'm only taking four classes. It's a mixture of history, political science and literature classes. Generally, this means I have a lot of reading to do, but that's easily done on a train ride so it's not too bad. Just add the occasional essay here and there and BAM - I've got myself another semester under my belt. Crazy, isn't it?

This was my second week of classes, so I've started to get into the swing of things in my academia part of this semester. Maastricht is a really nice, little town and I've finally managed to find my way around and not get lost (ahem, when I'm taking my twenty minute walk to class). Everyone in Europe walks everywhere - it's fabulous...and what more? Cars actually stop for pedestrians. It's revolutionary.

Now, you might be wondering what the heck is Pinky's. It is a very, delicious waffle place that my roommate and I went to discover this morning. We didn't have class until this afternoon, and we'd heard about this from a friend who'd been on this trip before. They told us we had to go get waffles at Pinky's. Oh and boy were they right! It was a very scrumptious waffle. See? Who says you can't eat desert for breakfast? (They put ice cream on my waffle...soooo good!)

So, overall, the "studying" portion of study abroad is going smoothly (don't worry Mom and Dad). I'm enjoying my classes (and all the walking that encompasses it). This weekend? I'm venturing out to the west a little to Belgium (more waffles I'm sure) and Luxembourg. Until then!

The REAL Germany

Okay, okay. I will explain my title in due time. Last week was my first week of classes which are all very interesting but require a bit of reading. Perfect for me because now I have something to do on those long train rides! However, I'll get into my classes more another time, but I will begin with my trip to Berlin. Some of us had a class that ended at 3:30, so we decided to try (and run) to catch the 4 o'clock train. We made it, thankfully, but if only the rest of our trip had been that easy!

Our train ride to Berlin required that we switch a few trains. We were waiting for our train and had about a twenty minute layover. Sadly, we took the wrong train. The train came a minute before ours came (and this had been  rather abandoned train station), so we all clambered aboard before we realized our mistake.
We immediately got off at the next stop to find ourselves in the random German town where we had to search for some one to speak English to figure out if a train was coming back on the single track it had there. The name of this town? Hertzogstraat something or another. We were literally in the middle of nowhere with only one person who knew a little bit of German. We found someone to help us, and they explained that the train would eventually turn back around, so we waited...again. Meanwhile, we had to figure out how on earth to get back to Berlin since we'd missed our other connections. (Here we have to thank the Bilbro's...Jeff Bilbro is our graduate assistant who we called. He looked up trains for us to take since we couldn't get WiFi anywhere!)

Thank goodness some people knew what they were doing because I just kept joking about how we had found the 'Real' Germany. Needless to say the train station we were in...it was a bit sketch.
You think our sketchiness ended there? Not for us. We made it to Berlin, but by that time it was passed midnight. Our plan had been to hail a cab, but the cab driver was trying to convince us it was only 200 meters and that it was just around the corner. He didn't drive us. We had directions, so we figured we could make our way so again, off we went. Obviously, this was my first time in Berlin, so the city at night was very different. I was a little taken aback by all the graffiti which was later explained as a big part of the culture and atmosphere in Berlin. It made me feel a little sketch, but in actuality by the time we got to our hostel (which was 1: 30am) we realized the hostel we were staying in was pretty sweet! The Wombat was actually pretty nice considering I was expecting something a bit shady. It was actually very cool.

Now, the rest of our time in Berlin was actually amazingly fun! We did one of the free walking tours the next day, and I absolutely loved it. We had a tour guide who was from Liverpool, bit of an anarchist, and she owned her own theater company. She was actually very awesome and a very engaging guide. We saw lots of things such as the Berlin Wall, the Arch, the Holocaust Memorial and lots of different buildings that represented different periods in history from World War II to the Cold War. For the most part, a lot of the sites we saw was in East Berlin which was a little sad at some points. The history was fascinating, but so much of it has been sad and dark. It's a division that can still be felt throughout the city. West Berlin is full of more business and shopping, but East Berlin seemed to hold a lot more of the city's history. It was definitely a great thing to see and experience. 

We all hung out that night which was fun and stayed another night in Berlin. Then the next day we took a little detour outside the city to Potsdam which is where the palaces of the kaisers were. It was a pretty cool city despite the wind and the cold. We ended up doing our own kind of thing because the tour was not in English but in German. A bit of a problem since the most German I can speak is "Guten tag". Haha!
After that, we headed to Cologne (by this point we're getting very savvy with the train system so no worries). We got there later, so we got a late dinner and checked into our hostel. It was still pretty nice, although the Wombat is still my personal favorite. :) We all had a more relaxing night, hanging out and playing Uno.
Then this morning, we got the opportunity to see the rest of Cologne. We went to the Dom which is the huge, beautiful, gothic cathedral that over towers everything in the city. It was amazing. I am fascinated with old architecture, so it was great to see the old, gothic cathedrals that are still scattered across Europe.

Afterward, we went to the chocolate museum! Yum!!! It also had the Lindt factory too, so I learned a lot about chocolate (and got a few free samples in addition to the chocolate I bought!). It was a great way to end our trip in Germany, so we head back to Maastricht which was nice to get back and unpack.

Overall it was a great weekend trip. We saw a lot, laughed a lot, and it makes me so grateful to get these experiences. (My feet, on the other hand, are trying to get used to all the walking!) Well, back to classes tomorrow. Time for some studying!

My Weekend Back In Maastricht

This past weekend, after returning from London, we still had a weekend jam packed with things to do. We got back Thursday, and I went with some people out to one of the pubs called The Highlander which is a pub that a lot of the international students went to. It was fun, and I definitely see that as a hang out spot in the future. Friday and Saturday were full of orientation things of sort. We got a practical walking tour of the city which was nice, but I was so turned around that I still think I'm going to be lost trying to make my way around the city. It's not a huge city, so it's easy to walk places, but everyone also rides their bikes everywhere in the city! It's so different from the States where everyone drives everywhere, so very interesting indeed!

Saturday was still considered an orientation day, but we ended up doing little excursions. We visited a World War II memorial and cemetery that they had outside the city which was very interesting. As it happens, the Battle of the Bulge only happened about twenty to thirty minutes outside Maastricht, not to mention other battles and many other soldiers were killed throughout the Netherlands as the Allies pushed to advance into Germany towards the end of the war.

Afterward, we went to the city of Valkenburg which was a cute city in itself. They gave us a walking tour of the city which was hard to put up with because our tour guide was very soft spoken, so many of us couldn't hear him. Then, we went to see the catacombs they have there that were replicated of the ones in Rome, so that was pretty cool. At one point they let us blow out our candles and try to walk through in the dark. It was miserable, and people were screaming. It was really, really dark to say the least. It was very neat to see. Then, we took the bus back and got dinner. Later, a bunch of us went to the Highlander. Some other students (they were Canadian, I think?) came as well. It was really fun. They play a bunch of American music which was nice, and it was fun for all of us to go out since classes start tomorrow! I know, can you believe I'm just now starting class? Today, I'm going to finally get some of my readings for class finished and then maybe walk around the town and try to gather my bearings.

Plans for the coming weekend? Cologne and Berlin. Get excited. :)