I took a trip with three other girls and it was probably destined to be crazy from the start, considering we planned to leave on Friday, but didn't bother booking any tickets or choosing any destinations until the Tuesday before (or Thursday for Keenie...). Our first stop was Strasbourg and our train was meant to leave Grenoble at 4:58AM. The plan was to go down the mountain and stay the night at Cornelia's so we would be close to the train station. We dropped our stuff at Corny's, then what did we do? We went out. We had every intention of catching the last tram back to Corny's, but 1AM came and went and, since we made friends with the bartender, we stayed for two extra hours after he closed. Finally, at 3AM, we booked it back to Cornelia's, grabbed our bags, and ran to the train station to sleep for the five hours to Strasbourg. Strasbourg is a cute little city. Since it's within walking distance of Germany, you can see a lot of German influence, which was pretty cool. I honestly can't say how we spent our 17 hours there... walking around cathedrals, walking around various streets, chasing swans by a river... anyways, we had a really nice dinner that night (foie gras, thanks for the tip Allen), then tried to find something to do until our train left... which was once again at 5AM, so we didn't bother booking a place to stay and we stayed out all night (again). Obviously, we were all freezing cold and delirious. We found some bar which was full of incredibly expensive drinks and pathetic/rude people... I never thought I'd feel like the coolest person in the room while soberly sitting in the corner with bags full of stuff, making faces at my friends, but whatever. Anyways, when 4AM finally rolled around, we made our way to the bus stop, got on the bus to Munich, and passed out.
So, we got to Munich and immediately went to find food. Our food choices in Munich were all interesting and not really German at all. We started out at an Italian restaurant, which was tough because none of us knew Italian or German and the guy working didn't know English, French, or Spanish... that was slightly difficult. Everything else we ate was either some sort of Asian or "leftover" from the hostel breakfast. Anyways, we spent most of our time there either walking around or at beer gardens (which have made it impossible to think of facing the harsh reality of "frat-water" when I get back to the US). We spent a day in Dachau, which was a concentration camp. It was super intense and a bit overwhelming. Despite learning about WWII in just about every year of school, I learned so much more and was able to understand more of the reality of what happened.
We left Munich (the train left at 3AM this time...) and headed to Amsterdam. It was a quick trip and I wish I could've seen more- the city is packed with museums and whatnot, and of course everything was closed while we were there. It was still a really cool city and I enjoyed being there.
Our next stop was Ghent to see Belgium and visit our friend Cornelia. She and her friends took us around Ghent and told us about all the history. We ate some amazing Belgian fries (if you didn't already know, fries originate in Belgium, they're not really French) then headed back to Corny's for the night. The next day, Cornelia took us to Bruges, which is a really cool medieval city (and very beautiful as well). We took a boat tour, then spent the rest of the day eating our weight in various amazing bits of food. We stopped for legit Belgian waffles, which were topped in homemade ice cream and Belgian chocolate, then went to a chocolate shop, then to a candy shop, then back to Cornelia's house for an amazing homemade dinner followed by amazing desserts, and my new-found love called Speculoos, which are a little cinnamony-gingerbread cookie that tastes like Christmas. Cornelia's family is very nice and incredibly hospitable, so we were very lucky to have such great hosts in the middle of our insanely poorly-planned adventure.
After Belgium, Cornelia's dad drove us to Lille. It's crazy crossing borders- you just drive down the interstate and end up in another country. I've seen more elaborate "Welcome" scenes when you cross borders from state to state, but Belgium to France was no big deal. Anyways, we walked around Lille for a bit then parted ways- I went to Lyon to meet Kati (a friend from PC) and the others went on to Paris for the night. All-in-all, it was an amazing trip and I'm really glad that we all had that opportunity.
No comments:
Post a Comment