Budapest

Following suit with our Stanford program's trip to Istanbul in the winter, Budapest grabbed the limelight for the spring quarter.  Thanks to a generous donor, our entire program had a fully funded 3 day trip to the Hungarian capital to gain both cultural and educational experiences.  Leaving early on a Wednesday morning, we arrived in Budapest at noon and immediately made our way to a local university to meet with a professor that briefed us on the political history of both Budapest and Hungary, providing a necessary background for grasping the current political system in place.  While not the most gripping speaker, the historical information provided definitely gave an interesting insight into the political apathy that characterizes the Hungarian population.  Although some speakers differed in opinions throughout the week, political apathy was by far the most prevalent and agreed-upon topic across the board.  After meeting with our first speaker, we took a bus tour of the city that stopped at various location where we could get off and see a few sights.  We first explored the Pest side - Buda and Pest are two cities, one on each side of the river, but combined make up Budapest.  We started at Heroes Square, then made our way to Saint Stephen's Basilica, and eventually crossed the river to Buda where we hiked through the small but cool Citadella castle.  After wrapping up a 3 hour tour of the city, which by no means was the entire city, we had an incredible dinner which included the best mushroom soup I have ever had, an awesome piece of white fish, and some radical chocolate dessert that was almost too much to handle.  Definitely one of the very best meals I have had while in Europe.

On Thursday morning, we woke up entirely too early to commute to another local university to meet with two professors who spoke to us about opinion polls in the country, which for me was very interesting being a sociology major.  Again, political apathy took command of the polls, but many other interesting opinions about education, government, and social class.  After the talk, myself and a few friends explored Budapest a bit by going to the local market where I had an interesting Hungarian pizza for lunch (fried bread like a funnel cake with some weird sauce on top - not good, not bad, but interesting).  After exhausting the market, we trekked across the river to Buda where we hiked up a path for some great views of the city before eventually making our way down the river to our mid-afternoon speaker.  This time we met with an economic expert who spoke about the current effects of the financial crisis, which can especially be seen in Hungary since they are in the EU but not the monetary EU, so they do not have the stabilization of the Euro.  Speaking of money, if I thought Copenhagen was ridiculous, then Budapest was incomprehensible.  Definitely not in terms of exchange rate, because Hungary is relatively cheap for everything, but 1 Euro equalled 290 Forents!  Upon exchanging money, I literally had two 10,000 Forent bills in my wallet.  No idea how to even process this, but felt like I was big time for a while, until a sandwich and soda cost 1600 Forent.  So after listening to how the country was/is effected by the economic crisis, I made my way to an island park in the middle of the Danube where I layed around for a while before making my way to yet another phenomenal dinner.  After dinner that although very good included entirely too much meat, we made our way to a rooftop bar to top off the night.

For our last day in Budapest, we again got up early Friday morning to meet with a EU representative from the foreign ministry.  This was by far the best speaker we met with throughout the week who gave us a great understanding of how Budapest functions internationally within the European Union.  After 2 hours which completely flew by, our other journalists which we were supposed to meet with cancelled so we had the entire day to explore the city.  A group of us took an entirely too long metro to tram to bus trip to the southern part of the city to Monument Park.  The park preserves many of the old communist sculptures and although cool to see larger than life statues, the bus rides there and back were actually way more fun and one of the most hilarious parts of the trip just joking around with the group.  After spending 3 hours total getting there and back and only 30 minutes at the park, we had a guided tour through the Hungarian Parliament which had more gold inside than I have ever seen in my life.  After the tour was over, a group of 5 of us made it to my personal highlight of the trip: Turkish Baths.  In Budapest, there are numerous public baths heated by natural underground hot springs both indoors and outdoors.  The Turkish Baths were enormous and had some incredible Ottoman architecture - while lounging in the pools, I literally felt like I was a king just kicking back for a day of relaxation at my personal palace.  Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it was pretty cool to lay around in the baths.  Wrapping up the trip, we had one last dinner as a group followed by a hilarious Hungarian Elvis impersonator.  Probably more hilarious to see a Hungarian impersonating Elvis rather than him actually being good at what he does, but cheap entertainment none the less.  So that concluded our trip to Budapest.  It was an awesome trip with great scenery and sightseeing plus speakers that were ten times better than the speakers in Istanbul.  Overall, I had a great time and swimming/lounging in the Turkish Baths was by far the highlight of the trip and one of my European highlights as well.  So, until later, that was Budapest.

(My computer is broke right now, so hopefully if it gets fixed I can put pictures up, but for now text will have to suffice.)

København

After spending over 3 months on the same continent and not yet seeing each other, which sounds relatively insignificant except that this is Europe and you can travel very easily, I finally made it to Copenhagen to visit Nash for the weekend.  Leaving Berlin on Friday afternoon, I arrived in Copenhagen after a short 1 hour flight.  Since Copenhagen is part of the European Union but refrained from entering the monetary EU, I first had to exchange money and was shocked upon receiving 735 Kroner for 100 Euros.  However, while my wallet may have been flooded with 200 dollar bills, it was completely insignificant since everything in Copenhagen is so expensive!  For instance, my first purchase, a 4 zone train ride into the city from the airport, costed 38 Kroner, or over 5 Euro - you can get a day pass in Berlin for 6.40.  Since the city is so expensive, Nash and I figured it would be best to cook dinner instead of eating out.  As you can probably already guess, still expensive.  A case of beer, 3 chicken breasts, a bag of veggies, and a bag of chips cost 200 Kroner - and he already had the rice and soy sauce for stir-fry at home.  But anyway, we made it back to his place after buying groceries and cooked up a nice little meal.  He lives way out in the Copenhagen suburbs in a residential house with a roomate - a family lives on the 1st and 2nd floor but they have the basement all to themselves.  For a homestay scenario, it was a pretty nice setup - full kitchen, living room, bathroom, and a bedroom so not bad for living.  After cooking dinner and kicking back for a while, we hopped back on the train headed into the city for a night at the bars.  We met up with a few of his friends from his architecture program as well as some other people who were studying abroad and went to a couple bars.  Eventually, we decided to call it a night and headed back to his spot, but it was definitely a fun first night out in Denmark.

On Saturday, we made a sort of tour around the city.  We started off with a few games of Backgammon in Christiania.  Christiania is a hippie commune neighborhood in central Copenhagen that is completely separate from the Danish government - upon entering Christiania, you walk under a sign that says "Christiania".  Upon leaving, the sign says "You are now entering the EU."  Basically, the Danish government originally treated the commune as a social experiment and decided that it was not a harmful environment, so present day Christiania has many walk-up-and-order type restaurants, art shops, marijuana stands, street musicians, and residents.  It's definitely an entirely hippie community, but very friendly to the public and a fun spot to hang out.  So after a few games of Backgammon over lunch, we left and walked along the famous street Nyhavn which provides your postcard image for the city.  We also made it up and down a few shopping streets, by the river that runs through the city, and to a few other areas, but really there's not much of anything to do in Copenhagen - or at least that was my impression.  I had probably the most interesting vanilla ice cream cone I've ever had - it was basically half vanilla ice cream and half marshmallow fluff, leaving you dying of thirst after every bite.  After wrapping up a day in the city, we went back to his house and cooked dinner (like I said early, eating out is so expensive that Nash has only eaten out once after 3 months of being there).  And for Saturday night, we made our way back to Christiania where there was a live funk concert, which was a great way to wrap up the day.

Sunday pretty much illustrated my overall view of Copenhagen.  As I had already noticed there seemed to be nothing to do, Nash had no idea what to show me for my last day in the city.  So, upon at least an hour of brainstorming, we settled for going to Tivoli Gardens, even though the theme park did not look all that appealing.  But, with nothing else to do, Tivoli snatched the remaining money out of our pockets as we spent a day at the most polarized - great for the elderly and under 10 crowd but awful for anyone in between - amusement park I have ever been to.  However, we did ride one roller coaster which while not the best was actually fun.  So, we sat around and just hung out in the park for the day, and really didn't do much else.  And that was the trip.  Pretty simple, pretty basic, pretty bland, but fun since I had a friend there in the city to visit.  My overall impression of Copenhagen is extremely expensive, definitely the most expensive city I have been to (7 Euros for a beer at the bar), very small, and pretty basic.  Not the greatest impression, and no real reason to visit if you don't have a friend there, but another experience so no complaints on my end.

Portugal: Part 2

After spending a day hiking through stone castles in built in the 8th century, Thiago and I hopped on a train Monday night from Lisbon and headed to Porto. It was just a 3 hour ride north to Portugal's second largest city, so not bad at all transportation wise to get there. Originally, we had planned to head south during these two days to the Algarve coast, which has some incredible beaches, but the weather was rainy in the Algarve so we instead booked a last minute ticket to Porto the night before. It's fairly safe to say that I think we're both extremely glad we did because Porto was equally incredible and another beautiful city.

On Tuesday, we got up to wonder throughout the city. Porto is extremely small (even though it is Portugal's second biggest city, Portugal has only 11 million people total) so it made it very easy to walk everywhere. The first thing about Porto is the architecture is entirely different than the architecture in Lisbon. Lisbon is covered with white-washed buildings, red tile roofs, and more of a spanish-style look. Porto on the other hand has a more romanticized archicture, very old looking stone buildings with engravings worked into the walls or columns. For being in the same country and just over 300 km apart, the two cities appeared completely different and I could have sworn we were in a different country. We started off by making our way to a pastry shop, which I'm pretty sure we did at least 6 or 7 times in Porto! If you've ever been to Seattle, it's not an exaggeration that there is a Starbucks on every corner. Or if you've been to Berlin, there's a Doner stand on every corner and then another one in between. It's the same idea with pastry shops in Portugal - they are everywhere and impossible to resist! Anyway, I'm sure we grabbed lunch there on Tuesday before making our way down to the river front where we probably got another pastry on the way. If Porto pastries aren't what you prefer to satisfy your sweet tooth, then the river front would have sufficed because the view is pure eye-candy. The city of Porto situates itself basically in the same way Lisbon does - the Atlantic ocean is about 20 km or so away and a river inlet from the ocean runs through the city. In Porto, the river lies in a valley with the city rising up on each side with beautifully arched bridges spanning the two sides. After taking a few photos, we sat down at a side walk cafe and ordered a couple drinks while further admiring the view. Deciding that even more views would be nice, we made our way an hour or so later to the top of a tower the overlooks the city, a few other monuments, and eventually to a park. The park was definitely the best part of the day - it sat on one of the large hills that overlooks the river and we layed around again admiring views and I even fell asleep for a while in the grass. Theme of the trip - plan a little for each day and just sit back and relax, but still get to see a lot. It's definitely the way to do a vacation as long as you have enough time. I really feel like I appreciated Portugal much more because I was able to just lay around, have a convo here or there, see things at a leisurely pace, etc. So that wrapped up our first day in Porto, which was definitely a nice start to seeing the city.

Alright - so before I jump into our last full day in Porto and also in Portugal, let me build this up a little bit. First of all, whenever I think back on Portugal, this day is the first image that comes into my mind. Actually, I've probably thought about Wednesday in Porto every single day since the trip. If you've ever had the quintessential day at some point in your life where you think, "man - if every day could be just like this," then this was that day for me. So we woke up Wednesday morning, hopped on a city bus (which was a much better bus system than Lisbon) and took a 30 minute ride to Foz, a coastal suburb of Porto. We had no specific plans for the day, were dying to be on the beach since Algarve fell through, and with the weather we had there was absolutely no way were were going home without spending a day by the water. We started off by wondering up and down the coast for a while, hiking out on rocks the jut out into the ocean, and soaking up some sun. Thiago brought a mini soccer ball with us, so we also spent about an hour making freestyle videos which was hilarious. If you look at the pictures in the photo album of the columns along the beach, there's another sidewalk about 15 feet below the columns. After many failed attempts, we made a pretty sweet video of us juggling back and forth between sidewalks, Thiago down below and me up above. While I'd love to say we got it on the first take, it was actually hilarious how many times we messed up, or I would hit somebody walking by down below because I wouldn't see them from up above and would pass the ball down anyway. But eventually, we found success. Remember kids - never give up and you too can conquer the world. After deciding that the freestyle session was over, we sat down at an oceanside cafe for a mid-day lunch. We had an delicious plate of duck risotto for only 3.50 each, again illustrating how cheap Portugal was. Once we finished lunch, we strolled a bit further down the coast where we stumbled upon a beach cafe, which is where my slice-of-heaven day hit its peak. We had 4 hours still before we had to catch our train back to Lisbon, so we figured why not sit around some more and enjoy the view. Just after we sat down, we met a Polish girl who was studying in Porto through the Erasmus program, which is definitely the greatest exchanged program ever if you're a European Union citizen. Once accepted, you can pretty much just say I want to go study here or there for this or that amount of time and then you go. It's incredible really, and the states should seriously look into adopting a similiarly structure program. So we sat around talking to her for a couple hours as we layed around in beach loungers while sipping Caipirinhas and listening to a smooth set of global grooves. Caipirinhas by the way are "the" drink. Delicious, sweet, and perfect for a warm sunny day - and this was unquestionably the perfect day. There's nothing better than having nothing to do, finding a delicious drink, meeting a beautiful girl, relaxing to some smooth grooves, lying around in beach chair, and listening to the ocean all while soaking up the view on the Portuguese coast. It was literally one of the best days from beginning to end that I have ever had in my life, and if only this one random Wednesday in Porto could be on repeat, I'd probably drop everything and go right back. But, life is good here too, so for now it will have to remain a sweet memory in my mind.

So that wrapped up our week in Portugal. It was incredible getting to spend so much time in such a beautiful country all while travelling with my best friend. Lisbon is now my favorite city in Europe that I have been too - it has the perfect combination of a laid-back atmosphere, nice people, beautiful views, yet plenty to do. And likewise, Porto was also a beautiful city where as you know by now I had the best day of our trip. It's too bad that this is all just a memory now, but there's no question that the time I spent in Portugal will stay with me for the rest of my life. So, until later, take care, sit back, enjoy life, soak up a view, live at a slower pace - you'll appreciate it in the long run.

Portugal: Part 1

September 2008: Thiago and I begin to talk about spring break. Ibiza immediately takes the lead. 2 weeks later in September, Ibiza falls through after we realize that no one goes to Ibiza unless it is during the summer months. October 2008: We continue to spend every waking minute of the day thinking about Europe, and Greece becomes the frontrunner for spring break. However, after realizing that we would rather go to Crete instead of Athens and that Crete is rather hard to get to, Greece falls apart. November 2008: Athens, Lisbon, Prague, South of France, Sardegna, and Corsica are all considered for spring break. We are a wreck and cannot make up our minds. December 2008: Lisbon takes the lead. After looking at pictures of Sintra, we think Portugal might actually be the place. February 2009: After much debate and months of trying to decide, we buy plane tickets to Lisbon. Therefore, as the story unfolds, spring break Portugal...

After catching a quick one-hour flight from Madrid on Friday afternoon, we arrived to the beautifully sunny Lisbon airport from which we took a bus transfer to our hostel. Immediately upon exiting the airport, the first thing we noticed was that all the taxis were Mercedes. Nice. Not a bad way to say hello to your guests. While we took the bus to the center of the city upon arrival, we would only later realize that on our return trip to the airport at the end of the week that a 20 minute taxi ride costs only $7.50. Shocking, but true. One thing that I looked up when I got back to Berlin is that Portugal is the cheapest country in western Europe, something that I'm sure you'll realize as I go about this blog. So, we arrived a little after 5 at our hostel, completely exhausted from going out the previous night in Madrid, and took a much needed nap. Of all the hostels I've stayed at throughout Europe, this was by far the best. We paid only 15 euros a night (per person), had our beds made for us every day and our room cleaned, breakfast laid out for us every morning, free internet, and the friendliest staff yet. Plus, we were only a block from the river and just a 5 minute walk from the train station and center of the city. So, after finally waking up Friday night, we went to the grocery store where we bought the most inexpensive dinner I have ever purchased at any grocery store (and I do all my grocery shopping for myself in Berlin, so I've gotten to know prices fairly well). To give you an idea, the water in Portugal is not the best to drink, so we purchased 1.5 liter bottled water for only 12 cents a bottle! Thiago and I are still trying to figure out how they make any money off of this. We took the food back and cooked dinner in our hostel's kitchen as we did every night, and had a great pasta and pork steak meal. After finishing dinner, we went out to explore the Lisbon nightlife which is unlike any other nightlife I have seen before. For the first night, which was Friday, we decided to explore the bar scene and were told we should head to the Baixa district. After hiking up the hills of the city, we finally arrived to see thousands upon thousands of people roaming the streets. Having no idea what the social scene was here, we decided to follow the people to figure out where everyone was going, only to realize that the streets ARE the location. In the Baixa district, there are hundreds of tiny little bars that serve sangria and beer for only a euro a glass, and everyone buys their drink and then brings it back out onto the street. The cool part about it too is first off all it's not age exclusive; there were just as many 16 year olds as 25 year olds as 50 year olds all participating in the nightlife. It's also not a loud and crazy atmosphere, just a chill spot to kick back and have a few drinks with your friends. I've literally never seen anything like it where thousands of people just show up to an area of about 5 square blocks to hang out outside every night. It's really quite a cool thing to see and be a part of. The funniest thing by far this night, and an ongoing joke between Thiago and I for the entire trip, is we were offered hash and coke at least 50 times just in this one night. These well-dressed guys would walk up to you (also in the pure daylight as happened to me throughout the weekend) and say "hashish, coca?" It was hilarious and by the end of the trip I would be saying "no" out loud before someone even offered just by the way they were walking towards me. I found out that the quickest way to get rid of them is to just start speaking German because they clearly know at this point they can't communicate. So after a few delicious sangrias and hanging out amongst the crowd Friday night we headed back to the hostel to sleep before our first full day in Lisbon.

After waking up Saturday morning at our own pace, we strolled out of the hostel around 11 or so and headed toward the Castelo de São Jorge. After finally reaching the castle, which was just a few blocks from our hostel but all uphill, we walked through the castle gates and probably spent around 2 hours or so inside. For the first hour, Thiago and I found a stone bench carved into the castle wall and sat while we admired the panoramic view of Lisbon looking out both onto the river and into the city streets. It was a great view from the top as the castle sits atop one of the tallest hills in Lisbon, and was also nice to lay around in the sunshine and warmth that I had not seen in Berlin. Once we decided we had sat long enough, we walked about the castel walls until finally leaving a couple hours later. The castle really was not that big, but had such good views of the city from the top that we decided to stay for quite some time. After leaving the first castle of the trip, we took the public bus, which was a pure nightmare of a public transportation system, to the other side of Lisbon where we went through a monastery and small tower along the river. These were both fairly quick sites to see, and luckily we got in free to both thanks to being students. Upon finishing up our sightseeing for the day, we made our way back to the hostel where we again took a nap before this time heading to a club. The club scene in Lisbon is also unique, but in a different way than the bars. For being such a laid-back city, many of the clubs are ridiculously exclusive. For instance, there were clubs upon clubs that you could not enter unless you were willing to consume minimum 100 euros of drinks. And for the college kid, while a bottle of Don Perignon certainly signals baller status, it just wasn't in the cards. We did find a cool club though right on the water (it was also ladies night so that was a big plus) where we ended up dancing for most of the night which wrapped up our first full day in Lisbon.

On Sunday, Thiago and I headed to Cascais, a small beach town that was just a 45 minute train ride outside of the city. We basically walked up a down the coast for the day, hiked the rugged cliffs that lined the ocean, and enjoyed yet another day in the sun. We were a bit unfortunate not to rent bikes (well, we rented one). The city tourism office rents out bikes for free to visitors, and they have 3 stands set up throughout the city. We got to the first stand and they only had one bike, so we took it anyway and walked to the other 2 stands to pick up another, but both were completely rented out. Slightly unfortunate, but made for some hilarious attempts at double-biking. After walking up and down the coast for the day, we grabbed a couple beers and sat around for an hour or so on the beach just hanging out. I guess there wasn't much more to Cascais - maybe worth mentioning is the Boca de Inferno which is a huge archway in the cliffs where waves fly in and explode on the rocks. Other than that, just an quaint picturesque beach town which is nice to do for a day of relaxing.

Monday- Sintra. The original inspiration for going to Lisbon, we took another 45 minute train ride outside the city to the mountainous region. This time it was Thiago and I, plus another Stanford student Oliver who was in town for a couple days, and a Brazilian girl we met on the train who hung out with us for the day. After winding our way up the mountain for an hour, we finally reached the top and headed first to the Castelo dos Mouros (the Moorish Castle). Walking through the castle, hiking up the stone walls and through the archways, it literally felt like you were walking through a Disney set. From the top, we had incredible views of the country side surrounding the castle in addition to the ocean just a short distance away. We hiked through the castle for a couple hours, climbing every pathway and tower, until we'd finally run out of things to see. Following the Moorish castle, we hiked across a ridge to the Palacio de Pena, again which appeared to be straight out of Disney. Like the former, the castle had equally beautiful views from the top, and we sat around like we did the whole trip just admiring the scenery. Adjacent and surrounding the palace is a huge park that has hundreds of endagered plants and trees and is beautifully landscaped. We wandered through this park for a while, and probably the funniest thing of the day was feeding both a white and black swan. Thiago had an apple so we decided to break off pieces and see if we could get the swan to take them from our hands. I was the first to do so, and I think Thiago got it on video, which is probably pretty hilarious cut the swan bit the sh*% out of my fingers and I'm pretty sure I reacted with a few pretty loud explicitives. I definitely did not realize it until after the fact, but swans have these go-go-gadget like necks that extend extremely far, and the damn swan definitely overjudged where the apple was in relation to my fingers. Made for a funny experience anyway. So, this wrapped up our day in Sintra. The city is absolutely beautiful, and there's a ton more to see that we didn't have time to do. I think we all wish we would have had more time there, but Thiago and I had to get back to Lisbon to catch a 3-hour train to Porto.

24 Hours in Madrid

After writing 2 film essays, taking a German language final and moving across the city, I headed out on an early flight Thursday morning for 24 hours in Madrid before Thiago and I were to leave for a week in Portugal. As I tried to keep my eyes open on the train ride to the airport, I was thinking how nice Spain was going to be since it was going to be the complete opposite of Berlin in many aspects: warm and sunny plus the cultural. I further decided in my head that if any one culture in Western Europe were to be the complete antithesis of German culture, I would probably pick the Spanish culture to fill this category. Having already seen Barcelona but not yet Madrid, I was fairly confident this was true. However, should there be any doubt left in my mind, a 2 hour flight day (all of French public/private transportation decided to go on strike this day messing up flights throughout Europe) erased any residual doubt. Germans, for the most part, tend to be very much to themselves especially in public places. No one makes eye contact, people talk very quietly amongst small groups, and body language is at a bare minimum. So while sitting/sleeping in the airport waiting for our flight, I awoke to a group of Spaniards sitting in a circle playing the guitar, with the German's just looking at them awkwardly, yet trying to hide the fact that they were actually looking. I just started laughing, and frankly I was pretty excited to be jetting off to a different culture. A change of pace was going to be nice.

Finally I got to Madrid and met Thiago at my hostel for the night. I wasn't able to stay with him at his homestay - in Spanish culture it is apparently not common to invite guests into the home until you have known them for a least a full year. Instead, they meet at public places such as parks, bars, and restaurants. The Stanford in Madrid program is very different from our Berlin program in many ways, one of which is that the students in Madrid eat lunch and dinner with their host families every day. So, upon meeting Thiago, he immediately had to leave for lunch which was completely fine with me as I wanted to go do sightseeing stuff that he had undoubtedly already done. Walking around the city was extremely nice, for the most part because it was 72 degrees and I saw the sun the entire day! This just does not seem to happen back in Berlin. I walked throughout Sol, an area of the city near my hostel, through plazas and down streets that had what I thought was some pretty cool architecture. During the day, I saw Plaza Mayor, Plaza Espana, and the Palacio Real. The Palacio Real was incredible, wish I could have gone inside, and had a nice garden/park area at the base of the palace in which hundreds of people were lounging and soaking up a few rays. After spending a couple hours roaming the city, I met up with Thiago in Retiro Park, the only thing I told him I had to see while I was in Madrid. The park is incredible and extremely massive, likely comparable to Central or Golden Gate Park. While I have been to the latter of those two but not Central Park, Retiro Park is definitely my favorite park I have seen. There were thousands upon thousands of people in the park, an enormous lake, plenty of green space, and paths lined with flowers, street vendors and artists. We spent probably an entire 3 hours in the park, just laying around, messing around with a mini soccer ball, and also running into at least 7 or 8 other people from the Madrid program. The nice thing about Spanish culture is that it is so laid back: the people walk slower, eat at 2 and 10, use the parks on their lunch breaks, and are generally not concerned so much with time. It was perfect just to lay around in the sun for the day as the sun is the thing I have missed the most while being in Berlin (after my family of course!).

After spending some time hanging out with Thiago, he eventually had to go back to have dinner with his host family, so I went and hung out at my hostel for a few hours before going out that night. One thing I noticed in Madrid during the day, or maybe I should say one thing that was impossible not to notice, was that Madrid has the most beautiful women you have ever seen in your life. And I'm honestly not exaggerating. At least 1 of every 2 women you see is not just good looking but is absolutely gorgeous. If you follow soccer, I can now see why Cristiano Ronaldo said he would consider a move to Real Madrid just for the women. Anyway, I don't know how this many attractive people ended up all in one place, but I can understand why Thiago enjoys Madrid so much. After Thiago had finished his dinner with his host family, I met up with him and 3 other girls from the Madrid program that night to go out dancing. As I've noted before, it's been an interesting scene throughout Europe going to a club to dance, usually more so on the negative side of things than the positive. On the whole, I've enjoyed bars much more than clubs, but Madrid definitely made me question this. As I told Thiago, if every night at a dance club were like the night in Madrid, I would be at the club every night. We had a phenomenal time dancing all night with the girls, the club had a great setup and played great music, and overall it was by far my best club experience. The key really to having a good time is to make sure you go with a group of girls, because contrary to the US, you do not meet nor dance with girls you just met in the European clubs. It's just a different scene. So, after getting home from the club and getting 2 hours of sleep before I had to check out of my hostel, Thiago and I headed off on Friday to Portugal for our spring break week. Madrid was an incredible city, and I truly wish I could have spent more time there, but for only having 24 hours, I'd say I definitely made the most of it. Just means that someday I should go back, which is never a bad thing.

As always, photos have been updated.

Amsterdam

Again, it's been a long time since I've posted on this blog. With the chaos of finals week, moving homestays, saying goodbye to the winter group, and heading off for spring break, the blogs have taken a back seat. But don't worry - they're back in action and hopefully within the next week or so everything will be up to date. So here it is, beginning with Amsterdam.

Back in the beginning of March, Remi, Tenzin, Tenzin's cousin, and myself headed off for another weekend of travel to Amsterdam, city of red lights, Anne Frank, Van Gogh, canals, and oddly constructed buildings. Remi and I arrived late Friday night, luckily with a place to stay as Remi had a former frat brother who is studying law abroad and had a place in the center of the city. Besides our group of four, two other kids from the Stanford program in Madrid met up with us. On Friday night, we all went out for a night of bar hopping throughout the city. The bar scene was okay, nothing special, and for the most part Berlin's bars are much better, but still a pretty fun Friday night.

On Saturday, Remi and I got up to explore the city for a bit. We started it off by taking a free 3-hour walking tour, hosted by an extremely good tour guide who literally seemed to know everything about the city. My first question for him was if I was seeing things, or if the building were actually slanted and actually did hang over the roads. He pointed out that all the building have these wooden boards mounted at the top with a large metal ring. Because it was difficult the carry furniture and other items up to the top floors, they would fashion a pully system through these metal rings to hoist items up to the top floors. This means that the buildings actually need to slant over the road so that whatever is being hoisted to the top does not scrape against the buildings. Makes for some interesting architecture as you feel as if you're walking through some sort of expressionist set to a play, or maybe it is normal to see slanted buildings on every street. The walking tour was actually very good and extremely informative, the only problem is it was hosted in Amsterdam. My main complaint with Amsterdam, besides the aweful food, is that I felt like I saw the entire city in 10 minutes. Yes, I realize I did not have the desire to go see works of Van Gogh or the Heineken museum, but the city itself looks exactly the same all over. Each street has the same looking slanted brick buildings, the same looking canal, the same ridiculously tall people, and of course bicycles. Another random question I asked our tour guide, again regarding if I was seeing things or not, is that I swore all the people, especially men, were way taller and had much bigger frames than a normal sized person. He again confired I was not hallucinating, and that actually the Dutch are the second biggest white race in the world behind the Danish. They are massive people. Overall, on Saturday Remi and I basically spent the entire day walking, partially because of the tour and partially because we got lost for 3 hours. The city of Amsterdam is firstly a nightmare to navigate for the reasons already mentioned in that everything looks the same, but also because of it's layout. The center of Amsterdam is surrounded by horseshoe-shaped roads and canals, so every street is curving in a half circle. This made it a complete nightmare for us to try and figure out which direction we were going and it's probably a miracle that we made it back to our place to stay by the end of the day.

The red light district: actually not nearly as cool or big as it is hyped up to be. Basically, if you don't already now, the district gets its name because prostitution is legal in Amsterdam. The prostitutes rent out small little rooms along the street with windows that are illuminated with red lights from which comes the name. I must admit, it is pretty funny to walk through the district and see a man walk out of the room as the prostitute opens the curtains again. Other than sex, you can also legally buy marijuana all throughout Amsterdam, although again most places are located in the red light. However, the district is not nearly as big nor as crazy as I had pictured in my head before arriving. Another tour guide fact, the red light district won't be there by 2015, but at the rate the current government in power is shutting down coffee shops and red light shops, it will be nonexistent by 2012. Over the past 5 years, the number of coffee shops and red light shops being shot down has doubled each year, starting with 4 the first year and rapidly working its way up. So, if you want to go get there while you can, because it probably won't exist in 5 years time. Although as seems to be the case with everything in Amsterdam, it will just go underground but won't actually go away.

Other random facts about Amsterdam. Beware, or you will get killed by one of the millions of bicycles flying about the city. Every single person in Amsterdam rides their bike everywhere, and they do not stop for pedestrians. Also, for someone who lives in Amsterdam for at least 8 years, they will go through an average of 30 bikes in their lifetime due to theft and wear-and-tear. A tip for males: do not pee on the corners of buildings after a night of drinking. Amsterdam city officials are so mad at people peeing in the streets that on every building corner they have installed "piss deflectors" as you can see in one of my pictures. So, if you do decide to go pee here, it will literally bounce right back onto your legs and shoes. Gross, but pretty funny to think that the government paid to have these installed everywhere. Urinals are also very open. Think of a portapotty on the street corner, but just the toilet and no actual portapotty. No big deal I guess - it is Amsterdam. All in all, Amsterdam was a fun weekend, but definitely just a one time trip. There's really no reason to go back, and I definitely would not recommend it for tourists. It's basically an overrated destination/experience for the college student that can actually be found to a much greater extent in other European cities. Then again, if Anne Frank, Van Gogh, or Heineken is your thing, maybe Amsterdam is the travel destination for you.

A big thanks to our tour guide for the weekend. While Amsterdam was definitely not my favorite city I have seen, I know by far more about Amsterdam than any other city I have travelled to thanks to a free walking tour.

Welcome to London

The EasyJet pilot took me to the wrong city. He did - I'm sure of it. I know this because I was supposed to be flying to London last weekend, but on a Saturday in the month of February the weather in London is not 62 degrees fahrenheit. If it is 62 degrees fahrenheit, it is definitely not sunny, and by sunny I mean not a cloud in the sky for the entire day. In February, the weather in London is in the upper 40's, lower 50's, with cloud cover, ALL DAY, and constant rain. And if it doesn't rain on Saturday, then it definitely rains on Sunday, right? I knew the pilot didn't fly me to London.

For whatever city I did go to, I arrived late on Friday night and took an hour bus charter into the city center where Hayley lives. For those of you who don't know, Hayley is one of my best friends from high school, is studying abroad in London through a Mizzou program, and has a flat in the city with 5 other girls. I got to call the living room couch my home for the weekend, which had a big plus and a big minus. The Plus: I am a cheap college student and did not have to pay for a hostel / had a place to stay for the weekend. The Minus: the London Tube (train) is incredibly noisely and just happens to be located 5 floors below and directly adjacent to their flat. No reason to bring an alarm - this makes for a wonderfully pleasant 6am "good-morning to you sir." Anyway, Friday night Hayley and I and some of her friends just sat around her flat, hung out, and eventually crashed for the full day on Saturday.

Saturday morning: I met all 5 of her roommates before 9am. Seriously, how the hell do you meet 5 (6 including Hayley) college students on a Saturday morning before the hour of 9am? One huge difference about London is the city is on a completely different time schedule than Berlin. For nightlife, pubs close at 11, 12 if you're lucky, and clubs usually close at 2 or 3. This means that you actually get in much earlier and do not wake up in the middle of the day. Kinda nice, although weird when at 9pm people are freaking out because you haven't yet found a bar to start your night. In Berlin, I would be getting into the shower at 9. Anyway...we woke up early Saturday morning and headed out into the city for a day of sightseeing. I literally came to London with no idea about anything in the city - what I wanted to do, history, tourist spots, etc. - so I just told Hayley to show me what she thought I should see. It worked out great because I saw a ton and everything is located relatively close together so you can pack in a full day. First of all (if you didn't catch on already), the weather was 62 and sunny all day - by far the most beautiful day yet in Europe and reminded me exactly of what the weather is like back on our California campus many days in the winter. To start the day, we headed to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and then made our way back toward the Thames and walked along the river to the Tower Bridge. Luckily Hayley was still alive at this point after almost being impaled by a guard's golden sword at some random place we encountered earlier in the day. We were walking under an achway (no idea where we were) and upon exiting the other side there were two guards on horses on either side of the arch. Naturally, Hayley and I both turn around to look at them, when suddenly we hear a man yell, "STEP ASIDE FOR THE GUARD" in the deepest voice known to man. I turn around to see Hayley narrowly escape death by a few feet because this guard was not about to halt for anyone. After making it to the tower Bridge, where we passed by a sweet looking castle by the river, we hopped onto the Tube and made our way to Hyde Park. We grabbed a sandwich for lunch along the way and ate as we strolled through the park. Hyde Park is massive by the way - probably similar to the size of a Golden Gate or Central Park. After walking through the park for about half an hour, we stumbled upon a sizable lake packed with people in paddle boats. How could you not rent a paddle boat on a day like this - it should be a crime to pass this up. As you can imagine, we rented a boat and cruised about the river for a while as we mastered our crew skills. Being modest, I dominated Hayley in the rowing competition. The lake was great, but it actually is fairly difficult to navigate a little boat via a couple wooden oars that keep popping out of their harnesses. Upon leaving the lake, we walked to Harrod's - the world's biggest and most ridiculously expensive department store. (Random info: Berlin has the 2nd biggest with KaDeWe). We had the best chocolate sunday I've ever had - although I'll still take Rome's gelato over Harrod's ice cream any day. After an ice cream break, we made our way back to the Thames river, walked along and looked at Parliament and the London Eye, and eventually made our way to dinner...at 5 o'clock. The area below the London Eye was great - packed with street performers and vendors which reminded my a lot of the area along Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. We packed in almost more than possible Saturday, and as is fitting with London's early time schedule compared to Berlin, sat down to eat at 5.

We had dinner with a couple of her friends at an Irish pub where we also watched the Man United game. I played the role of your stereotypical tourist and had fish-and-chips (f.y.i. - chips=fries, crisps=chips, and biscuts=cookies). After dinner, we made our way back to her area and went out with some more of her friends to a couple pubs before finding a bar/lounge type place in East London. Hilarious moment (one seems to happen on every trip): we are leaving the lounge at the end of our night and for some reason everyone wants to go get hotdogs. Really? I get it that we are all drunk at this point and people want food, but seriously, a hot dog? Anyhow, we pay 18 pounds for a taxi to take us to Picadilly Circus where the owner of the hot dog stand knows half of our group by name and gives them discounts for being regular customers. Unfortunately, I do have to admit this was the best hot dog I have ever had - so thank you to our drunken hosts who dragged my reluctant self to a hot dog stand in the middle of the night. (And sorry if these moments aren't actually funny - I am sure that they're probably much funnier in my own memory).

Sunday morning we were out of the house by 10 to go to a market that we thought would be open. Theme of the trip: it was not open. This is not necessarily the theme though because of this particular market. This was the theme because the London Tube sucks! Apparently the train works great during the week because the city of London does not shut down lines during this time so that it does not interrupt the working day. However, on the weekends they shut down probably about 20% of the lines to do repairs, construction, whatever, and most of these lines happen to go to the tourist spots. Not exaggerating, we probably had to take round-about ways 1/2 the time we travelled in the city because a certain line we needed was closed. It was comical for the weekend, but it would drive me insane if I lived there. So after getting to the awesome food market that was not actually open, we made our way to Abbey Road and saw the Beatles recording studio and where the famous album cover was shot. Not much to see, but cool to be in the spot of one of my favorite groups of all times. The first music purchase I ever made was 2 Beatles cassettes, "The Magical Mystery Tour" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely," so it was personally cool for me to walk across a seemingly random intersection just for those purposes. To finish up the weekend, we went to a pub as one should to watch the Fulham football match before I caught my bus back to the airport. Great and fitting way to end the weekend - the pubs were one of the things I loved most about London. There is literally a pub on every corner and everyone has their local pub they go to regularly. After the game, I unfortunately had to say goodbye to London as I truly did not want to leave.

After having now visited three cities outside of Berlin, London is the only place I can actually say that I wish Berlin were more like. Most of this stems from the program that Hayley and the other Mizzou students are in - so I'm actually saying I wish our program was more like theirs. First of all, they all live together and in the center of the city. More so, all the other Mizzou students live in surrounding flats within only a few blocks. In Berlin, everyone is very spread out for living quarters. Personally, I am in a very residential area, which unfortunately I grow to dislike more and more every day. Luckily though, I am moving in the spring quarter to a very commercial area that I am sure I will enjoy the new location much more than my current spot. Also, because it will be commercial, it will be extremely nice (like London) to have pubs, restaurants, cafes, and stores on every street. Another thing I really like about their program in London is that they have class in an actual London university. This makes it exponentially easier to make friends and get connected into the local scene. Not to mention here in Berlin our university is way out in the suburbs, which has very polarized pros and cons. After leaving London, I now have a much more keen perspective on what is good and what is not good about our program here in Berlin. In most ways unfortunately, I'm starting to wish it were different. However, don't confuse this with the idea that I do not like the program I am in here. I love most of it. I'm just more aware now that there are many ways in which I would change it to make it better and more receptive to college aged kids.

All in all, I'm extremely glad I went to London. London is a city that I would have never visited had Hayley not been there, so thank god she was because it is now my favorite city I have travelled to. It is not necessarily the best time in a city (Rome is almost untouchable in that category) but definitely my favorite city. There is nothing in Rome or Istanbul that I would wish to bring back to Berlin (except Roman gelatto, which Berlin has, just not as tasty), but there are aspects of London that I would love to see here in my northern European home. I would also go back to London in a heartbeat if I knew that it was going to be 62 and sunny again, but being realistic that is rather unlikely to happen. Anyway, thanks to Hayley for a great time in a great city. I'll definitely be back.

"The Photo Collection" album from January has been updated.