How in the World is ß Pronounced?!

I’m going to go out of order and share about Berlin before Amsterdam. No reason why, maybe because Berlin in more fresh in my mind.

Berlin. Let’s just say that I enjoyed Berlin socially. I don’t think I could ever live there permanently. As our map said, it’s basically a city full of poured concrete. In stark contrast to the lovely, romantic architecture of Paris, Berlin’s buildings are all-together grey, concrete, and not aesthetically pleasing. It also didn’t help that the weather was gloomy and we spent our time visiting Holocaust/WWII-related sights. What we saw: the Topography of Terrors, Checkpoint Charlie, The Wall, the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Zoo (!) and much, much more of Eastern Berlin that I ever cared to see.

The real fun on this leg of the trip was at our hostel, The Wombat. Thank you Wombat for giving us a true hostel experience! In our room alone, we met an Aussi, a girl from Mahnchesta, a crazy German women, and 2 friendly Irish girls. Our last night in town we decided to check out the hostel bar on the top floor. We arrived @ 8 and didn’t leave til 2 or 3 in the morning. That’s because we met a whole slew of drunken Irish boys from Dublin. The best part of the night: I didn’t have to pay for a single drink. This was my line-up: a glass of red, 4 Jägerbombs, a shot of something, beer, and a vodka w/ red bull.

These boys were hilarious and definitely lived up to their Irish heritage. They just kept ordering round after round of drinks. One of them was so knackered he went down to his room and emerged with an AFL training jersey…guess who has it now though? Me! And then we proceeded to pick me up, not once but twice, when we were on the deck outside. Excuse me Mr. Irishman, but I don’t want to die. Especially falling from a hostel. In Berlin.

As the night wore on, it became more and more difficult to understand just what they were saying. At one point, I just kept smiling and nodding…It’s not like they will remember what happened in the morning anyway. 30 more of them were scheduled to arrive the next day, but sadly we had to catch our train to Munich. I can just imagine what 40 Irish boys running amok in Berlin would be like.

Waffles. Chocolate. Fries. & Beer.

Bruxelles (Brussels) began my 10-day European adventure with one of my roommates Christine. Escapades ensue. Maybe it’s because my expectations were not-so-high, but Bruxelles was pretty darn good.

Christine and I are the worst tourists. We (well she) looks up the ‘places to see,’ and then somehow we end up stumbling upon them. Case in point: the Manneken Pis. It’s a very tiny statue of a little boy peeing. We ambled around for a bit, walked into a tourist shop to by teeny tiny versions of the little man and the following exchange happened:

Christine: We probably past it up already.

Me: Turn around.

Enough about tourism crap, onto the food and drink. Bruxelles is known for good food. I didn’t know that before hand, but I sure do now. I probably ate my weight in its ‘delicacies:’ waffles, chocolate, fries, and beer. I’m pretty sure it’d be a sure fire way to gain 100 lbs if I were to live there. The French (lies) fries were even better than the stand on the LES in NYC. And much les expensive. Except it was frigidly cold outside when we ate ours, so I basically scarfed them down…I don’t think I’ve ever eaten food so quickly. But yet, they were delicious.

The bar we frequented not once, but twice that night is named Delirum. If you want beer in Bruxelles, you need to go there…they have 2,400 of them. Now, I know NOTHING about beer. Absolutely nothing. So I just told them to give me a dark brew on tap. I don’t like beer. And it this was one good beer. Now, I know why I refuse to drink the stuff back home.

My favorite part: the art. Who knew, but it actually has a thriving urban art scene. Our handy-dandy map from our hostel gave a bunch of ‘alternative’ sights to visit. So we decided to journey down yonder south to see something called Recycled Art. Is it a museum? Exhibition? Outside? We have no idea. After walking around (a little bit scared, admittedly), we finally discovered the true identity of Recycled Art. It’s a train station which runs during the day, but at night turns into an urban derelict art conglomeration. All of the surrounding area is covered in graffiti. But not the incomprehensible graffiti you see on bridges. This is true art. One underpass is covered with monster-themed murals. I wish I could be as cool as these people.

More pictures here.

Next, Amsterdaaaaaam. You can only guess what happened there. Actually don’t.

Amster.Dam.

Right now I am sitting in the sweetest library ever. It's so fantastically amazing I want to set up camp and live here forver. I mean does it get any better than this: amazing library in Amsterdam. Oh yes, I am in Amsterdam right now. More on my ''winter holiday'' adventures later.

This post is about an interesting exchange I had with a (Dutch) shopkeeper of an Oriental goods store earlier today.

HIM: Where are you from?
ME: America.
HIM: But you look VERY Asian.
ME: ....Well, I was born in Korea, but I've lived in America my whole life.

As funny as this was, I've actually had about three other Europeans look surprised when finding out that, yes, I am Asian, and ,yes, I live in America. I should have said, ""Thanks! I was going for the Asian-look today!""

Soon, Soon.

I realized that I was three weeks behind posting....désolée! But I DID just post about my trips to western France and Spain. Last weekend I still need to catch up on, but it be here soon my loves. It's 3 am in the morning here. My body is tired, and I look like the statue above.

"You know I don't speak Spanish. In English, please."

Weekend 2: Espagne (Madrid, Segovia, Barcelona)

Madrid. To get to Madrid, we took a night train from Paris on a Thursday night to arrive the following morning. Here’s comes the best part: it was a sleeper train, so we had our own beds. It was like Harry Potter…if they slept on..the..Hogwarts..Express. Never mind, not exactly the same thing. Just imagine if Harry, Hermione, and Ron were to actually sleep instead of getting into altercations with Malfoy, flying cars, etc.

Bar none, the best part of Madrid (and all of Spain) was the food. It was delicious AND cheap. I’m talking a 2-course meal with bread, wine, and dessert for 10€. That would cost upwards of 25€ in Paris. That night we went to a tapas bar where for 2€ each bought as a beer and free tapas. FREE. I didn’t even know that word existed in Europe. Let me just say, I now looooove tapas. Appetizers as a meal? Spain knows me too well. If you go to Spain get croquettes. They look like little fried balls of goo, but man is that some good goo. Note: they’re actually fried balls of ham and cheese (and maybe fish).

Overall, Madrid was pleasant enough. I would probably not go back again, but it was a very nice city. It was very nice to finally see buildings that are different colors. The French are not very fond of colored buildings. They like their stonewashed ones just fine, apparently.

Segovia. On Saturday, I spent a very enjoy half-day in a small town called Segovia. It’s about an hour north of Madrid. One of the highlights of Segovia is the gigantic Roman aqueduct that runs throughout the town. It’s very surreal to see a monument that old—one that is still intact, nonetheless. A friend at school told me that until just very recently, the entire structure was held together without cement. Interesting fact: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella resided in Segovia. Who knew. Certainly not me. Segovia is a charming city. It was good to see a small town, since it really gives one a true representation of the country. As much as I love cities, they’re just too manifested with tourists. Also, there was snow! Lots of it.

Gaudi's Casa Milà

Barcelona. Barca is cool. Very cool. Great weather. Great architecture. What more do you need to know? Before I visited, everyone told me, ‘You need to see Gaudí’s work.’ Huh? Who’s Gaudí. Well now I know. He was an avant-garde Spanish Catalan architect. And thanks to a kindly Barca cab driver, he was not ‘rich’ in his lifetime. It all sounds vaguely like The Fountainhead, don’t you think?

His style is surreal in nature. No straight lines. Experimentation with color and mosaics. Almost what I would imagination viewing buildings on an acid trip would be like. We also visited a park, Park Güell, that he was commissioned to design.

At first I thought that it would be a relief to leave a francophone country for a few days. But I was wrong. Completely wrong. Now, I lived in Texas for upwards of 14 years now, and I cannot speak a lick of Spanish. I know, I know. But I refused to take Spanish, because I wanted to be ‘sophisticated’ and take French. I felt completely unnerved not being able to communicate in Spain. It actually made me feel quite vulnerable. It was like being mute. Of course, people spoke English, but you know….Out of habit I kept responding in French. Merci…non gracias! Darn! This weekend also made me realized how much French I actually do know, because I would formulate in my head what I wanted to say or ask in French and then realize that that was useless. I was greatly relieved to get back to Paris and hear le français encore.

More pictures here and here.