Amen for Gent

Ok, so I know its been far too long since I have posted last, but as you could only imagine, I've been having the time of my life. Literally. Thus far I have seen more than my brain can handle, been in enough countries to fill my entire stamp pages in my passport, and experienced situations that people can only imagine in a movie. Not to mention, we've drunk enough hefeweizen to kill a small horse. But that's beside the fact. My last post was from Brussels, and i've been so many places since. However, I figured it would be best if I kept the blog in order of occurrence. That means that it's time for  Gent, then Bruge and Amsterdam.

WOW! WHAT A TRIP ITS BEEN!

So as far as this post goes, I have few words to say other than Gent is by far the coolest place I have ever been in my life. It sucks that I think this way, but its almost like something you would see in Disneyland. Its perfect, beautiful and full of beautiful people. Rivers running through the streets, and rules that keep the city in tact and operating efficiently. If you go anywhere near Belgium in your life, please for the sake of your happiness, go to Gent. And if you do, plan to bring some nice walking shoes and some sunglasses. Because chances are that if you tour the city in any fashion similar to how we did, you will be walking all day, and then ending the day sitting at an outdoor french restaurant on the edge of the water in the sun. Ya it's like that. Lets just say that I had a great time, and was able to spend some nice valuable time with Carolin.

To make it simple, i'll just post a bunch of photos.

Brusselsprouts and Waffles

So after spending my second day in Germany finishing up the last of my finals for winter term, Carolin and I embarked upon our euro vacation with plans to see Brussels, Gent and Amsterdam. That's right, Amsterdam. I remember when I was a bit younger, and I could only dream of the thought to see Amsterdam. I could name a few people who I wish were going to meet me there, but that's for another day. We got up pretty early that next morning and hopped on the Autobahn. If you’ve never driven on the German Autobahn, and like to go fast, you should probably book a flight over here and rent a nice German Auto. I cant elaborate enough on how amazing the Autobahn is. It’s like your going 160kmh and people are passing you going what looks to be twice the speed you’re going. And if you like nice cars, you should definitely come here. I swear all of the cars that passed us on the Autobahn were my dream cars, especially the Audis that you cant get in the states.

We moved at a relatively slow pace (150kmh) and had a great time listening to the radio stations here. Pretty funny story as well. They love to play every genre of music on the same station. Dance music, classic rock, David Bowie from the early days, fairy tale music and so on. I would recommend bringing your own CDs if you plan to drive a lot here. It took about four and a half hours and two countries besides Germany before we got to Brussels. It was a cool sight to see and there was a very international presence among the people. After we spent 30 minutes battling the Cairo like traffic we finally reached a good parking space right in the city center.  We wound up walking around the city for 3 hours stopping a lot to look at all the chocolate and had a few beers. We visited a nice church, one you would think of from a creepy exorcist like movie, but it was fun. It was kind of a dreary day and wound up raining after a few hours, so we posted up in a nice restaurant and had some beer and crepes with Belgium chocolate. It’s funny how people will eat chocolate covered crepes with beer for dinner. So wrong, but so right.

We decided to leave because of the rain and wanted to start our journey for Gent. Carolin has a friend from school who is working out of Gent between the term, and she was very happy to be our tour guide. Carolin and I thought it would be cool just to cruise back into Brussels the next day because our tour was cut short because of the rain and its only an hour or so drive from Gent. But after we spent well over an hour trying to navigate out of Brussels (probably a 2 km drive), which included lots of frustrations, we decided that it would be best to chalk Brussels as a loss and enjoy the time that we did spend there. With Gent on our next list of places to go, and me having literally no knowledge of what Gent was all about, we made our venture onward not looking back. This was probably the best decision I’ve ever made.

Here are some photos of Brussels. It was dreary so a lot of the architectural shots are better for a photo book later on. Enjoy!

Menu looks good

I thought these were cool. Kind of out of place, but fitting.

Really cool view. Really smoggy.

Cool garden. There are statues perfectly in a line from behind me to in front of me. I think it was part of the royal palace.

A street in the rain. Very romantic.

They call this "The Butcher Street". I love the butcheries here. Pfefferbeisser sind lecker!

This guy knows everyone.

Becoming a Frankfurter

Arrival/Frankfurt - WOW!

            So I know I said that I would be updating my blog frequently, and I assure you that I will be. However, I do promise you that if any of the rest of my trip over here is anything like the last week, I won’t be posting as much as I had originally anticipated. “Why” you ask? Well to be completely honest, I was having way too much fun for me to even think about sitting for one extra minute at my computer, let alone to post to my blog. But now I’m back to a point where I have a few minutes to relax, so it’s a great time for me to post some photos.

To start my trip off I flew Air Canada from Portland, OR to Vancouver BC. After a short four-hour layover in Vancouver, I got on my second Air Canada flight to Frankfurt. Let me tell you about a little secret I learned about here: If you fly Air Canada overseas, Lufthansa operates the flight. And if you don’t know, Lufthansa is probably the best airline I have ever stepped foot onto. They treat you like a king even when your flying Economy. We had warm towels every couple hours to assure comfort, they provide two four-course meals, and free alcohol the whole flight. Not just any alcohol either, I’m talking aperitifs, champagne, and cognac.  Not saying that I was drinking, but if I were, I would have had a lot of fun.

Upon My arrival in Germany, around 11 in the morning here the next day, we (Carolin and I) went straight to Frankfurt to walk around and do some shopping. I was trying to fight my jet lag all day and wound up walking around like a zombie. I would like to speak on Frankfurt though. It was probably the coolest blend of modern architecture and history that I have seen thus far. And to add to the cool ambiance of all the architecture, the style of the people walking around was amazing. Not saying that I’m going to come back to America looking like a euro, but I will definitely come back looking like I’m from Frankfurt. I’ll go back and take some photos that I can post for you. Jet lag had me down that day, so I didn’t really get to enjoy the whole city. To sum it up, the food was delicious, the shopping was great and the girls are really pretty. I do plan to go back, multiple times. 

The shopping mall "Die Zeil"

In front of the FWB (stock exchange)

Inside "Die Zeil"

Driving from the airport

The sounds of Europe

 More to come soon!

Hello everyone!

Today marks the start to what could be the longest three-week countdown for my departure to Bad Mergentheim, Germany. It's a bit early to start blogging about my trip and I know that most of you will pass this off as soon as you read it, but I wanted to fill everyone in on what my trip is all about and why I'm going where I'm going. Also, I figured I would utilize this blog to stay in contact with anyone who wants to know whats going on with me while I'm studying abroad. I anticipate that most of my followers will be my direct family (mom), but I will do my best to keep the content fresh and funny so there is actually a reason to visit my blog. So when you receive this URL please add it to your bookmarks and check in on whats going on.


A little background:

As most of you know, I am wrapping up my final term as a Business Student at Oregon State University here in Bend, Oregon. I will receive my Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with an International Business option the day I'm done with school in Germany. Exciting! When I began attending the University, the first thing I did was look into any study abroad opportunities that might be available to me. As it turned out, there was a German exchange that had been set up to have perfectly aligned credit transfers. In other words, I could take classes over there that would fit directly with my graduation requirements at Oregon State University's College of Business.  Originally I wanted to do something in France, Italy or Spain mainly because of their fashion, food and wine influences. But once I looked into the Germany option a little more, it became something far more appealing than what I had originally thought. Plus I have German blood and love the German Bauhaus architecture influence. So that was that.

The school:

I will be attending school in Bad Mergentheim, Germany with my long time best friend, Kyle Martin, and three of my other good friends from school. Bad Mergentheim is a small spa town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, based around a medieval castle that once housed Teutonic Knights. It just so happens that the school we will be going to is in the castle. Pretty cool huh? The cool part about where we are located, other than going to school in a castle, is that its more like a town than a city which is more my style.  We are also only a short train ride away from all of the well known German cities. And with Germany being bordered by 9 countries, I can travel where ever I want in a short amount of time.

I know this is a long post, so I'll wrap it up. My trip begins March 15th when I will fly into Frankfurt just short of two weeks prior to school starting. I will travel around for that period with my friend Carolin until I go to school. It's kinda up in the air at this point, but we are planning on visiting Brussels and Amsterdam and possibly parts of France. I wanted to go to Prague, but because Kyle also wants to go I'll wait to go with him during or after school. I digress. We will have school from early April until early July. During this period we will have many long weekends due to the different class structure that they have. We plan to travel around as much as possible during this time while maintaining good grades. After School ends, Kyle and the boys will have some extra time before they leave so we will probably backpack around for a while. I have some places in mind, but I'm totally going in to it open minded and ready for whatever. Considering that I bought a one-way ticket and I will have graduated that term, I will travel around as long as I can after I'm done. I have a date in mind for my earliest departure, but that is completely subject to weather I can support myself or not. Lets just say I will be gone for a while.

So here it is. My blog. Stay up on whats going on and check my photos.

The red balloon marks Bad Mergentheim

The town center!