Best German Birthday Weekend Ever!

I had a birthday a few weeks ago. Not so comfortable with that. I am now undeniably in my mid-20s. BUT, to celebrate, some friends and I headed to Germany to visit the Christmas markets! The Netherlands has a weird holiday season. They have a guys called Sinterklaas (much more skinny and religious than Santa). He is an ex-Turkish bishop now living in Spain. Every year in late November, he comes from Spain on a steamship with his "Black Petes"  as helpers. They actually put on a huge show in Dutch towns, with a whole armada coming into town though the canals. It's cool. The Black Petes are played by white people in black-face and dressed up in bright costumes. So wrong. Note that this boat is from Spain.

So once Sinterklaas is in town, he hangs out for a while and then on the night of Dec 4/5 (Belgium) and 5/6 (Netherlands) you put your shoes in front of the chimney/radiator and the Black Petes come in and put candy in your shoes. Then, completely separately, there is Christmas with some presents. Not the US Christmas extravaganza, but a much smaller thing. And Christmas trees, but only after Sinterklaas (the 5th).

ANYWAY, the result of this, somehow, is that the Netherlands really hasn't felt very Christmasy. Germany, on the other hand, knows how to celebrate a religious-turned-commercial holiday--decorations and shopping! My friend came to visit and knew this, and so we went to Germany to check out the markets. Best decision ever! My birthday was on a Saturday, and another friend's was Sunday, so we headed over to Germany for the whole weekend.

Saturday was in Bremen. The market there is huge and wanders through several interlinked squares in the center of town. There were tons of stalls with great German food (sausage, pork sandwiches, candy, everything), Gluhwein (hot spiced wine which was very important given that it was several degrees below freezing the whole weekend and we were outside the whole time), jewelry, and tons of Christmas ornaments and other paraphernalia. Totally awesome. This picture is walking up to the market. The picture isn't very good, but once I got inside, I was too distracted to take many pictures!

We stayed Saturday night in Bremen and drank German beer and Gluhwein past midnight in order to celebrate both birthdays. It was fantastic. We also visited the statue of the Bremen Town Musicians (from a Brothers Grimm tale). I love this statue!

Then Sunday my friend visiting (sorta) from the States and I headed to Munster for another dose of Christmas
market cheer. It was a short, pretty train ride (I saw hills and forests for the first time in months)! Munster has a different Christmas market style, so it was fun to see both. Instead of having one huge market, Munster had 5 markets spread out along a ring around town. Each market had a general specialty, although you could get most things in most markets if you looked. We ended up with enough time to check them all out, which was great. Munster seemed more focused on crafts, which I really liked. I got all kinds of cool stuff! Munster was also a very pretty town. Tons of churches, and there is a small river that runs through town, but along it is a nice greenway. Nice way to cut through to the various markets!

Then, sadly, way too fast, it was Sunday evening and I was on a train home. But I got another birthday present Monday night-an awesome Foals concert in Amsterdam. The traveling, plus birthday wishes and great presents from here and home, made it a really amazing birthday!

Dorm Thanksgiving!

Yes, this post is a little late, but I wanted you all to know that we did it! Dorm kitchen, no oven, and yet we created a really respectable meal! It was me, a visiting friend, and the other girl from the US in my program. Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and deviled eggs. We found a jar of cranberry sauce, but everything else was homemade. I think we all surprised ourselves!

A weekend in Belgium

When I was growing up, my family had first nannies and then Au Pairs (nannies that came through a formal program instead of through family and friends in New Zealand). The last Au Pair, Fatim, was from Belgium and spent a year with us when I was 15-16. She was only about 8 years older than me, and we were more friends than anything else, so when she found out I was going to be in the Netherlands, she immediately invited me to her place near Brussels anytime I wanted. Yay!

It took a while after the semester started, but I finally got a free weekend and booked a train ticket. I unfortunately picked the weekend Brussels almost floated away (more on that later), so the trains were late, but I arrived in Brussels on a cool and wet Friday night. Fatim and I wandered around a bit, checked out the Grand Place at night-beautiful, and had a nice dinner at a cute Italian place.

I also realized almost immediately that my French needs serious work. I took it for five years in high school, seven years ago, and haven't used it much since. Back then I was pretty good. Now though, while I could tell the French was in there somewhere, I was having a lot of trouble making sentences. My understanding was much better, but still rough. Fatim and her husband both speak English (each lived in the States for a year) but I tried to speak French with them. Unless of course, their cute four year old Elliott was listening and didn't need to understand! I did feel bad though, when he would talk to me in French and I couldn't understand. It usually wasn't too bad, as we would continue playing anyway, but I knew he wanted me to know what he was asking. Grr. Fatim reminded me though (sign of how long I've been away from young children) that at that age he wasn't using real words or sentences, which made me feel better.

It was nice though, to be in a (part of a) country where I could usually read signs and understand train announcements. They live in the southern French part of Belgium, but Brussels is French/Flemish (Dutch) and the northern half of the country is Flemish.  And whoa is the split weird. Half the country speaks each language and in Brussels everything is in both languages. The weirdest part though, was that each half translates the names of cities in the other half. And they apparently literally translate them, not just change pronunciation or a few letters. What does that mean? Antwerpen (which English speakers call Antwerp) is called Anvers in the French part of the country. Lille=Rijsel, Tornai=Doornik, etc. And once you're in a certain part of the country, they only use their name for the city, so if you're looking for the "right" name, you'll never find it.

After diner Friday night, we made the 45 minute drive out to Fatim's house in the country (everything in Belgium is 45 minutes from Brussels). The house was so cool! It's from 1817 and is beautiful on the inside--exposed wooden beams, tile floors, great upstairs for the kids' rooms. Loved it. And a nice large yard I never set foot in. It was a holiday weekend in Belgium, and unfortunately absolutely poured from Thursday morning (start of the holiday) until Sunday night. Monday was gorgeous, Fatim told me later. The rain ended up being a huge problem, as Brussels just doesn't get rain like that and so is not designed to handle it. Lots of road and tunnel closures and accidents. And slow trains.

Anyway. Saturday morning after an awesome breakfast of croissants from the local baker, Fatim and I headed back into Brussels. The family didn't come because the parents knew the children would last about half an hour in the cold rain before being done with it all. Our first stop was the Atomium, a huge atom-looking thing that is a leftover from the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. It looks exactly like what was considered futuristic in the 1950s. So funny. But very cool-we got to climb inside it and look out for great view of Brussels.

After the Atomium we headed to the Renee Magritte museum, which was awesome. Google him, you'll recognize the stuff probably. A surrealist. It was a great collection, which we found out was because it was all loans from various collections and that the museum is only going to be open as long as people don't ask for the pieces back, which could be whenever, so I'm really excited we got to see it.

Saturday night was a nice dinner at home with the family. Good wine and cheese and conversation. And lots of playing savanna animals with the new lion toy Fatim had found Elliott since he couldn't come with us to Brussels. My favorite animal was the tiger that Elliott decided was "a lion made up as a tiger." He referred to it that way all weekend, without fail. Good memory! He also opened an imaginary restaurant where we tried his chocolate-carrot-coconut-something-else-really-odd soup. It was so much fun to be in a real house with a family again, instead of my impersonal dorm and with classmates around my age. The 10 month old was both teething and sick, so he wasn't happy, but the rest of us had a great time.

Sunday morning was crepes-delicious again! Then we got ready and headed off to Fatim's parents' house near Brussels. Her parents were really excited to finally get to meet someone from the family she had spent her year in the States with, and since they are Moroccan, they decided to show their excitement by feeding us. I've now learned that Moroccans do not feed you halfway. We ate skewers of meat with bread to dip in the juice, then couscous with chicken-vegetable sauce (and that you eat with sour milk, which was good), and then there was fruit and mint tea and cookies. But my descriptions aren't doing the meal any kind of justice. The food was amazing and the quantities were unreal. I'm pretty sure her parents could have eaten off the leftovers for a week. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Fatim's parents and a brother and sister. They were all very nice and understanding of my slow French. I'll also take it as a good sign that they kept talking at normal speed and I was following pretty well!

After stuffing ourselves to oblivion, it was goodbyes all around and then I was off to the train station. But my weekend in Belgium was fantastic and I'm looking forward to going back. I've discovered that there are  cheap flights from my future French town of Montpellier to Brussels, so that will be fun. I have to go back to try what I learned is a Belgian specialty-fries and mussels. And more beer and chocolate.

George is dead

There are awesome travel updates coming, I swear, but for now, I just want you to know that my latest plant-rearing experiment is now over. George the Aster is dead. I blame it on the lack of sun, which caused me to leave him on the windowsill over the weekend while I was gone in hopes the sun might come out and make him happy. It did not and George got cold. And when I came home and rescued him from the windowsill, I might have put him in front of the heater, which was on high due to it being unholy cold. How cold? The high temperature today was -6 Celsius (21F). The HIGH. With lots and lots of wind. They think it might get above freezing sometime next week...

American enough?

Before coming to Europe, I hoped I would be able to avoid any ugly American moments and that I could maybe help remove (or at least soften) some stereotypes of Americans in my classmates or other people around me. I really shouldn't have worried though-almost no one can tell my nationality. I've had one instance of "Uh, duh, of course you're American," which was apparently based on "the way [I] talk" and another when a guy on the train knew because I had my Nalgene bottle, and "all Americans have those." Other than that though, people can't seem to figure it out. I don't have any of the American accents they've heard on TV or in movies and my behavior doesn't give me away either.  If anyone does venture a guess, which is rare, they usually go with British. And almost everyone seems surprised when I'm American. It's interesting. I did give myself away to a guy on my floor by mentioning Halloween--that did it immediately.

The Hague

I've recently decided that while school is important, I've got to stop letting it keep me from other things I want to do, like travel. So last Wednesday, instead of running to Zwolle and running home to do the piles of work I had, I enjoyed the town. And I signed up for the ESN excursion to The Hague. I believe ESN is the international student organization for Europe, with ESN=Erasmus Student Network, and most of the international students here are other Europeans doing their Erasmus, which is a semester or year abroad. I think it's government funded... Anyway, they organize parties and international dinners and excursions, etc. And last Saturday was the excursion to The Hague. 

I had actually been to the Hague when I was here six years ago. I came with a friend who had lived here, and we stayed in Scheveningen, a beach town just outside the Hague. But we had mainly visited with her friends instead of seeing the city, and it had been a while, and I wanted out of Groningen, so I found myself waiting in the dark at 7AM on Saturday for a bus to take me and 50 of my closest friends to the Hague (I did go with a few friends from  my program).

Once on the bus I feel asleep immediately, waking up sporadically to either sunshine or torrential downpour. Each time, I hoped it wouldn't rain on us and feel back asleep. Three hours later, we arrived in the Hague. It was cold and grey, but not raining.

First was a city tour, given by an awesome skinny guy in a big leather biker jacket. We walked through the Binnenhof, and awesome castle-like compound where the Dutch parliament meets. It's also where the prime minister hosts the queen on Fridays (American giggle). 

 The place was a castle...

...with a church and some large meeting halls. Very cool.

After the Binnenhof, we walked through the city a bit, including going down a few big beautiful avenues I liked. 

We then went to the Queen's working palace. Of course she has separate working and living palaces--don't you??  I'm now done being amused by royalty, at least for this post, I swear.

After the tour was my favorite part of the day--the M.C. Escher museum! I had no idea he was Dutch, but he was, and the museum was awesome! It had a broad range of his work, including some early, more representational work I had no idea he'd done, as well as some of the famous tessellations. There was also a crazy but interesting exhibit of chandeliers by someone whose name escapes me. But there were everything from dolphins to bombs to a skull and crossbones hanging from the ceiling in the exhibit rooms. Very cool.

After the museum there was free/lunch time. On the cold day (it was now also drizzling) a friend and I decided to try something warm and exotic and stumbled into an amazing Indonesian restaurant. At least I think it was amazing. I haven't ever had Indonesian before, but we walked in, started at the menu for a while, and then the owner came and told us that since we had no idea what we were doing, he was going to give us a good intro. And did he. We apparently got one of the daily specials and some spare rice. But what came out was unbelievable. Small bowls of beef, bamboo shoots, green beans, soup, eggs, and all kinds of other things in great and various sauces/spices. Even the starches were amazing. One was a fried rice that was quite spicy and had lots of minced meat in it, and the other was friend noodles, which weren't really hard, but were just interesting and delicious. Definitely recommend Indonesian food if you come across it.

After that amazing lunch, we met the bus and headed to Madurodam, probably the cheesiest thing all day (you can decide after you read about the Binky Bear). Madurodam is a tourist attraction where they have miniature models of famous and representative (of time period, style, etc) buildings from Holland and they form a city and a harbor and a country area, etc. It's kind of interesting to see places you've been and maybe pick a few other things you want to go see, but it's really goofy. And they gave us 2 hours in this place, the longest we were anywhere all day. It's not big at all, and we really could have done FINE with about 45 minutes. Oh well, they had a cafe. By this point (5pm) I needed coffee.

After our extensive exploration of miniature Holland, it was time to head to Scheveningen and the beach. Only wait, it was now dark outside. And pouring. Why they planned the beach part of the trip last, and in the dark, I cannot understand. But anyway. As there was no need for the planned "free time at the beach," we headed straight to the restaurant. Which was called Binky Bear. When I saw that in the itinerary, I couldn't decide if we were eating in a strip club or a Chuck-E-Cheese. Really, I could have seen it going either way. Turns out there is a chain of restaurants in south Holland all named "something that starts with a B" Bear, as in Bella Bear, Bruno Bear, etc. We just happened to get the Binky Bear. Binky is a pirate. You know, seashore and all, it makes sense... The place turned out to be a kids restaurant. The decorations though, were so odd. The inside of the restaurant made me think it had been a ship-themed place before--thick wooden beams all over the roof and huge wooden columns. But now? Now there are teddy bears ALL OVER the walls. Hundreds of bears of different sizes all (nailed?) on the walls. And then weird creepy plastic chandeliers. I didn't get it at all. Either the decorations or why a group of college kids walked past several hundred yards of normal restaurants to eat there.

Odd, but great. It was an awesome day and trip! The Hague seems pretty cool, and I would be interested in wandering around there again.

But before I start going back to places, I'm going to see different ones! This weekend should be great--I'm heading to Brussels to see a friend and meet her family (husband and kids, all new since I saw her last)! Very excited. And I'm going to a concert in a few hours! Finally, the weekend (almost) arrives! I needed a break.

Zwolle

On Tuesday, I got an email that my residence permit was ready and that I had to go to Zwolle, about an hour away by train, to pick it up. Conveniently, Wednesday was our first day off! I slept late and enjoyed a bit of a lazy SUNNY morning, then headed to the train station. There, I ran into the other North American girls (one from the US, one from Canada) who also had to get their permits. We hopped on the train and were off.  It's a straight ride to Zwolle, so we relaxed until the ticket checker came and we discovered that the Canadian girl's ticket had absolutely vanished. We checked everywhere! The ticket later mysteriously showed up in the Zwolle station all on its own...But the ticket guy didn't come back around before we got to Zwolle, so all was well. We had to go to a boring industrial area near the station to grab the permits, but now I'm officially a resident of the Netherlands!

I had checked the map and decided that the rest of Zwolle might be fun to explore for the rest of the nice sunny afternoon, so we (just the other US girl and me-Canada had to go) headed into town. So glad we did! It was a really cute town in a classically European way-small windy streets with cute buildings and nice squares and churches.  We had a nice outdoor lunch in a shopping district and then wandered all over town. We also stopped for olliebollen, which are basically large balls of fried dough covered in powdered sugar, very much in the funnel cake style. Delicious!

I really loved Zwolle. It felt very different from Groningen, which I think has decided it wants to be a big city (since it is the largest one in the area) and so doesn't really feel cute and small and European the way Zwolle did. I do, however, need to explore more of Groningen before I can pass final judgment on it. I just need some free afternoons! This whole going to school in Europe thing is really getting in the way of my ability to just be in Europe.