10-31 # Goodbye, Berlin

Pfefferbett Hostel, Berlin

Today I left Berlin. Thought I'd take a picture of my Hostel on the way out. Then I ran over to Potsdamerplatz with the Sony Center real quick before getting to my flight. On my flight, I was highly amused by one of the ads which was modeled after a Velázquez picture we had just studied in my art class.

Potsdamerplatz

Velázquez - Las Meninas

(for more photos of Berlin, see the Facebook album here)

10-30 # Museums, and Zoos, and Aquariums! Oh, my!

Today was my history and wildlife day.
As the free tour had covered most of the sites in Berlin, I had to decide what to do with my entire extra day. Museum Island was an obvious choice, but after 2 or 3 Museums I knew I'd lose interest. I had heard that Berlin had a pretty nice zoo, so I decided to visit that too. I do love animals, after all. And, just my luck, the zoo is connected to an aquarium!

To start off, I went to the Pergamonmuseum, which houses ancient Pergamene, Islamic, and Egyptian works. The biggest of these is Pergamon Altar (below), which was brought to Berlin from the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor.

Pergamon Altar

I then also explored the Neuesmuseum «New Museum» which houses the bust of Nefertiti, though we were not allowed to take pictures of it. It held some other ancient Egyptian works as well, and a variety of other things. It was quite an interesting place, but I didn't take many good pictures there.

I then went to the zoo. There was a bit of confusion with the ticket lady, because I totally asked for an even pointed to the Aquarium ticket, but she gave me a zoo ticket (the zoo was closing in 10 minutes, why would I want that ticket?). Anyway, the Aquarium lady was nice and let me in even though I didn't have the combined ticket (I think that the fact that I explained the situation to her in German probably helped a bit, thanks Frau Martin!). But on my way to the Aquarium in the 10 minutes the zoo was still open, I got these pictures:

The little guy in the back is licking the wall. ¡¿?!

Nice to know what direction home is in!

So finally I made it to the Aquarium and spent about an hour there looking at some Bugs, Fish, and Amphibians (it was a very complete aquarium). Watching the ants do their labor in the bug section was quite entertaining.

I liked this "little" guy

10-29 # Berlin, Hier komm ich!

This was a medium soft drink from McDonald's. Why's everything so small here?!

So, I started out this trip with the free walking tour (provided by Sandemans) and got a good overview of the city. Most of the sights in Berlin are all on Unter dem Linden (one street) and then there are also 5 museums on a little island called Museumsinsel «Museum Island».
During the tour, we learned a lot about World War II, and the Holocaust. We visited the Jewish Memorial, and the spot, now parking lot, under which Hitler killed himself in his bunker.

The memorial gave a very oppressive feeling when you were in the middle of it,
it leaves you with a very firm memory

I took the late tour and it went quite well into the night (got quite cold). Though we visited Humboldt University, school to the Grimm brothers and many other notable figures. We saw the memorial to the book burnings that took place there (right). It's a hole in the ground with thick glass over. It looks down into a room with empty bookshelves, enough to hold the books that were burnt. In this room, there is no door or any form of entry, just a glass on top to look into it. Engraved nearby is "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" «Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people»

To wrap up the night I went with Sandemans again on their Berlin bar crawl to meet some fellow tourists. On it, I met some students from the US, a lot of people from Spain and other Spanish speaking countries (got to practice a lot that evening) and the Irishmen. They were my favorite! Irish accents are the best.

"We're Oirish"

10-23 # Belgium Without Belgium Beer? I Think Not!

If you called today my Belgium-Beer-Day, you would probably be right. Not that I drank a lot of beer, but rather that there was a lot of taste-testing and learning about beer today.
It started off with meeting two new friends at the hostel, Chris and Nikki, our new friends from Hawaii and Australia, respectively. The four of us (Kalina as well) decided to head out together this morning and go to a flea market. It had EVERYTHING! And a lot of antiques as well.

Flea Market

We then had a soup lunch at a little café nearby, and proceeded towards a brewery that offered tours.

Learning about Lambic
Left to right: Nikki Sullings, Christopher Lee, Kalina Rae

After the tour, we were able to taste-test two types of their beer. They warned us over an over again that the fruit one we tried would be sour, not sweet, and they were right. They don't add sugar to it during the fermentation, and naturally, fruits become a little sour during the process.

My first 'cultural' experience: taste-testing Belgium beer

For dinner, the four of us went to a little pizza shop, and then Kalina had to leave so she could visit Bruges the next day. Chris, Nikki and I went out on this little self guided "bar crawl" thing that was in one of our travel guides, and spent the night talking about life, meeting locals, and having fun.

"Crawling" through some bars and trying Geuze, Lambic, etc.

(For more pictures, please look at the Facebook album here)

10-22 # Meeting People Is Fun!

So the theme of today apparently turned into meeting people!
It started out this morning in the airport where there were four students from Pennsylvania waiting to go to Brussels as well. They were all studying in Spain, but things from art to economics and Spanish (unlike our group, which is solely Spanish). There, I also met a guy from Wisconsin who gave me "The Good News" (you know, when Iowa loses football games :-) ).
On the airplane I met a girl named Ana from France. She was studying in a small town near Madrid and sat next to me on the flight. It was really fun talking to her because our Lingua Franca was Spanish and NOT English, and Spanish was neither of our's first language. She was very friendly, even offered me her scarf as we arrived because it was cold. I couldn't take it, of course, because I would have no way of getting it back to her, but she didn't seem like that mattered to her at all.
On the other side of me in this plane was a guy from Denmark. He is worth mentioning because through talking to him I found out that while he is a Denmark national, he has been to Iowa and Nebraska with his work. He works for Pioneer as one of their European Representatives, which was just crazy to meet someone working with a company from home! I even did a little translation work on this flight between the Denmark man [Dutch native, English learned] and the French girl [French native, Spanish learned]. It was... interesting :-P
After this flight, I boarded a but to Brussels and, can you guess what happened next? Yup! I met another person! This was a lady who was from Badajoz (very close to Cáceres) but now lived in Madrid and was visiting her child in Belgium. She was very nice and was probably my first Spanish native that I've met randomly and held a good conversation with (in Spanish, of course, as she didn't speak any English).

Now HERE actually begins BRUSSELS itself!

I didn't get off to such a good start. I left the bus station (which was in the bottom left corner of my map) and walked the wrong way, and by the time I realized I was walking the wrong way I had already walked right off the map. I was hopeless! But, after only an hour and a half I made it back onto the map and then about another hour to walk to the city center (by the end of today I realized the city was quite small, but while lost things take a little longer to navigate).
While discovering the city, and about four hours after leaving the bus, I ran across the Spanish lady from the bus again! Probably the most random thing I've seen in a while. Also, on one of the corners in Brussels I saw these two guys speaking Sign Language and remembered that I'm taking that course with some friends next semester, but it made me think that there's American Sign Language, so if I learned that would I still be able to converse at all with people from Belgium? I wonder how many types there are...

Spongebob in Belgium is quite scary!

So after getting hopelessly lost (I was on the map, but not sure where I should be going) I stopped into a little coffee shop. Now, already I had been astounded by Brussels, a city of Dutch and French where all street signs are in two languages (two names) and you pass one group of people speaking French just to have the next speaking Dutch. It was pretty amazing. But then, oh then I went into the coffee shop. To start, the lady at the coffee shop spoke Dutch and French, obviously, with all of the customers that were already in there. She then spoke English to me when I asked in German if she spoke it, and throughout my stay I found out she spoke German too. Then, some guys who were in a group upstairs came down and spoke to her. They were speaking Spanish and she spoke that just fine too. This lady was pretty amazing! But I guess being penta-lingual is normal in Europe?

I then traveled to a little chocolate shop that I had heard about online as something that's been around for quite a while and was pretty good. I got my family some Belgium sweetness here. Hope they like it!

Manneken Pis - sight in Belgium

After seeing a few sights (like the one above), I made my way up to my Bed & Breakfast/Guesthouse -style hostel and met a girl named Kalina. She is a law student from the states studying in Holland right now, and we talked for a bit about general things and then decided to explore Belgium together that evening.

The amazing chocolate fountain and the equally amazing saleswoman (she was good)

Our night consisted of visiting some chocolatiers (above) and spending way more than we intended (that was mostly Kalina spending and me encouraging), eating at the Belgium restaurant run by some Turkish people, and taking pictures of the beautiful Grand Place «Plaza Mayor/Central Square» at night. Just to give you a taste of the awesome seafood (I had mussels cooked in white wine sauce) here's a picture of one of the tables all these alleyway stores had set up outside to lure you in:

Seafood Paradise

10-21 # Off to Brussels!

So today I departed for Brussels, the first of my many adventures I have planned. I'm sad to be taking the weekend away from Spain and practicing all the Spanish and learning about culture, but I'm here to learn about more than just one culture and what better way to do that than to visit more than just one country!? (Especially since everything in Europe is so close)

We started out on Thursday at the bus station in Cáceres. It just so happened that Megan and Karen were also taking the 6pm bus to Madrid with me, and flying out the next morning as well. We got on our bus and embarked on the four hour trip to Madrid.

Around 10:30, we arrived in Madrid and ate some bocadillas that our Spanish moms had prepared for us. Juani had made me a tortilla de atún (or an omelette-like thing with tuna in it), as well as some other sandwiches.

After that we found ourselves a corner in the Terminal 2 Food Court, next to the RyanAir check-in desks and settled in for the night. Didn't sleep too well, but got in a few hours of shut-eye.

Brussels, here I come!

The bus station in Cáceres