København, Berlin, and München

The length of this post depends entirely on how long it takes me to get bored/stop procrastinating. But be warned, it will be lengthy.

The Danes warned me that "The Little Mermaid" would be relatively unimpressive. They also claimed it was in China. They were only correct on one account.

Last last Thursday (17 February) I took my luggage to school with me. As soon as my phonetics course ended at 6 pm, I met up with my traveling companion Jill and we rushed to the Gare Routière, the local bus station. From there, we spent the next 24+ hours on trains (and a ferry, which also carried a train) taking us North, North, North to Copenhagen. On our ferry-train, we met these two awesome Danes, Casper and Emma (I think) who gave us a five-hour rundown of Denmark. In that brief time, we learned about its slang, its political outlook, its welfare system, its history...basically I know everything about Denmark now. Upon finally reaching Copenhagen, we met up with Jill's friend from college, who so graciously allowed us to spend the weekend at his apartment.

Jen and Rachel

On Saturday, I met up with my friends from high school, Jen and Rachel, and they spent the day giving me an exhaustive tour of the city. I think I managed to visit every tourist site (except Tivoli Gardens, the inspiration of Disney World, which is closed for the winter). That night, after departing from Jen and Rachel's presence (they were going to see Aziz Ansari, but I didn't have tickets), we went out on the town of Copenhagen.

We slept late Sunday, but I eventually persuaded my companions to visit the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, a museum that was free on Sundays. It was amazing; besides the disproportionately large collection of French artists (Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh - yeah he's more French than Dutch, Dégas, Rodin, Gauguin), it had a large collection of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Etruscan art. It probably had more, but that's all I got to in my time there.

Monday, I met with Jen again after her courses finished in the morning. Unfortunately, we realized that everything in Copenhagen is closed on Mondays. At least all the touristy stuff. I had been hoping to visit the greenhouses which she's raved about so much, but they were closed. Disappointing. So I just wandered around town in the cold.

Not a Botanical Garden.

So I'm just rattling stuff off. This isn't cool. I'm going to switch story telling modes now.

I didn't feel like taking any more trains after my previous experience, so I swam to Berlin. I encountered some problems when I realized that Berlin is pretty much landlocked, but there was a river passing through, and it wasn't frozen solid, so I made it alright. I was a little hungry after this slight exertion, so I helped myself to some Hunter's Schnitzel at a local restaurant. But I was still hungry, so I ordered 4 liters of beer, which quenched my appetite for the time being.

The next day was the sole day dedicated to Berlin. I was a little tired from the swim over still, so I only saw a few things:

Berliner Dom

Brandenburg Tor

Pergamon Alter

Babylonian Gate

Fernsehturm (Berlin TV Tower)

Checkpoint Charlie

Entrance

Exit

Early Morning Berlin Wall

Thursday morning, I intended to get up at 5:00 am to go see the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, before I left for Munich that morning. My alarm did not go off, and I did not arise until 6:20. Oops.
Bad Luck, YOU CANNOT STOP ME!!!

This is the whole truth. I got dressed in 2 minutes, sprinted to the nearest U-Bahn Station, sprinted through my transfer station, and sprinted to the Berlin wall. I then calmly walked the 1.3 km of wall, before sprinting back to the U-Bahn Station, back through the transfer station, and back to my hostel. That amounted to between 1 and 2 miles of sprinting. 

It was so easy to switch sides

Depiction of the famous kiss after the fall of the Berlin wall.

So it was no surprise that, despite having currywurst for lunch the previous day, I was quite hungry when I arrived in Munich (where Jill had a high school friend who provided housing- what awesome friends). So for dinner, I devoured a pork-kartoffelklöße (potato dumplings)-sauerkraut dish. Those Germans sure have filling meals.

Munich Old City Hall and Glockenspiel

Mary's column, Munich. The angels at the base are vanquishing heresy, famine, war, and the plague.

Since I'm generally all-knowing, I was understandably bored throughout the informative tour we went on Friday. They explained how Munich had been demolished during World War II. They told us how fearing the advancing Swedish Protestant army in the 30 year's war, Munich residents had attempted to build a wall to keep them out. Unfortunately the Swedes arrived two years before the wall was to be completed, calmly stepped over its base, and took the city. And then refused to leave until bribed heavily...both with money and beer. We learned how Augustiner Beer is Munich's top-selling beer despite not having run any advertising campaigns in 50 years *coughcoughOktoberFest*. We learned that during Oktoberfest, the Australian embassy, which does not have an office in Munich, sets up inside the British embassy because only about 1500 Australians lose their passports each year, which is much funnier than the 18 children that parents lost last Oktoberfest. After this useless tour, I wandered around the streets of Munich. I think it would make a great city to live in, but it doesn't really have a great tourist draw. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled.


Saturday, the last non-travel day of my break, I made the journey out to Dachau. Dachau is the concentration camp which served as the model for all the other camps. Dachau is where all the Nazi officers for the other camps trained. Dachau is where tens of thousands died. I saw the gas chambers, the crematoria. It was somber, it was moving.

Five Words

I leave Thursday for Copenhagen.

Birthday and the Superbowl

L'Espace Van Gogh

At 6:15 am (12:15 am, Eastern Standard Time) on February 5, 2011, I woke up to my alarm. After quickly dressing and having a tartine for breakfast, I began my walk to the bus station to catch the last bus to Arles (hardest word to pronounce in the French language, I've been walking around saying it to myself for practice). At 7:55 am, the bus departed for Arles, leaving behind anyone who had not woken up on time to catch it (inevitable at that early hour), and arrived in Arles one hour (nap) later.

Arles was gorgeous. It was 17°C (62.6°F), making it the warmest birthday of my life (I think). After locating the tourist center and obtaining maps, we wandered over l'Espace Van Gogh, where Van Gogh recovered after chopping his ear off (also in Arles). After a brief respite in the garden, we continued roaming through town, stumbling upon a fairly large church. Not that we were surprised; you can't walk down a street without bumping into one cathedral or another in Europe.

From there, we headed back to the market on the main street and purchased a delicious lunch (baguettes, other breads, fruits-grapes, dates, oranges, apples, bananas, etc.- fried orange extract coated with honey-didn't catch that name- macaroons, wine, paella, fromage, hummus) which we ate in the sun. Best birthday lunch of my life.

The Amphitheater

After eating to our hearts content, we traveled onward to the Roman Amphitheater, which was constructed in the first century BC, is the oldest of its kind in France, and is reminiscent of the Colosseum. Just outside, we were momentarily distracted by the antics of some local free runners practicing, but eventually the ruins drew us to explore them. After circumambulating the structure, several us succumbed to the desire to take a nap in the Mediterranean sun. When we awoke, we knew that we had made the right decision: a stray cat had approved of our slumber and joined us. Historically, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the amphitheater became a town in its own right as people erected houses and chapels within before it was restored in the nineteenth century.

The next stop was the bank of the Rhône, the river that runs through Provence. Then we kept going.

Roman Theater

As the day wound down, we headed over to a Roman Theater. While not as impressive as the amphitheater, it had just as lively a history. It also had housed houses. Although only two columns of its original facade still stood, and only the first few rows of seating were original, it was still impressive.

Finally, we caught the last bus back to Aix-en-Provence. By this time, an echo of hunger was rumbling in my stomach, so we sought out an interesting restaurant (I did not intend to eat cheap pizza on my birthday). We eventually settled on a Moroccan Restaurant nestled in a back alley. It was quite delicious, and the French couple sitting behind us was quite impressed with my ability to make shurikens out of the table napkins.

Catnap of Approval

Sunday was not as successful as my birthday by a half. The day itself was pleasant: as warm as the day before, and lots of free museums to go to, as there are the first Sunday of every month here. Things started to go downhill because of time difference.

• Super Bowl Sunday is technically Super Bowl Monday in France since it starts after midnight here.
• Alright, I can handle that. Yeah, I have class at 9 am Monday, but it's only one day.
• I was sitting with a bunch of kids who go to Vanderbilt.
• Apparently Aaron Rodgers' brother goes to Vanderbilt, so they were mistakenly cheering for the wrong team.
• The Steelers lost.
• I stayed up until almost 5 am to see them lose? Well, at least I'll take some consolation in that they refused to win since I couldn't be there for the celebrations. Sorry guys.
• ESPN America sucks.
• Their announcers were awful. I was glad when the sound skipped. But my true complaint with them as is follows:
• There were no commercials.



Enduring the Super Bowl

• There were NO commercials. I mean, couldn't I even have subpar American commercials? Couldn't I have FRENCH commercials? Usually, excluding the Super Bowl, commercial breaks are a bad thing. They're worse without commercials.

 So, it would seem the worst thing that's happened to be so far in France is American.