Paris on Wheels

Hey all, just going to report a little bit of this and that from my trip to Paris.

Last weekend I went to Paris with my host brother to vist my host sister. She is studying abroad there through ERASMUS, a program from the European Union that coordinates study abroad inside of the EU. The program guarantees that the students won't have to pay more tuition to study abroad and that the credits earned abroad will be recognized by their home university.

The post is called "Paris on Wheels" because we toured Paris with my host sister in a wheelchair. She tore her Achilles tendon in December and had gotten her cast off the day before we got there.


So we walked (and rolled and crutched) through the streets of Paris like this and took turns pushing the wheelchair. In this picture we're on our way to the Notre Dame cathedral, where we had a picnic.



But being with a handicapped person had its advantages. We got to cut the lines at museums and ride the cool elevator in the Louvre.

The Louvre is, by the way, one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. The building itself was actually a lot more impressive to me than many of the paintings. It's so massive that to actually see all of the 35,000 paintings in its collection, you would need over 9 months.


Famous Moulin Rouge, typical touristy picture.


The view from Montmartre, a large hill in the middle of Paris. Fabian is squinting because of the sun. There's a beautiful church behind me and a festive feeling all around. We had a picnic there and enjoyed the atmosphere.


This is a picture of the line outside of the Musee d'Orsay that we didn't have to wait in.


Verena sitting in the wheelchair and Fabian playing with the crutches inside the Musee d'Orsay. I actually liked the art in this museum a lot better than that in the Louvre. The impressionist paintings on the third floor were the most interesting.


The Tuileries Gardens, where we had our third picnic of the weekend. It was just beautiful.

All in all, it was a great weekend in Paris. We got to see a lot of culture, art, breathtaking buildings, and eat a lot of delicious baguettes. Seriously, enjoying a baguette with delicious cheese in the Tuileries Gardens is really something.

What really struck me about Paris as far as the language goes was the lack of English. Although Paris is probably the most popular tourist destination in Europe, there was very little English. Even in the Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, the displays were not very non-native-speaker-friendly. In contrast, many attractions in Germany also have English text under the German text. Is printing the text again in English a sellout to tourism or a hospitable gesture making museums and train stations more available to everyone?

I can really recommend Paris to anyone coming to Europe. The city really does have a charm of its own, even through rampant mass tourism. I guess I can't complain about tourism too much, being a tourist there myself...

PS: If you look to the right, you'll see that my blog has now been visited by people (or bots) from all six permanently inhabited continents! Woohoo!

Münster

Over the break I've been unterwegs a lot, because I've been taking advantage of a special offer from the Deutsche Bahn. This offer allows me to travel with all forms of public transportation within the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen for just 18€ during the entire winter break, which is a wonderful two weeks long here.

So this is just a recap of my day in Münster last Friday and some (hopefully) interesting things about Münster.

Münster is a city in northern Nordrhein-Westfalen with a population of about 270,000 people, about 50,000 of whom are college students. Next to rich historical and cultural offerings, Münster is famous for being the bike capital of Germany. Special lanes for bikers and special traffic laws make for a very bike-friendly city. College students and businesspeople alike make up the bike-riding population. There are actually far more bikes than people in the city, with about 500,000 bikes at the last survey.


In the bike garage next to the train station. 3,300 bikes fit in this building, with sections marked off just like they are in a parking garage.


More bike stands in the back of the train station.

We started with a visit to the Picasso Museum, where there was an exhibit about real paintings in comparison to forged paintings and had the visitor try to discern real paintings from attempts to copy them.


In front of the St. Paul's Cathedral in Münster. Just inside the door was a stone from a cathedral in Coventry, England. The two cathedrals are part of a partner program for cathedrals unnecessarily and brutally destroyed during World War II in England and Germany.


A picture from the marketplace in front of St. Paul's Cathedral.

After eating some Chinese food (which is unfortunately just not as good here in Germany) we went for a long walk on the promenade in town. Afterwards we went to a bar in the old town and tried a local specialty, but had to leave a little bit earlier than usual to get back home for the night.



In the train station, while waiting for our train home, we played with the toy train set and met a few people doing it. We happened to run across another exchange student, who is from South Africa, and ended up having a very interesting discussion about national pride with another group of Germans, all because of the toy train set.

So, that's a very brief look at Münster. It's actually my favorite city that I've visited so far. The old town is very pretty, and there's a good combination of history, culture, and nightlife. The city is very accessible by foot or on a bike and is great to just visit.

Bremen und Bremerhaven

I'm here with the promised update about my weekend. Last weekend was a 4-day weekend here and my host family and I spent a couple days on the north coast of Germany in Bremen and Bremerhaven. We visited one of my host sisters, who goes to college in Bremen.

Last weekend was the closing weekend of the Freimarkt (literally: free market) in Bremen, one of the biggest and oldest festivals in Germany. First celebrated in 1035, the Freimarkt now attracts over 4 million visitors a year. The scale of this festival is absolutely incredible. What started off as a time of year where merchants could sell their goods with fewer restrictions has turned into what is literally called a "5th season" in Bremen.

Roller coasters, a giant ferris wheel, hundreds of brilliantly-lit stands, and giant party tents light up the giant plaza next to Bremen's Central Station.

Bright lights and spinning bodies at the Freimarkt.



Ridiculously high swings. I mean, ridiculous.


The biggest portable Ferris wheel in the world.

The next day we went to the Deutsches Auswanderer Haus (German Emigrant House) in Bremerhaven. The museum portrayed the journey of European emigrants to a better life in past centuries. It was an excellent museum, so good that it won the European Museum of the Year Award this year. They recreated the port, the insides of various ships that brought emigrants to America throughout history, and the scene upon arrival in the immigration office.

They had some of the questions from the immigration test. Luckily, I passed. Hopefully America will take me back next year.

After we "made it" into the country, there were some interesting maps and figures about the two countries. Looking at a map of German settlement of the United States, it's amazing to see what an effect German immigrants have had on America. German remains the largest ancestry group in the United States, with most of German immigrants having settled in the Midwest or Northeast regions of the United States.

Overall the experience was especially powerful when I thought of my ancestors who could have been in conditions just as cramped with an outlook just as bleak just trying to make their way to a better life.

Spain, Birthday, Ferien

So quite a lot has gone on in a relatively short time since I last wrote. Where to start, where to start...

Last Saturday started with another visit to the soccer stadium in Bielefeld, this time with 14 other American exchange students. The experience in the fan block of a Bundesliga game once again did not fail to deliver. Honestly, if any of you are ever in a country that loves soccer (all of Europe and Latin America...) , I cannot recommend strongly enough picking up some cheap standing room-only tickets in the fan section of the local team and just expereriencing (and taking part in) the atmosphere and enthusiam.

After the game I had to hustle back to Gütersloh to meet up with the rest of the students from my grade level to begin our wonderful 20+ hour bus ride to Tossa de Mar, a town on the coast of Spain near Barcelona.

We arrived, got out of the bus, and were amazed by the tremendous weather. It is just beautiful there. After spending the rest of Sunday exploring the town and getting settled in, we spent Monday lounging on the beach.

Tuesday we hopped back in the bus and went to...



...Figueres, where I saw this graffiti (in English?). Catalonia, the region in which we spent the entire week, is an "autonomous community" of Spain. They speak a different language, called Catalan, that is similar to Spanish. The capital and heart of Catalonia is Barcelona. As you can see from this picture, there's always rumblings about Catalonian independence. (First someone wrote "Catalonia is Spain!", then another person added a "not", then someone painted over the "not"...and so on) In Figueres we visited the Salvador Dali museum. The man seems sometimes brilliant sometimes just plain weird, and more of the latter.

After that, we bussed over to Girona, the capital, where we wanted to visit this cathedral...



...until we found out that the entrance would cost 5 euros. No thanks!



So we walked along the outer walls of the city. This picture is taken from one of the guard towers, and the people down below are my classmates.

On Wednesday we traveled to Barcelona to sightsee, shop, and hear constant warnings from our teachers and bus driver about pickpockets, although no one came close to being robbed.



First we stopped by La Sagrada Família, a basilica which, like much of what we saw in Spain, is under construction.



We spent the next while strolling down La Rambla, a 1.2 kilometer long strip of shops, street performers, restaurants, booths, and stores. I think this street performer could juggle better than anyone in America.



The Christopher Columbus memorial. I don't think this picture accurately shows how tall this thing was...

In any case, it's pointing to America, and so am I. Hi guys!



The busy harbor in Barcelona, Spain. Some guys got together 5 Euros to get Jörn to jump in, and he did. It's not such a big deal for him though, because he just so happens to swim in such water every time he participates in a triathlon.

My 18th birthday started at midnight the next day on the beach (shortly after our class was thrown out of the room and dance floor we had rented in a nearby hotel for a dance party...we were too loud) celebrating with all the kids from my grade and continued with a whirlwind tour through Spain and France to crossing the border to Germany shortly before midnight.

After getting home at 7 the next morning and sleeping just a bit more, I had my birthday party Saturday night outside at my house here. It was beautiful outside and it was a fun evening. After cleaning up the next day, my host grandparents came over for Kaffee, the German equivalent of tea time.

We ate delicious cake, drank tea and coffee, and conversed for several hours. After that we grilled bratwurst, ate, and talked more. At the end I drank Jägermeister (German liquor) with my host grandpa, my host grandma, and my host dad as a toast to my birthday.

And now up to the present: today begins my two week fall break. This week I'm planning on relaxing and spending time with my little host cousins (the ones from a previous post) and next week I'm going to Brussels with a stop in Aachen on the way. As always, comments, questions, and discussion are welcome!