Showing posts with label Belgium. Show all posts

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Completing the Trifecta: Maastricht + Aachen

Considering the close proximity and interlocking between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, it seemed fitting that my next weekend trip (June 9th & 10th) encompassed Maastricht (for all you poli sci junkies, where the Maastricht Treaty was signed), and Aachen. The Maas River (above) is pretty spectacular, spanned by a number of bridges. Started Saturday off by taking the train to Aachen, then a bus to Maastricht. H gave me a tour of the city, which is fairly small, but quaint and cute.  
Technically it is a university town as well, but the place seems to lean towards the calmer, quieter side. There were also animals in the middle of the city! Peacocks, birds, deer, donkey, sheep... There were a couple animals that were funny but majestic looking, and I got pretty excited, all "wow, that's a really cool animal! What is it?" sort of deal, to which H replied, "those are goats." Yeahhh...living in the city isn't exactly conducive to animal recognition skills, I suppose haha.  
Maastricht is a really place - water, parks, animals... Basically really calm and peaceful. I suppose when you're young and a student, it could get a little boring, but I would imagine later on in life, it'd be the kind of place I'd want to go to get away from the city bustle for a weekend. (Although if they plopped some places like that ^ downtown, I'd totally go there to chill.)

There's a lot of historic stuff too, churches, cathedrals, parts of the old city gate that're still standing... Probably climbed more turret/cyclical stairs in Maastricht alone than everywhere else I've visited so far this summer combined.  
Case in point: we went up these turret stairs in this church by the center square - which was kind of taxing, actually, since the steps are uneven stone and the space is pretty cramped. It took ages to get up (and then back down), but it wasn't actually all that high up (still super windy though!). It was really cool because from up there you could literally see 360 degrees - and therefore all three countries (Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands). 
I got really excited about seeing these Dutch clogs too. I remember a good decade or so ago, we went to Ottawa for Victoria Day and there were tons of Dutch tulips and clogs. Back then, it seemed more like a concept than anything else, the idea of Holland far, far away. But now, here I was, holding Dutch clogs, in the Netherlands. Kind of odd trying to reconcile your childhood self with your... in-transition-between-childhood-and-adulthood self. 

Caught the first half of the Netherlands-Denmark game (Euro Cup 2012) with H and some of his friends, 2 Dutch guys and another guy from Manchester. They were all pretty chill, and pretty funny with the translations on the commentary (since I don't know Dutch). And it was interesting to note the cultural differences in  perspective too!

Then I caught the bus back to Aachen, met up with S, and we went to watch the Germany-Portugal game. (It's kind of insane, to have been in the Netherlands while they played, and then back in Germany while they played as well :O Things like that don't really happen in North America, since everything's so much more spread out...) It was great to see Germany win! 
Getting back after the game was...a bit of a trial. S forgot his keys, so we essentially had to break into his flat. #CouchSurfingAdventures haha. Checked out a really cool bar/pub sort of place, which S described as having a "living room atmosphere" (think couches, dim lighting, vintage knickknacks...), with dancing in the basement (but they were playing polka music or something).  
Spent Sunday wandering the city, checking out art galleries/museums, the university, that sort of thing. Also had the biggest dollop of eis for the cheapest price so far this summer while in Aachen (more stracciatella :) 
Certainly interesting to check out some smaller places, see some of the ordinary, less-touristy aspects of these countries. 

(Should really start blogging while more awake - I feel like the last couple of entries have all been poorly-written, incoherent messes. Ah well...) Also - a few weeks ago I saw a blog post about seeing the Alps in Bavaria, but it was some hidden spot that isn't widely advertised to tourists because the locals want it kept secret to keep it from being over-run. The post was accompanied by beautiful photos of mountains and lakes. Trying to find this post, but can't remember where I saw it... Long shot, but does this ring a bell for anyone/direct me to the blog?

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speed-cap: Belgium Day 3 & boat trip

Going to speed-recap the last couple of weeks in the next couple of posts, and hopefully get everything up to London (last weekend) hashed before leaving for Paris. So - third day in Belgium didn't carry the same urgency to see things, as I was still in Brussels. Somehow managed to get lost trying to find a church I'd walked by with P the night before. (In the process, had a really awkward encounter. I mean, getting hit on in Europe - except in Germany, apparently - is kind of inevitable, and sometimes it's really bizarre, but this one really took the cake for creepiness.) And the church wasn't even open.

Finally made it out to the Palace of Justice. Unfortunately a part of it was under renovation, and it wasn't open (since this was a holiday Monday). Still pretty cool though!
How magnificent is the sky? ^ Super hot weather the three days I was there, and the sky was so blue and clear it was unreal. (You can see the trail from an aircraft having recently taken off too!) The whole bumming around alone thing is... kind of lonely, to be honest, and it definitely sinks in more with time. You see things and think of who would also enjoy them, or have comments about sights that you'd make to particular people...but there's nobody else there. I spent a decent amount of time just chilling in parks that day too. 

Being a student of political science, of course I had to check out the politics-related, European Union, European Parliament, etc. stuff. Wandered into Cinquantenaire Park (as a result of semi-going-where-the-wind-blows and semi-got-lost). Lots of people sprawled out on the grass, tanning, reading, chilling...super peaceful and nice. Tried speculoos ice cream (ordered en français, bien sûr!)
So Av. John F. Kennedy leads up to this ^, and I want to take a photo. There's a couple in the way, and finally they move; I get my camera out and up, ready to snap one. They look at me, holding the camera. Then they pounce in front of it and started making out. I don't even know. (Saw a lot of couples in Belgium, actually.)

Also hit up Parc de Bruxelles, Parc Léopold, chilled by the water, got lost on the way to the Parliamentarium, swung by the Palais Royal... And then it was back to Germany for me. (Crazy enough, a girl who'd been on the same train on the way there was again on the same train coming back.) Alas, didn't get to everything this time around (e.g. missed out on the Atomium), but there's always next time!
I was pretty boring the weekend after that. Stayed in town thinking I would get lots of life-admin stuff done, but it mostly just disintegrated into sleep, watching videos and doing not much of anything. Grabbed coffee with J, who's from Finland, on Sunday.
Friday afternoon we had a retreat at work. Decided by vote, we went on a boat trip down the Rhine, checked out a tiny village called Unkel (which turned out to be really tiny - we'd walked the entire main area in like ten minutes), came back, and grabbed dinner at Tuscolo. The pizza was massive - bigger than my face! So yummy. Didn't partake in the wine though, as I was setting off for the Netherlands the next morning :)

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Booking it to Brugge (Belgium Day 2)

Couldn't resist the alliteration, sorry :P Second day in Belgium started a little too early - the girl in the bunk below me got up at 7am, put on her shoes, and then paced loudly around the room for two hours until 9am. I don't even know. Why? (I was actually kind of impressed with how much I managed to see in Belgium, considering the chronic sleep-deprivation leading up to & during that weekend.) Had some interesting life chats with the other girl in the room, who was originally from Uruguay, but currently located in Spain. Most cramped shower of life, brunch, and then I was on my way to Brugge! 
So I'd figured I would try the whole boho/drifter thing of going with the flow for this trip, and as such had no map or plan for Brugge. In my head, I figured the main things would be near the main station, right? Wrong. Sort of. The guy at the info booth said I'd have to take a bus (3 stops!) to get there, so I dutifully bought two bus tickets, & hopped on. Except there's no stop screen display nor speaker announcement, everything was in Flemish, and the bus didn't stop at every stop. Somehow I managed to end up in the suburbs. (Yeah, who knew Brugge was big enough to have suburbs?) 

So I caught the bus going the other way, somehow missed the stop again, and ended up back at the station. #fail. Third time was the charm - after a quick walk through Sint-Salvatorskathedraal, finally managed to get to the historic centre. Walked around half the perimeter of Grote Markt, but all that getting lost business made me pretty ravenous. Wandered down a side street and decided to treat myself to an Italian lunch at La Cantina (not that I'd done anything particularly worthy of being treated, but hey, a girl's gotta eat!)
Got minestrone soup & salmon pasta - it was delicious! Although kind of lonely, eating alone. I think you feel it more acutely at a sit-down restaurant too, especially when it's all set up for two.  
Ended up continuing my wanderings down side streets away from the Markt. I'd heard that Brugge is extremely crowded with tourists in the summer especially, and is basically a commercialized tourist hotspot for the most part now. But somehow I found a bunch of blocks of deserted streets - I guess most visitors don't bother to go past the general tourist attractions. (Which is kind of sad in a way, I suppose - while the main attractions are obviously great, sometimes they don't really embody the spirit of a place.)  
It was another blisteringly hot day, but the castles, canals and bridges were pretty gorgeous. (I really want to go to Venice. After Brugge, "Venice of the North" this summer and Xi Tang, "Venice of the East" two summers ago, I figure the real Venice must be in the near future for me...)

I tried stracciatella ice cream for the first time (after reading about it on 17 & Baking months ago) - the lady cut me off mid-word when I was ordering, so I barely had the opportunity to slaughter the word. Pleased to report that it was pretty heavenly. The little curled wisps of chocolate add the perfect amount of flavour. Checked out the Basilica of the Holy Blood as well, which is said to house a vial of blood of Jesus.  
Stopped in Ghent for about twenty minutes on my way back to Brussels - the bicycle culture in Europe is pretty huge, but here in particular - by Gent-Sint-Pieters station - there was a massive field of bikes. It's kind of incredible. And so much more eco-friendly than in North America! 
So I'd decided to try CouchSurfing for the first time for the Sunday night. I'd looked up the address of P, who I was surfing with, earlier, and it didn't seem that difficult to find. So I got off at Gare Nord and...somehow accidentally wandered into the Red Light District. It was...unexpected. May have accidentally wandered through a crime scene just as the police were packing up as well. 

Before, I'd thought some Canadian streets were bad in terms of labeling and street signs. No, Belgium is much worse. It took ages to find the building, and I ended up going to like three different #23s, because half the time I had no idea whether that was the street. And of course the flats weren't labelled with numbers or letters or any identifier. 

Luckily, B, an Irish guy living in the same building, was super helpful in locating/getting in contact with P. (There were some really nice and interesting people living in that building actually, from Hungary, England...) 
Tried some local fast food concoction for dinner. It was... interesting. All in all, ended day two in Belgium pretty beat, but content. 

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Bumming around Brussels (Belgium Day 1)

Still playing catch up with adventuring recaps; a little sad to realize today that I'm already starting to forget details about Brussels (which was only a couple weekends ago, really). Bumming around Belgium was fairly spontaneous (/oh boy, long weekend, last minute decision on where to go), considering I usually like to know some general details before heading somewhere new. Things being what they were, I bought my train ticket to Brussels Friday night after work (ran into A, one of the other interns, & her mom & boyfriend I in the city centre - oddly enough, I'd managed to run into A & I the previous weekend at the Flohmarkt too - seriously, what are the chances?), packed Saturday (May 26) morning, and by noon I was en route to Belgium. 

After being crammed into a corner for the first leg of the journey, meeting a German guy and taking in some sights of rural European country side, I made it in one piece. I arrived in Brussels wondering if I'd made a mistake and wondering how I'd last 3 days there, but by the end of it, I'd fallen in love with the city. Got off at Gare Nord, waited on the platform (which is about 2 storeys above ground level), train was delayed, figured I'd go explore the area. I exited the station to be immediately engulfed by a plume of smog and sand and industrial smells from the platform above (which itself looked completely vintage/ancient).
^ Platform is off to the right of the photo above. So I went back through the station and exited the other side, and found myself deposited in a lively (Turkish?) community. After wandering a bit (& not ending up in the Red Light District - this is relevant to day 3), finally zipped over to Central Station. I think the way I tried to tackle Brussels is different than what I've done with adventures since (although ironically, reversed strategies probably would've been better). Basically... I figured I would just walk around and see what I saw. I mean, I had a vague idea that there were a couple impressive cathedrals, the EU Parliament, Grand Place etc. that I should check out, and the Jazz Marathon was going on, so I figured if I started from the centre, I should be able to hit up a decent number of places. I hadn't even bothered to look up how to get to the hostel I'd booked. Very boho flow.  
I was pleasantly surprised that my French was passably adequate, comprehension-wise. I'd always thought that we'd learned 'Canadian French', but in retrospect, I suppose it makes more sense that with IB we'd actually learned international French. (Met some kids from Quebec at the hostel later, who spoke some 'Quebecker' and it basically all went over my head.) It was a bit humbling and unexpected to see the number of people cradling young children and asking for money. 
I actually managed to hit up a very decent number of places my first day, just by wandering down whatever street/alley looked like it had interesting stuff. So much walking. First place I wandered into was the Cathedral of St. Michael & St. Gudula (I believe this is the one most prominently known as simply the cathedral). I may or may not have entered through the wrong door on the side and accidentally snapped some contraband photos. Eh-hem. It was massive and grand and beautiful, and I think this is the one where a choir came in and sang (although it might've been another one). 
Wandered through lively alleys of restaurants and covered promenades of shops (Galeries Royales St. Hubert?). Sat on the steps of the Bourse/Beurs (location of the Brussels Stock Exchange) and listened to the jazz marathon for a bit, but the sun was blindingly hot and bright so I didn't stay long. (I'd meant to visit the Bourse & sit, since it's apparently a very Brussels-thing to do, but didn't realize I'd done it until after I'd wandered away and doubled around to the back of it. ha.)
Wandered around to some more cathedrals, saw the Manneken Pis, the pissing boy statue iconic of Brussels - he was dressed in football kit that day (in light of the Euro Cup). The Belgian police uniforms are kind of dashing. Was kinda beat by this point, but I really wanted to check out Grand Place/Grote Markt, the central square.
As I was searching for it, I was totally thinking, 'this better be worth it' (little did I know at the time, I would probably double the amount of walking I'd already done by the end of the night). I wandered down an alley and came up alongside one of the building's sides, and thought, 'okay, not bad, the statues on the wall are kind of cool.' Then I stepped out of the tunnel formed by the alley and into the square and just damn. Wow. It was breathtaking. None of the pictures I took do the place justice, so...you'll just have to visit and see for yourself :)

There was a huge stage set up for the Jazz Marathon, the buildings enclosing the square were all beautiful (in different ways), and the atmosphere was just really lively and chill. (Brussels in general seems to have a very chill, laid-back vibe.) Also checked out the old Stadhuis van Brussel (there was a wedding going on!), which was very nice and historic, much like everything else in Brussels. There are tons of artists too, and paintings of the city being sold in the square. If I weren't backpacking around, totally would've picked one up.
Wandered through the market (there were some really cool crafts, and another jazz band), checked out Eglise Sainte-Marie-Madeline Magdalenakerk, went back to Grand Place, wandered up through Place de L'Abertine/Albertina-Plein, Mont des Arts Kunstberg...
The view was incredible, the sun was shining, people were out and about...was definitely starting to fall for the city. Brussels has so many gorgeous parks, and when the weather's nice, everyone's just outside chillaxing, tanning, etc. It was a really hot weekend, and there were lots of shirtless people too...European liberalness! 
Photo below was taken at Eglise St-Jacques sur Coudenberg. Wanted to explore more, but it was starting to get late so I dragged my weary self back to Central Station and began figuring out the ordeal of how exactly I was going to make it to the hostel. There was a nice guy at the bus stop with really dark hair, really pale skin, a kind smile and deep, soulful musician eyes. He didn't know how to get to the hostel either, but was helpful about Brussels public transit. Managed to decipher the map to figure out which bus to take and what stop to get off, yay!

On the bus, some cute Turkish guy from Paris ended up sitting beside me. We were talking, and I mentioned that I was going to Paris in July, and he was all like, "I'll show you around!" In North America, phrases like that get tossed around pretty casually, so I'm just kind of like, "haha, sure." And then he gave me contact info - guess he was actually serious. So then I get to the hostel finally, look in the mirror, and realize there's a squished bug on my face. Yeeaahh, haha.
I got into the hostel room and was a little freaked out that I'd have to take a top bunk. I've always slept on the bottom bunk, either at camp or back when I had a bunk bed (since I used to fall off the bed when I was little). So this was a slight panic moment, but on the bright side, less chance of theft if I'm on a top bunk, right?

Met some cool people at the hostel. There were two guys in the kitchen, one from Nepal and one from an island near Madgascar. Ended up hanging out in the backyard with a varied group of guys from different places - L.A./California, Montreal, Barcelona, Argentina, Russia... (The way he said 'Barcelona' with a Spanish trill - something like 'Bar-thay-lo-na'? - was definitively cooler than the regular English way.)

It's definitely be a fascinating experience, backpacking. There's kind of a level of being able to relate to other travelers and have really intriguing conversations with random strangers at a grass roots level. While traveling with family is comfortable, it's not quite the same - I mean, do I really need sharks in the lobby and full spread Western breakfasts every morning? Maybe when I'm older, I'll appreciate that sort of thing more - but at this age, maybe it's not so bad to push boundaries and seek out raw experiences by stepping out of comfort zones.

I had to climb up onto the top bunk in the dark. But I made it! :)

Location: Brussels, Belgium
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