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Lull Before London

In the period between getting back from Maastricht & Aachen and going to London, UK, there was a lull of sorts where I stayed in town for two consecutive weekends. Work was fairly busy, but the weekends were fairly relaxed and consisted of just chilling with E & M, C & J, and a bunch of other UN interns. Snapped a couple of photos during those two weeks, so I'll let those do most of the talking instead:
Grabbed dinner with E & M one night at Madame Negla - as promised by E, these sandwiches were super good! You can't really tell from the photo, but there were green peas in it as well.  
The decor of the place was a little...disturbing though. It was really pink and sort of decorated like the inside of a little girl's bedroom or something. We also got eis and hot chocolate afterwards (not at the same time, of course) and they got much amusement of teaching me "Das ist das Haus vom Nikolaus."  
Watched the Germany vs. Greece match of the Euro Cup with C & J. Everyone looks calmly seated here ^, but whenever Germany scored, and especially when Germany won, there was lots of rambunctious celebrating. It was especially intense after the game - we're talking people climbing on traffic lights, traffic jams, honking horns, car rocking... Definitely awesome to experience being a part of the crowd.

Met a bunch of other UN interns at an international event, and as it turned out, a bunch of them were also going to the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. It was certainly an impressive conference. I think the final stats had something like over 2,000 attendees from over 100 countries.  
Lots of interesting sessions on a plethora of topics ranging from media to education to fashion to tourism and beyond. Speakers were impressive and quite varied as well - for example, there was the CEO of Frankfurt book fair, the deputy editor-in-chief for ELLE Vietnam, a past Indonesian president... 

One of the sessions I sat in on, "Fair Trade Fashion: Education for Sustainable Consumption," featured TUDO BOM, a fair trade fashion line made in Brasil and Paris - and a month later, I walked by a TUDO BOM store by chance in Paris. Crazy stuff! 

One of the other girls attending that session was also tweeting it (since it is a media conference and all), and I thought her name sounded familiar - as it turns out, it was because we'd corresponded by e-mail in the lead up to NAMUN. Small world, right? 
While the days were packed with plenary sessions, the evenings were a lot more lax. Day 1 was a boat trip, day 2 was a reception at the Bundeskuntshalle (which I'd been to previously), and day 3 was a reception at Deustche Welle. Hey, as an intern/student, not going to turn down free (good!) food ;) 
Apparently the party doesn't stop at college-level conferences - it was kind of cool to see all these journalists and activists rocking out on the boat to live music. (The cover artists were all really good too!) 
Next stop: London!

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missing liebe Deutschland like mad already

It's been a week since I left Germany; hardly feels real. It's funny - this summer has been entirely surreal. On the one hand, it just doesn't seem like real life (being an expat, living on a foreign continent alone, freedom to travel and basically do whatever), but at the same time, it's more real life (40 hour work week, commuting, living on one's own) than normal life (which at this point is school, I suppose). It's certainly been a summer of contrasts. 

On some levels, it hasn't fully sunk in yet that I'm back in Canada now. Logging into CouchSurfing the other night, I was almost surprised to see the location change. I think I've officially caught the travel bug; can't seem to stop fantasizing about where I could go next summer, or whether I can squeeze in a trip somewhere during the winter break. 

A couple of personal projects that I'm hoping to make significant progress on this month, but alas they haven't proceeded nearly as far as I would've liked so far. The hours of each day seem to creep by at an entirely different pace here. 

Missing the people, the culture, the nature...heck, I even kind of miss the taste of the water, the consistency of the Nutella, the frischkäse... Also really missing the prospect of possibility that comes with living in a foreign place, the feeling that something extraordinary and unexpected could happen at any time, the knowledge that different things and experiences are readily available for discovering. 

^ Photo taken on the tarmac at CGN (Cologne-Bonn), pre-departure for Amsterdam. The sun was just starting to rise over the horizon line. That, in conjunction with a 4am taxi ride with head-banging techno music being blasted as we raced down the autobahn at like 140 km/h, barely able to see 15 feet ahead in the dark, seemed like a fitting send-off. 

So much for recapping things in order. Will try to backtrack and recount some more of this summer's adventures throughout the course of this month though! Let's make August a worthy last month of summer break. 

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some reflections

"Something has changed within me, something is not the same. I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game. Too late for second-guessing, too late to go back to sleep - it's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leap!"
- Wicked, Defying Gravity
A little overwhelmed and unsure how to feel right now. Had my last day at the office today. The last couple of months have been entirely surreal, to say the least. Was it really only four months ago that I was musing whether [the events of this summer] is real life? Three and a half months ago that there was much uncertainty? And less than three days later, filled with resolve?

Three months ago, moving to a foreign continent by myself, to a country whose language I didn't speak, was the hardest thing I'd had to do yet. Now, it feels like leaving this beautiful place is just as difficult, if not more so. I think I've really fallen in love with this country. It's been an absolutely phenomenal experience. 

I remember leaving work on either my second or third day, sometime past 6pm, and realizing as I walked to the bus stop that I was truly happy and satisfied with work. I'd hoped that the feeling would be sustained - and it has been. Today, I left at around the same time as that day, feeling the same passion and enjoyment. It's a bit bittersweet to be leaving, and I find myself almost a little reluctant to be doing so. The work was great, and the people were even greater. I'm really going to miss everyone. 

Three months ago, I'd never been to Europe before, nor had I traveled to another country - much less another continent - by myself. Three months ago, I hadn't really lived on my own or cooked for myself before (let's face it - residence = 3 meals/day provided, cleaning lady once a week, friends 24/7... that's not really independence). Now I've done all that, plus navigated 5 countries on weekend trips. The dichotomy is kind of astounding. This summer has seen an insane amount of 'first's. 

I'd arrived as a curious 19 year old, wide eyed and naive. I'm leaving as an even more curious 20 year old, still kind of lost and wide eyed, but maybe a little less naive (hopefully). I've been fairly fortunate this summer. At the mandatory Pre-Departure Orientation session, J warned us about the curve - of starting out at a high and super excited about being in a new place, and then hitting the depression low. My second last night in Canada, I said to M that I was fully expecting to fall down the hardest I've ever fallen before, but if I was able to get back up, well. S had mentioned the lows he'd experienced last summer in Geneva. 

And sure, not every moment was sunshine and butterflies, but luckily, even the lowest moment wasn't that low, relative to other experiences. The worst that happened this summer was probably losing a toenail due to subungual hematoma and getting an infection on the same toe (needed antibiotic/corticosteroids) and having to cancel trips to Berlin and Basel+Munich as a result. But at the end of the day, #firstworldproblems.

Hopefully this is only the first of many travels. Falling in love with new places, it's kind of inevitable that leaving to continue on to the next big adventure will be bittersweet. But hey, I'll take it. 

Here's to more phenomenal experiences and incredible sights and remarkable people! I'm beyond excited. 

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so many cities...

...so little time. Certainly not nearly enough to explore them all. ^ Hastily scrawled this list sometime during my first week in Europe. A random list (think word association), filled with places I'd heard wondrous things about, and figured in passing that it'd be nice to visit.

Obviously I was well aware that it wouldn't be possible to hit them all this summer - but I didn't even manage to come close to half. Which is okay. Can't deny that I'm still a bit disappointed about missing out on Berlin & Switzerland/Munich (& Dusseldorf, ever the elusive one...) in particular though, as those ones were more concretely planned in my head. Toe is still a gory mess...

Either way, I suppose for round 1... I've done okay.

We're just getting started :D

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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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