Interlaken, and Berlin

It has been two weeks since I have updated this so I have a lot to talk about.  The second weekend of October I went to Interlaken, Switzerland.  I must say that Switzerland was a beautiful country!  I was not surprised by how expensive it was because some of my friends who had been there warned me.  A burger from McDonalds was over ten francs.  A franc is about the same as a dollar so that is a little sad.  Don’t worry I did not but anything from McDonalds.  The highlight of Interlaken was canyoning.    Canyoning is basically walking down a river and jumping off of rocks into the deep water.  We also use rocks as slides and basically try to do exactly what the guides tell us.  You don’t want to mess up because if you jump wrong you could get injured.  I have already put some pictures up on my facebook if you have not had a chance to look at them. 

Then this weekend I went to Berlin.  It was a great city and the highlight was the FREE walking tour.    It was a great way to see Berlin.  I saw so many places this way that I would have otherwise been unable to find.  The city has so much history and has had so many changes over time.  Germany as a whole is younger than the States because they were smaller countries before they became united.  Some of the big places we went were:

·         A Jewish memorial-which is very unusual as it was many large rectangular slabs meant to make people, who already know about what happened, think further about it.    

·         Checkpoint Charlie-which is where the crossing was from West Berlin into East Berlin during the Cold War. 

·         Hitler’s Bunker-where he committed suicide; though this bunker is destroyed we were above it.

·         The Berlin Wall-I don’t need to explain this but our tour guide said he made a mistake early in his career in saying it was the most famous wall in the world.  He said there were a few people from China who disagreed. 

I had a great time in Berlin and things were the exact opposite, price wise, in Berlin compared to Switzerland.  I spent 5.50 Euros on a lasagna dinner Saturday night.  I think the only down side to Berlin was the fact that the train ride took 8 hours.  It was a filled weekend to say the least.  I had a great time and can’t believe how lucky I am to experience all of this!

School is better when weekends consist of traveling around Europe!

Enjoy,

Brad

What a Week!

I had a great week this past week.  Our school has mini study tours which are related to a class that we are taking while abroad.  I am taking an anthropology class and we went to Brussels and Amsterdam for my class.  We went into many museums and saw how Brussels portrayed the Congo.  It was interesting to see all of that and how it related to class but on top of that I had a wonderful time just traveling. 

I have been to Bruges before but not Brussels.  I thought Brussels was a nice city and saw some neat things.  Once again they have some of the world’s best chocolates in Belgium.  Amsterdam was also a unique city to say the least.  It was quite large and we had tram passes for the two days that we were there.  The trams were a bit confusing as it was not clear what stop we needed to get off at.  I went on a canal ride that lasted about an hour and I am glad that I could see the city that way as well.  I was not worried about getting lost while on the boat.  I also went into Anne Frank’s house while in Amsterdam.  That was one of the most interesting things I did while I was on the study tour. I thought that it was well organized and did a good job explain her diary and thoughts.  When the Nazi’s raided the house they destroyed and removed all of the furniture and her dad wanted to keep it that way so visitors could see what happened.  There were miniature models to see what the house looked like before the raid happened.  Also the place where they hid (the attic) was located behind a bookcase that we very well designed.  When it was closed, the attic would have been completely hidden. 

After Amsterdam I had to catch a train get to the airport.  A man came up and offered tickets to the airport for a cheaper price.  I was worried that it was a scam so I asked if I could take them inside.  After he agreed I went to the information booth and they said the tickets were valid.   After about forty five minutes into the train ride the conductor came around and he didn’t speak any English but I knew something was wrong.  Since I am still a little inexperienced with trains in Europe, I missed my stop and overshot the airport by about half an hour.    Since I love getting to places early I was a little panicked that I would miss my flight.  I hurried into the train station and bought another ticket to get back to the airport.  That train left in two minutes so I took off at a dead sprint to the platform.  I caught the train right as it was leaving. 

The second time around I realized what stop to get off at.  I made it to the airport and through security with about 4 hours to spare.  I still had plenty of time to kill and I had cost myself about an hour.  One could say that I was worried for no reason.  The flight went well and once my plane landed I had to wait about an hour for my friend Chris since his plane was delayed. 

We went our hostel around midnight and woke up the next day for our tour around Ireland.   The tour went by bus and we had about 15 people in our group.  Ireland is at the very least one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  I was taking pictures like I was a professional photographer.  I would turn my camera off every time I was not using it to conserve as much battery life as possible.  I will get some pictures up as soon as possible but it may be later this week.  One stop was a fountain where there were lots of coins.  Being a scavenger that I am, I grabbed the coins.  I like to think that I stole the leprechaun’s treasure.  We went to the cliffs of moher on the second day.  Our guide dropped us off before the park actually started so we walked quite close to the edge.  Being scared of heights I was a little scared when the wind would pick up.  I still took pictures but I don’t think I was snapping them as much as normal being so close to the edge. 

Weather in Ireland was unpredictable.  It would rain for 5 minutes then be sunny for and hour.  Then it might rain again.  The plus side of this was it allowed me to see two rainbows.   

Overall it was a wonderful week and I can’t believe I have to opportunity to do all of this!  I must say thanks Mom and Dad for all you have done!  Happy Reading…..

Guten tag

-Brad