Back in Tuebingen after the better part of a week in Chapel Hill. It was a good recharge, and it was great to see everyone. I’m planning on doing a bit more travel later this week, but for now I need to take it easy for a couple of days, as I’ve been travelling for two weeks now.

So, on to Paris. Maggie met me in the Paris-Nord train station after my uneventful trainride from Amsterdam. As I had in Amsterdam, we simply headed back to her place and crashed, being late in the evening. The next morning, we got up, and after buying my Metro ticket and a wonderful chocolate croissant, Maggie went to class and I headed to the Eiffel tower. I walked the grounds for a while, had an espresso in a nearby cafe, and gawked as much at the hordes of Japanese tourists being disgorged from tourbusses as at the Eiffel tower itself. Maggie and I then met back up for a late lunch, then spent a good bit of the afternoon trying to get the internet working on her laptop. She then had class again, and I went with her this time–it was interesting to see what her studio class is like. After that, we cooked dinner with her roommate.

The next morning, Maggie again was in class, so I headed over to the Notre Dame. I wandered around there for a while, touring the excavations underneath and then heading into the cathedral proper. It was impressive and has much history, which I enjoyed, but I must say that the cathedral at Cologne was much more impressive–larger and more detailed. After leaving the cathedral, I ate dinner in a restaurant nearby that my cousin had recommended, and ate a wonderful meal, including one of the best desserts I have ever had–a sort of thin cake topped with a custard and wine jam. Most excellent. I then walked around the island and the Seine for a while, before heading back to the flat to meet Maggie. That evening, we ate dinner in a nice asian place down the street from her, and then headed out downtown for drinks.

The next day, the Louvre. We got there at about 10 and spent 3 or so hours inside, which isn’t nearly enough time for a place so large. It literally defies description is it so massive. Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping for a gift for Lindsay and my parents, and grabbed some lunch. Maggie soon had to go, but I walked around a good bit more myself, heading into a massive church built as a Greek temple, the church of Saint Marie Madaleine, then walking down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomph. After all this, it was getting late and I was knackered from all the walking, so I headed back home. That evening, we ate a delicious dinner at a small cafe, La Belle Histoire, that had again come strongly recommended from my cousin. A very cozy little place, with great food.

So that’s my time in Paris. The next morning, I boarded my train for Tuebingen, and then the day after that, headed to Frankfurt to catch my flight back to the States. I don’t really have much to say about that–really just a lot of hanging around and catching up, but a wonderful time nonetheless.

I’ve decided to break up my writings to prevent one massive post, so we’ll start with the first stop of my trip, Amsterdam. Or, more properly, Cologne. I scheduled my train ride to Amsterdam with a 2 hour stop in Cologne, Germany, so that I could see the massive gothic cathedral there. I had had several people tell me about how incredible it was, and given that it is literally right across the street from the train station, and I had to go through Cologne anyways, I figured I’d seize the opportunity to see it.

No one was kidding when they said it was right across the street from the train station. As you leave your train, you can see the two massive ornate gothic spires jutting up into the skies through the windows in the train station. You come to the main entrance/exit of the train station, and the entire view out the glass front is taken up by a tremendous grey stone monstrosity–the Dom, German for cathedral. You walk across the short square in front of it and up some steps, around to the entrance. You walk through the standard gothic ornately carved entryway and into the cathedral itself. I immediately broke to the right to climb one of the towers, since they closed earlier than the rest of the cathedral, and I was cutting things close. I got it for the 1 euro student price, and proceeded to march for about 20 minutes up a narrow, winding staircase, with stone stairs that had divots worn into them from the tens of thousands of people climbing them over the centuries. The thing that impressed me the most was the detail present–you’d be climbing this staircase and look out some tiny slit window, and see some part of the cathedral that is almost never seen, and certainly wouldn’t have needed to be done in the same detail as the lower parts that are regularly seen… And yet they were just as ornate. I finally came to the top, sweating and out of breath, and was rewarded with an incredible view of Cologne and the rest of the cathedral. After taking it in for about twenty minutes, I headed back down the stairs–harder than going up them–and proceeded to walk around the cathedral proper. Large parts of it were unfortunately closed, but I still greatly enjoyed it. I sat down on a pew, cocked my head upwards, and just took it all in. I was annoyed with all of the people taking flash photographs inside the cathedral–it isn’t going to work anyways in such a cavernous space, and it’s disrespectful, but nothing could take away from the awe that fills you when you see such a structure. I still think St. Peter’s in Rome was more impressive, but after seeing the Notre Dame later, I think the cathedral here in Cologne was much more impressive.

After gaping for a while, I headed back to the train station and got on my train for Amsterdam. It was supposed to be a short hop, but turned into a nightmare–the train broke down, we had to get a new one, then the conductor was late, then there was track construction that slowed us down and sent us halfway around the Netherlands to get to Amsterdam, all of which meaning that we ended up being two hours late. I met my cousin Katie in a bar outside the train station, and after catching up for a while and drinking a beer, we headed back to her place to crash.

The next morning, after waking and eating some breakfast, we headed off to rent me a bike. One of the first things that hits you about Amsterdam is the sheer number of bikes. Everyone goes everywhere on these old cruiser bikes. You’ll see an executive in a suit crusing next to a pothead. We then just started cruising around the town, having a good time. Amsterdam is surprisingly small, and extremely flat, so it’s no problem, and a lot of fun, to just cruise around taking in the sights. As we were riding, Katie pointed out to me points of interest, and explained to me some about Amsterdam. We soon were hungry, and stopped at a cafe for lunch and a beer. Then more cruising, followed by another cafe. We rode a bit more, this time interspersed with some walking, ate dinner in an Italian restaurant, then went to an improv comedy show where we met two of Katie’s friends, a frenchman and a spaniard. Unfortunately, I think much of the show was lost in translation for them, but no matter. We left and went to a jazz club to buy the frenchman a beer since he had paid our tab at the comedy show, refusing to let us pitch in even a euro. We walked into this incredibly cool hole in the wall jazz club, with a rather good group playing on stage. After a beer and some time hanging out, we all headed home to sleep.

The next morning, we essentially did more of the same, riding around Amsterdam some more, complete with a tour of the redlight district. We ate lunch in this very cool pancake house, a place with only 4 tables, up the steepest stairs I have ever climbed. The whole restaurant was one small room–kitchen included–but the food was excellent. The pancakes were almost a sort of crepe, with different toppings on them; mine had cheese, tomatoes, and bacon. We then returned my bike to the rental place, and I headed off to the train station to catch my train to Paris. Unfortunately I didn’t do any of the museums in Amsterdam, including the massive Rijksmuseum, but I still greatly enjoyed myself.

More photos are up…

I’m back in Tuebingen from Amsterdam and Paris. Tomorrow morning, I catch a train to Frankfurt then a flight back to the States for a few days.

There will be lots of photos and stories from my trip to come, but for now, check the photo gallery for a couple of quickly thrown together panoramas of the beer garden in Tuebingen, Amsterdam, and the Louvre.

So, tomorrow is the end of the Sprachkurs. We have to give a short presentation; the one that my partner and I are working on is soccer in Germany. It won’t be too hard, and should actually be quite fun, so that’s not really that big of a concern.

Then, directly after that, I head to the train station and jump a train to Amsterdam. I’m staying there for the weekend, then heading to Paris to stay through the rest of the week. Friday, I catch a flight back to the States for a week–I found a crazy cheap ticket, have time to spare, and won’t be able to go again until February. Besides, I’d like to see Lindsay and the Lodge.

Anyways, I’m sure I’ll be posting about all those things, but it’ll probably be a while. Until then…

Given that I have a three week break between my summer class and the official start of the semester, I’ve been doing a lot of travel planning. With that includes many searches for flights and such. I figured that I’d list my suggestions for the best flight search engines.

First, is Kayak. Kayak is an aggregate search engine, meaning that unlike the other major flight searches (Orbitz, Travelocity, etc), it compares flights from over 100 different places. I’ve consistently found cheaper prices here than any other site. Add to that its interface design, which incorporates some excellent work to allow you to seamlessly and dynamically filter the search results, and you’ve got the best flight search engine I’ve ever seen.

Second, and only for those flying within Europe, is SkyScanner. SkyScanner lets you choose flights from many of the budget airlines in Europe, shows you which days are cheapest to fly that route, and shows you, in one glance, the prices after tax, which can more than double the cost of the ticket. A great place for inter-europe travel.

Third, also for those in Europe, is WhichBudget, which tells you what budget airlines fly out of what airports and to where. Again, a huge help for planning trips within Europe.

Thats it for now. I’ll add other worthy sites as I find them, or watch the links to the right.

Saturday, a few friends from the Sprachkurs program and I went to Munich for Oktoberfest. We caught the earliest train we feasably could, the 6:28AM out of Tuebingen, that would put us in Munich at around 10:30AM. Unfortunately for me, living out in the boondocks meant that there was no bus here that early in the morning, meaning I had to shell out for a cab. After being hurtled to the trainstation by a lead-footed guy blasting German pop in his Mercedes taxi, we all boarded the train and took off. Our first train, from here to Plochingen, was no problem–empty, as one would expect. Our next two trains however were another story. At Plochingen, about 50 people tried to fit into an already full four car train. After taking my place sitting on the floor, I lucked out when someone sitting next to me got off at the next stop, so I got a seat for the rest of the hour long journey. The next train was even worse. In Ulm, we, and seemingly the rest of Germany, boarded the train to Munich. There was no way of anyone getting a seat on this thing–it was standing room only, and barely that, with no room to even sit on the floor. And more people got on at every stop. To top it, in Augsburg, the train broke down–except that the doors broke down along with it, and so we were stuck standing in the train for an hour. With that many people on the train, it gets hot fast, and to top it, people started smoking. Hot air choked with cigarette smoke doesn’t make for a good time.

Finally, at around 11, we made it to Munich. Promptly heading towards Oktoberfest, all we had to do was follow the masses of people wearing lederhosen and beermaid dresses to the festival grounds, about 15 minutes from the trainstation. We soon arrived at what looked like a massive state fair, and could already hear the drunken singing and carousing from the tents. We walked down one of the main streets taking it in, ate quickly, and then tried to find a place to sit down. All of the tents we tried were full (hard to believe, seeing as these things probably fit 10, 15 thousand people each, but they had apparently been full since 10AM), but soon we heard from another friend who had found a table outside the Paulaner tent. We promptly crammed ourselves in at the table, and ordered a beer.

The beermaid soon returned with our beers. These things are huge–1 liter each, which is the equivalent of three 12 oz bottles of beer. You can hardly lift one with one hand, and these beermaids carry 8 or so at once. When they hit the table, it makes the most tremendous racket. We promptly set to drinking our one liter masses of beer, and were soon talking with the people sitting across from us–an older German man and his nephew, the man plays steel guitar in a country-western band, lyrics in German, of course. He used to play in the officer’s clubs of American military bases in the region, and we talked about the strange small differences between American and German culture.

We were also well entertained by the table of Italians sitting across from us. They had been there drinking strong since 10AM, and were (clearly) having a good old time. As soon as we walked in, they practically pounced on the two girls we had with us, and after seeing that they seemed pretty harmless and were buying the girls plenty of seven euro masses of beer, we sat down at our table and just laughed. Hey–free beer.

We kept drinking strong. The problem is that everyone is carousing and singing and toasting, so you’re constantly drinking, all the time. Add to that the smoothness of the beer, and before you know it, you’ve killed your mass and need another one. As the empty masses piled up, everyone gets much more friendly with each other, and before you know it, you’re talking with anyone and everyone. I ended up talking with a couple of French people, and had a great conversation about politics, and then, even better, we talked about cycling and argued over whether or not Lance Armstrong is a doper. A most excellent conversation. Soon after, we realized that we were very soon going to have drank too much (if we hadn’t already), so we departed our hard-won table and decided to leave so we could get some affordable food and see some of Munich before we had to leave.

After munching down one of the ubiquitous German fast-food sandwiches, the Doener (which is actually a quite good Turkish sandwich on fresh baked bread), we headed into the Altstadt and wandered around. I was very impressed with the place, and it looks like a great place to spend a few days. I went and found the hotel that my parents are staying in when they come and was lucky enough to get to see a room, and then we headed back to the train station.

The train ride home was uneventful save for the pounding hangover headache I and everyone else in my group had. The whole train was a ragtag bunch, all the way back to Tuebingen, with everyone on the train hungover and looking like they wanted to die. It was entertaining in the least, and after an uneventful, and much less full ride home, I promptly hopped in the bed and slept hard for 10 hours.

Yesterday, our Sprachkurs class took its second and last excursion, this time to Stuttgart. We all piled into a big Mercedes van and our teacher’s Peugeot, and headed off down the road, with more than one destination planned.

First stop, the Ritter Sport chocolate factory in Waldenbuch. The first thing you notice here is that upon stepping out of the car, the very air itself smells like chocolate. From there, we headed into the showroom/museum thing they have there. While there, we monopolized a display/toy that would dispense free chocolate, then watched a short movie about the plant (and got more free chocolate), then headed to the store downstairs. The prices were pretty good here, about 50 to 70 cents for a bar that costs 2.50 or so in the States. I only bought a few bars, but some others came out of the place with 20 pounds worth of chocolate.

After that, we went to Boeblingen, a rather ugly town, but with one great redeeming factor: IKEA. Upon hearing this, we managed to convince our Sprachkurs teachers to take us there. All bowing before the cheap-retail-houseware gods, we quickly dispersed to do our shopping. I got a lamp to replace the crappy one that came with my room, a small rug, and a small winerack. There was a larger rug that would have covered most of the floor of my room that I wanted, but they were sold out. I still wish I had more time there though–I would have gotten a new pillow and some cookware and some glasses and some sheets, and, and, and… Massive and awesome doesnt begin to describe the place. The thing that baffles me though is that they opted to build it in a tiny place like Boeblingen–Tuebingen, a town with 25,000 students who need cheap housewares could have singlehandedly kept the place in business.

After that, it was off to Sindelfingen, just outside of Stuttgart for the best part of the day: the Mercedes factory. The first thing that pops into my head from viewing this place is precision. Much of the assembly work is done by robot, and it’s incredible to witness the precision with which these things work. I mean, these robots are sliding entire dashboard assemblies in through the door and screwing them in, with less than an inch to spare on any side, and never even touch the car. And in the press shop, where the metal is stamped into its shapes, massive two and three story high machines press and cut the metal with a thump that shakes the floor like something out of Lord of the Rings. The whole thing managed to restore my faith in German engineering, which had been waning as of late.

After that, we finally made it to Stuttgart proper and after dinner and a beer at an outdoor cafe, we headed to our first German soccer game. It was interesting, but after the Mercedes tour, not much measures up. We had a good time watching the rowdy fans, though.

Anyways, this weekend, we are planning to go to Munich for Oktoberfest. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of pictures and stories out of that, so stay tuned.

This weekend in Tuebingen, there is a large market going on in the Altstadt. There are frequently markets in the Marktplatz (hence the name), but this one is a bit larger. While the normal markets feature only vendors from around the town, mostly selling food, this includes vendors from Italy and France, selling everything from cheeses to wines to food to crafts.

Both of these pictures were taken this afternoon at this market. Things were already crowded, and one could barely move. From what we have been told, it gets significantly worse: tomorrow and Saturday night will be an unbearable crush of people. Thankfully, I think I got my fill of it today. These two photos were the two best, and I really like the one above; I think it is one of the best photos I’ve taken in the last year.

This weekend, we had planned to go to Stuttgart for a winefest. Great plan; we showed up and smoothly caught a train to Stuttgart. Unfortunately, the winefest was a bust. We got there, and it was more of an expensive tourist trap with four euro glasses of watered down wine than the winefest we had all pictured in our heards. We shortly left that, and after realizing that none of us knew of anything else in Stuttgart to do, and all having other things back in Tuebingen that could be done, jumped back on the train back home for a quiet day.

The next day, Kiel, a fellow UNC student, and I headed to Bebenhausen. Bebenhausen is a small town to the north of Tuebingen that used to house a walled monastery. Much of the monastery survives in surprisingly good condition. Kiel and I hiked over there through some paths through the woods, coming out of the woods onto a grassy hill that looked over Bebenhausen in the valley below.

From there we headed into the town, and were immediately impressed. The whole town is an amazing tangle of paths and roads, winding their way through the ancient walls, houses, and gardens. The whole place is amazingly open as well, with very little closed to visitors.

We spent several hours in the town, aimlessly wandering the streets and taking in the sights. When I say Bebenhausen is small, I mean it–I suspect that less than 250 people live there. And yet, we managed to make several hours out of it, and still felt rushed. There was just such a wealth of things to see there. Every time you turned around, you’d see something else you wanted to look at, from the ancient town wall with its arrow loops and battlements, to the dormitories, to the courtyards, to the church itself. It was a wealth of exploration.

It was also a wealth of photographic possibilities. I took many photos there, too many to fit in this post. Go look a the photo gallery and take a look at some of the ones that didn’t make the cut here.