A whirlwind of 10 months

Well it's been since last April that I did a post and to be honest, I had lots of time available just never could get my thoughts together and feel motivated enough. Here's then to a big update on what has been going on with my life from last spring to this winter.  

Icefields Parkway, Alberta, Canada

Karneval, Eindhove, Netherlands

After determining my masters research, I could focus on finishing up quarters 3 and 4, where I co-wrote a lengthy paper on the "State of Estuaries" (quite depressing sadly), walked around and fell in mudflats, visited Shell's headquarters and lots of coffee breaks during lectures

After my trip to Istanbul in February, I visited Germany twice to go to Berlin and Hamburg (love the Eurail pass!), went to Karneval in Eindhoven, and London for St. Patrick's Day, the famous Keukenhof (think lots of tulips and hyacinths) in Lisse on Easter weekend, and Queen's Night in Utrecht. Come May, I went to a Liberation Day festival with a good friend and her boyfriend (May 5) that was lots of fun  - beers/whiskey-colas, eating Döners and listening to Pearl Jam covers while WWII airplanes flyover.

Now comes my whirlwind where I basically live out of a suitcase from end of May - mid November. Ready? :P

Bodrum, Turkey

We had a long weekend in March so met up with a college friend in Dresden and Berlin since she was visiting family in Poland. Dresden was such a chill city and there happened to be International Dixieland Festival during that time so was able to relax on some steps with a beer in hand, listen to the bands and take in the scene. The city did a wonderful job rebuilding post-war.

Fieldwork in Brest, France

June, when I think of that month I do not remember where I honestly got my energy. It went something like: weekend in Paris, 4 full days of class, weekend to Bodrum, Turkey to meet up with NJ friends, have 4 hours to unpack and go on vans down to Brest, France (Brittany) for a 2 week fieldtrip for my Field Geochemistry class. Our days filled with eating baquettes at 6:30 am, full day out in the field or working in the lab, make dinner, talk about what we did, play volleyball/swim in the ocean/play Bang! and go to bed around midnight. Then work hard on a report and making lots of Excel graphs, jetset to Rome for a weekend and try out couchsurfing (definitely recommend), pack everything up and leave for North America on July 4.

Rome, Italy

Southern California

Needless to say, at the end of Independence Day weekend where I was back in New Jersey, I was so devoid of energy and jetlagged I ended up sleeping pretty much 24-30 hours straight. It was a fun weekend of course with catching up with all of my NJ friends, going down the shore, and just being able to sleep in my bed.

So July consisted of me driving down to Washington, DC to visit college friends, go into NYC at least once, experience a massive thunderstorm in downtown Manhatten (it was glorious) and fly off to California for a week to see my mom's side of the family. It was nice to see my Opa after a year since while I had been away in Utrecht my Oma had unfortunately passed away. 

New Jersey, Photo courtesy of Cleo Chou

Now the real fun begins! Fly back to NJ, next day pack for 3 months and pick up my Dutch fieldwork partner, sleep and set off by 10 am heading due west! So if you want to see the massive 13,000 miles (21,000 km) trip we did, look at Tripcolor, which is a cool app I found that would track your iPhone photos and plot them on a map. Anyways, it was awesome driving and being able to see family, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Rockies, Oregon & California coasts and the Grand Canyon.

Wyoming

Two highlights of the roadtrip itself would have to be:

(1) Getting up early in the morning to drive to Lamar Valley and watch the wolves and being able to listen them howl in unison. It is one of the purest sounds you can hear and fulfilled a childhood fantasy of mine.

(2) Watching the sunset into the Pacific Ocean while in southern California and then swimming in the ocean right after because it was so warm. Ah, I really do miss the salty sea air, the crash of the waves and the feeling of the sand beneath you. 

Grand Teton National Park

Horseback Riding in Cariboo Mountains

In Canada itself, I was able to see the vast majority of my dad's side of the family in Alberta and Vancouver, which was wonderful. Of course the main objective of the trip was to collect sediment samples in the Cariboo mountain region of interior British Columbia. It was wonderful living out there for 2 months and take a step back from the business of life that I had known from growing up in NJ and going to school in Washington, DC and Utrecht. 

Swimming in Quesnel Lake

 Some highlights of being in Likely, British Columbia would include:

(1) camping next to a river and abandoned mine town

(2) seeing bears every week driving to and fro our sample sites

(3) hanging out at the local (and only) pub and playing pool listening to a old jukebox

(4) horseback riding for the first time and seeing the most breathtaking view

(5) driving really into the woods to a lake to just take the afternoon to relax and enjoy nature

Ghost Lake, Photo courtesy of Ben Anderson Millington

Big Sur, California

Needless to say I was quite sad to leave because of the above and enjoying the group of people I had met there. Had a fun time driving back to NJ via the West Coast and stayed there for another two weeks before flying back to Europe. Spent a fun weekend in Manhatten and in Jersey City catching up with friends, before my last week made more interesting by the landfall of Hurricane Sandy and the subsequent loss of power and gas shortages. 

Family Vacation to Jamaica

 

Coming back to Utrecht, I was without a room as it was impossible to search for a room back in the spring/summer (remember my crazy June??). But during my first week back found a temporary room for two months and go off to Stockholm for a quick weekend before starting up another class I decided to take. During this time I was figuring out labwork for my Canadian sediment samples, but was still able to go Aachen for another fun-filled weekend of visiting the Weihnachtsmarkt and drinking Glühwein. Then before I knew it, it was holiday break where I went to: Germany for Christmas, Jamaica during the week, one night in Utrecht for New Year's Eve, and England/Wales for the first week of January. (At the end of this, I did realise that jetlag and I are really terrible friends and I should refrain from such intensive traveling across timezones in short intervals..attempt to at least :P)

Austrian Alps

End of January comes, my labwork finished, the last final taken, I move into a new room and leave promptly on a night train to the Austrian Alps for a week of skiing with Contiki. For years now I have wanted to go back into skiing since I gone for two winters during high school and had enjoyed myself. Things always seemed to get in the way though, like living where there weren't "real" winters, university classes, waitressing my butt off for a year and traveling elsewhere. Well, 8 years went and enough was enough, it was time to bite the bullet and do something. I ended up taking 5 days of lessons with an awesome Austrian ski instructor (who would ski to and from work since he lived on the slopes) and hanging out with mostly Australians (had no idea that Contiki was such a big Aussie thing). Definitely was sad on the train ride back up north to leave all the snow and mountains.

View towards Hopfgarten, Austria

That should bring me up to speed to the current date where my main focus is thesis writing and also obtaining furniture. Also setting up my internship with Deltares, details to come later!

Aachen & Weihnachtsmarkt

Originally, my classmate, Andrea and I were going on the Study Abroad ESN Trip to Luxembourg and the Ardennes...unfortunately (but then again not so unfortunate) our Hydrogeological Transport Phenomena changed our class time from Friday morning to Friday afternoon.  This conflicted with the scheduled departure of the trip, so we ended up selling our tickets to 2 very lucky Italians, who were more than thrilled.

Sebastian and his red Volvo!

Andrea's roommate, Sebastian, and his girlfriend, Janine are both geology students who went to Aachen University for their Bachelors.  Sebastian is now at Utrecht to get his masters and staying with us for two years (yay!) and Janine is on an exchange in Amsterdam and will be going back to Aachen to finish up her Masters (sad face).  Anyways, they had told a group of us about Aachen and its Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) and invited Andrea, 2 more of their roommates (Matthew - also Hydrology and Kathryn - a European law student), and I to go to Aachen for the weekend with them.  Since Andrea and I had changed our plans, we were now able to go with them since Sebastian was planning on leaving Friday evening.

Aachen Weihnachtsmarkt

Though Sebastian wanted to leave by 4 pm...our professor decided to keep us until 5 pm exactly despite the fact that the entire class was restless (we have since decided our professor needs to take a "chill pill" and not get so worked up...also his teaching style sometimes intimidates me).  By 5 pm, we were finally on the road, hit some traffic of course, but we were in Aachen at Janine's apartment around 7:30.  As soon as we got there...we left again, but this time to the Weihnachtsmarkt!!

Rathaus

Aachener Printen

Weihnachtsmarkt...they are famous in Germany and well-known to the rest of the world.  I went to my first one back in 2008 when I was studying in Freiburg.  It was perfect - we drank Glühwein while snow was falling.  The second time was during Winter Break 2009/2010 when I went to Berlin for New Year's.  This one was smaller, but just as good (it was at Gendarmenmarkt to be exact). Well...Aachen I have to say was better than both combined (sans the weather...way to warm for it to be "Christmas-time").

Glühwein Stand

Flammkuchen

First stop: Glühwein!  Served hot, Glühwein is made with either red or white wine and spices like cinnamon, cloves, sugar and orange zest.  The best translation would be mulled wine, but probably not exactly the same.  After several glasses, we all walked around the market eating Flammkuchen, french fries, Bratwurst and Crepes.  The surprise food of the night was potato latkas with apple sauce, as I thought that it was only eaten during Hanukkah.  I am glad to know that it is a much more common!

Matthew with his Eis

Besides the six of us (Sebastian, Janine, Kathryn, Matthew, Andrea and I), we were joined that evening by two of Sebastian and Janine's friends, Arne and Gunnar. After the Weihnachtsmarkt closed for the night we ended up going to Guinness House and continued to hang out drinking beers (along with whiskey and Jagermeister shots).  That was definitely a fun evening...trying to say difficult words in German and Welsh or...well it was a bunch of topics let's just say.

Lindt Fabrik - so much chocolate

Noah's Ark at children's store

Kathryn, Matthew, Andrea and I split up between sleeping in Janine's kitchen and sleeping on the futon at Arne's apartment.  Saturday morning, we all met up at Janine's for breakfast after sleeping in until 11 since we didn't go to bed until around 4 am.  Afterwards, we went back to the market so that we could walk around and do some Christmas shopping! Also made pit stops at a cafe to warm up (hot chocolate!), the Lindt factory for chocolate (or so Sebastian could get 500 g of his favorite and eat it in 2 days!), and a children's store (ended up buying a board game).  Kathryn went back to Utrecht as she had a lot of work to do, but the rest of us went back to the Weihnachtsmarkt for another glass of Glühwein and to the Aachener Brauerei for some echte Deutsche Spiesen.

Janine and Sebastian

That night, we were invited to Arne's for a housewarming party.  Sadly Matthew was not feeling well and could not join us, but Andrea and I had a good time meeting other geology students from Aachen Universität. Basically we have decided that Geology (geology-related) students are awesome people to hang out with no matter what country you are in.  Honestly, they are some of the most down-to-earth, truest people I have met.  Any person I have gotten to really get to know I would without a doubt keep in touch with for years to come.

Matthew eying Andrea's mussels

Matthew, Andrea and I

 We ended the night with a game some of them made up using glass beer bottles and bottle caps. The object was to knock off a bottle cap placed on the top of a full beer bottle using another bottle cap. You did this sitting on the ground with bottles placed directly in front of you. Your opponent could knock your bottle cap off your beer bottle up to three times, but within those three times you had to have finished your beer.  Now this is no can...and I miserably failed at drinking the entire bottle, but I got to half of it.  Honestly, I do not chug beer to begin with and cannot drink beer fast (unless it is flip cup).

Sunday morning we met up again for breakfast after sleeping in until 11 am and then back to Utrecht we went, getting in around 4:30 pm.  All in all, it was a wonderful weekend with friends.  I enjoyed being yet again in Germany...and trying to practice more my German.  Of course, I am looking forward to my next visit to Aachen ^_^

Me, Janine, Kathryn, Matthew and Andrea at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Aachen

Heidelberg & Essen

 In the second week of November, I had my first two Dutch finals - one on Tuesday morning and another Friday afternoon.  Friday's exam lasted 3.5 hours and as soon as it was done, I went directly back to my apartment and then caught a train to Heidelberg from Utrecht.  I was meeting my cousins, Aleandra and Erika, in Heidelberg for the weekend.  I arrived late that night and walked to the hostel from the train station (they thought me crazy...but it is only 3 km walk, nothing crazy). 


Side note as to why we went to Heidelberg: First, it was a wonderful city that I suggested that my cousins should include on places to visit, but we also have some family history there.  My grandfather (and his father) went to university there and his parents along with his sister's parent-in-laws (Carl Bosch) lived in a nice villa along the hill with a view of the castle.  I went to the house once when I first came to Germany back in summer 2004.

Common Area of Lotte

The Fridge in Lotte's Kitchen

Store front along Hauptstrasse in Heidelberg

We stayed at a hostel called Lotte, located on Burgweg near the Heidelberg Schloss. It was one of the cleanest and nicest hostels I stayed at.  Cereal is provided 24/7! So had a nice bowl of cornflakes upon arrival late that Friday night.  The common room contained lots of books as well as board games.  Prime location and really nice people, I believe it just opened this past year too.

Our car for the day

Anyways...back to the weekend.  Aleandra and Erika arrived earlier on Friday and so had the chance to walk around the city and go to dinner.  On Saturday, we walked down Hauptstrasse and caught an S-bahn to Mannheim.  We had decided weeks earlier to rent a car from Europcar and drive to the northern Black Forest.   As I could only really drive an automatic, the car rental office upgraded me from Mercedes Benz A-class to C-class as they did not have any other cars.  When the pulled out the car, we were all thinking...I am driving that?! Well we quickly got into the car and on the autobahn, where I tried out the rental car...nicest car I have driven so far that is for sure.

View from the Black Forest Highway overlooking the hills towards France

Kasespätzle

Gemischter Salat

About an hour later we were driving along the Black Forest Highway (Hochscharzwald) and stopped at Mummelsee to eat some lunch.  Later we drove to Schiltach, walked around the downtown and stopped at a cafe for some hot chocolate, ice cream and cake.  I had only ever been as north as Triberg in the Black Forest and the northern sections were definitely just as beautiful.  If I have the chance I would like to go back and do some hiking there.

Erika at Mummelsee

On the way back we stopped at Aldi and DM for some socks and Magenbrot.  It seems that everytime I  go to Germany, I end up bringing back socks from DM, they just keep my feet really toasty warm and super comfortable.

After returning the car rental to Mannheim, we went back to Heidelberg and add some dinner at the Kulturbrauerei.  We considered going to another bar afterwards, but Erika wasn't feeling well so we decided to head back to hostel and just relax and get plenty of sleep.  The Heidelberg castle was beautiful in the moonlight as well as in the morning fog.   Aleandra left earlier than Erika and I as her train ride to Prague was much longer.  Erika and I both had trains out of Mannheim, she to Berlin and me to Essen, about 2-3 hour train ride.

Aleandra at Mummelsee

Downtown Schiltach

Erika and I getting ready to leave

Heidelberg Schloss at night and in the morning

Heisse Schokolade of course!

I had some time between my first and second quarters, which was wonderful as I really needed the little break that we got.  My first class was not until Wednesday afternoon so I decided to see if I could stop in Essen to see my friend Sarah.  I met her while studying abroad in Freiburg 3 years ago.  She is currently on her second year of a Fulbright scholarship teaching English in a local school outside of Essen.  Sarah and her boyfriend, Maik, met me at Berliner Platz in Essen and walked around the downtown area where they were setting up the Christmas market.  Unfortunately it was not open yet, but it definitely made me excited that the markets were opening up and Christmas was coming.

the outside of Sarah's apartment in Essen

That evening we had some dinner (hamburgers!) and then I sent to Sarah's WG to stay for the night.  We ended up watching Twilight in German that night.  It was Sarah's and one of her roommates' first time watching it and they said it wasn't half-bad.  Well...it was a nice girlie movie to watch since Breaking Dawn came out in Holland that following Wednesday.

Baking aisle at Edeka <3

 Monday morning I got up with Sarah and went with her to the train station, where I shopped at Edeka for some German food products, like Zuckerhuts (sugar cones) and bread.  The Zuckerhuts are for a Feuerzangenbowle some friends and I want to hold in December (so excited!) and the bread was for my roommate, Valentina (and for me) - we both miss the darker German bread.  The train ride back from Essen was a short one, took a train from Duisberg to Utrecht and was home by 2 pm that afternoon.

Aleandra and I at the Marktplatz in Schiltach

Ein Prosit!

Entrance to Oktoberfest

A week ago I traveled down to München for Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest for those who don't know, is a 16-18 day (varies every year) celebration that started in 1810 to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese. Originally it always ended on the first day of October...hence Oktoberfest, but they have since changed it to include October 3, which is German Reunification Day. Therefore in order to include October 3, sometimes the beerfestival is the last 2 weeks of September and other times the last week of September and first week of October.  This festival is the largest festival in the world with over 6 million visitors each year! There are rides, games, food, drink and more! Basically München becomes more like a New York City with the amount of people stay there...when I had gone back in June 2004 the city was definitely not as crowded as it was right now.

Lebkuchen

As fortune would have it, my sister and 2 of my cousins are also studying in Europe, though only for a semester. My sister, Gillian, is in Rome at the John Cabot University and experiencing quite the different lifestyle. My two cousins, Aleandra and Erika, are studying in Prague and Berlin, respectively. Anyways... last spring when we found out we were all going to be abroad, we decided to meet up at Oktoberfest and so my sister booked us this über-awesome hostel.

Or not...it actually looked like this aka camp, but worse:

Our mobile hostel

Inside our tent

In order to stay warm at night we slept 2 to a bunk bed and the body heat helped a lot.

Magenbrot

After taking 3 different trains from Utrecht starting at 7:30 am, I finally arrived at 3:15 at the train station. After meeting up with the others and checking into the hostel, we went first to Oktoberfest just to see it and eat some Bratwurst and Magenbrot! (and if you never had Magenbrot before...honestly you need to try it, sooo good. Gillian ate some and immediately said, "Christmas!")

Alt Rathaus in Marienplatz

After walking around a bit we went into downtown München and walked from Karlsplatz to Marienplatz. Aleandra (my cousin) and I each bought some fake leather jackets, which we thought were very good purchases! I forgot to bring a fall jacket with me...so this was needed.

For dinner and drinks we went to the Hofbräuhaus! I was so excited to go back to the first place I had a full liter of beer (and basically my first beer). I purchased a new beer mug as my original one broke last summer and 20 minutes later I dropped the bag...and broke my glass!! So upsetting...but I ended up stealing one the next day from the Hofbräuhaus tent so it worked out.  Erika, my other cousin, and I got to share some Spaghetti-eis as well! I miss the southern Germany ice cream sundaes, so good!!

Hofbräuhaus

 

Spätzle and Schnitzel

First of many biers that weekend :P

Inside the Hippodrome, one of the many biertents

Hofbräuhaus Biergarten

Saturday morning, we forced ourselves to get up and dress in the cold weather, but we were going to Oktoberfest all day so that made it better. We arrived at the Wies'n a little after 10 am and stood in line to get in the one of more famous biertents known as "Himmel der Bayern" (Heaven of the Bavarians) or Hacker-Festzelt. After waiting in line until 12:30 we got out of the line to look at the side entrances, which were apparently letting in people. We decided to wait until later in the afternoon to get inside and instead went to the Hofbräuhaus Biergarten (tables outside the tents where you can drink and eat food and be outside in the sun...but not experiencing the band inside as much though there are speakers).

New friends at the Biergarten

In order to get into the Biergarten we had to stand at the entrance and wait until a waitress came over to bring people inside to sit at her tables. We ended up seating a table with a German couple who came from outside of Düsseldörf. They could not speak a lot of English so we were forced to speak German, but it was funny and we had lots of fun. The table next to us was full of people from Rio de Janiero, Brazil who had all met up from their various places of studying abroad. They were really nice and I talked with them for awhile. 

Our waitress at the Biergarten

So after some beers and pretzels, we decided to go back to the original beertent (Festzelt) to get inside. We stood in line next to a group from Switzerland (who were snorting tobacco....and kept trying to get us to as well) and about 45 minutes later happened to get into the tent thanks to Gillian! A group of 4 German guys got to cut the line because they knew someone, and since we were in the front of the mass group of people Gill happened to put up her hand with 4 fingers and the bodyguard noticed her and let us in with them.

Inside the Hacker-Festzelt

Hacker-Festzelt

Finally we got into this coveted tent and we had a great view of the bandstand and the rest of the tent. It was really beautiful and we had a good time there! Drank some more beer of course and ordered some pork and chicken dishes for dinner.  Both dishes were absolutely amazing....I mean they cook it fresh right there...and you know it is fresh because people are constantly heating and there are constantly people going into the tents with more food supplies. Basically if you like chicken, pork and ox dishes...eat at Oktoberfest and drink liters of beer.


We were there for probably 2-3 hours, singing, drinking and eating and then left and ended up going back downtown (but not before we devoured a bag of roasted almonds...well inhaled really). Back at Marienplatz we sat down again for more food! This time we sat down with people from America.

Chicken dishes, sehr leckar!

Around 10 pm or so, we headed back to our lovely abode and got ready for bed. We ended up talking to some other people in our room, a guy from Boston and a couple from Oregon who live in Hawaii now.  The couple had been staying in the hostel for a week and were leaving Sunday morning and very ecstatic about it...I would be too if I had to stay there for a week and paid 42 euros a night.

Sunday morning we got up and checked out and went back to Marienplatz to sit down and eat some breakfast. We all got the same thing: Englischer Breakfast, which has scrambled eggs and toast, orange juice and then either coffee, tea...or hot chocolate!!! At noon, Gillian went off to the airport and the rest of us headed to the train station to wait for our trains.

Hot Chocolate :)

Marienplatz

All in all it was a wonderful weekend of fun and meeting new people, but also catching up with Gillian, Aleandra and Erika. I hadn't seen my cousins since last November so it was nice to see them again! Gillian I am going to see a week from now as I will be going to Rome.  As yes our hostel...well could have be better, way better, but that was all part of the experience! I mean how many times do you hear a guy retching right outside your tent, but laughing hysterically at the same time at 3 am in morning while you are huddled in a bed next to your cousin/sister....?

Goodbye! We will be together again for Thanksgiving!

Photos are courtesy of myself, Gillian Clark and Aleandra Borchers.