Munich, Allemagne!

Munich is a magical place. It is most certainly the best trip I have been on so far. Obviously, I had never been to Germany, didn't really know what to expect other than a definite language barrier, and didn't really know why or how Jasmine and Tyler choose Munich for our epic GLS reunion in Europe. It was indeed an epic reunion. The gang included: Jasmine (studying in Rome), Jody (Bordeaux, France), Tyler (Linz, Austria), Ava (Madrid, Spain), Asher (Manchester, U.K.), and myself.

So, Munich is AWESOME! It was really the best trip, with the best people, in the best possible city. As one can definitely tell from the pictures to follow, Munich is simply a really happy, cheerful place that is really just full of drunk, happy beer enjoying lots of sausage and crazy potato salad. One would think this wouldn't really my place considering I'm not a big beer drinker and have a big aversion to red meat, however you just have to go for it and have the time of your life. It was so much fun to go around this crazy town with the best people. I mean, the best people including all of the Germans that live there full-time. Munich isn't really that touristy so we got to see a city as its finest and really do what the locals do, which is sit in beer gardens, laugh really loud, sing songs, and build awesome cars (not all at the same time). Germans are my favorite Europeans so far, no doubt; so far, because I haven't been to the U.K. yet and may fall in love with their accents. However, Germans are the most disciplined, hard-working, brilliant yet most fun-loving people I have ever been around. As any good E.U. student knows, Germany dominates business, but now I know that they also have a ton of fun and enjoy life more than most. Maybe that's why GLS fit in so well. We do most things better than most people... including having fun, and so do the Germans.

Tyler, Ava, Jody, and Jasmine arrived in Munich pretty early on Friday, and Asher and I caught up at Hofbrauhaus when we arrived around 9 that night. Hofbrauhaus in the world-renowned beer house in Munich. EVERYONE where is it, they know all about it, and EVERYONE has to go there when in Germany at all. It is Germany's premier beer house. Just to clarify, a beer house is simply a huge (HUGE!) hall of long wooden tables and benches where all Germans go to drink, talk, sing, laugh for hours (HOURS!). This is even more interesting when you add a full German band (called an "Oompah" band) and lots of men in lederhosen!!! Lederhosen! These are technically traditional German wear of leather shorts with suspenders, however it usually looks something like this...

Ava somehow took this picture at Hofbrauhaus! Anyway, the atmosphere is amazing with so many people is a huge room laughing and drinking. Brilliant.

Hofbrauhaus! I can't even spell it correctly with my American keyboard, and Lord knows I can't say it correctly. Sarah, from a small town in Germany and in all of my business classes) really made fun of me a couple days before I left for Munich when I was describing where I was meeting my friends. I mean, she horse laughed at me. But, I will learn German because it's the best language ever... eventually.

So, this was just Friday night. More later.

"Hell Week"

In GLS we obviously have a very demanding course load, however there is always that one week where there is something due everyday. We like to call this "Hell Week." It originated, I believe, during the second semester of sophomore year when Asher, Jody, RJ, and I were busy doing the business plan competition and were also bombarded with some crazy Statistics project. Of course, I don't really remember exactly what went down that week or what assignments were due, but it was called the Hell Week from then on. Well, so being the young, chipper (hehe, Chipper) people that we are, we all enter junior year ready to learn and ready to conquer the business world. During about the third or fourth week of classes, we determined that we were in Hell Week. It was just that we had a quiz or two that week, probably an IT assignment and something else. Well, during last semester, Hell Week never ended. It most certainly extended ALL SEMESTER. This is why studying abroad was somewhat relaxing at first. I mean, we don't have regular assignments, we only have to read for class, and have only one big exam at the end of the semester.

Well, this relaxation caught up to us, Kate and I and the rest of the business school, big time during the last month. We have had AT LEAST one group presentation a week for the past month, and last week was officially known as this semester's Hell Week. Let's see, I had a 3000 word paper due on the sustainability of the Eurozone, which I will gladly discuss with anyone and argue, contrary to my paper, that the euro should be abolished, I had a presentation due on Thursday, and two other group presentations to work on. Not to mention that I needed to clean the apartment, become presentable, and actually have clean clothes before Asher come to Grenoble.

Anyway, I just needed some sort of post about how terrible that week was. It seriously didn't end, and I didn't stop revising, as the British would say, all week. I also expected Asher to show up at the Grenoble train station, aka the Gare, around 8:30 to 9:30 on Thursday night, however he didn't get there till 12:30. I was really freaked out for a while! He, of course, finally got there after I had made friends with an older lady waited for her family. (We talked for several hours in broken French and English). So, that Friday, around 3, we left for Munich!!! Aka, the best city ever with the best people ever. The next post will be epic!

Plus Genève

The next day, on Sunday, we had breakfast at the hotel and then set off for the United Nations. The United Nations was a really great place, and we had a guided tour and everything which gave us a lot of information about the building and the functions of the U.N. It has huge rooms, obviously, that many, many important people go to discuss security, human rights, economic development, etc. The building itself is known as the Palais des Nations and was originally the location for the League of Nations before WWII. It's located in a gorgeous park complete with some sort of challet, peacocks roaming the grounds freely (even though some are eaten...), and other monuments and such. It's on Lake Geneva, and you can see the Alps from le Palais.

The ceiling above is in the Spanish room, and it represents how different cultures, ideas, and people can come together to cooperate, have peace, etc. The first pic is also of the Spanish room. It's called the Spanish room simply because some Spanish guy designed it or something.

In the picture, you can barely see it, but there are tons of different monuments and sculptures given from various countries and politicians. The rotating ball/statue thing was a gift from a U.S. President (I don't remember who, don't judge), but it is easily the biggest and coolest of the gifts (duh). However, it used to rotate, but now it doesn't, sadly.

Above are the pictures of the Council Chamber. Very cool because the entire room is painted including the ceiling representing human progress, cooperation, medical advances, and human rights. The ceiling has a painting of the five continents, as represented by five giants, uniting to bring peace and prosperity. The painting were also a gift from Spain. Spain doesn't dominate the building though; there is art from France, marble from Switzerland, not surprisingly, tapestries from Belgium, and others. (Man, I love tapestries from Belgium, I'm really, honestly in love with them, and they are all over Europe).

So for the rest of the day, we ate some lunch, walked around Geneva a bit, went to a suburb of Geneva and walked around since it was such a cute area, and gawked at beautiful cars. It was a great trip, and I would love to go back to Geneva. It is a really great, clean, rich place, and it would be a brilliant place to live. The Swiss are super disciplined, on time, clean, and friendly; it really just makes for a pleasant stay.

Now that my traveling with CEA is over and Geneva was our last trip, I get to spill on what really went down, right? Well, we all found it very difficult to get along with our CEA director, unfortunately. He grew up in Detroit, married a French woman, and has lived in Grenoble for about 30 years now. He is way too French, as in, he is the second most liberal person I have ever met, is extremely stuck in his ways, and likes to be really pessimistic about everything. Thus, he is very set on our agendas and likes to make rude, pessimistic comments constantly. This is really unfortunate because it sets a bad tone for some of our trips and puts many in bad moods. During this trip, many of us just scrammed away from the group just to be away from the tension. It obviously doesn't matter now at all, but it just goes to show that being an adult doesn't mean you act like one and getting along with people is sometimes much, much harder than it should be, even if you're in fabulous places like Geneva!

Next trip post: MUNICH!!!

Genève!

I'm going to have to play a little catch up. It's obviously been a crazy, jam-packed couple of weeks with Geneva, Munich, and Rome, but here we go. On Saturday the 9th, our CEA group went to Geneva for a night. We got there really early in the morning, as in we left around 7 and got to Geneva around 9. Thus, we had all day to go around and see how rich Geneva is.

The city is truly dripping with money. I mean we continued to see so many fancy Ferraris, a bunch of Chanel, Dior, Bvlgari shops, and beautiful trams that are pieces of art by themselves. The city was just really nice. It is on the edge of Lake Geneva, known as Lac Lemon in French which doesn't do it justice, and the city is build around one of the lake's bays. Geneva historically was just industrialized and had some sort of man-made water geyser to release pressure. Today, the geyser has simply become a big tourist thing since it is right in the middle of the bay, and they have increased the height to about 100 meters. (Sorry I function in meters instead of feet and yards, currently.) They, also, just call it the fountain now. The wikipedia page tells me that it is visible from above as well, and that many people actually get drenched by walking across the stone pier to the fountain.

The first day, we got to our hotel which was nice and really close to everything. We went to a chocolate superstore where many of us bought chocolates for friends and ourselves. Kate, Carrie, and I went shopping a bit afterwards especially at H&M. We spent the day walking around, looking through cathedrals, and laying the the wonderful park by the lake. That night, I officially got some Geneva fondue. Switzerland is known for its fondue, chocolate, and watches, so I got my fix of chocolate and fondue that day and I was wearing my imitation Geneva watch! Anyway, the fondue restaurant was on the main pier and is apparently a local favorite. The fondue was really good, just cheese and bread though. I know one should be obligated to say that a local, refined dish is absolutely exquisite, however I'm going to be honest and say that fondue in Geneva was slightly above average. And on that note, I'm going to say that the chocolate wasn't as good as Barcelona, but that may have been just what I choose.

Check out some of our pictures though, truly a beautiful country full of watch-loving, disciplined people who hate when you jaywalk. The parks were also wonderful; one of the parks has giant chess boards and pieces that old men stand around playing, very nice.

Au revoir! Bisous.

Oh the things I think about...

So I'm going to be a brat and before I write about a great weekend trip to Geneva, I'm going to rant about how jealous I am of Asher Begley. According to his facebook status, he visited the resting place of Adam Smith today in Edinburgh. That's amazing, not to mention he visited Shakespeare's grave and birthplace and all of London within the past week as well. It is really great that he is getting time to spend with his Dad doing a United Kingdom tour. If I could pick one country to simply tour around... okay it would still be France, but the United Kingdom would be a close second. They are getting to see fantastic places, such as Stonehenge, together. I really think that if I had one wish it most probably be to take my family on a European tour, so I'm really just jealous that he gets to spend this amazing adventure with a member of his family, someone who has known him forever, and someone who'll continually share that experience.

To be honest, you always share something with someone you travel with. I hope, years and years from now, that I can think of Barcelona and think of Kate, call her up and laugh at the terrible street we lived on. I most certainly will call up Ava, where ever in the world she may be in whatever crazy situation, and giggle at how Spanish guys like her light eyes and how uncomfortable her couch is. Jasmine and I will want fries and mayonnaise from Brussels really badly. Paris isn't the city I spent three in two summers ago, it's now the city that I had the best weekend of my life.

It's funny that when you travel, every minute isn't perfect, things go wrong, people don't get along, things get lost, etc. But you always remember it. You can remember what was going on in your life, what you were thinking about, and you think of the relationships you built. I couldn't for the life of me tell you what all I did in Paris that weekend, even though I know it was a lot, but I know that I'll never forget how I felt traveling with Asher. I loved that we could travel together, and to be completely honest I'm glad we didn't kill each other or somehow decide that we aren't compatible travel buddies. Paris means a lot to me, the music, the art, and the way of life, so I loved that he liked it so much. Somehow just the fact that he feel in love with Paris means more to me than I care to admit...

Grathiuth

In Barcelona, you either speak Catalan or speak with a thick accent very different from a traditional Spanish accent. It's funny that even if you don't speak Spanish, you can tell if someone has a accent. Especially since they say "grathiuth" instead of "gracius" basically they sound like they have lisps. I hope they realize that they just sound silly...

Wednesday
We went to the Parc Guell which was entirely designed by Antonio Gaudi. It is a little outside of the city, but looks over Barcelona in a way. It is interesting that not only was Gaudi a brilliant architect, he designed this magical park, down to the last detail. He style went into every part. His natural, circular, imperfect designs and his love of colorful tiles make for a great park. We spent the morning there just walking around and enjoying the great scenery.

Story time: Since the Parc Guell is a big tourist spot, street sellers lined the park all throughout. We saw some gorgeous bracelets that were really colorful and really cheap. Kate had the idea of getting a pair for here and her twin sister; of course, that was a brilliant idea and I wanted to get a pair for Adrienne and me. We sifted through the bracelets and bought four from a man who must have a very hard life. His face was slightly burned and deformed, and his hands were very deformed. He had a hard time grabbing the bracelets and placing them in bags for us. Of course, if I love bracelets I don't care who it comes from, it wasn't a pity thing at all. The man simply had great bracelets and does as well as he can with his situation. However, it's always best to stay away from these types of sellers and people generally because they are more apt to swindling, stealing your stuff, and ripping you off, unfortunately.

So we go on our way. About 30 minutes pass before I realize that I don't have my camera. Of course I start freaking out and frantically begin retracing my steps. I mean, what would I do without my camera? It's my first and greatest (and cheapest) form of souvenir wherever I go. We get back to the man who sold us the bracelets and we promptly try to avoid him. He started calling "girl, girl, girl" over and over until we finally realize he's calling us. He pulled up his blanket to present my camera. I was so overwhelmed with how nice that was. I feel like, by saving my camera, he seriously restored some of my faith in humanity and especially Europe. And I still have two wonderful bracelets to remind me how nice and generous anyone can be.

The afternoon was really relaxing. We shopped a bit, went to our favorite tea room, Caj Chai, reconnected with people via the Internet, and ate Falafel again for dinner. We had a great time in Barcelona and I really hope that I can take friends and family there one day. It is a great place for the beach, shopping, or just the architecture.

The next morning, I left to back to Grenoble for a weekend of study, and Kate left to go to Budapest, Hungary with another GLSer studying in Sevilla, Spain. Next trip, Geneva.

Bisous!

Barcelona Adventures

Monday
The next morning, I was up too early to catch a train from Madrid to Barcelona. Luckily, this was one of the very few trains I took with my Eurail pass that didn't charge me extra fees. One would think that after paying quite a some of money to actually get a Eurail pass trains would be free, however this is not the case. So I boarded around 7 and got to Barcelona around 10 or so. It was actually pretty difficult finding the hostel because the name of the street, Sant Pau, is actually also a metro stop... on the other side of the city. Well, of course, I took the metro from the train station to the completely wrong side of town. Obviously, I eventually found the hostel with the help of an old man who only spoke Spanish pointing to places on my map.

I can tell everyone this now that I am safe and sound in Grenoble, but the hostel was on the most dangerous, sketchy street I have ever discovered. In the first place I went, to a small store down the street, the man at the counter told me we were in a bad area and that I needed to watch my bag. Also, prostitutes, women in barely there skirts, fishnet hose, and dramatic makeup, liked to hang out on our street. Classy. Way before I discover all of this, when I first make it to the hostel, I find that it is in fact very nice with a kitchen, Internet area, lots of tables, continental breakfast, and a lounge. The internet was obviously my first stop.

Kate showed up soon after huffing and puffing and so glad to see me. She has almost missed her flight and had forgotten to submit her finance assignment that had been due that day. She had to call one of our friends in Grenoble, have him get the assignment from her computer at her apartment, and had him email it to us. Needless to say, she was pretty stressed and in much need of a Barcelona vacation!

After Internet time and email sending, we headed off to explore! Barcelona was absolutely gorgeous that day. It is made for tourists in that everything is super colorful, the shopping is amazing, and almost everyone speaks English. We first went to the Parc de la Cuitadella which was absolutely stunning. Obviously, not nearly as big as the one in Madrid but just as gorgeous.

We then just followed the large path to the Arc de Triomf, similar in name to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris yet very different, obviously.

We walked around, enjoyed the sun, discovered lots of shops where we planned to return, and then sat by the beach. Yes, Barcelona has a wonderful, man-made beach that is lined with very up-scale restaurants. We always make a joke that we're actually in Europe, not to learn, but to discover where we want to travel and what we want to do when each of us have more money than we know what to do with. So, one of my things is to go to these up-scale restaurants, that I traveled to on my yacht, and drink sangria on their beautiful white couches.

At the beach, we had a man ask up if this was the Mediterranean, of course we replied that it was. He asked where we were from given that we spoke English with American accents. We told him and, funny, he actually went to UT, was a MBA student there, and his dad was a high school football coach at a Knoxville high school for many years. Small world!

We had the most amazing dinner at a Greek restaurant. Homemade pasta, homemade olive oil, tomatoes, cheese, wine... amazing. It was actually for a good price too!

So how could I forget! We went to the Sagrada Familia that day as well. This is, hands down, the most magnificent cathedral anyone will ever see. It was designed by Antonio Gaudi (more on him later) who basically designed Barcelona when he was a famous architect in the early 1900s. He has so many of his designs in Barcelona that we thoroughly enjoyed visiting the next couple of days, but his Sagrada Familia is the masterpiece. This cathedral was started around 1890 and still not completed. It is scheduled to be completed around 2025, but by looking at the construction, I bet it will be longer. They still have a long way to go, but the main chapel is built and it is miraculous. The whole building is so unique and different from any other type of cathedral I have ever seen, and it is so deeply religious in that everything has a deep, religious meaning and a connection with nature, God, and the environment. The stained glass is the most colorful thing in the world and perfectly designed to light up the massive space. The massive columns are of Gaudi's original design (everything is really) but the columns are extremely unique and designed to look like a perfect tree trunk. You really feel like you're in a magical, fairy, heaven, jungle village in this massive space (that didn't make sense but oh well).

Words cannot possibly describe this place and pictures won't either, but it's worth a try.

I really like the description that was given for some of the sculptures on the exterior. Read the picture above and you'll see how much thought and how much symbolism went into designing the exterior. The amount of meaning, the symbols, and the beauty of this place was simply unreal. It was really magical.

Tuesday
After a breakfast in the hostel of tea and toast with Nutella, we walked up the big hill overlooking Barcelona called Montjuic. This hill has tons of little botanical gardens all the way around it and through it. It was a little confusing finding it at first, but it's everything in Europe. The gardens were beautiful... Some of the flora were really odd and interesting. Like this first flower; it was some sort of cactus apparently.

We eventually made it up the the tope to see the Castle of Montjuic. It is an ancient fortress and had lots of space and gardens. The castle itself wasn't that big, but the grounds and the actual fortress was. It even had old canons, and that day a school group was doing some sort of scavenger hunt so kids were runny around everywhere. Annoying, actually.

Above is the image of the bay (yes, it's the Mediterranean, you Americans) from the big hill/mountain. Next stop was the Olympic complex. It was really nice and everything was still kept pretty up to date.

We then met Kate's friend Leah who is studying abroad in Barcelona. It was really great to hear her perspective on studying abroad in Spain. For example, Barcelona is really part of Catalonia and they speak Catalan, not Spanish. So the language is slightly different, and the Catalan people don't consider themselves as part of Spain. They would actually prefer to separate from Spain. Leah, Kate's friend, doesn't feel like she's living in Spain, she feels like she is studying in Catalonia and is part of a very different culture apart from mainland Spain.

She took us to a great place for lunch that is apparently frequented quite often by Americans and Anglophones. In fact, just standing in line, the most common language was most certainly English with many families sporting Hollister, American Eagle, Polo, etc. which only true American tourists would. Anyway, they had huge, brilliant sandwiches for super cheap, and we even ate then on the pier. Mine was loaded up with feta cheese, pesto, and black olives as usual.

We then walked more around Barcelona looking at some Gaudi... Fun Fact: Antonio Gaudi died by getting hit by a tram, so trams are officially banned in Barcelona.

The Afternoon Agenda: Shopping! The Gothic area was brilliant for shopping. It is a bunch of small, cobblestone streets lined with colorful, cheap shops full of all sorts of things. Kate bought gorgeous, colorful blankets from Indonesia that feel amazing; she also bought some rings, bracelets, and earrings as gifts and such. My fantastic buy for the day was a pair of TOMS!!! Yes, I had become a good person and have considered a company's social responsibility in deciding to buy their product. In case you don't know, TOMS is shoe-manufacturing company that has historically designed shoes to look like the cheap, slipper like shoes from Argentina. They have now branched out into all sorts of colors, designs, and are really big on American college campuses for girls and guys. For each pair of shoes that is sold, a very sturdy, classic pair goes to a child in Africa. Brilliant idea, great shoes that are super comfortable, and a great cause. Mine are the new kind that has only been released in Europe, cute little gray ones with laces. Don't ask how much I paid...

Dinner: Falafel, great day!

Madrid Take Two

Saturday
After staying up too late and sleeping way too late, our group went to the Spanish Palace! It is known as the Palacio Real de Madrid (the Royal Palace of Madrid) and is still the official residence of the King of Spain, Juan Carlos. It is still used for ceremonies of state and other functions to this day even though the royal family chooses to live in the less prominent palace outside the city. Darn, right? I could like in a palace outside a European city.

Anyway, it was some sort of fortress at some time really long ago with some sort of people (I'm brilliant and informative I know), then the capital was moved to Madrid during the reign of Philip II in the 1500s, and the building began construction in the 1700s and it became the official royal palace. Interestingly, it is also known as the Palace of the Orient because of some of the gardens and rooms that are purely dedicated to oriental art. The Spanish, I feel, just become obsessed with any sort of different culture and consume it fully, making Spain a true melting pot of history and culture.

Take clocks for example. Clocks are made elsewhere, namely Switzerland, yet the Spanish like to put MANY clocks in EVERY royal room in the palace. We got the audioguide with the tour which was actually very informative about the clock obsession and worth the 3 or 4€. At one point one truly wonders about Spanish sanity with such an obsession with clocks. They also have an obsession with lions, gold, oriental patterns, and matching every single little thing in a room. A room might only have three or four different colors, all the materials would be the same, and all of the pieces from the same country. They certainly didn't understand the concept of mix-and-match. But, the palace was truly wonderful. Each room was lovely and gorgeous. Some of the rooms were super elegant and royal and some were truly colorful and vibrant, the contrast in the whole place was amazing. They even had some plates, dishes, and utensils used in royal dinners and ceremonies displayed. It is a great place, just not as big and extravagant as Versailles.

Midday snack was, of course, ham and cheese at a HAM MUSEUM. The Spanish do this thing where they call the best ham restaurants Ham Museums. They also enjoy hanging slabs of ham from the ceiling and from the walls in these sorts of establishments, charming I know. They love ham so much, any kind, and can eat it any time of the day. It is really delicious especially when you are given a plate of four different kinds, different cheeses, and great bread. In case anyone was wondering, I eat too well in Europe.

Later, we got our American fix by getting dinner at Vips. Vips serves sandwiches and fries, what a novelty.

Sunday
Lucky for us, we got to wake to the most magical, and largest flea market in all of Europe! This place went on forever. We spent the entire morning walking around the market yet barely saw half of it. If I remember correctly, Asher bought a fan for Caroline, Ava got some earrings, and I just bummed around with them. It was super entertaining to see what everyone brought to the market, to see everything.

We then had lunch in the huge Parque del Retiro.

Europeans do an excellent job designing cities and placing large, beautiful parks in the center of cities. This lake and all of the statues are just in this one park which is basically in the center of Madrid. It's great, but we were obviously battling the weather that day.

Unfortunately, Asher felt that he needed to go to school the next day in Manchester, so we parted that night. Ava and I continued vacationing by going to fancy bars and restaurants though. Stay tuned, this blog will travel to Barcelona, Spain next!