So many countries, so little time. My head is spinning! I spent the weekend visiting my friend Genevieve (from Sudbury) in Germany. Finally made it to the vaterland. I'm so happy I made it there even if just for a few days. My séjour would have felt incomplete without at least a pitstop in the land of my ancestors. But before I get into that, I should explain the title of this blog. For some bizarro reason, I could not for the life of me speak and stick to 1 language in Germany. Everytime I went to a restaurant, store etc and spoke to someone I kept having to pause and contemplate what I wanted to say, not because I couldn't remember the German words but because I kept wanting to speak a freaky-deaky hybrid language of Italian, French and some German. Not to mention the French and Italian tendency to say "please" when they bring you something so I kept saying "Danke Bitte" when someone would bring me something instead of "Danke Scheun". Good GRIEF my poor brain cannot keep all these languages straight. And THEN Genevieve wants to take me to the Netherlands to hear some Dutch!
European culture is so much fun. In the time it takes me to drive from Sudbury to North Bay I can drive across 2 borders and go from a region that speaks only French to a region that speaks only German and with not much of a buffer zone in between. In fact you can often clearly see the dividing line just by looking at the architecture. No I won't get into an architectural seminar right now (although I do have this new wealth of knowledge about it) but know that if you ever need to know anything about any of the buildings in Paris - you know who to call! (No, not Ghostbusters!)
After a very pleasant train ride with some entertaining and stimulating conversation with my cabin mates and a bottle of Jack, I arrived in Germany around 7pm on Friday and after looking mighty confused staring at the train schedule and REALLY CONFUSING transit map of Aachen Germany (and surroundings), a rail worker came over to ask me where I was looking to go and politely informed me I missed my train by 30 seconds or so and the next would be in 20 minutes. Note to Aachen: I would not have missed my train had your schedule been more CLEAR! And NO that's not due to my lack of proficiency in German thank you very much! I finally make it to where Im supposed to be and Genevieve comes to meet me *insert happy reunion and giant hugs here*. She cooks me dinner and then takes me to a party that could not feel more like home. Beer Pong and 25 drunken German men singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the top of their lungs. Not a dull moment. They were all very nice and welcoming to the foreigner and most speak English quite fluently and were more than happy to chit chat with me - this is by far my favourite passtime in Europe - talking and meeting people from every corner of the globe! I have lived such a sheltered life by comparison - UGH. A late night of catching up had us sleeping in much later than we'd planned but we still made it out the door and to the Netherlands by 1pm.
Maastrict is such a CUTE city! It is sooooo DUTCH! Everything there is like you see in the movies. It's clean, quaint and adorable. It makes you want to skip. The weather was unbearably HOT which made for an uncomfortable promenade and the town square was closed because André Rieu was performing. We didn't pick the best day to visit apparently, but I had a great time anyways AND I got to visit the world's largest bookstore inside a cathedral. HEAVEN ON EARTH! The only thing it didn't have was a Starbucks (which is where I am currently sitting as I type this up). We shopped, I bought some stropfwaffels (Mmmmmmm) and we had Thai food for dinner. We attempted the unattemptable in Canada (or anywhere else for that matter) but SOMEONE (not me) didn't have her ID! SHHHHAMMME!!!! HAHAHA Turned out to be a good thing though in the end as Gen was starting to feel ick!
Sunday was spent touring Aachen with my own personal and very knowledgeable tourguide. Again, WAY TOO HOT, I couldn't even eat my ice cream fast enough before it turned to gespacho. We decided to catch a play "Der Eingebildete Kranke" (by French playwrite Moliere) to a) escape the heat and b) because why not see a German language play while in Germany....when in Rome right? Didn't understand a word (except for the few that excerpts they kept in French - go figure). Nevertheless it was still very entertaining. We finished off the night with another homecooked meal and the world's most BORING World Cup Championship game. YAAAAWWWWWNNNN! You've never seen 5 people more restless for a game to end. Even the people in the stands looked bored out of their minds. We prayed for a shootout - at least that would have made it interesting... nope they wouldn't even give us that. Eh bin! No more foot...
Germany and the Netherlands were fantastisch! And getting to visit them (even if only for a few days) with an old friend from back home made it that much sweeter. DEFINITELY a highlight of my trip thus far. And before you ask - of COURSE I had beer in both Germany and Holland and YES I kicked BUTT at Beer Pong!
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