Amster who?

So let me tell you a story, about a time, when 5 men embarked upon a great quest in a land not so far from here...

This weekend marked our trip to Amsterdam, a city world renowned for it's tourist attractions. Museums, tours, coffee, Heineken beer, and various other sundry things.

The train ride to the Netherlands was rather uneventful and let us use our recently acquired 50% discounts cards. After arriving at the Netherlands, however, we found that we arrived ten minutes late and missed our train. This is when we realized how much English is actually spoken in the Netherlands. Figuring out the correct train and finding our way to the main train station in Amsterdam was incredibly easy. In fact while we were in the city I heard and spoke so much English it felt like a home away from home. That probably sounds weird to those who haven't studied abroad, but there's something comforting in being able to fluently communicate with strangers.

Our hotel room was a bit out of the main city but was really cheap, especially when we snuck in our fifth friend into the 4 person room. The only problem we had with the room was the fact that there were only 3 beds for the supposed 4 of us, one was a two person bed, which helped but we were still short on sleeping space. At the end of our day's adventures we'd draw straws of a sort. Everyone slept on a bed though the 3 person was a bit cramped. Luckily I scored one of the single beds.

After moving our meager travel packs (which each only brought a single backpack with a change of clothes) into the room we were ready to explore the city. We had already stopped for coffee at one of the shops and decided it was best to take an hour or so nap before exploring any further. After awakening from our slumber we set out on a mission, Adventures in Amsterdam, take 1.

If any of you have heard about Amsterdam (I know it's an obscure city lol), you'll know that it is an acclaimed tourism city and said to be a very pretty city. I found that the buildings and architecture were both very interesting and generally ascetically pleasing. I would not however call the city beautiful. Most buildings are in good repair but graffiti tags are extremely common, most of which are just scribblings. There wasn't much in the way of graffiti street art, so this mostly took away from the sites we saw. I also found there was a good deal of trash throughout the streets, thanks largely to the tourist population meandering the streets. The bus and tram system was very effective but some of them looked like they could use some fresh paint and some replacement rails. The bus rides were also the closest things to amusement parks I've visited so far. Our first trip on the bus nearly ended with all of us falling or tripping in some way within the first 5 minutes. I doubt the driver used the break pedal more then absolutely necessary to not drift into poles during turns. It's one thing to be in a rush but I found it almost a sport to stay standing during any of the bus rides we took (Most of which I was relatively sober for, so my inner ear WAS in functioning order I would like to point out).

That aside I have to say I absolutely loved the city. Even with the graffiti the buildings were all still worth seeing. Especially in the center of the city where the alleys and buildings all still appear to be authentic and old. We also happened to come during some kind of minor festival which resulted in a lot of lights, rides, and carnival attractions in the center of the city. We stopped by the Anne Frank museum as well as the Amsterdam letters during the trip, though we didn't have enough time to stay at either very long (we're considering the implications of another trip) but they were both fairly impressive. The city also boat tours, which we've had enough of for one life time, which would probably provide some history and a more macroscopic view of the city then I'm interested in currently.

We stopped at several coffee shops throughout the trip including The Blues Brothers, The Grasshopper, and a few others such as Ben's. I would recommend any of them to anyone interested in the atmosphere and I actually found their coffee to be the best coffee I've ever had. The one shop I stopped for a milkshake at was a bit mediocre so I'd suggest just drinking the coffee, maybe some fresh squeezed juice if you're feeling extra healthy for some reason. We also wanted to make time for a few of the clubs and the ice bar that we found but sadly didn't have the patience for an hour long wait to get into the club and never found the ice bar. After all this was said and done the question everyone must ask themselves in Amsterdam came up from an unlikely place. While walking around the city center some girls (assumedly from the USA) asked us (in English! yay!) where the red light district was. This sparked an adventure to a group of streets which is fairly well known as a tourist attraction. The area is worth visiting to say that you've done it but honestly there isn't much to do there. We did stop at one of the coffee shops here as well though and hung out drinking some Heineken and did some people watching of the tourists walking by outside.The most interesting, and mildly concerning thing we saw led to some conjecture over events we missed. While talking we noticed there was a man, laying on the ground outside speaking to police officers and obviously unable to stand by his own power. After several minutes of discussion an ambulance showed up (curiosity and concern peaked at this point) and they proceeded to put his leg in an adhoc cast. During this we noticed he had a sizable bloody gash on one ankle and there was a damaged bike next to the man. When I say sizable I mean we were able to see and identify this wound from across the street on the second story. After all was said and done the man was put into the back of the Ambulance and is now hopefully all patched up. While getting put into the ambulance the blanket he was wrapped in (it was chilly out) fell over his face and a British girl in the next booth over thought he was dead. That incited some minor hysteria in their booth until they realized that the blanket had simply fallen over his face and wasn't meant to be a shroud at all. The paramedics flipped the flap of the blanket away from his face before pushing him toward the ambulance.

I also discovered that the waffles in Amsterdam are amazing. They're premade but reheated in under a minute in a professional, and I do mean PROFESSIONAL, waffle warmer before they're covered in delicious chocolate sauce, which in some cases is hazelnut flavored, and any other toppings you want. I tried one with the hazelnut sauce and one with milk chocolate and cherries. Both were amazing and I need to say it's a must if you're in the city.

I do wish we had gotten to take a tour of the Heineken factory,  but again time was short this time around and we wanted to see some sites while were in the city.

Post Trip?

We had a few people over my room, made some good old potato noodle and onion soup and smoked some hookah. A few turkish girls, two polish girls, and my newest roommate joined us for a few hours and we all just relaxed, all there really is to do on a Germany on Sunday.

School? (Believe it or not I am still a student!)

So a few developments in school life have come to light recently. I've been toying with the idea of increasing my class work load since classes meet only once a week. I also realized some of the classes offered are in English and I can take them without prior commitment until exam time when I must sign up for the slot I want. I have my eye on a computer simulated numerics course as well as an Aerodynamics course my friend is taking. I'm also of course still taking my hydraulics course and doing my work project for the konstruktionstechnic institute. It looks like I will be doing a project directly related to a competition sponsored by ELVA. I will be working on electric car chasis design with Andrew Moakes and a team of German engineering students, graduate as well as undergraduate, whom I have yet to meet. I'm rather excited for the project which will net me 3 credits and some experience that I will hopefully be able to use in a lot of different design projects. Though material properties isn't my specialty nor is it of direct interest to me it touches in many of the fields I'm truly interested in and affects any mechanical project anyone can think of. If everything goes well I'll be going back to URI with some very interesting scholastic experiences.

Well this turned into a bit of a doozy. I don't think I'm going to post any facebook pictures this time, I'll have to edit this post in the next day or two to include some.

Over and out

Sometimes a post is boring, but it still makes a fence...

Oh boy. It's been a while since I've written much of anything. A lot has been happening though, at a much too rapid pace. I've made some new friends, gotten a new roommate, cleaned my apartment (with help) and will be taking a train trip to the Netherlands this weekend.

This week was exam week in the German summer school and I'm glad to have that all in the past, but I do still have to take my placement test bright and early Friday morning. Tomorrow I will be going to Wolfsburg, and going to a school sponsored party in the evening.

I've found some new restaurants, including the first real Mexican place I've found, Sausalitos. This place has really delicious drinks and food, the chicken burrito was a little sloppy but really good. We were there with two of our new friends, Tiffy and Kayleigh. Both were helping out in the Summer School and are pretty funny.

Other then doing exams I haven't had as much time this week as I'd like but I did manage to find and sign up with the gym which I went to today for the first time. The gym is extraordinarily clean and has ample machines for us to get ripped.

I should have more funny stories in a while, I'm running on E after exams, never was good with having to get up for 8:30... I did discover that movies on my ipod make for much better train rides, though I did nearly miss a stop.

Bought my first steak today and hope to continue my adventures in culinary.

This entry was a little lame. I'll get back into it for the next one promise, Wolfsburg should provide some ammo.

All Day, and All Night, What the Fuck!

You may or not be familiar with the song these lyrics come from, but it kind of described my sleep schedule over the weekend.

So this weekend started off with the christening of my room as the party room. I bought some brand new speakers for 26 euro and also got a nice hookah for 20 euro, which really helped in this happening. We had some beers, kicked it to some 90s music and smoked hookah all night before going out to a bar for the night.

All said and done we got back pretty late, around 4 or 5. Normally this is great on a Friday night except that we needed to be at a bus 7:15 am Saturday morning for the school trip to Berlin. Even this would have been ok if every single one of the American's alarms hadn't gone off, or was slept through for some reason. My alarm had been set to week days only, while several of the others had forgotten they actually had to be up and went back to bed. End result was that 3 of the Americans didn't make it on the trip and 3 more of us made an epic entrance to the bus, sprinting down the last street as it was ready to pull away.

Having gotten to the bus in one piece was the beginning of our crazy adventures this weekend. My biggest regret though, came when I realized I had forgotten my camera on my table in my dorm. This bothered me in large because there are a lot of sites in Berlin I have yet to take pictures of. I do have some hard copy developed photos of the Berlin wall, but this trip we actually went to the top of the glass dome above their parliament. From the top of the dome there is a gorgeous view of the city and you can see most of the site seeing and architectural wonders of the capital of Germany.

We spent a good bit of the day on a tour through the Schloss (palace) which had some really interesting items including some swords, gilded with gold, which have survived the rise and fall of several countries. There were countless rooms in the palace that would have been perfect for pictures and I even got to see some of the royal jewels of Germany.

During the evening we had dinner at one of the local breweries, with a beer of course. The Swiss girl Lara order a meal which turned out to be something like a pig haunch, and it was nearly impenetrable. It took her quite a bit more effort then expected to cut through the meet. I personally had a delicious plate of overpriced schnitzel, which is just a meat cutlet, but it came with potatoes and a delicious tomato sauce.

Having eaten and prepared for the night we stop by the hotel for a half hour nap and a power shower before we went to Matrix for the night with Juliana and Androus (prolly spelled that wrong). On the way back I saw some Germans taking a photo and made the most ridiculously silly and epic pose I could as I photo bombed the heck out of them.

Matrix was fun, but I hated the DJ. He constantly interrupted the music at the wrong times and played some very odd choices of songs occasionally. We eventually left the club around 4 am, having had enough of the slow half hip hop half hard core rap mix. By the time we got back we had enough time for a 3 hour nap and then we were up again for breakfast and my favorite tour so far. We got to see inside the German parliament building. There was a large focus on modern architectural themes after the nazi reign ended and since the parliament building was being set up for the new government many of the features are extremely cool. It also allows one of the highest vantage points in the city if you go to the roof where there is a spiral ramp all the way up a glass dome over the Parliament.

I nearly forgot! While taking our bus tour (before we went to Matrix) our bus driver was hit from behind by another bus, which did not please him in the least. Luckily no one was hurt, but the other bus had severe damage to many of the windows and slight structural damage on the side.

That's all I have for now, I know I'm leaving things out, such as seeing the guy blowing huge bubbles in the park, but frankly I'm exhausted and need to get some sleep before class.

Sean, over and out!

Bevo Bevo Bevo, Bevi! (October Fest!)

Bevo Bevo Bevo
Quando Bevo Bevo
Mi Ubriaco E Son Felice
Anke Se Poi Vomito!!!

 This weekend was absolutely ludicrous. We arrived in Munich with almost no sleep, having train hopped from 4pm Friday until 7am Saturday over 5 or 6 trains, but were ready to drink. I mean how often are you in Germany for Octoberfest?!?
Some of you may have noticed the song at the top of this blog is most definitely not English or German but Italian. I learned the drinking song from our newly made Italian friends behind me.

I sort of jumped into the middle of this story so lets rewind a little. As of the Thursday before leaving my plans for the weekend included a school sponsored "get to know everyone" pot luck party. Some point during Friday myself and Andrew Moakes spoke with some of the Brazilian kids attending the summer school and decided with half an hour we were going to go the way did, hence the train hopping. Some of the saner people reading this may wonder why we would ever hop on an opportunity so horrid as training hopping all night with little to no sleep and my answer is simply money. Our round trip costs, 30 Euro per person. 5 hour train one way straight through to Munich cost, 160+ Euro per person.

So now you know the beginning of our journey lets meet the riff raff!

From this corner, we have the Americans!

(She's technically Swiss but she can be an honary American for this trip)
This girl is extremely quiet but smiles and giggles almost seemingly at random and is much more talkative with people who know Italian.

She was a source of confusion when Neil told me Laura was coming, having not known it was her name I thought we had invited her as well as another Laura and didn't have enough tickets. It didn't help my brain at all when both Laura's walked up the stairs at the train station.

We all made it where we needed to go so obviously it worked out, hey oh!

Mr Andrew Moakes, pronounced as Moh ack ies by those trying to irritate him. He's been hopping around Europe a while before us but has been playing catch up in Germany.

 
It's me! And I'm actually much more excited then I appear, I'm just annoyed cause I'd been trying to get a clear picture from a window reflection on a moving train with poor lighting. Figures the only decent picture I'm chewing on my damn lip.

Look at this fella here! Snoozin away like a lil baby. This is one of my close friends Neil Mccaffery and as many pictures as I seem to have of him sleeping it makes sense since he didn't sleep when we got back from this trip like the rest of us did. Instead he went to a crazy Drum and Bass festival in Bremen. Only live once, right?










So these were the kids we were rolling with, but the heroes, (and heroins) of the day were our Brazillian friends. Without them we would never of thought about using regional trains in such an obnoxiously time consuming way to reduce our costs so drastically.

 Though one of the ladies had ducked out for a snooze during this picture this is the bulk of or Brazilian companions.I'd name each but I'm honestly not sure how to spell all of their names, and am pretty sure I was mispronouncing at least two of their names.





Introductions past, but stories to come!

Please tell me you didn't think I'd end a blog with an introduction, I'm hardly that boring. Well, I hope I'm not at least. I'll try to keep this short though, since this is already turning into quite a monster of a post.

On the way there on our last trains I landed with two of the Brazilians while they were getting ready for breakfast. I found it well balanced. There was wheat, eggs, flour, vitamin B... who am I kidding. We were eating cake, drinking beer, and shooting energy drink. I'm glad it's not just an American thing lol.

And check out that product placement!











Now once we got to Octoberfest I took countless pictures, which will no doubt make it to my facebook in the near future, but the one moment that made me ecstatic but super disappointed it was missed was when I stood on a table, as many had before me, and chugged the one liter beer I had bought. The difference between me and everyone else was that I drank the beer so fast that the Italians next to us started a "USA" chant as I finished and sat down. If nothing else that made the trip worth it, though I only bought two more steins of beer, being at this point very full and on my way to being drunk.

The problems of the trip began when Germans came over to our table with full glasses as we near the end of our third and decided that they would drink with us, but first had to fill our cups to an equal height as theirs. All said and done I may have only bought 3 steins but we each drank at least 5 steins of beer. Mixed with the heat this made for an unpleasant exiting into a shadeless, but absolutely awesome fair ground. The fair ground had a roller coaster nearly as big as the super man coaster at six flags back home, not that I had the initiative or mental dexterity to ride it anymore.

German Friends!   

After a quick pit stop for an upset stomach the day went uphill for a long time until around 9pm, when our bodies started to realized how hard we had duped them and that we had in fact NOT slept. This was when we started lounging around random city spots like touristy American squatters. It is also when I saw some of my favorite sites. First there was  a "street performer" who gave the appearance of being headless, he was by far the least interesting but one of the first I noticed.

After the headless man I noticed real performers, such as a classical ensamble which included instruments such as a Chello and a Piano and a violinist.

There was also a group of rastafari playing a very strange assortment of instruments but putting together some very catchy songs.

And pictured below is a blurry photo of a violin trio who was extremely talented and apparently not playing for money, though I couldn't tell the purpose I found it very nice music and rather relaxing.

 

 I was just getting ready to publish this when I realized I forgot my two favorite street performers! First came the fire eater, who blew fire about like he was Spyro back in the 90's when PlayStation was still where it was at. And then, right after, as if to qualify description of the fire eater as a dragon a man in a black cloak with lantern and Halberd came running through the streets. I unfourtunately could not catch either in a photo. But the memory will last.

And as with many great tales there is the tragedy, for without it the happiness would not be so sweet. On the way back the combination of hangover (I was completely sober by the time we left at 5am Sunday morning), exhaustion, dehydration and hangover induced motion sickness I had a horrid time getting back to Weststadt. I got very sick throughout the trip, and couldn't hold water down for the longest time which made everything else even more miserable.
Despite this, I did get back, finally got liquids back into my system and slept for nearly 24 hours and feel good as new now (I even went to class on time!). Lesson learned though, drink more water before I leave. Especially on nearly 12 hours of train rides which could make me motion sick.

On that note I think I'll leave a picture of our last train station stop on the way back (which I felt great at by the way, turns out train stations don't shake about and such) of the other Americans passed out, asleep for one of our infrequent 30 minute naps.

If you're still reading, I have to say I find the commendable. I hope you enjoyed my trip.

Oh yeah, the italian song. Roughly translated means, drink drink drink, something drink drink. Having fun, even if they puke. Silly Italians singing at German beer festivals...