Mega Day Trip! Cologne and Brussels

So this past weekend me and 5 others made the ambitious decision to see two cities in two different countries in one day: Cologne in Germany and Brussels in Belgium. Our original plan for this weekend was to go to Paris however, things were complicated when we found out the train seat must be reserved in France even if you have a rail pass (stupid TGV train system...). Nevertheless, I still had fun and it was a very interesting and tiring day.

   Our first destination was Cologne, Germany. Pretty much the only reason to go to Cologne is to see it's massively incredible cathedral. Sure, the city is also gorgeous, but the cathedral trumps it all. The structure towers over you with its intricate Gothic architecture, and it is almost impossible to get the whole site into your view because of its size. The color of the building was awesome because it made it look ancient. When I see a cathedral, I want it to look as old as possible; it just makes the experience more authentic. This cathedral had a light whitish-tan color underneath with a black charred look over it, causing the cathedral to seem as if it had been engulfed in flames centuries ago. This probably didn't happen, but in my eyes it had the perfect look.
   The inside was equally as impressive: large towing arches, ornate shrines, a crypt, and several tombs of past church members decorated with their statue counterparts lying on top of their stone lids. What made this  cathedral different was the gold box at the center of these tombs, shielded by a modern glass enclosure and roped off with thick red velvet ropes. This box is said to contain the remains of the Three Wise Men that visited Jesus at his birth. I'm not sure I totally buy this story, but the belief that their actual remains lie in this ornate box is quite intense. Although the history in the cathedral was quite intense, the climb up to the top of one of the spires was even more so.
   500+ steps are what it takes to make it up to the top, and it is no walk in the park. It was the ultimate test of claustrophobia and acrophobia due to the steep spiral stone staircase to the top, and the sheer height. After you reached the bell tower, it became apparent just how high you were because this part was much more open the the view outside. I seriously considered backing down at this point, but I pushed on to the very top and was rewarded with spectacular views of Cologne.

   Our second stop was Brussels in Belgium. Here I wanted to achieve two goals. 1) See as many sights as possible in the 4-5 hours we had there. 2) Eat the chocolate and waffles.
   For the sightseeing part, we saw Atomium, a giant structure built in the 1950's that takes the shape of an iron atom's crystal lattice structure. It was deliciously nerdy. :) Next we went to Grand Place (pronounced the French way) and it was what the name said. Grand. It was a town square sprawling with life. People dancing, drinking, and eating were everywhere, and open air markets were busy with customers scouting out the local goods. Gold trimmed buildings and a sharp cathedral building were the highlights. Next we went to the palace which was OK. Just another European official building with gold trimmed gates to make it look more royal.

   For the food part, I had exactly what I wanted. Waffles and chocolate! I had a delicious Belgian waffle topped with caramel, powdered sugar and TONS of pecans. It was the best waffle I EVER had, and I almost couldn't finish it due to its richness. For the chocolate, my host mom, Danica, recommended Neuhaus, a Belgian chocolate maker. I found their store in Grand Place, and of course, it is the best chocolate ever!! So fresh and real it had an expiration date two weeks from when I bought it.

   Apart from the food and tourist sites, Brussels was different from other cities that I have been to in that it is so DIVERSE. As I was riding in the Metro, I noticed that not one person seemed to be the majority; the majority seemed to be everyone. My senior year in high school we read Heart of Darkness, a story about the Belgian influence in the Congo in Africa, and this history was reflected in the people through the African dress of several people in the city. I was amazed at the cultural diversity reflected in the city also through language. The Metro stops were said twice, once in French and once in (I think) Dutch and everything was printed about three or even four times. (Not even in English...) Brussels was a great city that I feel needs to be explored more to get an even better feel of the culture there. Below are pics as usual.

Cologne cathedral

View from the top

Supposed remains of the Three Wise Men

Atomium in Brussels

Grand Place

Grand Place

My Belgian waffle!

Palace

Delicious Neuhaus chocolate that is now ALL gone :(

The Incredible View of Heidelberg

   The day after Freiburg, We decided to go to Heidelberg, Germany. The city has the ruins of an amazing castle, and we went on the perfect day because there had been a light rain which cast the city into a mist that made for a mysterious journey and view to and from the castle. After hiking an extremely steep cobblestone path up to the castle, I paid 3 Euros to gain access to the inside of the castle and it was the best 3 Euros I have ever spent! The view from the castle was incredible because the entire city was laid out before your eyes. Towering churches and cathedrals, the Nekar River flowing under the arched bride, and the clouds of mist over the lush green mountains was an impressive sight. I haven't seen anything like this before. It was here that I realized something about German cities.
   When you look down upon a German city, every building and structure has it's place among the others. A city looks like a unified group set to a certain theme. This is what I saw in Heidelberg. There was the traditional orange roofing upon almost every building and it contrasted nicely with the rich green colors of the forest surrounding them. Even the castle, built way back in about 1214, matched the theme of the city, showing that the people who live there really respect and care for their own heritage. People in the U.S. occasionally do this sort of thing, however most of the time it seems that buildings are just placed haphazardly without regard to the way it fits in with other structures.
   Now that I have bored you with my civil engineering side, let me tell you about the actual castle. When I talked to Klaus about Heidelberg, he said that the castle was built to look like ruins. What remains of the castle is definitely ruins now, but even so, the castle is still able to maintain its former glory. Steep walls and facades give the structure an incredible height that bring your eyes upward to where the roof used to be. One of my favorite parts were all the rectangular openings of windows that were standing like the skeleton of the building exposed but still magnificent.
   The castle also had remnants of a garden, definitely not the beauty it used to be, but still interesting. The bottoms of the fountains and pools were plastered with algae, but I prefer it this way because it add authenticity to their actual age. I came to see haunting castle ruins, not expensive restorations. Below are some pictures.

(Note: This as written waaaayyyy after I went to Heidelberg. I'm such a busy, busy boy.)

The Hostel situation in Freiburg

   On Saturday after Basel, we headed to Freiburg Germany. Freiburg is located in the heart of the Black Forest in Germany, so we thought i would be a really cool place to visit. Our plan was to explore Freiburg a bit on Saturday once we arrived, and do a bit of hiking on Sunday before returning to Karlsruhe. However, this plan failed once we arrived at our hostel.
   If you don't know exactly what a hostel is, it's like a hotel but there are several beds to a room, and you most likely are in the room with people you haven't met before. It's also cheaper than a hotel room. For Freiburg, we booked a hostel that happened to have a spa as well. We booked this one because we were pressed for time and we didn't plan on using the spa anyway. When we arrived at the hostel, we were in for a shock as we looked outside the window to see an array of nude older people swimming in a pool! The sight was unavoidable from our room because the window was large and the curtains were quite transparent. I've never felt so awkward in my life!!! The awkwardness intensified as we climbed down the steps to face the owner to tell him we weren't staying there.
   We debated on who should tell the guy when one of our group members was brave enough to tell the confused owner, "This wasn't what we thought it was...", probably the worst phrasing for the situation. But how else do you confront the owner of a place that offers a "sexual handling" massage for 100 Euros?? (No joke here unfortunately) All in all, it was an interesting experience and makes for a good story. :)
   After the hostel situation we made our way towards Freiburg to walk around and explore a bit before leaving for Karlsruhe again. The city sort of reminded me of Gatlinburg, Tennessee except it was much more German looking and had an awesome cathedral. One thing that bothered me about the city was that there was a beautiful old clock tower that looked awesome except for a McDonald's logo attached to the side to match its color scheme. I HATE McDonald's! One placement of it's trademark can ruin a city's authenticity instantly, therefore I refuse to eat there or anything like it in Europe (and probably back in the States). Besides that, the small portion of the city I saw was assimilated expertly into it's forest surroundings. It looked like it belonged totally in the black forest.

(Note: this blog was written waaaayyy after I went because these things take a lot of time to write.)

The clock tower. I refused to take a picture of the McDonald's logo.

Sideways picture of the cathedral.

This person scared me because I thought she was a statue.

The hostel looks pretty on the outside, but there be old nudists on the inside!!

Basel, Switzerland

   After the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart, Me and 5 other people traveled by train to Basel, Switzerland, a city in the very northern part of Switzerland and close to the French and German borders. Prior to going there, I didn't expect a lot since I haven't heard of it before. However, what me and the other found out was that this city was absolutely gorgeous.
   We arrived there on Friday night and stayed at the YMCA hostel there. It was very nice, but pretty hot since Europeans apparently don't believe in air conditioning. After getting settled, we went to go find something to eat and eventually settled on an "American" style restaurant because we couldn't find much else that wasn't packed. I have always wondered if there were such things as American restaurants in other countries and it turns out there is, however, they don't taste like restaurants in the U.S. I had a "shrimp potato" which I have never heard of before in the U.S. but it was quite good.
   The next day was dedicated to exploring Basel and we did so by picking up a brochure at the hostel and visiting as much as possible the sights that it mentioned. The first stop was the Marktplatz where their town hall was located. It was really old, red, and decorated heavily on the outside with gold looking trip and a lot of colors painted on the red. Inside were murals and Gothic looking doors and arches. Next we headed to the Rhine river which flows through the city. The water was an awesome blue-green color that reminded me of the color of ocean water. I was not expecting that at all and it was really cool. We took a ferry across the river to get to a cathedral that was on the riverbank.
   The cathedral was made from red brick and had two tall spires that were interestingly spiky. The inside was decorated with large stained glass windows that were works of art by themselves. The ceiling was vaulted really high and it was just an interesting building in general. The basement was open to the public and there were several graves of important church members, the oldest dating back to the year 999. It's crazy to think how old that is considering the US is only about 200 years old.
   After the cathedral came the city's famous fountain which looked like it was alive because of its water features that were meant to look like machinery. Unlike regular fountains that just spray water, this one moved it around and used it as a power source. Next to the fountain was another impressive cathedral with several gargoyle's, however, what made this one different from the other cathedral was what was on the inside. As we walked in we were greeted not with somber church music and "do not disturb the church members" signs, but were greeted instead by loud rap music and basketball players. For some reason the cathedral was host to a basketball game, an the whole sight was surreal because you had sweaty basketball players fighting for the ball to loud rap music contrasted to stained glass windows and a church altar. Totally not what we were expecting.
    After that, we headed to find a modern glass building that was world famous for its complex design. The building looked like someone took a normal glass building and crumpled it with their hand. It was really cool and it would be awesome if I could help work on something like that some day. I wasn't able to get close to the building because it was built on a private college campus, but I do have a picture below.
   After this visit, our group realized that we were one train stop from the French border, so we seized the opportunity to walk across the Swiss-French border into the town of St. Louis, France. We made the joke that we came several thousand miles just to come to St. Louis. The town was pretty much just like Basel, just way smaller and with its signs in French. After that, I stopped to get a salami pretzel and headed towards Freiburg, Germany.

Town Hall (called a Rathaus)

View of buildings on the Rhine

Shows the awesome color of the river

The cathedral

The courtyard of the cathedral. Reminded me of Harry Potter

The big ol' church again

People playing basketball INSIDE the cathedral. You can't see the rap music, but trust me, it's there.

The complex glass building that I absolutely love.

Walking to France.

Mercedes Benz Museum

Last weekend me and 5 other people in the Germany group decided to explore places relatively close to where we are living in Karlsruhe. Our plan was to visit Stuttgart, Germany, Basel, Switzerland, and Freiburg, Germany. On Friday, the entire Calculus group traveled to Stuttgart to visit the Mercedes Benz Museum, which is what this post is about. I will post about the others in separate posts.

Mercedes Benz Museum

     Even though I don't know very much about cars, the Mercedes Benz museum was really cool. The building itself was really awesome and had a futuristic feel to it. I loved the layout of the museum because you took an elevator to the top of the building, and all the exhibits spiraled down to the ground floor. The museum required no tour guide because you had your own audio device that allowed you to explore the museum on your own time and listen to what you wanted to learn about.
   The exhibits on the top floor were the oldest cars while the rest of the exhibits became more modern as you went down. There were also special galleries on each floor that displayed themed exhibits like different types of buses or utility vehicles. I can't go into too much detail about what I saw because I am not car oriented, but there were some definite highlights to the visit.
   My favorite gallery was the gallery of cars owned or used by famous people. My favorite of those was a car used by The Pope. It was specially designed for him by including a glass back where people could see him, a chair for him to sit in, and gold trim. I'm not sure what the car was called, but m guess is the Popemobile. They also had a car that was used in the Jurassic Park movies which was pretty awesome. Another one of my favorite parts of the museum was the exhibits on modern energy efficient cars. They had a car that had absolutely zero carbon emission which I though was amazing. I really hope that these cars become popular (and less expensive) in the future! 

Below are some pictures of the museum:

The museum

The Popemobile

Jurassic Park car

Zero emission car

Some friends I made at the museum