Author: Ian Olive

Program: Reutlingen, Germany

The Czech Republic is a country with many faces and a rich history dating over a thousand years. It was first known as the Kingdom of Bohemia, which flourished in the area of central Europe with its music and arts. It was later incorporated into the Soviet Union under the Warsaw Pact where it was known as Czechoslovakia. In the late 1980s, the country went through another political change and quickly evolved into the Czech Republic we know today. Very few cities can accurately show the amount of change and evolution that has happened in Europe quite like Prague can. From Soviet era architecture that is painted in vivid colors to classic Gothic cathedrals to traditional Bohemian capital buildings, Prague has it all.

 Prague Castle, Ian Olive

I spent four days in Prague, which is just enough time to get to know the layout of the city and see some of its famous attractions. Old Town Plaza, Charles Bridge, and the Prague Castle are all must see landmarks. The Botanical Gardens as well as the Pub Crawl are all things that one must do while there. The city is a glorious melting pot of architecture and culture with endless things to see. Taking the bus or train from Leipzig is super easy and lodging is very affordable. Don’t hesitate to check out Prague and the rest of the beautiful Czech Republic.

My airbnb was in this 500-year-old building.

Reutlingen, Ian Olive

Author: Ian Olive

Program: Reutlingen, Germany – Study Center

I stepped out the door and immediately my body was immersed in the early morning magic.  The air was cool and slightly damp; a slight westward breeze blew the faint smell of fresh bread past my nostrils. The sun had just begun to peek its head over the low rolling hills of the university campus, casting a warm glow on the surrounding buildings. As I walked toward the bus all I could think of was the word crisp, which is knackig in Deutsch. It was a morning feeling that can’t be replicated by any other country on earth.

As my friends and family might point out, I’m not exactly what you’d call a morning person. Just last semester, I scheduled my earliest class to be at 1:30 p.m. so I could sleep in as long as I pleased. I’m not exactly sure what led me to being wide awake at 5 a.m., but here I was wide awake. After enjoying the crisp German morning, I hopped on the bus and made my way to downtown Reutlingen.

Reutlingen, Ian Olive

I ended up spending most of my day downtown. It was refreshing to be able to explore a new city without any of the burdens of responsibilities or schedules. I meandered my way up and down the narrow side streets and ordered a trio of fruity pastries from a street vendor while continuing to marvel at the architecture and colors of the streets. I kept my eye open for old-timer classic cars while smiling and attempting to converse with all the elderly German people doing their morning shopping.

The day continued with a trip to an open air market in the town’s central plaza. Swabia farmers sold a variety of goods from sausages and fresh bread to fruits and vegetables I had never seen before. The Germans tend to do most of their shopping on a daily basis and choose not to go to a large supermarket and stock up for a few weeks. This custom keeps the food fresh and helps out the local vendors.

Reutlingen, Ian Olive

After the market, I met up with the tidy group of eight students from the Valpo cohort and took a quick tour of the neighboring town, Tübingen, with one of our German professors, Herr Springer. The man is a legend among the Reutlingen Study Center and he knows every bit of interesting info about beautiful Tübingen. He invited us all to dinner at the charming Neckarmüller restaurant on the river. I ordered Braumeisterpfännle with Spätz and Zwiebel which was a delicious blend of three different steaks and creamy pasta with mushrooms.

As the temperature began to drop, and the sun began to fade behind the clouds, a band across the river was playing a Johnny Cash song. I took the last sip of my drink and all I could think was life is good, life is knackig.

-Ian

You’re going to spend a year abroad. This is no small feat. You have been well prepared, and it’s unlikely that anything I could possibly write will change that. Despite that, here’s some stuff that I wrote to try to help you prepare for your year.

Some of these things are (hopefully understandably) centered around southwest Germany and the Reutlingen program. Sorry about that. Just kidding, not really.

VIEP = Valparaiso International Engineering Program. Take five years instead of 4 to finish your undergraduate degree by adding a semester of overseas study and an internship abroad, and end up wth a language (German, French, Spanish, Chinese) minor or major.

Skype your family as often as you please.

Foreign language faculty at VU advised that exposure to the English language should be limited as much as possible. The thought behind this is to allow yourself to the opportunity for as thorough immersion as possible. This makes sense – the more German (or French or Spanish or Chinese) you hear and use, the better you will be able to consistently and accurately speak and understand it.

This advice, though well-intentioned, is bogus, or at best unnecessary. For one, English is the common language in the dorms (at least in Reutlingen – I cannot speak for the other programs), even before German. You’re automatically in an environment where you’ll need to hear and use English all the time. No need to impose false barriers on your experience that won’t make any difference.

Next, you’re probably going to be plagued with some homesickness, at least once during your time abroad (if you’re not, maybe see somebody about that). Skipping home is a great way to help some of this go away. Your family is important (understatement), and it’s important to maintain that relationship.

Granted, you should not spend 100% of your free time calling home. You have a new place to explore (and getting out can also help with homesickness). But if you do your thing, you’ll experience plenty of immersion as-is. You’ll be just as fluent as you otherwise would have been, and you’ll also get to share your experiences regularly with your loved ones.

Find a family.

I can’t give advice on how to do this, as I more or less had a family waiting for me when I arrived (though I have heard that churches can be good, if that’s your thing). Back in 1980 (or something), my mom did a 3-week (or so) exchange program. She stayed with the Neumärker Family, and fortunately stayed in touch over the years. The then-12-year-old, now-decidedly-older-and-altogether-wondeful-year-old Isa conveniently lives with her husband Jojo and children Rebecca and Cassian near Stuttgart, which is conveniently close to Reutlingen, which is conveniently where I am living this year.

Hopefully, you will have the sense to see a substitute family as more than an outlet for laundry and meals. Spending time around kids is therapeutic, no matter how active or crazy they may be. At the very least, it gets you outside for exercise, and it also exposes you to a facet of German language that you otherwise wouldn’t be hearing. In my case, these kids are less familiar with Americans than the dorm crowd is, so the quality of questions is WAY better for meaningful introspection about myself and my country.

Furthermore, immersion better than this does not exist. You get people who will correct your deutsch in a snap, and who will get it right 100% of the time way faster than any classmate or dictionary ever could. You’re also not in an environment where you can get away with just doing your thing (in my case, programming and playing with twisty puzzles and reading Game of Thrones). You are expected to converse and follow directions. Instead of having to make the choice to put shoes on and go outside for immersion, you can get it from the comfort of your pajamas.

A family can also provide irreplaceable insight into local traditions. Sure, you can read about this stuff in books or on Wikipedia, but experiencing it gives you far more insight and appreciation. Plus it’s more fun than reading about foreign traditions on Wikipedia, and I can say that because I’ve tried it.

Buy your own plane tickets.

I fell for the trap of going with the group plane ride, and along with it, the group prices. The logic that “group prices mean discounts” does not apply for flights, or if it does, it sure didn’t for me.

You can even buy your outbound ticket on the same flight as the rest of the group, but save a few hundred bucks by doing so.

Don’t go for a round trip ticket either, unless you are reasonably certain that you can change your return flight for free. This will most certainly not be the case with the group rate. Round trip tickets are good for short trips, and on the short term, they can even save money. Since you can’t book flights until a year in advance anyway, these savings will not be present by a round trip booking for VIEP participants.

Public Transportation

There’s a thing called the Anschluss Studi-Ticket, which is an extension of your Naldo pass into the Stuttgart region. Super cheap (in the long term, meaning ~$300 one-time), and way worthwhile. If the Naldo region gets boring for you (it shouldn’t, but just in case it somehow does), this gives you a (somewhat) big city to explore. At current prices, it pays for itself in just over 9 visits.

Networking

Herr Veit is the most important friend of VIEP at the Hochschule Reutlingen. He’s so well-connected that I’m pretty sure the only German official who doesn’t answer directly to him is Angela Merkel. He’s a huge support for VIEP participants, and will gladly help you secure a co-op during your second semester. (It’s also possible to accomplish this through other means – Herr Veit is certainly not the only path to a placement)

However, he’s a busy man. You may have to be more explicit with him than feels polite in order to get your point across. He also comes with a very quick turnaround time. Just be prepared to hit the ground running, and you’ll do just fine.

This has not been an exhaustive list.

“Really small and lots of fun” could be an ad for a car, but it also nicely covers Luxembourg. The country is the clear outlier on the GDP-per-capita list among its European sisters, but what a cool place it is!

I was first there in October, for just a short time on my way back from Brussels. It was cool enough that I had to return, so Rachel and I spent a day there for the “New Year” half of our December-January break. I will be going back for a third time in June when my parents visit, regardless of whether or not they finalize their travel plans cough cough. (update: Because I write slowly, plans have since been at least written down somewhere).

Autumn overtakes Luxembourg City.

This doesn’t show much of Luxembourg, but it does show how happy people might be while they’re there.

Luxembourg is one of the handful of non-Germany, german-speaking countries in the world, but French and Luxembourgish are also official languages. Although my spoken french has dwindled to a mere speck since I started studying German, I was surprised to find that the french signs in the museums and on the monuments were far easier to read than the german ones that contained the same information. I also managed to “parle français” to secure us museum tickets “pour deux étudiants,” though the receptionist may have just been patient and polite. Hard to say for certain.

Before we get going, here’s a short list of things not to like about Luxembourg:

1. The flag looks like a faded version of the flag of the Netherlands (both are in the generic “2 darker colors with a lighter band in the middle” pattern)
2. It’s not the cheapest place to visit
3. You might have to explain where it is to people who haven’t heard of it before.

Flag of Luxembourg, and royal residence. From my brief stopover in the fall. The single car on the road does not reflect reality.

Walk out of the train station and go to the right down the big road. You’ll be wanting to handle Luxembourg City on foot, since the traffic isn’t that great. You’ll be doing a fair amount of walking, but that’s the best way to see the city. Go straight past the expensive shops and the malls – they’re just the same as anywhere else. You’ll come to a viaduct over a gorge, and that’s where the real fun begins.

This is just a bridge, but it’s a cool looking bridge. Stone viaducts are nice distinct bits of architecture, and if you look at the people, you can get a sense of just how deep the gorge is.

I could try to explain the layout of the city, but if you just know that it has gorges going right through it,

View down the gorge from above.

View up the gorge from below. Notice the people both above and below the walls. I know this is basically the same picture as before, but whatever.

What is it that makes Luxembourg so much fun? It’s tricky to say for certain. Maybe I was excited about celebrating the new year with Rachel, but that doesn’t explain why I enjoyed it the first time. A city with this much topography in such close proximity to your usual urban amenities is bound to be a good time.

It probably has something to do with the public and accessible ruins. In one place, we just walked into a residential area, which led us right into some more ruins. Unlike Heidelberg, these ruins were explained. Not a complete history, but at least signs that gave a brief indication of historical significance.

The ruins are typical fortress parts, and the newer building is a retirement center. I think it’s this juxtaposition that makes the place so neat.

I’m really not sure why we didn’t take more pictures. Sorry about that.

This is just another rail viaduct, nothing special. But the picture was taken from an old mill/protective structure to keep bad guys out of the ravine while still letting water in, and in that sense is kind of neat.

Who needs a selfie stick when you have long arms (and when you can find other ways to look like an idiot, not pictured)?

More picturesque. Old town.

“Oh, you’re going to be in Europe? You have to see _______.” –many people to me, prior to my departure.

Many times, this advice is wonderful. Such tidbits have led me and/or my family to discover gems like Hallstatt (Austria), Ulm (Germany), and Bruges (Belgium).

However, there are plenty of duds mixed in with this well-intentioned advice. Here are my recommendations of places you can absolutely skip.

Real quick, one of the quickest ways to judge the value of wherever you travel is the density of selfie sticks. The fewer, the better. This method certainly isn’t 100% foolproof, but it’s a great quick test.

Some clever Germans will refer to the selfie stick as a Deppenszepter – an idiot scepter. I absolutely love this term, and have made it my mission to tell everybody who cares to listen.

So many people recommended the Nürnberg Christmas Market. It’s the largest in the world. Christmas markets are wonderful, so it would make sense that the largest delivers the largest dose of wonderful, right?

My fiancée and I were here on our way to Prague, and spent the afternoon at the market. It was the last Saturday before Christmas, and the crowds were INTENSE. It was nothing short of underwhelming and awful.

Instead of checking out the Nürnberger Weihnachtsmarkt, I would recommend going to Oktoberfest in München to experience the crowds (and the alcohol to take your mind off of them), and then just go to any Christmas market anywhere other than Nürnberg.

I apologize for the low-quality picture, but it both shows the crowds in Nürnberg and reflects the low-quality time that was to be had there.

A slight redemption came in the form of a choir comprising old Bavarians. They were singing Joy to the World in the most stereotypically German way possible, particularly with regard to their pronunciation. Accents can tend to be masked by singing, but this was not the case here. Some of them were proudly sporting grumpy frowns. Like Rachel and I, they clearly wanted to be elsewhere. No amount of christmas joy or red tacky holiday sweater could have made the guy on the top left smile. While the sight of this particular gentleman did bring us smiles, it did not go very far to redeem the experience.

My German friend Dom told me when I visited him in September something to the effect of “I’ve heard Heidelberg can be beautiful and romantic, but I’ve never been there”. Or something to that effect 🙂

Heidelberg has the looks of a good destination, and it has the tourists and the reputation for being potentially worth the visit.  There’s an American Air Force base nearby, so many Americans have Heidelberg on their mind. I received several recommendations from people stateside, as well as from some people I’ve met here. There’s a castle in a great location above the city, with a sweeping view of the valley below.

We got there, and saw a glimpse of the castle ruins on the hillside. So far, so good. We walked the way from the hauptbahnhof towards the ruins to check them out. Hiking up the hill, we came to a ticket booth and gladly paid the fee to get to see the ruins. There were some good outlooks, full of people taking selfies and pictures against a backdrop of the valley underneath.

All three of me took advantage of the scenery in Heidelberg.

We walked inside, and the most notable attractions pointed out by any kind of sign were the exits. There was an apothecary museum and a stupid-large barrel. We skipped the museum, but scraped the bottom of the barrel and investigated the barrel. It was impressively large, but completely inadequately explained. Every sign that referenced the barrel was indicating its location. Nothing discussed its purpose or any significant facts. We walked around further. The only other accessible parts of the castle were outside, so that’s where we went. Looking at the place from the outside, it should have had promise. The ruins looked cool, and had chain-fences – clearly designed for people to be behind. Yet nobody was behind them. Maybe there was a good reason for this, but since this reason wasn’t made clear to us, we’re going to chalk it up to the castle, and the city along with it, as a stupid place to visit.

Part of one of the towers looked like it had fallen off. I had to go to Wikipedia to learn that it was for power storage, and was split in an explosion. This would have been great to know at the time the picture was taken.

Take a leaf out of Rick Steves’ travel guides. He excludes Heidelberg, and for good reason.  Here’s a list of “good” reasons to visit Heidelberg:

1. You’re completing a degree in tourist studies, possibly with a concentration in the Deppenszepter.
2. You have a family member or friend who was/is stationed in Heidelberg, and you want to get a sense of their locale.
3. You’re thinking about studying at, or are otherwise interested in the university – the oldest in Germany.

In some sense, Dom was right. Heidelberg has everything it needs to look fantastic. Really beautiful postcards of gorgeous ruins in a spectacular landscape. And Rachel and I didn’t have a bad time in Heidelberg – it was a pleasant way to spend our day. However, our enjoyment was largely due to getting to spend time with each other, partly aided by the ease with which we could mock the lack of things to do there.

“Only Americans go to Heidelberg – Germans never do!” admonished  Isa, a close German friend, upon our return. “I hope you learned your lesson to ask the locals first next time.”

I’m going to add Dublin to the back of this list, with the warning that my opinions are likely tainted by the fact that I wasn’t feeling so great while I was there.

The whole place smelled like manufacturing or welding, somewhat burnt-metallic and cringe-worthy, which definitely did not help to make me feel better.

I had also assumed that my expectation of ‘people being drunk in the streets’ was a false supposition. It was, unfortunately, an entirely correct supposition. Dublin is a great place for a lively party out in public, which is another way of saying that it’s not that great of a place.

Additionally, I am proud of my German heritage. I’m protestant and reserved and opinionated about the definition of good beer. Admittedly, I went to Dublin because I wanted to check Ireland off my list and because the $15 flight from Birmingham was too good to pass. This is massively unfair to Ireland, and I know that. I do hope to return at some point (especially to the lesser-populated parts of the country), and I hope that I will be feeling better when I’m there.

This is a continuation of the best parts of my spring break trip to the British Isles. Find part I here.

As promised earlier, this post is to contain details on Northern Wales and an awakening of sorts. Let’s start with Wales.

Caernarfon Castle at night.

Caernarfon was calm and empty, which probably contributed to 1/3 of my enjoyment there. I shared the hostel with no more than two other people the entire time, and had a six-bed room to myself the whole time. They furnished cereal for breakfast, which was easy for them, but was an extra treat for a person who hadn’t had cereal for breakfast in way too long. The hostel also had surprisingly fast internet, though this was likely due to the emptiness. ALSO: They had a brand new puppy. Like, they brought it home the day before I arrived. It figured out stairs while I was there, but still didn’t quite get the hang of running and barking. So cute!

Caernarfon Castle, the city, and the Strait of Anglesey, on a beautiful cloudy Welsh day.

The city is situated right on the Strait of Anglesey with a view of the similarly-named island (the island is not also called “Strait of Anglesey – it’s not a strait. Duh). Snowdonia National Park is very close, but wasn’t visible from Caernarfon due to the welsh fog and/or night time. The castle was about 100 meters from my hostel, which itself was only separated from the Strait by the town wall and a bike path.

The castle is “where the Prince of Wales gets princed,” which how my dad contextualized his recommendation. Another part of his recommendation was written in a journal from the days of film cameras: “I went overboard and took ten photos that day.”  In the 21st century, I enjoyed not having the film constraint, as is made obvious in this post.

When I visited the castle, I kept saying “WOW!” Thorough recommendation on that one. It had the ruiney good looks that castles should have, but it also had plenty of information on why the ruins were the way they are (not that I’m mad or anything…Heidelberg!). Plenty of passages to scramble around, plenty of tiny staircases to climb. There was also a fair deal of head-bonk danger, but the cool factor made up for this.

You don’t have to look hard to find people enjoying their time at Caernarfon Castle. You will have to look hard to find some dead bird parts, more on that below.

Inside Caernarfon Castle. The circular disk is “where the Prince of Wales gets Princed”

This room in Caernarfon Castle did not pose any immediate headbonk dangers, but the doorway could have caused problems.

One weird thing about Caernarfon – there were uncomfortably many parts of dead birds, just hanging out all over the place. Seagull wings, complete skeletons of smaller birds, and the like. I didn’t particularly care to know how they got there or what happened to the rest of the birds.

None of these birds were dead or incomplete.

Quite close by is a rather unremarkable place with a most remarkable name: Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, often shortened to Llanfair PG. The sign at the train station was particularly suited to being recorded in a panorama.

Just in case your eyes glazed right past the long, foreign, and likely unpronounceable-for-you word, take a look at four L’s in a row near the end. Welsh orthography will catch you off guard if you’re not careful. Here are a few tricks I picked up:

1. “F” sounds like “V”, but “ff” sounds like regular “f”.
2. A “w” goes “oo”
3. A double “dd” makes a “th” sound
4. The double “ll” is when your mouth makes the shape of an L, but then you breathe out. This is the best way I’ve come across to explain this particular noise. It’s not that easy.
5. Everybody in Wales speaks English, so just do your thing. They’re accustomed to you butchering their words, but are nonetheless really friendly and welcoming.

After Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, I walked along the strait towards Beaumaris (“beautiful marsh,” approximately french), another nearby castle. Along the way, there were some fantastic views of Snowdonia. These mountains aren’t particularly high, but they apparently pose enough of a technical challenge that they served as a training platform for the team that first summited Everest.

Snowdonia and the Strait of Anglesey. Snowdon itself is on the right.

Beaumaris would have been pretty thoroughly awesome had I not been to Caernarfon Castle the day before.  It was still cool, don’t get me wrong.  But it just wasn’t nearly as well-groomed as Caernarfon. However, the ruin-factor made it nonetheless VERY enjoyable. What it lacked in amenities was more than compensated by the sheer size of the place.

Beaumaris from above. Check out the person in the middle for a sense of scale.

The complex has a concentric design, with a taller “keep” surrounded by a wall with an open-ish space between the two. The whole place is massive, in a way that could be explained, but is really best left to personal experience. The ruiny quality of the castle was also quite cool. Plenty of stones to scramble around, and plenty of staircases to run carefully walk up and down, and plenty of opportunities to imagine Castle life in the 1200s.

Beaumaris interior ruins

While we’re on the subject of castles and fortifications, let’s talk briefly about moats. Moats are not filled with alligators – this is Europe, not Florida. Rather, they’re open-ish areas that make attackers easy to fill with arrows. Bonus points for the defense team if the attackers are slowed down, for instance by the muddiness one might find in a beautiful marsh.

This image of the outside of Beaumaris Castle doesn’t really help to give a sense of scale, but it does show the moat.

My least favorite part of Beaumaris was definitely the multitude of seagulls and pigeons that were hiding out in the nooks and crannies, waiting to fly out and scare you shirtless. At the very least, very few of these birds seemed to be dead or mutilated.

And now for the awakening. This was in Cambridge. Last day on the trip, before heading back to Germany. Of course I’m going to spend my last day in the English-speaking world watching the new Star Wars film – The Force Awakens, of course! And what a treat it was. The theater was as empty as Caernarfon, and the film lived up to all of my expectations. I was embarrassingly excited, which made the emptiness of the theater even better.

Edinburgh and Caernarfon. I could probably end this post there, but that would be boring for you and displeasing to the Valpo Voyager Blog-Gods, so I won’t.

Quick note: the last entry was a bit of a downer. Sorry about that. This one should be much better.

London was also a highlight of sorts. I’m not going to talk about it though. It’s one of the biggest places in the world, and definitely worth a visit. However, the abundance of literature about the place doesn’t merit my musings. Just go there.

Also, enjoy some pictures.

Albert Memorial, Royal Albert Hall, and uncharacteristically nice weather for London.

I got carried away, and took this illegal photo inside St. Pauls Cathedral in the City of London.

What can I say, it’s London. Here’s your seat-of-the-british-government photo.

Coventry Cathedral gets a definitive stamp of approval, though that’s more than can be said for the rest of the town. The medieval church was destroyed during the Blitz, but instead of knocking the ruins down, they were incorporated into the new structure, in a very cool way. After getting a tour of the new building (led by a Roman Catholic lady from Plochingen, 20 minutes away from Reutlingen), I spent some time enjoying this holy and wholly photogenic space.

Creation mosaic window, Coventry Cathedral

Ecumenical Chapel, Coventry Cathedral

Looking Down (or up?) the nave in Coventry Cathedral.

The ruins of the medieval Coventry Cathedral.

Edinburgh is a wonderfully distinct place. It’s built on and around the remains of a volcano, and it that alone doesn’t make you want to visit, I’m not sure what will (fine print: you can’t really see the volcano, but you can see the volcanic basalt, and you can imagine what it might have looked like millennia ago). If you’re interested in literature, your options include Robert Louis Stevenson, Sirs Arthur Conan Doyle and Walter Scott, and JK Rowling. If architecture and city planning is your cup of tea, there are fascinating contrasts to be found between the old and new cities, and plenty of history to explore in the valley between the two. If you’re fond of whiskey, old enough to buy it, and mature enough to actually enjoy it, Edinburgh can be pretty good (though this is only because it’s the capital – the best whiskey experiences are farther north, apparently).

The castle provided plenty of information and wonderful views of the city and the surroundings. I arrived right after it opened, and was able to walk right in. By the time I left an hour and a half later, the line was well out the gate. Suckers.

When I got to the castle, I was able to look to the south and see mountains covered in snow. As soon as I snapped some pictures and thought to myself, “Wow, I wish it would snow here!” it started sleeting, and did not stop for the rest of the day. This time the sucker was I.

The old city is very pedestrian friendly. It’s full of “closes,” which look like sketchy alleys but are far from sketchy. Go down any one of these to escape the tourists and see another part of the city, even if only to see something different. It’s a great place to “get lost” because you’ll never be too far from where you need to be, and yet you’d never be able to guess it by just looking at your surroundings.

One of the super highlights for me was meeting people from England, New Zealand, and Alaska in the hostel, and spending the evenings with them. Fred, Dom, Ant, Alicia, Reid, and Daena sucked me into a game of Scrabble in the lounge, and Jack and Jenna were soon to follow. We split the costs of drinks, but the conversation was free. And it was well worth it. Cultural compare-and-contrast, discussion of the New Zealand Flag Referendum, and discussions of the impacts the refugee crisis has on day-to-day lives in London, Nottingham, and Reutlingen were all punctuated by juggling and puzzles and more Scrabble. I even considered adjusting the end of my itinerary to get to see the Nottingham people again, but it turned out not to be feasible on my end, so I dropped the investigation before asking them if any of them could spare a couch for a night.

We also came across some Germans in the hostel. The couple was from Herrenberg, which is like half an hour away from Reutlingen. It was pretty refreshing to get to talk German with somebody for the first time in a week. However, they were interested in what I’m going to call ‘chemical tourism,’ and the conversation fizzled out after they asked us, “Nimmt ihr Drogen?”

Admittedly, Edinburgh probably appealed to me as much as it did because it immediately followed Dublin, which did not appeal at all. I think I would still have enjoyed the city on its own, and the experience in general – even without the comparison to Dublin. The strong winds grayness provided a perfect contrast to the warmth of the architecture, and the weather made that warmth feel doubly welcoming once you got inside.

I found out after visiting that, like Cincinnati, Edinburgh has Munich as a sister city. However, Edinburgh and Cincinnati are not sister cities. I think I’ve exposed a serious flaw in the sister city system. Also: sister city system. Say that five times fast.

Edinburgh at sunset, taken from Arthur’s Seat. Really, this is mostly just sunset taken from Arthur’s seat, but there IS some Edinburgh somewhere in there, I swear!

Looking south from Arthur’s Seat. There’s some fire/ice something or other here, but I don’t feel like being metaphorical and verbose at the moment.

They say that sunset is supposed to have the best lighting. I used to think that this was true, but now I’m not so certain.

Part II continues with Northern Wales, and an awakening of sorts.

Unless you know and can explain the difference between England, Great Britain, the UK, and the British Isles, you should probably check out this video by CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10.  Instead of being pedantic by clarifying all of these differences, I’m just going to go, and am going to expect you as the readers to understand these differences.  The video makes things sufficiently clear, so this is on you.

For convenience, I do call this my “UK trip,” even though I was also in Ireland.  However, Ireland was such a small part of the trip that I feel comfortable ignoring my own pedantry and saving a few syllables.  “UK trip” is three, while “British Isles” is 4, and doesn’t tell you anything about what was done.

Anyway, let’s start with the itinerary.

2 nights London
1 night Coventry
2 nights Dublin
3 nights Edinburgh
1 night in Yorkshire
3 nights in Caernarfon (pronounced something like “ka-NAR-ven”)
1 night in Oxford
3 nights in Cambridge

And then back to Stuttgart.

Now some overall reactions to the trip as a whole.

[GRUB]

The food and drinks were exactly as good as I would have expected english food and drinks to be – not very. Certainly palatable for a short period of time, but not world-class cuisine. I came back to Germany and remembered that bread had flavor. Within a day, I went out for my first Hefeweizen in too long, and it was heavenly.

Fish and chips are okay, but definitely not the kind of thing you want to have too often.  Haggis is far from yucky, but still probably not for everybody. There were some meat pies in Wales that weren’t terrible, but certainly not exceptional either. Guinness pretty smooth, and really easy to drink a lot of, but not really that great next to what I’m used to here.  There are also some good English, Scottish, and Welsh ales, but they just weren’t the same.

The best food options I came across were pizza (not English), Chicken Tikka Masala (kind of English, but disguised as Indian), and Chipotle (American/Mexican-ish). The Chipotle was even bland compared to what I’m used to in the US, but I hadn’t had any since July, so I’m certainly not complaining.  Plenty of places also had pretty good burgers.

Ritter Sport never costs 1.49, of anything (in Europe), never mind the exchange rates that would make it cost even more. This is a scandal! And I promise I’m not just being bitter for having forgotten to bring any of my own from Germany. Just kidding. I totally am.

[CURRENCY]

The coins were mostly completely stupid, but they did have some redeeming aspects. I might go into more detail later about why the Great British Pound coins suck, but to keep my blood pressure down, I’m going to try to focus on this single really really cool part: The Shield.

This single piece of great design almost completely makes up for the lazy design elsewhere in the same coins.

[ACCOMMODATIONS]

Two weeks was an awfully long time to be moving around and keeping busy. Maybe too long. It was REALLY nice to come back to the comfort and security of Germany.  Hostels are far from luxurious accommodation, and the buses (“coaches” as they’re referred to – incorrectly in my opinion) and trains weren’t quite as convenient for outsiders as they are in Germany.I also spent the entire time washing my clothes in sinks with the same bar of soap I used to wash myself. Three shirts and a single pair of pants for the whole time was certainly pushing things, particularly in my desire to stand in front of a sink to do my laundry.

Some of the hostels were nice. The one in Caernarfon was within spitting distance of both the castle and the nearest body of water, and the owners had brought home a puppy two days before I arrived. Edinburgh reminded me of the Harry Potter dormitories, and was full of really cool people. Cambridge had a pretty nice hostel with some environmentally friendly something or other initiative thingy thing (I was excited to go back to Germany at that point, so didn’t particularly care).

There was a wide variety of hostel quality though, and I’ve already mentioned the good ones. London found me at the way-top of a triple-bunked bed, and the luggage lockers did not work at all – but the location was great. The Dublin hostel was full of all kinds of people who were there for the party scene – not my favorite kinds of travelers. The oxford hostel was sketchy and with sketchy clientele, and the staff wasn’t that great at pretending to be friendly or helpful or good at speaking English. And none of these places had consistent internet access that they claimed to have.

That’s probably enough. I’ll focus on specific highlights in a subsequent post. Ultimately, I had a sufficiently good time, though I am not eager to repeat this any time in the near future.