amsterdam update part 3
Here is an update on my awesome vacation (seriously, that’s what it feels like)
Oktoberfest! Ten beer hungry students piled into two cars and headed to Munich in Bavaria for Oktoberfest. The drive took ten hours, which is shit, but it could have been worse. Europeans aren’t used to driving long distances because everything is so close, but Kirsten and I were fine. I mean, we all spent 30 hours on a bus to go to Panama City Beach, so we are practically pros! The first night we stayed in a city outside of Munich called Ingolstadt where one of us had a friend. I would just like to restate that germany is kickass. This university couple lived in the hugest most goreous apartment, comparable to almost nothing ive ever seen in Ottawa and only pay 400 euros in rent. Friends, I suggest we move to germany. That night we went for dinner at a Bavarian restaurant that in addition to stairs going down to get into the restaurant had a giant wooden slide. After dinner we headed to an irish pub (that served Canadian whiskey and played barenaked ladies and avril lavigne) and partied all night.
We didn’t get to sleep until 430 am and had to wake up at 630 am (two hours of sleep people, just in case you suck at math) to catch the train to munich. The train was completely packed with germans in dirndls and lederhosen (image search it if you don’t know what they are. Its worth it) all drinking beer and being loud. At 730 am. So we officially cracked open our first Oktoberfest beer at 830 am.
When we arrived at the grounds we discovered that Oktoberfest is essentially a ginormous canadas wonderland with tons and tons of beer. So many rollercoasters and rides and booths selling carnival stuff. There are huge sponsored beer tents that you can go and sit in but they are so popular we were there right at 9 am and still couldn’t get into them . we didn’t mind because the weather was gorgeous so we sat on the benches and drank beer from the one litre mugs for only 8 euros. I love Oktoberfest.
The women serving the beer have to be able to hold 10 onelitre glasses at one time. It is quite a feat. We drank our faces off, walked around to enjoy it all, I ate a pretzel the size of my head (literally) and we all enjoyed german sausage and saukerkraut. It was Italian weekend where everyone comes up from italy and so there were shitloads of annoying ginos left and right. I learned how to say Lowenbrau (pronounced like luvenbroy) so I was pretty proud of that. So the day was spent tanning on a beautiful acropolis that overlooked the park, drinking and enjoying it all. On our way out Kirsten and I got a picture with a german cop, which is always something you want to have in life. We were both so jealous of the dirndls everyone had that we decided to buy our own. The best part is that they were only 79 euros (these traditional Bavarian outfits are usually hundreds of euros so we lucked out). After we were all decked out we went to explore the city of munich which was beautiful.
When we trained back we went for Bavarian dinner again. After drinking out of one litre glasses all day the pints seemed so small at the restaurant. Said restaurant also had a cross on the wall that freaked kirs and I out but no one else seemed to understand. Keep religion out of our eateries, dammit! After dinner we headed to the Oktoberfest in Ingolstadt which was a mini version of the big one. Still tons of rides and beer tents except this time we actually got in! There was lots of German music and drunken people (young and old) dancing everywhere, including the tables. The best part was that the litre beers were 5 50 (insanity!) of good german beer. After a game of drunken bumper cars we headed back to the irish pub for the rest of our night.
We were up at 12 the next day. The couple had made us breakfast, bought us beer on the Friday, and let 10 drunk kids stay with them. They were basically the nicest people ever. So that day we spent exploring the city . Saw an old castle, sat by the Danube river, went to the park, and played in the craziest playground I have ever seen. We were loosing our minds and yet there were three year olds playing on the same stuff as us. After we played on a trampoline by the castle before heading for lunch for more Bavarian food. We were eating as the german womens soccer team won the championship so it was pretty wicked. Afterwards we drove back to the Dam and our Oktoberfest weekend was complete.
So someone apparently committed suicide by jumping off one of the balconies in one of the residence buildings. Perhaps those suicide-proof windows we have at home are a good thing.
Where we live is probably the shittiest real estate because it is right beside the airport. Sometimes there is so much air traffic that it is pointless to have a conversation because you have to stop and wait every few minutes as a plane passes directly overhead.
The north Americans taught the Europeans how to play flip cup. And it was a success. Flip cup is now going to invade the world.
Three Canadians and one American made thanksgiving dinner for 30 europeans! It was so stressful but completely worth it and a great success! After 4.5 hours of grocery shopping where we found out you can only get turkeys at Christmas and pie crusts are impossible to find, we made: 6 mini chickens, squash (that was impossible to find and so expensive when we did find it), homemade cranberry sauce, homemade stuffinf, homemade gravy, the best sweet potato casserole you will ever eat c/o our southern belle from Georgia, laura, mashed potatoes, green beans and tomato salad, broccoli, brussel sprouts, bread, pie, ice cream, and a tub of sangria made from 12 bottles of wine. Best meal ever and everyone was so happy. It was so sad because no one knew what squash was or stuffing. I hate to see people miss out on delicious foods. But now they know and my work here is done.
after our traditional Canadian meal the Swedish girls decided to do the same. They made homemade Swedish meatballs with sauce, salad, potatoes, lingonberry sauce (like the drink from ikea), tons of absolut vodka, Swedish cookies, and chewing tobacco. A classic Swedish night with awesome Swedish music like jose Gonzalez, the knife, ace of base, robyn, roxette, sahara hotnights, the ark, the cardigans, and millencolin to name a few.
Sidenote: we eat massive dinners like this every night. If I don’t start going to the gym soon im actually not going to fit into my clothes.
there was a carnival in town that set up right in front of the queens palace that we decided to go to and my god, this country is ridiculously liberal. One of the rides had naked girls being tortured on it. The other had scantily clad people with tons of piercings and one guy was fingering a girl. A carnival people.. with children.
reason 526 why the school here is stupid. They booked two of my midterms on the same day at the same time (cause it wouldn’t make sense to have them when the class is supposed to be of course). The international office said they couldn’t help me. So I went to one of my profs. Her solution? Write one of them quickly then run to the other one. You are an idiot.
im learning german.
the Netherlands just outlawed mushrooms cause stupid tourists do them with other substances and die. Stupid people. Not in effect for a few months.
I thought I would end this entry buy giving you a rundown of my travel plans, just to make you jealous. Just kidding!
Oct 22-24: Heading to London to see arsenal v. slavia Prague soccer match and of course to visit mr Andrew mowbray and ms Jessica lagrassa as well.
Oct 27: hitchhicking to paris. Enough said.
Nov 8-12: Berlin! Cant get enough of germany.
Nov 17-20: Dublin!
Nov 21-30: BOBBY KIMBERLEY IS COMING TO VISIT!
Dec1-3: jess and Andrew are coming to visit
Dec 7-10: Prague!
thats all for now, kiddies. love and miss you all muchly.
Oktoberfest! Ten beer hungry students piled into two cars and headed to Munich in Bavaria for Oktoberfest. The drive took ten hours, which is shit, but it could have been worse. Europeans aren’t used to driving long distances because everything is so close, but Kirsten and I were fine. I mean, we all spent 30 hours on a bus to go to Panama City Beach, so we are practically pros! The first night we stayed in a city outside of Munich called Ingolstadt where one of us had a friend. I would just like to restate that germany is kickass. This university couple lived in the hugest most goreous apartment, comparable to almost nothing ive ever seen in Ottawa and only pay 400 euros in rent. Friends, I suggest we move to germany. That night we went for dinner at a Bavarian restaurant that in addition to stairs going down to get into the restaurant had a giant wooden slide. After dinner we headed to an irish pub (that served Canadian whiskey and played barenaked ladies and avril lavigne) and partied all night.
We didn’t get to sleep until 430 am and had to wake up at 630 am (two hours of sleep people, just in case you suck at math) to catch the train to munich. The train was completely packed with germans in dirndls and lederhosen (image search it if you don’t know what they are. Its worth it) all drinking beer and being loud. At 730 am. So we officially cracked open our first Oktoberfest beer at 830 am.
When we arrived at the grounds we discovered that Oktoberfest is essentially a ginormous canadas wonderland with tons and tons of beer. So many rollercoasters and rides and booths selling carnival stuff. There are huge sponsored beer tents that you can go and sit in but they are so popular we were there right at 9 am and still couldn’t get into them . we didn’t mind because the weather was gorgeous so we sat on the benches and drank beer from the one litre mugs for only 8 euros. I love Oktoberfest.
The women serving the beer have to be able to hold 10 onelitre glasses at one time. It is quite a feat. We drank our faces off, walked around to enjoy it all, I ate a pretzel the size of my head (literally) and we all enjoyed german sausage and saukerkraut. It was Italian weekend where everyone comes up from italy and so there were shitloads of annoying ginos left and right. I learned how to say Lowenbrau (pronounced like luvenbroy) so I was pretty proud of that. So the day was spent tanning on a beautiful acropolis that overlooked the park, drinking and enjoying it all. On our way out Kirsten and I got a picture with a german cop, which is always something you want to have in life. We were both so jealous of the dirndls everyone had that we decided to buy our own. The best part is that they were only 79 euros (these traditional Bavarian outfits are usually hundreds of euros so we lucked out). After we were all decked out we went to explore the city of munich which was beautiful.
When we trained back we went for Bavarian dinner again. After drinking out of one litre glasses all day the pints seemed so small at the restaurant. Said restaurant also had a cross on the wall that freaked kirs and I out but no one else seemed to understand. Keep religion out of our eateries, dammit! After dinner we headed to the Oktoberfest in Ingolstadt which was a mini version of the big one. Still tons of rides and beer tents except this time we actually got in! There was lots of German music and drunken people (young and old) dancing everywhere, including the tables. The best part was that the litre beers were 5 50 (insanity!) of good german beer. After a game of drunken bumper cars we headed back to the irish pub for the rest of our night.
We were up at 12 the next day. The couple had made us breakfast, bought us beer on the Friday, and let 10 drunk kids stay with them. They were basically the nicest people ever. So that day we spent exploring the city . Saw an old castle, sat by the Danube river, went to the park, and played in the craziest playground I have ever seen. We were loosing our minds and yet there were three year olds playing on the same stuff as us. After we played on a trampoline by the castle before heading for lunch for more Bavarian food. We were eating as the german womens soccer team won the championship so it was pretty wicked. Afterwards we drove back to the Dam and our Oktoberfest weekend was complete.
So someone apparently committed suicide by jumping off one of the balconies in one of the residence buildings. Perhaps those suicide-proof windows we have at home are a good thing.
Where we live is probably the shittiest real estate because it is right beside the airport. Sometimes there is so much air traffic that it is pointless to have a conversation because you have to stop and wait every few minutes as a plane passes directly overhead.
The north Americans taught the Europeans how to play flip cup. And it was a success. Flip cup is now going to invade the world.
Three Canadians and one American made thanksgiving dinner for 30 europeans! It was so stressful but completely worth it and a great success! After 4.5 hours of grocery shopping where we found out you can only get turkeys at Christmas and pie crusts are impossible to find, we made: 6 mini chickens, squash (that was impossible to find and so expensive when we did find it), homemade cranberry sauce, homemade stuffinf, homemade gravy, the best sweet potato casserole you will ever eat c/o our southern belle from Georgia, laura, mashed potatoes, green beans and tomato salad, broccoli, brussel sprouts, bread, pie, ice cream, and a tub of sangria made from 12 bottles of wine. Best meal ever and everyone was so happy. It was so sad because no one knew what squash was or stuffing. I hate to see people miss out on delicious foods. But now they know and my work here is done.
after our traditional Canadian meal the Swedish girls decided to do the same. They made homemade Swedish meatballs with sauce, salad, potatoes, lingonberry sauce (like the drink from ikea), tons of absolut vodka, Swedish cookies, and chewing tobacco. A classic Swedish night with awesome Swedish music like jose Gonzalez, the knife, ace of base, robyn, roxette, sahara hotnights, the ark, the cardigans, and millencolin to name a few.
Sidenote: we eat massive dinners like this every night. If I don’t start going to the gym soon im actually not going to fit into my clothes.
there was a carnival in town that set up right in front of the queens palace that we decided to go to and my god, this country is ridiculously liberal. One of the rides had naked girls being tortured on it. The other had scantily clad people with tons of piercings and one guy was fingering a girl. A carnival people.. with children.
reason 526 why the school here is stupid. They booked two of my midterms on the same day at the same time (cause it wouldn’t make sense to have them when the class is supposed to be of course). The international office said they couldn’t help me. So I went to one of my profs. Her solution? Write one of them quickly then run to the other one. You are an idiot.
im learning german.
the Netherlands just outlawed mushrooms cause stupid tourists do them with other substances and die. Stupid people. Not in effect for a few months.
I thought I would end this entry buy giving you a rundown of my travel plans, just to make you jealous. Just kidding!
Oct 22-24: Heading to London to see arsenal v. slavia Prague soccer match and of course to visit mr Andrew mowbray and ms Jessica lagrassa as well.
Oct 27: hitchhicking to paris. Enough said.
Nov 8-12: Berlin! Cant get enough of germany.
Nov 17-20: Dublin!
Nov 21-30: BOBBY KIMBERLEY IS COMING TO VISIT!
Dec1-3: jess and Andrew are coming to visit
Dec 7-10: Prague!
thats all for now, kiddies. love and miss you all muchly.