My October story wasn't over yet.

So eventually we ended up in Bruges, and met up with three other friends, and I remembered that large groups of people get on my nerves. And that it was fall! It was beautiful mid-October and the sky was big and blue and the land was flat and the houses pointy—and made of brick. I was so glad to be away from all the stucco on these pseudo-old buildings that were rebuilt after the war and say 1325 on them but really are younger than the majority of houses in Grosse Pointe. And the newer houses that, I realized, look like Playmobil houses to me. (What a surprise. Playmobil isn't German or anything, is it?)

When I think back on Bruges, I first remember the waffles and the fries and the pancakes. Waffles with white chocolate gelato, with powdered sugar, with chocolate, with whipped cream. Warm french fries with nothing but salt, that looked too pale to be delicious and yet somehow were the best potatoes I've had in Europe. (Probably.) And french fries with meat sauce stuff on them, yum. Pancakes by the kilo. Oh my god. Pancakes and brown sugar—real brown sugar! I have not had real brown sugar in Germany.

In Bruges, I spent a lot of time walking and not a ton of time sightseeing. While we walked around, the others got into conversations about religion and relationships, while I, distracted, squealed inside every time I saw a particularly nice fall tree. But I got caught up in the serious mood too, and thought about walking beneath fall trees last year. A lot of us were remembering last fall—the people we were with then, and the people who are no longer with us. It had only been a month and a half since we'd arrived in Europe.

Now it's been five months. The semester that hadn't begun then is over in less than two weeks. I couldn't tell you what I was doing this time last year, besides counting down to flying to Munich. And actually, that's what I'm looking forward to right now. Arriving in Munich, exactly a year after I first arrived there—but with no midterms to come back to, no reading assignments hanging over my head. (Did I even read that book about subtitling films? I must have. I don't remember doing so, though.)

Really, though, my point was that Bruges equals waffles and pancakes to me. They were the best part. The other point was that I posted too many pictures.

Happy Trees

It's supposed to snow in Freiburg tomorrow or Friday, I forget which. The month ends tomorrow (tomorrow is Friday in this context...). I feel like Maraia just pointed out to me that we'd been here eight weeks, but the ninth week is already over half done.
Classes are a lot of reading, which is a lot of work. There's also a lot to do, and a lot of traveling across the city. Tonight I decided to be social despite not sleeping enough last night, and then managed to miss the Straßenbahn by like a minute and therefore arrived home much later than I had planned. For some reason, now I'm updating this instead of reading/reviewing vocab/packing—tomorrow, after a four-hour block of class, I'm traveling to Aschaffenburg, where my aunt lives.

For now, I just wanted to reassert my existence and put up a few of my fall-y pictures from my trip from however many weeks ago, to remind the world that it's a little early for snow. Especially since my winter coat is with my aunt and I've been so cold! Life is good, but way too busy right now.

Photos: 1. View out the train over the Rhine in the Rhineland. I love trains.
2. In Köln.
3 & 4. In Bruges/Brugge, Belgium

Heading North

I wanted to write about Heidelberg, where I was last Saturday, but I haven't put the pictures up yet. I wanted to write about the excitement of how many options I have—travel destinations, classes...life. But it's 2 am in Germany and I have to be on a train before 8 am which means I have to be on the S-Bahn at 7:15 am which means I am going to be very, very tired.

Hopefully this all doesn't mean I'm going to get sick during my week of travel. Köln/Cologne for three nights, Aachen for a day, and then Bruges/Brugge (French/Dutch, and really it should be Dutch because it's in Flanders and they don't like French)...for four nights. I am so awake right now. Tomorrow I am going to be so tired. We're taking regional trains to Köln because they're a lot cheaper, but that means lots of connections and a long layover and an eight-hour trip. BUT!—

I'm going to the burial place of Charlemagne and the oldest major city in Germany and hopefully seeing old Roman stuff and then going to Belgium, a country I have never been to before.

The articles on the NYTimes talk about how Bruges stopped being important during the second half of the 15th century, when the river that connected it to the sea silted up. And since then, it has slept...until the first half of the 20th century, when its great potential for tourism was noticed. (But not until very recently for Americans.) One article said that, like Sleeping Beauty, Bruges awoke unchanged. And that what you notice is not exactly the past, but timelessness.

I guess I'm getting taken in by the Travel section trying to be poetic.

Fall and spring are apparenlty the best times to come, when the tourists aren't there. That article was written in 1986 so who knows if that's still true, but I'm hoping. And I want to follow the advice of another article...wake up early and walk the streets at 4 am, when it's totally empty and could just as easily be the 1400s. The article said that you would think Jan van Eyck was about to turn the corner.

The book I've been reading for the past month and a half (Niccoló Rising by Dorothy Dunnett) takes place primarily in Bruges, at the peak of its mercantile power, under the reign of Duke Philip of Burgundy. I'm halfway through the book, and my mom told me she wished I'd read more of it, so I'd have a better understanding of Bruges. Maybe after eight hours of travel I will have.

I'm setting another post to post sometime next week. I haven't decided when. And maybe I'll post from exciting places. At the very least, I'll be checking my email occasionally.

P.S. I just glanced at the Wikipedia link I put in, and saw the summary of this series. And I think I'm going to need more of them, pronto. He goes to Iceland! I wish flights to Iceland weren't so limited. With the super-low Icelandic Króna, now's the cheapest time to go. New Year's Eve?? In Reykjavik??

I am insatiable. Goodnight!