Hallo Leute,
Before I get to the Ireland information, I have a confession to make. I am an addict.
I am addicted to buying animal print and animal patterned leggings. Seriously. I need to be stopped. I now have two pairs of the same cat leggings in different colors, a pair with elephants all over them and a silky leopard print pair(those aren't really the correct size, hoping I can exchange them...) UPDATE: exchanged them... they are apparently supposed to be high-waisted... totally weird.
Out of control.
Back to the regular scheduled programming:
Ireland:
I left for Dublin on Thursday morning, hooray for a short work week! The morning was less than pleasant, Nina and I had a little German Wine Wednesday, so I was up pretty late packing after that!
I took a few trains to get to the Flughafen(Airport) and then breezed through security and wandered around the duty-free shops. I got my fill of the tester products and left before buying all the things. I got a breakfast pretzel and was juggling my water bottle, phone and pretzel when they all started to fall... the pretzel was obviously the most important so I reached to save that first. Priorities. (my cat-like reflexes kicked in and I saved everything, no worries)
The flight attendant on the plane to Dublin had the BIGGEST sock bun I have ever seen(foreshadowing), so I couldn't stop staring at her head. Arrived at the Dublin airport and it was glorious. They had FREE WIFI. Being internet-less makes me soooo obsessed with wifi. I love it. wifi + adorable Irish accents all around me = glory. The bus I took to get to the city center also had free wifi. I love you Dublin.
Checked in to the hostel and all of the reception people knew who I was because of my billion emails I had sent them changing our reservation. It is hard booking for a group! Dropped my bags off in the luggage room and went to abra-kebab-ra for some food. Went back there 2.5 hours later when everyone else arrived.
I watched a movie in the basement and then once Amy, Ben, Aaron and Danny got to the hostel we wandered around Dublin a bit and then came back to wait for Sophie(she was delayed)
We went to look at the Tall Ships Thursday night. They were... tall. We got some donuts and street food and then headed to the pub for some live music and Guinness/ciders.
Friday morning we went to the Guinness Storehouse, it was very similar to the Bourbon Trail. We learned how to pour our own Perfect Pint and then had some Guinness/veggie soup and delicious bread before heading back for a nap/ Sophie and Aaron went and looked at a church. After the nap we went and met at Penney's to look for more Tiger suits. They have changed the design and now the suits have a tiger head on top and a tail... the stomach area has a white circle thing happening though, so I think mine from last year is still better. I bought a new party purse and an excellent sock bun donut, I can't really figure out the best way to use it though, my hair keeps falling out... Friday night we went to a different pub and listened to the live music and the bartender was weird, Sophie and I stayed later than everyone else, because we didn't have to catch flights in the morning.
Saturday we wandered around Dublin and looked at stuff and did some shopping, H&M was closing soon though, so we weren't allowed to try anything on in the fitting rooms... that combined with the UK sizing on the tags made purchasing the correct size difficult... had to make some returns/exchanges... Hamburg H&M was not pleased with me. Went to the Temple Bar bar Saturday night for a little more live music and then headed back to the hostel early to prepare for our flights.
Sunday morning we headed to the airport at 4am... my flight was delayed 2 hours though because one of the flight attendants didn't show up. Lots of time spent in the duty free shops and sleeping on whatever semi-comfortable chairs I could find in the airport...
Finally got home and slept all day.
Last week...
Sneak peek Monday: Expendables 2. It was pretty funny... allllll of the action stars were in it so that was crazy to see them all interact and make fun of each other/themselves.
Tuesday: German class, that was HARD. I had missed Thursday's class to go to Dublin and I was soooooo far behind on Tuesday. By the end of the class I had sort of caught up, and everyone else was just as confused as I was, so that was nice.
Wednesday: Nina and I wandered around and did some shopping/ate delicious Vietnamese food.
Thursday:
work: prepared some things for the work party Friday night. We made bunting banners for our Intern Dolce Vita party, and that was a mistake, we made more for this work party...
German class, realized that everyone else has paid for 2 months, and I have only paid for 1... I guess they were all issued reminder payment slips, and I never got one... strange. I should probably ask about that tomorrow night, but maybe I will just wait until next week, skip month 2 and pay for month 3. Free German.
Friday: Work party celebrating 15 years of Landor Hamburg. The interesting thing there was that all of the past employees were invited... even if they were fired. During the day a few of us were in charge of blowing up(with helium, not our lungs) a billion balloons. We had a boy with 2500 balloons, but I think there was only enough helium to inflate 1000 of them. One burst on my arm and now there is a small scar. Balloon danger.
Saturday: I spent most of the day sleeping and then went to the store, bought some candy and milk and came home to do 5 hours of laundry while watching Sex and the City.
Sunday: went in to work at 11 to work on an After Effects animation project. Stayed until midnight.
I'm hoping I get really good at it and maybe can use After Effects to make something for my Capstone project... blegh, Capstone. I have no ideas for that. If anyone has any ideas for a project that I won't get tired of after 4 months, let me know. I need to brand it or something... and solve a problem... or something... maybe I should look that up.
Sneak Peek tonight! Here's hoping I don't fall asleep. Some people online think it will be the Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter movie. That could be okay.
Future things:
Parents are coming to Europe soon!!
hoping to get internet at home some time soon.
also need to be better at cleaning. Sorry roomies, I know I suck! I think this might be the week... Tomorrow night after German class = cleaning time.
-Michelle
Sorry this post kinda sucked and was disorganized and boring... I'm tired.
Showing posts with label dublin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dublin. Show all posts
Monday, September 3, 2012
Monday, August 27, 2012
Sehr Lecker
Hello,
I am safe in Hamburg after a glorious long weekend in Dublin.
I don't have time to write a long post about my trip right now, but here is a picture of the delicious dinner Vany and I cooked last night.
Full of vegetables.
So healthy!
-Michelle
I am safe in Hamburg after a glorious long weekend in Dublin.
I don't have time to write a long post about my trip right now, but here is a picture of the delicious dinner Vany and I cooked last night.
Full of vegetables.
So healthy!
-Michelle
Monday, August 20, 2012
Berlin
This weekend I went to Berlin using a Mitfahrgelegenheit(carpool/ride-share) and CouchSurfed while I was there and I didn't get kidnapped! glory.
Friday I left work around 5:15 and walked over to the Hauptbahnhof(Central Station) to meet up with my Mitfahr person. We were supposed to meet in front of a little coffee place with a giant advertising pillar out front. I was lingering around in front of that pillar looking like a freak for a little while, but we found each other and everyone was super nice and not creepy so I didn't have to run away. I rode with 3 other girls and the ride took about 2.5/3 hours. Two of the girls were staying in the same area of Berlin as I was, so I got dropped off closer than I thought! I walked to the CouchSurfing apartment, relying heavily on my iPhone. I am so glad I brought a smartphone with me. I use the maps app and google translate app multiple times each day. I also Shazam a lot of the hilarious German songs on the radio.
Back to Berlin,
I found the apartment and my host was super nice! I had my own room, with a larger bed than in Hamburg! The apartment is actually her parent's vacation flat in Berlin, they are from Norway, so it is pretty large and nice! We went out and grabbed a few beers and then made stuffed peppers with her Hungarian boyfriend. So multi-cultural. We went to a few bars in the area that night, one of them looked sooooo much like a 70s lounge, plus there was a girl with the most amazing afro sitting next to us, so that helped with the vibe. Then we got some cheap late night pizza and headed back to her place.
Saturday I went on a free walking tour and saw a lot of the important Berlin things. The first half of the tour was full of memorials and Nazi buildings and the wall, the second half had some more modern things and a few places that weren't as sad. The tour guide reminded us that Berlin has been called 'Poor, but sexy' and that although a lot of terrible things have happened there, they are always changing and growing and remembering their history. The memorials were really impressive. They have a separate memorial for each group of people who were targeted in the Holocaust. The first one we saw was the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.' There were multiple rounds of design competitions for the memorial and this version was the winner of the third competition. It was basically a huge number of cement blocks of varying heights covering a city block. The ground was hilly and the middle part of the memorial seemed to just start sinking into the ground. There was some debate in the government about the best way to spend the money allotted for the memorial and ultimately they chose a giant memorial in the middle of the city so that no one could ever forget what happened. The memorial is in the middle of everything, near the trains, political buildings, tourist sites, shopping, hotels, parks, everything... you literally cannot miss the memorial. Job well done. It was also nice to hear about the Architect's perspective on the memorial:
I think the memorial accomplished his goal of being unsettling, you really start to feel lost and small in the middle. Of course there were some tourists running around and smiling and posing inside, which really did not seem appropriate, and others standing on top of the pillars which also seemed wrong. Over all a very good memorial. Here is a photo from online, still waiting for internet so I can upload my own.
After that we walked to the site of Hitler's bunker. Now it is just a parking lot. There is small sign in the corner, but other than that no real markers to tell you where you are standing. It is just used as a parking lot/place for the nearby residents to take their dogs out to do their business. Berlin does a good job with memorials. The last place Hitler was alive is getting crapped on every day.
We then visited the Berlin wall, which didn't look that tall or imposing, but it had a circular tube running across the top which apparently is designed to be just wide enough that you can't get your arms over it to climb to the other side. Also the other side used to be full of booby traps and danger and was called the Death Strip, so I guess the wall didn't have to be that tall. We also saw a memorial at the site where roughly 20,000 books were burned. I couldn't get a good look at it because of the sunlight and the crowds, but I found a picture online. It is basically a little room under ground with empty bookshelves with enough space to hold the number of books burned. Apparently it is really great at night and lights up. There was a plaque on the ground with a quote from Heinrich Heine that translates to English as "Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people." The quote was from his 1821 play. It was a really eerie statement because his prediction was so true. Like I said, Berlin really does great memorials. Photo from online:
After the tour I wandered around for a little bit and ran into a Vegetarian/Vegan Summer Festival. Crunchiest place ever. There were some cool booths with people making spray paint art featuring images of children and animals being friends, and then some booths with intense books about Feminism and Vegan lifestyles and other things about the man bringin' us down. Cool to see, but I think I am a more casual vegetarian, maybe I should buy a t-shirt or something...
I headed back to my bed and took a little nap before having homemade sushi with my host, her bf and her friend. Started to get in to some philosophical conversations, and BF and I realized we were not smart enough for that, so we looked a pictures of elaborate cakes online. Perfekt.
We were heading out to grab a few drinks and got down to the front door of the building when we opened it and discovered that one of her crazy neighbors was passed out against the door. Apparently she has done this before and can get fairly physically aggressive, so host wanted to file a police report to help find a way to get the crazy lady kicked out of the building. After that unexpected drama, we made it to the bar. Host and BF were tired so they headed home and I went out with their friend Laura. We went to a bar/club and I realized that I am definitely NOT cool enough for Berlin. I need to get a super edgy haircut. These people were a few steps past half-hair, this was shave off random sections of hair, braid a few other sections, dread some sections, dye a few pieces pink, and color a few spots of scalp blue. Plus multiple face piercings. I have never felt so bland in my whole life. At least I was wearing a black shirt, and my Converse were appropriate footwear. We left that club and were preparing to go home when we ran into Benny on the street! It was truly magical. We had been trying to meet up since I arrived in Berlin and just couldn't seem to make it happen. Since Berlin had brought us back together Laura and I went with Benny and his friends to some dark weird bar on the corner. Really interesting atmosphere in there haha. Made plans to go visit Benny in his hometown in Germany, which is... somewhere... I'll find out. Laura and I left and went and looked at the River/Spree thing and then went home around 6.
Sunday I woke up around 12 and lounged around for a little bit before going to the Mauerpark Market. It was massive and full of antiques, clothes, junk, jewelry, junk and sweaty people. I lasted about a half hour before I thought I was going to melt into a puddle.
I headed back to the apartment to pack up and leave. Got to the train station about a half hour later, Berlin is huge. I bought my ticket from a machine, the ticket was €30(is that supposed to be written 30€ ?) I put in a 50 and it spit back out all coins as my change. I looked like such a dumbass. The train I was supposed to take back to Hamburg couldn't handle the heat wave and stopped working in Berlin so we all had to cram into the next train going to Hamburg. Two trains full of people on one train. In a heat wave. MELTING. I pushed past all the people and threw myself into a seat. Couldn't stand for the 2 hour ride back to Hamburg. I made it home and all was well.
Tonight I am going to another Sneak Preview movie showing. I have seen Brave and Hope Springs so far. Wonder what tonight's movie will be.
Thursday morning I am heading off to Dublin for the weekend! So excited to meet up with my friends, speak fast English(essentially a whole different language than the English I have been speaking here), drink some Guinness and sing some pub songs. THRILLED.
Have a good week everyone!
Liebe Grüße,
Michelle
Friday I left work around 5:15 and walked over to the Hauptbahnhof(Central Station) to meet up with my Mitfahr person. We were supposed to meet in front of a little coffee place with a giant advertising pillar out front. I was lingering around in front of that pillar looking like a freak for a little while, but we found each other and everyone was super nice and not creepy so I didn't have to run away. I rode with 3 other girls and the ride took about 2.5/3 hours. Two of the girls were staying in the same area of Berlin as I was, so I got dropped off closer than I thought! I walked to the CouchSurfing apartment, relying heavily on my iPhone. I am so glad I brought a smartphone with me. I use the maps app and google translate app multiple times each day. I also Shazam a lot of the hilarious German songs on the radio.
Back to Berlin,
I found the apartment and my host was super nice! I had my own room, with a larger bed than in Hamburg! The apartment is actually her parent's vacation flat in Berlin, they are from Norway, so it is pretty large and nice! We went out and grabbed a few beers and then made stuffed peppers with her Hungarian boyfriend. So multi-cultural. We went to a few bars in the area that night, one of them looked sooooo much like a 70s lounge, plus there was a girl with the most amazing afro sitting next to us, so that helped with the vibe. Then we got some cheap late night pizza and headed back to her place.
Saturday I went on a free walking tour and saw a lot of the important Berlin things. The first half of the tour was full of memorials and Nazi buildings and the wall, the second half had some more modern things and a few places that weren't as sad. The tour guide reminded us that Berlin has been called 'Poor, but sexy' and that although a lot of terrible things have happened there, they are always changing and growing and remembering their history. The memorials were really impressive. They have a separate memorial for each group of people who were targeted in the Holocaust. The first one we saw was the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.' There were multiple rounds of design competitions for the memorial and this version was the winner of the third competition. It was basically a huge number of cement blocks of varying heights covering a city block. The ground was hilly and the middle part of the memorial seemed to just start sinking into the ground. There was some debate in the government about the best way to spend the money allotted for the memorial and ultimately they chose a giant memorial in the middle of the city so that no one could ever forget what happened. The memorial is in the middle of everything, near the trains, political buildings, tourist sites, shopping, hotels, parks, everything... you literally cannot miss the memorial. Job well done. It was also nice to hear about the Architect's perspective on the memorial:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people say it looks like a cemetery.
Eisenman: I can't think about it. If one person says it looks like a graveyard and the next says it looks like a ruined city and then someone says it looks like it is from Mars -- everybody needs to make it look like something they know. There was an aerial shot in the paper on Saturday -- a beautiful photo. I have never seen a graveyard that looks like that. And when you walk in, it certainly doesn't feel like one. But if people see it like that, you can't stop them. It's fine.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a feeling or an emotion that you wanted to generate in the people who visit the monument?
Eisenman: I said all along that I wanted people to have a feeling of being in the present and an experience that they had never had before. And one that was different and slightly unsettling. The world is too full of information and here is a place without information. That is what I wanted.
more here.I think the memorial accomplished his goal of being unsettling, you really start to feel lost and small in the middle. Of course there were some tourists running around and smiling and posing inside, which really did not seem appropriate, and others standing on top of the pillars which also seemed wrong. Over all a very good memorial. Here is a photo from online, still waiting for internet so I can upload my own.
After that we walked to the site of Hitler's bunker. Now it is just a parking lot. There is small sign in the corner, but other than that no real markers to tell you where you are standing. It is just used as a parking lot/place for the nearby residents to take their dogs out to do their business. Berlin does a good job with memorials. The last place Hitler was alive is getting crapped on every day.
We then visited the Berlin wall, which didn't look that tall or imposing, but it had a circular tube running across the top which apparently is designed to be just wide enough that you can't get your arms over it to climb to the other side. Also the other side used to be full of booby traps and danger and was called the Death Strip, so I guess the wall didn't have to be that tall. We also saw a memorial at the site where roughly 20,000 books were burned. I couldn't get a good look at it because of the sunlight and the crowds, but I found a picture online. It is basically a little room under ground with empty bookshelves with enough space to hold the number of books burned. Apparently it is really great at night and lights up. There was a plaque on the ground with a quote from Heinrich Heine that translates to English as "Where they burn books, they ultimately burn people." The quote was from his 1821 play. It was a really eerie statement because his prediction was so true. Like I said, Berlin really does great memorials. Photo from online:
After the tour I wandered around for a little bit and ran into a Vegetarian/Vegan Summer Festival. Crunchiest place ever. There were some cool booths with people making spray paint art featuring images of children and animals being friends, and then some booths with intense books about Feminism and Vegan lifestyles and other things about the man bringin' us down. Cool to see, but I think I am a more casual vegetarian, maybe I should buy a t-shirt or something...
I headed back to my bed and took a little nap before having homemade sushi with my host, her bf and her friend. Started to get in to some philosophical conversations, and BF and I realized we were not smart enough for that, so we looked a pictures of elaborate cakes online. Perfekt.
We were heading out to grab a few drinks and got down to the front door of the building when we opened it and discovered that one of her crazy neighbors was passed out against the door. Apparently she has done this before and can get fairly physically aggressive, so host wanted to file a police report to help find a way to get the crazy lady kicked out of the building. After that unexpected drama, we made it to the bar. Host and BF were tired so they headed home and I went out with their friend Laura. We went to a bar/club and I realized that I am definitely NOT cool enough for Berlin. I need to get a super edgy haircut. These people were a few steps past half-hair, this was shave off random sections of hair, braid a few other sections, dread some sections, dye a few pieces pink, and color a few spots of scalp blue. Plus multiple face piercings. I have never felt so bland in my whole life. At least I was wearing a black shirt, and my Converse were appropriate footwear. We left that club and were preparing to go home when we ran into Benny on the street! It was truly magical. We had been trying to meet up since I arrived in Berlin and just couldn't seem to make it happen. Since Berlin had brought us back together Laura and I went with Benny and his friends to some dark weird bar on the corner. Really interesting atmosphere in there haha. Made plans to go visit Benny in his hometown in Germany, which is... somewhere... I'll find out. Laura and I left and went and looked at the River/Spree thing and then went home around 6.
Sunday I woke up around 12 and lounged around for a little bit before going to the Mauerpark Market. It was massive and full of antiques, clothes, junk, jewelry, junk and sweaty people. I lasted about a half hour before I thought I was going to melt into a puddle.
I headed back to the apartment to pack up and leave. Got to the train station about a half hour later, Berlin is huge. I bought my ticket from a machine, the ticket was €30(is that supposed to be written 30€ ?) I put in a 50 and it spit back out all coins as my change. I looked like such a dumbass. The train I was supposed to take back to Hamburg couldn't handle the heat wave and stopped working in Berlin so we all had to cram into the next train going to Hamburg. Two trains full of people on one train. In a heat wave. MELTING. I pushed past all the people and threw myself into a seat. Couldn't stand for the 2 hour ride back to Hamburg. I made it home and all was well.
Tonight I am going to another Sneak Preview movie showing. I have seen Brave and Hope Springs so far. Wonder what tonight's movie will be.
Thursday morning I am heading off to Dublin for the weekend! So excited to meet up with my friends, speak fast English(essentially a whole different language than the English I have been speaking here), drink some Guinness and sing some pub songs. THRILLED.
Have a good week everyone!
Liebe Grüße,
Michelle
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