Category Archives: Europe

Berlin, Again

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The last time I came to Berlin was a year and some months before, but it seemed a very distant, vibrant memory. It was for a photojournalism course, and the first time I decided Berlin was my favorite city (mein Lieblingstadt). It was a brief stay and I had no idea what was in store.

This time was different. I knew more German. I had a handle on the public transport. But the people were different. There were more of them, and everyone’s uncle was somebody. A network of people who want to move the world.

As an introduction to the city and it’s history, we went to the Soviet war memorial and military cemetery in Treptower Park. We took a boat tour down the Spree. We had a welcome dinner at the Botanischer Garden with our host families. That was the night I met Megan, the only other redhead in the program, which was apparently enough to confuse us till the very end. I went with her to a doom metal show, Obelyskkh, and met some German friends, with whom I proceeded to travel from bar to bar with until dawn, when I finally caught the S1 back to my host stay in Zehlendorf. A true Berlin experience.  

Nach Wien, und Preserved Luxury

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The train to Vienna was about 7 hours. Kind of a long trip for a weekend break from classes…but one full day and a half is quite enough to eye-binge on the treats and treasures tucked within the museums’ walls.

Art, Blood, Beer & a Field of Roses

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We kicked off the week with a night at the opera, specifically the Nationaltheater Opernhaus in Goetheplatz, Mannheim.

The opera was “Otello.”

It felt good to be in a theatre again, even if we were a bunch of Americans watching a Shakespearean play, converted into an opera, performed in Italian, with German subtitles. Uhh…

It was awesome. The set was perfect, not gaudy, just enough. Foreboding spikes locked together the wall that characters would throw themselves against in hurls of despair. They glinted as Desdemona’s costumes grew darker.

Though we were still fresh in our stay in Germany, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what was going on, the acting revealed what the subtitles didn’t. It was also neat to see an actor in blackface, I’d learned of it in theatre courses before, but had never seen it on stage. Otello’s face was painted black, darker than any skin-tone I’ve ever seen. As I have no other experience to compare it to, I’m not sure if historically that’s how it’s been done, or if that was the director’s choice to emphasize the contrasts in the black/white, light/dark, good/evil themes. In the first act, Desdemona wore all white.

Am Mittwoch (on Wednesday), Mone, Sabrina, Jason and I went to see “The Place Beyond the Pines” auf Deutsch (in German) at the movie theatre the next day. It was a pretty good flick. The movie theatre was also really nice, much more thought went into the design of this Cineplex than any AMC or Regal I’ve been to in the U.S. Also, they sell beer! What a great idea! They’ve got the usual popcorn, nachos and soda, too, but beer! Not sure on the price or quality, as I had water, but still, come on America.

We bought Eurorail tickets (which are SO much cheaper to order in the U.S. than to purchase here, trust me, I’ve done both) and after class on Friday, eight of us caught a train to Bruges, Belgium.

We hadn’t purchased reservations for seats, however, which meant that we spent a fair portion of the trip hanging out by the WCs (toilets) or sitting on the floor at the fronts/backs of cars.

In the next to last stretch, I did get a seat, though. And who did I end up sitting across from? The travel editor for de Volkskrant, a national Dutch newspaper. He told me of reporting from Afghanistan for six years, and how he helped start a journalism school there. We talked of cameras, the Himalayas, white-water canoeing…it was an interesting conversation, to say the least, one of the best parts of the trip.

I would have liked to learn more about that school, but I had to catch the next train, and didn’t catch his name (so if anyone reading this knows…shoot me an email! sojournjones@gmail.com)

We switched trains again, and made it to Bruges. We found the Europa hostel, dropped our things off and headed into town for food and beer. We discovered mayonnaise is the appropriate topping to french fries here, not ketchup. (Delicious.)

We stepped in a few beautiful cathedrals, including Our Lady’s Church, where we saw the “Madonna and Child” by Michelangelo Buonarotti and carved of Carrara marble. We ate chocolate and toured de Halve Maan Brewery on Saturday, which came with a light beer. But they also brewed doubles, triples and quadruples. So, natürlich, I also tried the quadruple. It was beautiful.

We closed out the day with more beer. It was Belgium, after all, the beer is superb there.

Sunday, we did a great number of things. First, we climbed 366 stairs to the top of the Belfry, which was especially wonderful for me because I recently finished David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, and one of the characters in the book climbs to the top of that same belfry!

We wandered a bit, chilled in a beautiful park, and went on a search for the best beer in the world: Westvleteren. I went solo to the “Basilique du St. Sang,” “H. Bloedbasiliak,” the Basilica of the Precious Blood. Turns out, blood doesn’t look too pretty after 2000 years. It was a beautiful basilica, though.

I bought two books, a euro a piece in the square, and closed out my time in Bruges at Musea Brugge, an incredible art museum. I found the works by artists Jheronimus Bosch and Marcel Broodthaers particularly awesome.

And just when we thought the adventure was over, we came upon a field of roses.

These lands are magical.








For more adventures of UF students studying abroad, please check out the UFIC Blog from Abroad!

„Frühstück,“ for ‘breakfast’

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Sabrina, Jason and I began our Sunday morning with a delicious breakfast Mone prepared for us. Unlike in the U.S., the grocery stores here are all closed on Sundays, so preparation is necessary.
After Frühstück (oder, ‘breakfast’), we took a tram to the Schloss to meet up with other classmates and see the museum, it was closing for the remainder of our time in Mannheim. The museum was pretty much just a sectioned off portion of the palace in which they kept the remaining ornate furniture, rather than desks and chalkboards (yes, our instructors write on actual chalkboards!)



After the ooo’s and the ahh’s at the fanciness dripping from the history of our present University, Ryan, Bryan, Kenny and I caught yet another train to Heidelberg. We were determined to hike to the top of Philosopher’s Walk this time.

“Ein kugel, ein Euro.”
One scoop, one Euro. This familiar phrase sent butterflies of warmth to my ears. I understood without doubt what these four words meant, thanks to my stay last summer in Berlin, when eating ice-cream was at least a once-daily routine.  The delectable Hazelnut and Pistachio flavors are just not as prolific back home. We all got ice cream. Natürlich.

We arrived at the train station and crossed the river to the base of the Philosopher’s Walk. The hike started steep, but we mustered through it at a fair pace, climbing higher and higher over Heidelberg.

And then we saw it.

The most epic spinning playground toy ever.

It plays the up-down weight game like a seesaw, but it also spins 360 degrees around.


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No AC in Fairytales.

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We felt the heat with the start of classes Monday morning. Air conditioning just isn’t a thing here, not even in a palace-turned-university. Here we were, thinking we’d be escaping the scorching Florida Sun for the summer…we were wrong.

We opened the windows, and with a breeze it’s bearable. I now truly understand firsthand why UF’s AC is always blasting…you’re more likely to stay awake shivering than sweating.

But I mean — I go to school in a palace, I can’t complain. It’s just a significant difference between our daily lives and the daily lives of people who aren’t used to being any temperature they desire at any point in the day.

We each have two German classes a day, and were assigned interaction leaders to hang out around Mannheim and speak German with. Sabrina, Jason and I went to the Neckar Strand on Monday to meet our interaction leader, Mone.

We had refreshments with our toes in the sand and watched the sunset right over the Neckar, the northern of the two rivers that pass through Mannheim.

Jason and I got döner from a little place in the Turkish district on the way back to our dorms. It was a tad spicy compared to what I’m used to, but so good. I don’t know how to describe döner if you haven’t tried it. It’s sort of like a gyro, I suppose, but different, delicious and cheap.

Its easy while abroad to want to just eat all your meals out, to taste and experience what this new place has to offer in food — but that is a trap. I learned last year, and though the rationalizations come in full swing again, spending money on train tickets is worth more than good food and beer all the time, even if it is Deutschland.

Marisol, Ryan and I took the number 4 train and found the rock gym! It’s north of the Neckar, not a far trek at all, and totally awesome. I’ll admit, I sort of miss the convenience of the rock gym in Gainesville, though that might just be missing having a bike. When we’re not on trains we’re on foot, and that’s neat, too.

Friday night, the ladies in the program dressed up and wandered to Filmriss, a trying-to-be-indie sort of bar. A few of us made some friends and went to the S.U.I.T.E., a club with two rooms on each side that played different music, so chances are there was at least something alright on at any point in the night. It played all sorts though, within the past 20-30 years. The vibe was cool, and we stayed late.

Days are long here. The sun is up around 4:oo and doesn’t set until nearly 22:oo. Military time isn’t new to me, so I don’t mind the 24-hour clock…except for the next morning, when all clocks tick’d me off a teensy bit…we had to wake up a short time later for a bus-ride to Baden Baden, but we slept on the bus and lack of sleep certainly didn’t get me down.

We went to Casino Baden Baden and if I could only use the word luxurious once, this would be that time.

The place was so decked with a wealth of history and splendor, it made me seriously consider selling my soul to attain such riches for a playroom of wonder like this.


We wandered to see the Roman baths, right down the way from the real baths that people who come to vacation in this town spend on. Baden Baden is a spa town. It is beautiful and clean and full. One day, I would like to return.

We split for lunch, and I saw a crisp orange drink on a blue-checkered table and just had to have it. I ordered the Käse Spätzel as well, and it was mouth-meltingly good.


On the bus again, we turned and twisted along the Schwarzwaldhochstraße, a road that reminded me vividly of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, which I wound around in my Jeep earlier this summer. We could see the blues of the mountain ridges as we rode high above them. The evergreens grew higher than any tree I’d seen before, completely dwarfing the Christmas trees I’d picked from the snow-covered forest that grew from my great grandmother’s land as a child.

We had entered der Schwarzwald — the Black Forest.

We came to a glassy lake called Mummelsee. We were warned to resist the temptation to break its surface so as not to anger Neptune, the water nymph who lives in its depths. I’m not certain of the extent of her fury, as curious as I might have been, but legend has it she’d create a great storm.

Emma and I took off our shoes and let our bare feet feel the rich earth by the water. Mannheim is mostly gray and tree-less, so this was a much-needed natural refreshment.

We continued on to the Triberg waterfalls. It felt so good to be near waterfalls again, having just come from working as a white-water raft guide in the mountains of North Carolina. Since I couldn’t go down them (as I left my canoe thousands of miles west of here…) I climbed up.

For more adventures of UF students studying abroad, please check out the UFIC Blog from Abroad!

Guten Morgen, Mannheim!

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We arrived jet-lagged and exhausted Friday morning. Some of us caught the Fourth of July fireworks from the window seat during our evening flight out of America. I nibbled on airplane “food” and watched movies in German in an attempt to prepare for the next six weeks.

I flew out of Jacksonville, touching down in Newark, Boston, and Frankfurt before finally catching the train to my destination. Mid-afternoon, just about 24 hours after leaving, I walked along the streets of Mannheim, regretting the amount of luggage I brought from Florida. Luckily, the walk to the University of Mannheim wasn’t too far from from the Hauptbahnhoff (“train station” auf Deutsch).
I hadn’t realized I’d be attending classes in a palace(!!!)…As soon as I saw it I was reminded of Versailles in France, and our tour guide on Saturday said that’s exactly what it was based off of.

There’s 18 of us, split into two dorms in the center of the city and two German languages classes in the Schloss (“palace”). We received regional transportation tickets for the trains and buses, and a few of us decided to go on a little adventure our first Saturday here.

The next train out of the Mannheim Hauptbahnhoff was headed for Lampertheim. We hopped on. None of us knew anything about Lampertheim, but it sounded swell.

We got off the train and started walking.The streets were empty, bare of people and litter. It looked spacious even with the (huge) houses along the sides. Perhaps it was the width of the road itself, or just the cleanliness, but something about walking through the streets of this town was so surreal.

Lampertheim is a little town just north of Mannheim. It was a Saturday evening and nearly everything was closed, the only hoppin’ place was the ice cream cafe. We said nichts to that, we might as well continue on to Heidelberg, as there’s a bit more going on there…

Heidelberg ist sehr schön (is very pretty). A beautiful river runs along it with the town on one side and mountains on the other, the trees seem greener there somehow. Mannheim has a much more urban-vibe and much more grey than green.

 

 

For dinner, I ordered: “Ein paar Bratwurst mit sauerkraut, tagessuppe und kartoffelpuree” (a pair of Bratwursts, sauerkraut, soup, and mashed potatoes) — so good. German food is delicious.

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We got the train back to Mannheim, as we’d be returning for a tour of Heidelberg the next morning, anyway.

A few of us went out to check out the scene that night. Not too far from our Studentenwohnheim (student dormitory) we walked right into one of the coolest bar/pubs I’ve been in, called the Blau. They played old school Sixties music (the Yardbirds, Rolling Stones, etc.). I’d known the Beatles had played one of their earlier shows in Frankfurt (and gotten kicked out because George was too young to be allowed in the bar…), so of course Germany can rock’n’roll, but it was really neat to see that young people in this culture can still dig and dance to an era of great tunes like I can.

For more adventures of UF students studying abroad, please check out the UFIC Blog from Abroad!