I May Never Get to Belgium

And certainly never with a carshare program. I thought it was a great idea. But after two failed attempts in one week, the second far worse than the first, I am accepting that the Universe does not want me to go to Belgium, so I will stay here.

What happened:

First the ride was three hours late meeting us at this little podunk train station on the opposite side of Munich from where I'm living. I met up with another mitfahrer (rider) early in the wait and we both called several times before finally getting a response that our driver was having car troubles (he said a flat tire), but we ended up having a very enjoyable drink talking about Albania and Portland during our wait.

Then the driver showed up in this Toyota mini bus which he couldn't turn off because it might not start again (refer to the previous claim that the car troubles were to do with a flat tire). Three hours late we were willing to take the ride in front of us. But after picking up a fourth rider from her house (hello, why did I wait for three hours in a distant suburb if you could have picked me up from my house?!) the driver was clearly exhausted, downing three red bulls in the first hour.

Then the car decided, it didn't want to go to Belgium. Nope it wanted to stop working entirely at 3 am on the Autobahn, in a construction zone in the hills, 13 km away from the nearest city.

We waited two hours for a tow which should have taken us to Frankfurt. But... the driver didn't have any insurance so they couldn't tow us to that particular metropolis.

I've forgotten to mention that this uninsured, exhausted, dangerous driver also continuously lied to us. Not just about the flat tire (a.k.a. motor problems!) but also about distance, who he was talking to on the phone, the route we were taking (I think there are probably still two people waiting to be picked up in Stuttgart, who he told to wait and then decided not to pick up and not to tell them at 1 am).

Maybe worst of all is that this was just a job for him, not a friendly "hey, I'm driving to Belgium why don't you come with me?" but a guy who bought a dying car 10 days previously and was using it to caravan people for a 300% mark up on the gas.

From Karlsruhe, where we eventually landed at about 6:30 this morning, I took a train home. I was done. The Universe doesn't want me to go to Belgium, and it must have a reason. I do wish I could see Bruges though.

Side Trips

Okay, I've purchased my tickets, my contracts are being sent on Monday, and my top grad school application is complete! Which means of course that it's time to ignore my school commitments and write a blog post about potential side trips for my stay in Germany.

I've been working out the calculations and there are two factors really determining how much travel I'll get to do while I'm working: the time I get off (2 days/month worked) and funds (roughly $4,117 is going towards England/Ireland travel after I'm done working which leaves only $2,133 for spending money during the first 12 months). And at this point I've lost most of you because I actually have a budget that's got a running calculation of budgeted funds, funds spent, budget remaining and I've also graphed it. Have I mentioned that my dad is a math teacher? It's my hope that I can manage at least 10 side trips for the 12 months I'll be working. 10 awesome weekend side trips that if I coordinate it with my host family will be 2-5 days long.

At this point let me say that I am a crazy control freak who is hyper-organized and planful. If I hadn't been doing research off and on for the last few months I'd be going insane right now. Luckily for my side of the internet I did do my research. I poured over train tables and flight schedules, read and watched more Rick Steve's than I care to admit, went through photo albums to see what I've already done and just don't vividly remember, and every time I've found an interesting picture of a place on tumblr I've added it to a google map. I warned you, I'm a crazy control freak. From all of this information I think I've successfully narrowed down the potential trips to the list below. They come in no particular order, for the most part. And I'd really like your feedback. Whether you know me personally and have a vested interest, or you just really loved one of the cities I mention, please let me know in the comments. You can also check out the google map to see what things specifically I'm planning on seeing in each city and leave a comment if there are great things that I'm missing out on!

• Barcelona, Spain--I'd really like to go to Barcelona during one of the big festivals, but other than that it is my replacement for going to Rome (though I suppose I may go to Rome again). Priorities: (street) art, cathedrals, alcohol... maybe not in that order.
• Brugge, Belgium--My dad went to Brugge without me on my last trip to Europe and it was all he could talk about once we got back. Keep in mind that we went to Paris on this trip, and when we got home he was still saying how sad he was that I hadn't seen all the awesome things in Brugge! I'm not sure what that list entails yet, but I know it comes strongly recommended from the Vatti.
• Stockholm, Sweden--the thing I'm most excited about in Stockholm is the library. And while it's a pretty amazing looking library I'm guessing that this is a 4 day trip with a day for travel each way. It's also an early trip, maybe in August or October because it's just too cold for a Pacific Northwester to handle in the dead of winter.
• Budapest, Hungary--I've never been able to get to Eastern Europe, so cities Buda and Pest here I come (more than a little blindly). I'm hoping that I can contract one of my new friends from Germany into traveling to this one with me as the language barrier, cultural cuisine and my dietary restrictions conflict, a lot.
• Dubrovnik, Croatia--I have friends in Germany who vacation here often and their photos are always amazing! It's right on the coast, easy to get to and a low-stress vacation. I'm hoping I can tag along some time, cutting down on my expenses and getting to see a whole new, gorgeous country that not a lot of Americans get the chance to see. I estimate it to be a 3 day trip.
• Balchik, Bulgaria--I honestly don't remember what's up in Bulgaria, but it's another country and two more stamps in that passport (which brings up the issue: what happens if I fill up my passport before it's time to come back to the states?).
• Kleven' Lake, Ukraine--Looking at pictures this is one of the best nature preserves to visit in the world. I think I actually chose this location based on a Nova show where they were saying that this is the place that is amazing because no one goes there. But it's amazing so you should go, just not too many of you. It's really out of the way and hard to get to (like figure out if I can rent a car in the Ukraine kind of hard to get to), so please let me know if you've heard of it or you think it's worth the trip.
• Berlin, Germany--One of my favorite professors will be working at the Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and he's officially offered to take me around the institute. Also he has an adorable child so I will exchange baby sitting for site seeing.
• Fez, Morocco--If you have been following the tumblr or reading these posts for awhile then you know that I'm super pumped about Fez. It's a place so different to everything I've ever been exposed to that I feel like I can't not go. If there was ever a color scheme or sense of place that I wanted to instill in my own home it would have to be some mixture of Georgian architecture with Moroccan flares.
• Paris, France--I've been here. It was nice. It was also the last week of my 7 week stay in Europe. My cat died the day before we got there. It was summer and hot and very touristy. And we ultimately just wanted to go home and so we spent time each day laying in our hotel room watching the French duped Le Simpsons*.
• Shetland Islands, U.K.--because ponies. And then because their new advertising campaign is ponies in sweaters.
• Copenhagen, Denmark--I hear Copenhagen is pretty awesome, but I can't remember why. Would someone please tell me why I have a vague recollection of being told that Copenhagen is awesome?
• Jerusalem, Israel--I've spent this last term studying the conflict in Northern Ireland as taught by a Israeli expat. I've toyed and more than toyed with the idea of exploring Judaism. And if you have any religion at all I feel that at some point in your life, you should see Jerusalem. If you want to work in any kind of international politics, you should see Jerusalem. If you want to have an opinion when you read the NYT, you should see Jerusalem. I'd like to see Jerusalem.

At least 4 of these are not going to happen, or at least not while I'm working. Some of them take more time than others. Some of them come with more recommendations too. 



*fun story about Le Simpsons, the episode where Bart gets sent to France and is forced to work as a child laborer and then suddenly starts speaking French. They duped the French in French and put in French subtitles.

New Feature: Music while writing this post!

You Belong To Me, Jason Wade 
I and Love and You, Avett Brothers
Vienna, Billy Joel
Home, Bell from "Beauty and the Beast"