Ten Day Break: Belgium, Netherlands, Austria!

Ten day break crept up on me so quickly, I couldn’t believe it was already time to leave and I’m shocked its over. I had a blast travelling with six other members of my group, Erin, Mike, Alyssa, Sarah, Emily, and Colleen. We were headed to Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich, and Salzburg. Before we left, the Park Lodge had a contest for us. They told us that whoever had the cleanest cottage would get a free beer at the pub. Needless to say, we cleaned like our lives depended on it. We even baked cookies so our cottage would smell good. When we went to the pub, there were 30 baby Guinness shots lined up at the bar, apparently we all did such a good job, we were all being rewarded. A baby Guinness is Kailua with Bailey’s on top and its pretty good ;) Since the girls’ cottages were the cleanest, we also got an apple flavored shot—I was weary about drinking so much because we were getting picked up at 1am to take a night bus to Dublin and catch our 8am flight to Belgium but somehow I managed.

After traveling all night, we finally arrived in Brussels, Belgium. I hadn’t researched what there was do to un Belgium at all but I looked forward to being somewhere new. We got to our hostel and were tired so all seven of us took a nap and then we decided we should probably do something since we were only there for two nights so we walked to the Grand Place which was a beautiful square with illuminated buildings that seemed to be frosted in gold. At nighttime, it was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever been. After walking around and taking pictures there, we looked for somewhere to eat and ended up getting a cheap but delicious sandwich. After dinner we got dessert at a chocolate shop, something Belgium is known for and they were AMAZINIG! I only got two because they were a little spendy but that was definitely enough. The girl working also offered us a chocolate olive, which we were tentative to try but then she explained they just looked like olives but were just chocolate covered almonds and those were yummy too. After this we went to find a bar and ended up going to an Irish pub where I had the infamous Belgium beer, Stella Artois. It was okay but I still preferred Smithwicks; little did I know, the next night I was about to be introduced to the absolute best tasting beer. We talked to the bartender at the pub and she told us a few places we should go the next day. One of my favorite things she said to us was, “You come to Belgium for three things, work, school, or love.” It was so poetic.

Waffle!

The next day Erin and I explored the city. First we got a Belgium waffle with whipped cream, chocolate, and strawberries on it! Then we went shopping along the street with the most stores. After a few hours of this, we walked to the cathedral. In Europe there is amazingly beautiful architecture that you don’t find at home and I love it there were relics of a saint and the church was dedicated to two saints, there was glass on the floor in certain places where you could look down and see remnants of the old church before they built over it.

That night, we went for dinner at the Hard Rock Café. We ended up having to wait over three hours to be seated but we passed most of this time in a bar down the road, tasting the famous Belgium beer. Colleen’s brother had been in Brussels before so he told her what beer to try and we had two kinds that were absolutely amazing. I had a raspberry beer and a peach beer, which were incredible! They were delicious and I was sad to learn that you cannot get them anywhere else.

Canals in Amsterdam

After dinner, we were pretty tired so we went to bed and woke up the next day, ready to leave for Amsterdam.We got to the train station and found out that trains leave almost every hour so we had lunch and then I took my first train ride! The scenery on the way wasn’t that great so I slept through most of it. When we got off the train, we took a tram to a street that directions to our hostel told us to get off at. We got a little lost but ended up finding it okay. This hostel was definitely the worst one I’ve stayed in yet. It was dirty and I felt so gross there. We tried to spend as little time as possible in it because it was torturous. I was sleepy and sick of eating food that I was unfamiliar with so we went to McDonald’s for dinner J That night we went to a pub crawl that took us to various bars in Amsterdam. It was a good way to find fun places to go and there were a lot of people our age there.

The next morning it was raining so we went to the Heineken brewery. I heard that it was a really good tour but it was a lot more fun than I expected. It was self-guided and it took us about four hours to get through it all because there was so much to do. We starred in our own music video, learned how to properly drink a Heineken, tasted wort which is the liquid extracted after mashing, learned how to pour a Heineken, and my favorite part, and experienced in 4d what it was like to be brewed. We were malted, boiled, mashed and put through the process of making a beer! The Heineken brewery was my favorite thing we did in Amsterdam!

We were leaving on a night train to Salzburg the next night but we had all day to tour the city so in the morning we went to the Anne Frank house. I went to Auschwitz earlier in the semester so I was not really looking forward to the feeling I got from being there again. Despite this, it was interesting to see the house where her diary takes place and to imagine how terrible it was to be trapped inside day and night.

After the Anne Frank house, Mike, Colleen, Emily and I went to the Van Gogh exhibit. There were several other impressionist artists and the exhibit took you through his development as an artist, which I really liked. I haven’t done a lot of art since high school and it was impressive to be in the presence of such famous works.

The night train was an interesting experience. The beds were tiny and the room was cramped but we all found it pretty funny. The other girls went to play cards but I was tired so I stayed and tried to sleep. I was in a half-sleeping state when I heard a knock at the door and an accented voice stay “Police! Police!” I had no idea what was going on and it scared me a little but the man explained to me that I was crossing the border into Germany and he needed to see my passport. After this, I slept off and on until we reached Munich the next morning. It was a gorgeous day and we checked into our hostel and then took a much-needed nap. Thankfully, this hostel was much nicer than our previous one and I took a nice hot shower and felt clean again.

Later in the day, Mike, Colleen, Sarah, and I walked around the city of Munich. It was sunny and warm and a perfect day. We did a little shopping and I got a new dress for thanksgiving! Then we met up with the other half of our group and went to the beer garden. There is a stand where you buy your beer and then picnic tables where you sit. I’ve never been to a beer garden before so it was really fun.

In the morning, Colleen and I walked around Munich while the others went to Dachau, a concentration camp near Munich. I didn’t go because I had already been to one and Colleen and I both wanted to get to Salzburg earlier so we spent the morning in Munich and then hopped on a train.

This time, the train ride was beautiful. We passed through the cutest towns and I thought it looked just like a ski resort. When we got closer to Salzburg, there were snowcapped mountains and it was gorgeous. Our train had no stops so it only took about an hour and a half to get there. We waited at McDonalds for Jack and Joe, who are both studying abroad in Austria this semester, to pick us up. It was Colleen’s 21^st birthday so they greeted us with a case of Stiegel, the beer brewed in Salzburg. Four other people from Ireland were also visiting the Austria group so that night we went out with a ton of people for Colleen’s birthday. We went to a beer house called the Augustiner and it was crazy. You grabbed a mug from a shelf, paid for it, had a guy fill it up, and then went into a huge room that looked like a giant cafeteria. It was a lot of fun to see everyone from St. Ben’s and St. Johns!

The next day, Jack brought us to a really good pizza place and then showed us around Salzburg. He showed us a bunch of places in the city and then we went to his school, which was incredible. It’s an all glass building and we went up onto the roof where we could see the fortress and the mountains. Erin really wanted to go to the gazebo from the Sound of Music so we walked there the next day.

Jack's school--so pretty!

Salzburg was beautiful!

On Saturday, Erin, Jack and I climbed Gaisberg, a 1288-meter hill that is more like a mountain. They are both in much better shape than I am so it was tough but it was totally worth it and a great way to end our ten day break.

I had so much fun on break and I went places that I hadn’t heard a lot about before going there but the group I traveled with was great. We went with the flow and we explored each city we were in. It was a nice break from the slow pace of Spiddal but if I never stay in a hostel again I would be ecstatic. It marks the middle of my semester abroad and I was happy to begin my journey back to the Park Lodge but also sad that my trip was over and that December was looming so quickly. I had an amazing time travelling in Europe and I know that I will never again have the opportunity to do anything like this and I feel so lucky!

Deep Sea Fishing

Yesterday I went deep-sea fishing with six other people from my trip including our director and it was one of the best days I’ve had this semester! Maxime Couque, a Frenchman, was our guide for the day.

            We woke up early to drive to Rossaveal, where the pier is. It was freezing cold out but Max assured us it was going to be a great day. I was a little nervous about being in such a small boat on the ocean because the past two times we’ve been on the sea on this trip, it was nauseating. Max was right it was a beautiful day. I’ve never seen the ocean so calm, it looked like Rainy Lake on a windless day and I would have been content to just be on the water. After about an hour boat ride, we dropped our lines to fish for Mackerel. Max said the fish could be anywhere so we should reel to the bottom and then slowly reel up. Kathy, our director, caught two fish right away! We had been skeptical of how many fish we would get since it was late October but from the start, it looked like we were going to do well. a few more Mackerel were caught and then we moved on to another location to fish for Pollock. We used the Mackerel to bait our lines and Max told us to go to the bottom, which was about 40 meters.

            The sun was shining and we were having a great time, everyone ended up catching a fish and Kate even caught a squid! We were not expecting to catch anything besides Pollock but when she reeled the squid up, it squirted water everywhere and unfortunately it let go right when it reached the surface. After she caught it, Max put a special lure on his line to catch squid and he got three of them all day. When he reeled them up we all had to stand back because they inked right away, it was unlike anything I’ve ever done!

            The most exciting part of the day for me was when I caught a shark! It was a dogfish and it was SO COOL! Like the squid, I was also not expecting to catch a shark but Max got a net and scooped it into the boat. Dogfish have really rough skin and I felt it but I was too afraid to hold it. Catching a shark was definitely the highlight of my day!

            After fishing a little more, we went to Inis Mor, one of the three Aran Islands, to have lunch. I was hungry so I got vegetable soup which is kind of weird here, it is pureed so it kind of feels like eating baby food. I also got a grilled ham and cheese with chips (fries). It was really good! We also had a few casuals and then hopped back on the boat to try and catch some more sharks called Spurdogs. I didn’t catch anything but a few other people caught a shark too!

            It was a great day, we all had a ton of fun and we got to go home and have fresh Pollock fillets for dinner. 

Dublin Excursion

Last weekend I went to Dublin with my group and the first thing we did when we got there was tour the Rotunda hospital, the oldest maternity hospital in Europe where about 10,000 babies are still born there each year. It related to our study abroad seminar class because in that class, we are learning about Ireland's healthcare system. We are looking at how healthcare has changed and developed throughout Ireland's history as well as comparing their system to ours at home in the US. 

Inside the chapel at Rotunda Hospital

After the tour we got to go shopping for the first time since we’ve been here! It was fun to hang out and shop in a bigger city. For supper we went to the Brazen Head, the oldest bar in Dublin. Kate and I shared our meals, she had beef Guinness stew and I had fish and chips, it was excellent.

That night, we went out in Dublin and four of us ended up at the crowded Temple Bar where there were a lot of people and live music! We went there almost every night of our trip and Friday night they had an amazing band. We also went to a pub called The Porterhouse where they have hundreds of beer from all around the world.

Christ Church Cathedral

Friday during the day we toured the city of Dublin with our Theology professor, Brother Colman. He showed us the remnants of the Viking city there and pointed out other landmarks. We went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells, which reminded me of the Saint John’s Bible. It is a handwritten book of the four gospels in Latin. We spent the entire day walking and were pretty tired by the end of the night but we got to see a lot of things relating to what we’ve been talking about in theology. We went to a museum where the have an exhibit on bog bodies. They are bodies that were thrown into bogs and well preserved because of the environment, some of them still had hair; it was a little creepy but probably the coolest thing at the museum as well.

Passage Tomb

The next day we went to Knowth, which is a huge megalithic passage tomb. There is one huge tomb in the middle and several satellite tombs around it. The tombs are older than the pyramids in Egypt and they are evidence that these people believed in an afterlife. It also showed that they had knowledge of the solar system and the sun because the two tombs face each other and have places above the doors where the sun shines in on the solstice and illuminates the tomb. The people buried there would have been important and it would have reminded those who saw if of their status as well as the fact that life will end and they too will die and go on to an afterlife.

View from the top of Knowth

Sunday was a lot of fun because we went horseback riding. My horse was named Jack and he was really cute! We rode for an hour and it was a great stress reliever and an enjoyable thing to do with our group.  

Jack and Me!

I liked Dublin a lot and there is so much to do there, I wouldn’t mind returning later this semester or later in life! Tomorrow I start my ten day break where I will be traveling to Brussels, Amsterdam, Munich and Salzburg!

Krakow, Poland - Auschwitz Tour

I had a free weekend with no planned excursions so nine of us went to Poland for the weekend. It seems funny to be able to jet off to a foreign country for three days but it is fairly easy to travel in Europe. We left on friday and returned on Sunday so we were really only there for one day. When we got to our hostel, we settled in and then walked down the street for some authentic Polish perogies. They were fabulous! After dinner we were pretty tired so we explored the city center a little but then headed back for bed.

The next morning we got up early to walk around the city and go to the Jewish Quarter where the ghettos holding the Jews were located during WWII, before the concentration camps in Poland were built. We through the city center where I saw some awesome architecture! There were gargoyles on the building in the center of the square that were really cool! Then we went to a castle built on top of the dragon's cave where the city of Krakow got its origin. The castle looked modern and it was the location of Nazi control when the took over Poland. We toured the dragon's cave and then headed toward the Jewish Quarter and then hurried back to our hostel to catch our bus to Auschwitz.

The drive was an hour and a half long and our driver spoke no English. All he did was tell us the amount we owed and smiled. This is the first time since I've been abroad that I've encountered a language barrier and it was difficult to communicate. We had a private tour with just the nine of us which was nice because we could hear our tour guide well. There were some huge groups and I had no idea how busy it was going to be there. We walked to the entrance to Auschwitz where a sign reads, "Aebrit Macht Frei" which means "work will set you free" the prisoners thought that they might be able to survive but in reality, their chances of coming out alive were very small. It is estimated that about 1 million people were killed concentration camps, most of them at Auschwitz II - Birkenau. We spent three hours at Auschwitz I which has been turned into a museum. Walking through the barracks was surreal, I've learned about the Holocaust my entire life but to be in the place where so many atrocities were committed was a weird feeling. It is one thing so say that one million people were killed but to see all of the shoes of those people was incredibly distrubing. The most difficult place to visit was Block 11 where they held and tortured prisoners. There were slim, tall standing cells where the forced four men to stand in all night and then go to work building the nearby Birkenau concentration camp. There were starvation cells where they kept prisoners that weren't allowed food and dark cells with no windows. I hated the feeling I got in the basement and I immediately wanted to leave. I could barely look into the cells because I was so disgusted with the things the SS men did to the prisoners down there.

Barracks (five women in each bunk)

After this, we went to Birkenau where the mass exterminations took place in gas chambers at the camp. We didn't stay there that long but our tour guide showed us the path the prisoners walked to be sorted into workers or to be sent to the gas chambers. We also saw the place where they stayed and the awful conditions they had to deal with. The gas chambers and crematoriums were blown up by the Nazi to hide evidence of what they did, they also destroyed hundreds of documents showing how many people died and were imprisoned there which is why the number of people who died in the Holocaust is only an estimate.

Overall, I am glad that I toured Auschwitz, it was an opportunity for me to learn and experience the tragedies that occurred there. I can't put into words how the experience made me feel but I believe it is important to be educated about the Holocaust and it is something I will never forget.

Northern Ireland Part I: Derry

This weekend I went to Northern Ireland, which is actually a separate country from the Republic of Ireland and is instead a part of the United Kingdom. We departed Wednesday afternoon and spent the next four hours on the bus. We stopped at W.B. Yeats’ grave where JD read us one of his poems. We then continued until we arrived in Derry, or as some call it, Londonderry. Our hostel this weekend was amazing, it was only the students from CSB/SJU in the house. When we got to Derry, we ate supper and then Jacquie, our Archeology professor, took us to Peader’s Pub which had traditional Irish music. 

Ring Fort

The next morning we went to Grianan of Aileach, a ring fort in Donnegal. I later found out that this was the fort of the Lords of the O’Doherty clan, so I was looking at the place that my ancestors may have lived! I also learned that they were a very influential family in Ireland. Jacquie told me that there were Dohertys all over the area and looking out from the top of the fort, we could see all the land they once ruled! After we left the ring fort we went to the Tower Museum that chronicles the history of Derry starting with the origins of a monastery there. Again, I learned more about the O’Doherty family. There were flags hanging up and even though we weren’t supposed to take pictures, the tour guide said I should get one of the O’Doherty family crest flag. I learned the O’Dohertys were one of the leading Gaelic families in Derry in the Middle Ages. They built a new castle in Derry around AD 1500 and the Tower Museum is a modern attempt to replicate the castle close to the site of the original one. The O’Doherty sword was in the museum and the caption underneath it read, “ A two-handed ‘Ferrara’ steel sword. The scabbard is leather and brass. The sword is traditionally said to have been owned by Sir Cahir O’Doherty. O’Doherty was killed on 5^th July 1608. His severed head was displayed in Dublin.”

O'Doherty Flag

Sir Cahir O'Doherty's sword

After lunch, we went to the Museum of Free Derry, a personal account of the Bloody Sunday massacre that occurred on Jaunary 30^th 1972. Before coming to Derry, I only knew a little bit about the Troubles and the tension between Catholics and Protestants but this weekend I learned a lot. Jacquie is catholic so she gave us her perspective on the tragedy. Free Derry was called that because it was the place that was never invaded by the army. On January 30^th, the people of Derry had intended to hold a peaceful civil rights parade. The weather was nice and Catholics came to march around town in a protest of the British. There were men, women, children, and people of all ages. What they had thought was going to be a nonviolent demonstration turned into a disaster. Fourteen people died, six of them were only 17 years old, four were in their twenties. Jacquie’s brother was with his best friend, Gerald Donaghy, who was shot and died later that day. In 2010 the British government admitted and apologized for Bloody Sunday and stated the people who died were innocent besided Gerald Donaghy who had nail bombs in his pockets. To this day, many are convinced that he was planted with the bombs by police officers and from what Jacquie and another woman at the museum said, it didn’t seem logical that he would have had them.

After we went to the museum, we walked around Derry and Jacquie showed us various political murals around Free Derry. It is clear that the people are still feeling the hurt of this event and when we toured the city walls, it was evident she was slightly uncomfortable going into the Protestant section. She told us that they stay on their side and she stays on hers. It was a little bit difficult for us to fathom because to us, Catholic and Protestant isn’t all that different. But it isn’t necessarily their religion that differs between them but the attitudes and elitism that were practiced by the Protestants. All of this was completely new to me but I learned a ton in a couple of short hours.

Mural

On Thursday we toured the Old Bushmills whisky distillery where we learned how they make whisky and got the chance to sample a few of their different kinds. After this we headed to Giant’s Causeway, one of the places I was most excited to see while in Ireland. Giant’s Causeway is a rock formation created by a volcanic eruption. There are 40,000 basalt column jutting up out of the ocean to form this awesome site. It is called Giant’s Causeway because legend has it that Finn MacCool built this staircase to fight the mighty Scottish giant on the other side of the ocean but when he saw Finn, he was afraid so he ripped up the causeway so that Finn couldn't get to Scotland, leaving the formations we see today. It was beautiful! We climbed the stairs up to the top of the lookout and it was incredible!

Hexagonal Columns