I left work at 11 on Friday to go on a brewery tour paid for by an associated company (EGS Automatisierungstechnik GmbH). After listening to the obligatory hour-long presentation, we had a quick lunch and set off into the depths of the Fürstenberg brewery. We toured around the facilities as I struggled to understand the tour guide, and finished off with a few complementary beers in the cavernous hall in the basement of the building. This was a good start.
At 9:30 that night, I hopped on the train that would take me to the train to Amsterdam.
Excitement setting in
This was my accommodation for the night
I woke up in the morning to a very flat Netherlands landscape about an hour out of Amsterdam. I bided my time talking to three stocky, motherly, middle-aged Croatian schoolteachers while the train slowly rolled towards its destination. They offered sweets to people and were merry.
Walking out of the station, I looked at a map, set off, and immediately got lost. I wandered around for an hour before backtracking and finding the Flying Pig Hostel:
Even at 11am the place was lively; people were playing pool, drinking at the bar, and smoking in the back room (not cigarettes, mind you).
I couldn't help but smile back at the legoman every time I went back to my room
Before anything Amsterdamy happened, I wanted to check out some of the real history of the city. The Amsterdam Museum had universally rave reviews, and was my first stop.
I'm not one to support ivory as an artistic medium, but this is seriously impressive
Various legal and illegal drugs
Amsterdam used to host public lobotomies for those who could afford the tickets
After getting my 3-hour taste of the genuinely fascinating background of Amsterdam, I hopped over to Begijnhof. This was a gorgeous 14th-century enclosed courtyard previously occupied women who lived like nuns but didn't take their monastic vows. The courtyard contained two churches - one in the open and the other hidden in one of the buildings, and was like a little oasis in the middle of a bustling, sin-tastic city.
I walked around for a while before heading back to the hostel. The city is gorgeous by day:
The town hall, built on 13,659 wooden piles
No idea where I spotted these segwayers
A quick moment of quiet on the streets
Just your typical canal
Late in the afternoon, I went back to the hostel to relax a bit before figuring my night out. One of the guys in the room was wearing an Edmonton Oilers hat - pretty easy conversation starter. Turns out Travis, Ryan and Evan were three Edmontonians doing the whole Eurotrip thing, so we grabbed a few beers at the bar and decided what the plan was for the night.
We started by wandering around a bit:
No city is safe from football celebrations
Oh
Not sure what these guys were on about
We went to a few different places and did a few things, including "window shopping" in the red light district. That was certainly eye-opening - I somehow imagined the prostitutes would be somewhat distanced from the street, allowing you to walk by leisurely. Nope. You squeeze through crowded, narrow alleyways with full-height glass patio doors and women eying you at eye-level, often just a foot or two away.
I was also surprised by the number of people in the area - it's a major tourist attraction, and felt oddly safe and clean. We made it back to the hostel alive and in possession of all our belongings, and crashed for the night.
The next day assumed a fairly leisurely pace. Late in the morning we walked to the Van Gogh museum to check out some amazing artwork and relax in the sun in the neighbouring park.
Gorgeous Sunday
The Van Gogh Museum
Apres-museum, we found the perfect spot to lie in the sun
The sun, as seen through my €5 sunglasses
On the way back, we caught the tail end of a riveting chess match - it's a serious spectator event here.
The youthful audience
We wandered the streets for a few more hours before I had to grab my bag and head to the train station.
Personally, I wouldn't mind stepping out of my front door into a boat
Where'd I park my bike?
A small portion of the 350,000 bikes at the train station
Ryan, Me, Evan, Travis in the Flying Pig
With my night train boarding time approaching, I said goodbye to the guys and prepared myself for a 5am wakeup and work the next day.
This past weekend was a good one to choose to stay in Donaueschingen. Being Baden-Württemberg-Tag (This province's big celebration day), there were parties everywhere and a massive stage set up right outside my window.
Friday was your typical finish-work-and-go-until-4:30am kinda day. Donaueschingen hosted a "rock-n-roll jamboree," complete with 1960's music, slicked-back hair, and genuine rockabillies. It started with a free concert outside, where I ran into co-workers and my boss, and things went from there. Everyone who was anyone was in Donaueschingen, and every bar in town was packed full.
The Outdoor Concert
The night was set up so the 7 bands would play for a set amount of time, and take a coordinated break, in which you were meant to move from one bar to another to listen to new music. I ended up seeing three of the bands, and spending half of the time outside. For some reason, the pseudo-comprehensible drunk 1960's rock didn't agree with my ears.
Rockin' Rockabillies
After a night of dancing, wandering and talking to some major characters, including an incredibly drunk Belgian guitarist, I found myself alive and well on Saturday afternoon.
I went to Villingen that night with my friends Fabian and Carmen, as well as a few of Carmen's friends who were in town. We went into town and drank and talked to some 57-year-old eccentric actor (me in my ever-improving but still abysmal German) for a while, before moving to the Irish Bar for some free peanuts.
Another solid 8 hours of sleep and I was ready for Beer Culture Day in Donaueschingen. I wandered around for a while, and took a quick free tour through the brewery.
On the way in
Silos of Beer. Self-guided tours leave room for imagination.
Critical Scientific Development
Awesome Old-School Copper Vats
Preparation
Labelling and Capping the Bottles
After arriving back home, my friend Andreas gave me a text: "Hey Ben, where are you ? Come to the Brewery, i have a lot of Beer for free!!"
Oh.
Ok.
So I went to the brewery, where I drank free beer on a Sunday afternoon. It was good.
This past weekend was my first hostelling experience! I took the 300+ km/h ICE train to Cologne, passing cars on the autobahn like they were standing still. Upon arrival at the hostel at 8pm, I asked the guy at the counter what there was to do at night here. His response: "get drunk."
Arriving on the brick subway
My Hostel
Awesome bag storage system
He gave me a map with all the bars in the neighbourhood, and checked out the local concert scene for me - I decided to go to some live music show 10 minutes away. After claiming a bed and putting my things in the locker, I bought a beer at the supermarket and set down the road solo drinking like a champ. Arriving where I thought the concert would be, I saw a huge lineup going into a warehouse. I walked up to some people in line and asked what was going on.
"Every Friday night this place has "happy hour" from 9 to 11. You pay 6 euros and get free beer until 11 pm"
Sold.
I got in at 10:40, drank 6 "test tubes" of beer (they were tiny mom, don't worry), and grabbed three more before time ran out. One of the guys from the line, Tim, had lived in Squamish for a year. We talked about cars, skiing, mountain biking, Vancouver lifestyle, and whatever else in between. After partying in the massive warehouse club, I called it a night at 2am and wandered on back to the hostel.
Saw this giant on the way home
After a solid sleep, I woke up and decided I needed a haircut. So I got one. Then I rented a bike from the hostel and went downtown.
Parking spots are different here
I made a beeline for the spires of the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral); my mouth gaped ever-wider as I neared the massive building. This church is seriously big, and seriously crowded.
Big. It survived being hit by 13 bombs in WWII.
People give you an idea of the scale
The buttressed rear
Naturally, I had to climb to the top. I went down below to the cored-out entrance tunnel to the stairs.
Right through the foundation
509 stairs later, I was as high as I could get in the cathedral. The view was spectacular, but the tight mesh of the fence made for poor photos.
Stupid mesh.
A bit of the view, including a giant shiny slug
The 24-tonne Bell
The inside was equally as spectacular as the facade. Gorgeous 12th-century stained glass and amazingly high ceilings make one feel rather small and insignificant.
The architects meant business
12th Century Stained Glass
I like picturing a lone balloon floating for days, completely ruining the cathedral's presence
Leaving the Dom feeling a little more humbled, this drunk fella was wandering through the none-too-clean water feature in the cathedral square, occasionally stopping for some air guitar.
Getting some odd looks
I walked down to the waterfront and took a seat to watch a street performer for a while. He'd make fun of people passing by to draw a crowd before starting his show:
Segways and a game controller
In the middle of the show, some guy walked by and started doing pullups on the tree in front of ~100 people.
Redpants humoured me
After taking a quick walking tour of some city sights, I set across the bridge to the Music Store where Tim works.
Love padlocks on the bridge, some people have bigger hearts than others
They got seriously dense
Oddly enough, the Music Store store was a highlight of the trip. 5 stories high, it had thousands of guitars on display, along with entire floors dedicated to drums and classical instruments. Tim works on the top floor in the DJ/sound system/stage setup department. We got to play around with some seriously nice equipment (the centre light in the following pictures costs 18000 euros), and listen to the differences between expensive and really expensive monitor arrays.
Awh yeah.
I went home with the intention of heading out again, but found myself too exhausted. I chatted with a classically Eastern European Romanian guy for a while, but didn't feel like joining when he went out searching for prostitutes and an allegedly good time.
The next day I went to the Roman museum, which was pretty neat. The whole museum was built around a massive mosaic which was discovered while digging out a bomb shelter during WWII.
The mosaic
Statues 'n stuff
Gold leaf leaves
Closer shot of the mosaic floor
When I stepped out of the museum, I heard loud exhaust notes echoing through the city. I promptly changed course and headed towards the noise - guess where I found myself?
