Leeds to Mannheim

Alaaf!

This week saw my first big trip of the semester- to visit Raina in Belgium! But before that I had an amazing brunch with Paisley and Eeva, had a catch-up with the girls at Kathrin’s and finally finished my essay! Since coming back, my week has just been filled with work as I have lots of lectures and tutoring on Monday and Tuesday and I had my presentation to make and start to learn ready for an Economics intensive seminar this Saturday. I did not forget pancake day though and, after an incredibly busy day yesterday, I used it pretty much all the food I had to make savoury and sweet pancakes for tea.

On Thursday, alongside packing and essay writing, I met Eeva and Paisley for brunch at a very cute restaurant called Kaffee auf Hawaii. There was so much choice, and everything was so pretty, covered in fresh fruit! I decided to try the French toast and they both had Brotzeit (basically open sandwiches); Paisley had a chocolate one and Eeva went for goats’ cheese. Mine was incredible and meant that I didn’t really need to eat much else the whole day.

Friday was an early morning as my train to Brussels left at 6:05! This was one of the first ICE’s I’ve been on that has been on time which was lucky as I only had 6 minutes to change at Frankfurt airport. After settling down I started attempted to learn the conjugates for German irregular verbs (which is 100% as boring as it sounds) but soon changed to just reading a book for the rest of the journey. I arrived in Brussels at 9:30 and set off to see what the city had to offer. I decided to walk to the city centre rather than take the metro and found an incredible shopping street and a huge shopping centre. After a brief stop to look round, I continued to Grand Platz, looking at all the cute chocolate shops and boutiques along the way. As I was in Belgium, I also decided to stop to get a waffle for my breakfast and it was absolutely incredible!

I had booked on to a free walking tour at 11am so arrived in the Grand Platz (the meeting place) around 10:30 to be ready. The Grand Platz is one of the most incredible places I have ever seen. The buildings are all huge and coated in gold. Later, the tour guide informed us that one of them is actually where Karl Marx lived before being thrown out of the country for writing the communist revolution!

After such a lovely week I was pretty unfortunate with the weather. From the second I arrived at the Grand Platz it began to chuck it down and it carried on like that for most of the tour (and the weekend). The tour started there and moved along the streets showing us street art, the LGBT district, the ‘best’ frites and waffle shops, cathedrals, breweries and the Mannequin Pis which unfortunately was not dressed up. In our snack break we also headed through a beautiful shopping arch with some of the original Belgium chocolate shops inside! During the tour I met a lovely girl who was also from the UK and studying in Germany this year. After the tour had finished, she was going to the old town, so I headed off with her. Unfortunately, she had been mistaken and we ended up walking about 40 minutes out of the city before we realised that all we were heading towards was kebab shops!

After this detour I headed off to the EU centre of the city. Here, there are multiple different EU buildings included the European Commission. This concluded my tour of EU buildings as I have now seen them in Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels! Whilst in the EU centre I went to the Parliamentarium. This is an interactive museum built by the EU to show its foundations and key developments in all EU countries over the past 80 years. It was well thought out and easy to understand as everyone was given a free audio guide and you could listen to the exhibits you were interested in. My favourite part was a room set out like the centre of the EU parliament which had a 360-video showing how parliament worked and how new laws were passed.

Once I had finished at the parliamentarium it was time to meet Raina at her workplace- the mission of Canada to the EU! She came out with a few of her other interns and we went straight to a restaurant near her house. She had reassured me that the restaurant wasn’t pricey but the cheapest thing on the menu was 16 euros and a bottle of water was 5! The food was delicious though, I had carbanade (Flemish stew) and frites, the stew was probably the best I’ve ever tasted. Her friends were lovely too and it was a great night.

The next day we headed to Bruges. The trains were really full when we got to the station but people didn’t move their bags to let others sit down which really confused me. This meant that half the train was standing despite lots of empty seats. When we arrived in Brussels, we just followed everyone else and eventually reached a city centre full of cathedrals, beautiful houses, shops and, of course, canals! At first, we wandered around and visited some of the cathedrals and then headed out of the touristy centre to find lunch. We ended up at an Italian and each had a pizza. After lunch we decided to go for a canal tour, stopping briefly to have another waffle on the way!

The tour was 10 euros each and took us for a 30-minute boat trip through the city canals. The driver went quite fast round the bends of the canal which made the tour fun and there were some beautiful sights as well! Unfortunately, it was still raining though so things didn’t look quite as nice as I imagine they would on a sunny day.

After the canal trip we visited another cathedral before heading for the chocolate story museum which is my kind of attraction! The museum had 7 stages, explaining the history of cocoa, the lifestyle of those who discovered it and how it has changed into different forms of chocolate over the years. There were plenty of tasting zones with chocolate buttons of different types throughout the museum and you could have as many as you wanted! The final exhibit was even about the health benefits of chocolate which definitely makes you feel less bad about everything you’ve consumed along the way. At the very end there is also a demonstration of how chocolate pralines are made which was interesting.

It was getting late by the time we finished at the chocolate museum, so we decided to have a short wander around the areas we had missed and then head for the train. Before we reached the station, we stopped at a monastery garden which was stunning, full of fresh daffodils. This area led to parks and different sections of canals which made it beautiful. After all the unhealthy eating, Raina and I decided we needed lots of veg so on the way home we stopped and bought an assortment to cook for tea with hummus and pitta. That night we ate our veg bowls while watching The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society which is a great film!

For my final day in Brussels Raina and I decided to go for brunch, see the Royal Palace and then go to the History of Europe museum which is also funded by the EU. For brunch we went to Café Luxembourg which is a bar at night and a great breakfast café in the day. I had a peanut butter power bowl which was basically a huge bowl of peanut butter, oats, yoghurt and banana smoothie, topped with nuts, chocolate, more banana and granola. It was amazing and so filling that I wasn’t hungry again till 8 hours later! Raina had French toast which came with yoghurt, mascarpone, apple sauce and fresh berries.

Once we’d finished eating, we walked to the history of Europe museum, stopping only to take some pictures of the palace on the way. The museum was even better than the parliamentarium. It was based on the same principle and once again there was a free audio guide but this time it was on a tablet and changed based on your location within the museum. There were so many exhibits to learn about which took us all the way from very early European history to now. There was a focus on the second world war, communism and the arms race which was fascinating, and the discussion centred around more than just Germany which is usually the case. The final floors focussed on how the EU has changed things and about the increase in rights since the 70s and 80s. I would have happily stayed there a lot longer, but I had a train to catch!

My train home had a 40-minute stop over in Cologne which was perfect as I got to see the Carnival. It seems that most Western European countries celebrate carnival on the Sunday before lent by having huge parades where sweets and flowers are thrown into the crowds! We should really start doing this in the UK. The parade was incredible with people in so many different costumes and vans made into beautiful parade floats. I caught two lots of sweets but children around me had carrier bags full of them!

These carnival celebrations continued in Mannheim up to yesterday to celebrate the start of lent and Spring. Unfortunately, I have missed most of them here as I’ve had so much work and tutoring to do since I came back. However, I do need to do a lot of this right now as I’m busy nearly every weekend till Easter and I have 4 exams/ presentations in the mean time!