Back to the… past (for a change) – Part I: Barcelona

Let's go for the account on the first part of my holiday: my tip to Spain with Elodie, my "significant other", as would one of my professors write. ;)

First I had to wake up at 3 am to get ready and go to Brussels Airport by 4.30 am to check in. Thanks to Elodie's parents, we arrived just on time and after checking in we waited in the huge terminal, from which a bus took us to the airplane. Since a passenger hadn't shown up to get into the plane, his or her luggage had to be removed, so we had to wait for an extra 20 minutes before taking off.

Two hours later we landed in Barcelona. Due to a pitiful lack of information we didn't know we had to go to terminal A to get our luggage back, while we were in terminal B… After going through security gates and "talked" to several policemen (I use inverted commas because they hardly know a word of English, and since Spanish is like gibberish to me, communication was hampered), we finally found our luggage, approximately two hours after landing…

Anyway, we had plenty of time at our disposal. It was just unpleasant not to be able to find where our luggage was. Fortunately, everything's well that ends well, so let's forget about that. We took the bus to the city centre, then we headed for our hotel, Barcelona Cathedral, right in the "old city". We unpacked and then went our to get some food:

Yep, we found a Quick restaurant not very far from our hotel. The taste of the "Giant" (my favourite hamburger) was identical. The Coke they gave us, however, tasted awful. Moreover, I took an interesting photograph: I noticed that the cleaning ladies use Dutch (!) signs to warn people that the floor is slippery! (Note that Prof. Mettewie was really amazed when I showed her the picture.)

After that we got back to the hotel and later in the afternoon we went out for a walk in the narrow streets of the old Barcelona. The next day we got up pretty early and we took a metro to go to Barcelona's most famous building: the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Antoni Gaudí's masterpiece.

Usually I hate churches, but I wanted to see this one for its architectural qualities. I was amazed to see all the different techniques that were specially invented to build this monument.

I'm looking forward to seeing this cathedral when it's completed, probably in 2026. It's a brilliant effort to find new ways to build seemingly impossible structures, but I regret that it was done with a religious aim in mind.

After eating at a nearby KFC restaurant (yummy!) we went to a really pleasant park where we relaxed some time.

We also went to the harbour, a commercial mall (not my idea) and to several other places. The next day (i.e. 25 June) we went to Barceloneta, the city's beach, where thousands of people were either sunbathing or playing or sleeping or walking.

We also went to the aquarium, but I was relatively disappointed: I had to pay 16 euro… just for myself! So 16 other euro for Elodie… Outrageous! Inside the building the fish and other sea creatures were all right, with even a conveyor belt in a glass tunnel to let us wonder about sharks and whatever fish — but it was nothing to write home about. Well, I just did, but… Oh, forget about that.

Later we went to the Park Güell (also designed by Gaudí) where I took some nice pictures of the city.

Unfortunately, I ran out of battery power so you (and I, obviously) won't get any pictures from the splendid main terrace, "surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent" (as said in the Wikipedia entry).

On the last day of our trip we didn't get up very early, so we had to rush to pack things up and leave the room before 12 o'clock. We went for a walk and we ate at a McDonald's (don't worry, we also ate local food on other occasions) and in the afternoon we stayed close to our hotel. We took the bus round 6 pm to go to the airport. We waited a bit, checked in and we took off soon after the semi-final of the European football championship, opposing Spain to Russia, began. We landed in Brussels at 11 pm and got our luggage back without any trouble. Who said everything was more complicate in Belgium?

In conclusion, this was a fantastic trip which I spent with a most delightful person, my beloved one who I'll never thank enough for these wonderful four days. I'm already looking forward to our next trip!

I'm hungry…

If you're starving, don't watch this!



Never go to McDonald's, because here's what you might find in your meal:



Yummy!

The following video shows you university students of Berlin Technical University making fries in a kind of mechanical manner…



If you ever happen to go to New York, make sure to go to Pommes Frites:



You don't even find such giant cones in Belgium!

And to conclude, let's watch this commercial for Mora which I find hilarious:

Fact or fiction?

Today the Fortis newsletter featured pictures making a comparison between the package and what you really find in it. Let's first watch a video, and then take a look at the pictures:



Yummy!

BON APPETIT!

Food Wars

If you wonder which country is hidden behind each kind of food, you might be interested in checking this list. I guess it was quite pretty obvious with the pretzels and the bratwurst!

Here are the famous battles that are re-enacted:

1. The World
2. WWII: Holocaust; French surrender; London Bombing; Pearl Harbor; Battle of Midway; D-day; fall of Berlin; Hiroshima
3. Arab-Israeli War: Brits leave Israel; Israel expands territory
4. Korean War: China and Russia back the North; the US back the South
5. Cuban Missile Crisis
6. Viet Nam: China and Russia back the North; the US back the South
7. Cold War: Arms race
8. Intifada
9. Gulf War: Iraq invades Kuwait, Scuds, smart bomb
10. 9/11
11. Afghanistan
12. Gulf War II: Shock and awe; IED
13. Bug Food

PS. This was my 400th post!

Trip to Bonn

Today we (first-year students studying German and second-year students studying German as an additional language) went on a one-day trip to Bonn, in Germany.

I had to wake up at 5.50 am to have breakfast and then go to Namur on my moped, and meanwhile filling the fuel tank. We all had to be there at 7.20 pm, and we left round 7.35. We were using a coach, for taking the train would have been less useful. Our group sat at the back, just because it's kind of cooler.

We chatted a little, then we listened to music while working on Konnex, our beloved Dutch vocabulary book… (Do you see what it means: we cannot even fully enjoy such a school trip!! Always something to do! I hate it!)

On the way, we drove by our (Anne-Sophie, Marie and me) homeland, le pays de Herve and several kilometres further we entered Germany. We arrived in Bonn at about 10.15.

Then we walked to Der Haus der Geschichte (House of History), a huge museum that brings you back to 1945 and shows you the evolution of the German society from then onwards. There were many historical documents and pictures, but also very collectible items, such as Kennedy's speech in Berlin in which he said "Ich bin ein Berliner", originally written "Ish been ein Bear-lee-ner" on his notes…

After that, the coach took us closer to the city centre, and we had about an hour to get some food and discover the city on ourselves. Some of us went directly to our meeting point (the Münster, a cathedral) and we bought sausages on the Christmas market (Weihnachtsmarkt): that was delicious!

Round 2 pm we started a short sightseeing of the city centre, with a local French teacher as guide. She took this picture of our group in front of the statue of Beethoven.


And precisely we walked to that house where he was born.


We also went to the Town Hall, an impressive building. Unfortunately, we couldn't visit it because a ceremony was taking place.


Then we had another hour to spend on ourselves in Bonn. We went once more on the Christmas market, buying several things. We also went to a T-Mobile shop, for there were actual brand-new iPhones to be seen!!! A girl was appointed to answer all questions from customers, so I started mumbling some words to say that we were from Belgium and that it was the first time that we got to see the iPhone. But apparently my German was terrible and she said we could speak English. So that's what we did. She showed us all the abilities of that brilliant smart phone. It's a shame that it's not yet available in Belgium… (Of course, it doesn't mean I would buy it: I hardly ever use my mobile, and it's rather expensive.)

A bit later we walked back to the couch and we left Bonn round 4.30. We were planning to study the rest of Konnex on the way back, but M. Bertrand (our teacher) came and sat with us and talked with us about the real German saunas, nudity and about many other things…

We arrived in Namur at 7.15 pm. We were all exhausted, but this day had been great fun for all of us!