It was that time of the summer I have been waiting for so long. It was time to finally step in the country I wanted to visit in a long time. Germany. Little I had known I would want to visit this country if things hadn't changed so much over the past 2 years of my life. But as they say everything happens for a reason and many of these reasons have finally brought me here. It begins in Munich.
I took an overnight flight from Canada so I didn't sleep the night as I am not able to steep on planes for some reason so I was exhausted when I reached my friends place and he asked me to take a nap. My brain just wouldn't let me sleep because it knew that I was in Germany no matter how dead the body was the mind could not rest, which resulted in me going to the nearest coffee shop and ordering a coffee in German of course! My first german interaction with anyone in Munich.
I was just in a mixed state of shock and excitement, neither of which i could handle physically but the coffee was trying its best. I eventually had lunch and had to meet up with a friend for dinner who I met in Canada in the fall semester of 2015. It was great to see him again and I had my first Döner with him in the Hauptbahnhof area, it was cool mainly because he was a Turk-German and they were the first ones to originate Döner in Germany haha. I was actually shocked to see much of the population near the Hauptbahnhof area being of non german origin. Really shocking, it was like I wasn't even a minority in that area. Maybe its normal for a big city like Munich but it was not how I pictured Munich.Læs mere
Oh Switzerland.. Well all I can say is that it lives up to its hype.
We drove to Luzern from Konstanz in the afternoon it was a 1.5 hr drive. The drive was enjoyable mainly because of good company and fantastic views. The cows stereotype is real. There are plenty.
Luzern is a beautiful city with splendid views of lake Luzern and a range of mountains in the surrounding areas. We had a good stroll in the city and saw many overpriced shops there.
We drove on top of one of the mountains to get a better view of the lake and the surrounding area. It was like a dream come true with so much nature around you. Kicking off the start of my trip in an amazing manner.Læs mere
An amazing little city which borders with Switzerland. The waterfront on the Bodensee reminded me of Halifax. The view was incredible as we could see from afar the Alps of Austria and Switzerland. Stayed here for 2 nights at a friends place. Partied with some Swiss people at night who 'biked' over to Germany for cheaper drinks. This was very fascinating as I have never been to countries with no borders and hearing them talk about how they have biked up to Germany sounded really cool to me. Wondering what the world would be like without any borders or restrictions to move around from place to place..
Berlin.. I loved it there but to this day i am not sure why I enjoyed it so much. Was it because of what the city had to provide? or was it the long awaited reunion with my friends?
It was a big reunion with my friends who I met in Halifax in the winter of 2016. We all decided to meet someday before they said their goodbyes as they were exchange students. We all flew from different countries to meet up in Berlin. From Canada, Finland, France and Australia. It was almost unbelievable that we could have had this reunion only after a year and a half after we last saw each other. What a great time we had. It was like we left each other only a couple of months ago. It took us all less than a day to adjust and then it was just like it was back in the winter of 2016.
Berlin as a city is what we could expect of any other capital/big city. A lot of diversity and a lot of places to go. It was really interesting to see the Berlin wall. All the history, thinking about what it was like not so long ago... and what it has become now. East Side Gallery was one of my favourite. We also visited the Bunker in which Hitler allegedly shot himself.
We tried to see as much as we can in the 3 days we were there in which we took a trip to Neukölln as well, infamous for its high number of immigrants, which i wanted to visit as I wanted to see the other side of Berlin and also the 'Ghettos of Berlin' as mentioned by Bushido- one of my favourite rappers. And not to forget the 3 Euro Döners haha..Læs mere
Arguably my favourite city in Germany. Maybe one day is not enough to judge the whole city but i really liked the way the city looked. I spent most of my day walking around the city. My hostel was in the St. Pauli area which is also the area one of my favourite rap gang comes from the 187 strassenbande! I saw so many places which I had already seen in their music videos. It was so cool to be in places i used to glare at while watching music videos on youtube. The harbour is a great place to be during sunset and there are many good restaurants there.Læs mere
Cologne the place where i would reunion with a lot of my friends on my birthday.
Cologne was super crowded as gamescom was going on, so it felt like a very busy and touristy city. The Cathedral was as magnificent as they say it is, towering above any other building in the city. We chilled by the bridge at first and then got ready for the party at night ofcourse. The nightlife in Cologne was awesome, bars, clubs, restaurants fully occupied even though it was only a weekday.
I couldn't absorb everything from the city as i was too occupied with my friends who travelled quite some distance to see me, which was great! Cologne surely a good place to party!Læs mere
Amsterdam, the place i regret not staying longer in. It was kind of bad planning and also because i really had to get back to Germany to watch Dortmund play their first home game.
The city is just beautiful and the way its build in the middle surrounded by canals. Ofcourse the first thing we did after dropping our luggage was- going to a coffee shop.
The bikers are crazy in Amsterdam, there are probably more bikes in Amsterdam than anywhere else in the world (it felt like that anyways). It was crazy because my friend from Canada was moving to Amsterdam from Halifax for a semester abroad the same day i arrived there. So we were going to spend the night at her place and she literally just moved in so it was kind of hectic because we also wanted to party that night as I had to leave for Germany in the morning.
But in the end the night was great, and we made it through it, my friends new roommate was a Swiss girl whom i convinced to lend us her air mattresses (in my broken german obviously) and ofcourse she was nice enough to do so.
Definitely a place i want to visit again and for longer!Læs mere