Panjee Says Hallo: November 2010

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

10.28.10, Brussels: Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates!!!

For around 9 hours we were traveling to Brussels, Belgium in a train looking like this:

We had a stop at Koln (Cologne) at say 7, 8 or 9 am but that was just for a train transfer. Very uneventful.

Finally received this text from Vodafone at around noon! YAY! A different country! What up?

At our first (and only) Brussels bus ride

We checked into our hostel and then proceeded to go around Brussels's city center first: GRAND PLACE (pronounced like "Grand Plas")! Really pretty place!

We first ate at this Greek Restaurant (Greek in Belgium's kinda a weird choice haha)! but since I really wanted me some Belgian Waffles, Fries and Chocolate, I opted to have a Belgian beer instead ... They say it anyways that's one of the must-tries in Belgium.

Belgian beer!

Cute Restaurant

We continued to marvel at the Grand Place very pretty and then we moved on to explore the rest of Brussels!

We passed this hotel that a bunch of police were flanking. I think there must've been some politician or VIP visiting and we got curious but never really saw anyone that looked important:))

On the way to the Manneken Pis, we saw na sooooo many chocolate shops! No exaggeration, Belgian chocolate really is LOVE!

We finally got to the Manneken Pis and super labo! We did not really get what the hell this was supposed to be famous but it's here and that's it. Just a Manneken Pissing ... Labo. HAHAHA!

After that we, just did a sweep of all the nice sights around Brussels in a span of 2 hours or so! We visited mostly all their churches, the senate-congress etc area, the palace-y area and that's that! Mostly all of the must-sees! Good time management and route-planning by Butch Lorenzo! :))

Some people were being so mean and sly trickster-y looking at the over-the-city thing which I have a picture of above. They make you sign this thing, telling you it's a signature drive then bigla the last column is like for the amount of your donation or something! Right then, we realized it's a scam duh! Mean people. I gave them 10 cents. HAHAHA! I could not understand their language but I know the girl was pissed. Serves them right. HAHAHA!

After the Amazing Race-esque tour around the city, we then went back to the area near Grand Place and Steph and I got ourselves some authentic Belgian waffles! So yummy! I died! I got a banana, whipped cream, melted chocolate one and it was sooo good!

We sat here while eating and we marveled at the pretty long Grand Place view!

We went around Brussels more to see it at night and while it's less orderly and clean than Germany, it was nice still! We ended our night with our last stop being the Grand Place once again. I took a video of it since the view in the evening with all the lights is really something but blogspot being weird and I can not post videos for some reason. I will update this entry when I can with the video of it! :)

Tschuss!

Monday, November 15, 2010

10.27.10, Munich: Longest Day of Our Lives!

Today I had my first Business English class at 9 am with Professor Deiderich again. It's the usual English class except instead of discussing research papers, bibliographies and such we just really speak in English but use more business-y words... Easy as pie. HAHA! Then I had Deutsch A1 again with my favorite teacher at the University! Mrs. Susanne Wagner!

We hastily packed our bags the moment we got home and by 3 pm we were on a train to Munich already! Yay!

Steph

Butch

We went to the Euraid booth and then this man here below promptly processed our Eurail 2-month Global passes. Super worth it! This was a glorious moment in our lives!!! We picked also our train for Brussels already. It leaves at 3 am so we had a looooong ass wait in Munich(in retrospect we realized we could've gone home to Ingolstadt and could've taken the train from there... Bobo... HAHA)!

Getting our Eurails processed

Interesting graffiti on our day lockers at the station

We then ate at KFC at around 7 pm... Got the same meal! Super comforting to eat something that tastes like what we have back in the Philippines!!! But their gravy sucks and their fries are different! Whatever. This is as good as it gets.

My yummy food!

We met a Filipino in KFC also who was living in Koln(Cologne) but is now studying Philosophy in Munich. He was Bisaya so I talked to him a bit also. He told us he was being sponsored by someone from back home. REALLY. LUCKY. Sarap makakita ng Pinoy! as Butch said(or didn't he?)

Since we had around 6 more hours to kill(we left KFC at around 9 na!), we decided to go to a bar first - the only thing that'd be open in European cities/towns that didn't require you to eat a meal. When the people from France visited Munich a month ago, I took them to this bar called Americanos. Since it was near KFC(It was a coooold night! We dreaded being in the cold for too long!) and the Marienplatz subway(convenient for going to the Munich HBF/Main station), I brought the two there na lang. We met a weird mixture of people: some really nice locals, some super kulit guy from Ingolstadt also and this middle aged guy who kept on talking to me in vain. We enjoyed the music and our drinks til around 12 midnight. SUPER EXHAUSTING TO HAVE TO WAIT!

Butch and Steph

Nice people from Munich

Butch

We then went to the HBF to wait there naman. We were in the lounge for around 2 more hours and then we finally decided to just wait and sleep in the train. REALLY TIRED NA AT AROUND THIS TIME!!! Our only consolation was that we were arriving in Brussels - a different city in a different country - in some hours!!!

The train!

The longest longest day of our lives!!!

Tschuss!!!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

10.26.10, Ingolstadt: Have Permit - Can Travel & Beats for Charity!

Finally got our residence permits!!!

Today is one glorious day!!!

Went to Sparkasse at around lunch time to get our bank statements and headed to the Rathaus to finally submit completely our necessary documents. They were gonna have their lunch break already though so we needed to wait for around an hour and a half or so. Went to Viktualienmarkt where I again got my favorite Doner mit Pommes!!!

Back at the Rathaus, Steph and I were internally squealing and we were so giddy as our interviewers separately finalized our permits and stuck them on our passports!!! YAY! One of the happiest moments in our lives!!! This means we can now finally travel!!!

We went to school hurriedly right after since we had a 2 pm class. Sadly, out of the 11 people who signed up for the course, only 4 of us were there to attend the first session. Miscommunication definitely in terms of the schedule! I felt bad for the professor and his 2 other associates! But it's okay. We tried to make the most out of our first Global Corporate Involvement in Education class.

After this, we went to Granada and Butch and Steph ate. I was still full from my Doner and so I just had this glass of beer:

And then I had a mini photo shoot inside the restaurant cause I was bored! Thank you Butchy!!!

I took a picture of them also cause I got hiya that it was just all of me. HAHA!

We went home to plan our Belgium - Netherlands trip quick cause we wanted to buy our Eurails(unlimited-ish international train passes) immediately in Munich and leave either by tomorrow night or Thursday early morning! Wasn't sooo bad but it was kinda a rushed plan! HAHA! We were sooooo itching to get to other countries na talaga!

Heidi, friend of Gia's also who's now our friend na rin, organized an event for her org called Beats for Charity. It was in Maki and course, since we're such good friends(haha) we went to support her. Hung out with Steph and Butch at first and then also with Laurin, Selim and Marcel and a bunch of their friends after a while. REALLY FUN NIGHT! Butch went home early though cause he was tired. Marcel and Selim brought Steph home while Laurin brought me. They're so nice talaga I die :)

Here're some pictures from that night!!!