While I was in my semester abroad, I traveled to a lot of the areas around Pforzheim, where I was studying, on the weekends, but I also went to a few other countries while I was in Europe.

On one of the weekends I went to Zürich, Switzerland. I used a site to carpool from Stuttgart to Zürich which only took a few hours.

I was couchsurfing, which helped save some money, because otherwise Zürich is expensive! My hosts were fun, and we went out to a club one night. Another time while we were sitting on their balcony, one of them told me how he accidentally stole a table from the university. The university had set out a table with some books that were free to take home, and they had put a sign on the table saying free. As the pile of books disappeared, my host told me how he ran across the table with a sign on it stating free, and he thought he would take the free table home. It wasn’t until later when he talked to another roommate who asked him if he saw the books that were free did he realize that the table itself was not part of the deal. Oh well, he kept it, and that’s what we ate off of on the balcony. When I wasn’t talking with my hosts, I was off checking out the city.

I also went into a pleasant Chinese garden.

The flower clock was heavily promoted on my tourist map that I had picked up. Before I wandered around the city, I had asked my hosts what the flower icon on the map was, and they had to think about it for quite a while before remembering the clock. I guess it isn’t so popular with the locals.

The weather wasn’t the greatest, but, regardless, I took a tram to the edge of the city and then hiked up one of the many mountains surrounding the city.

Zürich was nice, if not expensive, but the weekend was short and I needed to go home. I had again made plans via the carpooling site to get a ride back home. I was at the main station where we were supposed to meet, and I kind of walked around but I didn’t see the guy. After waiting a while, I called him, and he informed me that he was already leaving the city because he didn’t see me. I asked him why he didn’t call me before leaving, and he didn’t really have an answer. He then asked me if I wanted him to turn around and get me. It was awkward, but I said yes because he was my ride home. Otherwise I would have had to take a train, and that would have been much more expensive. To his credit, he did come back and pick me up and I even recognized him from earlier while I was waiting, so I don’t know why he didn’t call me. It was an uncomfortable ride home, but at least I got there.

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I went to Italy during our Easter break, but I already posted about that at http://backpackingandbeer.com/venice-easter-break-in-italy-pt-1/ for anyone who wants to read. Spoiler: I slept on the streets the entire time because I couldn’t afford hostels, so that was pretty interesting.

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Another weekend, I went to Amsterdam.

I must confess, I had heard about some incoming changes to coffee shops, and I wanted to get there before that hit, so my weekend there was pretty chill.

They have some pretty interesting museums there, and one of them that I went to was the Torture Museum.

Another museum I went to was the Sex Museum. I won’t post many pics from there because most of them are quite risqué.

This was an interesting bit of vandalism.

It was just a normal cobblestone walkway, and then someone came in the middle of the night and replaced some bricks with the sculpture. The city decided it was vandalism and had it removed. The people who lived in the area assembled and protested its removal, so the city reinstated it.

It seems to be very “sexy” in Amsterdam. I have also never had so many women wink at me while walking around, but I guess that’s only because I was walking around in the Red Light District a lot.

Since it was Amsterdam, I spent some time in the coffee shops. I also rented a bike and after smoking a bit, I just chilled in the park.

On my last day in Amsterdam, I had a bit of time in the morning before my train back home. I was in a coffee shop and I decided I would try a hash brownie. The girl who sold it to me warned against eating it all at once. I ate half of it and was just chilling. I wasn’t really feeling it even about an hour later, and I needed to head out to catch my train. Knowing that I would get in serious trouble if I was caught bringing that over the border into Germany, I decided to eat the other half.

I went to the main station and got on the train back home. Then it kicked in. To complicate matters, the train was packed, and I couldn’t find a place to sit. I ended up just standing along the wall as the train made its way to Germany. Oh man, the brownie was really kicking in. I was tingly and things looked funny—it was too much. I got uncomfortably high and I had to stand in this stuffy train. I couldn’t take it. So I lay down on the path in the train, just sprawled in the middle of the walking area. I couldn’t take it anymore. Then, as we approach the German border, the train stopped and the border patrol got on, looking for drugs. It’s not illegal to be high, so I wasn’t worried, but I was just laying down on the path. As the police moved through the train where I was, I remember one stepping over me and (not lightly) nudging me in the ribs. I looked up and he asked me if I was doing OK. I think I kind of gave some smiling nod with half-closed eyes. I’m pretty sure he knew what was up and that I was higher than an airplane. Did he offer me assistance? No. He laughed and kept checking the rest of the train. Other than that, I got home just fine, and I haven’t eaten a hash brownie since.

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The last country I went to other than Germany was France—namely Strasbourg and Paris.

Unlike Zürich, Italy, and Amsterdam, I went to Strasbourg with the other international students as it was close to Pforzheim.

To date, I think the Strasbourg cathedral is the most impressive one I have seen. It also had an impressive presentation of the bells that went off at noon.

 

Unfortunately, photos from inside the cathedral didn’t turn out so well, so I won’t bother posting more.

We then wanted to go into a museum. The lady at the desk was incredibly unhelpful. I understand that one should try to speak the local language when visiting, but we didn’t speak French and didn’t bother learning for the one day we were there. On the other hand, I would think that someone in a tourist related industry should at least speak English. We went in to ask her how much tickets were or something like that. At first we asked if she Spoke English. Non. Since we were on the border with Germany, we asked if she spoke German. Non. Ok, well, Spain is the other bordering country of France, how about that? Non. We left and then went to a different museum: The Museum of Medieval Art.

We then walked through the city to the Council of Europe.

After spending a long day in France, we took the train back to Pforzheim.

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Another weekend, I went to Paris. My Couchsurfing host took me to quite a few places.

 

 

 

The Louvre is huge! I went in the afternoon and the line was ridiculous, so I went back the next morning really early and there was already a good-sized line. I got in and spent the whole day in there and I still did not get to see it all. About an hour or so before the closing I was power walking through the halls, trying to at least glimpse everything.

Mona Lisa was kind of disappointing. Not that the painting was bad, but it was really small and there was a horde of people in front of it. It made getting close nigh impossible. I really didn’t feel like waiting who-knows-how-long until I could get close, so I just snapped a photo and resumed my journey.

 

 

 

Paris was fun, and I have been there again another time. My friend wants me to visit him yet again, and while I would like to visit, the problem is that if I do go anywhere, I prefer to visit something new if possible and I have been to Paris twice now.

Those were the other countries that I went to during my semester abroad. I still went to even more places within Germany, though, and I will post about the last of them next week.