Enough with the German jokes

A blog of my adventures over the summer of 2006 in Germany.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Tipecanoo and Tigger too!

Alright, so there's really no reason to use that William Henry Harrison reference, but it's so much fun! Can you blame me? If I ever run for President, I'm going to have to up my slogan from "Kendall like the square" or "Kendall like the lights in the Church" (for the Germans) to something else entirely. and Tippecanoe is already taken! ooh, maybe something about Tippi Hedren . . . it's close

Anyway, I would just like to say that I went to work today with a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich . . . and everybody looked at me funny. It was awesome. I even sung them the song! Obviously, they didn't know it, but I let it go. They thought I was pretty funny . . . and then a little while later I noticed my friend Ruth was wearing a tigger shirt, so I asked her if she knew that song . . . she did a little, so we sung it, but she saw that I knew all of the words, so when someone else asked about her shirt, she said it was from Winnie the Pooh, and that there was a song and that I knew all of the words. Which of course ended with them encouraging me to sing the whole song for them. Again I was entertainment for the Germans. I'll let you in on a little secret. I don't actually know all the words, but you sing that song so fast anyway, that who can tell?

Some line I don't know that ends in tiggers?
Tiggers are wonderful things!
Their tops are made out of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
Their bouncy, *ouncy, *ouncy, *ouncy,
fun fun fun fun fun!
* * the most wonderful thing about tiggers is
I'm the only one!

It's a pretty easy song, I dunno what I don't know all the words ;-)

hehe all done

Kendall

Music: Ruth gave me a list of German bands that I've been listening to. I've got one that's like the German version of Usher and one that's like the German version of Sting. Haha. there's also some actual bands like "Wir sind Helden" who I like a lot, and die toten Hosen. Which means the dead pants or the murdered pants or somthing . . . I dunno, man

Monday, July 31, 2006

The Muscles from Brussels

We went to Brussels this weekend! Apparently Jean Claude Van Dam is from Brussels . . . hence "The Muscles from Brussels"--don't worry, I didn't come up with that on my own. I'm not getting more clever. Apparently it's a pretty old one . . .

Anyway, of course I always analyze the engineering skills of the people of the city and this was the first thing we came across in Brussels:
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20002.html
I was super disappointed. I think it's the stupidest escalator design I've seen so far--it didn't have steps. It was just a very disorienting slant. anyway, I forgave them for the escalator since we just got there and I was sure there were a lot more interesting things in Brussels than an escalator. I was right!

We walked to the main square of the city. It was called Grote Markt in Dutch. I don't know what it was called in Frech--everything there was in French and Dutch, and with a background in English and German, one can kind of almost decipher Dutch and a few of the latin routes in French. So all in all, we were doing pretty well in the city. Anyway, here's some pictures of Grote Markt
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20003.html
Next we went to a very large Cathedral
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20007.html
There were some cool things in the Cathedral including a pretty good view
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20009.html
a crazy pulpit
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20012.html
a pretty old statue in memorial of St. John Baptist De LaSalle
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20013.html
a crazy looking organ
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20018.html
and big ol' statues of the 12 apostles. Which turned out to be not quite right. I decided to test my knowledge of the 12 apostles using a little rhyme taught to me by my principal, Mrs. Smith, in like 6th grade, I think, and tried to pick them all out. I couldn't understand why I was counting 12 when Judas definitly wasn't there, and the guy who took his place wasn't either. Shortly after that I discovered that when I saw the name Paul, I converted it to Simon in my head, because I knew there was one that changed his name from Simon and Simon was in the rhyme . . . maybe I've been listening to too much Simon and Garfunkle. anyway, Paul's not and apostle! And Simon changed his name to Peter and there was also a Simon . . . so complicated. Then Sam decided he wanted to try to learn my rhyme. hehe. wow. I believe I've already talked about this far too long.

After the Catherdral, we headed over to the Manekin Pis
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20023.html
I'm serious. That's really his name, that's really what he's doing, and he really is pretty famous. There were a lot of people around him taking picture--more than you'd think for a statue of a little boy peeing. Anyway, there are a few myths as to how exactly Brussels came upon a fountain of a little boy peeing, but the more popular one is that a kid got lost and his father was frantically searching for him for a few days and when he finally found him, he was so grateful that he ordered a statue be made of his son in the exact position he was discovered in. . . . I think it's kinda lame. haha. I personally like the one about a little boy who was peeing on a witches door when she found him and turned him to stone. hehe . . . but I would like that one better. Anyway, the statue is naked, and some people thought it would be cute to make him costumes and such, and then a lot of people thought that would be cute, so there's this whole museum of little costumes that were given to Brussles, I'm told . . . I didn't go inside.

In other news, Sam is a dog
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20027.html
yup. you heard it here first. We went into this little bar just across the street from the Manekin Pis to sample some Belgian beer--that stuff is awesome. Ah, and here's the sign trying to prevent misuse of their bathrooms. so funny.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20029.html
It looks like it rhymes in Dutch, too . . . I dunno about French, though. Mmmmm . . . Belgian beer is yummy. All of it. There's like 4 differnt types of beer that are specific to Belgium, too. wow. Here's funny guys walking down the street wacing flags and palying music and stuff. no idea what that was about
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20032.html
We kind of decided that Belgium was the city of the good view
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20037.html
The cities kind of built on a few levels, so if you go up, you can see the rest of the city really well, and it's quite amazing. Look, it's me in front of the Palace. You think they'll let me in?
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20043.html
They did . . . although they weren't too keen on me sitting on their steps while I waited for Sam and Kunal to get done inside. I was a little annoyed at them, but I'm sure they were annoyed at all the tourists. Hehe. here's a little girl in the subway. I dunno what the art here is all about, but I felt like I'd seen something like it before in the US. Any ideas?
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20070.html


Anyway, the next day, we saw a cool palace, went in a museum, had more wafels (the wafels are really great, too!), and were still amazed at how much ink these guys used when they wanted to print something
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20093.html
Saw some cool paintings--which I don't really like to take pictures of (if you haven't noticed, I usually don't take pictures in museums . . . dunno why. not unless something really gets me . . . or maybe I wanna look up something later. Like the french on this note here
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20095.html
dude. I've no idea what is going on, but it seems pretty important. After then museum, we had a nice 5 beer sampler at one of the bars--all of them were awesome, like I said, because they're from Brussels. heh.

oh yeah, and here's the atomium
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Brussels/slides/Brussels%20084.html
For all my course 3 friends, it's a really really big iron crystal structure, and you can walk around inside. We didn't, though, because we were told it cost a few euros that we did not have, and it was waaaaay across town--which isn't too bad, because Brussels is pretty small, but by 2pm on Sunday, we really didn't have a lot of time left.

So we and our tired feet hopped on a rather short Thalys train, considering how long the half that went another way was--we almost missed it it was so short! And took the ride home.

Cool beans. Brussles is fun

Kendall

Music: uhh . . . Something Corporate . . . Sujan Stevens. I dunno. I was really sleeping for most of the train ride, and while we were in Brussels, I was making fun of all the people speaking Dutch, so I wasn't listening to music. hehe.