Bryce’s Notes

I had a nice night last night. My neighbor, Ludovic is from France. Before he went home for Christmas, I asked him to bring back some cider (traditional from his region) for us to drink. He brought back some that his parents had made and we drunk it last night with crackers and French camenbert. Superb!

After that I headed over to Alena’s place, where she and Sandra had made dinner for me. These two girls drink like Russian sailors and had already finished off a bottle of champagne and a half bottle of vodka whilst cooking the meal. I bought another bottle of champers and we spent the night giggling like idiots. This is partly because we can’t understand each other very well; they are both Spanish and speak a little bit of German, but little English, and I can only speak English, with a little bit of German. I had an early start today so I went home at around midnight whilst they headed off to the nightclubs.

Today I’ve had a tutorial, lunch, a group assignment meeting, a lecture and done some copying, and tonight I have to study for my exams which start in a week and a half.

A strange thing about the Belgian cities is that the tourist offices are all in the middle of the city and the train station isn

The Lonely Planet calls Bruges the

After a long train-trip and a connection that was an hour late, I finally arrived in Brussels at about 9pm. As I have apparently become stupider than before I left Australia, I hadn

TRAVEL ITINERARY FOR:
MR B. WINTER

Damn it’s been cold recently. I had a mate give me a lift home from uni, and his front doors where the lock is had frozen shut. He had to climb in through the boot and unlock the back doors, so that we could get in.

These Germans are crazy. I just remembered that I forgot to report on New Years celebrations here! More or less can be summed up in 3 words.

Everyone has fireworks.

You can buy fireworks in the supermarket, and it’s not illegal to set them off in crowded places. I had heard that the best fun on New Years is to be had at Domplatz (A big square next to the Dom, which means Cathedral, and is in the middle of the city). So off I trundle with a few friends to check it out. Have I mentioned that Germans are crazy? Basically it’s a huge crowd of people that bring their own explosives and alcohol. I think it was a good indication of what to expect when I entered Domplatz, there was about 5 ambulances and 30 emergency medics sitting around waiting. It was a moderately impressive fireworks display, but sadly too much time was spent checking that someone hadn’t thrown a firecracker at your feet. I saw some dude setting up his rocket in a wine bottle and then somebody threw a firecracker at him. G

I went to Bonn as a side-trip before heading to Belgium. As I only had a couple of hours there, it was a case of a quick walk around the city, and then a visit to Beethoven Haus, which is the Birthplace of Beethoven and is now a museum dedicated to him. Bonn was the capital of West Germany just after the war, but it is a very small city.

I got off the train and it stopped raining for me! Marvellous. After about 100 walking from the station, there is a statue of Beethoven, standing in the middle of a square. I have my photo taken with the statue, but you are not allowed too close, because of the fence that surrounds it. Even if I could get close, I couldn’t give Beethoven a noogie, because he’s standing on a pedestal. I should be able to reach his foot if I jumped I think. I popped by the information office, got a map, and then headed off to Beethoven Haus. On the way, you pass by Bonn’s famous city hall and cathedral, and then through the bustling market located in another square.

I got to the museum, bought a ticket and in I went. The house is 3 stories tall, thin and narrow. Each room has a different theme, and it is more or less themed in chronological order, with the first room having a timeline of Beethoven’s life. It was good to see some of the things that Beethoven used, including 2 pianos as they were found in his room when he died, horns that he used for hearing, letters and papers written from and to him, statues of him, a life and death mask of his face, original musical manuscript written by Beethoven and Listz (sp?), etc. It was a fairly thorough museum, but slightly disappointing to me because of the copiousness of German that I couldn’t understand, and a lack of English translations, found so often in most of the other museums in Europe. I was puzzled by the No-Camera rule here, as I don’t understand what that would accomplish. Maybe some of the paintings? Nonetheless, it was interesting museum, and I am glad that I made time to go and see it.

After Beethoven Haus (about $7AUD), I basically traced my steps back to the train station, spending slightly more time at each of the lesser places of interest to have a gander. It was now time for the 5 hour train trip to Brussels (just the 2 hours travel in Belgium cost $40AUD, the German portion was covered by the SchoneWochenende Ticket that I had bought), the capital of Belgium.

This is a photo of when I was at Marcus’ apartment watching AliG with him and his girlfriend, taken on his digital camera by his girlfriend. Marcus is a member of my studygroup for F

Howdy all,

My recent entries have seemed to have disappeared! I am investigating and will rectify the problem when the cause becomes apparant.

I have an exam on Wednesday (8/1/03), which is looming as being an unpleasant experience. It is for the subject ‘International Corporate Governance’. A couple of hours of my study-time have been squandered watching the video highlights on www.baggygreen.com.au of the recent cricket matches. Wow! Looks like I missed some screamers of matches.

I ended up going to Belgium and travelling around North-Rhine Westphalia (My state over here in Germany) over Christmas, and I will post accounts after my exam.

Until after the 8th,

Cheers,

Bryce.