Brussels, Belgium
Our first taste of Europe, fresh, cold air and the old buildings! We were lucky to be able to check our bags in and then we headed to the train to travel about 20 minutes to Brussels Centrale. The main square was right beside the train station and we wandered around for about 2.5 hours before coming across a great little cafe where we had, obviously, Belgian waffles! My first real taste of good sweets because I had the chocolate sauce on top! We also had a crepe each and got to practice our French or at least respond to dirty looks when the waitors knew our French would be terrible! Our short stay in Belgium was nice and it was definitely really cold compared to 40 degrees in India!
Hamburg, Germany
We had a great time in Germany visiting Zee's previous home stay family as well as her hockey club, Klipper! We were picked up by Doro, the mother of the family, where we were brought back to her house for two nights and had a great time wandering Hamburg ourselves and cheering on the Klipper team. Doro's children Meike and Lolo were still living in the house but the older daughters Annette and Joey we met up with downtown as they are living closer to their Universities. We did some shopping down at Jungfernstieg along the water and also had two meals down there! It was a short trip in Hamburg mostly full of hockey socializing and shopping but at least I got to see some of Germany and stay in a German house :) We even visited a hockey store but they didn't have much outdoor gear since their indoor season is on right now!
Berlin, Germany
We spent the majority of our trip in Berlin and I don't regret that all. I kept saying that I felt like I was in Disneyland because it was a huge city and everywhere you went was something to see or there was something to do. It was an amazing city full of such vibrant people, young and old, as well as so much history. Never in my life did I think I would really get into history like I did in Berlin. I was so fascinated by all the war stories, the truth behind a lot of what happened right in spot where I was standing or to a building I was looking at. It was truly remarkable. We had a free guided 3.5 hour walking tour and then we followed our Berlin books and toured the city ourselves. As I said previously, we saw a tremendous amount of things for the time we were there. We hit up all the main things like the Brandenburger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie, Alexander Platz, Ku'damm, Potsdammer Platz, East Side Gallery and much more! On top of that we checked out the Pergammon Museum, the Technik Museum and the "story of Berlin" museum. We met up with fellow FIH Youth Panel Representative, Nina, who took us for breakfast and to a great field hockey store where I got two pairs of turf boots for 112 euros total! The Pergammon museum really was one of my favourite things because it showed some really Hellenistic and Classical greek art and architecture. It was remarkable to see it in real life after learning and hearing so much about that culture from my god mother. Overall, Berlin overwhelmed me with its culture, history and how it could be so modern at the same time!
Linz, Austria
We had the best tour guide and host in Linz. Dan's dad was gracious enough to organize transport, accommodation, food and all our touring for us before we even got there. We were picked up at the airport even after missing our connecting flight in Munich and catching a flight 6 hours later! We were taken to a friend of his, Ingrid's, apartment and were treated so kindly. We had meals there, our own beds and were situated right in the heart of the city. Hermann, Dan's dad, took us on a little walking tour of Linz the first night we got there. We continued our tour the next day and checked out the Danube, the castle that overlooks the city, the major town square, which is one of the largest, and also a few churches and cathedrals. We headed to the famous Jindrak's for some famous sweets that were just coming into season while we were there - PERFECT! We visited the Stiegel Pub and also took a long drive out to Bad Ischl to see the mountains, water and Emperor's summer palace. More sweets were to be had there too, of course! Our short visit to Linz was a taste of Austrian lifestyle and it is definitely one that I want to come back to today. For now, I feel so privileged to have visited Linz, seen where Dan grew up and met some of his family's closest friends.
Vienna, Austria
We took the train from Linz to Vienna and arrived at our hotel around noon. We dumped our bags off and headed for site seeing! We spent 7 hours wandering around Vienna checking out as much as we could. With no more than a pamphlet from the Ibis hotel we were doing mostly wandering and guessing. We had some good shopping along Mariahilferstrasse and then headed toward the palace and Stephansdom. We walked a lot because from there we walked towards Karls Platz and further to the Belvedere Museum - both of which were well out of the way! That took the majority of our day up and we crashed pretty hard at night! We were lucky to run into an "Army parade" that was taking place on the palace grounds and got to have some good food and see some helicopters up close. We checked out the largest antique library in the state hall and also lit candles as a memoriam in the Stephansdom, which was still under construction. Vienna in a day is not recommended because there is a lot to see there but at least I got to head into town and see the majority of the sites in the Ring!
We spent our last night at a sketch hotel in Brussels and wandered with Phil Wright who was on our same flight the next morning. I think we were staying in like a mini-Turkey area but it was good that we had Phil... definitely felt a lot safer.
It was a lot of history, travel and sight-seeing in 10 days but well worth it. Now it's back to reality. Our team has a carding camp starting next Monday and so, it's back to the grind with Pan Am games in the near distance!
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