Juan's Story - Week 9: Back to the roots

Wouldn’t you like to drive your car on the highway as fast as you can?

You might think now that this only exists in one’s dream, but on the German highway you have no speed limitation – well, mostly. On my way to Belgium I had to take extra care on the Belgian highway to not drive too fast, as I was used to in Germany. My girlfriend was especially eager to drive in Germany and to test the limits of the car. Smiling happily like a little kid she was driving near 160 without having to fear a fine. But we weren’t the fastest on the highway by far. Other cars still passed us on the left and were driving around 200, sometimes even more. Interestingly enough Germany doesn’t have more car accidents on the highway compared to other European countries.

But why was I driving to Germany in the first place? As I mentioned at the end of my last blog, I had birthday this weekend and wanted to celebrate it in Germany, so I could meet up with my family and my friends. It was great to see and to spend time with them. This weekend was also the perfect chance to show my girlfriend some German cities and the food I was used to eat, so it was also packed with a lot of culinary highlights. In the morning we had freshly prepared “churros” - which you can dip in chocolate, but I prefer them without something else. A nice Spanish restaurant where they offered a variety of different paellas was the next stop for my birthday. I don’t have to explain what a paella is, as most of you have already eaten or at least heard from it. Last but not least, we had a Kebab and it was amazing as always. I am a real fan of the Bicky Burger and all the fried food from the Frituur, but it’s really sad that I can’t have the taste of German Kebabs here in Belgium.

On Sunday we drove to a city called “Heidelberg” – one of the oldest and most beautiful cities of Germany. Here we met up with a friend of mine, who is doing his internship right now in Strasbourg and came to visit me for my birthday from France. We had a nice German beer and were sitting in a cozy round talking about everyday stuff. It felt like old times. Afterwards we went to visit the castle and its huge gardens, from where we had an amazing view on the city itself. Although it’s not really far away from where I live, I’ve never been there before and was completely overwhelmed by the city. I can recommend it to you all!

With this I have reached the end for this week’s blog post, but the adventure in Germany is far from over, as there is one more day left. You can read more of it next week, see you all soon.

Also read: A Belgian Student’s Guide to UK University Admissions

 

Juan