The 3 countries borderline and lots of German CHEESE

08.11.2010
Aachen

Heading to a point at the German borders you can actually be present in 3 countries in the same time! Only makes you realize how symbolic borders are.. Unless we could see the flags of the 3 countries  (Belgium, Germany and Holland) and the thin painted lines on the ground, we wouldn’t even realize that we just traveled from one country to another!

We were 3 walking through a German forest, carpets of autumn tree leaves varying in colors from greenish yellow to orange in a forest of endless tall trees; a picture I used to see in my German language high school book when it was describing the different seasons in the Deutschland. Air is too cold for my Southern nature (yes, in Europe you learn that Mediterranean is South, South of Italy is Deep South, and Egypt is Africa..!)

It was a very interesting and inspiring visit. The unsuccessful attempts to Hitchhike on the way up. The conversations we had in the 3 country-ial cafe and the idea of having a sip from your hot chocolate at one country, using the toilet in another and paying the cheque on a third were extremely amusing!

On the earlier half of that day, it was a pretty interesting in terms of understanding gender equality/inequality in Germany knowing that Aachen as a center for engineering studies, 70% of the students belong to the male gender; only makes you realize that something is not really balanced and that there must be reasons why not as many females are taking the same approach.

Carrying out the street surveys and knowing the professional obstacles females usually face if they want to proceed their careers as university professors or some certain other professions was pretty interesting to discuss with students at the university mensa(Cafeteria).

All in all, it was pretty enjoyable day, the only sad thing about it though was that after all the running, walking, talking and cold weather, when we came back to the hostel there was awaiting for us tons and tons of bloody German… CHEESE!