Small College Town - Muenster, Sep. 30

Surprise! I went to Muenster instead of Hannover like I said I would. The main reason is that all the cities I've visited so far, I've had at least one person say something about it, but I've not heard anyone say anything about Hannover. However I have heard one of my grandmother's neighbors mention Muenster which happened to be in the same area, so I decided to come here instead! I'm glad I did, it's a nice place here, more on that below!

My last night in the cab hostel in Hamburg was good, no issues. My only complaint is that the showers are all in the basement rather than a few on each floor, but it was otherwise a really nice place to stay at! I checked out and made my way to the train station. I got there over an hour before I needed to, and it turns out there was another train heading to Muenster, so I hopped on that one instead. Man, I really do like having the Eurail pass!

The train ride wasn't very noteworthy, all the scenery pretty much looked like everywhere else (farms, trees, suburbs). I didn't take any pictures, so you'll just have to imagine it. Or go look at the pictures from previous train rides, they're all pretty similar.

I got into town and checked into my hostel. I wasn't able to find anywhere that offered single rooms for cheap, and I didn't want to pay like 100 Euros per night, so I was stuck with choosing a dorm. Although there wasn't much choice, because there was only 1 place with a bed available for 2 consecutive nights, so that's where I ended up staying. It's called H.ostel (I always mentally put a pause at the period, sort of like m'lady), and I've actually been happy with it so far.

It has a very consistent theme: plywood. But not in a bad or cheap way. Most of the furniture pieces are plywood construction, and the selected plywood all has neat patterns on it. The bunk beds are all built out of it, there are some box chairs made of plywood, the lockers are plywood, even the reception desk has a plywood front. I actually quite like it!

The rest of the building has been done in a very modern style, including white, black, and gray colors. That's another style that I quite like, very neutral colors. For some reason, it really seems to fit with the plywood furniture, though I can't explain why! Each dorm room has multiple bathrooms, so no one gets held up by anyone else in the morning. And they also provide a lot more privacy than other shared bathrooms, which I definitely appreciate.

My first night here was actually decent, no one made excessively loud noises! I pretty much slept through the entire night, probably the best sleep I've gotten in a dorm on this trip. Really the most noise came from my quilt cover, which sounds a bit like crumpling paper whenever you move around. Also anything tapping on the wood is pretty loud, but I otherwise didn't have any issues last night. Here's hoping tonight goes as well!

I've also done a good amount of exploring around town today and yesterday. Muenster is relatively small, the city center is roughly 1km in diameter, so it's easy to walk anywhere. The center is fairly well pedestrianized, but not as extremely as places like Nuremberg. It's basically another big shopping center, but there's also some old tall buildings around.

Running around the city center is a circular promenade. It has 3 lanes, the center is for bikes and the outer ones are for pedestrians. There are trees planted very frequently between the lanes, whose branches provide a lot of sky cover. Many areas of the promenade also have green areas on the sides, such as open grass patches or water features. I walked all the way around this ring yesterday, it was very pleasant!

The total length is about 4.5km, and takes about an hour to get all the way around if you're just walking. The promenade does cross a few main roads leading into the city center, but the traffic density didn't seem too high. Most of these intersection had lights to control the flow of cars, bikes, and people.

One of these intersections had an interesting feature, a sign that indicates to cyclists what the current state of their traffic light is, and how long until it changed state indicated by the color receding upwards. This was maybe 100m before the intersection, so it gives cyclists an idea of whether they can rush to make the light, or if they don't need to rush. I'll be honest, this doesn't seem super useful, but I still think it's cool!

Another traffic management solution I've come across are these prioritized pedestrian crossings. This isn't the first time I've seen these, but it's the first time I've seen them so frequently used in a city. My understanding is that pedestrians (and cyclists) crossing the road have right of way at all times here, so everyone else must yield to them. For low density car traffic, these work really well.

I've also found a couple of these roads that are specifically intended for bikes. The road is painted red to clearly indicate that, plus these signs stating Fahrradstrasse (literally "bicycle street"). Motor vehicles are still allowed on the road (indicated by the bottom sign), but these roads are primarily for bikes, who I assume get right of way. Interesting!

Another​ thing I came across in my explorations was this interesting fountain, which made some very nice rainbows if you stood in the right place. If the wind picked up, I could even catch a glimpse of a double rainbow! It was hard to get a nice picture of that, but this picture shows a fairly brilliant single rainbow.

I also looked a bit around the university campus here, which is just west of the city center. This has certainly been the most lively campus so far, which is probably because schools only just started, so I'll try to not let that bias my opinions. But it looked like a decent campus, there was definitely a variety of architectural styles around. I found the main physics building and nabbed a picture.

There are a few main roads going through the campus, so it's a bit difficult to get away from cars, but it at least means there's a handful of bus stops nearby if you need to go somewhere. I'll have to look more into the research programs here before making a final verdict on it.

That's all I've got from Muenster, it's a nice little town here! Definitely seems like more of a college town, I've seen lots of people my age wandering around. It did rain a fair amount while I was here (plus some lightning last night too!), which put me off a bit since I'm not a huge fan of rain. But it's otherwise a nice place, there's a decent amount of green space, and getting around is easy.

I'm off to the Netherlands tomorrow! I'm finally going into another country, should be exciting! I've heard a lot of good things about the infrastructure in the Netherlands, so I've got high hopes for that. And most Dutch people speak fluent English, so that shouldn't be an issue. I'll also be staying with a family friend who can guide me around, so it should be fun!