So we opted for a bit of alone time today. Nor had a tram pass and decided to go into the central part of town, Sar stayed our part of town but went to the area with all the shops, and I went for a stroll along the canal near the apartment. Before I start the bulk of the story, I need to fill you all in on one of my quirks. The pidgeons here are freakin scary. That's right, you heard me: I'm scared of pidgeons. While Sarah and Nora say I'm crazy, I think they are aggressive and they want to bite my toes. Anyway, so it's a beautiful day and I'm sitting on a park bench, writing in my journal, watching the ducks along the canal and this woman comes up behind me and starts speaking Dutch. She could have been talking to me, but it's also possible she was talking to herself, or perhaps even the birds.
Everything is just fine and dandy until I see what she's got in her hand: a bag of bread. Oh dear god she's going to feed the birds...there was no way to escape. She threw the bread into the air and the birds, pidgeons mostly, but some ducks and gulls, started flying/swirling around me. I thought they were going to peck my eyes out. I got a video of it so you can all see how terrifying it was for me. When it was all finally over I looked over at the lady and she was standing there with this grin on her face. I wanted to throw bread at her and have the birds peck away at that stupid smile. Ok that's a bit much but I was not pleased.
Who knows how I came out of that ordeal with all my toes, or even alive for that matter, but I did. Huzzah!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
It's Always Rainy in Amsterdam...except TODAY!
Yes, it is indeed true, it is sunny today in Amsterdam! We've been here since Sunday, and forgive us for not posting anything this week - we briefly had Internet at the apartment we're staying at, and then it stopped working, and then we found out it was never supposed to work in the first place. So we've been staying at my friend Kelsey's stepmom's apartment, (yay, it's a normal keyboard here with the y's and z's in the correct places and apostrophes easy to find!) and it has been so luxurious to have our own "home"for a bit. We've definitely been watching a lot of TV in the evenings, since there are a number of English stations, including Comedy Central... and it's rained every other day, but we've still gone out and walked all over the city.
Ali and I did the "Heineken Experience" yesterday - a tour of the former Heineken Brewery - and we all browsed around the Red Light District late afternoon/evening as well. The other day, Sarah and I biked into the city center on a mission... and we made our way there fairly easily, but we probably took nearly twice as long coming back - in the rain, as it was getting dark - since we took a few wrong turns and had to find our way back somehow. This morning, I woke up to sunshine and decided to go on another bike ride (Elle, the owner of the apartment, has a couple folding bikes) into the center. Everything looks so much happier and enticing in the sun! I don't mind the rain that much, but it's not exactly a picnic walking around in the cold with wet socks.
Amsterdam is definitely a biking city - as many of these European cities have been. There is almost always a separate bike lane, and here there are even traffic signals just for the bikes. I'm not sure we've seen an actual parking lot full of cars - the cars just park on the side of the road, but the bikes park all over the place. Oh and I no longer fear cars as we did in Prague, Rothenburg and Berlin - maybe we never explained that, but there were crazy drivers in those cities!! They never stopped for pedestrians - plus the streets were often mismatched together in an odd arrangement. We actually had a car stop for us as we crossed the street today, and that was a definite first.
Well, we are probably off to Belgium next - probably to Bruges, since the hostels in Brussels look ridiculously expensive. These first 2 weeks have flown by for me - and I'm still excited for the rest. The food has been incredible everywhere, although some of our favorite places have been Mexican and Chinese places... :) We did find a delicious Italian restaurant, and went there just before 10:30 p.m. the other night - and didn't realize until we left at 11:15 p.m. (after some incredible pasta) that the place closes at 10:30 p.m.!!! We felt pretty bad, since the guy in there made all of our food all by himself, so we went back again yesterday, during the day, to have some incredible pizza. I've been reading a coupel John Grisham books, both set in Italy, and I'm in the midst of "Eat, Pray, Love," also partially set in Italy, so I'm soooo looking forward to the food there.
Anyway, we're all at an Internet Cafe today, but we're off to do some exploring on our own. Lots of love!
Ali and I did the "Heineken Experience" yesterday - a tour of the former Heineken Brewery - and we all browsed around the Red Light District late afternoon/evening as well. The other day, Sarah and I biked into the city center on a mission... and we made our way there fairly easily, but we probably took nearly twice as long coming back - in the rain, as it was getting dark - since we took a few wrong turns and had to find our way back somehow. This morning, I woke up to sunshine and decided to go on another bike ride (Elle, the owner of the apartment, has a couple folding bikes) into the center. Everything looks so much happier and enticing in the sun! I don't mind the rain that much, but it's not exactly a picnic walking around in the cold with wet socks.
Amsterdam is definitely a biking city - as many of these European cities have been. There is almost always a separate bike lane, and here there are even traffic signals just for the bikes. I'm not sure we've seen an actual parking lot full of cars - the cars just park on the side of the road, but the bikes park all over the place. Oh and I no longer fear cars as we did in Prague, Rothenburg and Berlin - maybe we never explained that, but there were crazy drivers in those cities!! They never stopped for pedestrians - plus the streets were often mismatched together in an odd arrangement. We actually had a car stop for us as we crossed the street today, and that was a definite first.
Well, we are probably off to Belgium next - probably to Bruges, since the hostels in Brussels look ridiculously expensive. These first 2 weeks have flown by for me - and I'm still excited for the rest. The food has been incredible everywhere, although some of our favorite places have been Mexican and Chinese places... :) We did find a delicious Italian restaurant, and went there just before 10:30 p.m. the other night - and didn't realize until we left at 11:15 p.m. (after some incredible pasta) that the place closes at 10:30 p.m.!!! We felt pretty bad, since the guy in there made all of our food all by himself, so we went back again yesterday, during the day, to have some incredible pizza. I've been reading a coupel John Grisham books, both set in Italy, and I'm in the midst of "Eat, Pray, Love," also partially set in Italy, so I'm soooo looking forward to the food there.
Anyway, we're all at an Internet Cafe today, but we're off to do some exploring on our own. Lots of love!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
From Amsterdam
So pretty funny story, we got to the train station in Amsterdam and needed to transfer to the metro lines to get to a different station. Since we thought we were pros by now, we just bought single tickets to the Amsterdam Centraal and that was that. When we tried to get through the barrier on to the platform, there was no where to put the ticket, and since we needed to get through a turn stop thingy, we were kinda lost. It seemed like there was some sort of "to go" mechanism but our tickets just were not doin the trick. We stood there like tool muffins for like 2 minutes swiping our train tickets over this magnetic thing. After that didn't work, sarah pressed this info button that was maybe also labeled SOS and the thing started beeping so we walked away pretty quickly...we finally asked and found out we had bought train tickets, not metro tickets. Oops.
Just the 3 of Us
So, I have Ali's camera attached to the computer, and I wanted to upload all the pictures of us 3. (She's quite the good marksman, if you will.) However, the mouse on this computer is being difficult, and so far, these are the only ones I'll put up. Perhaps tomorrow I'll add the rest. For now, enjoy the three of us!...(having more fun than you:)
In Berlin at Potsdamer Platz, at the Sony Center (after we saw Inglorious Basterds)
Prague - in the neighborhood where our hotel was.
Downtown Prague. We're so fashionable-looking, aren't we?
Rothenburg...the almost too cute little town.
Berlin - at the train station when we first arrived.
In Berlin, sitting on the steps just oustide of our room at the hostel.
In Berlin at Potsdamer Platz, at the Sony Center (after we saw Inglorious Basterds)
Prague - in the neighborhood where our hotel was.
Downtown Prague. We're so fashionable-looking, aren't we?
Rothenburg...the almost too cute little town.
Berlin - at the train station when we first arrived.
In Berlin, sitting on the steps just oustide of our room at the hostel.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
So with Sarah's permission, I am allowed to tell this story:
Because we are eating a very strange diet, our digestive systems are a bit off. Anyway, long story short, Sarah pooped her pants. That's it. That's the whole story.
p.s. She subsequently clogged the toilet in the cute Youth Hostel in Rothenburg and it overflowed.
Because we are eating a very strange diet, our digestive systems are a bit off. Anyway, long story short, Sarah pooped her pants. That's it. That's the whole story.
p.s. She subsequently clogged the toilet in the cute Youth Hostel in Rothenburg and it overflowed.
Berlin
Hello everybody! So we decided to go to Berlin instead of Cologne. Our guide said that Cologne was known to be a cultural center and Berlin was known for it's night life.....So we decided to come here: sorry parents. Our hostel is a little sketchy, not helped by the fact that the entrance requires you to go through a dark alleyway, and the rooms inside are lit only be red lighting. But it is cheap and safe! Yesterday we walked around Berlin, went to the Jewish Museum, and then decided to make it Jewish day by seeing Inglourious Basterds ( In English ). Then we went and had Mexican food around the hostel around midnight. We were all so sick of bread and cheese and sausage, so it is really nice that there is all types of international cuisine around where we are. The Mexican food is a bit off though. Nora ordered vegetarian nachos and instead of getting vegetables like peppers and onions, she got peas and baby carrots....And last night I ordered a carne asada enchilada, which turned out to be lamb. But oh well : ) Tomorrow we are headed to Amsterdam which we are all excited about. Germany has been fun, but we are ready to try a new country now. Love you all! And bye the way did you notice that the ys and zs are correct now? You are welcome : )
Picture time!
We are all at an Internet cafe right now and all posting, I think, but I figured this was a good time to show some pictures of what in the world we have been up to.
Here we are, all ready to drive to the airport from the house of Ali! (I found an apostrophe but for some reason it takes a long time for it to actually appear when I press that key, so I will continue to avoid contractions...)
Ali, in the Zurich airport. I think Sarah was asleep at this point. These were the wicker chairs that we were able to stow our bags under while we slept/read/people-watched.
Sarah and Ali drinking some 1L steins of beer in Munich - we did not drink at Oktoberfest, since it was so expensive, but instead went with Doug to a biergarten to hang out for the evening.
Our hotel in Prague - hostels are fun, but it was nice to have our own room to sprawl and hang out in. Right now the girls are looking for deals for some of the countries we are about to travel to.
This was my kangaroo dish in Prague - it was quite delicious. Kangaroo steak with a cherry sauce, and mushroom tagliatelle. (I know it looks pretty rare, dad, but no good doctor could have brought this one back.)
In the central area of Prague. The buildings were really beautiful - but some of them, particularly the colorful ones, really reminded me of Disneyland...
So, when we first got to Prague from our bus (from Nuremburg), we were trying to figure out how to get to our hotel - we did not quite get that the big red M with the arrow is the Metro sign.
Ali and Sarah in Rothenburg, with the Tauber valley behind them.
The schneeballen - they were all over Rothenburg, beckoning from every window. They were yummy sugary pastries, but I think we all would have preferred something doughier.
Rachel (girl we met from Sydney), Sarah, me, and Ali - in our room at the youth hostel in Rothenburg.
Here we are, all ready to drive to the airport from the house of Ali! (I found an apostrophe but for some reason it takes a long time for it to actually appear when I press that key, so I will continue to avoid contractions...)
Ali, in the Zurich airport. I think Sarah was asleep at this point. These were the wicker chairs that we were able to stow our bags under while we slept/read/people-watched.
Sarah and Ali drinking some 1L steins of beer in Munich - we did not drink at Oktoberfest, since it was so expensive, but instead went with Doug to a biergarten to hang out for the evening.
Our hotel in Prague - hostels are fun, but it was nice to have our own room to sprawl and hang out in. Right now the girls are looking for deals for some of the countries we are about to travel to.
This was my kangaroo dish in Prague - it was quite delicious. Kangaroo steak with a cherry sauce, and mushroom tagliatelle. (I know it looks pretty rare, dad, but no good doctor could have brought this one back.)
In the central area of Prague. The buildings were really beautiful - but some of them, particularly the colorful ones, really reminded me of Disneyland...
So, when we first got to Prague from our bus (from Nuremburg), we were trying to figure out how to get to our hotel - we did not quite get that the big red M with the arrow is the Metro sign.
Ali and Sarah in Rothenburg, with the Tauber valley behind them.
The schneeballen - they were all over Rothenburg, beckoning from every window. They were yummy sugary pastries, but I think we all would have preferred something doughier.
Rachel (girl we met from Sydney), Sarah, me, and Ali - in our room at the youth hostel in Rothenburg.Well, I think our internet time is running out quickly, so that is all for now!! Lots of love!!!!
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