Berlin!

Ok! I'm taking a Sunday morning homework break, and, during this time, I will tell you about my trip to Berlin, that was... 3 weeks ago? I know... Crazy.

**Note that these are just whats written in my travel journal, so if the tense is funny, thats why.




Schiphol Airport... Oh man. Nice airport, but its not at all user friendly... nope. I couldn't find the check in, or anyone to ask. I found the baggage check in... And they sent me to the people check in. I checked in, then they sent me to the OTHER side of the airport to go through security. Their metal detectors were very sensitive and 3/5 people beeped, then were pulled aside for pat-down, myself included. I had to check my bag, in, and, when I landed in Berlin, I found that it had been security searched! Lucky for them, my bag has 2 weeks of dirty clothes in it and stinks at this point. But yeah, I made it to the hostel fine. Trying to figure out the transit system was a little tricky... Its a great system (I'll SO miss functioning transit systems...) just, its a little confusing at first. I got to the hostel and ditched my bag, sent people e-mails telling them I got there safe, then I headed to the FREE tour!!! Yay. I love free tours. Our tour guide was great, as always. We saw Brandenburg Gate, the hotel Michale Jackson dangled the baby out of, the Reichtag, holocaust memorial, where Hitler's bunker was, the wall, last remaining Nazi architecture, checkpoint charlie... All in the first half of the tour. We ended at Museum Island, so I went to the German Historical Museum. Good times. Pretty good museum. I'm finding though, that I like MODERN history much more than... other history. Maybe because they don't teach it in schools at all... But I've learned so much about the Soviets and the Cold war on my travels... Its so interesting. Definitely something I want to learn more about. After that, I came to the hostel to shower, lost motivation to find anywhere to go (especially because my hair was wet...) I'm sad I only have 2 days in Berlin though. Its a giant city, with SOOO much history! I really want to come back to visit. I couldn't live here though...

I've run into a number of people, young and old, who are off traveling for a year or more at a time. I want to do that! How do they pay for that??? I found two STUDENTS from Canada. They spent some time in Norway, loved it and decided to stay. Most hostels allow you to work for them and they pay for your room and board. But it can't really pay that well...

Busy Day! Wow! I got up at 8:20, got dressed, had cereal and OJ... and headed out. Hitting 3 museums, a gallery and the Reichtag. All in one day. Aren't you impressed?! First up was going to be the Reichtag, but on the way there, I got distracted by a column with a golden statue on the top... Probably important. From there, I could see the Brandenburg Gate... so I walked through Tiergarten, which was GORGEOUS. Beautiful fall day with leaves falling, leaves on the ground... GORGEOUS. THen, half an hour or so later, I ended up at the Reichtag, right across from the Brandenburg Gate. But the line was crazy long to get in... So I went to the memorial to the murdered jews of europe (actual name. Everyone calls it the holocaust memorial though.) Its a whole bunch of rectangle blocks ranging from flat to over 4 meters tall that are at various slants. There are 2,711 blocks. The ground is all slanted and its dark and cold in the middle... And sound gets muffled in the middle... where the blocks are rather tall. I walked around in that for a while, then went into the exposition underneath. It starts as a time line, then there are personal stories from letters they've found... then there's a room of families and it tells their stories. Then there's a room of names, where they project a name onto the wall and tell the story of that person. Then, the last room is a room of locations. There were phones where first you'd heard a 'first person account' from a voice actor tell about what happened in transit to or at various concentration camps... I don't know if that or the postcards in the other room were... harder to read. Anyway, at the end you exit right into the middle of the memorial. So, i spent a little more time there, then I found the cobble stones that show where the wall once stood. So I followed them/the wall to Potsdammer Platz, then to the Topography of Terror exhibit. Its one of the few remaining stretches of wall. And underneath it they found where the Nazi security headquarters was... So its a long, free, open air exhibit about the torment the Jews went through... Great way to spend a morning. After that, I passed check point charlie (Alpha, Bravo... Charlie! 3rd Check point) then took the train to Alexander Platz, where the TV tower is, its one of the biggest squares in Berlin. I walked around there for a bit before going to the GDR museum, which is a hands on museum about what life was like in East Germany. it was quite interesting, but nothing I can pinpoint for a story. Then, I hopped on the train and went to the East Side Gallery, which they're refurbishing this year or next by inviting the original artists back. You could really see the divide between east and west here, where less money was being spent than in the touristy parts of Berlin. And the Graffiti was good... a lot was covered up with tagging, which is really sad (and why they're refurbishing it...) But you could still see some of it. After that... i went back to the Reichtag and stood in line for a very long time to go up to the top of the Reichtag. We couldn't go into the dome (closed for repairs :( ) But I went to the roof terrace... I could have gotten some good pictures, but by the time I got up there, it was dark... I grabbed some dinner on the way back... And then I was planning on just watching a movie downstair, but I met Olivia from South Africa. We ended up going downstairs for drinks and talking to the only guy who works at the hostel who is FROM berlin. He told us how, yeah, Berlin is nice now... But in West Berlin before the wall came down, it was a paradise where bars never closed, it was quieter and there wasn't required military service like in the rest of Germany. Apperently the West Germans pumped lots of money into West Berlin, so it was always nice and clean and the street lights stayed on all night so the East Germans could see how great life was on the other side. It was interesting to hear such a different view from someone who had been there... Then, i went to bed.

Now, I'm sitting in the airport waiting to check in to fly back to Copenhagen. Kinda boring, but I didn't have any time to actually do anything this morning, so its simply a travel day. I have a day to rest and recover... Then I'm heading to the Czech Republic for 5 days! Whoo!!!

Life Since Break

So, I still have to tell you about Berlin and the Czech Republic, but I will get to that! I wanted to let you know what I've been up to for the last week, since I have been back in Copenhagen! Its nothing super exciting, but I like to keep you updated anyway (and I'm sure you enjoy avoiding whatever work you're supposed to be doing...)

I got back on Halloween! Nothing special happened, I just hung out in the house and slept and recovered from traveling for three weeks. It was nice. I did the same thing on Friday. I don't really remember much from Thursday or Friday, but thats okay. Saturday I woke up and took it easy before going to volunteer- except I got there and I was told it had been canceled because of a life guarding class, so I just came back.

On the way back, though, I just really started to miss home. There wasn't any reason for it to hit me at that moment, but it did. I was sitting on the bus and thinking about how I wanted a McDonalds burger... which I don't ever eat in the states and they're readily accessible here so no idea why that reminded me of home... But decided against it. Instead, I decided to make cookies. I like cookies and cooking sometimes just relaxes me. Amanda had her best friend, Anne, over. She comes over a lot, so I've gotten to know her a good bit. She's so sweet. She doesn't speak very much english (whereas Amanda can ramble on and on in english) but she's sweet. She'll just snuggle up next to me or come and visit me in my room if Amanda is busy. Anyway, Amanda and Anne helped me make cookies! I made sugar cookies... Only I don't know how to explain the difference between baking soda and baking powder and they only knew of one and I don't know what it was (oh, translation issues.) so I just doubled up on whatever one I used... it turned out okay. Actually, they're delicious. The girls wanted to put sprinkles on them, so I made up some milk+powdered sugar icing, and let them decorate them and they had a great time. And they loved the cookies. I... thought they were much too sweet with the extra icing... But oh well. It was fun.

In the morning I woke up first and really wanted pancakes. So... guess what I did?! I made pancakes for me, amanda and anne! Pia didn't want any. Amanda mixed them and anne put them on the stove... it was great I basically just directed them and over saw what they were doing. And then Anne LOVED them and took the recipe and kept telling me how they were SOOO GOOD! She's adorable :) Then Anne went home, and I went to volunteer and everything was good :)

Volunteering was great. At first it was a little awkward because no one remembered me or anything. But it worked out okay. I went around and helped the women that were in the first group with their kicking and their crawl stroke arms. One lady was having a really hard time because her kick wasn't moving her at all. I went over and tried to help. I demonstrated, explained a couple of different ways, body language... everything... She never did get moving. Its so hard because even when I'm working with people who speak english and I tell them to kick from the hips, not the knee they say "okay!" then keep kicking with the knee because they're just not aware of their body in that way yet... And between that and the language barrier, it was so frustrating. But she was such a sweet woman. I thought she was angry at me or something because I couldn't help her. She didn't speak any english, but after class she came up to me and smiled and gave me a hug and said thank you and looked really appreciative even though I couldn't help her. I was a little frustrated that I couldn't help her, but in the end it was good to know that she knew I was really trying and I knew she was trying. And I'm so glad, that despite our differences, we were able to get our gratitude across to each other.

When i got back from volunteering, I decided that, finally, I should probably stop avoiding my work. I still did... but I made a list of my work for the week and wrote out all my assignments for the rest of the semester... Its going to be rough. I have 8+ page papers due every week in addition to conducting 4+ interviews, going to extra lectures, and giving presentations. And the normal readings on top of that. And the research FOR the papers. It should be... fun.

Monday was back to class. Nothing exciting happened. Classes. And Tuesday, again, nothing exciting... UNTIL EVENING! I was a little worried that I would have to sit in my room all night, alone, to watch the elections on the internet. Two of my friends are sick and another was tired... But then we found a party to go to that was free, so we did that. We met up at 10:30 PM... well before any of the polls closed, and went to the bar that was having the party. In the back of the bar was a big room with a projector playing CNN... So we just parked it back there, in the room of Americans, and watched the elections. It was great fun (especially when Wolf Blitzer pulled out the hologram!) We stayed there until we were kicked out at 4:40, 20 minutes before the west coast polls closed, so we moved to a different bar. Where I then stayed until 6:30. The called the race for obama and cheers went out everywhere. Everyone was smiling and cheering and up out of their seats... it was amazing. One of the guys (who was not american) got up on the bar and stood up and started chanting. He switched between "NO MORE FEAR" and "O-BAM-A!" One of the ladies went around and gave huge hugs to all of the Americans saying thank you and congratulations. She was SO excited.

But, the whole thing just made me wish I was in America for this. It was such a monumental occasion. I loved seeing the reactions of non-americans... But I would have so loved to be with friends watching this. By this time, the friend I'd come with had to leave since she had to get up early in the morning. So they called it for Obama and I wanted to cheer and scream and give everyone hugs... But I didn't know anyone there. And after Obama's (amazing) acceptance speech... I left. And the roads were dead. No one cared, in the end. Whereas, in America I've heard so many stories of colleges all pouring out into the streets and celebrating... I would have loved to be a part of that. But, in the end, I'm just glad Obama won.

However, I'm kind of upset that proposition 8 didn't pass. But I'll leave that at that. I've been political enough here and that's not the point of my blog. We can discuss this elsewhere if you want.

Today, I got back to my house at 7:30 and went straight to bed. Woke up at 11 and went on with my day. Checked some election analysis and ate some food... Did some work... Then I made dinner! It was curry apple chicken. Which... I make from my head. But... I forgot how I made it the other times so it wasn't quite as good... But that's okay. Now... I have to read a 55 page paper about muslims in the EU. And write a reflection paper about my 3 week travel break.

Have a lovely night everyone!

Friendly Reminder:

Hi! I'm going to take a quick break from telling you stories about being abroad to remind you to do something important: please go vote. Its an important day. If there are lines, stick it out. And, if you're in line when the polls close? They still have to let you vote. Just so you know. I have already voted, and will be up bright and early to watch as the results start coming in at 2 AM, Copenhagen time. Thank you, and have a great day :)

Amsterdam: Pictures!

Right outside the oldest church in Amsterdam. This 'statue' randomly showed up one day. Its of a hand holding a breast... with a lock to nothing. No one knows how it got there and the symbolism is up to you to decide what it is.



This is just a picture of the hook that's on all of the houses! Its how people move in. Still. To this day, they still move in using that hook.



This was where all of the guilds used to meet. Its right by where they hung all of the people where were sentenced to death by hanging. They also did 'autopsies' in there and one of the famous artists that lived in Amsterdam painted one of his most famous works in this building. And see the side with all of the fake windows? It was for the stone masons guild. It was really prestigious, so to get in you had to make a window... The ones that aren't finished were ones that just plain weren't good enough.



This is the GIAGANTIC house of the guy who owned the east india company. Houses we heavily taxed, loosely based on how wide they were. So this guy was just flaunting that he was rich...



The narrow white house? Yeah... NOT the most narrow house in Amsterdam... its about half as wide. Story with this one though! See the giant house above? This was the house of... his door man or butler or something. He was quoted as saying, "I'd be happy with a house as wide as your door." So that's what he got.



Dutch East Indies Company!!! Now its just a university...



Just a normal scene of Amsterdam. Yes, the whole city looks like this. More or less.



On the top you can see the symbol of Amsterdam. On the bottom you can see my tour guide, Neil. On the middle? It used to be a men's work prison. Where they drowned a guy- the guy didn't think they'd actually kill him for not pumping water out of the chamber he was in... but then the water filled the chamber... When the prison was closed, it was turned into a swimming pool... Now, as our tour guide put it, its a different kind of prison for men: A shopping center!!!



Hidden Catholic church. This one is special though! This one's mission is to keep the miracle of Amsterdam alive!!! What is the miracle of Amsterdam? I'll tell you. Apperently, its famous among Catholics. So, this Catholic guy, I don't remember if he was important in the church or not... asks for his last rites as a Catholic. But he was very, very ill. So, he gets fed the Eucharist (the piece of bread)... but since he's really sick, he throws it up. The cleaning lady comes in, and cleans it up... Throws the vomit in the fire... Only... when she throws it in the fire the bread floats and hovers above the fire... Unburt, unchewed, unharmed. (the other version says that the guy died, they cleaned out the fire, and found the bread there, untouched.) Either way, the preist man comes and gets the bread and takes it home for observation or something along those lines. The preist goes to sleep... wakes up the next morning... The bread is gone! It had vanished... and reappeared at the house where the guy had died. Then, a few years later, the house burns down and everything is destroyed... except the bread. The house is rebuilt... then the same thing happens. The preist decides this is very special bread that reaffirms the entire Catholic faith, and takes the bread to the church where it is kept in a very special silver box. Every once in a while, the bread is taken out of the box and paraded around town... Then, one day, some guy comes and robs the church, takes the silver box... Opens it. Wonders why theres bread in it... Chucks the bread in the canal and takes the box. He's later arrested, and the box is given back to the church... But the bread was never recovered. This church, its mission is to keep that miracle alive. It has paintings depicting the miracle. You can go in and see them.



Bad picture. Funny story. Back a couple of decades ago, they asked Dutch people what their biggest pet peeve was- the government was going to try to remedy the situation. Biggest pet peeve was... Public urination by foreigners. So, they put pee-sheilds on the houses, so if you pee on them it just bounces back at you and they put electrified metal rods by some doors... and gave men little public urinals- green little curli-cues where they can watch people walk past as they pee. So... this was in the 70s or 80s... When everyone was all about women's rights. So, some women decided THEY wanted public restrooms... But for women, the restrooms were much more expensive. So, the government said no. The women protested... 200+ women went to a bridge outside city hall... and they all peed on the bridge. They said if they didn't get their restrooms, they'd do that on every bridge in Amsterdam. So they got their public toilets, pictured above- the round cement building. Only, these were then used by homeless men as shelters from the rain and then had to be locked a few years later. Now, they're just used as places to put advertisements.



Another shot of Amsterdam. Its pretty!



The windmill we visited!!!



The cheese and clog factory...



With lots of cheese inside!



And lots of clogs!!!



Look! Its me on the reclaimed land! I'm about 3 meters below sea level here.



Amsterdam Hilton! You can see the writing on the windows of the balcony 3rd from the top. Theres a better picture of the balcony in the photobucket where you can actually see it if you look at the picture full size...



Fancy columns with latin phrase on the top, "homo sapiens on urinat in ventium." Translated? Smart men shouldn't urinate in to the wind...



Rijks Museum!



Door to Anne Frank house. Not the entrance to the museum, but the door actually used during that time.

Amsterdam!!!

**As with the other cities, this is just a transcribed copy of what I wrote while on the road.

First, a story, THEN day 1 in Amsterdam! So. When I was 14, I thought, "When I get to high school, I will feel grown up." Didn't happen. THEN when I was 15, I thought, "When I get my drivers license, I will feel grown up!" Again, no. Then, when I was 18, I thought, "When I go to college, I will feel grown up!" Still... no. Sure, I felt MORE grown up, but it was a gradual change that you don't notice until you look back on the past few years and realize all of the changes that have taken place. This whole traveling alone thing though? I defiantly feel more grown up. While I've had this feeling that I could do all of this and take care of myself and everything, this really proves it. Now I know I can take care of myself. I mean, I paid for this trip. I planned this trip. And I've been on my own with a minimal support system in countries where the main language is not my own... for this trip. And, I feel like, if bad things happen I'll be able to deal with them.

Anyway. Amsterdam! Its a beautiful city. I love the canals and the houses and all of the history. And all of the Dutch people are super nice. Know what I don't like? How the Netherlands is known for lenient soft drug laws... Basically allowing pot and shrooms. They're legal... but only under specific laws... My tour guide said that less than 10% of Dutch people actually do pot, no one cares; they've gone through that phase and not its over and done with. HOWEVER. Every traveler I've met, mostly college students, came here for ONE reason. Coffeeshops. There are ~300 licensed coffeeshops in the Netherlands. Why would a coffeeshop need a license, you may ask... Well, "coffeeshop" is code for "place where you can go and buy and smoke pot legally." Which, I knew. However, I didn't know that they were everywhere and that every brochure I found would have 2 pages listing the best coffeeshops... and half a page for museums and cultural activities. And there was nothing on cheap food. Coffeeshops? They're mainly there for the tourists. The guy giving the tour to ~30 college students? Yeah... he assumed we were all there for the pot. And, I docked his tip because of it. But anyway, while I don't really feel safe here after dark and generally stay inside because of this... I'm not even comfortable getting lost in this city in the day light. The Netherlands, seems lovely. The canals are great... and they're everywhere. And they get new water once or twice a week. Lovely. The houses? gablestones are amazing, and so are the hooks used for hoisting up furniture for move in. And I love how narrow they are! The bridges? Amazing. Basically, i love Amsterdam. just not the touristy part where there are coffeeshops on every corner. Today, I woke up and went wandering around, as is my usual routine. I did this for maybe a half an hour before I decided this was not the place to go exploring on my own. I passed half a dozen coffeeshops in any direction I went. So, i went back to the hostel to wait for the time to go on the free tour! I love the free tours! If you end up in Europe, I highly recommend them. They're not really free, but they're based solely on tips. So, the guides work really hard to give you an amazing tour so you tip them well... So, anyway. I went on the free tour. I saw the city's oldest church, which happens to be in the middle of the red light district. There are prostitutes in windows in the red light district. You just look up... and... yeah. No matter how many time you're told about this... its still surprising when it happens. More on this later though. The church was there because Amsterdam was a big port city. Merchants would come to land after month at sea on a ship with only men... and the first thing they'd to would be to go pick up some girls. Then, they'd feel guilty before going back out to sea, and not want to be on God's bad side... So they'd go to this church and purchase indulgences. The church made money, the guys went back out to sea without a guilty conscience... Everyone wins! But yeah... the tour. We saw SO much! You'll have to ask if you want specifics. I'll ramble for a little bit about things though. The symbol of Amsterdam is three xs (xxx) and you see it everywhere (you'll see it in the pictures.) We asked what it meant. Apparently the story goes that when the Netherlands became an independent nation it adopted the symbol for the saint of merchants. His sign? An inverted cross, which looks like an x. The 3 xs are each for the 3 things Amsterdammers have to fight: flooding, disease and fire (at least I think the last one was fire...) Anyway, it was stamped on everything exported from Amsterdam (which was a lot due to the east india company (which I saw!!!)) Some say that is how the symbol for porn (the 'xxx') got started... Main port city, lots of merchants... what do they want... All of it got marked with xs and sold abroad... I think the story sounds a little far fetched, but whatever. ANYWAY. I think someone said that Amsterdam's population is about 40% foreign/tourist... Which is rather high. The skinniest house... is rather skinny. I didn't see it, but I saw the second most narrow house. Dutch people move into their new houses by hoisting their belongings up using a pully system since the stairs are too narrow... Things like that. After the tour I went right to the Anne Frank house. When the Nazi's invaded the house, they took all of the furniture. Otto Frank (the only one who survived...) came back after everything was over with and said that he wanted the building to remain furniture-less. So, the whole building is empty. There are videos of interviews with the people who helped the Franks and stories about their time there... And then you walk through a door, and you see the bookcase hiding the entrance to the annex... and then you're there. Its kind of surreal. It seems... crazy? that 8 people had to live there for 2 years and that they never left... All for their religion. They didn't even do anything wrong... Now... to find a way to transition away from this. Amsterdam prides itself on their tolerance... Which they have a hard time reconciling the Anne Frank house with. They claim that their tolerance was built off of everyone having to work together to save their town from floods (the saying goes, "God built the world, men built Amsterdam." since man 'reclaimed' the land from the sea.) If you ask them for proof of their tolerance, they talk about how they had the first gay bar and the first lesbian bar. They talk about their legal prostitution, porn and pot. They talk about how sure they denounced Catholicism, but they let them keep practicing if they didn't flaunt it (leading to hidden catholic churches.) but, I was relating this to Anne Frank House. One way they found to reconcile this time of intolerance was a story of a rebellion. When the Nazis came to the Netherlands, they tried to 'trick' Amsterdammers into thinking that they were a welcoming force. They hid the fact that they were horrible to Jews for the most part. Then, they forcibly took some Jews from their homes on Market day, when everyone was in the Jewish Quarter. The Dutch saw how horrible the Nazis were to the jews, they got the trolly drivers to strike. And, without the trolly drivers, no one else could go to work either. So, they all walked out and started an uprising. Which was unsuccessful and ended with many Dutch people getting killed and retreating back into hiding from reality. But they tell this story in a way that is supposed to show how they loved their Jewish 'brothers and sisters.' Despite the fact that in reality, this did very little for the Jewish population. Okay. Topic change! Tolerance... laws... legal sex and drugs. Why so legal? Here's the reasoning: In the 70's, heroin started to become really popular and began to replace the previously popular pot. Authorities decided that heroin was bad and that pot... wasn't as bad and that they'd rather have a bunch of people addicted to pot than to heroin. So, they legalized pot (under very specific rules: can't grow your own, go to the coffeeshops, no one under 18 in the coffeeshop, no hard drugs, no alchohol in the coffeeshop...) and focused on punishing those using or dealing heroin. Now, the numbers of Dutch people who do pot OR heroin are -very- low. Pot isn't so special to them any more (unless you're a tourist. then its quite popular.) and heroin has some bad consequences with the law. Prostitution? Its legal because they couldn't stop it... so they decided to legalize it so that they could protect the prostitutes. They even have a 'union' that helps them get out of the business and provides various kinds of counseling and provides a pension? All of the prostitutes have an emergency button to hit if any problems arise and the cops will be there super quick. And, if they find out that there is organized crime involved with any of the ladies (like, if they were forced into prostitution), there are serious consequences. But yeah... After I went to Anne Frank House... I went to the Pancake Bakery! I went alone. You get served REALLY fast when you go alone! For pretty cheap, I got a pizza sized apple and cheese pancake and covered it in syrup and sugar... Ta-da! Dinner! Then I got tips from the hostel (they were SHOCKED when I said I didn't want to go to bars alone and that I had no desire to go to any coffeehouses...) and ended up at a chill jazz bar, where I drank a little bit of cider and listened to some Latin Jazz. Good times.

Today I woke up later than I thought I would without an alarm, then ran (okay, I took the tram...) to the Rijks museum (the national museum) where I met up with the group for the Mike's Bike tour!!! Yay. So, we stood there and he tells us the history of the city for about 45 minutes. Then, we head off to pick up our bikes at the shop. It was advertised as a 4 hour tour, but really its only 3 since an hour of it is spent story telling and picking up bikes... After we all got bikes, we headed out of the city on the banks of the river Amstel (get it?! Amstel Dam?!) We were riding on a big dijk (english spelling: dike. Pronounced the same way.) for most of the ride- so if you looked to your left you saw water! If you looked to your right... you saw land... a few meters below where the water was... We rode at a leisurely pace down the scenic path to the first stop: windmill! It was an old one, one of the few traditional windmills with the thatched roof. we stood there, it was a beautiful day, and our guide explained how the land is BELOW sea level. Reason? The windmills. They were fitted with an Archimedes screw, which pumped water out of one area (on one side of a dijk) and to the other as it spun. Its called reclaiming the land. We rode back on this reclaimed land. Now, it doesn't really flood much, they've gotten the keeping water out thing down to a science... The last big flood was in the 50s... but now they have an intricate system of locks and dijks. They even have a system of locks that cleans out the canals on a rotational basis once a week! Anyway, after the windmill, we went to a cheese and clog factory. Big tourist trap. Whatever. It was cool. The whole 'backpacking through europe' thing put a damper on my wanting to buy 10 cheese wheels... The only other interesting stop on our tour? Amsterdam Hilton! The one made famous by the John Lennon song. Its the one where Yoko Ono and John Lennon went crazy and invited a bunch of reporters up to their room where they were barely clothed... then they wrote on all the walls and windows. They never cleaned it up- they just charge more for that room now. And you can still see the marker marks on the windows... From the street. After dropping my bike off, I headed to the Van Gogh museum! Van Gogh lived in Amsterdam. It was... rather expensive, but worth it. I was there for 3 hours until it closed and they kicked me out. I was actually pretty sad to have to leave... I only saw half of the museum: the '125 favorites' exhibit and the van Gogh exhibit. And part of an indian art exhibit. The 125 favorites thing was really interesting. It talked about the organization that works to collect art for the museums of the Netherlands and how it got all of the pieces and why they're important. My favories were one with giant cut-outs by Matisse and View from a Balcony Gustave Caillebotte. You can find it if you put it in google, I'm pretty sure. Van Gogh's exhibit... He's not really my favorite. But I can now have a seemingly intellectual conversation about how van Gogh's early period was much too dark and his Uncle Theo was right that he needed to use more color. And I could tell you that while van Gogh was in Paris he had some rather nice works, though he should stay away from pointillism and I could tell you that my favorite period of van Gogh's life was when he had checked himself into a clinic after he started to show signs of a disease... I think those were his best works. See? I can fake knowing something about art now! Then I went to the Indian Art exhibition... which I was enjoying when they came on the intercom and told me to leave... I never made it to the permanent collection, which I was looking forward to. I think they have some Warhol? I find Warhol quite... interesting. After that, I bought some post cards before going to the comedy show: "Bye, Bye Bush" as performed, in English, at Boom Chicago. I ordered a 15.50 euro meal... (~25$) which was actually pretty reasonable considering my pancake was one of the cheapest meals I'd seen and it was 9.50 euro... But it was good. And my only food of the day. The show came on after I'd eaten. It was hilarious. They started by having people cheer when their country was named. Americans were rather quiet. Then they mocked us saying that 8 years ago we were the loudest in the crowd... then explaining the 8 years of Bush does nothing for our country's self image. Then they asked people to cheer if they wanted McCain to be the next US president. And I've never heard a room full of so many people be SO quiet. All side conversations stopped... everything was silent. You could have actually heard a pin drop... But, to be fair, they mocked McCain, Obama, Palin... but not Biden. They said he was too dull to mock. But the entire second half of the show was dedicated to mocking Palin. After the show, I headed back to my hostel and packed up... then slept for 3 hours before waking up to head to Berlin!

Morning time in Amsterdam! Today's lesson: DON'T BOOK THINGS BEFORE 7 or 8 in the MORNING!!! The people in your hostel get annoyed with you waking them up before the sun comes up and public transit usually hasn't started or is just ridiculously hard to navigate, and, in general, its not worth the loss of sleep. For example: I woke up at 3:45 AM, annoyed the other 9 girls in the room at the hostel, walked a creepy 5 minute walk to the train station... which appeared to be closed despite the fact that I checked twice to make sure I had a train to the airport... I bought my ticket (didn't have change, had to use my card. Cost 2.30 euro) then had to ask someone how to get in since all of the doors were closed and locked with bars? They pointed to the hidden door a decent way away from the main entrance... where 5 security guards were standing. I had to show them my ticket before I was granted access. Once in, not a problem. I caught my train, and off to the airport I go!

Brussels: The Pictures!

So... I didn't spend much time in Brussels, and it was just me, with a bad map, wandering around. I had a good time... But I don't know what many things are. I just took pictures of cool things I saw, mostly.



A park.



Fountain... in the park.



Cathedral!



Statue... Looking at the cathedral.



A building, with a cool mural on it!



This. Was a synagogue.



Some important looking building...



Shopping center! Its covered!



Popular street with many shops. :)

Brussels!!!

**As with the other cities, this is just a transcribed version of what I wrote on paper while on the road.

Brussels!!! Its been... an interesting day. Luckily, my cell worked long enough to wake me up this morning! So lucky. So, I got up and headed to the Pimlico tube station at 5 this morning to catch my 6'o'clock train. Only... i got there, and it was closed. Bad. And St. Pancras, the train station, is on the OTHER side of town in a location I'm not really sure of. So, in a panicked state, I headed towards the Victoria Tube station... and hailed the first cab I saw. It cost me 15 pounds (~30$) plus all of the change I got back was in coins (which you can't change to other money...) However! I did catch my train. Which was good. Two hours later... I was in Brussels! The train went through the Chunnel, and I think I spent some time in France... All announcements were in three languages... English, french, and what I'm assuming to be Dutch. Belgium is divided in half, with the south part speaking french and the north part speaking Dutch. One half is Wallonia, the other half is... Flemsburg I think? So, I arrive and locate the metro, buy a day pass... and hop on. With a little help from the metro map, I pick a random stop near the one with the word that looks like "central" and go exploring. So, I'm in this city, where it seems that everyone speaks french and don't really know where I am... But, i've found that I enjoy getting lost in cities as a way of getting a feel for it. I know the signs of a sketchy area and stay away from those and stick to the busier areas, so no worries. Anyway, I wander for about an hour and half and just as my shoulders and back are starting to hurt, I find a beautiful park with a fountain and some sort of curved building arched around a part of the park. I sit and relax for a while, then decide to press on by finding a new metro station and going to the central city. I get there and finally loacate a map... and some chocolate and belgian waffles... as well as another DIS student (who I didn't know, so I didn't talk to.) and a Cathedral! I'd made it to the touristy royal quarter. I explored for a while, but without a good map, I couldn't find much (not even the statue of the pee-ing boy!) before I had a number of needs that needed to be taken care of: shoulder, back, bladder, stomach... So I headed back to the train station, the only place I knew I'd be able to find a way to satisfy all of these needs. I'm still here at the train station, with 2 hours left until my train. I know where the atomnium is... and where mini-europe is & the EU complex, all of which I'd like to see, but I doubt that I would be able to get back on time. So, I'm going to hang out here and buy an alarm clock since the train station is like a mall... Should be a good time. People told me Brussels was lame and that I shouldn't go there, but I liked it. I would like to come back when I have more time to find the statue of the boy and see the EU complex and the atomnium... But I have a lifetime to keep traveling. This little bit that I've done has just made me want to see more. And, with this little bit of traveling, I've learned some things! For example, a list of things to remember if you want to stay in a hostel: padlock (they provide lockers, you provide lock.), flashlight (no one likes to be woken up at 4 AM as you're trying to pack up your stuff in the dark...), Alarm clock (you don't want to miss your early flight!), shower shoes (its gross in there.) AND your money belt. Yay. Now you can go hosteling!

I've also been thinking more about traveling alone. In Salsibury, I met two girls from Hong Kong who were rather concerned about the safety of traveling alone (they said, "Especially in Europe.") But I feel like, with some common sense, its generally safe. Watch your stuff, know where you are, watch your surroundings, avoid dark places, be (or atleast look) confident and know where you're going, and don't tell people you're alone. If you're lost and need to ask directions, as someone in a cafe or someone with kids and if something doesn't feel right, go find a place with lots of people and police. But, I've found that I like traveling alone- setting my own schedule and picking my own activities. I pick the pace and eat when I need to... I'm in control of the situation. I don't have to keep track of others and I don't have to argue about the day's activities. And when I'm tired- I can go sleep. I just like doing things that most other people might not want to and I'm more okay with not having a set plan than most people too... I feel like, If I really knew the person I was traveling with, it would be good, but I didn't have that option this time around, so, I feel like this option was best.