I Amsterdam!

I don´t even know where to begin about this past weekend! From start to finish it was a blast…

My roommate and I left Thursday afternoon for the airport. After we watched the airport personnel battle a near flight cancelling conundrum (they messed up the terminals and it took about 8 suits to figure out what to do…) we were in the air. First experience on ryanair….no reclining seats, one bag no personal item. This was only the beginning of our trains, planes, and automobiles weekend. We landed in Brussels, met up with a friend coming in from Italy, hopped a bus, switched to a train. Somewhere near Rotterdam there was an accident on the tracks and we had to switch trains again. Thankfully when we finally made it to Amsterdam our hostel was within walking distance.

We stayed at Durty Nelly´s hostel which was the bomb. It had an awesome location and the staff was great. We checked in and went up to our closet, I mean room, that had four bunk beds and one bathroom. There were four other people staying in the hostel with us. We woke up early in the morning and headed out on a walking tour around Amsterdam. We went started in Dam Plaza, and we passed by a church (of course).  Out in front of the church in the cobblestone there was street art. It was a bronze set of breasts with a hand over one of them. The piece had been placed there anonymously at night and the police had removed it shortly after. However the locals liked the piece and requested it to be put back, and so it was.

We went through the Red Light district of course, which we were staying very close to. Not much to say about that, and so much at the same time. It was crazy to see.  

The tour brought us by a huge building where squatters were. It reminded me a little bit of Lisbon, because the side of the building was completely covered in art/graffiti. Our tour guide also mentioned that the Dutch are the tallest people per capita in the world. It was definitely noticeable, especially coming from Spain where I usually tower over everyone. Other highlights of the tour were seeing Rene Descartes´house. The tour guide told a story of how for two days, Amsterdam stood up to the Nazis. The Nazis had been patrolling the Jewish district in Germany and were arresting and brutalizing Jewish people on a Sunday when the majority of the town was out to go to the Jewish markets. Seeing the truth, Amsterdam led a two day revolt against the Nazis. Many died and it was unsuccessful, but it was the first protest against the Nazis. The tour ended conveniently right in front of the Anne Frank house.

We went inside and the house was so moving. Walking up the tiny stairs and seeing all the rooms is so hard to describe. There were parts of Anne´s diary all throughout the house, telling of how she longed to be outside and laugh and play, how she feared for her life, the days when they weren´t allowed to speak, how they showered once a week with the curtains drawn, how they got their food. I did not know that Anne´s father had survived the Holocaust. He helped renovate and open the house up and wanted it to be a launching place for people everywhere to stand up for human rights. There were videos of Otto Frank speaking of his discovery of his daughter´s diary, how he had no idea how deep her thoughts were and her observations. At the very end there was a quote of Anne from her diary that said,

 "I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to G-d for this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear; my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write anything great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?"

The display was of all the languages that Anne Frank´s diary was published in.

There was a minor incident which required a three hour detour to the hospital (not for me, nothing serious…if anything, much entertainment came from that) and we went out on a pub crawl that night. It was so much fun, and let us see so much of Amsterdam at night…and early morning. On Saturday we were supposed to leave for Brussels, but we decided to leave at night instead of the morning. We went to the Heineken factory, which was AWESOME. It showed the history of the beer, and the process that it still undergoes. We were able to see all the ingredients, help brew it, bottle it, and even make a music video (hahahahah in DUTCH). It was really fun and very worth it.

We headed to the Van Gogh museum from there, and were extremely exhausted. It was cool to see, but we didn´t spend much time. I did learn about Van Gogh though. He only painted for about 8 years, and in those 8 years he had 900 paintings and 1100 drawings. The Van Gogh museum contains 200 of those paintings (not Starry Night obviously, that’s in New York…which we were unaware of). He suffered from multiple illnesses and even had himself committed into hospitals at times. He died at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

Right outside the Van Gogh was the ´´I Amsterdam´´ sign we had been searching for all weekend...score! Good photo op for the last few hours we spent in Amsterdam.

Late Saturday night we hopped a train to Brussels, which is a whole different world compared to Amsterdam. Instead of a night life with bars and women, we saw monuments and markets. After another planes, trains, automobiles, and accidents we checked into our hostel very late Saturday night. Sunday we had a list of things to see and set out, with a bus back to the airport at 230. We managed to get Belgian waffles in Belgium…SO GOOD. I had my chocolate and strawberry covered waffle for breakfast. We also went to a statue called Manneken Pis. It is a statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain….I still have to google the story on that one. We walked through a little market in a square near our hostel, and made it to the bus.

I can´t BELIEVE how much we managed to pack into one weekend, it was my favorite trip so far! Everyone was so friendly and helpful everywhere we went. There was so much to do and see and experience, and we definitely did as much as we could. I´ll put pictures up soon!

My friend Beth is studying abroad in France and is coming to visit this weekend….SOOO EXCITEDD YAYAYY…soon enough it´ll be spring break and i´ll be off to London and the Canary Islands…it´s going by too fast!

BRB - going to the netherlands

so i've been a little bogged down this week...being sick...midterms coming up (actual work? why whatever do you mean?) 

funny story...on the way to the doctor's office the cab driver asked me where i was from, how long i'd been here, yada yada...he could sense my hesitation in speaking spanish so he kept on asking me questions...what i like about madrid, where i've been, etc...he was forcing me to speak spanish (and laughing about it) and say things i wasn't used to saying (stuff different from "can i have" or "can we go to")..it was really funny as i scrambled to put sentences together. 

Another funny thing....a lot of spaniards have studied elsewhere, and therefore learned their english elsewhere. This means that when they switch to english, you never know what sort of accent you're going to get. My spanish teacher speaks english in an english accent, the doctor had a texan accent. It may seem a mundane fact but it is very entertaining.

So this weekend I am going to Brussels & Amsterdam, very excited! 

i promise i'm still in europe!!

so this is a little harder to keep up to date than i thought...but now i have plenty to say!

Last weekend I took a trip to Portugal! We had a bus at 6 am, so naturally we made sure we had zero sleep and were able to make it through the 7 hour bus trip without climbing the walls. As soon as we arrived in Portugal the scenery was beautiful. One of the first sightseeing trips we took was to a Cathedral (of course). The architecture had multiple influences, and it was, as most everything in Europe is, very picturesque.

We went to a famous bakery after the cathedral and ate pasteis. This is a pastry that is like fried dough with cream in the middle, a little chocolate on top, and cinnamon and sugar. Now I'm not one for pastries but WOW. It was SO good (and necessary, as this was my 6 pm breakfast). We were left to our own devices to get through Lisbon and find our way to our next meeting spot..

We somehow managed to get on a bus to the plaza (fare? what fare?); and there were a bunch of statues and it was right on the water. Right when you arrive in Lisbon there is a huge statue of the cross, and we were told there is an even larger one in Brazil. Anyways, it can be seen from very far away and looked majestic when lit up across the water.

For dinner I was determined to branch out and try new things. I ate green beans fried in egg, and potato soup. And it was good! It's a start anyways..There was also some live entertainment, which was awesome.

I have to admit it was a little frustrating at times. I'm at a point where I can understand (most) of what is being said to me, but I understand zero Portuguese. I felt like I was right back where I started on the first day of spanish class 6 years ago. This only proved to be a minor inconvenience though.

The second day in Lisbon we visited Cabo da Roca, the most western point in all of Europe. The coast was dazzling and looked like a postcard. I was definitely thinking of everyone at home at this spot, because I was the closest I will  be to everyone until May!!

We went to another city, Sintra, and (after some very steep hills) got on a bus to go visit a Castle. Now, the words I use to describe this bus ride will not do it justice. We were winding up a hill in the woods with HAIRPIN turns on a full sized bus! It took some serious maneuvering, skill, and luck to get up to the top; but once we did it was an unexpected scene. The castle we were looking at looked like it came out of a cartoon..literally! Apparently the creator (a King) hired a jewelry designer to help him build it. With an endless budget and apparently fully functional creative center, they went to work on this castle. There was every single type of architecture you can imagine. Gothic? Yep. Roman? Yep. Arabic? Yep. Neo-Classico-Moderno-something or other? You got it. I toured the inside and went through all the rooms of all the family, but nothing compared to the outside.

Funny story...while perusing some gift shops we bumped into a guy who spoke perfect English. Now when I say perfect, I mean there was nooo accent. He spoke it better than we did! We asked where he was born, raised, went to school, etc., and he said Portugal for all of the above. So how did he learn his English? By watching movies and playing video games. Now, none of us believe that Black Ops is now an educational tool, but it remains to be seen how this one person in a tiny little shop in Sintra somehow managed to speak with such an americanized tongue.

There were a few places to go at night, and Lisbon seems to be an earlier city than Madrid. Most of the bars were located in a spot called Barrio Alto, which was closed by 2 or 3 more or less. The clubs were along the water at a spot called Dockish (which I'm SURE I'm spelling wrong, but that is the phonetic spelling). At the beginning of this mini boardwalk there was a huge pool in the shape of Portugal, it was really funky.

On our final day we traveled to another sightseeing castle (which was definitely more about the sights than the castle). From the top you could see all of Lisbon. In the area there were also tons of peacocks, which was very random.

Everyone was very reluctant to get on a bus and go back to Madrid. We love Portugal!! The bus ride home was a little shaky, felt something like a three hour tour (except it was more like 9, serenity now).

So this weekend I have a friend from Springfield who is studying outside of Madrid staying with me. We're going to tour the city and whatnot. It is definitely nice to see a familiar face.

Next weekend is AMSTERDAM! Stay tuned =)