So, my blogging is all out of order at this point as I just write whatever flows. In current news, I just got to Edinburgh!!!!! I am officially out of Schengen and in the UK now and did not have any trouble!! I am on the bus that links the airport to the city center, and it has free wi-fi...so here's some reading for you. I will post pictures soon!!
Last Saturday (two weeks ago now), in the midst of lots of running around and tying up lose ends, I sent off the last of my stuff that went by “post” to get home (Just a note to say my two suitcases and two packages have arrived home long before I will – apparently it takes a letter almost a week, but it only takes a 65lb suitcase only 3 days). The rest of my possessions have been (sometimes more than others) neatly packed into a carry-on rolling suitcase, my backpack, and my new Longchamp bag. I have to say, I did not intend to have this many bags, and I am still trying to get rid of stuff so that I can consolidate. I blame my annoying amount of stuff on the fact that these bags are lasting me until I return to a beige wood sided house west of Nashville where I will be greeted by my loving dog (and family, of course), thus necessitating computer, chargers, adaptors, etc, etc, etc that I may not normally take with me on a two-week backpacking adventure. While this is the case, it is also true that I tend to overpack!!
Anyway, our adventure started last Saturday as we boarded the Thalys high-speed train from Brussels to Amsterdam. I said goodbye to Kate and Carine at the train station and sobbed my way up to the platform. Little did we know that the minor hic-up in our travels there was only the beginning…our train was delayed by about half an hour, nothing to worry about and it gave us time to grab some dinner out of the largest vending machine you have ever seen – this thing vends everything you might find at a small deli. We arrived in Amsterdam without any troubles and after a few minutes of wandering around the train station, we found our way to the correct tram and our “Bicycle Hotel.” We found out when we arrived at about 10:50pm that if we had gotten there after 11pm, we would have needed the code that was sent to us via e-mail in order to get in the door. The very kind receptionist asked us to please sit down, fill out some paperwork, and please give her cash for our stay – I have never heard anyone asking for 100 euro in cash sound so nice!! After we emptied our wallets (we weren’t expecting to have to pay cash…) and I bear-hugged my suitcase up the very narrow, winding stairs, we took a tram back towards the center of the city to walk around for a little bit and experience some of the nightlife of Amsterdam. Friends had told me, make sure you stay together and stay in well-populated areas – while this seems like pretty standard advice, it was well headed. While I don’t know that Amsterdam is particularly dangerous, as my friend said, it is a place where unexpected things happen. So, after a little while of wandering around we headed back to get some sleep!!
Sunday we spent basically the whole day at Keukenhof (Disneyworld for tulips and other spring flowers) that lies south of Amsterdam about halfway between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. (In case you didn’t brush up on your European geography during Wesley and I’s trip, maybe now is a good time.) Getting there was a little harder than anticipated, but it meant that we ended up at Schiphol, the Amsterdam airport, where I introduced Annie to HEMA (one of my favorite European stores that is similar to a glorified Walgreens) and stroopwaffels (yummmmm!!!). The elusiveness of Keukenhof made it feel even more Disney-esque to finally arrive at the front gates. This place was not endless fields of tulips, but instead a huge park with beautifully laid out gardens and exhibition buildings containing all kinds of flowers from tulips to orchids to hyacinths. We enjoyed wandering around the whole place, climbing the windmill to look over large tulip fields, and discovering the more hidden parts of the park. We also enjoyed watching other people in the park, especially their picture taking poses. We decided that we would adopt some of their poses to make our own pictures more interesting. So throughout the rest of our trip, there are pictures every now and again that have us in crazy or funny poses.
We spent a few hours of Monday morning in the train station after our internet searching for cheaper alternatives proved futile. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, we each spent what seemed like a small fortune on “overnight” train tickets to Berlin that left Amsterdam at 7pm and arrived in Berlin at about 4:15am. More on the train later…we spent the rest of Monday enjoying as much of Amsterdam as we could. We took a canal cruise to see the sights from the water and learned that the harbor in Amsterdam is both fresh water and does not have a tide due to the dams on either side. I loved the architecture in Amsterdam with all of its different types of gables. We also learned that the hook that extends from the top of every building is used to create a pulley system for when people are “moving house.” They have to move things on the outside like this because all of their stairs are so narrow and windy (again, I had a hard time with just a suitcase).
After lunch at a yummy bagel place, we took advantage of the sunshine and did some more wandering around. Again, on the recommendation of a friend, we wandered around the Jordaan area of town. This was a quant, more residential area where we found a really yummy gelato place!! We wandered through the center of town and attempted to see the palace (?) I do not totally remember what it was supposed to be and since it was completely covered in scaffolding, I can’t say it made a huge impression on me. This was maybe not the very first, but certainly early in our noticing of everything being covered in scaffolding; it’s like the whole of Europe is under construction!! When I was in London, the Houses of Parliament had scaffolding on them, the Palace de Justice in Brussels is covered in scaffolding, I heard from someone who visited the Taj Mahal that it is covered in scaffolding. All that to say, we became pretty entertained by scaffolding and began to notice it everywhere.
We decided to not stand in the very long line at the Anne Frank house, figuring we would get as much history of a similar nature as we wanted in Berlin. Instead we wandered down to the Van Gogh museum. On the way, we stopped to climb on and take pictures with the I Amsterdam sign (see pictures – coming soon). The Van Gogh museum was great because we both really like Van Gogh, but sadly some of the more famous paintings were not on display right now. From there we wandered our way back to the train station, grabbed some Burger King and got on for travel adventure #2.
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