The escalators in the Metro stations here in Budapest are extremely fast. It is almost like a ride.
The Danube River is beautiful. It is especially pretty at night, when the lights are all on and you can see the reflections in the water. I took a gazillion pictures, but none of them really do it justice, so I am going to have to find some nice postcards.
I am going to finish this blog right now, because I think there is a person waiting for the computer not knowing that our group currently has a monopoly on it.
I am done.
By the way, you look lovely today.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Budapest (Day 2)
We have finished day two of our stay in Budapest. Andrew wants to watch anime and while he did get to the computer first, I kicked him off because I am waiting for a semi important email, so I will have to blog quickly.
Let's see, we had a late start this morning. After the very early wake up that we had yesterday and the dreadful 4 am wake up call we will have in a couple of days, I thought something like that would be important anyway. We had breakfast and didn't end up leaving the hostel until almost noon. Yeah, like I said, very late start.
It gets kind of hot in the hostel, so I thought that we had finally reached the Europe that we had packed for, but once we got outside it was overcast and sprinkling. It was still kind of muggy though, so I would much prefer that to the heat that I fear is inevitable.
Our first stop today was Heroes' Square, which was put up to commemorate the 1000th year anniversary of the Hungarian State. Once we got there, it started pouring, so we ran to the nearby Art Gallery to stay under cover while there was a downpour. It calmed down again after around ten minutes (thought it did effectively ruin my map of Budapest), and we went back out to examine the area more closely. Surrounding the big monument thing in the middle of Heroes Square are statues of the legends and great leaders of Hungary's 1000 years. We ended up trying to guess what their favorite colors would be.
Next, we walked through the nearby park towards the Vajdabunyad Castle. We didn't go inside because that would have cost money, but we did explore the outside and take a lot of pictures of it. It's very pretty. Andrew and Gianni were more impressed with the statue of some guy named Anonymous.
Our next stop was St. Stephen's Basillica. The inside was very elaborate, but in a pretty way. We initially did not go inside because we thought it was closed, but then went in after we realized that the actual entrance was around the corner. Inside this basillica is also the right hand of St. Stephen. It was all right.
We got some postage stamps at the post office. This took two tries. Gianni asked first and failed because they could not understand him. Then Andrew asked, taking a pamphlet with pictures of stamps with him, and succeded. He was very happy about this.
Our next destination was some store that Mia read about that she thought she would like to see. Once we got there (after getting lost because it was hard to find), we found out that it was like an overpriced version of Fresh Produce and left quickly. The Great Synagogue was nearby and was very pretty from the outside. We kind of peaked inside, but I think you had to get tickets to go in, so we didn't actually go in.
After this, we found a nearby restaurant and ate lunch there. Mia and I had Hungarian sausages. Good stuff. Gianni and Andrew had sandwiches. I added this because Gianni just yelled at me for not including that fact.
Next stop was the Market Hall. We walked there from the restaurant and passed the National Gallery on the way. We also stopped at a store because Mia needed more bandages and all of my remaining shampoo spilled everywhere so I needed to restock. Anyway, we got to Market Hall, which is basically one big market. It's been around since the 19th century, and they actually had train tracks and barge entrances for delivery of goods. We walked around and looked what they were selling (mostly food on the bottom floor and a lot of tourist souveniers on the top), but it was closing up, so we didn't spend much time there.
Next destination was the Parliament, which has a very very nice building. It also looks out over the Danube, so after we took some pictures of the building, we started walking along the banks of the river. We found this monument that consists of a bunch of bronze shoes on the side of the river. It's a memorial to the Hungarian Jews that were shot there by some fascist group. They were forced to remove their shoes beforehand, hence the bronze shoes.
We sat in that area for a while because there is a very nice view of the other half of the city from there. It was very peaceful and quiet.
We eventually left, and walked towards the Chain Bridge and to the Metro Station. We then took the Metro to the Opera house, which was pretty but I don't know how worth the stop it was.
The magazine that we had been using had an advertisement for a Mexican restaurant that was supposed to be in the area. We were very excited about this and went off in search of it. We did find it and it was reasonably priced. It was more or less like a Hungarian version of Chipotle...which I don't mind at all. And they had great horchata.
We were going to go back to the hostel at this point (around 8), but decided that we wanted to go to that area along the Danube that we were sitting before at night to see how it looked with all the lights, so we headed to that area and hung out there for a while. Then we came back here. I should probably log off so my siblings (or anyone else) can use the computer.
So, Budapest is actually made up of two cities, Buda and Pest. Everything we saw today was on the Pest side of the city. Tomorrow we will explore Buda. I also want to see this Statue Park that is in Pest, so I think that's the only other thing on the agenda.
Let's see, we had a late start this morning. After the very early wake up that we had yesterday and the dreadful 4 am wake up call we will have in a couple of days, I thought something like that would be important anyway. We had breakfast and didn't end up leaving the hostel until almost noon. Yeah, like I said, very late start.
It gets kind of hot in the hostel, so I thought that we had finally reached the Europe that we had packed for, but once we got outside it was overcast and sprinkling. It was still kind of muggy though, so I would much prefer that to the heat that I fear is inevitable.
Our first stop today was Heroes' Square, which was put up to commemorate the 1000th year anniversary of the Hungarian State. Once we got there, it started pouring, so we ran to the nearby Art Gallery to stay under cover while there was a downpour. It calmed down again after around ten minutes (thought it did effectively ruin my map of Budapest), and we went back out to examine the area more closely. Surrounding the big monument thing in the middle of Heroes Square are statues of the legends and great leaders of Hungary's 1000 years. We ended up trying to guess what their favorite colors would be.
Next, we walked through the nearby park towards the Vajdabunyad Castle. We didn't go inside because that would have cost money, but we did explore the outside and take a lot of pictures of it. It's very pretty. Andrew and Gianni were more impressed with the statue of some guy named Anonymous.
Our next stop was St. Stephen's Basillica. The inside was very elaborate, but in a pretty way. We initially did not go inside because we thought it was closed, but then went in after we realized that the actual entrance was around the corner. Inside this basillica is also the right hand of St. Stephen. It was all right.
We got some postage stamps at the post office. This took two tries. Gianni asked first and failed because they could not understand him. Then Andrew asked, taking a pamphlet with pictures of stamps with him, and succeded. He was very happy about this.
Our next destination was some store that Mia read about that she thought she would like to see. Once we got there (after getting lost because it was hard to find), we found out that it was like an overpriced version of Fresh Produce and left quickly. The Great Synagogue was nearby and was very pretty from the outside. We kind of peaked inside, but I think you had to get tickets to go in, so we didn't actually go in.
After this, we found a nearby restaurant and ate lunch there. Mia and I had Hungarian sausages. Good stuff. Gianni and Andrew had sandwiches. I added this because Gianni just yelled at me for not including that fact.
Next stop was the Market Hall. We walked there from the restaurant and passed the National Gallery on the way. We also stopped at a store because Mia needed more bandages and all of my remaining shampoo spilled everywhere so I needed to restock. Anyway, we got to Market Hall, which is basically one big market. It's been around since the 19th century, and they actually had train tracks and barge entrances for delivery of goods. We walked around and looked what they were selling (mostly food on the bottom floor and a lot of tourist souveniers on the top), but it was closing up, so we didn't spend much time there.
Next destination was the Parliament, which has a very very nice building. It also looks out over the Danube, so after we took some pictures of the building, we started walking along the banks of the river. We found this monument that consists of a bunch of bronze shoes on the side of the river. It's a memorial to the Hungarian Jews that were shot there by some fascist group. They were forced to remove their shoes beforehand, hence the bronze shoes.
We sat in that area for a while because there is a very nice view of the other half of the city from there. It was very peaceful and quiet.
We eventually left, and walked towards the Chain Bridge and to the Metro Station. We then took the Metro to the Opera house, which was pretty but I don't know how worth the stop it was.
The magazine that we had been using had an advertisement for a Mexican restaurant that was supposed to be in the area. We were very excited about this and went off in search of it. We did find it and it was reasonably priced. It was more or less like a Hungarian version of Chipotle...which I don't mind at all. And they had great horchata.
We were going to go back to the hostel at this point (around 8), but decided that we wanted to go to that area along the Danube that we were sitting before at night to see how it looked with all the lights, so we headed to that area and hung out there for a while. Then we came back here. I should probably log off so my siblings (or anyone else) can use the computer.
So, Budapest is actually made up of two cities, Buda and Pest. Everything we saw today was on the Pest side of the city. Tomorrow we will explore Buda. I also want to see this Statue Park that is in Pest, so I think that's the only other thing on the agenda.
Belépés in Hungarian
Blogblogblogblogblogblogblog.
Germany lost. :(
Note to James-- This is a lederhosen:
I imagine you would look quite dashing in one. Also, note the crotch flap for peeing. I should have gotten you one :(
Germany lost. :(
Note to James-- This is a lederhosen:
I imagine you would look quite dashing in one. Also, note the crotch flap for peeing. I should have gotten you one :(
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Budapest
So we are not in Hungary. Yeah. We got in around 5 ish.
We woke up at the crack of dawn (6 am) to get ready to check out of the hostel that we had all grown quite attached to, including Andrew who had initially called the place a refugee camp. It was definitely the most fun hostel despite the fact that I am not covered in bug bites.
Anyway, we got out to the train station an hour before the train was supposed to leave because we wanted to go to Citibank before we left for Eastern Europe. Didn't end up going there, and just sat around instead. Our train to Budapest stopped in Vienna, so while we were waiting, there were hordes of Germany fans chanting Deutchland and carrying large loads of beer. A lot of fun. I miss the crazy German soccer fans.
The train came in 30 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, so we got on the train and all of us except for Andrew (who had just purchased a frap from Starbucks) essentially passed out. We were in a six person seater, similar but slightly more comfortable than the one that we were on for that overnight from Brussels to Berlin. We had it to ourselves until we reached Salzburg, at which time two people claimed their spots. They were very nice and gave us tips on where to go in Budapest towards the end of the train ride.
It was an 8 hour train ride, so it was very long. Slept for the first couple of hours. I did wake up to see the Salzburg train station, at which point I sulked because we were going to stop in Vienna and Salzburg until we realized that there was going to be no possible way to book affordable places to stay during the European Cup. And since the Vienna-Zagreb train apparently does not exist, that stop that we made in Vienna on this ride is the closest we will be. Training through Austria, however, did make me want to sing songs from Sound of Music. It just has that effect.
What else? The train became significantly quieter once we hit Vienna, but for some reason it became progressively and unbearably hot towards the end. It was kind of miserable. Didn't buy any food on the train because I wrapped up a croissant from the Tent to act as sustenance.
We arrived in Budapest around 5 and spent a while trying to figure out how we were going to exchange money. It is illegal to exchange money on the streets (I don't know why you would), but like there was literally a group of people who were waiting in front of the currency exchange office trying to offer a "better deal." Intense. Once that got sorted out, we made our way to the Metro, bought three day passes for Budapest and went on our search for the hostel.
The maps that we had were not very clear, so once we got out of the Metro Station, we had no idea where to go. After wandering around aimlessly, we did find our way and the hostel. This hostel, Adventura, is very cute. They have themed rooms. We are sleeping in the India Room right now and will be sleeping in the Africa room for the few hours that we can sleep before leaving for our 6 am train in a couple of days. People here are also very friendly.
After sitting around and getting a couple of recommendations on the good places to go to watch the final game of the European Cup, we headed out in search of a Citibank. We were all out of cash because I had miscalculated the amount of Euros I would have to change into the Hungarian currency to pay for the hostel. We didn't find one. Well we did, but it was closed so we had to go somewhere else.
After this, we walked over to the Danube River and went to this little island in the middle of the river (the name escapes me) to watch the game. It was a pretty cool setup, but we were all sad because we were rooting for Germany and Spain won. Andrew was rooting for Germany as well, but he bought a Spain flag in Munich as a way to be a troll. My strange brother got a European Union flag. Yeah. I don't know.
Anyway, we walked back from that. Budapest is a very pretty city, and there was a very pretty view of the city at night from the bridge we were on. That's about it for today. We will be doing some sight seeing tomorrow in what I imagine will be a hot day.
We woke up at the crack of dawn (6 am) to get ready to check out of the hostel that we had all grown quite attached to, including Andrew who had initially called the place a refugee camp. It was definitely the most fun hostel despite the fact that I am not covered in bug bites.
Anyway, we got out to the train station an hour before the train was supposed to leave because we wanted to go to Citibank before we left for Eastern Europe. Didn't end up going there, and just sat around instead. Our train to Budapest stopped in Vienna, so while we were waiting, there were hordes of Germany fans chanting Deutchland and carrying large loads of beer. A lot of fun. I miss the crazy German soccer fans.
The train came in 30 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, so we got on the train and all of us except for Andrew (who had just purchased a frap from Starbucks) essentially passed out. We were in a six person seater, similar but slightly more comfortable than the one that we were on for that overnight from Brussels to Berlin. We had it to ourselves until we reached Salzburg, at which time two people claimed their spots. They were very nice and gave us tips on where to go in Budapest towards the end of the train ride.
It was an 8 hour train ride, so it was very long. Slept for the first couple of hours. I did wake up to see the Salzburg train station, at which point I sulked because we were going to stop in Vienna and Salzburg until we realized that there was going to be no possible way to book affordable places to stay during the European Cup. And since the Vienna-Zagreb train apparently does not exist, that stop that we made in Vienna on this ride is the closest we will be. Training through Austria, however, did make me want to sing songs from Sound of Music. It just has that effect.
What else? The train became significantly quieter once we hit Vienna, but for some reason it became progressively and unbearably hot towards the end. It was kind of miserable. Didn't buy any food on the train because I wrapped up a croissant from the Tent to act as sustenance.
We arrived in Budapest around 5 and spent a while trying to figure out how we were going to exchange money. It is illegal to exchange money on the streets (I don't know why you would), but like there was literally a group of people who were waiting in front of the currency exchange office trying to offer a "better deal." Intense. Once that got sorted out, we made our way to the Metro, bought three day passes for Budapest and went on our search for the hostel.
The maps that we had were not very clear, so once we got out of the Metro Station, we had no idea where to go. After wandering around aimlessly, we did find our way and the hostel. This hostel, Adventura, is very cute. They have themed rooms. We are sleeping in the India Room right now and will be sleeping in the Africa room for the few hours that we can sleep before leaving for our 6 am train in a couple of days. People here are also very friendly.
After sitting around and getting a couple of recommendations on the good places to go to watch the final game of the European Cup, we headed out in search of a Citibank. We were all out of cash because I had miscalculated the amount of Euros I would have to change into the Hungarian currency to pay for the hostel. We didn't find one. Well we did, but it was closed so we had to go somewhere else.
After this, we walked over to the Danube River and went to this little island in the middle of the river (the name escapes me) to watch the game. It was a pretty cool setup, but we were all sad because we were rooting for Germany and Spain won. Andrew was rooting for Germany as well, but he bought a Spain flag in Munich as a way to be a troll. My strange brother got a European Union flag. Yeah. I don't know.
Anyway, we walked back from that. Budapest is a very pretty city, and there was a very pretty view of the city at night from the bridge we were on. That's about it for today. We will be doing some sight seeing tomorrow in what I imagine will be a hot day.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
I love this hostel
Seriously. It is pretty much a hippie commune.
My glasses have been giving me ultra super duper headaches all day today. Sad face.
Anyway, we are playing cards and I want to get back to that, so I am going to go now. Alea covered everything important in her blog anyway, so you are not missing anything, especially since my posts are all very pointless.
I am done. Have a lovely day.
My glasses have been giving me ultra super duper headaches all day today. Sad face.
Anyway, we are playing cards and I want to get back to that, so I am going to go now. Alea covered everything important in her blog anyway, so you are not missing anything, especially since my posts are all very pointless.
I am done. Have a lovely day.
Munich & Dachau
Do not have much time to blog tonight, so I will try to keep this short. Today, we woke up but kind of got a late start, so we almost missed our Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Tour. Seriously, we were JUST on time. We were technically even 15 minutes late, actually, but they didnt leave until 1105, so that was lucky for us.
Anyway, today our trip was to the Dachau Concentration Camp site, the only concentration camp to have been around during the entire Third Reich. The trip out there took 45 minutes and we got there. The tour was very depressing, as one might expect. Dont know what else to say about that. It was a very depressing tour. Walked through the gas chamber they had there. Saw crematoriums. Saw where they wold punished people. A lot of really heavy stuff over all.
Also, it was an incredibly hot an sunny day and we did not realize that this place did not have vending machines (or food on that matter), so when we came back at almost four, we were all very dehydrated. Yeah, dumb move on our parts.
Anyway, the trip back was a lot shorter because we took a different train back. We got in around 4 pm and went to look for some place to drink something and some place to eat. Our tour guide recommended a nearby beer hall and Andrew had been whining to go to one the entire time we have been in Germany. So we went to one with Mia purchasing a Germany jersey along the way. Of course, they were closed and not selling food at the moment, but we rehydrated and continued our search of a place that had food. We settled on a kebab place and ate there.
After that, we went back through the train station in search of a Citibank to go to before we left Western Europe. We found it and got money, but it didnt let us draw that much, so we are going to have to go back out to get more.
We headed back to the Tent, played a couple of rounds of Machiavelli and then put in one last load of laundry before we left this hostel. We have been hanging out here ever since. Gianni and Mia are teaching people how to play Machiavelli and I think Andrew is helping them. We have an early train tomorrow, so we also have to get all of our stuff packed up so we dont miss the train and throw me into some sort of panic. Yeah, that would be bad.
Thats about it for today. Will be posting next from Hungary!
Anyway, today our trip was to the Dachau Concentration Camp site, the only concentration camp to have been around during the entire Third Reich. The trip out there took 45 minutes and we got there. The tour was very depressing, as one might expect. Dont know what else to say about that. It was a very depressing tour. Walked through the gas chamber they had there. Saw crematoriums. Saw where they wold punished people. A lot of really heavy stuff over all.
Also, it was an incredibly hot an sunny day and we did not realize that this place did not have vending machines (or food on that matter), so when we came back at almost four, we were all very dehydrated. Yeah, dumb move on our parts.
Anyway, the trip back was a lot shorter because we took a different train back. We got in around 4 pm and went to look for some place to drink something and some place to eat. Our tour guide recommended a nearby beer hall and Andrew had been whining to go to one the entire time we have been in Germany. So we went to one with Mia purchasing a Germany jersey along the way. Of course, they were closed and not selling food at the moment, but we rehydrated and continued our search of a place that had food. We settled on a kebab place and ate there.
After that, we went back through the train station in search of a Citibank to go to before we left Western Europe. We found it and got money, but it didnt let us draw that much, so we are going to have to go back out to get more.
We headed back to the Tent, played a couple of rounds of Machiavelli and then put in one last load of laundry before we left this hostel. We have been hanging out here ever since. Gianni and Mia are teaching people how to play Machiavelli and I think Andrew is helping them. We have an early train tomorrow, so we also have to get all of our stuff packed up so we dont miss the train and throw me into some sort of panic. Yeah, that would be bad.
Thats about it for today. Will be posting next from Hungary!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Munich (and other stuff)
We are currently in Munich staying at this pretty awesome hostel called the Tent. Pretty much its just one giant tent with a ton of bunk beds. There are other buildings as well. I am currently in the cafeteria and do not have much time to post this blog entry, so we will see what I can accomplish.
Anyway, on the way back to the train station last night, we passed this monument called the Topography of Terror. We actually also passed it on the walking tour, but did not have time to stop through. We did this time around. Basically they demolished this old building (I think an office for the Nazis or something) and turned it into a monument. They have a lot of information including the names, biographies and stories of the people who were tortured there (or in the general area, not sure which).
After spending quite a while at that exhibit, we did make our way back to the train station. I found the booking office and more or less successfully booked all of the remaining trains that needed to be booked. We have a 6 am train out of Budapest that sounds like a lot of fun, and also need to extend our stay there because the overnight train to Zagreb that I thought existed did not exist.
After that, we ate some Asian food at the train station (meaning, yes, Andrew got his sushi) and watched part of the Spain Russia game. Headed up to the platform. Gianni almost missed the train because he had to send off postcards, but we all made it on safely. We did not upgrade out tickets but this overnight train was far superior to the last. Instead of rooms, we were all in regular compartments with chairs that reclined almost all the way back, had more leg room, and were generally more comfortable than the last one.
Even so, I did wake up a lot this time and I heard that Andrew did not sleep well because he kept on waking up to a little girl grabbing his leg. Lol.
Lets see twenty minutes left.
We arrived into Munich around 7 this morning. I finally forced Andrew to get a new Eurail pass printed because his was in a horrible condition. Unlike Gianni, they did not charge him for this, which was a plus. Mia and I both paid an exorbitant amount (1.10 euro, which was 50 cents more than the men´s) to change our clothes and brush our teeth. Then we found our way to the tram that woul take us to the hostel.
And like they said on the website and in the book, this place is exactly how it is advertised, a big tent with a couple of other buildings. It is very hippyish so I have a very happy sister.
We checked in, got blankets and set up our beds. Then, we made our way to teh cafeteria. Breakfast is not free here, but is very cheap as are the other meals they cook for you here.
We were going to do laundry, but decided that since we do not have that much time here that we should do one of the New Europe walking tours for Munich like we had in Berlin. Made our way out to the meeting place. Tour started in Marienplatz, which is where they have this big golden monument to Mary, as well as the new town hall where little characters dance around and tell stories three times a day in the Glckenspiel. Very much like Disneyland. (or Disneyland probably stole their Its A Small World Idea from here). It actually even smelled like Churros, thus enhancing the Disneyland feel. The walking tour took us to a number of places, including this huge market, the cathedral of Munich, Max Josephplatz (with the Opera), the famous beer hall Hofbrauhaus, the oldest Catholic church her ein Munich, and Maxilmillian street (kind of like Rodeo drive).
After the tour, the tour guide invited everyone to the after fooding at this place that served unlimited traditional Bavarian soup. Very good, tasted like a meaty Lentil soup. You also got a free beer with that.
After we ate, Mia was set on getting a Germany jersey for the upcoming Germany-Spain finale of the European cup, so we ran around looking for that. In the process, we also found a Best Buy like store and found more cheap SD cards. YAY. Mia did not find her jersey but got a scarf and a flag. As did Gianni.
What else:? Andrew was very tired, so we went back to the Tent. We all got our laundry done because its cheaper here than any other place we went to and it was a nice way to wind down. They have a lot of hammocks and stuff set up outside, so we have been relaxing and reading since we got back. Had some of the very cheap, but good dinner that they served us. And now I am here.
Tomorrow we are going to do the New Europe Dachau tour, so we have to get up earlyish for that. I think we are all kind of tired from the overnight train, so we will probably have no problems getting to bed early.
Anyway, on the way back to the train station last night, we passed this monument called the Topography of Terror. We actually also passed it on the walking tour, but did not have time to stop through. We did this time around. Basically they demolished this old building (I think an office for the Nazis or something) and turned it into a monument. They have a lot of information including the names, biographies and stories of the people who were tortured there (or in the general area, not sure which).
After spending quite a while at that exhibit, we did make our way back to the train station. I found the booking office and more or less successfully booked all of the remaining trains that needed to be booked. We have a 6 am train out of Budapest that sounds like a lot of fun, and also need to extend our stay there because the overnight train to Zagreb that I thought existed did not exist.
After that, we ate some Asian food at the train station (meaning, yes, Andrew got his sushi) and watched part of the Spain Russia game. Headed up to the platform. Gianni almost missed the train because he had to send off postcards, but we all made it on safely. We did not upgrade out tickets but this overnight train was far superior to the last. Instead of rooms, we were all in regular compartments with chairs that reclined almost all the way back, had more leg room, and were generally more comfortable than the last one.
Even so, I did wake up a lot this time and I heard that Andrew did not sleep well because he kept on waking up to a little girl grabbing his leg. Lol.
Lets see twenty minutes left.
We arrived into Munich around 7 this morning. I finally forced Andrew to get a new Eurail pass printed because his was in a horrible condition. Unlike Gianni, they did not charge him for this, which was a plus. Mia and I both paid an exorbitant amount (1.10 euro, which was 50 cents more than the men´s) to change our clothes and brush our teeth. Then we found our way to the tram that woul take us to the hostel.
And like they said on the website and in the book, this place is exactly how it is advertised, a big tent with a couple of other buildings. It is very hippyish so I have a very happy sister.
We checked in, got blankets and set up our beds. Then, we made our way to teh cafeteria. Breakfast is not free here, but is very cheap as are the other meals they cook for you here.
We were going to do laundry, but decided that since we do not have that much time here that we should do one of the New Europe walking tours for Munich like we had in Berlin. Made our way out to the meeting place. Tour started in Marienplatz, which is where they have this big golden monument to Mary, as well as the new town hall where little characters dance around and tell stories three times a day in the Glckenspiel. Very much like Disneyland. (or Disneyland probably stole their Its A Small World Idea from here). It actually even smelled like Churros, thus enhancing the Disneyland feel. The walking tour took us to a number of places, including this huge market, the cathedral of Munich, Max Josephplatz (with the Opera), the famous beer hall Hofbrauhaus, the oldest Catholic church her ein Munich, and Maxilmillian street (kind of like Rodeo drive).
After the tour, the tour guide invited everyone to the after fooding at this place that served unlimited traditional Bavarian soup. Very good, tasted like a meaty Lentil soup. You also got a free beer with that.
After we ate, Mia was set on getting a Germany jersey for the upcoming Germany-Spain finale of the European cup, so we ran around looking for that. In the process, we also found a Best Buy like store and found more cheap SD cards. YAY. Mia did not find her jersey but got a scarf and a flag. As did Gianni.
What else:? Andrew was very tired, so we went back to the Tent. We all got our laundry done because its cheaper here than any other place we went to and it was a nice way to wind down. They have a lot of hammocks and stuff set up outside, so we have been relaxing and reading since we got back. Had some of the very cheap, but good dinner that they served us. And now I am here.
Tomorrow we are going to do the New Europe Dachau tour, so we have to get up earlyish for that. I think we are all kind of tired from the overnight train, so we will probably have no problems getting to bed early.
Still Anmelden with one A
I bought a German flag today in preparation for the big game.
I also have two bug bites on the back of my neck. They are on both sides of my neck in the same place, making them symmetrical. It is strange.
The hostel we are at in Munich is awesome. We are in a giant tent with a lot of other people. It kind of reminds me of that place they stay at in the movie Wristcutters.
We are doing laundry right now.
That is all.
I also have two bug bites on the back of my neck. They are on both sides of my neck in the same place, making them symmetrical. It is strange.
The hostel we are at in Munich is awesome. We are in a giant tent with a lot of other people. It kind of reminds me of that place they stay at in the movie Wristcutters.
We are doing laundry right now.
That is all.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Berlin (Day 2)
Going to try to keep it short because I just wanted to buy 30 minutes of Internet time. Also, I want to get to the train station early ish so we can sort out the rest of our tickets. Tonight we go to Munich, which is going to be slightly less fun than the last one because we get in around 6:30. Considering the fact that it was a pain to get everyone up at 10 this morning, this will be a fun experience.
Last night, we did not end up going to the Turkish part of town to watch the game, and I think that was a very good idea. Instead, we found this little square in Alexanderplatz area, where they showed the game, sold food and beer, and had a merry time. I tried bratwurtz. German soccer fans are pretty intense, but I guess that goes without saying. We were all a little terrified on the trip back, not necessarily because of the fans themselves, but because there were about one thousand German soccer fans crowded into the tiny train, pounding on the ceiling and violently shaking the car around. I guess living in Florence when they won the 2006 World Cup wasn´t as intense because we did not have to take public transportation back (however the streets were crazy and I think I almost got killed several times that night).
Anyway, we woke up late-ish and managed to check out right on time. We made our way with our bags over to the train station, and after having some trouble finding the baggage storage, stored our bags. We had to store our bags sparingly today because this train station is a little more expensive than the others we have been to so far. Thus, Gianni and Mia were forced to carry around their extra bags.
After this, we grabbed some pastries and panini from a cheap little deli in the train station and headed over to the meeting point for the tour. Actually, we wanted to go to the Stasi Museum beforehand, but were unable to find it. We were going to ask the tour guide at the end of the tour how to get there, but by the time the tour was finished, we had limited time.
We hung around the area until the tour started. We were debating between the Third Reich tour and the free tour, but it turned out they didn´t offer the Third Reich tour on Thursdays, so we did not have a choice in the end (unless we wanted to take the free Spanish language tour or the Red Berlin tour again).
Anyway, the group for this tour was twice the size of the tour that we went on yesterday, but I really liked the tour overall. It was a quality tour and I would definitely say it was better than some of the tours that I have paid to see. A lot of history and a lot of interesting places. And the tour guide was not boring, which is a plus. We saw a number of things, including the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Cathedral, and the square that they burned all of the books.
Berlin also is a lot sunnier than it was yesterday, so I was glad that I made sure to put a lot of sunscreen on in the morning, even if I still look pinkish after my 46 spf sunscreen. Ah, global warming.
The tour let off around the Cathedral and Museum island area, but we backtracked to Checkpoint Charlie because they were selling a lot of authentic Soviet stuff, and of course everyone wanted to go look. I got a hat. I am happy. On the way over there, we also stopped by the front of Humboldt University. It was in in the square in front of that University that they had the big book burning, so as a part of a way to repay this they sell cheap books whenever the weather permits. While my pseudo intellectual siblings bought books, I found very cheap old Nsync singles..
We walked up the street a little more so we could get stamps and figure out what we were doing with the rest of our time in Berlin. While we were waiting on the corner of the street near a Starbucks, a man approached Andrew with his arms out and kind of hugged him saying something and then walked away. Andrew was very, very upset about this.
Anyway, we take the night train to Munich tonight. This is upsetting because last night we had very comfortable beds and a very spacious hostel. Tomorrow night we start sleeping in a giant tent for about half a week. It sounds very fun.
Need to go to the train station and try to sort out tickets and see if there is a smidgen of a chance that we can maybe and possibly upgrade our seats.
Will post next from Munich!
Last night, we did not end up going to the Turkish part of town to watch the game, and I think that was a very good idea. Instead, we found this little square in Alexanderplatz area, where they showed the game, sold food and beer, and had a merry time. I tried bratwurtz. German soccer fans are pretty intense, but I guess that goes without saying. We were all a little terrified on the trip back, not necessarily because of the fans themselves, but because there were about one thousand German soccer fans crowded into the tiny train, pounding on the ceiling and violently shaking the car around. I guess living in Florence when they won the 2006 World Cup wasn´t as intense because we did not have to take public transportation back (however the streets were crazy and I think I almost got killed several times that night).
Anyway, we woke up late-ish and managed to check out right on time. We made our way with our bags over to the train station, and after having some trouble finding the baggage storage, stored our bags. We had to store our bags sparingly today because this train station is a little more expensive than the others we have been to so far. Thus, Gianni and Mia were forced to carry around their extra bags.
After this, we grabbed some pastries and panini from a cheap little deli in the train station and headed over to the meeting point for the tour. Actually, we wanted to go to the Stasi Museum beforehand, but were unable to find it. We were going to ask the tour guide at the end of the tour how to get there, but by the time the tour was finished, we had limited time.
We hung around the area until the tour started. We were debating between the Third Reich tour and the free tour, but it turned out they didn´t offer the Third Reich tour on Thursdays, so we did not have a choice in the end (unless we wanted to take the free Spanish language tour or the Red Berlin tour again).
Anyway, the group for this tour was twice the size of the tour that we went on yesterday, but I really liked the tour overall. It was a quality tour and I would definitely say it was better than some of the tours that I have paid to see. A lot of history and a lot of interesting places. And the tour guide was not boring, which is a plus. We saw a number of things, including the Holocaust Memorial, the Berlin Cathedral, and the square that they burned all of the books.
Berlin also is a lot sunnier than it was yesterday, so I was glad that I made sure to put a lot of sunscreen on in the morning, even if I still look pinkish after my 46 spf sunscreen. Ah, global warming.
The tour let off around the Cathedral and Museum island area, but we backtracked to Checkpoint Charlie because they were selling a lot of authentic Soviet stuff, and of course everyone wanted to go look. I got a hat. I am happy. On the way over there, we also stopped by the front of Humboldt University. It was in in the square in front of that University that they had the big book burning, so as a part of a way to repay this they sell cheap books whenever the weather permits. While my pseudo intellectual siblings bought books, I found very cheap old Nsync singles..
We walked up the street a little more so we could get stamps and figure out what we were doing with the rest of our time in Berlin. While we were waiting on the corner of the street near a Starbucks, a man approached Andrew with his arms out and kind of hugged him saying something and then walked away. Andrew was very, very upset about this.
Anyway, we take the night train to Munich tonight. This is upsetting because last night we had very comfortable beds and a very spacious hostel. Tomorrow night we start sleeping in a giant tent for about half a week. It sounds very fun.
Need to go to the train station and try to sort out tickets and see if there is a smidgen of a chance that we can maybe and possibly upgrade our seats.
Will post next from Munich!
I was told to write about this story:
As we waited at a corner to cross the street, an old guy started to approach us.
'He must just want to pass us' I thought to myself, so I stepped a little to my left.
Instantly the man's trajectory veered toward me. Placing both hands on my shoulders, he said something that I can only imagine meant 'excusi' in german.
I am profoundly disturbed.
As we waited at a corner to cross the street, an old guy started to approach us.
'He must just want to pass us' I thought to myself, so I stepped a little to my left.
Instantly the man's trajectory veered toward me. Placing both hands on my shoulders, he said something that I can only imagine meant 'excusi' in german.
I am profoundly disturbed.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
long live life as if it was your last
Every tourist that writes a message on the Berlin Wall should be punched in the face.
Bloghonest.
Bloghonest.
There is a large difference in the frequencies of 'y's and 'z's in English words
Andrew doesn't sleep well on overnight trains. In fact, he doesn't sleep at all, and instead goes around to other people's cabins and reads them bedtime stories. But zeah, there was a random guz sitting in our seats and I can onlz hope he knew the two other people he was sitting next to or that might have been reallz awkward.
Anzwazs, we're onlz moments awaz from the Germanz versus Turkez game, which should be prettz exciting and perhaps slightlz (ENTF) dangerous because there also is a somewhat large Turkish population that lives in Berlin and locals have been talking about possible riots with either outcome of the match. Our tour guide recommended a place for us to go if we wanted to be in the center of the game-watching, but also warned that it's in a Turkish neighborhood and possiblz verz dangerous. I would have wanted to go, but I think Alea's worried about it and wants to go somewhere possiblz safer (although our hostel is also in a Turkish-friendlz neighborhood...).
Younds, I think I'm spending too much time here, so I must go now. Goodbze.
(I needed that ''younds'' in this post. It would have been unfair to have not included one 'y' word.)
Anzwazs, we're onlz moments awaz from the Germanz versus Turkez game, which should be prettz exciting and perhaps slightlz (ENTF) dangerous because there also is a somewhat large Turkish population that lives in Berlin and locals have been talking about possible riots with either outcome of the match. Our tour guide recommended a place for us to go if we wanted to be in the center of the game-watching, but also warned that it's in a Turkish neighborhood and possiblz verz dangerous. I would have wanted to go, but I think Alea's worried about it and wants to go somewhere possiblz safer (although our hostel is also in a Turkish-friendlz neighborhood...).
Younds, I think I'm spending too much time here, so I must go now. Goodbze.
(I needed that ''younds'' in this post. It would have been unfair to have not included one 'y' word.)
Berlin? Berlin!
Now about the first part of our short stay in Berlin.
I kept on waking up this morning (starting around 4). I dont think Andrew was able to sleep much and every time the train stopped somewhere, he would ask me if it was our stop. Somehow I managed, though.
We got into our train station around 9-ish this morning and had to figure out how to get to our hostel. Fortunately, this was another one of the hostels that we found out about from the Europe book because Berlin seems to be lacking in free city maps unlike every other place that we went to.
After we figured out the public transportation system in this city, which I am a big fan of after using it all day, we hopped on a train to our hostel. Our hostel ended up being right next to the train station, which was very convenient. This hostel is very large and we dont have bunk beds. I am a fan of it, except for the fact that its a five story climb to our floor and there are no elevators. It was pretty hellish with the backpacks this morning.
The beds were very comfortable, though. That might have been exaggerated though after spending the night on the train.
Anyway, we left the hostel again around 1130 and went off in search of a Citibank. We couldnt find one in the area that the receptionist at the hostel told us about and gave up after someone at a Starbucks told us there were none in the area. Gianni, however, needed more money and refused to take my extra money until we found one, so we just went to some other bank. Five minutes later, we found the Citibank and became very sad. I think we are going to have to go back before we leave anyway, so it works out more or less.
We ate lunch at this bagel place and went off in search of a tour that everyone got excited about. It was this Red Tour of Berlin, so it sounded pretty cool. We get to the area that the tour leaves from and there is a massive crowd of police cars and police officers surrounding a hotel and blocking our path. We find out that we apparently just missed Condoleza Rice leave the hotel for something. We had to find a way around that mess to get to the tour.
We get there and find out that the companys free walking tour is taking off at the same time as the Red Tour. We were about to take the free tour, but decided to stick with the Red Tour and do the free on tomorrow.
I think it was a good choice. Not only was the crowd significantly smaller, but the tour was very interesting. Basically, we got to learn a lot about the KGB in Berlin and the divide between East and West Germany. We saw various areas of the Berlin wall, as well as what the Stazis used as an interrogation room and learned stories about living in a communist country. Really interesting. Also the tour guide was very cool. Tomorrow we are either going to do the free tour or spend money on the Third Reich tour. Well see.
The tour ended in the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin wall, where a lot of street artists have painted fun murals into the wall. A lot of people have written over these murals since, which is lame because some of them were very nice. This stretch of wall is a little less than one mile, but it took us over an hour to walk through it because my hippy sister had to read everything on the wall.
Not that it wasnt interesting. I think my favorite may have been the Sweeney Todd quote, but I dont know. I took a lot of pictures of it, so once I finally get caught up there I will post them.
The wall ended at some train station and we found a cheapish internet cafe here, so thats where we are now. I wanted to check the email with Hastings stuff to see what was going on and also to catch up in the blogs. We probably are going to leave soon to watch the Germany-Turkey game and get something to eat. Tomorrow night we take another overnight train to Munich, so we should enjoy the nice beds.
I kept on waking up this morning (starting around 4). I dont think Andrew was able to sleep much and every time the train stopped somewhere, he would ask me if it was our stop. Somehow I managed, though.
We got into our train station around 9-ish this morning and had to figure out how to get to our hostel. Fortunately, this was another one of the hostels that we found out about from the Europe book because Berlin seems to be lacking in free city maps unlike every other place that we went to.
After we figured out the public transportation system in this city, which I am a big fan of after using it all day, we hopped on a train to our hostel. Our hostel ended up being right next to the train station, which was very convenient. This hostel is very large and we dont have bunk beds. I am a fan of it, except for the fact that its a five story climb to our floor and there are no elevators. It was pretty hellish with the backpacks this morning.
The beds were very comfortable, though. That might have been exaggerated though after spending the night on the train.
Anyway, we left the hostel again around 1130 and went off in search of a Citibank. We couldnt find one in the area that the receptionist at the hostel told us about and gave up after someone at a Starbucks told us there were none in the area. Gianni, however, needed more money and refused to take my extra money until we found one, so we just went to some other bank. Five minutes later, we found the Citibank and became very sad. I think we are going to have to go back before we leave anyway, so it works out more or less.
We ate lunch at this bagel place and went off in search of a tour that everyone got excited about. It was this Red Tour of Berlin, so it sounded pretty cool. We get to the area that the tour leaves from and there is a massive crowd of police cars and police officers surrounding a hotel and blocking our path. We find out that we apparently just missed Condoleza Rice leave the hotel for something. We had to find a way around that mess to get to the tour.
We get there and find out that the companys free walking tour is taking off at the same time as the Red Tour. We were about to take the free tour, but decided to stick with the Red Tour and do the free on tomorrow.
I think it was a good choice. Not only was the crowd significantly smaller, but the tour was very interesting. Basically, we got to learn a lot about the KGB in Berlin and the divide between East and West Germany. We saw various areas of the Berlin wall, as well as what the Stazis used as an interrogation room and learned stories about living in a communist country. Really interesting. Also the tour guide was very cool. Tomorrow we are either going to do the free tour or spend money on the Third Reich tour. Well see.
The tour ended in the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin wall, where a lot of street artists have painted fun murals into the wall. A lot of people have written over these murals since, which is lame because some of them were very nice. This stretch of wall is a little less than one mile, but it took us over an hour to walk through it because my hippy sister had to read everything on the wall.
Not that it wasnt interesting. I think my favorite may have been the Sweeney Todd quote, but I dont know. I took a lot of pictures of it, so once I finally get caught up there I will post them.
The wall ended at some train station and we found a cheapish internet cafe here, so thats where we are now. I wanted to check the email with Hastings stuff to see what was going on and also to catch up in the blogs. We probably are going to leave soon to watch the Germany-Turkey game and get something to eat. Tomorrow night we take another overnight train to Munich, so we should enjoy the nice beds.
Amsterdam/Antwerp/Overnight Train
So, as you can tell, I am behind a day. Trying to hurry up and put in two entries before we go watch the Germany-Turkey game tonight.
We woke up very early because the check out for our hostel in Amsterdam was at 930. After checking out and grabbing some of the breakfast, we went to the train station to lock up our bags and then do some more Amsterdam sight seeing. Our first stop was this windmill on the outskirts of town. It is also a brewery, but that was not open.
The map that we had also recommended a cheap open air market place that was nearby, so Mia got excited and we had to go. It was fun, and compared to the other stuff in Amsterdam very cheap.
To appease Andrew, we circled around and passed by the Amsterdam zoo (couldnt really see much) and the outskirts of the botanical garden. We walked through the red light district again and then out to a cafe. At the cafe, we kind of decided that we had seen everything that we wanted too (Actually I would have liked to see a couple of museums but no one else was with me on this one, of course). Anyway, we ended up leaving Amsterdam 6 hours ahead of schedule. We used this time to visit Antwerp, another city in Belgium.
Antwerp is or was one of the big fashion capitals of Europe. Hipster central, for sure. Also is a big place for diamonds. Anyway, we wandered around the city for a while. Saw the big Cathedral, the main square, a big fortress, walked along the river for a while. It was completely relaxed compared to the very, very, touristy Amsterdam. We spent a while looking for this statue of some kid mooning someone, which we found out had been taken down recently. We ate dinner at some cheap Italian place and then went back to the train station to wait for a train to Brussels.
We got into Brussels around 9, which is actually 30 minutes earlier than we would have gotten into town had we gone with our original plan. I guess thats cool. Spent the next few hours waiting around the train station for our overnight train. While waiting, Mia and I found this GIANT vending machine supermarket. It was really cool.
Train came in around 1141 as it was supposed to. We got in and found out that we did not get sleeping cars as we had expected (the Paris train station lady booked this, of course and didnt give us the option to choose anything else. The only thing that makes me think it might be different on the next train is that we have one ticket instead of four. I dont know if that actually makes a difference though). It was hard to sleep and kind of uncomfortable, but I slept better than I thought. I will write about the rest in the next post.
We woke up very early because the check out for our hostel in Amsterdam was at 930. After checking out and grabbing some of the breakfast, we went to the train station to lock up our bags and then do some more Amsterdam sight seeing. Our first stop was this windmill on the outskirts of town. It is also a brewery, but that was not open.
The map that we had also recommended a cheap open air market place that was nearby, so Mia got excited and we had to go. It was fun, and compared to the other stuff in Amsterdam very cheap.
To appease Andrew, we circled around and passed by the Amsterdam zoo (couldnt really see much) and the outskirts of the botanical garden. We walked through the red light district again and then out to a cafe. At the cafe, we kind of decided that we had seen everything that we wanted too (Actually I would have liked to see a couple of museums but no one else was with me on this one, of course). Anyway, we ended up leaving Amsterdam 6 hours ahead of schedule. We used this time to visit Antwerp, another city in Belgium.
Antwerp is or was one of the big fashion capitals of Europe. Hipster central, for sure. Also is a big place for diamonds. Anyway, we wandered around the city for a while. Saw the big Cathedral, the main square, a big fortress, walked along the river for a while. It was completely relaxed compared to the very, very, touristy Amsterdam. We spent a while looking for this statue of some kid mooning someone, which we found out had been taken down recently. We ate dinner at some cheap Italian place and then went back to the train station to wait for a train to Brussels.
We got into Brussels around 9, which is actually 30 minutes earlier than we would have gotten into town had we gone with our original plan. I guess thats cool. Spent the next few hours waiting around the train station for our overnight train. While waiting, Mia and I found this GIANT vending machine supermarket. It was really cool.
Train came in around 1141 as it was supposed to. We got in and found out that we did not get sleeping cars as we had expected (the Paris train station lady booked this, of course and didnt give us the option to choose anything else. The only thing that makes me think it might be different on the next train is that we have one ticket instead of four. I dont know if that actually makes a difference though). It was hard to sleep and kind of uncomfortable, but I slept better than I thought. I will write about the rest in the next post.
In Germany, it is Anmelden with one A
In Antwerp, I took a picture with a guy at the train station before we left for Brussels. He was from Belgium, so he was happy when I said it was my favorite place so far. When I listed off the places we had already gone to, he said we were very adventurous. His name was Jonas. He was carrying the wheel (actually, four wheels because he was holding a skateboard). Oh, also, the choo-choo train left right on time. And yes, immediately after meeting him, I listened to Weezer.
For Berlin, I only have one picture so far. We took a tour called the Red Tour that was a really interesting tour, and now I need to go watch Life of Others and re-watch Goodbye Lenin. I took a picture with our tour guide who's name is Nikolai. He exhibits an interest in Western decadence or something like that. He was a very good tour guide.
The keyboards in Germany have the y's and z's switched around. It is confusing me.
I will go now so Gianni can use the internets.
Goodbye.
yzyzyzyzzyzyzyzyzyzzyzyzzyzyzyzyzyzyzyzyzzyzy
For Berlin, I only have one picture so far. We took a tour called the Red Tour that was a really interesting tour, and now I need to go watch Life of Others and re-watch Goodbye Lenin. I took a picture with our tour guide who's name is Nikolai. He exhibits an interest in Western decadence or something like that. He was a very good tour guide.
The keyboards in Germany have the y's and z's switched around. It is confusing me.
I will go now so Gianni can use the internets.
Goodbye.
yzyzyzyzzyzyzyzyzyzzyzyzzyzyzyzyzyzyzyzyzzyzy
Monday, June 23, 2008
Technical Note
I added a link to the webshots gallery to the bottom of this page. Just wanted to let you know.
Blog maken? No, silly! Aanmelden!
I was typing my blog post for today, but I got cut off. I ran out of time right as I was telling James I was about to run out of time.
I saw two more dreaded mullets today. One was just sitting next to Gianni until he moved over here. Gianni, not dreaded mullet guy. Please let this catch on in California.
I spent most of my last hour trying to figure out (typetypetypetypetypetypetype) how to get my CDs onto my mp3 player on this computer, but I can't :(. Oh well.
I got two more pictures today.
The first was of a woman named Carla who worked in a small shop away from the really touristy areas of Amsterdam. Her store was full of very breakable-looking objects and I think the four of us terrified her with our tendencies to touch everything we see. I bought a postcard with a guy playing a guitar and harmonica, and I asked her who the guy in the picture was. She said she did not know because it was before her time.
The second was with another street musician. He was playing crystal glasses, and it was amazing. He had a table set up with glasses with varying amounts of water, and it sounded lovely. I did not ask for his name, because I was not sure if he spoke English, and I also assumed he was concentrating very hard on his craft and I did not want to interrupt.
Today, I carried around that knife Uncle Brian gave me. I am slightly paranoid after yesterday. I have only had to use it to cut paper so far. I do not have scissors.
I am in love with my hemp hat. Honest to blog.
In Amsterdam, stroopwaffels are everywhere, and this makes me happy.
I drank Red Bull this morning and it made my leg shake 5excessively. That 5 was from Gianni and I do not feel like deleting it because I am lazy. But I do not think I will be dr5inking (again, from Gianni5) Red Bull too often anymo5re. Five.
Earlier, I was trying to tell James that I needed to go buy another hour at this Internet Cafe because I was running out of time. I was typed it too fast, though, because I o5nly had one minute left, and I ended up saying "I need to buy anothe5r hor5" (without the 5's, which are still from Gianni). James was very amused that 4I needed 4to b4uy ano44444t4her hor. Gianni has moved on to fours, which rhymes with hor/whore, which is not what I needed to buy. But anyway, immediately after saying I needed to invest in prostitutes, I saw my awkward typo, and literally just as I was about to press Enter to send my corrected message, I got cut off.
I do not need to buy another hor or whore. I also do not need to buy another hour because now I have a lot of time and not much to do with it.
I think that is all I have to say45, 4but 454knowing me, I will remember (Gianni is upset because I deleted a bunch of fours and fives because my letter was lost in the middle of the numbers, and I thought it would be lonely over there, so I deleted the numbers. But now I think maybe some of the other numbers up there might be lonely, too) something else I wanted to share right after I publish this post.
Gianni says Five. He also says Four.
I saw two more dreaded mullets today. One was just sitting next to Gianni until he moved over here. Gianni, not dreaded mullet guy. Please let this catch on in California.
I spent most of my last hour trying to figure out (typetypetypetypetypetypetype) how to get my CDs onto my mp3 player on this computer, but I can't :(. Oh well.
I got two more pictures today.
The first was of a woman named Carla who worked in a small shop away from the really touristy areas of Amsterdam. Her store was full of very breakable-looking objects and I think the four of us terrified her with our tendencies to touch everything we see. I bought a postcard with a guy playing a guitar and harmonica, and I asked her who the guy in the picture was. She said she did not know because it was before her time.
The second was with another street musician. He was playing crystal glasses, and it was amazing. He had a table set up with glasses with varying amounts of water, and it sounded lovely. I did not ask for his name, because I was not sure if he spoke English, and I also assumed he was concentrating very hard on his craft and I did not want to interrupt.
Today, I carried around that knife Uncle Brian gave me. I am slightly paranoid after yesterday. I have only had to use it to cut paper so far. I do not have scissors.
I am in love with my hemp hat. Honest to blog.
In Amsterdam, stroopwaffels are everywhere, and this makes me happy.
I drank Red Bull this morning and it made my leg shake 5excessively. That 5 was from Gianni and I do not feel like deleting it because I am lazy. But I do not think I will be dr5inking (again, from Gianni5) Red Bull too often anymo5re. Five.
Earlier, I was trying to tell James that I needed to go buy another hour at this Internet Cafe because I was running out of time. I was typed it too fast, though, because I o5nly had one minute left, and I ended up saying "I need to buy anothe5r hor5" (without the 5's, which are still from Gianni). James was very amused that 4I needed 4to b4uy ano44444t4her hor. Gianni has moved on to fours, which rhymes with hor/whore, which is not what I needed to buy. But anyway, immediately after saying I needed to invest in prostitutes, I saw my awkward typo, and literally just as I was about to press Enter to send my corrected message, I got cut off.
I do not need to buy another hor or whore. I also do not need to buy another hour because now I have a lot of time and not much to do with it.
I think that is all I have to say45, 4but 454knowing me, I will remember (Gianni is upset because I deleted a bunch of fours and fives because my letter was lost in the middle of the numbers, and I thought it would be lonely over there, so I deleted the numbers. But now I think maybe some of the other numbers up there might be lonely, too) something else I wanted to share right after I publish this post.
Gianni says Five. He also says Four.
Amsterdam (Day 2)
We are currently are in the same Internet cafe that we were at yesterday. I liked this place because the computers were fast, but they're being more tempermental today. Not cool. Anyway, I have about a half hour for this post, so we'll see how much I can do. Might just get more time because I'm also on the phone with Umma. The computers also don't have firefox, so I have like twenty windows open, which is extremely annoying.
So, this second day in Amsterdam was a lot easier to do than yesterday. We also found areas that were not crazy crowded with tourists and that were a lot prettier than the red light district :P
We had a late start this morning. Both Gianni and Andrew decided to take their showers in the morning, which was fine when we were not sharing a bathroom with other people. Instead, they had to wait. The rest of us couldn't get ready in the meantime because when one left, they'd lock the other three of us into the room.
We left around 11:30 though, which was fine. We might have wanted to wake up earlier to try a walking tour, but neither Gianni nor Andrew seemed interested in that. Anyway, we wanted to see some of the sights in Amsterdam today, which meant a lot of aimless walking. Our first desintation was the Anne Frank house. Along the way, both Gianni and Andrew decided they were hungry (with the exception of Andrew, we weren't able to partake in the breakfast this morning since we were locked in the room), so we stopped at some kebab place for lunch.
After that, we were back on our way and found the house eventually. I wanted to go in kind of, but there was a long line and no one else seemed particularly thrilled to go in, so we moved onward. We walked down the street for a while and found this little thrifty/toy shop that Mia and Gianni got caught up in for a while. Then, we realized that I wanted to see something near the Anne Frank house, so we back tracked. We found this crazy novelty store on the way back. It's filled with all of the stuff that you'd find in Urban Outfitters or other similar stores. Everything was overpriced, but it was fun to look around.
We got back to the area we were heading towards. The Europe book said there was a cool monument for homosexual people or something in that area, partially in memorial of those killed during the Holocaust (I think). It was actually a big triangle in the middle of the square that I would have missed if Gianni had not pointed it out. It was cool though.
Our next stop was the Van Gogh Museum, which was supposed to be a very long walk away. We walked along the canals for a while and got lost after a while. In the meantime, we got to see a little flower market and some other rather interesting stores.
Anyway, we found our way again and walked over to the Van Gogh Museum. This was after we found a nearby park and started playing on the crazy tire swing they had set up there. We're so mature, yes.
The Van Gogh Museum is the first museum we've been to this entire trip (something I've made sure to remind Andrew about every time he whined about museums), but since both Mia and Andrew seem to like art museums, I thought this one would be good. I thought it was interesting. They've got a ton of Van Gogh paintings there (naturally), all kind of set up to go through his progression as an artist. They didn't have Starry Night :( and some of the other big ones, but they had the sunflower, his room, and a couple of other famous ones. Also, Van Gogh did a lot of self-portraits. I'd just like to point that out to all the people who make fun of me for taking pictures of myself in front of monuments.
Anyway, on the way out we got to see something kind of amusing. A security guy told some woman she couldn't go through with all of her stuff (you're not allowed to bring a lot of stuff into the museum, so they have a free coat/bag check. The woman started screaming at him and cursing at him and made a huge scene. Mia said she wanted popcorn.
After the museum, we went back towards the center of the city. We stopped at this place called Wok to Walk on the way back. Noodle place. Definitely not the local cuisine, but good all the same. No one in our group seemed interested in trying to local cuisine. Not that I've seen a place that has anything here. I've usually only seen stuff from other places.
Anyway, we walked back from there, which took another 15/20 minutes. During this walk, I managed to get hit by a car. Nothing bad or anything. I was just walking and a van backed really slowly and hit my arm. My supportive siblings and Andrew just laughed. In fact, if you mention this story to them, they will most likely laugh more.
We needed to get back to the hostel relatively early because we had to do laundry. Mia and I are more or less fine, but Andrew is almost out of clothes. On the way back, we stopped by the souvenir shop that the people who helped us find the hostel owned. That was an incredibly awkward and strange experience, actually, because they were kind of creepy. But they did give us a lot of discounts. And ... lollipops which we are most definitely not going to be eating.
After that, we found the laundry place. It ended up being really expensive and seemed to be our only option, so we had Gianni and Andrew take some of the bigger laundry with them and hand washed a lot of the other stuff. I'm hoping that the stuff dries.
That's about it for today. I really enjoyed the parts of Amsterdam that we saw today. Tomorrow we have to check out very early, so I want to get us back relatively early so we can shower and get rid of most of our stuff. Most of our day tomorrow will consist of traveling. We take an evening train from Amsterdam back to Brussels. Assuming the trains are on time*fingers crossed*, we'll be hanging out in the Brussels train station for a couple of hours before taking an over night train to Berlin. Depending on whether or not we can find Internet access at the Brussels train station, the next time you might here from us may or may not be from Germany.
So, this second day in Amsterdam was a lot easier to do than yesterday. We also found areas that were not crazy crowded with tourists and that were a lot prettier than the red light district :P
We had a late start this morning. Both Gianni and Andrew decided to take their showers in the morning, which was fine when we were not sharing a bathroom with other people. Instead, they had to wait. The rest of us couldn't get ready in the meantime because when one left, they'd lock the other three of us into the room.
We left around 11:30 though, which was fine. We might have wanted to wake up earlier to try a walking tour, but neither Gianni nor Andrew seemed interested in that. Anyway, we wanted to see some of the sights in Amsterdam today, which meant a lot of aimless walking. Our first desintation was the Anne Frank house. Along the way, both Gianni and Andrew decided they were hungry (with the exception of Andrew, we weren't able to partake in the breakfast this morning since we were locked in the room), so we stopped at some kebab place for lunch.
After that, we were back on our way and found the house eventually. I wanted to go in kind of, but there was a long line and no one else seemed particularly thrilled to go in, so we moved onward. We walked down the street for a while and found this little thrifty/toy shop that Mia and Gianni got caught up in for a while. Then, we realized that I wanted to see something near the Anne Frank house, so we back tracked. We found this crazy novelty store on the way back. It's filled with all of the stuff that you'd find in Urban Outfitters or other similar stores. Everything was overpriced, but it was fun to look around.
We got back to the area we were heading towards. The Europe book said there was a cool monument for homosexual people or something in that area, partially in memorial of those killed during the Holocaust (I think). It was actually a big triangle in the middle of the square that I would have missed if Gianni had not pointed it out. It was cool though.
Our next stop was the Van Gogh Museum, which was supposed to be a very long walk away. We walked along the canals for a while and got lost after a while. In the meantime, we got to see a little flower market and some other rather interesting stores.
Anyway, we found our way again and walked over to the Van Gogh Museum. This was after we found a nearby park and started playing on the crazy tire swing they had set up there. We're so mature, yes.
The Van Gogh Museum is the first museum we've been to this entire trip (something I've made sure to remind Andrew about every time he whined about museums), but since both Mia and Andrew seem to like art museums, I thought this one would be good. I thought it was interesting. They've got a ton of Van Gogh paintings there (naturally), all kind of set up to go through his progression as an artist. They didn't have Starry Night :( and some of the other big ones, but they had the sunflower, his room, and a couple of other famous ones. Also, Van Gogh did a lot of self-portraits. I'd just like to point that out to all the people who make fun of me for taking pictures of myself in front of monuments.
Anyway, on the way out we got to see something kind of amusing. A security guy told some woman she couldn't go through with all of her stuff (you're not allowed to bring a lot of stuff into the museum, so they have a free coat/bag check. The woman started screaming at him and cursing at him and made a huge scene. Mia said she wanted popcorn.
After the museum, we went back towards the center of the city. We stopped at this place called Wok to Walk on the way back. Noodle place. Definitely not the local cuisine, but good all the same. No one in our group seemed interested in trying to local cuisine. Not that I've seen a place that has anything here. I've usually only seen stuff from other places.
Anyway, we walked back from there, which took another 15/20 minutes. During this walk, I managed to get hit by a car. Nothing bad or anything. I was just walking and a van backed really slowly and hit my arm. My supportive siblings and Andrew just laughed. In fact, if you mention this story to them, they will most likely laugh more.
We needed to get back to the hostel relatively early because we had to do laundry. Mia and I are more or less fine, but Andrew is almost out of clothes. On the way back, we stopped by the souvenir shop that the people who helped us find the hostel owned. That was an incredibly awkward and strange experience, actually, because they were kind of creepy. But they did give us a lot of discounts. And ... lollipops which we are most definitely not going to be eating.
After that, we found the laundry place. It ended up being really expensive and seemed to be our only option, so we had Gianni and Andrew take some of the bigger laundry with them and hand washed a lot of the other stuff. I'm hoping that the stuff dries.
That's about it for today. I really enjoyed the parts of Amsterdam that we saw today. Tomorrow we have to check out very early, so I want to get us back relatively early so we can shower and get rid of most of our stuff. Most of our day tomorrow will consist of traveling. We take an evening train from Amsterdam back to Brussels. Assuming the trains are on time*fingers crossed*, we'll be hanging out in the Brussels train station for a couple of hours before taking an over night train to Berlin. Depending on whether or not we can find Internet access at the Brussels train station, the next time you might here from us may or may not be from Germany.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
One more thing
I post blogs in two's.
After reading Alea's post, I realized I forgot to mention that I almost got pickpocketed. We were wandering around trying to find the Red Light District when I kind of lost my footing on the sidewalk and fell forward a little bit. I caught my balance quickly, but I felt a little tug on my purse and noticed the guy behind me was walking very close. When I turned around to see what was going on, he quickly dashed into the nearest store, and I looked down to find my purse completely open. I checked through it and luckily, nothing was missing. I caught him in time, which was good because my camera was right on the top and if he took that, I would have been a very sad Mia.
Thank God for my clumsiness and inability to walk like a normal human being without tripping!
After reading Alea's post, I realized I forgot to mention that I almost got pickpocketed. We were wandering around trying to find the Red Light District when I kind of lost my footing on the sidewalk and fell forward a little bit. I caught my balance quickly, but I felt a little tug on my purse and noticed the guy behind me was walking very close. When I turned around to see what was going on, he quickly dashed into the nearest store, and I looked down to find my purse completely open. I checked through it and luckily, nothing was missing. I caught him in time, which was good because my camera was right on the top and if he took that, I would have been a very sad Mia.
Thank God for my clumsiness and inability to walk like a normal human being without tripping!
RUSSIA NUMBER ONE!
Five more Random People Pictures:
-Brussels:
--Quentin, but not pronounced like Tarantino pronounces it. He worked at the front desk at our hostel in Brussels and he had cool glasses and a snazzy accent.
-Amsterdam:
--Two guys that worked at a souvenir store that I went into. The guy at the counter was named Chai (I probably spelled that wrong, but that was how he pronounced it), and when I asked to take a picture with him, he said that usually, they do not allow people to take pictures in the store, but he said for me, it was okay. The other guy's name was Carlos and he had a mullet that was dreaded. Honest to blog. It was amazing. I'd never have even thought of a dreaded mullet, but we have seen two already here in Europe. I really hope that catches on someday in the States.
--When Alea and I were wandering around trying to find our hostel, we had to stop in two stores to ask for directions, and the guy at the second was really helpful. Then a few hours later, we happened to pass by that same store again, and he recognized us and made sure we found our place. His name was something that started with a B, and Alea and I think it was Bindal, but we do not know for sure.
--RUSSIA GUY. We were walking along a canal, and this guy was sitting on a couch (yes, a couch) on the opposite bank shouting "RUSSIA NUMBER ONE!" to all the tourists walking by on the side we were on. Getting the picture was absolutely terrifying, though, because once I was standing next to him, I saw that he had crusted blood below a bandage on his eyebrow and he started telling me that he was the "first heroin." I'm not sure what he meant by that.
Amsterdam is nice, but I liked Brussels and Bruges more. Belgium was totally rad.
I bought a hat made out of hemp today, and it is love. Gianni also bought a hemp hat, although it is not the same style. I think he feels the same way about his hat as I do about mine, though. Hemp = Love.
I need to send more postcards, but stamps are expensive.
This Internet Cafe will call the police if we spam from these computers. The police here are called Politie, which looks like "Polite," which makes Gianni and Andrew laugh.
I think I can rip my CD's at this Internet place and put them on my mp3 player, but I do not have either of those with me right now, and this makes me sad. Maybe we will come back tomorrow. Or maybe I can just wait until we get home, which is okay, too.
I have 30 minutes of Internet left and nothing else remotely interesting left to say.
Amsterdam smells like pot.
It is not very hot*.
We watched the Italy/Spain game in a bar, and now I smell like cigarette smoke, and it makes me sad because I am wearing my psychadelic purple scarf from London, and now it reeks of the Malboros the kids next to us were chain smoking.
That is all.
*By which I mean weather.
-Brussels:
--Quentin, but not pronounced like Tarantino pronounces it. He worked at the front desk at our hostel in Brussels and he had cool glasses and a snazzy accent.
-Amsterdam:
--Two guys that worked at a souvenir store that I went into. The guy at the counter was named Chai (I probably spelled that wrong, but that was how he pronounced it), and when I asked to take a picture with him, he said that usually, they do not allow people to take pictures in the store, but he said for me, it was okay. The other guy's name was Carlos and he had a mullet that was dreaded. Honest to blog. It was amazing. I'd never have even thought of a dreaded mullet, but we have seen two already here in Europe. I really hope that catches on someday in the States.
--When Alea and I were wandering around trying to find our hostel, we had to stop in two stores to ask for directions, and the guy at the second was really helpful. Then a few hours later, we happened to pass by that same store again, and he recognized us and made sure we found our place. His name was something that started with a B, and Alea and I think it was Bindal, but we do not know for sure.
--RUSSIA GUY. We were walking along a canal, and this guy was sitting on a couch (yes, a couch) on the opposite bank shouting "RUSSIA NUMBER ONE!" to all the tourists walking by on the side we were on. Getting the picture was absolutely terrifying, though, because once I was standing next to him, I saw that he had crusted blood below a bandage on his eyebrow and he started telling me that he was the "first heroin." I'm not sure what he meant by that.
Amsterdam is nice, but I liked Brussels and Bruges more. Belgium was totally rad.
I bought a hat made out of hemp today, and it is love. Gianni also bought a hemp hat, although it is not the same style. I think he feels the same way about his hat as I do about mine, though. Hemp = Love.
I need to send more postcards, but stamps are expensive.
This Internet Cafe will call the police if we spam from these computers. The police here are called Politie, which looks like "Polite," which makes Gianni and Andrew laugh.
I think I can rip my CD's at this Internet place and put them on my mp3 player, but I do not have either of those with me right now, and this makes me sad. Maybe we will come back tomorrow. Or maybe I can just wait until we get home, which is okay, too.
I have 30 minutes of Internet left and nothing else remotely interesting left to say.
Amsterdam smells like pot.
It is not very hot*.
We watched the Italy/Spain game in a bar, and now I smell like cigarette smoke, and it makes me sad because I am wearing my psychadelic purple scarf from London, and now it reeks of the Malboros the kids next to us were chain smoking.
That is all.
*By which I mean weather.
Amsterdam
So, I've given up on making clever titles to my posts. However, I will say that I have like three songs on my iPod with the name Amsterdam. Uploading more photos to webshots.
Anyway, we've safely arrived in Amsterdam and it's a pretty different pace from Belgium. It's a very pretty city and I love all the canals, but it kind of reminds me of Las Vegas...maybe more like downtown Vegas. Also, it's kind of very cold and windy here, so I'm glad we packed a lot of summer clothes.
Our train for Amsterdam didn't leave until 12:15, so we had a more relaxing morning than usual. We couldn't find any water anywhere last night, so I think we all woke up somewhat dehydrated. I think that's why Mia woke up at like 7:30 instead of 8:30 when the alarm was set to go off. Me, I slept as long as I could. We went down to eat around 9:30 and loaded up on a lot of free breakfast foods because we had a long train ride ahead of us. We went back upstairs to finish packing and checked out around 10:30. I really liked this hostel with the exception of the bartender, so it was kind of sad leaving this one.
We got to the train station around 11:00 and I regretted not getting tickets for the 11:15 train to Amsterdam instead of the 12:15 train. Whatever, we just ended up sitting around for the next hour reading, listening to music, or (in my case) planning out what we were doing in Amsterdam.
The train came on time. I think it's about the same distance between Brussels and Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam, but this train took 3 hours because it stopped at a few cities along the way. It gave us ample time to nap and relax, though. All good.
We got into Amsterdam a little after three, but had to go back to the ticket line because we finally got yelled at by one of the conductors about Gianni's Eurail pass. He called the French people dumb for not telling us to get it replaced earlier. Anyway, we had to wait an hour to do this, so Mia and I left Gianni and Andrew around to wait while we checked into the hostel. We got lost on the way because I somehow lost the map that I had of Amsterdam, but these two really nice souvenir store owners helped us find our way. The stairs up to the hostel are very small and narrow and I'm kind of scared about what it's going to be like going back down those stairs with the big backpacks.
Anyway, we had just enough time to throw our stuff down in the room and go back out to the train station and made it back with a few minutes to spare. We managed to replace Gianni's Eurail pass, but could not book any of the other tickets that we need to book. This is kind of stressful because I'm tired of standing in the ticket lines and we have one more overnight train to book. We'll figure it out.
Anyway, we were done with this around 4/5, so we went and had Gianni and Andrew fill out the information at the hostel that they needed at the reception.
After that, we went back out. Gianni was really excited about this store that we read about called Hemp World, so that was our first stop actually. It was a pretty cool store, but REALLY expensive, so I didn't buy anything.
We wandered around for a little while. This city smells like pot, the scent of which is especially strong whenever you pass by the coffee shops. It's kind of crazy.
The Italy and Spain game was tonight, so we decided to hold off eating a big meal, instead grabbing some random stuff on the streets, and then went off to walk around the city some more. I wanted to see the Red Light district, and thought that Andrew would enjoy that as well, but I've been very disoriented in this very crowded city, so we kind of circled around for a while. We did end up seeing the big square and some national monument. They were holding some concert/carnival there. The band was okay. Nothing spectacular, so we moved on.
We started an epic hunt for the red light district, where Mia almost got pickpocketed and we circled around the same streets for a while. We eventually got there, and I think it disturbed Andrew a lot. We wandered around for a little while longer and ended up chilling out in some square where I think they have some big market during the day. On the way to the square, Mia decided to take a picture with this old guy who was sitting on a couch in the middle of the street shouting "Russia." It was kind of awkward and he told Mia that he was the first man to do heroine. I don't know. It was near what I assumed to be like the Chinatown of Amsterdam or something. We'll figure this stuff out a little more tomorrow.
After that, we started wandering around, trying to figure out how to fill up the hour and a half before the game. This ended up just being endless wandering and eating falafel at a place that way overcharged us for our water.
After eating, we sat down at some Irish pub to watch the game, mostly because we could see from outside that the bartender was rooting for Italy. Ended up we were in a bar full of Spain fans. Anyway, we just saw them lose and I think my brother is now depressed. The people at the table next to us were smoking a LOT, so now I smell absolutely disgusting. It got so bad that Mia and I had to leave for a while in the middle of the game.
Um, that's about it for today. Tomorrow we plan on exploring the city some more, maybe going to the Van Gogh Museum. I want to go see the Anne Frank house, but no one else seems to want to do that. We kind of want to bike since this city is crazy about biking, but after having been nearly killed by many bikers, I'm kind of terrified of the idea. We'll see what ends up happening. This city does not seem to be very nerd-friendly, though.
Anyway, we've safely arrived in Amsterdam and it's a pretty different pace from Belgium. It's a very pretty city and I love all the canals, but it kind of reminds me of Las Vegas...maybe more like downtown Vegas. Also, it's kind of very cold and windy here, so I'm glad we packed a lot of summer clothes.
Our train for Amsterdam didn't leave until 12:15, so we had a more relaxing morning than usual. We couldn't find any water anywhere last night, so I think we all woke up somewhat dehydrated. I think that's why Mia woke up at like 7:30 instead of 8:30 when the alarm was set to go off. Me, I slept as long as I could. We went down to eat around 9:30 and loaded up on a lot of free breakfast foods because we had a long train ride ahead of us. We went back upstairs to finish packing and checked out around 10:30. I really liked this hostel with the exception of the bartender, so it was kind of sad leaving this one.
We got to the train station around 11:00 and I regretted not getting tickets for the 11:15 train to Amsterdam instead of the 12:15 train. Whatever, we just ended up sitting around for the next hour reading, listening to music, or (in my case) planning out what we were doing in Amsterdam.
The train came on time. I think it's about the same distance between Brussels and Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam, but this train took 3 hours because it stopped at a few cities along the way. It gave us ample time to nap and relax, though. All good.
We got into Amsterdam a little after three, but had to go back to the ticket line because we finally got yelled at by one of the conductors about Gianni's Eurail pass. He called the French people dumb for not telling us to get it replaced earlier. Anyway, we had to wait an hour to do this, so Mia and I left Gianni and Andrew around to wait while we checked into the hostel. We got lost on the way because I somehow lost the map that I had of Amsterdam, but these two really nice souvenir store owners helped us find our way. The stairs up to the hostel are very small and narrow and I'm kind of scared about what it's going to be like going back down those stairs with the big backpacks.
Anyway, we had just enough time to throw our stuff down in the room and go back out to the train station and made it back with a few minutes to spare. We managed to replace Gianni's Eurail pass, but could not book any of the other tickets that we need to book. This is kind of stressful because I'm tired of standing in the ticket lines and we have one more overnight train to book. We'll figure it out.
Anyway, we were done with this around 4/5, so we went and had Gianni and Andrew fill out the information at the hostel that they needed at the reception.
After that, we went back out. Gianni was really excited about this store that we read about called Hemp World, so that was our first stop actually. It was a pretty cool store, but REALLY expensive, so I didn't buy anything.
We wandered around for a little while. This city smells like pot, the scent of which is especially strong whenever you pass by the coffee shops. It's kind of crazy.
The Italy and Spain game was tonight, so we decided to hold off eating a big meal, instead grabbing some random stuff on the streets, and then went off to walk around the city some more. I wanted to see the Red Light district, and thought that Andrew would enjoy that as well, but I've been very disoriented in this very crowded city, so we kind of circled around for a while. We did end up seeing the big square and some national monument. They were holding some concert/carnival there. The band was okay. Nothing spectacular, so we moved on.
We started an epic hunt for the red light district, where Mia almost got pickpocketed and we circled around the same streets for a while. We eventually got there, and I think it disturbed Andrew a lot. We wandered around for a little while longer and ended up chilling out in some square where I think they have some big market during the day. On the way to the square, Mia decided to take a picture with this old guy who was sitting on a couch in the middle of the street shouting "Russia." It was kind of awkward and he told Mia that he was the first man to do heroine. I don't know. It was near what I assumed to be like the Chinatown of Amsterdam or something. We'll figure this stuff out a little more tomorrow.
After that, we started wandering around, trying to figure out how to fill up the hour and a half before the game. This ended up just being endless wandering and eating falafel at a place that way overcharged us for our water.
After eating, we sat down at some Irish pub to watch the game, mostly because we could see from outside that the bartender was rooting for Italy. Ended up we were in a bar full of Spain fans. Anyway, we just saw them lose and I think my brother is now depressed. The people at the table next to us were smoking a LOT, so now I smell absolutely disgusting. It got so bad that Mia and I had to leave for a while in the middle of the game.
Um, that's about it for today. Tomorrow we plan on exploring the city some more, maybe going to the Van Gogh Museum. I want to go see the Anne Frank house, but no one else seems to want to do that. We kind of want to bike since this city is crazy about biking, but after having been nearly killed by many bikers, I'm kind of terrified of the idea. We'll see what ends up happening. This city does not seem to be very nerd-friendly, though.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Je parle français, ouais??
I remembered what I wanted to write earlier but forgot. I had a successful conversation in French today!
Some woman was helping us get our Metro tickets because we were couldn't get the pass we wanted because we didn't have enough change. This woman came out of nowhere and helped us figure it out. And I talked to her en Français because I am awesome. She was really nice, and I was going to ask her to take a picture with me, but she disappeared. Really. We couldn't find her anywhere.
:(
Some woman was helping us get our Metro tickets because we were couldn't get the pass we wanted because we didn't have enough change. This woman came out of nowhere and helped us figure it out. And I talked to her en Français because I am awesome. She was really nice, and I was going to ask her to take a picture with me, but she disappeared. Really. We couldn't find her anywhere.
:(
In Bruges (Part Two)
I am back online, except not at the hostel. We went to an Internet cafe and I have to type slowly because I cant change the keyboard from the Belgian setting to English. Anyway, we decided to go to an Internet cafe where the people were not rude. I would have been fine if the bartender politely told me that there was a 15 minute limit I saw posted nowhere, but instead we found out when he was telling someone else just loud enough so we could hear. Then he yelled at me for being on the computer for over an hour, when I had only been online for twenty minutes ( I know because we hadnt even been back for an hour and Gianni used the computer for like twenty minutes before me). Whatever, I stressed and logged off; therefor forgetting to check the grades for last quarter (I did okay, but I think I might be .003 away from magna cum laude, which is really annoying.
Anyway, where was I?
We saw Jesus' blood and then went to this house that the map told me looked like a cage. It was actually boring and ugly and looked like the ugly concert hall we saw later (both of which did not fit in with the 15th century architecture of the city), and Andrew was therefore upset and bitter.
We walked down the road we were on and ran into this square with a tobacco store. They sell stamps in tobacco stores in Italy and France ( as I foudn out the other day), so I got excited and ran in (which Andrew thought was hilarious). Well, turns out it does not, so that was fun.
We hung out in that square for a couple more minutes, taking pictures of statues and what not, and then continued onward/. Our next destination was one of the gates of the city. This was because there is the skull of a traitor attached to the wall:. Well, it is a bronze cast of a skull of a traitor. The gates to the city were very fortified and protected, so pretty ,uch no one could get in unless someone let them in and that was the skull of someone who did just that.
We hung around that area after that. It was not a hot tourist spot, so it was not crowded and it was pretty and near a more scenic canal. After five minutes, we started our trek back to the train station and caught the 6 pm train back: We went back to the hostel and went on the computers with that bartender incident. We went back to the room and wrote postcards for a while. Then we went on an adventure to find a place to eat, which was hard because most of the places were closed:. We found some pizzeria and just ate there:
Now we're at the Internet Cafe and I am kind of bummed about potentially missing magna cum laude by such a small margin. I guess that's based on last year's marks, so based on how people did this year, I may be further away from it or may just make it. Hoping it's the second one.
Tomorrow we travel to Amsterdam, where they may be depressed because the Netherlands just lost to Russia.
Anyway, where was I?
We saw Jesus' blood and then went to this house that the map told me looked like a cage. It was actually boring and ugly and looked like the ugly concert hall we saw later (both of which did not fit in with the 15th century architecture of the city), and Andrew was therefore upset and bitter.
We walked down the road we were on and ran into this square with a tobacco store. They sell stamps in tobacco stores in Italy and France ( as I foudn out the other day), so I got excited and ran in (which Andrew thought was hilarious). Well, turns out it does not, so that was fun.
We hung out in that square for a couple more minutes, taking pictures of statues and what not, and then continued onward/. Our next destination was one of the gates of the city. This was because there is the skull of a traitor attached to the wall:. Well, it is a bronze cast of a skull of a traitor. The gates to the city were very fortified and protected, so pretty ,uch no one could get in unless someone let them in and that was the skull of someone who did just that.
We hung around that area after that. It was not a hot tourist spot, so it was not crowded and it was pretty and near a more scenic canal. After five minutes, we started our trek back to the train station and caught the 6 pm train back: We went back to the hostel and went on the computers with that bartender incident. We went back to the room and wrote postcards for a while. Then we went on an adventure to find a place to eat, which was hard because most of the places were closed:. We found some pizzeria and just ate there:
Now we're at the Internet Cafe and I am kind of bummed about potentially missing magna cum laude by such a small margin. I guess that's based on last year's marks, so based on how people did this year, I may be further away from it or may just make it. Hoping it's the second one.
Tomorrow we travel to Amsterdam, where they may be depressed because the Netherlands just lost to Russia.
In Bruges
Actually, I am not in Bruges right now. We are back in Brussels, actually able to take advantage of the free Internet here. The problem with hopping around from Internet cafe to Internet cafe in foreign countries is that you have to get adjusted to the different computers and keyboards and what not. Anyway, we just found out that there is apparently a fifteen minute limit for the Internet, which Im sure they could have told us about earlier. Anyway, I think that means that I have to make it somewhat fast, even though I donèt think there is anyone waiting for the computer anymore now that Mia got kicked off of hers.
First things first though. I cant access the USB port on this computer, but I uploaded the first thirty pictures from this trip onto webshots yesterday http://good-times.webshots.com/album/563858240JYrIEI. There arent that many compared to how many we have taken, but whatever.
Anyway, today was our day trip to Bruges, which apparently is arguably the Venice of the North. I say arguably because I told Gianni this earlier and then he found out that Wikipedia refers to Amsterdam by the same name and got mad at me. Whatever, there are a lot of canals, narrow streets, and the like. Its a very pretty and preserved medieval town, where most of the buildings go back to the 15th and 16th centuries.
We took the 1105 train to Bruges (which was very packed as Bruges is the big tourist spot here in Belgium) and got in around noon. We walked out to the center of town, but got distracted by many things along the way. So, this is how our day went.
First, we started walking to the center of the town, but I wanted to go explore some of the stuff off to the side first, so we derailed from our original destination. Then, we found a street full of hippy esque stores (they appear to be very popular in Bruges) and spent a long time in all of them. Mia and Gianni bought stuff. I got a headband because the one I have been using hasnt been doing it for me.
Our next stop was the Church of our Lady to see the Michaelangelo Madonna and Child statue, which is one of the only (if not the only) Michaelangelo statue that can be found outside of Italy. We took pictures with the canals, and I have regretted not forcing everyone to go on one of the canal boat tours (but Im sure everyone, especially Andrew, would have been upset).
We wandered around the streets for a while. I almost got hit by a car turning into a small alley that I was walking down. We decided to eat lunch, and got more fries. yeah, not the healthiest stop, but they are so good.
After lunch, we found this horse statue that our map thing told us was cool for whatever reason. We did end up seeing a lot of swans. One attacked Mia, which was kind of funny. So, yeah. Mia wrote about the gross fluffs of swan down that was EVERYWHERE, so I wont go into that.
Next, we went off in search of nuns. There is this place called the Beguinage, where a bunch of nuns live. Gianni and Andrew got Testamint gum (no, really) and wandered around the small area, but there were no nuns in sight :(.
After this, we finally started making our way to the center of town, which was very pretty. We took a lot of pictures there, and thought briefly about climbing the Belfry to get what was supposed to house a great view of the city. We would have done it if it were not for the fact that we just spent a lot at aforementioned hippy stores.
Next stop was the Basiclliica of the Holy Blood, where you could see Jesus blood. It was hiding behind the tabernacle when we got there, so we didnèt get to see it.
Ill finish the rest of the Brussels post later. The bartender is yelling at me to get off the computer.
First things first though. I cant access the USB port on this computer, but I uploaded the first thirty pictures from this trip onto webshots yesterday http://good-times.webshots.com/album/563858240JYrIEI. There arent that many compared to how many we have taken, but whatever.
Anyway, today was our day trip to Bruges, which apparently is arguably the Venice of the North. I say arguably because I told Gianni this earlier and then he found out that Wikipedia refers to Amsterdam by the same name and got mad at me. Whatever, there are a lot of canals, narrow streets, and the like. Its a very pretty and preserved medieval town, where most of the buildings go back to the 15th and 16th centuries.
We took the 1105 train to Bruges (which was very packed as Bruges is the big tourist spot here in Belgium) and got in around noon. We walked out to the center of town, but got distracted by many things along the way. So, this is how our day went.
First, we started walking to the center of the town, but I wanted to go explore some of the stuff off to the side first, so we derailed from our original destination. Then, we found a street full of hippy esque stores (they appear to be very popular in Bruges) and spent a long time in all of them. Mia and Gianni bought stuff. I got a headband because the one I have been using hasnt been doing it for me.
Our next stop was the Church of our Lady to see the Michaelangelo Madonna and Child statue, which is one of the only (if not the only) Michaelangelo statue that can be found outside of Italy. We took pictures with the canals, and I have regretted not forcing everyone to go on one of the canal boat tours (but Im sure everyone, especially Andrew, would have been upset).
We wandered around the streets for a while. I almost got hit by a car turning into a small alley that I was walking down. We decided to eat lunch, and got more fries. yeah, not the healthiest stop, but they are so good.
After lunch, we found this horse statue that our map thing told us was cool for whatever reason. We did end up seeing a lot of swans. One attacked Mia, which was kind of funny. So, yeah. Mia wrote about the gross fluffs of swan down that was EVERYWHERE, so I wont go into that.
Next, we went off in search of nuns. There is this place called the Beguinage, where a bunch of nuns live. Gianni and Andrew got Testamint gum (no, really) and wandered around the small area, but there were no nuns in sight :(.
After this, we finally started making our way to the center of town, which was very pretty. We took a lot of pictures there, and thought briefly about climbing the Belfry to get what was supposed to house a great view of the city. We would have done it if it were not for the fact that we just spent a lot at aforementioned hippy stores.
Next stop was the Basiclliica of the Holy Blood, where you could see Jesus blood. It was hiding behind the tabernacle when we got there, so we didnèt get to see it.
Ill finish the rest of the Brussels post later. The bartender is yelling at me to get off the computer.
YUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!
Yes, that is how you get peoples' attention in Bruges. Shout that, and point at them. It's kind of sort of awesome.
Bruges is amazing. It's like Belgium's Disneyland in that it's adorable and touristy and amazingly fun. And the people there are very friendly, which is also cool. The one negative thing I have to mention is there is little white fluffs floating everywhere in the air. It looked really pretty until we realized it was swan down. Like, everywhere. I think a large group of swans decided to explode this morning. RIP, swans :(
OH OH OH, but I did get into a fight with a swan!! FINALLY! I've been wanting to battle a swan since I was in Switzerland with Chabba and he told me not to or Umma would get mad at him. But anyway, the swan bit me. Then, some guy that was taking pictures next to us (with a Canon EOS!) said that the swan biting me was awesome and he asked me to do it again so he could get a picture. So I taunted the swan with my hand, and it was fun.
Also, I bought another scarf and a totally psychadelic sweatshirt. Bruges has great hippie fashion.
Gianni and I have monopolized the computers in this hostel right now. I am glaring at him as I type. He hasn't noticed yet. Shh, don't tell him.
He saw me :(
I blog like a spastic child with ADD who has just consumed large amounts of caffeine.
I am not going to hide another message within this blog post because it took too long last time and I am lazy.
Whenever blogspot autosaves my blog draft, the whole screen twitches. Honest to blog. It's very distracting.
Bruges has given me 5 more random people pictures:
==The man who worked at the store where I purchased my scarf. His name is Andre, which he says is a pretty universal name.
==Two musicians who were playing in some plaza area we went to. One of them looked like a 14 year old girl from far away, but when we got closer, we saw facial hair and epic leg hair. He played the accordion. The other guy played the guitar and I think he was very excited that I wanted to take a picture with them, although I had to convey this through pointing at my camera and then at them, since I didn't know how to ask them. Also, language barrier also prevented me from getting their names :(
==Two women that worked in a store where Gianni bought something (he is standing behind me right now and he wants me to point out that the thing he bought is made out of industrial hemp). Their names sounded like Aileen and Liz, but they were something way more Belgian and not as un-Belgian.
Also, I didn't mention this yesterday because I got the picture after we visited the internet cafe, but I got another random person picture last night after one of the bands played here at the hostel in Brussels. I bought their cd, then asked to take a picture with the guy I bought it from. He was wearing a headband that was purple like the scarf I was also coincidentally wearing on my head at the time. He said he hoped I loved him, as in his performance, which I did because his band was very eccentric and cool.
There was something else I was planning on writing, but I forget what it was.
Oh, I also feel it necessary to mention that when we were in Paris, I was shaving my legs and accidentally shaved off a huge chunk of leg. I bled profusely and it was gross. It didn't hurt too much though, and I have a scar on my other leg from a similar injury, so now that I have one on both sides, maybe my life will be more balanced and Zen.
I have nothing else to write right now. Toodle-loo.
Bruges is amazing. It's like Belgium's Disneyland in that it's adorable and touristy and amazingly fun. And the people there are very friendly, which is also cool. The one negative thing I have to mention is there is little white fluffs floating everywhere in the air. It looked really pretty until we realized it was swan down. Like, everywhere. I think a large group of swans decided to explode this morning. RIP, swans :(
OH OH OH, but I did get into a fight with a swan!! FINALLY! I've been wanting to battle a swan since I was in Switzerland with Chabba and he told me not to or Umma would get mad at him. But anyway, the swan bit me. Then, some guy that was taking pictures next to us (with a Canon EOS!) said that the swan biting me was awesome and he asked me to do it again so he could get a picture. So I taunted the swan with my hand, and it was fun.
Also, I bought another scarf and a totally psychadelic sweatshirt. Bruges has great hippie fashion.
Gianni and I have monopolized the computers in this hostel right now. I am glaring at him as I type. He hasn't noticed yet. Shh, don't tell him.
He saw me :(
I blog like a spastic child with ADD who has just consumed large amounts of caffeine.
I am not going to hide another message within this blog post because it took too long last time and I am lazy.
Whenever blogspot autosaves my blog draft, the whole screen twitches. Honest to blog. It's very distracting.
Bruges has given me 5 more random people pictures:
==The man who worked at the store where I purchased my scarf. His name is Andre, which he says is a pretty universal name.
==Two musicians who were playing in some plaza area we went to. One of them looked like a 14 year old girl from far away, but when we got closer, we saw facial hair and epic leg hair. He played the accordion. The other guy played the guitar and I think he was very excited that I wanted to take a picture with them, although I had to convey this through pointing at my camera and then at them, since I didn't know how to ask them. Also, language barrier also prevented me from getting their names :(
==Two women that worked in a store where Gianni bought something (he is standing behind me right now and he wants me to point out that the thing he bought is made out of industrial hemp). Their names sounded like Aileen and Liz, but they were something way more Belgian and not as un-Belgian.
Also, I didn't mention this yesterday because I got the picture after we visited the internet cafe, but I got another random person picture last night after one of the bands played here at the hostel in Brussels. I bought their cd, then asked to take a picture with the guy I bought it from. He was wearing a headband that was purple like the scarf I was also coincidentally wearing on my head at the time. He said he hoped I loved him, as in his performance, which I did because his band was very eccentric and cool.
There was something else I was planning on writing, but I forget what it was.
Oh, I also feel it necessary to mention that when we were in Paris, I was shaving my legs and accidentally shaved off a huge chunk of leg. I bled profusely and it was gross. It didn't hurt too much though, and I have a scar on my other leg from a similar injury, so now that I have one on both sides, maybe my life will be more balanced and Zen.
I have nothing else to write right now. Toodle-loo.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Day 4: June 20: We All Have Moments We Want To Sing To Ourselves Quietly While Locked In Yellow Cages
These kids on the computer next to me are playing online games and are really loud. It kinda reminds me of last year in Korea, except these kids are a little louder and aren't trying to intimidate me into abdicating over the computer to them. I recall some of the other students in the Korean program trying to learn how to say "Santa Clause isn't real" in Korean for ammunition against these kids, but I don't think I'll be using this computer long enough for me to really consider that option.
Anyways, so we've come back to the hostel and Andrew just in time (it turns out) for a bbq and some live music here. Andrew bought himself a meal from the grill and later proclaimed that it was awful (burnt on the outside yet uncooked on the inside). Seriously, this guy has to find something to complain about everywhere we stay. Alea and Mia are chilling outside listening to the live music; Mia's already bought at least one of the band's cds. Andrew is upstairs dreaming of eating sushi and perfectly cooked meat in Japan. As for me, I've been waiting somewhat patiently for a spot on one of the hostel's public computers. (Seriously, these children are loud and really annoying.)
I don't remember the exact name of the place we'll be visiting tomorrow, but we'll still be in the country. As it's almost midnight here, I think I will go retire and brave the shower (because I probably stink).
...
And the letter of the day is 'M' for "micturate". Hopefully, I spelled that correctly, too.
Oh, and I'll talk about Paris maybe next time.
Anyways, so we've come back to the hostel and Andrew just in time (it turns out) for a bbq and some live music here. Andrew bought himself a meal from the grill and later proclaimed that it was awful (burnt on the outside yet uncooked on the inside). Seriously, this guy has to find something to complain about everywhere we stay. Alea and Mia are chilling outside listening to the live music; Mia's already bought at least one of the band's cds. Andrew is upstairs dreaming of eating sushi and perfectly cooked meat in Japan. As for me, I've been waiting somewhat patiently for a spot on one of the hostel's public computers. (Seriously, these children are loud and really annoying.)
I don't remember the exact name of the place we'll be visiting tomorrow, but we'll still be in the country. As it's almost midnight here, I think I will go retire and brave the shower (because I probably stink).
...
And the letter of the day is 'M' for "micturate". Hopefully, I spelled that correctly, too.
Oh, and I'll talk about Paris maybe next time.
;_;
It's bright outside at all hours, even late at night.
Time has no meaning in the seventh circle of hell.
Time has no meaning in the seventh circle of hell.
Not much time and on a foreign keyboard grarararar
I'll go over in better detail later.
Letter of the day yesterday (June 19th) was 'P' for a few reasons:
1) Plane station
2) Papa bear Gianni
3) "I am a people"
Paris is Paris. Too much to do, only half a day's time. City came alive when the sky turned to night (which was around 10pm).
However...
Brussels is by far my favorite city so far (of the three we've visited). I don't know if it's the pace at which we're taking things or eccentricity of the city. Andrew's coined this the "honor system" city. This is also the city of fries, waffles, and chocolate, so I expect I'll need to be working off what I get here (which is weird because everyone here is really fit).
GOODBYE
ONE MINUTE LEFT
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
MY INTERNET IS DEAD
Letter of the day yesterday (June 19th) was 'P' for a few reasons:
1) Plane station
2) Papa bear Gianni
3) "I am a people"
Paris is Paris. Too much to do, only half a day's time. City came alive when the sky turned to night (which was around 10pm).
However...
Brussels is by far my favorite city so far (of the three we've visited). I don't know if it's the pace at which we're taking things or eccentricity of the city. Andrew's coined this the "honor system" city. This is also the city of fries, waffles, and chocolate, so I expect I'll need to be working off what I get here (which is weird because everyone here is really fit).
GOODBYE
ONE MINUTE LEFT
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
MY INTERNET IS DEAD
Brussels Sprouts
I couldn't think of some cute song title for this post, so I made something up instead. Anyway, I have like 30 minutes left to post this one, so I'll try to take less time with it. I'm trying not to butcher these names, though, so I've been using my tour book as a guide.
Anyway, we woke up very early this morning as well. I wanted to make sure we were at the train station on time. Nevermind that we were an hour and a half early. Better than being late and rushing it. Anyway, we woke up around 7:30. We were supposed to be up earlier, actually, but the cell phone alarm didn't go off. Andrew brought his phone and I set the alarm on his phone for back up. Good thing I did, haha. Anyway, it worked out. Our train left at 10:25 and we got to the train station a little before 9. We just sat around and read and/or wrote post cards. Or played DS in Andrew's case.
We took the train over the Brussels. It was relaxing, and kind of fun. I actually didn't notice that we had assigned seats on this train, so we sat down in a random spot that coincidentally happened to be ours. I don't know how that happened, but I guess that worked out fine.
We got into Brussels and were a little disoriented at first (I imagine this is going to happen upon arriving in every train station). We went to the ticket counter so that I could get our ticket from Brussels to Bruges for tomorrow. There was virtually no line for this one, the woman was very nice, and we didn't end up having to get tickets. All was right in the world.
Next goal was to get into the hostel. We took the Metro over to the area and managed to find the Jacques Brel hostel with the bad Metro map and the very much not detailed map in my Europe book. You can check in any time between 8 am and 1 am, but you can't get into the rooms until after 3. Instead, we just threw out bags into one of the safety closets and went back out to explore Brussels. At the hostel, they actually had these amazing maps that are made for younger travelers. It was very detailed, had our hostel on the map, pointed out fun places of interest, and gave insider tips from locals. It's really cool and they have those maps for Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, Lljubjana, and Budapest. That makes me happy.
Anyway, we started out our tour of Brussels just walking around aimlessly. Andrew decided that he liked Brussels the moment that he saw a lesbian statue outside of a finance building. Or that's what we think it was. Watch it be something completely different and offend an entire nation of people.
We changed our mind about walking and took the Metro to the center of town. We walked past the stock exchange Beurs/Bourse building and decided to find a place to eat because Gianni was hungry. It worked because we found a place selling pretty epic Belgian fries for relatively cheap.
After lunch, we moved on to visit the Grand Place/Grote Market, which is like THE thing to see in Brussels. It's just this center with the big 15 century town hall. Very pretty, very crowded with tours, but very cool. Mia took a picture with a random guy from London. This was one of the two things I knew we HAD to see before coming into Brussels. the other one was going to be the Comic Book Museum. When everyone else found out it mostly had stuff for Smurfs, they kind of got over it and decided not to make the trip out there.
After we did the Grand Place, we did the other thing that apparently all people who visit Brussels have to do: see the Mannekin Pis. This is this statue/fountain of a little boy peeing. It's very small, but it's one of the big Brussels things. They sell little action figures and corkscrews and bottle openers and shot glasses and shirts with this thing on it. I have a picture that makes it look like it's peeing on Andrew. Lol. :)
We passed by this legit looking waffle stand and got our waffle as well. We all split one because it looked fattening. We brought it back over to the Grand Place to eat it there. It was amazing, but we managed to make a mess and get chocolate and strawberries all over the place.
Next stop was this store that the little Brussels map told us about. The store itself was tiny, so it was very hard to find. We did find this other little cute store before that, where they had this dinosaur robot that you could pet. It was very cute. And I think that sounds a lot weirder than it should. The store that Mia wanted to go to was this little thrift shop that had random stuff in it. We didn't actually end up spending too much time there.
Our next stop was a church. St. Catherine's. It looks a little run down, but it's very pretty on the inside. The reason we stopped there was because you can pee on this church. They have a public urinal set up. We had to see it ourselves. It was weird.
After that, we mostly wandered around. We went to this bar because the map told us that there's a cool bartender there and Mia wanted a picture that she didn't get. We also went to the place that does the map to get free Internet, but it was closing as we got there. They pointed us in teh direction of the one we're at right now, so that worked out.
That's about it. Mia and GIanni both passed out, so I think we're going to go to the hostel and try to call it an early day. Tomorrow's trip will be Bruge and an outdoor concert that Mia wants to go to in this city.
Anyway, we woke up very early this morning as well. I wanted to make sure we were at the train station on time. Nevermind that we were an hour and a half early. Better than being late and rushing it. Anyway, we woke up around 7:30. We were supposed to be up earlier, actually, but the cell phone alarm didn't go off. Andrew brought his phone and I set the alarm on his phone for back up. Good thing I did, haha. Anyway, it worked out. Our train left at 10:25 and we got to the train station a little before 9. We just sat around and read and/or wrote post cards. Or played DS in Andrew's case.
We took the train over the Brussels. It was relaxing, and kind of fun. I actually didn't notice that we had assigned seats on this train, so we sat down in a random spot that coincidentally happened to be ours. I don't know how that happened, but I guess that worked out fine.
We got into Brussels and were a little disoriented at first (I imagine this is going to happen upon arriving in every train station). We went to the ticket counter so that I could get our ticket from Brussels to Bruges for tomorrow. There was virtually no line for this one, the woman was very nice, and we didn't end up having to get tickets. All was right in the world.
Next goal was to get into the hostel. We took the Metro over to the area and managed to find the Jacques Brel hostel with the bad Metro map and the very much not detailed map in my Europe book. You can check in any time between 8 am and 1 am, but you can't get into the rooms until after 3. Instead, we just threw out bags into one of the safety closets and went back out to explore Brussels. At the hostel, they actually had these amazing maps that are made for younger travelers. It was very detailed, had our hostel on the map, pointed out fun places of interest, and gave insider tips from locals. It's really cool and they have those maps for Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, Lljubjana, and Budapest. That makes me happy.
Anyway, we started out our tour of Brussels just walking around aimlessly. Andrew decided that he liked Brussels the moment that he saw a lesbian statue outside of a finance building. Or that's what we think it was. Watch it be something completely different and offend an entire nation of people.
We changed our mind about walking and took the Metro to the center of town. We walked past the stock exchange Beurs/Bourse building and decided to find a place to eat because Gianni was hungry. It worked because we found a place selling pretty epic Belgian fries for relatively cheap.
After lunch, we moved on to visit the Grand Place/Grote Market, which is like THE thing to see in Brussels. It's just this center with the big 15 century town hall. Very pretty, very crowded with tours, but very cool. Mia took a picture with a random guy from London. This was one of the two things I knew we HAD to see before coming into Brussels. the other one was going to be the Comic Book Museum. When everyone else found out it mostly had stuff for Smurfs, they kind of got over it and decided not to make the trip out there.
After we did the Grand Place, we did the other thing that apparently all people who visit Brussels have to do: see the Mannekin Pis. This is this statue/fountain of a little boy peeing. It's very small, but it's one of the big Brussels things. They sell little action figures and corkscrews and bottle openers and shot glasses and shirts with this thing on it. I have a picture that makes it look like it's peeing on Andrew. Lol. :)
We passed by this legit looking waffle stand and got our waffle as well. We all split one because it looked fattening. We brought it back over to the Grand Place to eat it there. It was amazing, but we managed to make a mess and get chocolate and strawberries all over the place.
Next stop was this store that the little Brussels map told us about. The store itself was tiny, so it was very hard to find. We did find this other little cute store before that, where they had this dinosaur robot that you could pet. It was very cute. And I think that sounds a lot weirder than it should. The store that Mia wanted to go to was this little thrift shop that had random stuff in it. We didn't actually end up spending too much time there.
Our next stop was a church. St. Catherine's. It looks a little run down, but it's very pretty on the inside. The reason we stopped there was because you can pee on this church. They have a public urinal set up. We had to see it ourselves. It was weird.
After that, we mostly wandered around. We went to this bar because the map told us that there's a cool bartender there and Mia wanted a picture that she didn't get. We also went to the place that does the map to get free Internet, but it was closing as we got there. They pointed us in teh direction of the one we're at right now, so that worked out.
That's about it. Mia and GIanni both passed out, so I think we're going to go to the hostel and try to call it an early day. Tomorrow's trip will be Bruge and an outdoor concert that Mia wants to go to in this city.
Stuff
Mia's Pictures with Random People Collection:
=London:
==Two guards from the Parliament building
==Australian waiter from The Porcupine
==Crazy drunk billioinaire, who was probably the coolest person I've ever met
=Paris:
==The guy from the Eiffel Tower who was very confused when I asked if I could take a picture with him in bad French.
=Brussels:
==A guy from London named Liam who is going to Copenhagen soon. He also is using a cane right now because he did something to one of his legs, so we took our picture sitting down.
Brussels is amazing. Urination is a big thing over here, honest to blog.
Jamsley, if you are reading this (which you probably aren't because you don't read, so I'm going to have to trust Umma to pass the message along), I got you a souvenir and it is wondrous. You better carry it with you wherever you go for the rest of your life. Okay? Okay.
[ps:IgotmyJulienDoréCDandIamveryhappy.]
=London:
==Two guards from the Parliament building
==Australian waiter from The Porcupine
==Crazy drunk billioinaire, who was probably the coolest person I've ever met
=Paris:
==The guy from the Eiffel Tower who was very confused when I asked if I could take a picture with him in bad French.
=Brussels:
==A guy from London named Liam who is going to Copenhagen soon. He also is using a cane right now because he did something to one of his legs, so we took our picture sitting down.
Brussels is amazing. Urination is a big thing over here, honest to blog.
Jamsley, if you are reading this (which you probably aren't because you don't read, so I'm going to have to trust Umma to pass the message along), I got you a souvenir and it is wondrous. You better carry it with you wherever you go for the rest of your life. Okay? Okay.
[ps:IgotmyJulienDoréCDandIamveryhappy.]
She Went to Paris
All right, so right now I am obviously backlogged. When I booked all these hostels with free internet, it didn't dawn on me how absolutely crowded and overbooked the computers would be. Even when we got up at the crack of dawn this morning for our train, there was an epic line for the computer. Anyway, now we're in Brussels and we're all backlogged. The last two days have been pretty tiring, so I'm just going to do individual entries.
So, on Thursday (was it Thursday?), we woke up at the crack of dawn to get to Heathrow for our early flight. Actually, it was a 10:45 flight, but we had to leave early because there's usually epic traffic between Reading and Heathrow. There wasn't. Instead, we sat down at this place called the Giraffe Cafe or something in the Terminal and ate breakfast. It was pretty cool. They had really good smoothies made from ingredients from all over the world and played a lot of world music. Their drink mixers were also little giraffes. We stole a bunch because we're sick like that.
Anyway, for some reason the one hour flight to Paris seemed to take FOREVER. I don't know why, but whatever. We got into the airport, got our bags, walked across the airport to the little train station, had to pull out our Eurail pass information to get tickets, and stand in line to get tickets into the city as well as try to sort out the fact that Gianni and Oppa managed to wash his Eurail card in the laundry. That took forever as well. We got in at 1-ish and didn't leave for Paris until 2.
Next stop, the main Paris train station. Here, we rambled around until we found the train ticket counter and then stood in this line of epic proportions to get train tickets for most of the trip. Seriously, you would have thought we were in Disneyland or something. Anyway, we get to the front of this line and like five hundred (two) people cut in front of us. Well, they were legitimate reasons, but still. We get to the ticket counter and this women is an evil, evil rude woman. She yells at us for checking about Gianni's Eurail pass, yells at me whenever I ask a simple question and was overall unpleasant to deal with. Fortunately though we have the majority of our trains and 2/3 overnight trains booked at this point. I would have done more, but after she yelled at me when I politely asked why I couldn't book the train out of Budapest (I was curious more than anything else), I was fed up with her and decided to book it in a more people-friendly environment.
So, once that was done, we get Metro tickets before realizing that they have all day metro passes in Paris as well, and head to the hostel. It was around 5 when we got to the hostel and we were pretty sure that we weren't going to get anything done there at that time. We were all pretty tired from the whole travel experience and slightly jetlagged (Gianni's still having problems), we decided to just hang around and explore the Left Bank because that's the area of Paris that Mia really wanted to do. Instead, we managed this epic walking tour of Paris.
We started our journey by walking to the Rue Mouffetard, which is a big street market deal. They had a lot of shops and stuff, but I think what made Mia most happy was the first (of many) French comic book store that we saw. We wandered around aimlessly for a while after that, passing by the Pantheon, the University of Paris and what I think may have been the Latin Quarter (but we were very disoriented).
Our next destination was the Notre Dame Cathedral. We ended up getting distracted by a lot of stores and shops and sights on the way there. Also got dinner because Andrew was whining (also because it would have been the first time we were eating since our breakfast at the Giraffe place). We ate at this creperie. Gianni and Andrew both got panini. Mia and I split one and split a crepe. It was so good.
After that, we walked to Notre Dame and took a lot of pictures of it. We were going to walk along the Champs Elysees after that, but it started raining kind of hard, so we had to run to the nearest Metro and figure out a new plan. Gianni at some point mentioned that he wanted to go see the Moulin Rouge for his friend, so we detoured all the way out there for that, took a couple of pictures, and then hopped back into the Metro. Andrew had already been bitter about the Platform 9 3/4 incident and he wasn't much happier about this one.
Next stop, was the Arc de Triomphe. We were going to walk from there to the Eiffel Tower, but Gianni Andrew and Mia were all about to die. So, instead, we walked down the Champs Elysees in search of a CD store for Mia, which we actually found right as we were going to give up on that quest.
By the time we finished that, the Eiffel Tower was on the way on the Metro back to the hostel, so I convinced Gianni and Andrew to go there. It was like 11:30 by this time, by the way and it had just gotten dark. That threw us off.
Anyway, we stopped by the Eiffel Tower and took night pictures of the Tower. Mia got a picture with a random French guy, because that's been her project this trip. Taking pictures with random people everywhere.
Anyway, we got back to the train around midnight and back to the hostel at almost one. The line for the internet was crazy crowded, but I think my crazy insane brother might have stayed up for it. I showered, cleaned up my stuff, figured out some of the plans for the next day and went to bed at 2. Long, long day. It seems shorter in this post I guess, but we walked almost everywhere. Anyway, I'm going to see if I can get the Brussels post in since I have 35 more minutes of internet time.
So, on Thursday (was it Thursday?), we woke up at the crack of dawn to get to Heathrow for our early flight. Actually, it was a 10:45 flight, but we had to leave early because there's usually epic traffic between Reading and Heathrow. There wasn't. Instead, we sat down at this place called the Giraffe Cafe or something in the Terminal and ate breakfast. It was pretty cool. They had really good smoothies made from ingredients from all over the world and played a lot of world music. Their drink mixers were also little giraffes. We stole a bunch because we're sick like that.
Anyway, for some reason the one hour flight to Paris seemed to take FOREVER. I don't know why, but whatever. We got into the airport, got our bags, walked across the airport to the little train station, had to pull out our Eurail pass information to get tickets, and stand in line to get tickets into the city as well as try to sort out the fact that Gianni and Oppa managed to wash his Eurail card in the laundry. That took forever as well. We got in at 1-ish and didn't leave for Paris until 2.
Next stop, the main Paris train station. Here, we rambled around until we found the train ticket counter and then stood in this line of epic proportions to get train tickets for most of the trip. Seriously, you would have thought we were in Disneyland or something. Anyway, we get to the front of this line and like five hundred (two) people cut in front of us. Well, they were legitimate reasons, but still. We get to the ticket counter and this women is an evil, evil rude woman. She yells at us for checking about Gianni's Eurail pass, yells at me whenever I ask a simple question and was overall unpleasant to deal with. Fortunately though we have the majority of our trains and 2/3 overnight trains booked at this point. I would have done more, but after she yelled at me when I politely asked why I couldn't book the train out of Budapest (I was curious more than anything else), I was fed up with her and decided to book it in a more people-friendly environment.
So, once that was done, we get Metro tickets before realizing that they have all day metro passes in Paris as well, and head to the hostel. It was around 5 when we got to the hostel and we were pretty sure that we weren't going to get anything done there at that time. We were all pretty tired from the whole travel experience and slightly jetlagged (Gianni's still having problems), we decided to just hang around and explore the Left Bank because that's the area of Paris that Mia really wanted to do. Instead, we managed this epic walking tour of Paris.
We started our journey by walking to the Rue Mouffetard, which is a big street market deal. They had a lot of shops and stuff, but I think what made Mia most happy was the first (of many) French comic book store that we saw. We wandered around aimlessly for a while after that, passing by the Pantheon, the University of Paris and what I think may have been the Latin Quarter (but we were very disoriented).
Our next destination was the Notre Dame Cathedral. We ended up getting distracted by a lot of stores and shops and sights on the way there. Also got dinner because Andrew was whining (also because it would have been the first time we were eating since our breakfast at the Giraffe place). We ate at this creperie. Gianni and Andrew both got panini. Mia and I split one and split a crepe. It was so good.
After that, we walked to Notre Dame and took a lot of pictures of it. We were going to walk along the Champs Elysees after that, but it started raining kind of hard, so we had to run to the nearest Metro and figure out a new plan. Gianni at some point mentioned that he wanted to go see the Moulin Rouge for his friend, so we detoured all the way out there for that, took a couple of pictures, and then hopped back into the Metro. Andrew had already been bitter about the Platform 9 3/4 incident and he wasn't much happier about this one.
Next stop, was the Arc de Triomphe. We were going to walk from there to the Eiffel Tower, but Gianni Andrew and Mia were all about to die. So, instead, we walked down the Champs Elysees in search of a CD store for Mia, which we actually found right as we were going to give up on that quest.
By the time we finished that, the Eiffel Tower was on the way on the Metro back to the hostel, so I convinced Gianni and Andrew to go there. It was like 11:30 by this time, by the way and it had just gotten dark. That threw us off.
Anyway, we stopped by the Eiffel Tower and took night pictures of the Tower. Mia got a picture with a random French guy, because that's been her project this trip. Taking pictures with random people everywhere.
Anyway, we got back to the train around midnight and back to the hostel at almost one. The line for the internet was crazy crowded, but I think my crazy insane brother might have stayed up for it. I showered, cleaned up my stuff, figured out some of the plans for the next day and went to bed at 2. Long, long day. It seems shorter in this post I guess, but we walked almost everywhere. Anyway, I'm going to see if I can get the Brussels post in since I have 35 more minutes of internet time.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Benjamin: "I'm the clock, I'm the clock, I'm the clock, I'm the clock..."
Oh and wednesday's letter of the day was 'B', for "Big Ben" and to the condominiums that stand in its stead.
We'll never forget you, buddy Ben.
And Andrew will never forget Little Ben.
We'll never forget you, buddy Ben.
And Andrew will never forget Little Ben.
Days 1+2: June 17-18: Jetlagged in London
Everyone else is finally done with using the laptop here, so I took a break from my slumber to post (everyone else is asleep: Andrew woke up for a brief moment just to reach over to my couch, steal my blanket, and instantly go unconscious, which leaves me in the cold tonight). Without a cell phone I've lost all track of time (date and time of the day). The feeling's not as liberating as I had hoped; I'm still tied to the hour and minute hands, however now they've become elusive.
Tuesday flew on by. One moment we're leaving SJ at 9am on Tuesday and the next we've arrived in London at 8am. I suppose that's expected of intercontinental travel, but it still feels like I've lost a day. And that feeling bugs me... which is probably why my body never fully agrees with travel. SJ to Dallas was uneventful; I slept. Alea, Mia, and I sat next to each other, with Andrew across from us and a row back and Oppa happily in first class. At Dallas, I scrambled to look for a book for the upcoming, longer Dallas/London flight, while everyone else checked out the airport food court. After settling on some book that Mia/Alea recommended, I went over to the burrito place and got something that was a disappointment to burritos and ate it frustratingly while we watched Oppa watch the Italy/France Euro 2008 game (Italy won, leaving us with a very much pleased Oppa). Then we headed over to the Admiral's Club, where my carry-on bag continued to grow in size and Andrew was able to go check his internets and I was able to Rickroll yet another Admiral's Club.
Oh, I also found this awesome, jawsome plastic misprint cup, which I'm sure would have sold for millions on ebay. Unfortunately, it's probably in the trash somewhere by now.
The Dallas/London flight had Mia/Alea together and Andrew and I together, with Oppa somewhere behind us. I watched some television and then decided to sleep some more (as it turns out I was the only one to get sleep, although it didn't seem to make much of a difference later on in London). Woke up, and watched a bit more, all the while avoiding the flight attendants charging up and down the aisle (both of the flight attendants in our area seemed to have things against the world; I had to duel one of them for my breakfast).
After touching ground in Heathrow, we collected our baggage (with Andrew eventually breaking his), we were dropped off at the metro and we headed for the heart of London. I'm not going to reiterate where exactly we went to in London, because I'm tired and you can read Alea's post for that. However I will say that fatigue didn't actually hit me until after we sat down and ate at the Porcupine's.
So, France (Paris) tomorrow by plane (turns out it's actually cheaper than the Chunnel), where I'm sure more exciting, albeit tiring adventures will follow. The posts I make hereafter will probably not reach this length or detail because I won't be afforded time nor place to sit down and type like here at my father's flat in England, but I'll see what I can do to keep everyone updated on my side of the story (Alea tends to have a different perspective on some things; her version of an "easy day" might not be exactly the excepted definition of an "easy day"). After this night, it will be hostels and trains.
Bloghonest to bloghonest.
Tuesday flew on by. One moment we're leaving SJ at 9am on Tuesday and the next we've arrived in London at 8am. I suppose that's expected of intercontinental travel, but it still feels like I've lost a day. And that feeling bugs me... which is probably why my body never fully agrees with travel. SJ to Dallas was uneventful; I slept. Alea, Mia, and I sat next to each other, with Andrew across from us and a row back and Oppa happily in first class. At Dallas, I scrambled to look for a book for the upcoming, longer Dallas/London flight, while everyone else checked out the airport food court. After settling on some book that Mia/Alea recommended, I went over to the burrito place and got something that was a disappointment to burritos and ate it frustratingly while we watched Oppa watch the Italy/France Euro 2008 game (Italy won, leaving us with a very much pleased Oppa). Then we headed over to the Admiral's Club, where my carry-on bag continued to grow in size and Andrew was able to go check his internets and I was able to Rickroll yet another Admiral's Club.
Oh, I also found this awesome, jawsome plastic misprint cup, which I'm sure would have sold for millions on ebay. Unfortunately, it's probably in the trash somewhere by now.
The Dallas/London flight had Mia/Alea together and Andrew and I together, with Oppa somewhere behind us. I watched some television and then decided to sleep some more (as it turns out I was the only one to get sleep, although it didn't seem to make much of a difference later on in London). Woke up, and watched a bit more, all the while avoiding the flight attendants charging up and down the aisle (both of the flight attendants in our area seemed to have things against the world; I had to duel one of them for my breakfast).
After touching ground in Heathrow, we collected our baggage (with Andrew eventually breaking his), we were dropped off at the metro and we headed for the heart of London. I'm not going to reiterate where exactly we went to in London, because I'm tired and you can read Alea's post for that. However I will say that fatigue didn't actually hit me until after we sat down and ate at the Porcupine's.
So, France (Paris) tomorrow by plane (turns out it's actually cheaper than the Chunnel), where I'm sure more exciting, albeit tiring adventures will follow. The posts I make hereafter will probably not reach this length or detail because I won't be afforded time nor place to sit down and type like here at my father's flat in England, but I'll see what I can do to keep everyone updated on my side of the story (Alea tends to have a different perspective on some things; her version of an "easy day" might not be exactly the excepted definition of an "easy day"). After this night, it will be hostels and trains.
Bloghonest to bloghonest.
There's No Place Like London...
So, we are now at Oppa's flat in Wokingham and very much jetlagged. I have to make this entry quick because Oppa has important work to do, but let me online to blog. Try to keep it short.
The plane ride was long, as expected. I think the flight attendants (except for one) hated us. The theory is that it goes back to when Gianni couldn't remember what country he was from when she was trying to give him a landing card, but we don't know. They were rude in general though. Other than that, the flight was fine. I watched Penelope and Definitely Maybe. Also an episode of Pushing Daisies (yay) and two episodes of the Office. Slept for maybe three hours. Not good. Also have been reading the book Into the Wild.
We got into Heathrow around 9 ish. Threw all of our backpacks into Oppa's rental car (not before Andrew broke his and sent Oppa on a day-long trip in search of a replacement). After that, he dropped us back off at Heathrow so we could take the Tube from there. We had somewhat of a stress trying to get the day passes for whatever reason. I don't know why. I usually get it from the Reading train station, so it caught me off guard.
The train ride in was long, but whatever. We managed to convince Andrew that Big Ben was demolished to be replaced by condos, though. That was fun. Anyway, our first stop of the day was Buckingham Palace. We made it just in time to see the changing of the guard (or part of it until we got annoyed with the crowds), which is why I wanted to see it first.
After that, we took Andrew to Big Ben to make up for our mean joke earlier. We also took pictures in front of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Tickets to Westminster Abbey are 12 pounds now! So...even though I wanted to go in because I really like that place, I knew that we were going to have to skip that one.
Mia took pictures next to security guards in front of the Parliament and wanted to go talk to the protesters in front of it, but we didn't end up doing that. Instead, we walked across the Westminster Bridge to go check out the Dali Museum for Gianni. We decided we didn't have enough time to actually see the museum (and tickets were also 12 pounds), so we went to the gift shop instead. Andrew also bought a soda from the Cafe. Let's see. In that area we also chased some guy dressed up as a Jedi to get a picture with him, but he disappeared. I think it must be his powers?
Anyway, by this time it was 1:30 and we were starving. We wanted to have an authentic pub experience and there was nothing in the area. We decided to do Covent Garden. We found one across the street from the subway station we got off at, but they didn't have fish and chips Instead, we walked a little down the street and found one that did. We were still thinking about going (and flirting with the idea of checking out London's Chinatown instead), but then this drunk guy outside of the pub told us that it was the best pub in London and that we HAD to go. So, we did. And they were very good fish and chips. Every once in a while that drunk guy would come up and take pictures of us with our camera and give us a thumbs up for choosing the pub. On the way out, we saw him eating with this young couple who looked very unhappy to have him eat with them. We got a picture with him and he told us that he was a billionaire. I don't know. He was kind of awesome.
Anyway, after the pub experience, we went to Covent Garden, where we walked through the little Jubilee Market thingy and Mia bought a scarf. Another one. We did a quick stop at Picadilly Circus to take pictures with Eros and to check out the CD store that used to be Virgin Megastore and is now something else.
We stopped by the Kings Cross station to get the goofy Harry Potter platform 9 3/4 picture, which made Andrew really upset.
We were going to stop by Bakers Street, but we didn't. Instead, we just went straight to the Paddington Station to catch a train to Reading. That was an adventure. We bought tickets that ended up being round trip. We went back to exchange them after we found this out. The guy at the desk kind of looked at us strangely and told us that it would only be a 5 pence difference per ticket. Somehow in my tired and jetlagged mind, this came out as 5 pounds a ticket, which was a big deal, so I had him trade in the tickets. Then we got 20 pence and I felt like a doof. Oh well, I used it to go to the bathroom.
Anyway, we got to Reading around 5:30, Oppa picked us up a little later, drove us to his flat and made us dinner. Right now we're cleaning our smelly disgusting travel clothes. Anyway, I'm going to go so that Oppa can do work now :)
The plane ride was long, as expected. I think the flight attendants (except for one) hated us. The theory is that it goes back to when Gianni couldn't remember what country he was from when she was trying to give him a landing card, but we don't know. They were rude in general though. Other than that, the flight was fine. I watched Penelope and Definitely Maybe. Also an episode of Pushing Daisies (yay) and two episodes of the Office. Slept for maybe three hours. Not good. Also have been reading the book Into the Wild.
We got into Heathrow around 9 ish. Threw all of our backpacks into Oppa's rental car (not before Andrew broke his and sent Oppa on a day-long trip in search of a replacement). After that, he dropped us back off at Heathrow so we could take the Tube from there. We had somewhat of a stress trying to get the day passes for whatever reason. I don't know why. I usually get it from the Reading train station, so it caught me off guard.
The train ride in was long, but whatever. We managed to convince Andrew that Big Ben was demolished to be replaced by condos, though. That was fun. Anyway, our first stop of the day was Buckingham Palace. We made it just in time to see the changing of the guard (or part of it until we got annoyed with the crowds), which is why I wanted to see it first.
After that, we took Andrew to Big Ben to make up for our mean joke earlier. We also took pictures in front of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Tickets to Westminster Abbey are 12 pounds now! So...even though I wanted to go in because I really like that place, I knew that we were going to have to skip that one.
Mia took pictures next to security guards in front of the Parliament and wanted to go talk to the protesters in front of it, but we didn't end up doing that. Instead, we walked across the Westminster Bridge to go check out the Dali Museum for Gianni. We decided we didn't have enough time to actually see the museum (and tickets were also 12 pounds), so we went to the gift shop instead. Andrew also bought a soda from the Cafe. Let's see. In that area we also chased some guy dressed up as a Jedi to get a picture with him, but he disappeared. I think it must be his powers?
Anyway, by this time it was 1:30 and we were starving. We wanted to have an authentic pub experience and there was nothing in the area. We decided to do Covent Garden. We found one across the street from the subway station we got off at, but they didn't have fish and chips Instead, we walked a little down the street and found one that did. We were still thinking about going (and flirting with the idea of checking out London's Chinatown instead), but then this drunk guy outside of the pub told us that it was the best pub in London and that we HAD to go. So, we did. And they were very good fish and chips. Every once in a while that drunk guy would come up and take pictures of us with our camera and give us a thumbs up for choosing the pub. On the way out, we saw him eating with this young couple who looked very unhappy to have him eat with them. We got a picture with him and he told us that he was a billionaire. I don't know. He was kind of awesome.
Anyway, after the pub experience, we went to Covent Garden, where we walked through the little Jubilee Market thingy and Mia bought a scarf. Another one. We did a quick stop at Picadilly Circus to take pictures with Eros and to check out the CD store that used to be Virgin Megastore and is now something else.
We stopped by the Kings Cross station to get the goofy Harry Potter platform 9 3/4 picture, which made Andrew really upset.
We were going to stop by Bakers Street, but we didn't. Instead, we just went straight to the Paddington Station to catch a train to Reading. That was an adventure. We bought tickets that ended up being round trip. We went back to exchange them after we found this out. The guy at the desk kind of looked at us strangely and told us that it would only be a 5 pence difference per ticket. Somehow in my tired and jetlagged mind, this came out as 5 pounds a ticket, which was a big deal, so I had him trade in the tickets. Then we got 20 pence and I felt like a doof. Oh well, I used it to go to the bathroom.
Anyway, we got to Reading around 5:30, Oppa picked us up a little later, drove us to his flat and made us dinner. Right now we're cleaning our smelly disgusting travel clothes. Anyway, I'm going to go so that Oppa can do work now :)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
HONEST TO BLOG
HONEST TO BLOG HONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOGHONEST TO BLOG
Hi Mandrew is in Texas
Right now we are at the Admiral's Club in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. It's pretty nice in this one. We have a flight to London in about 30 minues. Left at the crack of dawn to get to the San Jose Airport. We got to use Oppa's uber-status to cut in front of many lines. Very fun. Next time we post, we will be in Europe (unless Andrew blogs).
higianniisinsanjoseairport
Today's letter of the day is 'A', for "ascorbic acid", honest to blog.
We also have taken loads of Ester-C to administer to Andrew to various points on this trip, to ensure that Andrew doesn't run out of vitamin C.
We also have taken loads of Ester-C to administer to Andrew to various points on this trip, to ensure that Andrew doesn't run out of vitamin C.
Off to See the World
Well, since Mia had the first post, I decided I would have the second one. Anyway, we have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to go to Europe. That would be in a couple of hours actually. Good times. First, SJ to Dallas and then, Dallas to London.
As Mia said, today was hectic packing day (still kind of is). We watched the Chipmunk Adventure. Tomorrow, we start our trip.
As Mia said, today was hectic packing day (still kind of is). We watched the Chipmunk Adventure. Tomorrow, we start our trip.
Monday, June 16, 2008
LOL I'm awesome
Hey, guess what, Alea? I stole first post! LAWLZ
Today is a day designated for stressful packing and Umma and Alea are wearing underwear on their heads. They are very excited and want me to join.
Today is a day designated for stressful packing and Umma and Alea are wearing underwear on their heads. They are very excited and want me to join.
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