Mollie----
So as we arrived into Amsterdam the first thing that we noticed was that the sun was out!!! So far we have been gone for about 2 weeks and it has been cold about everyday. So i just noticed that the kezboard here switches the z and the y. Therefore zou will just have to adjust because it is waaz to hard for me to do so. Anzwazs. we also noticed that when they say that biking is huge in Amsterdam they werent kidding. When we walked out of the central train station we first saw this three story bike parking ramp. yes, seriously. we will try to get some pictures up soon.
Anyways then we checked into our little hostel and then went about walking around the city and found some lunch. We walked around and enjoyed teh sunshine. Amsterdam is very interesting. I say this because it seems like the Trams, Cars, Cyclist, and Pedestrians all shared both the sidewalks and roads. Oh, and the cyclist have the right of way. So basically u cant walk on the streets because of the cars trams and cyclist, but you cant walk on the sidewalks b-c all of the mopeds and bicycles are parked on them. Therefore, the biggest mystery of Amsterdam emerged...where are teh pedestrians supposed to walk? We never quite figured it out. Anywazs. then we went and saw the Anne Frank house which was really neat to see. We went later at night to avoid the crowds and it was a good choice. The next day we went and again did the free walking tour that we have come to know and love. Mason was our tour guide and he had a great sense of humor. Amanda especially found him hilarious. He showed us three different generations concoctions that the Amsterdammers had created over the years to prevent people from....peeing in street corners. yes-seriously. pictures will come. The tour guide said that it is to fight the unending battle between men, beer, and nature. Basically what these do is when someone tries to urinate on it, the urine is reflected back onto the urinator....bahahah...evil laugh coming from the Amsterdam government.
oh btw in Amsterdam you have to pay .50 euros to go to the bathroom. Nothing is free in Amsterdam. We loved the canals in Amsterdam. They were sooo pretty and really added a lot to the city. Has anyone noticed that Im attempting to get the y and z's in the correct spot?
AFter the walking tour we decided to go the library was 8 stories tall, huge, and beautiful. At the top it had a restaurant and u could go outside and see a great overview of the city. Oh there was also a bar in the library... we were thinking that this was something the Americans should possibly integrate in our society haha.
Speaking of alcohol...apparently it is legal to drink in the streets here. We have seen a lot of it. It is rather interesting. Especially when your in London and the World Cup game is of England and the US. The Londoners reallz get into it.
We also did the infamous walk down the Red Light District. Again, interesting, but strange. Apparently the government is trying to decrease the number of windows that are being operated out of by 95% within a few years I believe.
We left the next day for Berlin. Our train ride took about 6.5 hours and we have arrived and checked into our hostel here. It was conveniently located right next to the Train Station that we came into the city on. It is literally in like the train parking lot area. Pretty nice for us. We ventured backed over there for dinner and found some good ole Pizza Hut and McDonalds. We got 15% off our food for staying at the hostel we are at so SCORE for us. haha.
Tomorrow we are planning on again doing the free walking tour. Then we will probably see where some of the Nazis, Stasi, and Gestapo people did some nasty bad stuff. Once I learn more about it...I will fill you in.
Shout out to the Muir and Olson families--love and miss you!
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Paris/Amsterdam
Well we had two quick days in Paris where we were busy from sun up to sun down. The first day we got there we dropped our luggage off at the hotel and set off to find the Arc de Triumphe. After a decent lenght walk we found the big ole structure. It was pretty neat--they had a flame that is always lit underneathe it (to honor the body of an unknown soldier) and the three of us contemplated whether the US had "borrowed" this idea. Regardless, it was pretty cool. However, even more interesting then the Arc itself was the circle of traffic that surrounds the Arc. There are no lane lines and it is a roundabout. The traffic entering the roundabout actually has the right of way--which makes for a very interesting sight. Apparently there is an accident there every 20 minutes and your car insurance is not valid in that circle of town. When I (Mollie) learned this I wondered why anyone would even attempt to drive there. Anyways, the three of us spent about 10 minutes just watching the traffic and the close call accidents. The pedestrians actually have a tunnel underneathe the ground to the get the Arc so they don't have to mess with the circle. haha...i just pictured all the crazy tourists trying to navigate their way through that traffic...it'd be pretty funny.
Then we moved on to the great Eiffel Tower. It really doesn't seem all that big until you get underneath it and it takes you a while to walk the lenght of it. It's (cliche) really quite amazing and beautiful. We walked around for a while on the front lawn. ALl of the area around the Eiffel Tower is surrounded with tons, and I mean TONS of men that are trying to sell you little models of the Eiffel Tower for 1 euro. They are SOO annoying. One comes up to you literally like every three minutes. My patience wore out rather quickly and I spent much of my time thinking about about what I would say to them if I was the polite and refined lady that I am :). Speaking of annoying people. There were also many Bosnian ladies that would come up to you and say "Do you speak English?' If you said yes they would hand you this little notecard with some scam for $$ on it. I also had many responses for them, but instead decided to behave and just say no.
After walking around we decided to pay and go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Again, amazing, beautiful, and also slightly scary trip to the top. You go up in this little elevator and you feel like nothing is around you. I had the most problem with this as it kinda just got to my stomach a little. Amanda and Eric were just fine. I kinda felt like I was on Wonka's crazy elevator that moves in all directions. But when we finally got to the top it was such a great view of the city of Paris. We followed the typical tourist role and took our pictures and stared in awed. Definitely worth the ticket price!
Later that night we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up. Again very beautiful.
Oh we also mastered the metro (or tube as Eric preferred to call it) system while we were there. It was busy no matter what time we took it at. Whether it be 3:00 in the afternoon or 11:45 on a Wednesday night.
The next day we again took advantage of the free tour and saw the city of Paris. Oh we also saw Notre Dame while we were there. When we walked in they had this loud super intimidating organ music playing, but it was really beautiful. We walked around that and I was quite impressed. It was by far the largest church that we have been in yet. --Amanda is questioning me saying she thinks Westminster Abbey might have been the largest, but I'm the author, therefore I'm right. :) Who knows...they were both big and quite beautiful. How they were able to build something like that waaay back then is quite impressive.
Then we spent some time enjoying the city of Paris, aka taking a nap on the grass in front of the Capital building. We were actually waiting for it to be six because we had heard that students got in for free at the Louvre. Imagine our disappointment after waiting all that time and when we finally went to get our free tickets we found out that it was actually Friday night, not Wednesday night. Oh well. WE saw the Mona Lisa as well as the Venus de Milo (i could have spelled this wrong). WE also saw a lifesize castle moat. That was pretty cool.
Then we walked home. By this time my feet had literally fallen off. We actually figured out how many miles we walked this day and it was at least 15 miles. AT LEAST!! It's a lot-trust me.
The next day we started off for Amsterdam. We had our first near disaster by deciding to put the alarm clock with me (mollie) in the top bunk. Let me play this scene out for you. Mollie squirms around in the night, the alarm clock falls and crashes onto the hard floor. The batteries fly in every direction, and, there is no acting alarm clock anymore. So, when 5:15 rolls around, the time we are supposed to get up to make the jaunt to the train station, the alarm clock fails us. We wake up at 6:15, and in a chaotic rush quick get a cab and pack in lightning flash style. But--we did make it. Oh we rock!
So we got everything figured out and even got on the right train. WE arrived in Amsterdam and it was a super nice amazing sunny day. WE haven't had many of those. WE have actually worn our sweaters (we each only brought 1) EVERYDAY. ick....we are ready for some nicer weather. WE have had a few nice days throughout hte trip so i won't complain too much i suppose.
Anyways...amsterdam--we loved it. the canals made everythign soo pretty.
But I'm almost out of minutes so we will continue the adventures of Amsterdam in our next blog. Our train for Germany leaves in about 2 hours so the next post will be from there.
Mollie
Then we moved on to the great Eiffel Tower. It really doesn't seem all that big until you get underneath it and it takes you a while to walk the lenght of it. It's (cliche) really quite amazing and beautiful. We walked around for a while on the front lawn. ALl of the area around the Eiffel Tower is surrounded with tons, and I mean TONS of men that are trying to sell you little models of the Eiffel Tower for 1 euro. They are SOO annoying. One comes up to you literally like every three minutes. My patience wore out rather quickly and I spent much of my time thinking about about what I would say to them if I was the polite and refined lady that I am :). Speaking of annoying people. There were also many Bosnian ladies that would come up to you and say "Do you speak English?' If you said yes they would hand you this little notecard with some scam for $$ on it. I also had many responses for them, but instead decided to behave and just say no.
After walking around we decided to pay and go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Again, amazing, beautiful, and also slightly scary trip to the top. You go up in this little elevator and you feel like nothing is around you. I had the most problem with this as it kinda just got to my stomach a little. Amanda and Eric were just fine. I kinda felt like I was on Wonka's crazy elevator that moves in all directions. But when we finally got to the top it was such a great view of the city of Paris. We followed the typical tourist role and took our pictures and stared in awed. Definitely worth the ticket price!
Later that night we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up. Again very beautiful.
Oh we also mastered the metro (or tube as Eric preferred to call it) system while we were there. It was busy no matter what time we took it at. Whether it be 3:00 in the afternoon or 11:45 on a Wednesday night.
The next day we again took advantage of the free tour and saw the city of Paris. Oh we also saw Notre Dame while we were there. When we walked in they had this loud super intimidating organ music playing, but it was really beautiful. We walked around that and I was quite impressed. It was by far the largest church that we have been in yet. --Amanda is questioning me saying she thinks Westminster Abbey might have been the largest, but I'm the author, therefore I'm right. :) Who knows...they were both big and quite beautiful. How they were able to build something like that waaay back then is quite impressive.
Then we spent some time enjoying the city of Paris, aka taking a nap on the grass in front of the Capital building. We were actually waiting for it to be six because we had heard that students got in for free at the Louvre. Imagine our disappointment after waiting all that time and when we finally went to get our free tickets we found out that it was actually Friday night, not Wednesday night. Oh well. WE saw the Mona Lisa as well as the Venus de Milo (i could have spelled this wrong). WE also saw a lifesize castle moat. That was pretty cool.
Then we walked home. By this time my feet had literally fallen off. We actually figured out how many miles we walked this day and it was at least 15 miles. AT LEAST!! It's a lot-trust me.
The next day we started off for Amsterdam. We had our first near disaster by deciding to put the alarm clock with me (mollie) in the top bunk. Let me play this scene out for you. Mollie squirms around in the night, the alarm clock falls and crashes onto the hard floor. The batteries fly in every direction, and, there is no acting alarm clock anymore. So, when 5:15 rolls around, the time we are supposed to get up to make the jaunt to the train station, the alarm clock fails us. We wake up at 6:15, and in a chaotic rush quick get a cab and pack in lightning flash style. But--we did make it. Oh we rock!
So we got everything figured out and even got on the right train. WE arrived in Amsterdam and it was a super nice amazing sunny day. WE haven't had many of those. WE have actually worn our sweaters (we each only brought 1) EVERYDAY. ick....we are ready for some nicer weather. WE have had a few nice days throughout hte trip so i won't complain too much i suppose.
Anyways...amsterdam--we loved it. the canals made everythign soo pretty.
But I'm almost out of minutes so we will continue the adventures of Amsterdam in our next blog. Our train for Germany leaves in about 2 hours so the next post will be from there.
Mollie
Sunday, June 13, 2010
London
We have been in London now for three days. We have done LOTS of walking. Like a lot, a lot. I (Mollie) swear that we have been putting in like a solid 15 miles a day, but Amanda and Eric assure me that it is really only about 7 miles. Regardless, its A LOT. But we have seen sooo much. They have the most amazing parks here that are absolutely HUGE!! You really wouldn't believe how large they are unless you were here to see them yourselves. but they are huge and they are really beautiful. Lots of joggers and cyclists that use them. In fact, they even have seperate cycling lanes on the rodes (Mom you'd love it!).
We took another free tour by another engaging tour guide. We think that he might have had a small case of ADD but it actually made the tour even that much more interesting. We were there on the Queen's Birthday. Her second birthday mind you. Her first, real birthday is actually in April, but since it's generally rainy then they also celebrate her birthday again in June. So the area around Buckingham Palace was packed!! So that was interesting to see! We have also stopped at the other royal residences which were amazing. We have also gone to a few different museum's which had lots of art (which we tried to appreciate as much as we could!)--Actually there were some really amazing pieces of art. But we did all decide that we could never be the employees who's job is to simply sit in the rooms and make sure that no one destroys anything--quite a boring job.
We have continued being economical and doing grocery runs....London sure is expensive!!
Tomorrow we will go to the Tower of London and the Churchill Museum. I expect the Tower to be quite interesting and am very excited for it--which I'm sure you will all hear about later!
The next day (Tuesday) we leave for Paris!
We took another free tour by another engaging tour guide. We think that he might have had a small case of ADD but it actually made the tour even that much more interesting. We were there on the Queen's Birthday. Her second birthday mind you. Her first, real birthday is actually in April, but since it's generally rainy then they also celebrate her birthday again in June. So the area around Buckingham Palace was packed!! So that was interesting to see! We have also stopped at the other royal residences which were amazing. We have also gone to a few different museum's which had lots of art (which we tried to appreciate as much as we could!)--Actually there were some really amazing pieces of art. But we did all decide that we could never be the employees who's job is to simply sit in the rooms and make sure that no one destroys anything--quite a boring job.
We have continued being economical and doing grocery runs....London sure is expensive!!
Tomorrow we will go to the Tower of London and the Churchill Museum. I expect the Tower to be quite interesting and am very excited for it--which I'm sure you will all hear about later!
The next day (Tuesday) we leave for Paris!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
A Taste of Ireland
Top: A glacial lake in the country
Middle: St. Patrick's Cathedral
Bottom: Us Drinking! Just a couple though...
Friday, June 11, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Dublin Day 2
We started today off by going on a walking tour of the city of Dublin. It was a free tour led by an 18 year old who was incredibly knowledgeable about the history and culture of Ireland, and most importantly VERY funny! I (Mollie) thought it was going to be a quick one hour overview tour of the city but it actually turned into 4 hour, very in depth tour of the city. We all really enjoyed it! We saw City Hall, Dublin Castle, learned about Red Hugh and his escape from the Castle, This paragraph about the tour would be 10 pages long if I told you everything we learned...but unfotunately I'm too lazy to type it all and lets face it, you probably wouldn't read it anyways. :)
We then decided to go back and tour some of the sights that we saw on our own. We went back to the Dublin Castle and saw the chapel inside. We also toured the Chester Beatty museum which seemed to have many of it's attractions closed, but since it was free we weren't too disapointed. We then went and saw St. Patricks Cathedral. There was a beautiful park outside. We then went inside and saw all the different artifacts that it had to offer. It was huge!! Jonathon Swift, was a man who wrote a book about selling Irish babies to the English for food in order to solve all the economic problems of Ireland. The book was a satire and represented a lot of political ideas that to be honest, I really don't completely understand. But so basically that means he was not serious--so don't get any ideas. Anyways, he was buried in the cathedral so we saw that burial plot.
On the way home we decided that we would be a bit economical ourselves and purchase dinner and bring it back to the hostel to cook it. So we had the gourmet meal of frozen pizza & Dorito's. Yes...we are experiencing lots of culture :). But we did have some Irish stew for lunch which was very delicious.
After dinner we retreated back to our lovely little hostel room in order to get a quick nap. We were then going to hit up a pub crawl which started at 7:30. However, we were a bit more tired than we realized and ended up deciding to post pone the crawl to the next night and instead went The Purty Kitchen for a drink or two. We then went and walked around the Temple Bar area. Tomorrow we decided that we will do a musical pub crawl...educational and fuN!
So far we are all having a great time. We haven't gotten too lost and I guess I (Mollie) am pretty impressed with ourselves so far. However I am a little worried about Amanda's tendency to not look both ways before she crosses the street. Good thing mom's not here b/c she probably would have already had about 5 heart attacks-I know that I have. Don't worry mom--I'm looking out for her :). You would think something so basic that you have been taught since you were 5 years old would be easy to remember, however I guess when you are in a new country everything flies out the door.
We have also met some very interesting people! Definitely one of the perks of traveling in a small group! Hope everyone is doing well in the states!
---Mollie
We then decided to go back and tour some of the sights that we saw on our own. We went back to the Dublin Castle and saw the chapel inside. We also toured the Chester Beatty museum which seemed to have many of it's attractions closed, but since it was free we weren't too disapointed. We then went and saw St. Patricks Cathedral. There was a beautiful park outside. We then went inside and saw all the different artifacts that it had to offer. It was huge!! Jonathon Swift, was a man who wrote a book about selling Irish babies to the English for food in order to solve all the economic problems of Ireland. The book was a satire and represented a lot of political ideas that to be honest, I really don't completely understand. But so basically that means he was not serious--so don't get any ideas. Anyways, he was buried in the cathedral so we saw that burial plot.
On the way home we decided that we would be a bit economical ourselves and purchase dinner and bring it back to the hostel to cook it. So we had the gourmet meal of frozen pizza & Dorito's. Yes...we are experiencing lots of culture :). But we did have some Irish stew for lunch which was very delicious.
After dinner we retreated back to our lovely little hostel room in order to get a quick nap. We were then going to hit up a pub crawl which started at 7:30. However, we were a bit more tired than we realized and ended up deciding to post pone the crawl to the next night and instead went The Purty Kitchen for a drink or two. We then went and walked around the Temple Bar area. Tomorrow we decided that we will do a musical pub crawl...educational and fuN!
So far we are all having a great time. We haven't gotten too lost and I guess I (Mollie) am pretty impressed with ourselves so far. However I am a little worried about Amanda's tendency to not look both ways before she crosses the street. Good thing mom's not here b/c she probably would have already had about 5 heart attacks-I know that I have. Don't worry mom--I'm looking out for her :). You would think something so basic that you have been taught since you were 5 years old would be easy to remember, however I guess when you are in a new country everything flies out the door.
We have also met some very interesting people! Definitely one of the perks of traveling in a small group! Hope everyone is doing well in the states!
---Mollie
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Dublin!!! Day One.
Well after about 20 hours of being in an airport or airplane, we are all now safe and sound in Dublin. We have strolled the streets and had some sandwiches to kill time until we were allowed to check in. We might as well be in a non-english speaking country, Everyone can understand us, but we struggle to understand them. We plan on spending the rest of the day recovering from our travels and plan to begin the tourist stuff tomorrow. On another note, I feel Joey would feel very much at home here with the high Ginger population...it may be at about 2%!!! That is all for now.
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