Amsterdam

What do you think of when you hear Amsterdam?
This is what came to my mind:

(The Sin City of Europe, I´d say)

All I was really expecting from Amsterdam was a colorful city of drugs and prostitutes.. That´s true, but only in certain parts of the city, the red light district of course, sidestreets going this way and that, lined with doors and lights advertising the prostitutes. That apparently is a main attraction for tourists, walking through the district at night checking out the variety of women, (and there are definitely men too) but be warned, you are not supposed to take fotos, because the pimp is probably on the balcony above watching the passerbys, waiting to mess someone up if they take advantage of his ladies. We ventured through the streets briefly as we were really just looking for a cheap quick place to eat but more then anything, seeing these women on display was very sad. A lot of them wore some god awful makeup and their wardrobe choice made me uncomfortable, but I just don´t think I´ll ever be able to understand why people choose to put themselves in that position, and it´s even worse when you see someone entering the doors or exiting, because I was sad for those people too. I don´t know how appropriate it is to be talking about this but I just couldn´t get over how sad I was for these people, especially seeing the prices that are listed for each girl, I swear it ranged from 50E to 500E. ANYWAYS, what I was saying earlier....

Amsterdam is SUCH a beautiful city! The red light district is really fun at night, that´s where all the people are, but once you get away from that, you can get lost through this quaint little streets with the cutest flats/apartment building lining the spiderweb of canals that weave through the city. Our hostel was in an awesome location, everytime we went to "town" we had to cross over the canals and see paddle boats and other motor boats cruising under the bridges. Here is a foto of the canal at night:


Besides one day of chilly cold wind, we had sunshine and warmish (for northern europe in april) weather the whole time. For this, we had a lot of meals along the canal and outside and to-go so we could cruise around and enjoy the beauty of the city..Here are some fotos of the canal and some of my friends:




The Dutch are a really nice people....everyone was very helpful, and it was an added bonus for us because the majority of Dutch people speak English pretty much fluently. It was interesting to listen to Dutch being spoken because there are a lot of similiarities with English, and like German, every now and then you can catch an English word or a word that we use in the middle of it..

So back to our hostel...we stayed at StayOk Vondelpark, which was located right next to this HUGE and really beautiful park called..........Vondelpark. Since our touristy stuff was limited to the VanGogh museum and the Anne Frank House, we spent a lot of time picnicing and relaxing in this park.. There are various little ponds and trees and flower beds and bike and pedestrian paths and something for everyone. We especially were attracted to these sideways trees that grew over the ponds and we found ourselves very often hanging out in the trees, here, look:


The transportation system in Amsterdam is really amazing. The heaviest traffic is due to the mass number of bikers that weave in and out and will NOT stop for pedestrians. Most people go to Amsterdam and end up renting bikes because it really is the easiest way to get around, the streets are practically designed for them, and there is a parking garage (multiple levels) just for bike parking, SO, the boys one day, while we went to the Anne Frank House, rented bikes and tooled around the park and the city over the bridges and followed the canals. The tram system is also very effective, but if you are a tourist, you have to know that they are pretty much SILENT trams, and they will honk if they are about to hit you but otherwise they come out of nowhere and just speed past you. No one got hit while we were there, but I´m sure some people have before, OUCH. Here is a foto of a cute orange Dutch bike in Vondelpark:


So some touristy stuff that we did was go to the Anne Frank House, which we had to wait in line for well over an hour, but being there was very real. We got to enter through the bookshelf which hid the door to their apartment and as you go through each room there are some fotos, diary entries and videos playing.. Most of the windows had black shades over them, just like they were when the Frank family lived their, above the father´s company factory. Things I learned about Anne Frank´s story that I either didn´t remember or never knew were: Someone secretly betrayed the family and told the German police about people hiding in their building 263 Prinsengracht, and investigations post-war still haven´t uncovered who was responsible for the betrayal. I had also forgotten that the father, Otto Frank was the only one to survive concentration camp and after he was free, he returned to Amsterdam and his secretary who was not taken by the police gave him Anne´s diary that she had been keeping, so he published it and was very active in making the apartment a museum that focuses not only on events of the past but the prejudice and discrimination that continues in our world today. Last thing: Anne Frank went to Montessori school, just a little shout out.
(I didn´t get pictures of the Anne Frank House because I don´t think youre allowed to for one, but even if it is allowed, I was too wrapped up in being there that I actually sort of forgot, plus, I think everyone should just go see for themselves, it is just something that we all have studied and a very important part of our history)

The Van Gogh museum was also really interesting. It isn´t as big as I thought it´d be, but it is set up in a very unique way. You are guided through the museum in chronological order of his life, and you can see his different styles as they changed from when he first begain painting to when he was in the psychiatric assylum to before he died. And as you entered into each era of his life, there was a background story and told you all about what he was doing at the time, who he was influenced by, etc etc. I also didn´t take pictures here, because I could not. I wish I could´ve spent more time in the museum because of course his artwork is incredible BUT there were just too many people and it was frustrating to wait in line and move at a pace that´s not your own. I did learn how to pronounce his name in Dutch, so remind me to tell you when I get back, it sounds like you have something stuck in your throat when you say it correctly.


Ok so there are a few other things that Amsterdam is known for and they are:

WOODEN SHOES!
oh those Dutch.

HEINEKEN BEER! (brewed in the ´Dam)

..and lastly are the BEAUTIFUL tulips everywhere.. they have this huge tulip garden just 20 minutes or so outside the city and in April they are supposed to be in fool bloom and so colorful and wonderful.. unfortunately it was going to cost us almost 40E to go, so we hung out in the park instead for free.. but, because tulips are my favorite flower, I was determined to buy one and carry it around. Well that was a difficult task because they only sell them in bunches (for cheaper then anywhere else but still what was I going to do with a whole bouquet?) or you can buy one souvenir wooden tulip which is lame. So, God was just so down with finding me a flower that I walked into a souvenir shop just to look around and I saw a few tulips sitting in the back in a sink and I asked if I could buy one (PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE and I explained to her how bad I wanted just one and she thought I was weird for sure...) but she ended up just giving me one really beautiful flower! So I carried it around and it made me very happy then when we were at the train station on our way out, these really obnoxious Americans dropped their bags and pointed at me and were like, LOOK OUR FIRST TULIP! LOOK HOW CUTE... as if I didn´t understand that they were 1)pointing at me and talking about me and 2)that I understand English. So I just stood their waiting to see if they´d continue pointing at me and then the lady with the fanny pulls out a camera and starts taking pictures of me. So then I decided to make things funny and awkward and I posed for her then finally spoke in loud english, DO YOU WANT A PICTURE OF THIS FLOWER? and then they laughed and said oh we are just so happy to see our first tulip, then I said, you´re from Minnesota aren´t you...I´ve been to Minnesota once in my life and for that I will never forget that accent, also because Bobby´s World is amazing. So then I made her take the flower and take a picture with it, she was so happy, and I guess I just made her day because I let her have it, and told her to just put it in a vase and take care of it, because it was just starting to open up in the sun. And yes, they were from Minnesota, CALLED IT!

Ok, that´s it for now. I really really have a love for this city, it was just so beautiful and Dutch people make me really happy. I couldn´t stop thinking about how Caleb needs to move here so he´ll fit in with all the tall blonde folk. I think everyone should visit Holland for their own personal interests, but Amsterdam is totally worth a visit.

Munich, Germany

On a very blizzardy and cold day we arrived at our last city of the trip, München, Deutschland. We spent 4 nights here and we were so fortunate to have visited some really incredible sights. Our first day began with yet again, a lunch suggestion by our hostel...They sent us on a nice little walk in the rain (without an umbrella, of course mine broke in Budapest, the 2nd day of the trip) and we found ourselves at the Augustiner Brewery, a very warm and cozy beer hall inhabited by mostly locals. My lunch was the best bratwurst I´ve ever eaten and just to note, I did not like sauerkraut before this meal...


The rest of the day was very relaxing, I actually didn´t feel very well later on in the afternoon and I think the previous 8 days were finally catching up to us, because we were exhausted too..So we relaxed in our hostel, watched a little German dubbed television and had a late dinner at a restaurant just around the corner. We saw a little of the city the first day so here are some pictures!

Theatinerkirche
(Adam makes fun of me for looking up the name of this building, but I was just curious!)

This is sort of an entry into the center of the city or Marienplatz, a very touristy plaza in el centro...Such a cool building though, huh?

We climbed a lot of staircases in a neighboring church to get this awesome view of the Glockenspiel in Marienplatz and the city behind it

Another view of Munich from above!

I´m not sure if I mentioned this already, but this is how we passed the time on train rides and downtime.. we played an extended version of Rummy 500, which by the end of the trip was somewhere around Rummy 6000...This is the train ride to a little town, 2 hoursish outside of Munich, called Füssen.. This a day trip we took to go see the Neuschwanstein Castle which was the inspiration of the Disney castle!! The train ride took us through cute little Bavarian towns, with rolling hills covered in snow and again, there were some pretty epic clouds. The scenery was very beautiful, but it honestly did not compare to the view of the Castle that we had been anticipating the whole trip...

This was another castle that we got to see on our hike up to the Neuschwanstein.. It is the Hohenschwangau Castle which means, "Castle of the High Swan Country"

Then we hiked up a huge hill to get to the Neuschwanstein...Adam and I chose not to buy tickets to go inside, we just wanted that incredible view that we had heard about.. We were walking around the outside of the castle when Adam pointed out a bridge across the mountain and we looked closely enough to see that there were people on it! So our next adventure was attempting to find that bridge through the snow covered mountains.

It ended up being a 30 minute walk up basically this...It was very tranquil for the most part, not really crowded with people...Adam did make friends with a group of three 12 year old German kids, who challenged him to a snowball fight...I got some of it on tape, and you can see for yourself, but I´d say the kids dominated Adam =).... unfortunately we had worn our tennies so our feet were a little wet from the walk, but it was totally worth it because this was our reward....

Photo taken by Adam... This is Swan Lake and runs right behind the Castle... In order to get a photo of the lake and the castle, you have apparently have to be a professional mountain climber and be a lot higher then the bridge allowed us.. either way, we still got an awesome view...

There it is! The Neuschwantsein Castle, can you see the resemblence with the Disney castle?? It´s there!

After asking about 5 different people, we finally got a shot of us with the castle in the background... Being on the icy bridge was making me really naucious so I was ready to make the descent back down the hill.

The next day in Munich was definitely not as uplifting as the Neuschwanstein Castle...We made a visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp, the first one built in Germany during WWII... When we first got to Munich, we weren´t sure if we were going to be up to it, because, like most people who have been to a WWII/Holocaust memorial know, it is depressing and almost just puts a damper on the day... but then realizing how important it is to be able to experience something that is part of our history, and somethign we´ve been learning about since we were little, we decided to go. The town of Dachau is very quiet and almost sort of eery, it probably didn´t help that we went on a very overcast and ugly day. The camp is extremely large and we self toured ourselves around the courtyards where they used to do roll call, the old living quarters, and we also walked through the crematorium/execution building. The signs direct you into the first room, where the prisoners were told was the waiting room for the showers.. Then the next room is where they were told to undress because they were going to have a huge group shower... The next room has holes in the ceiling and drains on the floor that could resemble a shower, however, in actuality it was the gas chamber where they executed a certain amount of prisoners at a time. It was hard walking through these rooms, my body was covered in chills and I could not spend much time observing the ovens where thousands of bodies were cremated. Although it is not easy for anyone, I am glad we made the trip, because it is so important to be awar and understand our world history in order to make sure our world moves in the right direction towards peace.

Entrance to the Memorial: "Work Brings Freedom"

A Memorial for the prisoners/victims of Dachau Concentration Camp

Another memorial

As I am writing this I am making myself more confused on what day we did certain things, I may have left some things out, but on to the last day..... I woke up extremely exhausted this day, and as a result of walking so much for 10 days straight my feet and legs were aching like crazy. The sun was out though, so Adam convinced me to take another walk with him to Olympic Park... On the map, Olympic Park was not so far from our hostel, DEFINITELY walking distance.. in reality, and perhaps we took the longest route possible, but we probably walked a good 4 miles to finally end up at the park.. it was a very strange park, lots of hills, weird, old-modern(that doesnt make sense but..) buildings with weird roofs and spaces.. It didn´t seem large enough to accomodate the mass number of people involved in the Olympic games, but, somehow they did it. There was no baseball field, and as Dave informed me, the reason is because baseball was not an official game of the Olympics until ´92 (I th ink). Either way, it was a beautiful day and Adam took an AMAZING foto of the olympic needle..LOOK!

So cool!

Old-Modern buildings, does it make sense now? Me in Olympic Park

After our adventures in Olympic park and confusion in trying to take the U-bahn (metro....the only metro ride we took in 4 cities) we decided we were up for one more walking site visit.. The Nyphenburg Palace. It was originally built as a hunting lodge, and it was expanded greatly with a HUUUUUGE backyard that you could honestly get lost in...so we did.

Front of the Palace

One night in Munich we went to the largest beer hall in Germany,(maybe in Europe and maybe in the world too...) We met our friends Derek and Leila there and tried to enjoy the 1 liters of Hofbrauhaus special beers.. We girlies got the light regular flava, but the boys got the dark brew. It was fun, there were A LOT of people, but it was very touristy and the service was not so friendly...but I guess I wouldnt be either if I had to wear uncomfortable leiderhosen and serve beer to loud drunk tourists..

HB, Hofbrauhaus!

Those are 1 liter glasses, but they start with almost half of it as foam, Germans like a good head on their beer, as we learned.

PROST!
It was such an amazing 12 days, Adam and I were able to see things at our own pace, which was a lot nicer then having to please lots of different people, and we just saw some incredible things. I´ve never gotten to travel like this before, so I have to say thanks to mother and father for fuding the trip, I am so fortunate to have gone to the places I did. Hopefully you will all be able to visit one day too!! DONT FORGET, go to Adam´s blog and watch the videos! They are all completed and posted and very entertaining!
CLICK HERE!!

auf weiderssain!!

Vienna and Salzburg, Austria

Vienna, Austria!

After 3 nights in Budapest, we hopped on a train Monday morning and 3.5 hours later we were in Vienna! Our routine for arriving in new cities was very simple, we had the directions to our hostels with numbers, address, etc..then we would get a map at the train station/airport and try to find it ourselves. Well Vienna is a huge city and we spent about 10 min trying to just locate the Train Station on the map so we had some sort of idea of our location in the city. Since we couldn´t figure it out, I approached a man selling magazines and asked if he spoke English, he said a little.. so with my huge map of Vienna I asked him, "Where are we (the train station) on the map?" and he replied with just the name of the train station. So I said, well I know that sir, but where on the map are we and I put it in his face and expected him to point somewhere. Then in German he tried to explain to me something and he kept waving his hand in his face. I rephrased my question a few times and still did not get a helpful response...then out of nowhere I awkwardly and very embarrassed-ly realized he was blind, and shoving a huge map in his face was not helping myself nor the situation. I thanked the man and on my way to find another person to bother, also realized that he was selling nude magazines....So after more failed attempts with 2 different taxi drivers, a delivery man and 3 girls on cell phones, we finally put our finger on that damn train station on the map, and I think it was Adam or myself who found it too...the visit was off to a great start.

Then we arrived at Happy Hostel, and we were so happy. Vienna was much colder though and we just wanted to set our bags down and again, our first priority became finding a meal. We had a relaxing evening in Vienna the first night, and we ate some very delicious Chinese food which gave us leftovers for the next day too. Our room had a tv with CNN in English, which was so amazing, altho for 3 days all they talked about was China/Tibet, Barack Obama and Paul McCartney´s divorce, can you believe she only got 50 million?...Either way, German and Hungarian dubbing just wasn´t doing it for us, so we enjoyed it nonetheless.

Our 2nd day in Vienna was incredible. Again, we were blessed with beautiful weather, and by that I just mean the sun decided to join us..to me though, that´s all I really need a little sol for the soul...there were some small flurries in the morning and some clouds on and off.. but those also provided us with some pretty awesome pictures. Our adventure for the day was quite a few hours touring the Schönbrunn Palace, (and on a whim getting Adam´s ear pierced which really only took a total of 10 min to decide, walk into the place, ask some questions, fill out some papers shove the needle in, and get outa there) it was SO NEAT!! (the castle, haha) We briefly walked through the inside of the Palace, pretty much all 50 rooms we saw were accented in gold and Adam was very sneaky and got some secret video of it (you´ll have to watch the Vienna video)...So, here are some fotos, enjoy..

A not so intimidating Palace guard

There it is: The Schönbrunn Palace, check out those clouds

The backside of the Palace and me

They call this the Gloriette... It is in the Palace´s backyard, and it is beautiful

Those clouds

After our foto sesh of the Palace and the Gloriette, Adam and I realized the tickets we bought were valid for the Labyrinth (not an easy word to spell), also in the Palace´s backyard, and of course, we were down. So we got lost in the maze, actually, I got lost, onlookers helped Adam cheat and I wandered around by myself for a bit. Then after the labyrinth we discovered another brilliant European playground with fun mirrors, like the kind at the fair that make you have super long limbs or a really fat body... there were other fun toys that we spent a fair amount of time playing with because, it was very necessary. More fotos...

Adam and the labyrinth....Shortly after he helped me find the end.

Here are those fun mirrors!

"Tracka Man" (My family will understand)

On our way out, 1 last foto of us and the Schönbrunn

On our way out, there were tons of food booths set up, they love their pretzels, cheese, wheat, pizza, plain, salt, chocolate, etc etc etc.. .yummm

Later that night we just went exploring some more and got to see a lot of the city!

Part of the museum quarter

Stephensdom Church

Boy in front of the Viennese Boys Choir School...2nd best in the world(?) I think


Adam tried so long for the perfect shot, I gave up after a few..anyways, I forget what this place is called, it was golden and pretty though

Vienna treated us well, unfortunately, I don´t feel like we gave ourselves enough time, to enjoy the city or to get to know it. A highlight of the stay there was a dinner recommendation by our hostel.. We were sent to a little Ma and Pa joint around the corner from our hostel that is owned by a Viennese woman and her American husband, from good ol Cali! He was a real character, I think we maybe got 20 words in with him, but he told us lots of stories about nor cal (woo woo represent) and so cal and his highschool and his camping trips and his sisters friend and this and that and we were kept entertained the whole night by shots of apple shnapps on the house and a visit from 2 regulars of Gary and Inge´s restaurante.. 2 very intoxicated Austrians made conversation with us and we were lucky enough to have 1 of them invite himself to sit down next to me, and for 45 minutes ask Adam about 15 times if he was Jewish because of his hair... and then he would reply that he was Jewish also and that he was only 52 years old and the night ended (before his wife called looking for him for the 5th time) with him putting his arm around me and telling Adam´s video camera that he loved me. I´m not sure what it is, I am drawn to old people..especially as dance partners...but I do believe, over some shnitzel and schpatzel, that Michel and I had a moment. (Just go watch Adam´s video and you tell me if there were sparks or not)....We slept great that night, our faces were wind burned and our feet were going to fall off (mine anyways)............

Then before we knew it, we were on yet another train ride, this time through the musical hills of

Salzburg, Austria!

Salzburg is a very quaint, very adorable Austrian pueblo. We could´ve walked around the whole place in a few hours but instead we were very relaxed, and leisurely explored the city. Salzburg is famous for 2 main things: Mozart´s birthplace/residence and for its rolling green hills that are alive with The Sound of Music...based on a true story, it was here in Salzburg that the VonTrapp family lived, played and sang and here where the musical film was shot. The first day Adam and I, naturally, did our own exploring, which of course includes lots of hiking up hills to get to cool looking buildings/castles/churches, and for breath taking views of the city. We had our afternoon coffee (we tried to find Mozart´s cafe but were too cold to continue searching) and didn´t stay up too late that night because we had a special early morning planned out the next day...

Cute, colorful Salzburg

There he is... Amadeus, in his hometown.... Salzburg has just capitalized on his name and they sell these things called: Mozart Balls.. they are chocolate/marzipan ball shaped candies and they have nothing to do with Mozart.. they just put his name on them. I got 2 of Mozart´s balls for my mom. (which I´m sending home with Mark and Patty by the way, you´ll be getting them soon!)

We stayed at a youth hostel, most known for being pretty much themed the sound of music, with the movie playing at various times during the day..upon recommendation, we reserved tickets for the Sound of Music tour through our hostel as well.... I haven´t seen this movie since I was 7 or 8 maybe and I most likely was very uninterested in it at the time, and Adam was in the same boat as me, so.. we didn´t get a chance to watch the movie before the tour which made it a little difficult to get as excited as everyone else to see THE gazebo or the lake.. however, as overpriced and dorky as the tour was (you have to see Adam´s video..our guide was amazing) , we had a really fun time.. they played the soundtrack throughout the bus ride, we saw some incredible scenery and there was a bar on the bus...that is where Adam and I discovered a very delicious brew called Stiegl (Salzburger´s very own)...anyways, enjoy these fotos, maybe you´ll be able to recognize some of these places!

I guess we´re just big dorks too!!

Mirabell Gardens.. the kids danced around the fountain in a scene, Do-Ray-Me perhaps? Anyways, that is the Festung fortress in the background, we hiked all the way up the hill and got denied entrance, but we still got a pretty cool view of Salzburg.

Remember that canoe scene??!!! I didn´t either but everyone on our bus did!! They showed us the clip, it is actually pretty cool, but this is the lake where all the kids tipped over!

And of course, the wedding scene, they were married here.... Although this church is in a town 45 minutes or so outside of Salzburg. We finished our tour with a warming Goulash soup meal and some Apfel strudel to top things off. Again, go watch Adam´s video!

to watch the video....CLICK HERE: http://adamprimack.blogspot.com

The rest of the day was spent warming up in our hostel, some rummy of course, and a few more Stiegl beers at our hostel´s bar...then the next day, we packed our bags and we were headed to our final destination....