Amsterdam, Ik hou van jou

I feel like I've been running all over the continent! This past weekend, me and a bunch of my friends took a weekend trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was amazing, to say the least.

My friend Danielle and I headed out early on Friday morning to catch a train to catch a flight to catch another flight and a short train ride to Amsterdam Centraal Station. It was the first trip I've taken here that I didn't have a major breakdown! haha, but seriously everything went perfectly. Our flight connected in Zurich, so we got a little taste of Switzerland and their silly non-euro money which prevented me from buying a simple muffin at the airport. Wtf is 3.00 CHF?? who knows. Anyways, we had AMAZING views of the Alps on the way over, and got delicious Swiss chocolate on every flight. (4 in total! score!)

Alps!

We got into the city at around 3pm and took the short walk to our hostel to check in. We then went to meet our other friend, Mirel and her friend from home, Serena, who had been there since wednesday. We took one look at the tram system and got a little overwhelmed, but just hopped on the first one that looked right and managed to get a free ride to where we wanted to be. After a quick lunch, we headed over to the Van Gogh museum.

This museum was so cool, and I saw soooo many Van Gogh paintings! They had them organized chronologically and had info about his life in every section. Every once in a while they had other artists, too. I loved the Paris section, because he has some great pieces created in Paris, and he was friends with all my fave French artists like Toulouse-Lautrec and Caillebotte! The other floors had all kinds of other art forms and artists, so it was great to see something a little different than what I usually head for in musuems. I really liked the size of the Van Gogh musuem because there wasn't so much that I felt like I had to rush around, but there was still plenty to look at.

After Van Gogh we hung out for a bit before taking a walk through the red light district. Obviously that sounds kind of ridiculous and unsafe, but the area is so full of tourists nowadays that its actually one of the safest places in the city. The whole city is actually really safe haha. But even though its full of tourists, the red light district is still very much a red light district. The girls stand in front of glass doors wearing pretty much nothing and wait for creepy men to approach them. Also they are all like 15 years old or something, except for the super dirty old women. haha overall a really hilarious and slightly disconcerting situation.

Red Light District and Swans everywhere!

We also made sure to walk around and see all the lit up canals. If you aren't familiar with the layout of Amsterdam, the center city is made up of a semi circle of canals that were built in the 1700's, and many people travel around by boat or even live in boathouses. Think Venice, but with cute little Dutch houses everywhere. ALSO there are bikes EVERYWHERE and every road has an equivalent bike lane. And I love love love it. And everyone's bike is super adorable, and kids ride on the back of bikes and everyone has a little basket for their things and women ride with high heels on and I love everything about it. Anyways, we walked around to see all the lights on the canals. When my other friends, Chelsea and Delee, finally got to the city (they had a few travel issues) we met them at the train station and walked them to our hostel.

Bike only parking garage. love it.

Saturday morning we woke up (a little too) early and headed out to the Anne Frank House. In 1942 the Frank family began hiding in a secret annex in this apartment until they were betrayed and captured by the Nazis in 1944. Her father, Otto Frank, was the only surviver after the war ended, and he helped create the house into an exhibit. To me, it was very emotional. You enter into the main house and there is information of the business that Otto and his friends ran from the house and information about the Frank's whereabouts before they went into hiding. There is no furniture in the entire house because Otto preferred to keep it unfurnished as a memory of the loss of life and the people who lived there and died during the war. The most emotional part for me was when you walk through the hidden doorway behind the swinging bookcase that the Frank family had to hide behind for two years. They have the windows covered just as they were while the family lived there, and its so dark and solemn. The pictures from magazines and postcards that Anne glued to her wall still remain, and it was almost surreal to think that I was standing in the tiny room that she sat in and wrote her diary for two years. The last part of the exhibit contains videos and information about the residents of the house after they were captured. I almost started crying when I was reading about how each member of the household died, but I guess the Holocaust is a legit thing to be sad about. After taking a break by myself in the cafe, I met back up with my friends and we headed out for some lunch. We found a neato flea market on the way over and I bought the cccuuuuuutest vintage leather purse for 15 euro! Seriously, its totes adorbs. hahaha

After eating a delicious tomato, mozzarella and basil sandwich at a pub, we went over to Rijksmuseum (pronounced rikes - museum). This is the museum that holds most of the "genre" art of the Dutch golden age. Think Vermeer's The Milkmaid - scenes of everyday life. Unfortunately Girl with the Pearl Earring is over at the Hague, but there was still sooooo much there to look at. I don't know a lot of Dutch artists, but I did see my lovely Vermeer's, Rembrant's, and found a new painting to add to my favorites, The Threatened Swan by Jan Asselijn.

The Threatened Swan

After a short stop at the I Amsterdam sculpture, we met back up with Mirel and Serena (they got to stay in a nice hotel as a present, lucky ducks) and hung out for a bit before taking Chelsea and Delee over to the red light district because they hadn't seen it yet, and then got dinner.

I AMsterdam

Unfortunetly Danielle and I had to leave at like 8am the next morning to catch our flight home, but I wasn't too upset because I'm going back over spring break with Leigh! (my friend from home that is studying in Denmark this semester) So yes, I was definitely not there long enough, but I'm returning and I cannot wait. I love love love loved Amsterdam. Not only because its so pretty and has all the bikes, but also because you can just feel how relaxed the lifestyle is there. I always think about how laid back France is, and Amsterdam is even more laid back. I love it. When I get back to America I'm just going to be so stressed out about how fast paced everything has to be all the time. Simple things like waiting in lines here is just like, "whatever, its a line, we have time" when in the states its like "WTF A LINE I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS". haha but seriously, I can totally picture myself living in the Netherlands. Also, everyone speaks English so it was a nice break from thinking about speaking all the time, although it was hard to stop saying "merci" to waiters and "pardon" (par- doh) when bumping into people haha.

It's suuuuper warm out here every day (60s-70s) and I'm super excited! This weekend I'm going to be freindless because all of my friends are in this class that is taking a trip to Nice, and since I'm not in the class I can't go. It's actually really disappointing because I would love to go to Nice, but I'm going to spend this weekend exploring all the places that I've never been in my own home city! There's a whole island in between the two branches of the Rhone that I've never been too! Not to mention like 50000 museums. Hopefully I can get some present shopping done too! ;)

Goodbye for now, my love!

Part Deux

Last Saturday, my program took us on our second excursion to St. Remy and Les Baux. We hopped on a bus at 10am and headed for the mountains! kind of. Anyways, our first stop was to the ancient Roman ruins that used to be the entrance to the city back in the Roman days. Those were pretty neat, but we quickly walked over to the tiny, tiny, village of St. Remy. Besides being the cutest place on earth, its famous because Van Gogh stayed at the mental institution there for a period of time when he was on his way to crazy town. It had all kinds of information about Van Gogh and what modern psychologists believe he was suffering from, and how those things affected his work. If you are not familiar with the life of Van Gogh, he painted Starry, Starry Night in 1889 while living in St. Remy. So the answer is yes, I've been in Starry Starry Night. ummmmm YEAH.

The Ruins

St. Remy Hopital

After touring the hospital and seeing the room Van Gogh stayed in, we got back on the bus and drove over to Les Baux. This place is amazing. It's a tiny village literally carved out of a mountain, which an ancient Medieval castle perched on top. We drove so high up that our ears were popping, and then still had to walk up the steepest hills ever to get to the village. We got some free time to explore and find lunch, which was great because pretty much every corner of this place has an amazing view across the south of France.

The view....

When we met back up, we headed up to Le Chateau des Baux. Its obviously in ruins because its so old, but I loved being able to climb all over everything and go to the highest spot we could find to get some awesome pictures. It was SOOOOO windy up there. You have no idea what wind is until you go to the south of France and then climb to the top of a castle on the top of a mountain. It was so windy that I couldn't even open my eyes sometimes! Of course it was hilarious trying to take pictures and not have everything we own blown off the mountain, and I had so much fun climbing on everything. I was sad to leave this gorgeous little village, its just so unique.

amazing

looking down onto the village

That night, because my host was gone, I invited over some of my friends to make dinner. One of my friends, Alyssa, is a vegan, so we found some vegan recipes and got all the ingredients we needed at the store. It felt so good to be cooking for myself again. I didn't realized how much I miss being able to make whatever I want for dinner and spending a lot of time to prepare really delicious food. We made samosas, vegan pesto pasta, and a vegan chocolate tart. It was more than enough food, and we stuffed ourselves to the brim. And it was awesome! Next stop: Amsterdam!!

Updates galore! Part 1

Alright so I realize its been over a month since I last blogged, but things started to get serious over at the Institute in the last few weeks!

In the middle of February, we had a "winter break" and me and my two friends, Abbey and Danielle, took a little tour of France via the amazing French railways. We went to Toulouse, Bordeaux, Blois, Paris and then Caen and the beaches of D-Day.

Toulouse is one of my favorite places so far because it has such soul. Its got the typical French class, some Spanish spice, and students everywhere. Its called La Ville Rose because many of the buildings are built with red bricks, and some really are RED. Its gorgeous. We saw the amazing Basilique St. Sernin and about a million museums; one of which contained works of are by one of my favorites, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. (He was born and raised in Toulouse but did most of his most famous works after he moved to Paris.) We ate at this cute cute cute little restaurant tucked in a corner of the city the second night, and got some delicious sorbet for dessert, and left early the next morning for Bordeaux.

We got to Bordeaux during the day and hopped on the tram into town. We passed all through the city and I was just in awe of the beauty. I know Bordeaux has a reputation for being pretty stuck up, and I totally understand why (and agree, haha) because this place is the definition of royalty. It stretches around the Garonne river and is just overwhelmingly grand everywhere you go. The hotel we stayed at was the cheapest thing ever and it was just the cutest thing ever, and every buidling looks like a palace. Unfortunately we definitely ran into many-a stuck up and rude Bordeaux residents that weren't helping the reputation of the city, but what can ya do. My favorite part was this massive bell tower that you can climb up to the top and see all of Bordeaux. It technically is part of the Cathedrale St. Andre (!) but the builders were afraid the vibrations of the bell would damage the church, so its not even connected! Amazing views, to say the least. Our second day we grabbed lunch and ate it along the boardwalk and people watched. I'd love to return sometime in the summer and go on a vineyard tour, or walk along the boardwalk without a coat and scarf on, but it was still amazing to visit either way.

We didn't get to Blois until late at night, but this tiny little place is dead at night and we felt perfectly fine strolling along the streets to find our hotel. Which, by the way, was empty when we got there. The best thing ever was when we called the number listed on the door and ten minutes later a man came jogging down the street to show us to our room. He was super nice and our room was the custest ever. We were sad we could only stay for one night because it was super comfy. We got up early the next morning to see what we had come for, the Chateaux de Blois! TALK about a chateaux. This place was massive, gorgeous, and full of history. It was built in three different time periods, and you could tour it and see all the amazing decorations and rooms in the royal apartments. It was the first real Chateau I've ever seen in my life, and it was amazing. They are just so massive! And I felt like I was on a movie set, if that makes sense, because it almost didn't feel real. Like that something so old and huge could still be around today.

Now, Paris was just......................amazing. I mean, obviously. We did SO much in 2 1/2 days. The first thing we did after checking into our hostel (which, by the way, was awesome. Village Hostel, Monmartre, I'd gladly suggest it) was walk down to the Moulin Rouge!! Obviously we can't afford to actually see a show there, but it was awesome nonetheless to see the place that inspired so many artists (Like Toulouse-Lautrec!!!) and had such an impact on France in the 20th century. I mean it was awesome enough that we stayed in Montmartre (where all the coolest artists lived in the turn of the century), but to actually SEE the Moulin Rouge.....ahhhhh life dream! Anyways right after that we got on the metro to see the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower at night. First of all, the Arc is sooooooooo much bigger in real life that pictures can convey. I mean....wow. The Eiffel Tower of course was magnificent, and we were there during its little crazy light show on that it does on the hour ever hour. The whole thing was just amazing. I couldn't even believe where I was. Paris is the one place I've dreamed about pretty much my entire life. Looking up at the Eiffel Tower, seeing the Seine, the lights of the City.....unbelievable. The next morning we got our free breakfast of unlimited bread, croissants and coffee (SO GOOD) and headed the two minutes over to Sacre Coeur. It was a foggy day, but not so foggy that we couldn't stand on the top of the hill and see Paris spread out before us. We spent some time inside the Basilica and lots of time out, and then headed over to Ile de Cite to see Notre Dame. (Two world famous churches on Ash Wednesday, ftw) Ile de Cite is maybe one of my favorite parts of the City because its basically untouched by the modern world (obviously, haha). But wow, Notre Dame is.......massive. I kept taking pictures and wishing I could really capture the immensity of it. We went over to Ile de St. Louis also, and then headed over to the Latin Quarter. We spent a lot of time in the Pantheon, saw the final resting spot of Victor Hugo and Voltaire, and then walked over to the Luxembourg Gardens until it closed. (Saw the Sorbonne on the way. Breathless anyone??) We ended the night with a lengthy walk to the Louvre to see the pyramids at night, and then decided to walk the Champs Elysees. It seemed intimidating at first, but it was SO worth it. That part of Paris is so alive and bustling, I just soak it up. We then proceeded to go on top of Arc de Triomphe and see the glorious views of Paris at night. Ah...just...breathtaking. Our last day was spent entirely at the Louvre, which was obviously not enough time at all. I did get to see the Beautiful Mona Lisa and one of my favorite paintings, Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix. We were cutting it close after we left the Louvre, because we literally had to RUN to catch our train to Caen.

We got to Caen in plenty of time, but we actually stayed in THE CUTEST hotel in Hermanville-sur-mer, about 45 minutes north of Caen. We hopped on a bus and couldn't believe how adorable these little towns were, but it the landscape reminded me a lot of Illinois and made me really homesick. (who knew I'd ever miss the cornfields of the midwest?) Anyways, our hotel was right on the D-Day beaches (we were on Sword, to be exact...if you know anything about WW2) Unfortunately a tiny town on the off season didn't seem to have any restaurants open past 7, but we were directed to a pizza parlor by some nice locals, and it was the best advice ever. This place had the greatest pizza ever, the greatest ice cream ever, and the nicest/cutest waiter ever. He barely knew any english, and it was such a breath of fresh air to be in a place where everyone doesn't automatically know english fluently and therefore only speak it to you. The next morning we walked on the beach for a bit before taking the bus into Caen, where we went to some neato museums, and saw an exhibit about the reconstruction of Caen following the 1944 bombings. Not a lot of people know this about me, but I love 20th century history, especially WW2, so I was just utterly engrossed in this exhibit. We got dinner at another cute little restaurant in Hermanville, and then went back to our little pizza place for dessert. We talked to the waiter and owners some more this time, and ended up taking pictures with them! We also drew them a picture of us (and by we, I mean Abbey) for them to hang up in the restaurant forever! They were super nice and cute, and it was lovely to be able to actually use our French. We also taught them a little english!

The next day we went to the amazing war museum of Caen. I mean, they had artifacts from resistors in France to actual Nazi flags from Germany and amazing photographs of anything you could imagine from Europe during the second world war. We spent forever there just looking at everything. They also had a temporary cold war exhibit, and I saw a piece of the Berlin Wall!! I spent a lot of time learning about Berlin during the Cold war because I knew I'd be going there during spring break. It was actually way more interesting than I thought haha. Everything about that museum made me freaking pumped to go to Germany. They even had a freaking nuclear warhead from one of France's Cold War reserve. I think my favorite part was just looking at all the little things that some person somewhere had thought to save, like books and pictures and letters that meant nothing at the time but are now worthy of being displayed in a museum.

Besides a minor crisis (and by minor I mean extremely stressful and horrible) of me losing a train ticket five seconds before getting on the train home that I'd rather not relive on here, we got home on the last day of break. It was a whirlwind trip, but I am SOOOO glad we did it because we got to see all different kinds of places, met all kinds of people, drank all kinds of wine, and saw soooo much history. France is an amazing place, obviously. But seriously, I hope to God I can come back soon after I leave, because I want to travel every corner of this country. I'll most likely fly home from Paris, so I'm hoping I get to spend more time there before I leave for the States, because seriously.....Paris is the best. It's like no other.

Sorry about the novel!