Wednesday, August 4, 2010

night trains are crazy

We just had a looooooooonnnnggggg night. Again....like a bad ash laila. I almost dont have the energy to write this but we cant check into our room for another hour, so we need to pass the time and we dont ahev enough energy to try and explore the city. We got to the train station on time and waited at the platform as usual. Our train was a night train that stopped a few times in the netherlands, a few times in germany, at prague and then it was to continue to krakow and then moscow or something, so as you can imagine it was a veryyyyy long train. We knew our seats were number 53 and 54, but we didnt know which car we were in so we got in the last one (stupidly). We later figured out that we got on in car 204 and we were supposed to be in car 174 (dont worry, there werent actually 30 cars, there were more like 10) and we had to walk to our car INSIDE of the train. I dont know if youve been in european trans before, but the hallway that you can walk through is les than 2 feet wide, so if another person is walkng towards you, it is really hard to get around them and you have to sort if switch places, which is extra complicated when you have luggage. When you get to the end of a hall in a car, you have to go inbetween cars, which is annoying because there are automatic doors that you have to open to get out of one car and then another door to get into the next, but the doors close on you after like 5 seconds which got exhausting.

However, after walking through like 8 cars we finally got to our seats, which are 6 seats, 2 rows of 3 facing eachother, in a little room. rach and i had the middle seats and were across from eachother. the people who had the window seats were a cute nice dutch couple that we spoke to for a bit, but were kinda quirky. the other 2 guys in our cabin were really weird looking rocker stoner guys with like army green cargo shorts and olive t shirts with greasy long blonde hair in a ponytail going through the back of basball caps who brought with them each a 6-pack of heineken for the ride and didnt even sit in our little cabin for the whole time...who knows where they went, we were just happy because it allowed us to kinda of half lay down across their seat.

The beginning of the ride was fun beacuse for a little bit it was only Rach and I in the whole 'tzrif' (jokes) and we were looking at the cows and sheeps and farmland we were passing. Rachel noted that on one of the fields we passed "the cows look like they're sitting in a chet!"

Neither of us got much sleep...it was very on and off...but if you added it all together it might equal about 4 or 5 hours...(keep in mind that we were on the train for 15 hours). I have to say, getting up and stretching our legs when we finally reached our destination was one of the best feelings ever.

We got out of the train, got some crowns (czech money) from an ATM and then took the subway to our hostel, however our room isnt cleaned yet so we cant go in it yet so we are chillin in the lobby, thirsting for a nice bed and a drop of sleep. Our plan right now is to get in our beds as soon as possible and nap for hopefully less than 4 hours, then shower and go walk around a bit, grab dinner and then get a looooonnngggg sleep tonight so we can do A LOT tomorrow.

oy. tiredness.
-sleepy ZZZzzzzzzoe

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Days 11 and 12 - RIP tribal sunglasses...free replacement?

Well I have to say, the curse still continues. My rainbow tribal sunglasses from Fred Flare broke =[. Thats the 3rd pair of cool sunglasses that have broken..and it wasn't even my fault! The screw came out!! But anyways, yesterday we slept in and d9idnt get out of the hotel until around 12. We decided to check out the markets around the city...trust me, it was a LOT of walking. We started in some market known for vintage clothes near Anne Franks house. We looked around for a while, but a lot of it was junk and some of it was fake vintage again....bunz. We stopped for lunch at a cite traditional Amsterdam pub, that had typical food thats popular in Holland. Rachel got a Goat Cheese, Honey, and Walnut sandwich (try making that at Mosh.....if only we could milk those damn goats), and I ordered this random Holland dish called 'Two Kwekkeboom croquets with bread' which looked like two corndogs, but on the inside of the crusty thing was this creamy/cheesy/potatoey/meaty stuff, that was actually really good. I wasn't sure how you were supposed to eat it with the bread so i sort of spred it on the bread and made it a sandwich...(dont worry, ive got pics). Then we walked to another market called Waterlooplein and got some souvenirs and gifts for people (that includes you, Nick) and for ourselves.

Afterwords we went back to the hotel and rested for a bit and watched some weird TV shows, and then headed out for dinner. Of course, we went back to Wagamama cause it was so good and we got free drinks with coupons from our hotel. I got a Heineken just because thats what you do in Amsterdam.... After dinner we got dressed up and went out to some random bar near the Red Light District, but we werent really into the bar so we just walked around the Red Light District again...it was really funny. Its actaully sooo interesting. I'm definately gonna look more into it when I get home. Like what are the politics of the Red Light District? Do you have to work your way up, or what? We also noticed that some rooms were nicer than others, and some where in better locations, so how does it all work? Anyways, we were tired so we went back home and went to sleep.

Today we woke up and packed up all of our stuff (packing gets harder and harder each time we travel), and then rented bikes for 3 hours. If I didnt mention before, Amsterdam is FULL of bikes. Crossing streets and walking around is terrifying because people bike SOOO fast and dont really yeild to pedestrians. The streets are really confusing because there is a walking lane, a bike lane, a tram lane, and a car lane, and they are all the same height and same color so its hard to tell where you are supposed to be. I was on the hunt for a new pair of sunglasses, when I remembered that I saw my sunglasses (or at least, ones that looked just like mine) in the fake vintage store. So we biked back there and I went in hoping that they could give me a screw for them or something, but instead, they replaced mine for free!! But after I got the new ones, I realized that though they had the same print, they were different sunglasses and the ones i had were much better quality than the replacement I got...but hey, beggars cant be choosers, right?

We ate a nice lunch by a canal and then biked back to the hotel. We have a train to catch at 5:41...we're taking a NIGHT TRAIN to PRAGUE (my favorite city in the world)!! Its really exciting but also kinda nervewracking because we booked seats not bed (beds were more expensive) and we are gonna be on that train for 15 hours. Hopefully we'll be able to sleep....wish us luck?? Not sure about how connected we'll be to the internet in Prague, but hopefully our hostel will have a computer we can use.

Time for us to CZECH out! hahahhaha im so funny jokes jokes jokes
PEACE
Z-dawg

Monday, August 2, 2010

Day 10 - free canal cruise....??

Yay! I am catching up with the blogss look at meeee oh yeah amsterdams da best whadduppppp?!

YESTERDAY, we woke up early, had some free breakfast, made some free lunch, and then went on a free canal cruise... (sorta). As I said in another post, Amsterdam is a city of canals. They wrap around the city, and are almost like streets; people live in houseboats (yes...boats that look like houses) and travel around this city on boats. They even have parties on boats! So of course, we had to be 100% tourist and take a canal cruise. Our hotel has a special deal with the canal cruise company so that we have to pay 10 euro instead of 13 if we buy the tickets from the hotel....so, thats what we did! We bought the tickets from the hotel, and went on the canal cruise. It was about an hour and a half long, and we passed a lot of pretty buildings but the tourguide wasn't very descriptive about what we were seeing...actually, it was a prerecorded tour that would say a sentence about something and then say the same sentance in like 5 other languages...which got really annoying (even though listening to dutch is always halarious). When we left the cruise, we realized that they didnt rip our collect our tickets, and because we werent so satisfied with the tour, we went back to the hotel and returned the tickets and got our 10 euros back because we told the people at the hotel that we decided we didnt want to do the cruise. so HAHA tourist trap! in your face! (sorry dad).

We were pretty hungry after the boat, so we enjoyed our ham and cheese sandwiches we made in the morning, and then walked towards Amsterdam's infamous floating flower market. There were tulip bulbs, souvenir shops, and pickpockets everywhere (dont worrry, we are cautious). I gotta say, the souvenirs here are the cutest so far. Slippers that look like traditional Holland wooden clogs and have cows on them for 10 euro??? Too cute. Should I get them?? (still havent decided, and every time I pass them i get more of an urge, however i dont need themm....hmmmm...what would tarbut say??) And a bunch of funny postcards, shot glasses, and weed paraphenalia that are all halarious (hey, its amsterdam). Neither of us bought anything because you cant really bring tulip bulbs back to the US, and we both wanted to do different things next so we split off. Rachel went to the Portuguese Synagogue, which is supposed to be very beautiful, and I went to the Heineken Brewery.

The brewery was sooo cool. It costs 15 euro, but it includes a free bracelet and 3 free drinks, and the whole 'Heineken experience' takes over 2 hours. It starts off by telling you the history of the Heineken company, and then leads into how beer is made and brewed. The four ingredients are Water, Barley, Hop, and yeast. Water and Barley make beer sweet and hop and yeast make beer bitter and ferment the sugar into alcohol. Heineken has a patented secret strain of yeast that they are obsessed with "which is why a cold glass of heineken tastes the same all over the world". I got to taste barley and water, called wort, which is sweet and good. Then we went though this thing called "brew you"which is like one of those movies where your seat moves and they spray water on your to make it more realistic, and it was like going thorough all the steps to a bottle of heineken, which was cute. There were a lot of photo and video ops in the whole thing and i took these ridiculous (and sort of embarassing) videos in front of a green screen that put me into a weird background....you can see one here:

http://www.heinekenexperience.com/wall-of-fame/singalong/4AE86361D99B6C8EED188B1EF34005C6

and another here:

http://www.heinekenexperience.com/wall-of-fame/singalong/F035B32FDCB5AEB50D1AC318DEB1196A

The whole thing ends in a bar where you can get your free beers and talk to other people which was cool. I have to say, I still hate most beer but I definately like Heineken more after all of that. At the gift shop I got a bottle of Heineken that says my name on it...SOOO COOOL. Its goin in the dorm room for sure.

After we met back at the hotel, Rach and I enjoyed some japanese at this chain that we've seen in all the countries so far called Wagamama (yummayumma! we might go back tonight!), and then headed to the Red Light Distrcit. Let me tell you, we were SHOCKED. It was very different from the way both of us pictured, but still INSANE. Basically, the area is pretty small, but its broken in half by a canal. There's a church in the middle of it, and around the church is where the most prostitutes are (ironic....). There are all these really narrow alleys, and when you walk through them there are like glass doors with a red UV light above them. In the glass doors are girls in like bikinis and skanky clothes looking at you and like winking at you and saying hello...(super weird...getting eye contact with them is so sketchy and freaky). Each glass door is attached to like a little room that has like a mirror, a bed, and a chair. The glass windows have red curtains, which are closed if the room is occupied (oy.) Its actually ridiculous...its like disgusting but reall interesting at the same time and really trippy. Its kind of fun to try and find all the alleys, because its like a maze and the prositutes are like sort of hidden so we were like 'we have to find more!!' Its interesting though because it seems like for the most part, its tourists walking past the windows and occasionally there will be a few high guys flirting with one of the girls but it doesnt seem like too many people actually go in with the prostitues, its just sort of to look. Rach and I were left with so many questions, like are prostitues in amsterdam like they are in the US(sketchy really poor women who have to do it to make a living and who are also like crackheads)? Or are the like the ones in Israel (captured and sort of owned and forced into it)? Or do they actually enjoy their job and make a lot of money?? So many questions....but it was too scary to ask any of them anything. Some of them looked really young, like our age, which was so weird...anyways....outside of that area with the church, there are some more main-ish streets which have a lot of sex shops, "coffeeshops", and paraphenalia shops. Its a crazy place....we might go back tonight.

Cheers,
Zo

Day 9 - we wish we were still 17

On Saturday we woke up early and enjoyed the complementary breakfast at our hotel, and made sandwiches for lunch from the breakfast buffet (yay ham and cheez!) Then we went to the Van Gogh museum, which is around the corner from where we are living. When we bought the tickets, which were a whopping 14 euros, we realized that 17 and under get in free, and we said we were 17 but they needed ID so we still had to pay =( for the first time on this trip, we wished we were under age! The Van Gogh museu
was cool, but a bit of a rip off. They say that they have over 200 paintings, but most of them are his earlier works that are very average Nd dark and replicas of other paintings. They only have like 4 famous ones And the most famous, the bedroom, was under restoration. But we did learn more about van goghs life which was interesting.

After van gogh we went to the rijksmuseum which is full of old Dutch paintings that are so realistic it's scary. We didn't like it too much so we left quickly. We walked to this area called "the nine streets" which is a shopping district with a lot of expensive boutiques. Here were also some vintage stores which we discovered are such a gimmick! They sell urban outfitters clothes and say they are vintage and hey had my Fred flare sunglasses! The other vintage store called episode is a chain vintage store that has he same fake vintage stuff in every store! I saw the same sweater in the episode here and te one in Brussels. RE-DICULOUS!

After some window shopping we went to dinne and then to the Anne Frank house which was so cool and very moving. We went Ito the secret annex. Otto frank preserved the annex but decided that he wanted the rooms to remain unfurnished, but the photos that Anne put on The wall are intact and the stairs that go up into the annex are insane. Actually, we've realized that all stairs in holland are insanely small, steep, and windy. It's like straight out of a German expressionist film. At the end of he exhibit they had anne's actual diaries which was surreal to look at. We left the house and decided it was our favorite museum of our trip so far

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Day 8 - 20euro cab ride?

On Friday we woke up early to pack up our bags (which are filling up more and more each day we are here) and head off to Amsterdam. We caught an 11:18 train, and the ride was only 3 hours. They didn't even check our passport. When we got to Amsterdam the first thing we did was book our train to Prague. Then we hopped in a cab to the hotel because we were too tired to try and figure out Amsterdam subway system and according to google maps, our hotel was only 2 miles from the train station. However, our cab ride took like 15 minted and ended up costing 20 euros. Eek!

After we settled in, we decided to take a walk around Amsterdam and grab a bite to eat. Amsterdam is much different than I pictured it. I always thought it was a crazy city with drugs, alcohol, and prostitues everywhere and a few museums. However, it's a beautiul very European city, and you would have to seek out the drugs and crazy stff if you want to see it.we ate dnnr at a steakhouse on a cute street and then had some ice cream in the park. We decided to have a early night in because we were really tired and wanted to be fully energized for a big day the next day.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Day 7 - mmm Belgian beer

On Thursday we woke up at 10 (we do so much each day that we get really tired!) and went straight to the train station to validate our Eurail passes (so exciting) and take a 1 hour train ride to an adorable quaint little Belgian town often referred to as "the Venice of northern Europe". Going on the train was really cool because it went through the Belgian countryside. We saw lots of cows and went by a hunch of fields and windmills. When we arrived in Brugge, he first thing we did was walk to the main markt square. Every single building in Brugge is beautiful and he streets are all cobblestone and there are canals running through the city. In the main square here are two famous fry kiosks right next to eachotherthat has been competing for years. We got some of the famous fries which were delicious but very salty. Then we went to the chocolate museum (which was such a rip off). Then we walked down a long road and stopped in a bunch of cute stores including a Belgian salvation army were I got some genuine Belgian beer glasses and a shot glass for only 1 euro total. We Had dinner at cute restaurant and I had the best croque monsiuer of my life and Rachel tried mussels.

After dinner we ran to the train station and caught he next train the Brussels and hurried back to our hostel. This really cool guy who worked at the hostel organized this thing called a bar crawl, where a big group of people go from bar to bar and then end up in a club. It was SUCH a fun night. In our group we had a bunch of funny guys from Spain who were really lod and outgoing (and attractive I should add). There were also some funny girls from Spain in our group and two cool guys our age from Boston who were doing a eurotrip similar to ours. We all started in a small local bar where Rachel and I got this delicious local sweet beer and we met all the people who were Doug the bar crawl with us. Then we walked to the next bar which was next to the mannequin pis and we took this halarious group picture in front of it. By this point we were def befriending all he people in our group, and the spainiards were halarious and pretty drunk. At the 3rx bar we went to we had hhis local strawberry beer that was amazing and sweet. We ended the night in a small but def hoppin celctic club with a ton of young people and sticky floors. It was by far our funnest night of the trip so far, and we made a lot of friends.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Day 6 - mmmmm chocolate

That's right folks, I'm back to write about Wednesday! We woke up well rested and ready for a longggg day in bussels. We started off by walking to a local flea market that supposedly had a lot of good intage clothes. Once we got there, we realized that it was not so good for vintage clothes, but AMAZING for vintage bags. There were so man good vintage bags eveywhere and it was easy to haggle down prices to only 5 euros. Rachel also got a really cute pair of shoes for 5 euro. There was a lot of junk there, but a few treasures. Rachel got a cute teacup and saucer for 3 euros. After the flea market, we stopped for breakfast at a really cute cafe and I got a croque Monsieur which is the French way to say grilled cheese sandwich with ham in it. It was delish!

Then we went to the Grand Place Markt, which is a beautiful main square with a bunch of amazing ancient buildings and LOTS of tourists and souvenir shops.... And CHOCOLATE of course. We went crazy and bought a ton of Belgian chocolate to eat on our trip and to bring home. Then we wen to see the Mannequin Pis, the famous fountain of the peeing baby, which was a lot smaller than you would think. After that we enjoyed a delicious Belgian waffle and some gelato. Then we went to this really cool museum that was all about comic books and comic strips. Then We stopped at our hostel to drop off all of our purchases and rest for a little bit. We went out to dinner and then went out to this really cool place called Cinamatek, which is a film museum with the largest film archive in the world that also screens old movies. We were really lucky because they were screening Casino Royale directed by Orson Welles in English with French subtitles. We LOVED it and highly suggest it if yu need a movie to watch. When we got out of the movie it was pouring and we ran back to the hostel in the rain and went right to sleep. It was a really fun day!