Then we're awake, but we're very puzzled...

24-26 April 2009

Well, my first solo trip was a roaring success, and frankly I can’t wait to do it again. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I got to just relax, knowing that if I got lost no one would be mad at me or if it was that Prague is the BOMBINGEST place on the entire planet, but I had an AMAZING weekend. Prague. Is. Incredible. I fully intend to go back there as an adult and just spend time—hopefully with some fabulously handsome man—wandering and exploring and enjoying. I just got back to Maastricht a few hours ago, and already I’m missing Prague. That’s how much I loved it.

Thursday after class, I walked my booty over to the train station and jumped on the bus to Aachen. This was not only my first solo trip, but it was also my first loooooong train ride. From Aachen, I caught a train to Cologne and I jumped on the overnight train from Cologne to Prague. Overnight trains are a trip. I was a cheapskate and just booked the seat rather than the sleeper because it was 16 euro cheaper. On the way there, I really regretted that decision. I was in a compartment with three other people and I didn’t even have a wall on which to lean my head. I got, at best, three hours of sleep. That wasn’t only because of my discomfort though. There was a dude in the compartment with me who was probably pushing 50, spoke very little English, and had a staring problem. I kid you not, I would close my eyes for the briefest of moments and have to snap them back open because I could feel him staring at me. It wasn’t a malicious thing; I didn’t think he was going to harm me or anything. But it was just unnerving to have him just looking and looking and looking. Maybe he hasn’t seen too many Americans? Maybe he hasn’t seen too many Americans too scared of thieves to let go of their backpacks on a twelve hour train trip? Who knows? Okay, maybe I was a little weird. I might have stared at someone who cradled her luggage for the whole trip too. Haha… Also, this was the first time I was using my Eurail and the conductor at the German border messed it up! She marked the 26th on the 24th which then caused a slew of problems later on. More on that later…

Anyway, the train reached Prague around 9am and even without much sleep I was really excited to get going. I jumped off the train and headed to the atm so I could get some Czech Crowns. After waiting almost 20 minutes in line, I withdrew 2000 crowns because I didn’t know what the exchange rate was and that seemed like a friendly number. Really. There was no other explanation for why that was what I pulled out. I bought a ticket from the lady at the counter and attempted to follow the directions to the hostel. I made it to the metro station at which I was supposed to end up, but then I got on the tram going the wrong direction. I figured it out when the third tram stop wasn’t what it was supposed to be and I got off and got back on in the opposite direction. Now, this may not seem like a big deal, but I had just been on trains for the past 15 hours. I had drunk a liter and a half of water on the train, and I hadn’t peed since Maastricht. I was hurting. But I wanted to wait until I got to my hostel because….well, really for no good reason. It was just the order I had set up in my mind of doing things. First find the hostel, then do anything else. Haha…

I finally made it to my hostel, the Czech Inn, and managed to not pee my pants. That hostel is incredible. The Czech Inn is what a hostel is supposed to be. It has a really modern, hip décor and the staff are all really young and helpful and fun. The place is (gasp—can it be???) incredibly clean. I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all when I climbed into bed that night. I was there way too early to get into my room, though, so I just dropped the things out of my backpack that I didn’t want for the day in the locker room and headed out.

Sean and Tiff had purchased a book called Prague Day by Day from Frommer’s when they came to visit. We thought that the three of us might be able to visit Prague when they were here, but unfortunately we didn’t make it. They did, however, leave that book with me. Hooray! I highly recommend those Day by Day books to anyone who is traveling on a time budget. I think they’re written for older travelers since there aren’t a lot of mentions about hostels and living cheaply, etc. They also overestimated the time it would take me to do certain walking parts of the tours, but really the book was fantastic. I got to see all the important sights in a really time efficient manner and with great maps and commentaries.

The first day I did the “Best of Prague in One Day” and the first half of the “Best of Prague in Two Days” tours. I started at the Powder tower and walked the ancient coronation route of Bohemian kings because it covers almost all the big sights. The Powder Tower is part of the original city fortifications. From there, I saw the Municipal House, which is a big deal for art nouveau fanatics. I didn’t think all that much of it. Apparently they do concerts there too, but that’s not uncommon at all in Prague. Everywhere I went there were signs saying, “CONCERT TONIGHT IN THIS CHURCH!! Greatest hits of Mozart!” (Or whichever composer was the theme for the evening) That was one of the things I loved most about Prague; it was basically just a huge celebration of classical music.

But I digress. I moved on from the Municipal House to the Estates Theatre which is this awesome little opera house in the middle of everything where Mozart premiered and conducted (!!!) Don Giovanni on my birthday (!!!) in 1787. I was pretty impressed by that. That theatre was doing a concert that night of Mozart arias from the most famous of his operas, but I had already purchased tickets for that evening. More on that later.

From the Estates Theatre I detoured from the tour a little bit to wander through this really neat market that was set up in the street. I bought a pretty painting of the Charles Bridge and Prague castle and then headed to the next stop on my tour: The old town square. The old town square is the oldest area of the city still used for its original purpose (according to my tour guide the next day). It’s really something to see. Everything is so old and you can see the Baroque and Gothic styles of architecture contrasting against each other really clearly there. It’s what a town square should look like, basically. Haha…The town hall tower is at one end of the square and I clambered to the top to see the view of the square from above. It was really neat. Then I clambered back down to catch the astronomical clock at the top of the hour because my book told me that something cool happened at the top of the hour. Frankly, it’s overrated. Haha…This skeleton rings a bell and these two windows open and the 12 apostles file by looking disapprovingly at all the people to tell them not to be vain, greedy, or Turkish. (No joke, this is what our tour guide said. Apparently it was because the Turks had invaded Prague at that time and they were seen in a really bad light, but still…) The little show thing really was less than impressive, but the astronomical clock itself is way cool. It was put together in the 1400s and it still works. I don’t understand how it works exactly, but it shows the position of various stars and the moon and stuff. It’s interesting because the earth is in the middle of the design on the clock and everything else is around it. This clock, that still works, was built in the time when they still believed the earth was the center of the universe!!! AMAZING. That kind of makes the little apostles play thing more impressive since it was from 1400-something... The famous church on the square is the Church of Our Lady before Tyn. It’s the very gothic church with the two spires set behind the very baroque buildings on the square. It’s a really funny juxtaposition. I couldn’t get in the church, but I’m sure it’s beautiful inside.

From the square, I followed Karlova street to the Charles Bridge, one of the most beloved sights in Prague. It’s this really old, really long bridge that goes over the river and was really quite a feat of engineering back in the day. It was built in the 1600s and it (obviously) still is in working order. It was unfortunately under construction when I was there, so I couldn’t get the full effect of the huge statues that are spread across it, but it was still a wonderful place. There are vendors that line the bridge making portraits, and caricatures; selling paintings, jewelry, little ceramic flutes, etc.; and playing music. It’s just an incredibly charming atmosphere, although it was awfully crowded and the construction efforts on either end took away from it slightly. The Charles Bridge is really cool, though.

From the bridge, I walked to St. Nicholas Church (where I was asked if I wanted to hear the Verdi Requiem that night—had to say no. Already had tickets for the evening…). This church is 18th century and really, really opulent. Honestly, though, I liked it a lot. This is the church on the skyline of Prague that has the big green dome. From St. Nicholas, I started up Nerudova street to get to Prague Castle.

I say started up because it’s basically the steepest street I’ve ever seen. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it is terribly steep and terribly long. I am embarrassed to admit that I was TERRIBLY winded when I finally made it to the top. Haha…It’s a cute street, though, with a lot of baroque palaces lining it. Okay, that’s from the book. There are a lot of houses there, but honestly, they weren’t impressive enough from the outside for me to have called them palaces, but apparently they are. Haha… Next stop, Prague Castle. I went into the castle compound and first toured the St. Vitus Cathedral. It’s the most important church to the country because the crown jewels are kept there. I couldn’t find them though. I don’t think they’re on display for the public. St. Vitus is an almost overpowering old gothic church. It’s very somber and beautiful and stately. And HUGE! The stained glass in there was also really beautiful, and it the light came through in such a way to make the walls look all colorful. It was really neat, actually. There’s also a huge tomb made entirely of silver for a saint who was thrown from the Charles Bridge after being killed for something. The whole huge tomb thing with all these sculptures of angels and stuff around it is made of silver! The audio guide said the number of tons of silver that went into it, but I can’t remember exactly. (The audio guide was BORRRRRING…) Anyway, after St. Vitus I took a look at the palace, but I couldn’t get in because of some construction or something on the second floor. Apparently there was still a way to get in, but I never figured it out. Bummer. Apparently there’s this really huge room in there where they used to have jousting matches. That must be a pretty big room. Haha… St George’s Basilica was the next stop in the castle grounds. This place is from the 900s and it’s got the Roman look to it: pretty neat. I walked down the Golden Lane which is where the castle guards were permitted to build these teeny tiny little houses that are pretty cute, but I can’t imagine living in any of them. After that, I was all castled out, so I headed out.

I walked down to Wenceslas Square and looked in some of the shops and had some dinner to kill the time before my show. Earlier, when I was walking to the Powder Tower I passed the box office for the State Opera of Prague. Out of curiosity I went in and asked what was playing that evening and if there were any tickets available. I fully expected that even if there were tickets available that they would be way too expensive or that it would be some opera that I had no interest in seeing, but no! It was Madama Butterfly, and I bought a ticket in the first row of the second balcony with limited view (but if I leaned forward I could see the whole stage) for the equivalent of 8 dollars!! Unbelievable! Anyway, after I ate dinner, I headed over to the opera where I was shockingly underdressed. People seemed to understand, but I felt sort of uncomfortable. I also felt gross because I’d showered in the morning on Thursday, but then I’d gone to class, spent 15 hours traveling, and then walked around Prague all day. I felt all grody, but Madama Butterfly was beautiful. I’d never seen it, and I didn’t even really know the story. I do know that I love Puccini, though, and that was enough to get me there. My goodness, it was beautiful. It’s funny because compared to the Lyric, for instance, the sets were awful. The set was very minimalist. Honestly, it looked like a set that Mr. Stevens would be able to put together for a PHS show. He puts together fantastic sets, but they couldn’t hold a candle to the Lyric. The stage hadn’t even been painted and all the marks were just there in tape for everyone to see. It was kind of funny. But the music was so beautiful. The woman singing Butterly had a lovely voice and she really carried the show. It’s a heartbreaking story, really, and I bawled like a little baby at the end (of course…)haha…

After the opera, I walked back to the tram stop where I could jump on the 22 to get back to the hostel. I got back around 10:30 or so, gathered up my stuff from the locker room and headed upstairs to (finally) get some sleep and take a shower. I was in a twelve-bed dorm, but there were only two other people in it. As I said before, the place was pristine and lovely. The two guys in the room were these 27 year olds who didn’t know each other before. One, Matt, was traveling before his MBA program starts in the fall. The other, Albert, was traveling before starting a job with an investment firm somewhere in Africa. It was sort of funny that they ended up in the same room. They were going out, but I was way too exhausted so I went to bed. They came home around 4 and woke me up actually and then we all sat around talking for an hour or so. It was really fun. In the morning when I was packing up my stuff to go, Matt was in the shower room shaving and that was when I received my strangest-ever hostel request. Haha…Matt had forgotten his mirror and needed help shaving his neck. Really hilarious.

Anyway, I headed out with the intention of doing the second half of the “Best of Prague in Two Days,” tour which includes all the Jewish sights in the Jewish Quarter. Unfortunately, I am a huge fool who forgot that Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. Everything was closed and I saw NONE of the Jewish history stuff that’s there. Bummmmmer. So I moved on to the next tour that I was going to do that day, the “Gardens of Mala Strana,” tour. This tour is put together to help the reader find these slightly hidden gardens in Mala Strana. So I set off. These are beautiful gardens, yes, but I think I’m terribly spoiled after living in the Netherlands. The gardens in Prague are Baroque style gardens with statues and fountains and everything, but they’re just not Keukenhof. Haha…They are pretty incredible though in that they are terraced and it must have taken a great deal of planning to get so much landscaping into such small areas. It was nice to walk around a bit.

After I had had my fill of Prague’s gardens, I went to find the John Lennon Peace Wall. It’s a big wall filled with graffiti. After John was killed in 1980, and during the communist period, citizens of Prague started protesting using this wall and graffiti art as the media. It’s really something to see. Some of the art on the wall is quite beautiful, and it’s strangely moving to see so many Beatles’ lyrics painted up like that. My book says that the secret police tried to wipe it out and stop the graffiti writers, but that every day the wall would be covered with messages extolling Lennon over Lenin. Pretty neat.

After the wall, I decided to head to this park that the book said was really nice and just relax for a while. It’s called the Kampa park and it’s right on the river. The weather was so beautiful the whole time I was there that I wanted to be indoors as little as possible. I just dropped my stuff in the grass by this big tree and laid down and enjoyed the sunshine. It was really nice. There were tons of people doing the same thing in the park and it was terribly relaxing. When I was too hot, I got up and walked back across the Charles Bridge where I had my caricature drawn by a really nice guy who has been doing caricatures and portraits on the bridge for 20 years! It turned out to be pretty funny. ☺

At this point, it was about 3 pm and I wasn’t sure what to do until my train left at 6:30. I wanted to stay outside, but I had walked all the sights on Friday already. So I found one of those tour offices and asked if they had any offerings for the late afternoon. Luckily for me, there was a boat tour down the river with a small walking tour component at the end. It would take about two hours and started at 3:30. Awesome. The boat tour was nice. It was relaxing and the tour guide sat with me and told me all sorts of neat stuff about Prague’s history. I learned a LOT on the tour. After the boat tour was over, our tour guide walked us back to the old town square via the Jewish Quarter. I was thrilled because she gave us a bunch of history on the Jewish Quarter that I felt like I had missed out on because of my poor planning and ignorance. She showed us the one corner of the cemetery that can be seen from the street and told us all about the synagogues and the history of the quarter. She was very informative and also very nice. I had a great time with her.

At this point, it was time for me to make my way to the train station for the looooong trip back to Maastricht. Luckily, it paid off for me to have only booked the seat on the way back because I had a row of three seats to myself! Hooray! There was a really nice old man in the compartment with me who spoke no English and we had a very pleasant journey. I was able to lie down on the seats and sleep like a normal human being. It was awesome. Just one creepy thing happened, I was sleeping and I woke up all of a sudden to find this slightly creepy looking 30 something man in our compartment. Now nice old man and I were the only ones who had reservations for this compartment so I was already weirded out. But then, as soon as I woke up and looked at him, the guy left our compartment all sheepishly. Thank GOD I woke up because in retrospect I feel like he was casing our compartment for stealing stuff. I had my bag locked closed, but I don’t have a big enough lock to lock it down to the luggage rack, so it was just sitting next to me on the floor. He could have easily taken it and that would have been terrible. So anyway. For the next train trip, I’m definitely buying a bigger lock to lock my bag to my seat so that I can rest a bit more easily. Oh, and all that Eurail pass garbage happened too. Since the dumb conductor marked the 26th on the 24th, it looked like I didn’t have the 26th written in on my pass. So this other conductor was trying to be helpful and before I could stop him had written in the 26th in another calendar box! AWFUL. Basically, he just stole one of my ten travel days because when you make a mistake on those things you can’t fix them. You just have to live with it. So then I was upset because I have all of those days planned out. But it ended up working out because when our train got into Cologne, I ran to the Eurail help desk that’s there (it’s the closest one to Maastricht) and explained what had happened. They told me that normally that’s a “too bad so sad,” situation, but for some reason they drew in a new box for me and validated it so that I could have my day back. I’m SO glad.

Basically Prague is a fantastic city. Terribly romantic (even though I was there alone…haha) and classic and timeless. I just love it. When I go back when I’m older, I want to make sure I get to go into the Jewish Museum and I also want to see the ruins of Vysehrad Castle (the original seat of government there dating back to the 10th century). But I really loved Prague. This weekend was definitely my favorite weekend trip yet. ☺ We leave for London on Tuesday!!! Woohoo!!

A wed wose, how ordinawy...

18 April 2009

Today Betsy, Michelle, and I took a day trip up to Keukenhof to see the garden when the tulilps were actually blooming. We planned to leave the guesthouse at 6:45 am so that we could spend as much time as possible up there because we also wanted to go to the Hague and Delft. I was running a few minutes late, so we didn’t really leave until 10 ‘til, but then I realized I had forgotten my wallet. So we ended up being on the road around 7 am. It worked out fine. We didn’t miss our train or anything.

We got into Leiden Centraal where we were catching the bus to Keukenhof. There were SO many people! The line was really long. We had to watch two busses come and go before we got on the third one. That was nothing compared to how many people were actually at the garden. It was incredible. When Mama and I went in late March, she took a picture of me at the top of the windmill and there was maybe one other person up there. When we saw the windmill, it was completely full of people at the top. No one could move freely up there. It was nuts!

But the tulips! My goodness!!! They are unbelievable. The garden is so beautiful with the tulips in bloom that it’s almost hard to believe. Michelle was saying that she didn’t want to look at them too much because it would almost make them less amazing. I didn’t really feel that way, but I can see where she was coming from. They’re so unbelievable at first, but then they’re everywhere for the couple of hours one is walking around in there and you start to think that they’re normal. I love it in there. I would have loved to just stretch out on some grass and read all day, relaxing in the sun. It’s an amazing place.

There are so many different kinds of tulips, too. There are HUGE ones and tiny ones. A million different colors, ones with pointy tops, ones with the rounded tops, and ones with tops that look all ragged like that paper that you get wet and then tear off at the wet edges. It’s amazing to think how many types there are out there.

When we left the garden around 2pm, we decided to skip the Hague because we thought that the museum with “The Girl with the Pearl Earring,” would probably be closed by the time we got there anyway. So we went straight to Delft because we all wanted to see if we could get some Delftware for our relatives at home.

Delft is such a cute city! It reminded me a lot of Amsterdam with the way the city was set up. There were canals and everything too. Delft’s canals were gross looking and didn’t smell amazing, though, so I don’t imagine they get cleaned out once a week like the ones in Amsterdam do. But Delft is incredibly charming. I really liked it. We walked around and tried to find the Delftware factories (all of which were closed) but we did find a few shops that were open still selling it. We each got something, but it is SO expensive. I figured it would be, but it was hard to see it on a pricetag.

After we found our souvenirs, we went to dinner at a place called Billy Beers (Dutch for bear I guess) that is a chain. Each Beer restaurant has a different bear as its name, and they’re all over the Netherlands. The food was really good and really reasonably priced, which was awesome. For 10 euro we got a big chunk of meat and two sides. It was like the US! Hahah…

After dinner, we made it back to Maastricht around 11pm, exhausted and ready for bed.

....well, to tell a family secret, my grandmother was Dutch

20-27 March 2009

So, I woke up at the crack of dawn (actually far before dawn) to catch the first train out of Maastricht to Amsterdam so that I could meet Mama’s plane at the airport in Amsterdam at 8am. Crazy! I made it to Schiphol and met up with Mama without any problems. Yay! It was amazing to see her.

We grabbed a cab and headed out to our Bed and Breakfast, aptly called Treetops B&B. The name is apt because the rooms are on the fourth floor of the building and are only accessible by a very narrow, rickety old staircase. It was quite an adventure to try to get Mama’s two giant suitcases (one of which was for me full of goodies from home) up the stairs, but we definitely made it. The B&B was super cute, though. Once we got everything upstairs, Mama grabbed a quick shower and we were off to explore Amsterdam.

The first thing we did was walk downtown. We went through the big garden in the middle of the city. It’s really beautiful with paths and green grass and small ponds. There were also these gorgeous mansions on the one side that we had fun looking at. Our first stop was the Van Gogh Museum. Starry Night was there, so there was a special exhibit going on that was amazing. I love Van Gogh SO much. Mama likes him, but she really enjoyed the Rembrandts more. The whole museum was different from the last time I was there because of the special exhibit. They had borrowed pieces from other museums to make this whole floor of the museum based around night and Van Gogh’s portrayal of it in all his stages. It was really cool.

After we looked around the museum for a while, we grabbed some lunch in the museum restaurant (surprisingly good and reasonably priced). After we relaxed for a minute, we headed out for the Rijksmuseum where all the Rembrandts are. We ran into Grayson outside of the Rijksmuseum and got to spend some time with him too. Mama really loved seeing those paintings. It still blows my mind that people can paint so perfectly. I mean, those pictures are perfect likenesses of their subjects. Honestly, they look more like photographs than paintings. Mama and I are kind of opposite from one another in art taste I guess. I love the Van Goghs and would gladly decorate my house with only Van Goghs. Mama likes and respects the Van Goghs, but wouldn’t hang them on her walls. I am just that way about the Rembrandts. They’re amazing, and I have so much respect for Rembrandt and his students for being able to create such amazing pieces of art, but I wouldn’t want to look at them every day in my house. Mama loved the Rijksmuseum, and I felt terrible because I had to rush her out of it because of our next stop.

We had planned to do a bike tour of Amsterdam that afternoon, so we had to book it back to Centraal Station where the tour was to start. Turns out, the starting point which was “outside Centraal Station by the tourist office” was harder to find than it seemed. Centraal Station is actually a really long, big building and the view of the tourist office was obstructed by some sort of construction stuff. So we ran around and around trying to find the tour guide. Finally we ended up at the bike rental place and they told us the tour guide had just walked out. They actually were able to flag him down, but he couldn’t run the tour with just two people. There had been another two people there earlier, but he had sent them away because he didn’t know we were coming. So that was kind of a bummer that we missed it, but we decided we could just do it the next day instead. So we cut our losses and went into the tourist office to figure out the rest of our plans. We got our tickets for our canal tour and for our tour of Keukenhof and then headed out again.

So we decided to walk over to Anne Frank Huis where the Frank family lived during WWII. It was a lovely walk through the city. The canals are really quite beautiful and the buildings are really unique. We made it to Anne Frank Huis, and waited in line to get in. That place is definitely worth visiting. It’s amazing to see all the background on their hideout and who was helping them and then to actually see the tiny rooms in which all those people were living. It’s unbelievable to think that they lived there as long as they did. It was a hard place to visit at times because it’s just so heartbreaking that none of the family survived except the father, but I was really glad we went. There was some weird exhibit on the way out where people were supposed to vote on freedom issues to see how people think about freedom. We stayed there for a bit, and then headed out again.

We ran back to the B&B to drop off the things we had purchased, and by that time it was getting close to our canal tour. We had decided to go on the pizza cruise that went through the city. It took off from the canal behind the Rijksmuseum and originally we were the only people on the tour. This giant boat was going to run just for us, and we felt kind of silly. Eventually, they got two other groups to go too. The pizza cruise wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for. We were expecting a tour where they would tell us all sorts of things about Amsterdam, but really they just gave us pizza (Domino’s—haha) and ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s—haha again) and all the wine we could drink and left us to our own devices. It was fun even though it wasn’t what we were expecting. All that wine probably helped on that front. We talked and looked at the houses lining the canals and had a great time. Mama kept noticing all the bookshelves in the houses. There were tons of built in gorgeous bookshelves in all the houses. We could see this because almost every house or apartment had huge picture windows on the front and very few of them had curtains. The ceilings were also super high inside. Mama thought that that might have been because of how big the Dutch people are on average. They wouldn’t want to be cooped up in tiny apartments with low ceilings. Anyway, the pizza cruise was a lot of fun. Afterward, we headed home to our B&B and went to sleep.

The next morning, we got up in time for our bike tour and even made it to the place on time without incident. There were six or seven people on the tour and it was really fun. Our tour guide, Alex, knew a lot about Amsterdam and had a fun sense of humor as well. I was a little nervous on the bike at first because riding in Amsterdam is treacherous because of all the bikes and cars and pedestrians. We made it, though. We got to see most of Amsterdam on the bikes. Every once in a while, Alex would stop and explain some site to us or tell us interesting stories. I was so glad that we got to hear from him because there were things I never would have known otherwise. For instance, there are hooks at the top of all the buildings and Mama asked him why. As it turns out, all the houses in Amsterdam have those narrow crazy staircases and it makes it nearly impossible to move furniture in. The hooks are there so that the movers can get your stuff up via a pulley system. Alex also told us a story about how the women of Amsterdam staged a really strange protest. There are free urinals on the streets of Amsterdam for men to use. The women got angry that there wasn’t any free place for them to pee, so one Saturday in the sixties, a couple hundred women all went to this one bridge in Amsterdam, lifted their skirts and peed all over the bridge. They said that they would keep peeing on bridges until there were free places for women to pee in the city. Amsterdam responded quickly to the protest and built a whole bunch of free toilets on street corners. Unfortunately, they were all closed and boarded up in less than a year because junkies were using them to shoot up more than women were using them to pee. So now they’re basically just used as advertisement space. The bike tour was awesome.

After the bike tour, we had to book it to the Keukenhof tour starting point. Keukenhof is the country’s largest garden and the flowers and everything inside are so beautiful it almost seems fake. We jumped on a bus from downtown Amsterdam that took us to the garden about an hour away. The tour guide on the bus gave us the kind of tour we were expecting on the pizza cruise. As we drove out of Amsterdam, she pointed things out and explained them and talked about various historical facts that pertained to what we were seeing. It was awesome. It was also really cool because she was outrageously talented. She would say the information in English, Dutch, Spanish, and German each time. Crazy! We got to Keukenhof around 3pm and the bus was set to leave again at 6pm. We thought three hours would be plenty of time to wander around, but it turns out that we could have spent twice that. The garden is HUGE, with different sections each named after a different member of the royal family. The crocuses were all out and gorgeous all over the park. The tulips weren’t quite in bloom yet naturally, but they had a big greenhouse where they had artificially gotten some of them to bloom. It was amazing. The flowers were so vibrant and I just took pictures like it was my job. There was also art throughout the park and there was even a zip line thing that I did at one point. There is a part of the park with a big old windmill, and Mama and I took some pictures of it and on it. It sits in front of a HUGE field of tulips that wasn’t quite blooming yet. Mama took my picture on the top of the windmill in front of the field where the flowers weren’t quite blooming and when I go back again in late April, I will take a picture in the same spot, but with the flowers in bloom. Mama thought of the idea and it should be a pretty cool effect.

Our time in Keukenhof was over way too soon and we jumped back on the bus. We both slept a little bit on the way back and then decided to go to this Chinese restaurant Alex had told us about on our bike tour. It’s a giant boat that was made to be a replica of restaurant in China. The Dutch wanted it to be so similar to the one in China that they hired the same Chinese architects who built the original boat to build the new one. They asked them to make it so that it could fit something like 2000 people. When the boat was completed, they had a big opening gala, and all the important Dutch people were invited. The Queen was on board along with the other 1,999 people when the boat started to sink. The Chinese architects had built the boat to hold 2000 Chinese people, not 2000 Dutch people who are significantly bigger on average. The problem was fixed, but I thought that was a pretty amusing story. Mom and I walked over to the restaurant and it was really nice. The food was amazing (although ridiculously expensive) and the wine was really tasty. There was even a sommelier! In a Chinese place! It was a bit different from Chinese restaurants at home. Haha…After dinner, we went back to our B&B and went to bed.

Sunday we decided to just spend a little time in the city before heading back to Maastricht. We went to Madame Tussard’s wax museum, which was neat. There were wax figures of all sorts of celebrities including Barack Obama, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Tom Hanks….Pretty much anyone you could think of. It was neat. I’m not sure it was worth the amount they charged to get in, but it was really neat. After the museum, we watched a street performer do an escape from a chain and straight jacket. He was okay; he talked too much and performed too little, but it was funny at times. After that we decided to head back to Maastricht. Unfortunately, then I got into a weird funk because they were working on the tracks to Maastricht so we had to change trains twice and I forgot my awesome bottle of champagne at the B&B. We got ahold of Gisele, the lady who runs the B&B, and she said she’d hold it for us until we got back to Amsterdam Thursday night, which was great. But I was definitely in a funk.

We made it back to Maastricht (after 4 hours…changing trains really adds to the length of that trip) and met a couple of friends on the way. This guy from Belgium was on the train. He had his little daughter with him and he was running for the train and just kind of threw his bike and bike trailer thing for this daughter to sit in and his daughter on the train as the doors were closing. He tossed his daughter to me and ran back to get the bike and for a minute we were just on the train with his kid and I was holding the train doors open trying to make sure he could get on. It was crazy. Anyway, when we got to Maastricht we went to The Guesthouse to drop off our stuff first. It was seven or eight o’clock and Mama skyped Eddie and Tiff and then we headed to the Preuverij where we enjoyed some delicious soups and sandwiches. After that, we squeezed into my tiny bed and went to sleep.

Monday I had Organization Design from 9-10:30, but I found out that my class was canceled on Thursday! Great news! After class we hung out around Maastricht for a bit, but Mama’s foot was bothering her so we just chilled in the room for a while. Mama read a bunch of books over the week when I had to go to class or whatever because it rained the whole time she was in Maastricht (what a bummer). We explored a bit on Monday afternoon as well. We saw the Sint Servatius church on the Vrijtof. It was a little creepy because there were a lot of relics in the church. Mama had to explain to me that relics are pieces of dead saints and that is just grody to me. Also, the organist was playing the world’s creepiest music, so it was just strange. Hahah…Monday night, though, Mama and I headed to the Jazz club!! I was so excited to show her what I do on Mondays. She really enjoyed it. We drank and listened to the music and talked. I sang Summertime and Fever, and Mom got to meet all the jazz club people. It was really fun. I am so glad she went even though it was so late.

Tuesday I had Inter-cultural communication from 4-6 and I had to give my presentation. So Tuesday was a little bit stressful just because we had to prepare our presentation and powerpoint and then do the presentation. It went fine. Mama walked to class with us and read in the lobby while we were in class. She went out walking for a while, too, and made it back without getting too lost. Yay Mom! We grabbed some dinner at Preuverij again (it’s so good!) and then Mama and I went to see a movie at the Lumiere art theatre. It was Last Chance Harvey and honestly, it wasn’t that good.

Wednesday we wandered around Maastricht in the morning before my Dutch class and Mama helped me study for my Dutch speaking exam which was that day. We also went to the hot chocolate place where you pick your flavor and they bring you a cup of hot milk to melt your chocolate chunk in. It’s delicious. Haha…After class, I showed Mama my favorite park in Maastricht on our walk to the train station. We walked over the river on the walking bridge, which is really cool looking. We also went into a church on the other side of the river that she had said she wanted to go into. We then jumped on the bus to Aachen to have dinner in Germany. Unfortunately it was raining and freezing cold and we couldn’t find the restaurant we were trying to find. Eventually we just went into an Italian place and had dinner then headed back to Maastricht.

Thursday we woke up and hung around the room for a while reading and just relaxing. In the afternoon, we headed back to Amsterdam on the train (and had our discount card taken away because it had Kyle’s name on it instead of mine…bummmmmer). We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and went out into Amsterdam to have dinner. We found a really neat little Dutch restaurant by the Leidsplein and had hodgepodge, which is just a giant pile of mashed potatoes topped with some sort of meat mixture. It’s actually pretty tasty. After dinner we walked around a bit, and decided to go see this comedy show called Boom Chicago. It’s just like Second City, but in Amsterdam. They had a whole show based around the differences between Dutch and American people. It was really funny. We had a great time, and met a fantastic couple from South Africa at our table. We walked back to our hotel by the train station after the show and went to bed.

The next morning, we went to the airport for Mama’s flight, and after she took off I headed back to Maastricht. It was a whirlwind week. I had more schoolwork to do the week Mama was here than I did in the whole rest of the semester, but she was cool about it. I wish it hadn’t been that way, but there was nothing I could do about it. I love it here so much, but it’s going to be nice to have my family near me again when I go home.