April 28, 2010

So, I have been traveling around Europe for the past 3 weeks. First I visited Anna in Ulm, Germany, birthplace of the White Rose resistence group, and home of the tallest Cathedral in the world. Of course we climbed all 700+ steps. I took pictures from every level to try to show how we were getting higher, but it didn’t really come out. At the very top we got stuck, since people were trying to circle the top in opposite directions, all moving towards us.

Next I went to France, first visiting Katie in Aix en Provence, where they are having the coldest temperatures ever! We tried to go to the beach one day, but couldn’t go in the water. I dipped my feet in a little, but it was really cold. We also took a boat tour of the Colanks (HUGE seaside cliffs).

After my visit with Katie, I went to Paris, then to Bruges. I fell in love with Bruges. It was weird seeing such a huge percentage of people on the streets walking with maps and obviously having no idea where they were. The Flems don’t seem to smoke past the age of around 15. I also found that after waking up at 7, eating breakfast and walking all day, a beer in the sun with a book is a perfect 5pm activity. I’m still amazed at how much European’s drink. While in Paris, we each had 3-4 glasses of wine with dinner every night.

I was sad to leave Bruges, but there were other cities to see, so a group of us headed out in the early morning to spend the day in Brussels before heading out to our next destinaitons. We went to the bar who is the current holder of the Guinness world record of number of beers to be purchased (or maybe number of beers on tap, I don’t really know or care). At the bar we met a couple of very drunk Belgians. Both men were probably in their mid-forties, and kept screaming “you know, here in Belgium we have a saying… do you want another drink, or do you want to fuck!” Everyone kept saying they just wanted to drink. The city of Brussels sort of gave me the creeps, so I walked quickly through it to the train stations where I journeyed to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The first night, my roommate from Ireland was staying with a friend who offered to put me up as well. We made dinner (a dutch specialty of white asparagus, scrambled eggs, and bread and butter). The next day I wandered around Rotterdam, which really just meant finding a park, making a picnic, and sitting and reading all day. Then I went to Amsterdam, not originally part of my travel plans. I wandered around the city for 3 days. The first day, until I got myself oriented, I kept wandering into the red light district, which freaked me out. The first time I was caught completely unawares, I thought I had been heading away, when suddenly I looked at a store front and saw a mostly naked woman holding the window curtain open with one hand. This disturbed me much more than I thought it would, so I started walking quickly to leave the district, when hoards of people in red jerseys streamed out of the bars into the streets, singing Hava Nagila. I was so confused I forgot my shock of seeing prostitutes in windows, and stood to watch the football fans proceed to sing. The ENTIRE street joined in. Where did the Dutch learn Hebrew songs, and why???

Rotterdam hostel