AMSTERDAM AND BRUSSELS aka: July 23-24, 2011

This weekend was amazing to say the least. I had such a blast the entire way through. I will say that Amsterdam did beat Brussels, but I enjoyed both of them immensely. So after getting to bed Friday night around 12:30 am, I went to sleep for three hours and then got up to get ready for Amsterdam. I had to get up so early because we had to leave for the train station at 4:40, and I had to run to the ATM to get money first as well sigh. To say the least, I was extremely tired lol. But everything got off without a hitch, and it was all great. We got to the train station, and then ended up finding two of the only open seats we could see on the train going to Koln, which was where we were supposed to transfer. It was nice sitting in an awesome seat. The ICE trains are way nicer than most of the other ones. They have like head pillows attached to the seats. How amazing is that. I slept the whole way to our transfer. We ended up having to run to our next train, but we made it in good time. The trains when we were actually in Holland were way better. Like so incredibly nice. And all the people were WAY nicer too. German people in general seem more cold, while Dutch people were way friendly and awesome. We got there, and we started walking around town. I love Amsterdam. It was so....quaint. I think that is a perfect word to describe it. I loved seeing everything there. The houses were really tall and thin or different colors. Then there were canals everywhere. It kind of reminded me of venice, except that the canals are far less winding, and they make more sense. There are tons of floating houses on the canals that look like motor homes that float. it is quite hilarious and adorable. A lot of them have like gardens and/or tables and chairs on top. Some of the houses were odd because it looked like they were leaning into the house next to them. Like they were falling over and got caught by the other houses. The first thing Mary Beth and I did (we were the only two) was make our way to the Anne Frank House. While we made our way there, we stopped at little shops and just looked around the town. I loved all the blue and white china that they sold everywhere. In the first shop we were in, I of course knocked down a stupid glass thing and broke it. So lame. This is the first time I've had to pay for something I broke though, so I guess I had it coming. I bought lots of stuff though. The Anne Frank house line only took us like an hour or so to get through, so it wasn't that bad. It was like really sad, and emotional to go through that house. I was kind of disappointed that it wasn't furnished, but her father in the 60's didn't want it to be furnished. I think it may have something to do with that it wouldn't be the authentic furniture since that was taken. But it had models of the rooms and what they would have looked like. In each of the rooms of the house, they had quotes from Anne Frank's diary and what each of the rooms was used for. It was really sad. I read Anne Frank's diary when I was very very young, but I had forgotten like that she wanted to be a famous journalist and that she was rewriting pages in her diary with the purpose of future publication. I think it is crazy. I guess her sister Margo wrote a diary too, and they just never found it. i think it would have been interesting if at the end of it all both of their diaries would have been found. it would have been interesting to see the two different perspectives. The coolest part of the Anne Frank house was probably the bookcase that kept the entrance to their annex secret. The bookcase was like not completely covering the entrance of the door, and so the wallpaper was put over the front of the door. It was so cool. I cried at the end, when it showed pictures of them and then what concentration camp they were taken to. I was so sad when I looked at the pictures of Otto Frank and Edith Frank. They were in love, and they were separated at the end of her life. Can you imagine what that would be like? It would be so hopeless and alone. No wonder so many of them died, not just the horrible conditions, but being so completely alone. It would be hard to find something to live for. After the Anne Frank house, we needed something lighter, so we walked along one of the canals and went to the IAmsterdam sign. You know the tourism places are always marked with an i for the information. Well, IAmsterdam is amsterdam's like special slogan for their tourism stuff.The sign is pretty cool. On the way there we saw lots of Coffee shops. Coffee shops in Amsterdam are a lot different than they are in America. Coffee shops in Amsterdam are the only place where weed can be sold really. It is very interesting. They are all decked out in this like hippie stuff, and walking by them, all you could smell was weed. bleh. We even peaked our heads inside of one, and then saw that on the tables they have paper to roll joints with. So interesting that it is allowed like that. The final big thing we did in Amsterdam was go to the Red Light District. Yes, this is kind of weird, but Amsterdam is famous for it so we had to check it out. It wasn't quite dark yet, so it wasn't as gross I guess as it could be, although the street didn't look quite as cool without it being as lit up. There were so many sex shops on the street. Along with this, there were tons of buildings that had women dancing in the windows. If they were occupied, a curtain was pulled over the windows. If not, then the women were dancing with not a lot of clothing so they could attract a male. I can't believe something like that is legal anywhere. Goodness. By the end of this, we were super tired, so we went on our three hour train to Brussels. I slept a lot on the train, although when we got there I figured out that our check in date on our reservation for the hostel wasn't correct. Um.....we were like. wtf. I really hope this print out is wrong. We walked to the hostel when we got there, and right away we walked into the middle of this like huge fair with rides and everything. It took us a while, but we finally got there. It was true sadly. We did book the hostel for the wrong day. Thank goodness they had room, but we had to pay like 10 more euro than we would have, and we lost our 6 euro deposit. I guess all things considering it could have been a lot worse. like not having a place to stay. And this place was really nice. It was called Hotel Van Belle. And best of all.....it included BREAKFAST! And not just any breakfast, this was like the motherload of breakfasts. There was cereal, juice, coffee, bread, cheese, fruit, etc. So many things. I was so excited. I ate quite a bit. Then it was time to explore Brussels! I loved brussels a lot, but Amsterdam was better. Brussels didn't have people that were as nice, and they spoke French which was interesting. We went around the main square, which had all these really old buildings that had gold on them. It was really cool. We also went to like the gardens and the king's living place. Also, the parliament building. The best part of Belgium though by far.....was the Waffles! Omg. I can't even describe how absolutely amazing the waffles were. I had a waffle with strawberries adn chocolate drizzled on top. Amazing. I wasn't aware though that Belgium was such a large place for fine chocolate. But there were basically as many chocolate shops as there were places to get waffles. Which, trust me. I was not complaining. Amsterdam was also more unique than Brussels. A lot of the buildings reminded me of lots of other places in Europe. But still cool. We didn't stay in Brussels long, and then we took a trip back to our lovely home in Stuttgart. It was really nice to get home finally (yes, i have started referring to this as home). We got here in Stuttgart around 8pm, and then we were able to relax for a while before our manditory meeting. At this meeting, we found out that we are getting four new camp adventure staff from somewhere in Germany. They are going to be working at the CDC. They are going to find out withing 48 hours of leaving their site that they are coming. I would be so pissed if I had done camp the first year and been moved so close to the end especially. I don't see why they are moving people who will only be here for three and a half weeks. It seems utterly pointless. But whatever. Had an amazing weekend, got to know Ms. Mary Beth better, and had an amazing time.