amsterdam and germany

okay...the adventure has begun, and as promised mandy and i are going to blog our journey throughout europe. [and by mandy and i, i really mean just me]

it all began on june 16th after a sleepless night. we stayed up packing and chatting and double checking to make sure we had everything: including, way too many cosmetics. after all, we need to make sure we don't smell european ;) we arrived at the airport thanks to a lovely sister of mine, who selflessly woke up at 4am! upon waiting in line, we realized the first thing we forgot...a watch. this actually turned out not to be a problem because there are clocks everywhere in europe! okay so after a flight from san jose to atlanta, lay over, flight from atlanta to gatwick (london), layover, flight to amsterdam, we were ready to...sleeeeeeeep. lame, we know. but while in london we met 3 guys: leandro the bartender who doesn't serve cold beer (booooo) ian the scottishman who lives in cypress, and lionel the frenchman who lives in cypress and loves my accent. psh, i don't have an accent! hahaha oh and how can i forget the lovely flight attendant whose husband is a pilot for easyjet whom made us walk from the north terminal to the south terminal and then the south terminal to the north terminal in london all because she was a stubborn arse! Thanks to the wonderful information guy, we proved that beezy wrong! at this point, we came to our second conclusion...we definitely should have practiced walking with our backpacks. they are heavy!!!!!!

so now we have finally arrived in amsterdam! and we were in search of our hostel, the flying pig uptown. we cant remember how we got from the airport to the train station, but it's safe to say, we did. from the train station we thought it would be a good idea to walk to our hostel. bad idea. sooooo after walking aimlessly in circles, we went to the tourist information desk and bought bus tickets. no strangers to the bus, we hopped on board and made our way to the flying pig. this hostel was awesome! we passed out immediately, after we realized that we would be sharing our room with 6 guys. sweet. hahaha

we woke up and met texas, two aussies, and two guys who slept facing one another in the shape of a heart, precious. then we went back to sleep. waking up early on the 18th, we went and found a shower. freeeeeeezing cold water and very little pressure, it was awful. but the free breakfast-consisiting of orange juice, an apple and a croissant (and lunch, since we took an extra croissant and apple) were nice to have after having not eaten for over 20 hours. so our grand tour of amsterdam began with us trying to find coffee. note to anyone planning on traveling to amsterdam: the city does not wake up until 9am. including coffee shops- and no, i am not referring to hash houses, rather coffffeeeeeeeeeee shops that actually serve coffee. so after paying upwards of 10 dollars for one shot of espresso each we started exploring. we walked all over the city, through the park, went to the van gough museum and sent videos home to our parents (disappointed in not seeing starry night), and hit up the heinekin brewery: awesome!!! created some more videos there, totally embarrassing- they were music videos to a dutch song, need i say more? haha so after a very long day we retired for a siesta. texas thinks all california girls do is sleep. however, we did wake up, met our new roommates: the floridians- justin and jd. we rallied and went bar hopping. coincidentally, our first stop was our coffee stop from that morning and we made friends with 2 guys from denmark. 10 shots of jager for 10 euros: best deal to date. after some indecisiveness we made our way to paradiso, cut in line, and paid 8 euros each to experience our first discoteca: awesome. we danced, drank (but not much because drinks are expensive!) and finally left in the weeeee hours of the morning. again we woke up super early the next morning, packed and peaced out of the flying pig. awkwardness the night before with the flordians caused us to leave extra early! again we got on a bus and headed for the train station.

arriving 10 minutes before our train was to depart, we got our eurorail passes stamped only to discover we needlessly bought global passes when all we needed were select passes. lesson number 3. this particular train ride was jinxed. first, we had to deboard the train after only an hour in order to board another. then our new train was delayed. then the tracks ahead were on fire. mandy and i got off in Klön, completely impromptu. but really we got off because we saw an amazing gothic cathedral! carrying all of our stuff we explored this bustling city. after the cathedral, we found the shopping, but more importantly, the apple store. along our journey in amsterdam, we found an apple store and realized we could use the internet for freeeee! so, again we sent out a couple quick emails and pretended to be interested in the newest iphone. then it was off to the train station. again, we boarded the train and headed to frankfurt. summing up frankfurt: lame. aesthetically, it kind of reminded me of boston, but only when we were along the river. after walking nearly 2 miles to the hostel, we learned our most important lesson. always book hostels in advance. this one was full. the hotel the receptionist recommended was in sketchy town and 75 euros a night. as nightfall was rapidly approaching we bought bus tickets and headed to the next cheapest hotel recommended by our travel books. 60 euros plus breakfast plus it was called the memphis hotel. perfect. it was time to catch some zzzzz's.

the next morning we ate a wonderful breakfast, still no american styled breakfast but i did try my first soft boiled egg! we snagged an extra croissant and two packets of nutella, and did a quick tour of the main square and then hopped on a train to heidelberg. in heidelberg we walked to a castle! yes, our first castle!!! and our main conclusion: we want a castle. why did people ever stop building them? it was beautiful, amazing, picturesque and breathtaking. that took most of our day, so then we halled our butts back to the train station. on this train we met a group of germans (andres, johnny, time, and leno) celebrating a bachelor party, and they were so much fun! we made it back to frankfurt, picked up our bags, bought a bottle of wine, wine opener, and toothpaste and hopped on another train headed for berlin. we quickly fell asleep and arrived in berlin. again, we decided to walk to our hostel and again, passed out. we woke up early, ate breakfast, and are finally documenting our journey :)

quick stories thus far that you can ask us about when we get back: bubbled bikini, alexandra the flight attendant, opening the wine bottle, consistent diet of dutch cheese and bread, bachelor party, jd, justin, wrong adapter, failure of a calling card, toasted straightner, no cord for our camera. yes, that last one is correct. mandy didn't think we were going to upload any pictures until we got back. lame, i know. if we find one, i'll probably buy it but until then...no pictures to share with all of you. :( we miss and love you all and can't wait to continue our european expedition!