Amsterdam

I feel like most Americans that have gone to Europe have made a point to stop in Amsterdam.  I got an e-mail towards the beginning of my trip from my friend Andy who said that he, his bother Scott and Scott's girlfriend Meghan would be in Amsterdam following a family wedding - I decided that I should go and see what it's all about.  I met Andy and Scott, also from Columbus, my senior year of college, and we often tailgate together if we all happen to be home for the same football games!  So needless to say, it was nice to spend some time with people from home after being away for so long.  The only sad part was that Andy's girlfriend Bobbi wasn't there as well :(

We did do quite a bit of sightseeing in Amsterdam, including the Van Gough museum and the Anne Frank House - but there were two things that we visited that I enjoyed the most:  the Bols Gin Distillery and the Heineken Brewery :)

Now, I'm not normally a gin drinker, but I must say - I really enjoyed the Bols experience and how interactive the museum was.  Basically you take a tour through various rooms that test your senses that affect taste.  Then at the end you get to taste various flavors of their gin - I had blood orange and watermelon, yum!

But I think the best part of the Bols tour was that they had a "flairtending" booth where you could practice your best moves a la Tom Cruise in Cocktail.  And luckily, I happened to get Andy's attempt on video :)

[My WiFi isn't strong enough to load the video in my current location - check back]

The Heineken tour was also a lot of fun and incredibly interactive!  I had never been on a tour of brewery before, and now I'm not sure I could go on another as it might not live up to this one!  Easily the best part of this one (besides the free Heineken) was the portion they called "Brew You", in which you get to live the life of a Heineken beer.  They called this a 4D experience, and it reminded me of those "rides" in a movie theater with moving chairs from Cedar Point - very fun!

And obviously, since we were there - we had to check out what the Red Light District was all about.  It's hard to describe in words, and they don't let you take photos - but just hundreds and hundreds of windows with girls in them along the various streets waving people to come into their room.  It was slightly awkward, especially when you saw someone trying to negotiate - but hey, to each his own!

All that said, there was one poster that I liked the best that I think summarized Amsterdam quite well:

I think my favorite (although, this was a tough call) is the Beer + Cone = Cone on Head :)

Brussels

Brussels wasn't originally on the list of cities that I had hoped to visit while abroad.  That said, I stopped there for the evening on my way to Amsterdam to save some money on flights.  Luckily, my friend Chris has been living there for three years and happened to be in town!

The plan when I got in was to drop my bags at his office in the city center and walk around and get a quick tour of the sights.  When I arrived, the weather was possibly my least favorite kind -- chilly with rain that's almost like mist so umbrellas are useless.  So you can guess that our preference was to skip the sightseeing and instead go see what Brussels is really all about.  We went to a beer hall with a menu that looked very similar to a phone book, with thousands of beers to choose from!  I'm certainly not a beer expert, but if I were - I would have been in heaven there I think.  I let Chris do the ordering.

Overall, my time in Brussels was rather uneventful - with the exception of one thing.  Chris, who had to leave very early the next morning left a key in the door for me on the inside so that I would be able to come and go the following day before my train.  What he wasn't counting on is not being able to unlock his door from the outside when there was a key in the other side.  Please see below the following sequence of events:

(1) Chris tries for 10 minutes to push the other key out of the lock with his key

(2) We go to the pub on the corner and ask for the number for a locksmith

(2a) Waitress laughs at us for thinking there would be a locksmith working at that time of evening (note: it was 11pm)

(2b) Bus boy suggests that we call the police to have them break down Chris' door

(3) Waitress agrees to give us a series of bobbi and safety pins so that Chris can attempt to pick his own lock

(3a) Chris tries this for 15 minutes with no luck, although I must say, it was amusing to watch

(4) Chris considers jumping out the window in the hallway and trying to break into his apartment that way

(4a) Idea quickly dismissed after looking at the drop down from the window

(5) Chris makes series of phone calls and finally  finds a locksmith to come out

(6) Locksmith opens door in less than 30 seconds

Switzerland: Again

When I started my trip if you would have asked me "will you go to a country more than one time?", my answer probably would have been no.  Even further, after being in Zurich earlier on my trip and realizing how expensive Switzerland was -- I would have said it was even less likely that I would have returned to that country.  But, that is exactly where I went after Prague.

My friend from New York, Hendrik, has a house in the mountains and was kind enough to invite me there for a few days to relax.  The mountains in Switzerland were absolutely breathtaking on the ride in the train up to his place, although - I will say there were times the train seemed a little too close to the edge for my comfort!  

Unfortunately, my first day there I wasn't a very entertaining guest as I had stayed up the whole night before in order to catch my bus to the airport in Prague at 5am.  Many of you may have experienced "Tired Amy" before, it's not necessarily my best side - sorry, Hendrik!  We had planned on a lot of things to do while I was there for those two days, they included:

(1) Riding along with Hendrik during his golf tournament 

(2) Hiking in the mountains

You can probably guess that neither of these happened, for a few reasons:

(1) I slept through his tee time (in fact I think I must have slept 14 or so hours that evening - a much needed rest!)

(2) It was raining the entire time I was there (I am sad I didn't get to hike through and see the mountains, although - no one would call me an outdoorsy person, and thus it may have been for the best so I didn't come back with a broken leg or something!)

So instead we spent much of the weekend watching movies - which was exactly what I needed.  And this started after Hendrik was appalled by the fact that I had never seen the Karate Kid.  I didn't realize that this was such an injustice - but apparently I was wrong.  

I felt very relaxed after a weekend in the mountains, and then luckily Hendrik escorted me back to Zurich to catch my flight early the next morning (while I'm getting better at navigating in foreign countries, trains still confuse me).  And Hendrik thought that there would be no better send off from Switzerland than going to a beer hall and having a sausage.  Now, this wasn't just any sausage - this thing was massive!  Between the two of us, we shared a half meter long sausage - and I really wish that I took a photo of it so you can grasp how much it was, but I forgot.  But I did remember to take a picture of the restaurant sign!

Prague 3: TYW Reunion Part 2

On my last night in Prague, I met up with Jia and Georg from The Yacht Week for yet another TYW reunion!  Just another reason to go on TYW again - you meet so many great people!

After catching up on recent travels and where we were going next, it was time for us to go to a pub for a drink.  Jia had been in Prague the longest and thus was voted the navigator - and was doing quite well, we just happened to be fairly far from where we were going.  And so, Georg was starting to get a little impatient and suggested we stop on the next place that we saw.  We may have been the only people in the bar, but it was still good fun - especially when Georg put the "useful phrases" from my hostel map to work, telling our bartender that he had "beautiful blue eyes".  You can guess that Georg's drink was filled a little higher than ours!

I have also further solidified my thesis that if you carry around sunglasses in your purse (particularly fun colored ones), you are immediately cooler and people want to be your friend.  This was proven when Jia all of a sudden said: "I wish I had sunglasses", and what do you know?  I had two!

Then of course, the bartenders decided to set the bar on fire, because, well - why not?

Prague 2

One of the first things I saw when I checked into my hostel in Prague was the following on the wall:

This is something that the Czechs seem incredibly proud of as it was mentioned at least 4x on each of the guided tours that I took.  And I can see why they have that distinction, there's certainly not a lack of nightlife in Prague!  

Budapest may have been my first hostel, but in Prague I took it a step further and stayed in one of the mixed dorm rooms.  My time in Prague may not have been the same without some amazing people - thank you: Chloe, Graham, Greg, Rich, Tom, Paul, Alice and Hannah!  The best part in staying in a mixed dorm where the occupants are all younger than me?  Hearing the phrase: "There's no way you are 27!  You don't look older than 23-4!"...this never gets old.  When I was younger I hated when people told me I looked young, and my mom told me I'd enjoy it one of these days -- mom, you are correct, I love it.

(Chloe, Graham, Greg, Alice and Hannah - sorry I didn't have any photos of you all since my camera had died that first night!)

I even met a guy from Ohio that is getting a graduate degree at Ohio State!  We are EVERYWHERE!  So of course, we had to take the obligatory photos:

Prague 1

You know how sometimes you just "click" with a city?  It's just a feeling.  I had the same reaction the first time I went to NYC, and I felt it again in Prague.  This has always been a city that I've wanted to visit and have heard great things about.  However, as I've been speaking to people while traveling it seems that it also has another thing in common with NYC - people either really love it or they don't.  I, of course, am one of the former.

My first full day there I did two back to back walking tours - I continue to realize how out of shape I am when I was sore after just 7 hours of walking.  That said, I think this was probably the best of the free walking tours I've done - it really hit home how recent some of the history was.  For example, our tour guide told us that his grandfather had lived in 7 different countries in his life - without ever leaving Prague.  Now, I vaguely remember the text books changing to show the Czech Republic instead of Czechoslovakia, but hearing the actual reason and story behind it was pretty interesting.

How much I enjoyed the city is fairly evident in the number of photos I have from there.  I was there 3 nights and 2 full days and took nearly 350 pictures, none of my other stops (with the exception of the week in Croatia) have come anywhere close to that so far!  Below are just a sampling so you can get a sense of the city:

On my second day, I explored on my own and actually found myself at an outdoor beer garden inside old castle walls with  an incredible view of the city!  Also, the best part about it was that I was the only non-local there!  Love places like that, that said - my Czech skills are lacking a bit, so I once again had to point and act out what I wanted.

mmary of one of the most famous sights in Prague.  My first evening there, I got in with just enough time to really walk through the main square and have dinner before the evening activities began.  What I came across when I got to the old town was a huge group of tourists staring at the clock tower.  I checked the time, 5:54pm - so not having heard of this before, I assumed there was something really cool about to happen at 6:00pm.  So I waited.  This is what happened at 6:00pm:

When I took the tour the following day, it all made much more sense, but the guide did mention that it was ranked in one of the top 5 most disappointing tourists sights in Europe.  I think that's fairly impressive.  So what they did in the last few years was add a trumpet player at the end to spice the show up a bit - it worked, he got very loud cheers from the crowd below.

Lastly, I am glad that I am traveling alone - because I came across the below in a park while I was walking around.  I watched this thing for a good 30-45 minutes, what can I say, I'm easily amused:

Budapest

One of the first things I noticed in Budapest was how cheap most things were - specifically beer.  It was cheaper to buy a beer than it was to buy a pop or a water.  Besides that, Budapest actually was an amazing place and I was quite sad that I didn't spend more than two nights there as there was so much to do and see!

There were a few landmarks that I passed here, for example it was my first time staying in a hostel.  However, here I did stay in a private room, which ended up being about a 5 minute walk from the actual hostel.  That said, the "family dinners" were a great way to meet people and really forced me out of my comfort zone.  Those that have known me for awhile know that I've always been on the shy side and just like being a waitress helped break me out of my shell a bit, this did the same thing.  I've become much more comfortable talking to new people and really opening up -- this is huge for me and something that really started in the Budapest hostel that I really hope to take back with me to NYC in October.

This was also the first city that I had visited that I did a history tour.  Those that knew me back in school remember that I've never been a history person and was definitely more math/science focused (proved by winning the math award in high school - yes, I was that cool).  That said, actually seeing some of the sights for the first time and hearing the history behind them was very intriguing to me.  From this point on, I made sure that I tried to do as many guided city tours as possible to really get the most out of the cities that I'm visiting on this trip.

The city was absolutely beautiful and I saw some amazing sights, I have way too many photos to share here, but below are a sample:

One thing that I did think was pretty cool was that in one of the parks, they had a fountain that played along to classical music.  I'm easily amused and may have spent a good hour or so watching this fountain.  And I even took a video :)  It doesn't really do it justice, but I'm sure you can see why I was enthralled with it...or maybe not, but you would be if you ever go to Budapest:

Also, one of the highlights of Budapest was spending one night in the Casino, appropriately called the "Las Vegas Casino".  Blackjack is my game and for the most part, I'm quite lucky, so I thought "Why not?" when the people from the hostel went.  And sure enough, I was successful :)  I made about 20,000 HUF on a 500 HUF bet...now I was really excited when I counted all my chips and felt incredibly rich.  Unfortunately, I did the math and this actually only really equates to about $120...but still, it did pay for most of my stay in Budapest, so I can't complain too much.  I would like to thank my dad for teaching me the rules of Blackjack, it has served me well!

And finally, the last thing that stood out to me in Budapest was that the map I was given at the tourist office in the train station.  It marked every Burger King in the city.  Of all things that I wanted to see in Budapest, I can promise you that going to Burger King was not at the top of my list.  Or even at the bottom, for that matter.  That said, I did walk by one of the many and I love seeing what the various menus are in foreign countries, and I'm not going to lie - I didn't go in - but some of these items actually sound quite delicious!