So much to see, so littel time

Yesterday morning we intended to started off very early but by the
time we get to the Notre Dame the line to go up to the top is huge. We
end up speading a really long time there waiting, but the view was
cool. I'm so sick of lines!

Afterwards we walked over to the Orsay museum wich was wonderful. It
is really interesting because it us all art from roughly the same
period but the are just do many styles. My favorite part was all the
great impresionist and pointalism. It is weird that on this trip I
have seen the same pieces more than once in diffrent museums like a
few Van Gohs and a rodin statue.

We got a bite to eat before we went to the Orangerie museum to see
Monet's water lilies. It was diffrent than I had expected because they
were four large murals in two oval rooms. It was still really cool.

After this I said good bye to Kevan because he had to go start his
long journy home.

On my own I headed to the Rodin museum and the army museum. I did not
make it to the army museum in time to see the actual museum but I did
get to see napolian's tomb. It was the deffinision of epic.

After this I talked to my parents for a while. Then I grabed a quiche
and croissant for dinner and headed home. Everone in my ten person
room at the hostel is really fun so it has been nice to hang with them
when I get back at night.

Today I started with a walk through and area called Marais. I went to
this really nice court yard and saw locals coming to chill or play
with thier kids. Victor hugos house was in the square so i checked
that out from the outside.

Then, even though kevan wrote that is was closed based on rick's
book updates, and even though the red writing in french on the web
site also made me think it was closed, I decided to go by and check on
the Picasso museum my self. Good thing I did because it was open! It
was half under construction so I'm sure the presentation is not as
good as it will be but it was still great!

Next I went to the Jewish art and history museum. It was good with
lots of really old Jewish artifacts, like manorha's and yads from all
over. The information was a littel more aimed to people who don't know
about jewish stuff so it was a littel hard to pick out the interesting
info.

After grabing a natella creep and a peach as a snack/ lunch I went to
the pompidou center. This is a crazy exoskeleton building with crazy
modern art in side. It was really fun!

When I finished there I went to the deporatation memorial, the
holocaust memorial, and got an Awesome falafel. I ate in a littel park
and then I caught the metro to La Défense area. This is a new
skyscrapper area which is all pedestrian ( the cars go under ground)
and it had modern arc de triomphe (la grande arche) that lines up with
the real one. I really enjoyed walking around thos area.

Lastly I went to the arc de triomphe and walked to the top. I was
there at the perfect time, right during the transtion between seeing
the city in day light and seeing all the buildings, including the
eiffel tower and the arc, turn on thier lights. I am exausted and it
feels so nice to be off my feet back at the hostel.

The city of light

After a poor night of sleep we got up really early again to catch our
train to Paris.

Upon arival we dropped our bags off at the hostel and headed out. The
theme of our time in Paris thus far has been poor timing. We started
with Rick steves' historic walk around the ile d' France and ended up
at the Notre Dame when the lines where horrendously long the next stop
on the walk, the deportation memorial, was also closed. Hopefully we
will see both of those tomorrow. Part way through the walk we stopped
for our first crepe in France.

After exploring we went to the louvre and saw all the allstar pieces.
The louvre was cool but I think it had too much in it. The building
itself would have been a tourist attraction with out all the art and
there is so much art packed into it that something that is such a
superstar piece is just so over shadowed by the Mona Lisa.

For dinner we went to Chez Agnés. A four table restaurant where the
food is cooked and served by this animated French woman. After a great
dinner (including snails) we went to the eiffel tower and watched it
sparkel.

This morning we got up early, again, to meet Kelsey, my friend from
the program in Spain, to go to Versailles. The transportation got a
little messed up and we ended up getting there at the height of the
crowds. I am very sick of crowds...
Versailles was pretty cool but mostly just for the historical
importance of the the hall of mirrors and the extensive garden. We
went into the town for a crepe lunch midday and I had steak tartare, a
dish with raw meat flavored with mustard.

After Versailles we were pretty pooped so when we got back to Paris we
got something to drink and people watched from the street side table.
It was great having Kelsey there but she had to head back to catch the
train to where she is staying.

The rest of the evening was just chill. We basically just went back to
the hostel and found some dinner around there.

Tomorrow is kevan's last day and I have 2/3 days in Paris by myself.

Brussels =Chocolate beer and waffels

Last night we ate our last meal in Amsterdam and went to bed early
because we had a really early train. I had a traditional meal, a dutch
croquette and french fries with mayonnaise and peanutbutter (much
better than it sounds). Kevan had shawarma...again. We finished the
meal with a Dutch waffle. This one looked just like a belgian waffel
with chocolate on top but it actually had huge sugar crystals inside.

This morning we got up at 4:45 to check out, walk to the metro, take
the train to the train station (while watching the sun rise) and catch
our train to Brussels. The train ride was about two and a half hours
and I slept for most of it. We finally got to Brussels at 10:15 and
headed over to our hostel. I'm glad we are only staying here for one
night because although it could be much worse, it is far from the best.

After checking in we walked into the center to find lunch. My first
impression of Brussels was thar it was the most american like city we
have been to because there where many modern buildings (hotels).
However the center was much more old school. The center square, grand
place, was surrounded by old guild houses that were rococo dipped in
gold. It was pretty cool.

After lunch we had a belgian chocolate feast! We went to several
chocolate stores (starting with the original godiva store) and tried a
few pieces of chocolate at each. Yum...

Next we walked around and found the oldest shopping mall still in use
and the emblem of Brussels, Manniken Pis, a fountain with a peeing boy.

Then we went to the only real "sight" we enter to see, the EU
parliament. I found it funny how cool it felt to be there even though
the European Union is not even part of my daily life. We were very sad
to find that the audio guides were not avalible because they were
being updated or some other bullshit. We ended up having a guide give
a shpiel to the roughly 80 person tour group. We only got to see the
lobby and the chamber of the parliament but it was well worth it.

Afterwards we went to stroll around the front of the royal palace and
garden near by. We also took a long detour on the way back to grand
place so I could take a picture with the 3 ft smurf outside the comic
book museum.

We found a "cheap" dinner on restaurant row and watched people walk by
as we ate at a street side table. In true belgian style I had a Stella
with dinner and a Belgian waffle for dessert (I was slightly
dissapointed with both)

Although our visit to Brussels did not entail anything super exciting,
it was a good one day stop and makes me appreciate how beautiful the
other cities were.

Last day in cannal city

Today was a much more relaxed day. We started out at the museum of
dutch resistance. It was all about how Dutch people rebelled against
the nazis. One of the things that really suprised me was the large
number of people who went into hiding (Jews and rebels) and the
networks set up to let this happen.

We walked down the road to a Jewish memorial set up in a destroyed
theater that was used as a holding for Jews being sent to camps during
WWII.

Next we walked over to the waterlooplein flea market. We walked around
and grabbed some shawarma/ doner kabab for lunch. We walked by
Rembrandt's on the way to the diamond factory. While waiting for the
free fifteen minute tour I tried the Danish waffle (it is more like a
Ginger bread cookie with a waffle pattern). The tour was quick but
informative and at the end I got to try on a dimond ring worth more
than 18 thousand euro.

After this we wandered through the Jewish quarters. The Jewish
quarters were destroyed at the end of the war because people needed
the wood during the record cold tempuratures and there was no one
living there. 15 years after the war they decided to rebuild the
destroyed area in a really modern style to symbolize the renvination
after the war. Now it just looks incredibly out of place to have funky
colorful chunky sixties architecture mixed in with the otherwise
uniform old school style of Amsterdam.

I felt like I have seen so much of the city and really got a good feel
for it. We got to do everthing we wanted to do and it was a very
sucessful and enjoyable visit!

God made the earth, but the Dutch made Holland

Last night we seccesfully made friends with six australians and two
Brits at the happy hour at the hostel. I'm constantly impressed by the
subtle cultural diffrences you can learn through conversation ( for
example, the aussies find it weird that every house does not have a
tall fence around it in the US)

This morning we got up and headed out to rent bikes. We rode around
Vondelpark, amsterdam's central park, for a while before heading over
to the museum area. The park is SOOO nice! It has weeping wilows
draping into ponds with bikers on a bridge in the background.

The first museum we went to today was Rijksmuseum. It has a variety of
things but it is most known for the Rembrandt collection, including
the milkmaid and the night watch (and many more).

When we left the museum Kevan was starving so we rode over to the
Albert Cuyp market and we ate at a yummy middle eastern restaurant.
The market was a huge street fair with stalls selling all sorts of
random stuff. It was fun to walk around and a good break from the
musuems because we went back to see the Van Gogh musuem.

The Van Gogh musuem was wonderful! They had a bunch of his self
portraits, sunflowers, and the bed room. They also did a great job at
explaining his life in conjunction with the paintings.

After the Van Gogh museum we decided to return the bikes so we would
not have to come back to this area tomorrow. Then we headed up to the
Anne Frank house. After waiting in line for an hour we got to go in.
It was a little unreal being there and realizing that these stairs or
that window are the same ones she was talking about in her diary.
There were also a lot of good videos with Otto frank, miep, and anne's
friend who saw her at the concentraiton camp.

On the way back to our hostel we stopped for Dutch pancakes for
dinner. It was basically like a big crepe and very yummy. Back at the
hotel we freshened up and then happened to run onto the aussies again.
We went with them to the red light district and just walked around and
people watched. After a successful but very busy day we made it an
early night and went home to sleep.

Dachau and the Dutch

Dachau was the most powerful experience so far on the trip. We opted
to do the guided tour instead of the audioguide to get a more vivid
presentation. Seeing the grounds, memorials, crematorium, and
recreated barracks was moving but as a personal FU Hitler I leisurely
ate some challah(ish) bread on the camp grounds.

It started to rain so we headed back into town to see the art museum.
Rick gave alte pinakothek two triangles out of three while the other
art museums got one so we decided to do that (even though I knew it
was a period of art that did not intrest me). It was cool for the fact
that it had a lot of giant paintings and pieces by Raphael, Leonardo,
and Botticelli. Although these painters are famous it is not the kind
of art that gets me going, so luckily the exhibit was short and we
rushed through the rain to the modern art museum for the last half
hour it was open. This is some place I will def have to come back to
because it is exactly what I love. We rushed through the design and
painting galleries so fast that I read all the signs too fast and
thought the title was the painter. I was getting really confused and
frustrated by all the paintings that screamed picasso but were by
other people. haha! Oops!

When we got kicked out of the museum we went back to the train station
to find dinner. We ended up walking all the way back to marienplatz,
the main square, and just having some pasta/pizza.

At 10:30 we boarded the train for the overnight ride to Amsterdam. We
were in a "couchette", basically a TINY little room with two three-
level bunk beds. Of course, kevan and I ended up in the two top beds.
I slept great (though Kevan could not sleep well b/c it got hot).

We arrived to Amsterdam gross and grumpy and had a hard time finding
our hostel. We got spoiled by the amazing public transportation in
Munich because it sucks here. Although not at the most convenient
location, our hostel is very nice. We checked in but could not get to
the room until two so we had to manage with a bird bath.

At this point it was 12:30 and we had not had anything to eat since
dinner the night before. We discovered Febo, the Dutch fast food
place. We had Dutch crochets and French fries with mayonnaise. Then we
went on the free tour with the same company as we did in Munich. Our
guide was crazy but again, it was a nice first taste of the city.
Afterwards we wandered around then got some carry out Thai food to eat
by the canal.

Amsterdam is gorgeous! I have never been to a canal city before so it
is a new kind of pretty for me. I really like it so far and I have
been very impressed with the live and let live attitude and the
historical events that demonstrate that (like the strike in 1941 when
ten thousand workers protested against the Nazis' decision to send 450
of their fellow Amsterdamers (Jews) to concentration camps) I'm really
looking forward to our next few days here!

Our hostel does not have free wifi so unfortunatly I can't update the
blog so easily but I'll do my best.

Update

This morning we are going to Dachau and if we have time we will go tho
the art museum before we take the night train to Amsterdam. I'm not
sure if that hostle has wifi so it may not be as easy for me to post
frequently.

Residenz and Nürnberg

Yesterday we started the morning at the Deutsches museum. It is a
science and technology type museum that we found a little
disapointing. It was pretty much all in German and was not too
intriguing. The one really cool thing was the german U boat.

We wandered around the city for the next hour or so. We bought German
sausage and fresh fruits for lunch and I bought a durndl!

Next we spent several hours at Residenz, the royal palace and the
treasury. It was a pretty epic place with crazy baroque and rococo.

We decided to head back to the tent with the intention of coming back
to eat dinner and talk to German people. On the way we came across a
big rally about Iran happening in the main square.

As you may have guessed we never made it back to downtown but it was
great because we ate german food and made a German friend at the
hostel. We learned about the mandatory civil service for males and he
was blown away by the fact that very few of our friends smoke
cigarettes. It was a good cultural exchange!

This morning we got up extra early to get on a train to Nürnberg and
headed directly to the Nazi sites. We started at the Nazi
documentation center, a museum in the uncomplicated congress hall
about the Nazi movment and how hitler got so much support. It was a
really well done museum with a great free audioguide but I would have
liked it if it talked more about Hitler's rise to power and less about
the Nazi rallies.

Afterwards we walked around the lake to see the rally grounds, which
is now a really pretty park scattered with Nazi relics and signs
explaining them. I was suprised by how unmaintained the sites were and
how full fledge soccer field were just built in the middle of them.

We headed into the old town where there was also a lot to see. It was
very quant with old style architecture, street market stalls, and
street performers. I loved the atmosphere but it took me a while to
realize that it may have been augmented by the huge music festival we
came across. Wandering around we found at least four stages showing
bands from all over in addition to all the amateurs set up on the
street. I was shocked by how international the food stalls by the
stages were; you would never find Indian food at a pop/folk show in
the US!

Our train back arived at nine and we atempted to go to the chineese
tower in the English garden to have German fish on a stick (I know,
right!) Unfortunately we made it too late and there was no fish and
not much else... A sausage and pretzel later and we were on the tram
ride home.