Semana Santa Traveling Adventures :)

Our first destination: Amsterdam

Day 1:

On Thursday morning Elena and I went to our cultures class at 11 for about 20 minutes before meeting up with the 5 other girls we traveled with; Eileen, Amy, Randi, Tayler and Brittany. Our flight left Sevilla at 2pm, but we had a connecting flight in Barcelona... Which happened to have a 6 hour layover! While we had to wait around in the airport for a long time, it wasn't all that bad; Barcelona has a huge airport filled with so many shops that it's practically a mini-mall--clothing stores, souvenir shops, duty free goods, various restaurants and more. While we waited, we walked around, ended up eating both our lunch and a snack, relaxed and planned our plans for Amsterdam.

On board the flight, most of us decided to get a soup and sandwich for dinner (they actually were pretty cheap!)... Though this sounds like an odd detail, I thought the sandwich was absolutely delicious; something that is probably not very typical of "airplane food". I must say that the "cup of soup" that consisted of some sort of powder and hot water didn't exactly hit the spot, but I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious the sandwich was (whole grain bread, lettuce, roasted red peppers and pesto--from a homemade bakery from Amsterdam)--I had been expecting the worst for airplane food.

Our flight took off at 9:30 at night, so we didn't arrive in Amsterdam until 11. We then wandered until we finally were able to find the right train to take us to central station, found a nightbus and followed Elena's GPS to our hostel, "Hotel AnnMarie". I wasn't exactly sure what to expect at this hostel since a) I had never stayed in a hostel before and b) their rating on hostels.com wasn't that amazing. The only thing that sketched me out a little was that the guy behind the desk first told us when we walked in after 1am that we came too late, and that he had given our room to someone else...but then when Randi mentioned that she had talked to someone on the phone about our late arrival on Tuesday, everything was all of a sudden "okay" and we paid the rest we owed and got our room key. Odd. After that, we made our beds and got ready to sleep as quickly as possible since we were so unbelievably exhausted and anticipated a busy day on Friday.

Day 2:

On Friday, we accomplished visiting and completing most of the tourist attractions in Amsterdam. After eating our free breakfast (just cereal and bread with peanut butter, jam, butter cream cheese or a Dutch version of nutella), our first stop was into a coffeeshop. Everyone that wanted coffee already got a weak cup at breakfast, therefore coffee was not what we went to buy; in fact, I'm not sure if they even sold any coffee there. If you haven't been to Amsterdam to see it or you weren't aware that "coffeeshop" is just a code word for the hundreds (270, I believe) of places that you can go to buy and smoke weed or countless baked goods with weed in it. As our tour guide later explained to us, weed is not legal, nor is it illegal in Amsterdam... Basically it's fine if you smoke, as long as you adhere to regulations, and coffeeshops need to be certified in order to sell the weed (the funny thing is that it's also technically illegal to grow weed... But once again, it's something they don't bother checking up on). After smoking a couple of joints together (we had to do it for the experience!) we headed to a free walking tour of the city. During the tour, we also learned that it is very common for people to mistake the coffeeshops for their literal meaning, only realizing it's a code after they walk in, ask for a cup of coffee and then realize their typical/reasonable mistake they made.

The weed "menu"

A warning sign on the window of "Dampkring", a famous coffeeshop

 During the tour, we walked throughout the city; through the red-light district, to the Dutch East India Trading company, to the Jewish neighborhood ... I didn't realize until walking around on the tour how many canals the city has; apparently they have more canals than in Venice--the only difference is that Amsterdam has actual streets on the sides of their canals and their canals are circulated better and therefore do not smell bad like in Venice either. When we walked through the red-light district, we were told a story about why there is a church smack dab in the center of the area. Apparently the district began as an area for the priests' mistresses to live, but then the area began to attract sailors. Just as sex out of marriage is a sin nowadays, it was back then as well; the idea behind the church was that the sailors would be able to confess their sins immediately after, in case they died at sea. (many priests charged for a letter that stated their forgiveness). I guess that Amsterdam really is a business-oriented city as our guide explained: supply in demand is present in both the red-light district and represented through the proximity of coffeeshops and fast food restaurants throughout the entire city. The other thing that somewhat shocked me about the red-light district was the girls that were actually behind the windows: while I had been expecting to see gross, fat and unattractive women working their windows, they were all in pretty good shape (not too skinny or fat) and were all pretty looking. Our tour guide explained that similar to the regulations for weed, prostitution is also regulated by the police, which allows them to work on their own, not be pushed onto drugs or deal with pimps and can work safely and independently (since they can report anything to the police). Our tour guide also told us that after World War 2, the Jewish community was completely destroyed and burnt down, but the city didn't bother to fix it up until the 1960's, when new architect students were assigned the plan.... Hence the reason the Jewish district is smothered with hippie colors and styles. An additional spot that we saw on our tour (with the exception of the countless bikes--there are almost as many bikes in Amsterdam as people!), we also entered into an old secret Catholic community with a church inside and everything. It seriously looked like an ordinary door.

Later on that night, we had a quick dinner at a Mexican restaurant (which was a COMPLETE rip-off) and headed off to a pub crawl. We went to six different bars/clubs (we skipped the last one because a couple people wanted to go back and sleep) and got a free beer/wine or sometimes a shot at each place... and got a free T-shirt to remember it. It was a pretty fun time!

Day 3:

On our last day in Amsterdam, we tried to do anything else that we still wanted to do, but mostly ended up walking around since our flight was that night and we didn't want to chance being late for our plane. The only "big" thing we did that day was visit the Van Gogh Museum, which was interesting, but after awhile was just too much and got repetitive.. which I'm sure is normal after having visited so many museums and cathedrals during the semester!

Complete photo album: 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1828357543824.2087779.1086870495&l=a4276f8ce4

Destination Number 2: Prague

When we finally got to Prague, it was already dark. Our flight landed around 9 PM and we found the night bus and got to our hostel by 11ish. Although there may not have been as much to see in the dark, I was in awe of the beauty of the city when we arrived. To be honest, Prague was unfortunately the city that I was least excited for (even though I have Czech heritage!); while I would probably travel anywhere just for the experience, it was not a place that I had expected to love and enjoy as much as I did. One of the biggest reasons why I think I loved it so much was the medieval "vibe" I got from being there. While the city has been renovated and can be considered modern, the architecture still gives off the feeling that you are stepping back in time--especially when you look at the gorgeous, ancient Charles Bridge over the river, with the castle in view... or the famous astronomical clock on the bell tower in the center of the city.

Day 4 :

view of one of the markets

The next morning, after having arrived late, settling in and calling it an early night, we headed off to another free neweurope tour at 11 (after eating the free breakfast they offered.. nothing special).  We walked around the city and were brought to some historical and famous places, including the astronomical clock, the Charles Bridge, the Jewish neighborhood, the only example of Cubist architecture in the city and saw the concert hall where Mozart used to perform. We were also introduced to an amazing bagel shop, called Bohemia

at the top of the hill

Bagel, which reminded me of the place in Boston that Tante always takes us to (I forget the name!). After the tour was over, we were on our own for the rest of the day. As I am looking back at my photo album from Prague, I'm actually a bit shocked to see how much we actually did in just one day; after the tour, we walked to the castle, saw the chang
ing of the guards, walked to the top of a huge hill (possibly the tallest in the city?) and saw the beautiful view over the city, walked to the John Lennon wall, shopped a little, and headed to their AMAZING Easter market for dinner.

John Lennon wall

the bridge, river and castle!

Seriously, one of my favorite parts of being in the city was probably the market. Although the Easter market is only around for about a month every year, I am so glad that we happened to be there during it. I love markets! It had traditional Czech foods and pastries, hot wine (which I had never tried before and LOVE) and homemade "craft" goods such as jewelry and hand-painted egg ornaments. This, of course, also gave the city a more medieval feel. That night, I ate some Klobasa and dark bread in honor of Dad and Opa, who I wish could have been there with me to enjoy it! (and after had some kind of fruit cobbler/tart pastry that was delicious as well) After dinner, we headed to their "Beer Museum", which was basically just a restaurant with a menu offering numerous types of beer (with descriptions), and you ordered which ones you would like to taste... I had a few sips of my friends' beers, trying to enjoy it, but unfortunately still really can't call myself a beer drinker at all. It was a cool experience though! On a side note about the beer, while I was there, Dad had told me to be sure to drink some Stella Artois and Pilsner Urquell for him, which are abundantly offered in the Czech Republic... later when I got back to Sevilla, one of my friends that had studied marketing told me that Stella is really the equivalent of BudLight in Belgium... AKA, it's not their best beer, but the reason it is so well-known and loved internationally is due to the way it is marketed! If you were to go to Belgium, it would not be the beer that the "locals" would drink! Interesting, huh?

After finishing up at the beer museum, a few of us headed over to another recommended bar, called Harley's...as in Harley Davidson... let's just say we were almost the only girls inside, other than the bartender! Also, there were 2 bachelor parties going on inside, we found out. The one comment I have on our visit to this bar is that there must not be any law, or atleast enforcement of it, to public exposure. There was a guy that decided to strip down to a suspender-thong, dance around, re-dress, and repeat... almost constantly! It was interesting that he was never stopped or anything. We stayed at the bar until we realized how drunk everyone else seemed to be...

Complete photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1828504027486.2087852.1086870495&l=ddbb7f5f55

Final Destination: Paris

Day 5:
On our last day in Prague, we bought tickets to see inside the Jewish region of the city (the temple, cemetery, etc) since the Jewish community in Prague was so significantly impacted by Hitler and the Holocaust. We walked around for awhile, ate dinner in the market again and had an early night since our flight to Paris was at 6 AM (and we were leaving the hostel at 3 AM)...

Our 5th day traveling clearly had an early start. With our early flight, and the long conversation with the man that was in the same room with us in the hostel (he was French-Canadian, so we were asking him what to see in Paris since he already visited, etc), I was running on virutally no sleep... I got about an hour worth of a "nap", I guess. We arrived in Paris and took a train to the center of the city, found our hostel pretty easily and arrived there before 10 AM. We couldn't check in yet, so we dropped our bags off and found a nearby cafe that our hostel manager (?) recommended to us before we headed off to another free neweurope tour.

I am going to be completely honest now; I have been getting lazy with writing my blog, therefore I have no motivation to mention every single thing we saw and did in Paris.. It was a LONG day. Our tour was the longest one out of the 3 cities we visited, starting at 11 and lasting until about 3:30, where we then headed over to have a lunch/dinner until 5ish. Afterward, we headed to the Eiffel Tower, took pictures below, climbed as high as we could, and Randi and I ended up buying tickets to take the elevator to the top. It was about a 45 minute walk back to our hostel... had we known this and not thought that we were located reasonably closer, we may not have decided to walk all the way home, after an entire day of walking and no sleep! We were starving by the time we got to our street, so we each grabbed something to eat, and went to bed, planning another early start the next day.

view from the tower!

Here is the link to my first album for Paris, I basically documented everything we did/saw:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1830317312817.2088498.1086870495&l=2774683db7

 

Day 6:

the hall of mirrors

outside the Palace of Versailles

The next morning, we woke up early and grabbed some breakfast (I got an egg and cheese crepe!) and were off to see the Palace of Versailles. Having been exhausted from our week-long traveling adventures, we "only" spent a few hours there. We walked around the crowded palace (I can't imagine how crowded it is in the summer...), tried walking through as many gardens as we could and even got some sorbet. After Amy and Tayler decided they were too tired to walk around anymore, we took the long walk back to the entrance, through the city, to the train back to Paris. Our plan was to walk around the city a little bit, but after attempting this for a little, we decided it was best to just take the metro back to the hostel until we went out for dinner and a riverboat cruise later that night. The riverboat didn't really help me learn anything new, since the lady's accent was almost impossible to understand, but it gave us another pretty way to view the beautiful city.
Day 7:

my idea of the perfect French breakfast :-) with the exception of crepes!

It was finally our last day of traveling... while I was loving everything I was seeing, I feel like I wasn't getting much time to relax, let alone breathe.. I was excited to be able to go back to Sevilla and relax. We woke up early again, headed to see Notre Dame and then went to another region of the city, Monmarte (?), where we saw the famous basilica, Sacre Coeur, an art market and Moulin Rouge. We walked around and ended up getting lunch at a delicious bakery that makes everything fresh (Randi works at a cafe based off of it in Wisconsin) and then headed back to the hostel to grab our suitcases and catch our flight "home".

Here's the second album for Paris:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.1830434915757.2088528.1086870495&l=d8eca4a879

Our trip was really fun and while I wish I were more descriptive, the pictures show everything we did. Some day I hope to go back to these places with friends and family, as I thought of many people specifically when I was in each city. I am glad I took the opportunity to travel to these places, even if my wallet is more empty due to it :-P