I AMsterdam

AMSTERDAM!

Well, I know what everyone’s perception about Amsterdam probably is – weed and the red light district. Annnddd you are absolutely correct. Hahaha, but really though, Amsterdam was actually a very pretty city.

This is going to be a short post because 1. We were only in Amsterdam for 2 nights 2. There is not much to do in Amsterdam 3. I will be skipping over many details

I know I said previously that London was the coldest city… I was lying. Because AMSTERDAM was FREEZING. The high was 20 and the low was 9. Degrees. Fahrenheit.  Brrrrr. We got to Amsterdam around 3, and we were already exhausted from the previous days in London, so we just chilled in our hostile (which was VERY nice btw. 30 euros a night, Hostel Van Gogh. BEST SHOWER I HAVE HAD SINCE I HAVE BEEN IN EUROPE). We were located in a good spot in Amsterdam, right near some restaurants and fun night life and about a 25 min walk from red light district. We got some dinner a bit later and went out that night. That’s about the most excitement I can blog about at this moment.

The next day, Saturday, we went to the Heineken Museum!! It was very similar to the Guinness Factory but it was BETTER! It was better because it was more interactive, we got more free beer along the way, and I did not mind the taste of the beer either! I definitely would recommend doing the Heineken Beer Tour if you are ever in Amsterdam! After the beer tour, we went to the Van Gogh Museum.  Personally, I thought it was a rip off because 3 of his biggest pieces (starry night, and some other famous ones) were not actually innnn the museum. But I guess it was still cool to see a bunch of Van Gogh art work. Wish I could have posted pictures but you are not allowed to have cameras in the Van Gogh Museum. After the museum we went back to our hostile and got ready again for the night. And we went out and it was fun (hahaha… I know, soo0o detailed).

The red light district is literally an area of roads with nakey women in the windows. There is a main road which I guess all the really good places to go are. You are not allowed to take pictures of the nakey women or else they will chase you down and break your camera or they will through a cup of pee on you. I kid you not. 2 min is all you need for the red light district. Btw they call it the red light district because literally, the windows are lighted by red lights. Clever.

That was Amsterdam – it was cool to say I went there but I don’t really have the urge to go again.

FUN FACTS

There are so many coffee shops. And by coffee shops I mean weed shops. You can buy weed, brownies, cupcakes, space cakes, cake, and other marijuana stuff in these coffee shops. If you want to go to an ACUTAL coffee shop you have to go to a “café”.

The Dutch are the meanest people we have met yet, right ahead of the Germans. The Dutch were rude, non-smiley and had a weird language that was too harsh and I just did not like them. Rude.

They should change the name from "Europe" to "Nothingisfree"

1. There are no free refills...

2. Water is more expensive than wine

3. You have to pay to use the bathroom -- .5-1 euro normally

4. There is no in-between with being starving and full or have-to-pee-so-bad-my-blatter-is-going-to-burst to comfortable. Literally, we are go go go that we dont have time to snack or to pee (apparently) So when we do get "hungry" we are STARVING and when we have to pee... let's just say I need to start packing more underwear with me on these trips...

10 points to USA on these topics -- atleast we got one thing right. free refills and supersized everything!! woo hooo!!

CIAO FOR NOW

Are your from LONDON?!

PART 2 of Hogwarts .. i mean LONDON!

The next day in London was also filled with many many activities to do! This was the actual “cultural” part of the trip and we had to see the BIG things. Like… BIG ben, parliament, the London eye, Westminster abbey, and the British Museum!!

So every major city we go to in Europe, there is a company that does Free Tours of the city we are in. If you have read my other blogs, you can see we have done these Free Tours in Munich and in Dublin. These free tours are walking tours and they take you to popular places around the city you are in, but the down side of these tours… they take FOREVERRRR. Literaly… 4 hour long walking tours. And I am allll for walking and getting that exercise in, but sometimes I just need to sit down and have a chocolate bar and just chill a little bit. SO the girls and I decided we would have our own personal walking tour!

To get around London, the best, easiest, and cheapest way to travel is the Underground! It’s just like the subway or metro in DC. So we got our Oyster cards (they are little cards that are like mini debit cards. You put money on the oyster cards and you swipe them to get through the gate things… like a subway system whatever.) Thank GOD I am travling with directionally functional girls because I literally would be LOST most of the time without them (shoutout to Kira and Katie!! – these girls are like our personal GPS system… but in human form.) SO we started off with traveling to see Big Ben. To my surprise…. Big ben is actually connected to parliament! Who would have thunk it?! Well, Tour Guide Kelly filled us in (my one friend Kelly was travling with us and she brought her Kindle while we were exploring London so every time we got to a new destination, she would Wikipedia the place we were at and then tell us allllll there is to know about that place. That’s why we called her Tour Guide Kelly. AND she talked in a british accent! 10 points for Kelly!) SO big ben parliament and Westminster abbey were all literally in the same square so we did not need to walk far at all (thank you baby jesus). Right around the corner, about 3 streets over, is the London Eye. The London Eye is basically a huge ferriss wheel that is decked out and really big and cool and if you buy tickets (14 pounds – I did not buy tickets because I can just google a bird’s-eye view of London…. And I am on a budget. I’d rather buy an invisibility cloak than spend my money on the London eye). SO next on the stop was the British Museum. Before we hit the British museum, we ate at a restaurant nearby…. Of course it was an Irish pub. I ordered a cheeseburger.

The British museum was large and in charge. And it was a huge building that kind of resembled what it would be like if you were inside of a very large marble. The ceilings were cool looking and it was just large and round. The only great thing about the British museum, beside the fact that it has a lot of cool old things from all over the world, is the Rosetta stone. The RS was a lot smaller than I thought—about the size of a 42 inch plasma tv.  It was nice to say that I visited this museum, but to be honest… we have visited so many museums, they are all starting to cluster together (annnnd we go to ANOTHER museum in Amsterdam… more to come on that later). So we ended with the bristish museum and made our way back to the hostel to get ready for the evening! Unfortunately.. we were in London during the weekdays… so we attempted at going out but there was NOTHING happening. All the “bars” and “clubs” closed early at midnight or 1, but we couldn’t even find these places in the first place so it didn’t really matter. London was not as poppin’ at night time compared to the other places -- that doesn’t matter because I am on these traveling trips for the culture aspect… right?

SO London was a pretty wicked place to be! We had a good time even though it was FREEZING – the coldest place I have been so far!

CIAO FOR NOW!

FUN FACTS

There is NO Mexican restaurants ANYWHERE in Europe. We thought that London would be a good place to find Mexican food and we wasted probably an hour a day walking around trying to find a Mexican restaurant. Even though we couldn’t find a Mexican restaurant, we found out they had CHIPOTLE!!! And of course we ate there… twice.

Pigeons I think where originated in Europe. Specifically LONDON. I swear, I have never seen so many dirty birds in my life. 

Excuse me, where can I find Platform 9 3/4?

ATTENTION: this is just Part 1 of my London blogging. Part 2 in theaters soon. (probably later today)

We finally arrive to the place where Hogwarts exist! And it’s okay to ask where Platform 9 and ¾ is!!! Well… I think so atleast.

After landing in London Gatwick airport, we had to get on a bus ride to take us to our hostel. Of course, the first experience we have on the bus ride is not necessarily a favorite of ours… Us being Americans, and girls, we tend to be quite loud wherever we go. All. The. Time.  So being our normal-volume selves, we are chatting away! This drunken old man in the very back of the bus did not seem to like this. He stumbled his way up to my friend, Kira, and told her that we had to get off the bus because we were too loud. Kira wasn’t havin’ this – she went to the bus driver and complained -- luckily the bus driver was on our side and told the man he needed to pull it together or get off the bus. 10 points for AMERICA! After our interesting 40 minute bus ride, we finally got to our hostel around 930pm. At this point, we were all so tired and hungry and tired and cranky and HANGRY (anger caused by hunger). We walked to a nearby Japanese restaurant and nom’ed our little hearts away. Back to the hostel we went and passed out. (I promise -- the next couple days were more exciting! READ ON!!!)

The next morning we had a big day ahead of us – Changing of the guards, High Tea (tea party), and Wicked! We started off in the morning with breakfast at the hostel before we set out to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guards.

After the 30 minute walk through London, we had to make a couple stops along the way for 2 main reasons. 1. We were lost and had to ask directions from every other person we passed by. I didn’t mind asking for direction because all the British accents are so WICKED AWESOME!! 2. There are Starbucks for dayyyys in London. Literally. Just like ‘murica, there is a Starbucks on every block. Also, they refer to major intersections of roads as “Circus” So we walked through Piccadilly Circus and a lot of other Circuses.. Circus’s… Circi? along the way (I think when they refer to places as “Circus” it is like amurcans referring to places as “Circles”…. Makes sense because every single “Circus” was literally just a circling of roads in a big open area….) Finally, we made it to Buckingham PALACE!! Unfortunately, Prince Harry was out of the country so my proposal to him will be on pause until the next time I visit London.

So, the Changing of the Guards. What is this? It is literally what it says. The guards rotate in and out every other day, and apparently it is really cool. False. It was kind of boring. But in theory… I guess it was nice to see it happen. There was a huuuuge crowd outside of Buckingham Palace just to see the changing of the guards (COG). Buckingham Palace is very beautiful too btw. All big and old looking with gold-rimmed gates. Definitely not Hogwarts but more like a Gringotts (if you do not follow Harry Potter, then stop reading now because I WILL be referencing everything HP from here on out). So all of us girls and guys are standing with the crowd surrounding the gates and roads outside of B-Palace waiting for the COG (changing of the guards, keep up!). Finally we see some horses and a long row of men and women marching in these long navy blue dresses (uniforms, but they look like dresses) and they are swinging their arms all big and they have big, tall, poofy black hats on (think of Marge Simpson with black hair, that’s what the hats looked like). They all walk inside of the gates. From then on, it was kind of hard to see what was happening, but I am guessing they were “changing of the guards” hehe. So thennnn it kind of turned into a little band show (think high school band). Another set of men and women in uniforms marched up the street toward B-Palace and was basically a marching band. They all walked inside the gates and set up their stands and instruments and just started playing music (about 20 band member). The first song they played…. LET IT BE by the Beatles. HAHAH! I was cracking up. They WOULD be playing Beatles songs. But it didn’t stop with that. The next song they played… wait for it… James Bond Theme song. I am NOT making this up. Whhyyy were they playing James Bond Theme song outside of B-Palace? I have no idea, but I liked it nonetheless. So that was B-Palace and the changing of the guards and it was kind of cool but kind of boring at the same time – all in all it was nice to see my future home where I will be getting married to Prince Harry next year. Invitations will be sent out shortly!

After B-Palace we went back to our Hostel to get ready for HIGH TEA!!! High tea is basically a tea party!! And of course me and my girl frands wanted to do this because we were in LONDON! So off to High Tea at 4pm. We got to the place, and it was sooo pretty and nice inside – quiet, clean, modern, fresh and quiet.. and quiet. Remember what I said earlier about us girls being loud… mhmmm. Well it didn’t matter because we were looking really good and tryna have some tea and crumpets! They sat us at our booth and already had the table set up. We had a menu and could choose which tea we could have. I asked the waiter what the most popular tea was and it is the Rosebud tea. I got that one. It was delicious! The way the tea pots are made, they literally put rose buds and other herbs into this small cylinder within the tea pot and then pour hot water over it and it filters through all the herbs and rose petals.  And we had tea! Other girls had peppermint, jasmine, and more rosebud. Right after our tea was poured, they brought out 4 tiered-platters (there were 11 of us girls there). Each platter had 3 tiers: 1^st were tiny sandwhichs (salmon, ham, curry, another meat) 2^nd was biscuits and jam, 3^rd was desserts – macaroons, brownies, and other british treats. We finished the platter in about 5 minutes. We are hungry girls who don’t eat much and when we have the opportunity to eat… we EAT. All this experience only cost 11 pounds! It was fabulous.

So tea time was fabulous and what better way to end our day then to go see Wicked on Broadway! Excuse me.. its not actually on broadway and I made that embarrassing mistake. 10 points from Gina. Because broadway isn’t in London… It’s just called Wicked in London I guess. Specifically Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. I have been to broadway shows before, 3 to be exact, but Wicked has so far been my favorite show yet!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! AMAZING! We got into the theater, all 20 of us (20 peopl went to London but I was mainly with 6 girls the entire time. One of the people was able to get a group discount for students. 17 pounds per ticket!). Lights went out and the show went on. If you do not know what Wicked is about, google it because it would take me days to write you out the story line.  We ended the night with wicked and made our way back to the hostel – we had a biiiiggg day tomorrow with site seeing!

So that was my first night and first full day in London. More to come soon! But I have to go to class and “learn” now… because that’s what I am supposed to be doing on a STUDY abroad program… right?

PART 2 of LONDON will be posted SHortly!!!!!!!!! 

Fun FACTS!

David Beckham posters are EVERYWHERE. I didn’t complain… he was super sized.. so everything was supersized.

People still think I am Brazilian

Starbucks everywhere

The Dublin Jail...

I just found out is called  Kilmainham Gaol. 

BTW, London and Amsterdam post will take me a while... hopefully should be posted by tomorrow!!!

DUBLIN? More like PUBLIN!

Dublin

**this text is in green because...welll... it's IRELAND!***

Off to Dubcity!! I was so excited to go to Ireland, mainly because I know my mother is obsessed with Ireland and it’s cool to make her jealous sometimes.. hehe jk. Anyway, this was the first time I was traveling via PLANE in Europe.

The cheapest flights you can take around Europe are through this airline company “Ryanair”. Tickets to Dublin were about 20 euros (not too shabby!).  Now… I am not a fan of flying in the first place, and when I found out that Ryanair is a cheap airline it did not sit too well with me because I wanted to make sure we were going to be flying safe and sound. Basically… Ryanair is the Greyhound’s of airlines in Europe. They may not have the best service but they will get you where you need to go. Ryanair is very strict about weight limits for checking bags. Bags HAVE to be no more than 15 lb or else you have to pay 40 extra euros. Me and the group of girls I went with went to go weigh our bags on the weigher-thing and low and behold… every single girls’ bag was overweight. NOT MINE! Because I am efficient. And I am too poor to try and spend an extra 40 dollars, excuse me EUROS, on a 15 lb bag.  Not to boast… but I did check my bag at 11.6 lb. BOOM! All the girls’ bags were about 17-19 pounds. So, right in the middle of the airport in front of the checked baggage area…. There are 5 girls on the ground pulling out shoes, clothes, ANYTHING, that would make their bags less heavy. I stood and watched them while eating some oreos (that Ryan shipped to me previously. Oreos here are either too hard to find or else way too expensive…). I am smart and definitely and an experienced world traveler by now!

We finally land in Dublin!! At this time it is about noon and we checked into our hostel --- The Four Courts --Bunk bed style, very cramped. Oooooh 6 girls trying to get ready in a 15 by 9 room….. yep. I already have a sweating disorder, but when there are 2 hair-blow dryers, 3 straighteners on, AND girls going in and out of the shower which then turns into a sauna…. Melting does not describe how much I was sweating. Let’s just say the Niagra Falls is located in two places… Canada and MY BODY. It was a worthless cause trying to apply makeup. Anywaaaaay after we got situated, we had to grab a quick lunch because I had to make my tattoo appointment at 4pm!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was by far the best experience ever!! (Getting my tattoo) !!! So we got to the tattoo place, Zulu’s, on time. It was a standard tattoo/pericing place… all the artists were tatted and pierced up. I checked in at the desk and the guy was just asking all of us where we were from. After we told him that we were from Virginia, he was silent and responded “Really?! Ha Ha Ha, I am from Alexandria, Virginia!” TALK ABOUT A SMALL WORLD! We flew all the way to Dublin and we meet someone from Virginia! I knew everything was going to be good from then on. I went to the tattoo place knowing that I wanted to get a 4 leaf clover. My mom is born on St. Patrick’s day, and it seemed only fitting to get a FOUR leaf clover (family of 4 – Lorraine, van, phil, and me and also for good luck) because I was in IRELAND DUH! I did not have a specific design in mind, but I had a good feeling the people of Dublin had some clovers they have tattooed before. I was right. My original artist, Duane, was backed up, so they placed me with Sean instead. BEST DECISION EVER! I was very lucky to have Sean because Sean is the tattoo artist for Green Day AND Xenophilius Lovegood (from HARRY POTTER!!). I was literally in good hands. Before I got my tattoo, I was feeling very jittery and nervous. Alexandria guy told me that if I wanted, I could have a beer while I got it done. Well… I sure enough took him up on his offer. Me and my girl friends all drank a beer. I got on the chair, was drinking my beer with one hand, my friend Katie was holding my other hand, and all of a sudden I felt a razor blade carve my skin (it wasn’t aaccttually a razor blade. But it felt like it!) Luckily, the tattoo only took 15 minutes!! Sean was done tattooing me before I could even FINISH my beer… such a shame ( I was drinking Budweiser…). SO that that was my tattoo! 15 minutes of pure pain for the best everlasting European souvenir!! You’re welcome, Lorraine.

After the tattoo, we all went back to the hostel and got ready for the evening. In Dublin, the best street/area to go to at night is this place called “Temple Bar”. Temple Bar is this long street filled with pubs and great live music! This was by far my favorite place I have been so far in Europe. Every single pub had live music with someone playing the guitar and someone singing. Btw, I thought the Germans could drink. HA! The Irishmen will drink the Germans under the table! I realized it is only acceptable to be drunk at 10am on 2 occasions. 1. If you are in Ireland/ are Irish. 2. If you are at a football tailgate. It didn’t hurt the fact that we were visiting Ireland during the biggest rugby matches Ireland was playing all weekend! Such a good time with good music and good friends!

The food was all pretty “normal”. I think Ireland and London definitely take on a lot of American style restaurants. Nothing particularly stood out. But the one thing I did have for the first time was FISH AND CHIPS! (btw… fries in Europe are called chips… EVERYWHERE. Sooo if I want fries I ask for chips and if I want chips… I still ask for chips. I don’t know.. its confusing. Luckily they know what I am asking for when I ask for fries) So the place we went to was the famous fish and chips! Literally, famous. They had a plaque on the wall of alllll the famous people that had eaten in their tiny tiny shop. From Sandra Bullock to U2 to Brad Pitt’s parents. It was cool. And deliciously fried.

All day Sunday we did a walking tour of Dublin. We were able to see this old castle place, Trinity College, Christ Church, this other old building, some green grass, annndd some cathedrals in the mix. Me and the girls broke off half way because we wanted to go see this really old jail. (Gah I wish I paid more attention to the history and what the names of everything is).. anyway, the jail was so cool!!!! The tour of the jail was about an hour and the tour guide was such a character. He as this old guy that looked like santa claus, but was legit and he knew his jail history. Sooo after the jail we went by St. Patrick’s cathedral and then walked back to our hostel to get ready for Super BOWLLLLL That night, there was one pub open specifically to cater to the American Football lovers (americans.) We watched 15 minutes of the super bowl. Go Giants!

On our last day in Dublin, we went on the Guinness Factory Tour! (beer). It was wicked cool! It was a self-tour and they walked you around 5 levels of how they make and produce beer. Only 4 ingredients! Water, barley, hops, and yeast. Something about a fermentation process and something else about letting it sit for a couple day…. Idk. All I know is that we got free beer on the way (not really free because I spent fricken 12 euros on this tour…). I have never had Guinness before… and lets just say the tour made it sound like it was going to taste amazing. False. Lies. Erroneous. Guinness tastes like Sh*t. I am sorry. But that is some nasty stuff. But I drank my beers anyway because I wasn’t letting that 12 euros go to waste. Oooohhh it was yucky beer. Then again… I’m not a big beer girl anyway. I like Natty Light….. you can see how mature my taste buds are. But once we got to the top gof the building, we were in a 360 cylinder room of glass overlooking all of Dublin! THAT was worth ATLEAST 9 of my 12 euros…. The last 3 euros went to the cute boys that were everywhere and the wonderful accents. (love ya ryan)

Before we left for our second flight on Ryainair (yes… another 30 minutes spent on the floors while girls tried to make weight… again) we stopped at this local shop that would print out the meaning and history of your last name on a scroll of parchment. So…. I decided I would step in and ask the man to look up the meaning of Weisner (my mom’s maiden name). Low and behold…. He had some info on weisner and it all came up in about 6 paragraphs. What makes this place extra special is that you can put designs and fun pictures on the background of the text. You see, my mom is obsessed with Ireland.  Some people may even say that she wishes she were Irish. (She really does wish she were Irish.  She wants to be Irish like I want to stop sweating the Niagra Falls every day) I thought it would be quite comical to have the man print off the history of the “weisner family” WITH a picture of Ireland as the background. Clever, eh? More like hilariously brilliant! What makes this story almost perfect is that I was then going to see if he could change the name from Weisner to… “O’Weisner”. I mean, nothing screams Irish like putting “o” in front of it! Sadly enough, the computer system wouldn’t let the change. So I settled with the history of the german name “weisner” with an Irish flag in the background…. LOVE IT!

Dublin was a great time! Even though it was rainy, the Irish accents definitely put everyone in a better mood. So far Dublin has been my favorite place and I would love to go explore other parts of Ireland in the Future!! Next stop, LONDON!!!!!

FUN FACTS!

1.       Irish accents are great when you can actually understand them. Some of these irish accents were so think, I may as well been in Germany because I could not understand them!

2.       Irish people are the nicest people I have met so far in Europe. It’s probably because they love their irish accents as much as I do which puts them in a good mood.

3.       Guinness is disgusting

4.       Even though predominately catholic (98%), there is no official catholic church in dub city

5.       Cheers!