Chinese fire drills!

Another day of driving for us girls. This time destination being Kelmis where Nathalie is living right now. It is right one the border of Germany and Belgium. We got a good start in the morning so we could get there at a decent time in the afternoon knowing it was going to take us about 6 hours. However we got stuck in MASSIVE traffic. We still aren’t sure why they closed the freeway down but we are pretty sure it must have been a bad accident because we saw a lot of police cars and ambulances at the end of the traffic when we were getting detoured. While we were sitting in traffic which was completely stopped by the way we made the most of it. We danced and sang at the top of our lungs with all the windows down quite a few times, getting very strange looks from our other car neighbors! There was a van full of guys next to us at one point and they proceeded to get out of their car and come to our window to tell us they were a bad and gave us all their cd demo for us to listen to. We popped it in and decided German rap/rock wasn’t our style, sorry boys! Much to Nathalies dismay Jenna and I partook in doing a couple Chinese fire drills while sitting in traffic too. Jenna did the first one and then we plotted together to scare Nathalie again and do a dual drill and both of us got out taking Nathalies stuffed animal monkey dangles hostage with us on the Chinese fire drill. She got it on flip video and its pretty dang funny! Once we got out of traffic we made it to Kelmis with no more interruptions. Once we got there we got to meet Alex and see the house Nathalie is staying in which is super cute and the town is really quaint. We all had dinner at a great restaurant in town and then went back to catch the end of the world cup game Germany v. Australia with some of Alex’s teammates. Alex is a pro cyclist and is on a team called NetApp. His teammates were super nice and were from all over the world and I may or may not have thought a couple of them were super cute haha. After hanging out for a while Jenna and I got on the road to make the trek to Brussels because I had to fly out in the morning. It was only an hour drive but it was our first experience driving at night as well as the first time it was just me and Jenna driving. Everything ran smoothly until the GPS decided to take us to the wrong location and detour us like 20 min. It was the exact same address with a slightly different zipcode, how ridiculous is that!! We got quite flustered like Jenna and I do but we managed to get out of the pickle we were in and make it safely to the hotel. Sad that the trip is coming to an end but had such a wonderful time with Jenna and Nathalie and cant wait for our next adventure!!!!

Junge Erbsen!

First real day in Berlin! We decided to do a walking tour of this city so we could learn the history and walk around the city. It ended up being a really great temperature for walking around, it did rain a tiny bit but not too bad. The tour ended up being so great and we loved our tour guide! It was a 5 hour walking tour which at first I thought would be a really long time ( I know I know how pathetic of me) but ended up going by sooo quickly. There is so much history in Berlin and it was fascinating to learn about the Berlin wall and the division of east and west Berlin. We started in former east Berlin and were shown how there is still construction going on from the devastation of all the bombing in Berlin. He also showed us how many of the buildings that did survive had the characteristic “drab” grey and brown colors on the buildings which was common in communist east Berlin. I had no idea that 68,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Berlin during the war. We got to see some of the buildings that did survive and you can see the bullet marks on the stone work still. We were told how in 1933 there were 165,000 Jews living in Berlin and that number was reduced to 5,000 after the holocaust. In Berlin today there are around 22,000 religious Jews living in the city, clearly not even close to the number it was before. We went by museum island which houses quite a few museums as well as the Supreme Parish Church, Old neoclassical museum, the “space needle” looking TV tower which represented socialism to Berlin residents and what used to be the Royal Castle which was bombed by communists. When we made our way over to check point Charlie which was one of the gates in the Berlin wall we learned about all the checkpoints and how they worked, the west side entrance being manned by soviets and the east side by the communist secret police. We learned how hard it was to cross and how the initial wall which was composed of just barbed wire was literally put up in the middle of the night dividing the city and keeping people from jobs, family, friends etc. if they were on the other side of the wall. We were able to see a remaining part of the wall which we all expectd to be much wider but we learned how there was an inner wall and an outer wall and what was in between those two was called the death strip. It contained ways to prevent people from crossing it and trying to escape. Some of those deterrents were raked sand to look for footprints, spiked grass, guards walking up and down, dogs, and fencing with a signaling capability where if touched it signaled to a guard down the way, and bright lights which made the area daylight during the night. There were 4 upgrades to the outer wall while it was in use and they had plans for a 5th scheduled for year 2000 but obviously the wall was ordered to be taken down in 1989. It just amazes me that all of this was so recent and the whole tour that is all Jenna, Nathalie and I could think about is how it feels like all this turmoil should have taken place so long ago and yet it was such a recent event in our history. There were 5,000 recorded successful escapes past the Berlin wall and 2000 of them were border guards. They say the most secure way of escaping was in the boot (trunk) of a diplomats car. People would basically offer the diplomat a large sum of money in return for being able to cross the border and since diplomats had immunity they were not searched. However, this was very expensive and most people didn’t have the money or the contacts to do this. 88 people were shot during the 28 years, 26 being in the first year. We also went to the square where Hitler conducted one of his large book burning exhibitions, and it was so eerie to stand there and think that Hitler was there having books and art by Jewish authors and artists burned because of their race. During this intense history lesson we were listening to Michael our tour guide explain this propaganda painting portraying the beauty of socialism when Jenna, Nathalie, and I got fully distracted by the most peculiar thing. It looked like a bar/table on wheels with a big umbrella on top, but at each “barstool” around the bar it was a bike, so literally it was a bar on wheels where everyone pedaled. It was the craziest thing we have ever seen and we were so thoroughly distracted by it that we completely walked away from our tour for the moment to take pictures and flip video this awesome vehicle that we called the “beer bike”! Shows where our priorities were at eh? We proceeded to also get the phone number on the beer bike in case we might want to go on an excursion later! We also decided this would be a great business venture and vowed to bring it to the states! After going back to our history lesson and getting our mind off the booze we continued on to some more sights one being Hitlers bunker and the Holocaust survivors memorial. Hitlers bunker was actually a parking lot and what used to be Hitlers bunker. We were shown a picture of what it looked like at the time but there was only one little post about it at the site, clearly showing how embarrassed Germany is by their history during this time. The holocaust survivors memorial however was a different story. It was a huge square filled with abstract cement boxes which to me looked like tombs or coffins. Here we learned that during the holocaust 2.7 million Jews escaped, 6 million were killed, 1.5 of those being children. The gas chambers that were used in the horrific internment camps had the capacity to hold 2000 people. The memorial was constructed without explanation because the artist wanted each person to interpret it for themselves and come to their own conclusion of what it meant to them. It was an eerie feeling being here to because it was so sad to think of the devastation that the Jews went through. This year there was a protest by about 659 neo Nazis which was met by 10000 people who were opposed to them, pretty amazing. At the end of the tour we ended up by where the embassies were and where another famous monument stood. Also in this square was the Adlon hotel which is the fanciest hotel in Berlin, the penthouse costing 15,000 euros a night!!!! That is sooo absurd!!! As Nathalie, Jenna, and I said, that penthouse better change your life for that price! We also said maybe that is the bar that we should go to tonight because I bet there are some pretty fabulous people at that hotel bar! It is also the hotel made infamous for the “baby dangling” incident by Michael Jackson. When we were told that I instantly had to take a picture for Tiffany, her being such a Michael Jackson fanatic and all! That concluded our historical part of the day and now it was time to experience some fun for the evening. We decided to go to a bar we had seen when walking around near our hotel and get a beer. Here we had some funny conversations one being the explanation to Jenna on how to say Danke Schoen which means thank you in German. We were trying to tell her how to pronounce it the Schoen part and after we told her how to say it she said “Danke, like donka part of badonka donk” FREAKIN HILARIOUS and yet another moment that we became the loud Americans with our laughter! Jenna also during that cocktail happy hour asked if her hair looked like a girl walking by who I think was trying to channel Amy Winehouse with her bouffant nasty hair, we asked Jenna if she was serious and she replied with “yes, I think I have hair dysmorphia” After cocktails we went to this little Italian restaurant that the guy at our hotel told us about and it turned out to be a great restaurant and we had a blast! We ended up eating and drinking a bunch , surprise surprise and we made friends with the owner of the restaurant who became quite smitten with Jenna. He spoke very little English but we tried to communicate with him and did a decent job. I proceeded to ask him how to say about a million different things in German (surely annoying the heck out of him) and at one point Nathalie and I were asking him what erbsen means and we could not figure out what he was trying to say and so he disappeared in to the kitched and brought back a can of peas so we would know what it was. In our intoxicated state we decided this was a great souvenir and asked him if we could keep it which he looked at us somewhat weird and said sure. Yet again the weird American tourists. We hung out with him for a couple hours and ended up almost closing the place up. It was so much fun and we had many laughs at that restaurant. From there we went to the internet café really quick because we needed some waters and it had a little convenient store and it was the only place we knew that was open 24 hours. We were quite the site wandering to the store and laughing hysterically the whole way about how Jennas “Italian Germanic Lover” was so obsessed with her and how he tried to kiss her at the table in front of us and how she was like no no no! On our way back to the hotel from the internet café we found a shopping cart and decided it was a great idea for me to get in it, Jenna to push me down the sidewalk and for Nathalie to videotape this excursion. It was all going fine until we hit the first street crossing and tried to get over the curb, where my life flashed before my eyes as I almost got tossed out of the shopping cart. We almost pee’d our pants with laughter at this too, good thing we had popped a squat in some bushes on the way to the internet café, this being our third non-restroom potty break in Europe, I don’t know what has come over us! We made it back to the hotel safe and got our stuff together because the next day we were going to have a 6 hour drive ahead of us to get to Kelmis where Nathalie is staying. Another fun day ahead im sure, even though driving isn’t always perceived as fun, we make it a blast! Ta ta!

I love speaking German, it comes so naturally!

Willkomen! We made it to Germany today! Wahoo! We had to drive 6 hours today from Amsterdam to Berlin which was kinda tiring but fun too because there was some pretty scenery along the way. Since I am the child that cannot drive a stick shift I had to be on passenger patrol and chose not to sleep the whole way so I could keep my “parents” company while they drove! When we got in to Germany, yet again no exciting big signage for us to take a picture of we had to use the restrooms so we pulled off to a rest stop because Germany actually has restrooms for people to use, what a relief now we can drink water without paranoia that we will pee our pants because we wont be able to find a water closet (what they are called here)! When we got to the girls restroom a man walked out and told us “go not in there” in a jumbled accent and had a horrified look on his face, DAMN the man stinkin up the ladies bathroom. Deciding to take his word for it we went behind the building into humongous bushes and decided to all take turns poppin a squat and of course we had to take pictures because it was pretty damn funny to see us all take turns and trying not to fall over or get stabbed by the prickly bush that we decided to hide behind. We stopped for lunch later in the day and when we sat down not only could we not understand ANYTHING on the menu because because clearly we speak ZERO German but the server did not speak any English at all so we were pretty much flying by the seat of our pants ordering food. Jenna and Nathalie ordered pizza because it was one of the only things we could figure out and I ordered a kids meal schnitzel erbsen which I really didn’t know what it was but ended up being alright and it was one of the things I wanted to try while in Germany. During the drive Jenna also kept commenting on how she wanted to meet a Nazi and how every was looking Nazi’ish, we just laughed at her randomness. The people in Germany drive like MAD MEN! We were driving like almost 100 mph and people were flying by us like we were geriatric drivers for sure! We also experienced our first McCafe which is a starbucks like place inside McDonalds where Jenna was ecstatic to get her first iced coffee, she was literally like a kid in a candy shop. I was about to try my newly acquired German speaking skills to the lady at McCafe to order our coffees and this delicious chocolate cake but I got nervous and chickened out. We made it to Germany by around 6 and during the drive through Deutschland like I said I acquired a fabulous German accent and was able to pronounce every word we passed by and proceeded to say everything I saw in German, I think I might have been German in a past life because I love speaking the language! I really want to get a translator app on my phone for German because I want to be able to translate some of these random weird words because its so hard to figure out what this language means. Also not as many people here speak English so we have struggled a couple times, one time being at the internet café when I went in to ask what time they closed and he had no idea what I was saying even when I was flailing my arms around trying to explain closing by acting like I was closing a door and then looking at my watch and every possible body motion I could muster to try and explain closing. Finally a nice lady translated because she could tell I was running out of ideas and the man just kept looking more and more confused and asking me over and over “you want computer?” and me saying no. Once we checked in to our hotel we went to dinner on one of the Platz at this outdoor café that was packed! The world cup started yesterday and there was like 8-10 large plasma screen tvs lined up outside the café where everyone could watch the game, it was such a cool environment and the weather was absolutely beautiful so it was a great evening. I had the second thing that I wanted to try while in Germany which was German sausage and it was absolutely delicious! We also enjoyed some German beer which was quite enjoyable too. We made some pretty hilarious flip videos today while driving and we also had some good laughs while we deliriously drove through the Netherlands and in to Germany. We were in two countries in one day, pretty cool we thought and we are so excited to be in Berlin and to be able to learn about all this history in this city. Long day of sightseeing tommorow, will hopefully be full of fabulous info when I return to blogging tommorow! Goodnacht!

Museum day!!

Today was a much more active day in Amsterdam. We started off the day fresh and headed out to rent our bicycles for the day! We got the bikes which looked like they were supposed to be for a 6’5 man and managed to lower the seats and hoist ourselves on to them and make our attempt at riding with the million other people riding bikes in this city while not hitting one, getting hit by one, running over a pedestrian, getting hit by a car, or getting hit by the tram. Even though they have sidewalks and bike lanes and car lanes it seems as though everyone kind of goes on everyone elses space so it was like playing dodgeball and trying not to get hit by people cars or trams. I had a wobbly start whenever we had to stop and at one point while looking back and chatting with Jenna almost ran straight in to a trash can. Nathalie at one point almost clipped the side of a bus but saved herself well. Jenna was pretty much a pro and didn’t have any close calls that I know of. We had little bells on our bikes which here people use like car horns to tell people to get out of the way. Well us being the tourists that we are decided to use the bells as a musical instrument and chime away in a rhythm as we frolicked down the street on the bikes surely annoying the heck out of Amsterdamians. Our first stop along the way was the Van Gogh museum which was extremely interesting and fun to see. Van Gogh led an interesting life and had a short lived career, being a professional painter only 10 years before he commited suicide. His artwork had a lot of different techniques throughout his career and it was fascinating to see his work evolve as he learned and worked with other professional artists. While walking around the museum Jenna accidently ran in to a guy and “reh reh’ed” him (the chirping sound we have been making) and he looked at her like she was straight out of a mental institution and I literally almost peed my pants laughing at it. Its like we have our own language similar to Swahili with our chirps and we all understand each other but to others im sure we look like we enjoyed some magic mushrooms from here or something. After Van Gogh museum we went to the Heineken experience and let me tell you it was quite the experience! It’s the brewery and museum and it was a super fun tour. We got to see how the beer is made and the history behind it and we also had an interactive ride/video that took us through the brewing process. Nathalie at this point was like a scared little 5 year old when she read the sign and it said that the ride might cause nausea and dizziness and stated that she hates rollercoasters! The ride wasn’t that bad and we all made it out alive and with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes. We then got to go and taste some of the beer and learn how it is poured and what its supposed to look like when poured right, so watch out friends at home now im a guiness and a Heineken aficionado and can fill you guys in with whatever you need to know! We also got to do a video message, picture message, and a music video that we got to send to ourselves. I also got to make a personalized Heineken bottle with my name on it which i was soo excited about! At the end of the tour we got another two beers! When we were in the souvenir shop at the end and we were checking out Jenna yet again “reh reh’ed” the lady when she was trying to hand her coins and the lady though Jenna burped at her hahahaha! The lady then proceeded to tell Jenna that its ok because the Chinese people burp at her all the time, how gross is that! Jenna cleared it up with her and was in no way gonna be grouped in the “I burp in peoples faces club”3 beers in less than an hour on an empty stomach made for some funny bike riding skills on the way to the next museum, but don’t worry we weren’t on busy streets this time so it wasn’t as dangerous! J We made it back up to the red light district to go to the hemp and marijuana museum which wasn’t as exciting as we had hoped it would be but it definitely gave me a lot of information about the history of cannibus and all the things hemp is used in. We learned stuff like the colonial governments when America was first being settled required settlers to grow hemp and they used it to make ship sails and paper. If they didn’t grow cannibus they were threatened with fines and forfeiture of property. Hemp was also often used for money and when Spain opened the Mississippi river for trade hemp was the official item of exchange (money). Canvas tops for covered wagons were also made with hemp as well as the original Levi’s jeans because the type of hemp fabric they used called Duck was water repellant. The declaration of independence and the US constitution were drafted and debated on hemp paper which I thought was so very interesting. Also George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin were all hemp farmers. Each navy ship used about 60 tons of hemp for their sails and rigging ropes. Flags and military uniforms also used hemp. I had no idea that it was used for so many things and that it was such a popular commodity back in history. My question is what did they do with the other parts of the cannibus plant, were Ben Franklin and George Washington blazing one up while they made important decisions for this country…..hmmm…very interesting! I also learned some stuff about the rastafari people and why they smoke so much marijuana. From there of course we went to a coffee shop because after learning so much about this stuff called cannibus we had to test it out J While we were there these 4 guys came and sat by us and started chatting. They had such strong accents that we could hardly understand them but they were cracking us up. They said they were from Liverpool England but their accent was sooo strange sounding. At one point Jenna asked them what other language they spoke and this rico suave character told jenna “whatever language you want me to speak “ haha I wonder if that works in his country. He then proceeded to attempt to give Jenna a compliment by saying she looks like his cleaning lady haha and tried to explain that his cleaning lady was beautiful but it was too late and all that we could think about was the fact that the words cleaning lady came out of his mouth when talking about Jenna. When walking from the coffee shop to a pub we saw a bunch of ducks in the canal and since we were still in the red light district Nathalie proceeded to say that she thinks that these ducks might be the red light district lady ducks and that they are waiting to flaunt their feathers to any male ducks who swim by! We did some more people watching at this fun pub and enjoyed a “extra cold” variety of Heineken which was lovely! For some reason we had a straw that Jenna was drinking her beer out of and she decided that the beer went down like water when drinking through a straw and so she offered it to Nathalie to try and Nathalie responded with “Yes, I never say no to beer through a straw” like in her lifetime she has just been asked to drink beer through a straw so many times that she has her standard answer haha! We have learned to take advantage of going to the bathroom wherever we buy a beer or food since bathrooms are so scarce in these parts so at the end of every meal or drink we caravan it to the bathroom in true girl style and normally cram in to these tiny bathrooms since of course we cant go to the bathroom alone and Europeans obviously don’t feel the need to make spacious bathrooms since they pretty much don’t even want us to have access to any toilet facility! After all this frolicking around we did some souvenir shopping and then rode our bikes back to our area we were staying in to move our bags from one hotel across the street to the next since the hotel we were staying at didn’t have vacancy for our extra night. This is when it started to get really funny. Remember the crazy stairs we had to walk our bags up, well walking them down turned in to quite a feat and we nearly lost our life a couple times while trying to “Sherpa” our bags down the Mt Everest stairs. Once we moved hotels we decided to make one more stroll around Leidesplein square and get some dinner. It was now 11:30 at night and we were just eating dinner, it is crazy eating schedules around here because it gets dark so late! While walking to the square we encountered this crazy old man who started talking to Jenna and waving his finger in her face which happened to be soooo caked in dirt that it looked like he had just finished harvesting a field. We had no idea what the heck he was saying and scared little me was trying to scurry us away. As we were hastily walking away Jenna stated “ was that man intoxicated, special, or foreign” and we all started busting up laughing because we really aren’t sure what his issue was or why he was so animatedly talking to Jenna. We had some sushi for dinner and it made us realize how culturally diverse we have been eating and we are so proud of ourselves. We have had Italian, thai, Japanese, Greek, Egyptian, English (pub food), Seafood, Super fresh seafood from market, and Mexican. We have realized none of us are picky eaters and we all like to eat, hence why we will all be coming back with a few more lbs then we left with! When we got back to our hotel we decided we needed a good nights sleep since we are heading to Berlin tommorow and its about a 6 hour drive so we got in bed where Jenna then was rustling around in her bed and then jumped out of bed incensed and said “they short sheeted me” Nathalie and I about died laughing and it was a great quote to end a really fabulous day! Off to Berlin tommorow and more fun stories to come for sure! Bon Jour!

Last night=a little too much fun in Amsterdam!

Hello from Amsterdam yet again. We had a bit of a struggle this morning because of the hangovers and didn’t make it out of the hotel until about noon. We had breakfast and went over the funny event of the evening before. From there we went on the canal tour and it was really fun and a great way to see the city and get your bearings of Amsterdam. When we got to Centraal station on the canal tour and we saw a giant bicycle parking structure. Amsterdam has 600,000 bikes at any given time, and the centraal station parking garage can hold 2500!! It was so amazing, there are soooo many bikes in this city it is amazing, literally I am more scared of getting taken out by a crazy cyclist than by a car. I almost got absolutely taken out by cyclist twice, and Jenna and Nathalie had to save my life! After the canal tour we went to a super cute “coffee shop” that was totally Moroccan themed and had a great vibe. We enjoyed a cappuccino and hung out there for quite awhile since we were a bit tired and hungover. After that we decided to head back to our hotel before we made it over to the red light district. Wow let me tell you the red light district is one of the craziest things I have ever seen, like its hard to even comprehend or explain. We weren’t able to take pictures while down there but it was basically streets lined with shop windows with scantily clad women standing in them. It was like a totally normal street with these prostitutes, naughty shops, and naughty shows everywhere. It was really hard for us to comprehend the fact that this was real and that women really have this as a profession. It is like a legitimate profession where they are taxed and regulated. I would really like to read a book about someone who has worked in the red light district because it is weirdly fascinating to me because I don’t understand it. The whole time we were walking these gross guys kept trying to proposition us to go in to these shows and one of them men had us rolling laughing when he said in a eastern European accent “ladieeees it is banana time” It was soooo funny and gross at the same time. We spend quite a bit of time in the red light district because there was so much to see. It was a very crowded area and there were so many different kinds of people so watching them was super entertaining. We got a window seat inside one of these coffee shops and made some pretty funny flip videos and people watched while giggling our brains out. It gets dark so late here that it is seriously midnight before you know it and it feels like 8pm. We made our way back to Leidesplein the square we were staying in and walked around for a bit there watching the drunkies made idiots of themselves. We were pretty tired from the night before so we decided to relax in our room and get some sleep for tommorow. We were pretty out of it today so there weren’t as many memorable quotes or at least we were too “relaxed” to manage to write them down today. The one funny thing that Jenna did say which probably will only be funny to us on the trip was that her “reh reh loses energy” when she enjoys amsterdams local fare, reh reh again being the chirping noise that we have all decided to use as our own little language on this trip and a sound that is sure to annoy the heck out of all the people back home when we get back.

Amsterdam=So much fun

So we started our day off by heading out of Rotterdam and heading to Delft. Delft is a small quaint little town that is famous for their “delftware” which is a distinctive blue and white pottery. It had a great cathedral in the center square and adorable cobblestone streets. We got some Dutch souveniers while we were there including some cute stuff with the blue and white print on it. Jenna decided to nap while Nathalie and I walked around this little town and we had to park on the edge of a canal again which scared me to death yet again and in which Nathalie stated again how geriatric people would for sure fall in! While touring around the town and buying our souvenirs one of the men at the shops totally spoke to me in Dutch and was all surprised when I spoke English to him because he thought I was Dutch, I really do fit right in. Natalie and Jenna on the other hand are what have been calling “darkies” and frighten the fair haired blonde folk haha. We left Delft and drove through another small town called Leiden. There wasn’t much to see there except a big windmill in the middle of town which was very cute. From there we went to Haarlem which is close to Amsterdam. Speaking of driving the whole time we were driving today Jenna would roll her window down and holler out the window “HALLLOO” to passerbys on foot. It was hilarious and she startled quite a few people along the way. The rule was that she could not yell at geriatric people though because they were too fragile to handle her very high decibal sounds. When we were parking in Haarlem along yet another railing-less canal edge, Nathalie being flustered by the edge as well as the rude European driver hastily waiting for her to utilize her wonderful parallel parking skills a cyclist clipped the side mirror and almost ate it on his bike. Nathalie nearly had a heart attack because it would be horrific to clip a cyclist given that her boyfriend is pro cyclist and all. While in Haarlem we had a delicious lunch sitting out on the main square and enjoyed some beautiful weather. We found a bathroom that was FREEEEEE by the way, and of course where was it? None other than McDonalds themselves. Leave it to them to sympathize with the Americans and offer free toilets so we don’t have to run around like potty training children to try and find a bathroom before we pee our pants. Wahoo for that! We looked at some really nice antique stores and found some really cool furniture. From the time we walked from Mcdonalds to the car which was no more than 4 blocks with a couple stops at stores Jenna was in toddler I gotta pee mode and had to pop a squat right outside the car while I guarded her while trying not to pee my own pants from laughing so hard. It started to rain right when we were getting to the car and the moment we got in and started driving it started absolutely POURING outside to where the puddles were instantly GINORMOUS and we could hardly see outside the windshield. While at a stop light and while filming on the Flip because of course we acted like we had never seen pouring rain before it started lightning and thunder and we all screamed bloody murder for no really good reason. It was one of those moments that had us laughing hysterically and feeling absolutely ridiculous. On our way in to Amsterdam we saw all the Dead tulip fields and were so bummed that we missed the bloom because it would have been amazing. There wer just fields and fields of what used to be flowers. We got to Amsterdam around 4ish and checked in to our hotel to get settled in before we went out. Our hotel was right on the corner of Leidsplein Square which was a very popular attraction with a bunch of restaurants, bars, and “coffee shops”. We were quite excited to experience the nightlife of Amsterdam so we enjoyed a beer at a bar on the square and then got ready for a pub crawl that we had decided to take part in. When at the pub crawl we started drinking like 21 year old college students again and felt like we were in mexico when they were walking around pouring shots in our mouths as we walked in. We met a bunch of Australians who ended up being really fun and I became a dancing queen, re-enacting the single ladies dance as well as Michael Jacksons “beat it” dance (Tiff you would have been so proud! Haha) with one our new found Australian friends. It was such a fun night and we all got pretty hammered and did make it in to our first Amsterdam “coffee shop” where we enjoyed a bit of the local fare ;) One thing we have noticed in Holland is how much pride they have. Their color is orange and literally everything is Orange. Everything is decorated with orange décor, its pretty hilarious. It was a late night and a somewhat brutal morning but it was a great day all in all. Here are some of the memorable quotes from the day, and there were sooo many more during the pub crawl but as you can imagine it was a bit difficult to remember them given our state of intoxication during the evening. But don’t worry nana and papa and mom and dad, we were safe and never let eachother out of our sights (had to throw that caveat in there so no one has a panic attack )….Jenna randomly stating “I love team building exercises” as we helped a group of dutch business men with a scavenger hunt thing where they need some translations from Spanish to English (woop woop Rosetta stone is paying off! Haha) Jenna claiming “all I need is a midget in a suit” when talking about what she wants at her bachelorette party (haha don’t ask, we had already had quite a few cocktails by this time), Me saying “when you talk in my ear it vibrates my spine” when Jenna was trying to talk to me in the super loud dance club we were in. Nathalie saying to Jenna “don’t come up on me like that” when we were climbing mt everest stairs that were so steep you basically had to crawl up and Jenna saying “im hot on your tail” while pretending to chase her! Amsterdam has been a blast so far! More sightseeing in the next two days and then off the Berlin!

Is ontbijt inbegrepen

Dag! So we were off to the Netherlands (a.k.a Holland which can be used to interchangeably), but first we made a stop in Antwerp which is a city close to Holland above Brussels. The weather was a bit nicer today and we got another early start because we had another busy day of multiple towns to visit. Although Antwerp is Brussels second biggest city it still has a small old world feel when you are in the old city centre. We sat and had a cappuccino in the city centre because for some reason we were all literally exhausted and could hardly keep our eyes open, and then walked around and looked at the beautiful cathedral that was nearby as well as the Stadhuis and the surrounding guildhalls. From there we headed towards Holland. We were hoping for some large sign to welcome us to what Natalie and Jenna call “your home country” to me because of all the blonde hair people but there was just a tiny simple sign. Jenna was incensed that they didn’t even have a border patrol, it was like she wanted to be frisked by Dutch officials or something haha. We made our way to Kinderdijk which is the best spot in the Netherlands to see the famous windmills that Holland is famous for. It is a tiny little town that literally if you blink you are out of when you are driving. The windmills were really soo cool to see and there were 19 windmills dotted in this field. We found this little trail that was off the beaten path and decided to park and walk down it even though im pretty sure it was private property. I was a little nervous (surprise surprise) but we just decided to play the dumb American card if anyone got mad at us. It was such a cute little road on one side was these little cottages with a canal and beautiful little gardens with sheep and goats surrounding them. One particular goat which was tied up close to the road Jenna decided to make friends with and was petting when he decided to start nibbling on her shoe which consequently made her freak out a little, lose her balance and fall backwards and almost in to a marsh. Natalie and I were laughing so hard and Natalie then fell over because of her hysteric laughter while I managed to snap a couple photos of the spill which are what I like to call priceless. A man was out there farming his garden and ended up taking a picture for us which turned out super cute. After walking down the road and admiring the windmills from a much closer proximity we headed to Den Haag which is a seaside city in Holland to the West of Rotterdam. It is an up and coming city and ended up being a pretty cool place. It had a beachfront area that we decided to stop at and we had some fun frolicking around on the beach and chatting with some Irish guys that we met who were doing close to the same itinerary as us. We also saw some really beautiful embassy mansions in Den Haag that we made Natalie drive us around to see because Jenna and I thought it was so cool. There really are so many blondes in Holland obviously because they are Dutch and I feel right at home! When we left Den Haag en route to Gouda Rue got us pretty lost and we ended up turning a 20 min drive in to an almost hour drive, and were thinking this town of Gouda better be worth it. Since all of us love cheese we were excited to try the local fare. It was getting to be about 6pm so a lot of the shops were closed but the central square was so cute and we ended up getting some great Amsterdam cheese as well as 48 month aged gouda for our picnic dinner was delicious. Natalie informed me that some gouda is aged up to like 5 years which I guess is supposed to be delicious however sounds nasty to me haha. We made it to Rotterdam by around 730 and checked in to our super cute hotel that we got a great deal on and had our picnic in our room of delicious gouda and Amsterdam cheese, salami and prosciutto, French bread, wasa toasts, tapenade, olives, and beer. To top it off since of course I need a sweet treat I had some nutella on toasts and these little cute cakes! Today was a super busy day but another great one and I think that the windmills might be my favorite thing I have seen so far. My mom has always wanted to see the windmills so I took lots of pictures and videos for her to see because they were so cool. Here are some of the memorable quotes of the day that we want to remember...Jenna stating that Nathalie is low maintenance she is moderate maintenance and that I am high maintenance hahahha. Nathalie talking about how Dutch women are so tall and how its because its always so cloudy there and so evolution has caused them to be taller to be closer to the sun. Jenna giving her explanation of why its ok for us to go on this little private lookin road to see the windmills "there is a sign and a trash can therefore we can trespass here!" and at the end of tonight Nathalie saying she needed water, Jenna saying no she needed beer and me sayin beer is water with hopps so your cool!Off to Leiden, Delft, and Amsterdam tomorrow! Wahoo! Waar is de badkamer