Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Amsterdam

I've been having a little bit of an issue trying to blog lately, so apologies for the lack of posts! My computer charger broke, which is a pretty standard thing for me these days since technology has decided it has a vendetta against me, so I wasn't able to get on it until my WONDERFUL mother sent me a new one in the mail from the states. Thanks Mom!

Spent last weekend in Amsterdam with two of my roommates, talk about an amazing place! We had the best time. We arrived late on Wednesday night. Huge bonus only having classes M-W, we get long weekends for travel. We went straight to our hostel, The Flying Pig, that a friend of mine suggested. It was a youth hostel so we were able to meet people our own age, unlike Berlin where we had a little bit of a more interesting group in our hostel. Very thankful for the recommendation because it was a great place! Thursday morning we headed out to explore! We made our way to the Van Gogh museum. When I was telling one of my friends the story about Amsterdam he got so mad at me for saying that we went to the Van Gogh museum so nonchalant, so let me make sure everyone is aware of how cool it was! Best part for me though was the stop in the museum gift shop where I found a cute little wooden shoe Pandora bead! I asked for my Pandora bracelet so I could have it while I was here to collect beads from the places I visit. Was unsuccessful to find one in Berlin so I was beyond thrilled when I found one in Holland. :) We got lost on our way there, and back but we've learned to just embrace being lost and use it as time to see more of everything these beautiful cities have to offer. The next day we went to the Heineken brewery tour. It was so fun! Very well done, although I don't have much to compare it to. We ended up meeting some boys from Manchester, England on Friday night who entertained me the entire night. They were all doing "American" accents (which includes a lot of "dude and awesome") and having me attempt my terrible British accent. They even brought up American Pie so I really got to impress them when I told them where I was from! Saturday was our last day so we woke up early and made our way to the Anne Frank house. Everyone told us to be careful of the long lines but thankfully we only ended up waiting about 15 minutes. It was so interesting and cool to see. I love all of the history that the places we visit have about the Holocaust because it has always been something that has interested me so much! Whenever I try and tell anyone about the weekend in Amsterdam I want to say that one of the things we did was my favorite but really I loved them all and they were all so different.

Amsterdam as a city itself is really cool. They have canals running through the entire city that are beautiful to walk through. Everyone bikes there which I think is just the coolest thing. I think that living in a big city and biking around seems so European and cool. If you can't tell by now, I think Europe is really cool. I feel like the younger kid who is impressed by everything the older kids do when I'm here. I am definitely putting Amsterdam on my list of places I want to return to!

Next week is spring break, YAY! We are headed to Barcelona and Portugal for the week. I am so excited. :)  Hopefully I can communicate well, it's been a while since I've spoken Spanish!

Time is flying by here and I hate it! I keep having amazing things to look forward to but then I think about it and realize that's another week closer to going home! After spring break I will have less than 2 months left. :( I still have so much I want to do and see over here I've decided I'm just going to have to come back ASAP!

-MJ

Saturday, March 3, 2012

1 month in!

We have officially been in Prague for a month! In some regards it feels much longer and others much shorter. We all keep saying we still feel like we have so much to do and see in Prague and time is already going so quickly! Not to mention we have so many other places we want to visit on the weekends.

The trips I have planned for the rest of the semester are Amsterdam, London, Barcelona, Portugal, Vienna and Italy. If anyone has anything they want to reccomend for any of those places please let me know! We're all just going by internet searches and books. Having the inside scoop seems to be very helpful!

School is finally starting to feel like a routine for the semester. It took a while to get used to going to class here but I love them! My professors are all very nice and tell us all the time if we have any questions on things about Prague to ask them. I just made a friend who is from here who speaks perfect English so it's very helpful to talk to her about things we are confused about.

Excited to have lots of visitors coming in April! 2 weeks full of lots of my favorite people.

We all keep trying to do as much as we can every day because we don't want time to run out and not have done something we wanted to! So excited to see what the rest of this adventure brings!

-MJ

Berlin

Its been a while since I've blogged, having a little complication with my computer charger so I've been computer-less for a few weeks. Thanks to my wonderful mother who is sending me two new ones in a care package that should he here sometime this week (fingers crossed).

Earlier this month we went out for our first weekend away to Berlin, Germany. I went with 3 of the girls that are from my program. We left early Friday morning at about 5:30 to get to the bus station and be ready for our bus that left at 7. The bus ride was about 5 hours long. They have movies and free drinks to keep you occupied but I slept the entire way. So I was ready to go when we made it to Berlin! We got off at the bus station and headed out to find some Eruo's and our hostel. Because we've *almost* mastered how to get around our city by subway we felt that we could do it in Berlin. Although it took us a little while to figure it all out we ended up making it to our hostel! Our hostel was really nice and our other roommates we're all friendly. We headed out to explore after getting settled. We ended up finding Mexican food, that we had all been craving and decided to start off our German adventure that way. We had a great time in Berlin but if you're looking for true German culture and life, Berlin isn't the place. We kept comparing it to New York just because it is such a big city. We decided to make Saturday our touristy day. After meeting a bunch of American students on Friday who recommended all the must see things we felt confident that we could make it around. The history that goes along with Berlin is really interesting. My favorite thing we saw was a museum called Topography of Terrors. A holocaust museum dedicated to the children who suffered. It had tons of pictures and information but it was a lot to take in, especially for someone who cries at a sappy commercial. A remaining piece of the Berlin wall is right outside the museum as a monument so that was also very cool to see. We met tons of interesting and fun people which I think was my favorite part of the trip. I took Berlin as a learning experience of how to travel. We learned the hostel situation, what to bring, what not to bring, and how to spend way too much money in one weekend! I'm excited for our next adventure to Amsterdam on Wednesday to see if we can take what we learned and put it to use!