London!

I'm a horrible blogger! I keep forgetting to write about things that I've been doing. So, first things first, London!

I would post videos but since I'm not a video techie, I can't figure out how to upload them. In my defense, the software is really strange. :) Now you get to read my story! Woo!

London was a jam-packed trip because before the trip I booked the wrong return date online. Everyone check fifty times that the dates are right! Otherwise, RyanAir gets to charge you absurd fees. This flight was expensive, even with RyanAir. Note to anybody travelling to Europe cheaply: try to avoid RyanAir as much as you can.

Once we finally got there, we had a fantastic time! Ian and I kept saying "Why didn't we study here?!" Sometimes, Finland just can't compare. But then again, it is London and the only cities comparable to London are New York, Paris and Rome. At least that's what the internet machine says. :)

On our first tourist day, we saw Tower Bridge, walked the wrong direction, saw the London Eye (which is giant, bigger than the Prater in Vienna), a sweet castle, the Financial District (like Wall Street for Europe), Westminister Abbey, Big Ben, The Parliament Buildings, St. James Park, and Buckingham Palace. Yes, all in one day. Yes, it was not bright of us because the rest of the trip we were so exhausted. No, we didn't get to see the guards which was sad. Okay, not that sad! But we didn't get a touristy snapshop with the guards in larger-than-life furry hats. I wonder if they're faux fur...? Then we enjoyed the nice weather and ate ice cream. Later that night, we met up with Christoph and Simone in a part of London called Angel. We saw some hilarious, low-key, British comedy in a local pub. I love hanging out with Germans- they always find the best deals and stuff to do. Successful first night!

Next day! Camden Town. The New York-y part of London, I think. Food everywhere. And, fresh squeezed orange juice stands! This huge and unique part of London with fantastic shopping. It's not like shopping anywhere else in London because it's very local with small shops. Not that I minded the NikeTown and H&M. :) But I bought myself my London souvenir here- a vintage Iron Maiden tank top. Win! Later that night we ate fish and chips, of course. Later, later...later that night we decided to go out. We went to this bar, in a part named Shoreditch, where there were so many black, drunk and fantastically dancing girls. Then we ended the 'night' at a club named Aquarium- it has a pool inside it. Another exhausting day/night ending at 6:00 a.m. I love being 20; 20 at the time, 21 now. :)

The next few days were pretty easy going. We went back to Camden, looked around a bit, did a little shopping on Oxfurd Circus. We also hit up Traflgar Square which is amazing, it's a huge monument with a fountain and the countdown to the Olympics!

Sidenote: I bought the most amazing workout capris at NikeTown. I'm telling you this because they're that amazing. I've never loved a pair of pants so much. I wish I could wear them everyday. If you're in need of some ultimate, fantastic workout pants. Buy these. Here's the link. You're welcome. :) Yes, mine are in purple. I'm not kidding about this, I've gone through multiple pairs of pants and these ones are superior to any other article of clothing I own. Except my running shoes. http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/?l=shop,pdp,ctr-inline/cid-1/pid-434729/pgid-434730#?l=shop,pdp,ctr-inline/cid-1/pid-434731/pgid-434730

Back to London Town...

We also got to see the fancy shopping part of London! Sort of like 5th Avenue in New York; with Saks, Burberry, and other fancy brands a college student can't afford. I didn't get to see anyone famous, but don't worry, I was at least looking!

We went to Hyde Park, which to those of you who don't know what it is... Speakers' Corner is there and it is a wacky time. I wish I could upload videos, but I'll post a couple memorable quotes.

"Your hair is the colour of Satan's breath!"
"Well, the main reason why aliens don't come to Earth is because they're so far away."
"When people have sex, it means they're then married."

Just to name a few... Like I said, a wacky, hilarious time for us regular-folk. It's mostly religious speakers with tourist audiences, still awesome though.

The last thing we did was visit the British Museum which is spectacular. There's a huge section for every corner of the world. There were some amazing replicas of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire which I loved. And it's free!

My moral of the story: everything is bigger in London. It is by far the biggest and most intricate city I've been to, other than New York. The castles, bridges, churches, palaces, ferris wheels are bigger than anything I've ever seen. Nice try, Texas.

P.S. I tried to go see Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station but I had to have an actual train ticket to enter the train area and all I had was a subway card. Maybe next time. :)

Taste of the Tropics

Firstly, I was recently informed that there are actually people following my blog so I’m sorry for being a terrible blogger! I’ll be better at it from now on. J

I continued my awesome travels to the Arctic Circle, otherwise known as Lapland. Let me give you an idea of how far north I was, the city I live is about a three and a half hour drive away from Helsinki, about the most southern point in Finland. We were thirteen hours more north of here. The town right on the edge of the Arctic Circle is Rovaniemi, it took us four hours to get to our middle-of-nowhere cabin from there.

Our first stop was an ice castle! It’s exactly what you think it is. There’s an ice bar, ice restaurant, ice chapel and an ice hotel  that you can even stay in. It’s a pretty Nordic place to see.

The ice restaurant

Rovaniemi is the home of Santa! I’m serious, Santa lives here and I met him. I don’t have a picture because (other than Finland always being expensive J) the pictures were twenty five euros which is roughly thirty five dollars. We decided against it. Without the proof, I promise he exists.  He’s the nicest Santa and speaks almost every language. He spoke Bavarian German with Christoph! Bavarian German it seems, and I’m only saying this for comparison terms not to insult the Bavarians, is like Montanans talking to somebody from Georgia. Santa could speak that German. You go, Mr. Claus. After that we walked around the multiple souvenir shops and saw some reindeer. We hoped back on the bus for another four hours more north.

We finally arrive at our destination: Vasatokka. We get settled into our fabulous cabin which Ian and I shared with eight Germans which is probably the best set up we could have had due to an insane amount of obnoxious French. We sauna-ed and went to bed. The next morning was supposed to be full of “igloo” building, ice fishing and theory to survival. Ian and I skipped all of it. J We needed sleep. Those “igloos” are forts that I built when I five, haha! But we got to go snowshoeing that afternoon! That night we sauna-ed again and jumped into “The Black Hole.” The Black Hole is a hole in the ice of a lake that we can run and jump into after we sauna.  Every night consisted of sauna-ing and jumping into the frozen lake. Basically, the entire trip was one big outdoor adventure and sitting in a bus. The next day we got to go cross country skiing which I enjoyed because it’s running for winter conditions.

THE REINDEER FARM! Reindeer farms are usually ran by people named Sami people, comparable to the Native Americans in North America. We got to feed the reindeer, go on a sleigh ride and observe what they like to do. They’re pretty interesting creatures. Later we learned more about the Sami people; a lady played a drum made out of reindeer leather and sang while we drank coffee. That night was, obviously, more sauna and more frozen lake. Oh! We got to see those magical northern lights which was incredible and would be the absolute only reason I could live that far north. They dance in the sky. J

The Sami Women

Not my picture, but fabulous northern lights

Taking our reindeer sleigh ride

Taking the plunge!

Arctic Ocean beach in Norway

The next day was the real Arctic adventure! Imagine this, we were already four hours into the Arctic Circle and we drove another four hours more north after I felt we couldn’t go more north without hitting the ice cap called the North Pole. But we did! And this is called Norway. We were on the fabulous beaches of the Arctic Ocean! There really are nice, frozen sandy beaches. The ocean isn’t frozen so there are waves hitting the shore. There’s a “ghetto sauna” as we like to call it because there was no dressing room… we changed outside. That was probably half the fun, haha! But we survived and sauna-ed and made the, which seems like an eternity, trek from the sauna to the beach. I have proof of that! And really, the worst part is running from the sauna to the ocean and back. I felt like I couldn’t run fast enough out of the water.  Something not many people have done though.

The next day we left Vasatokka and went to Saariselkka which is about an hour south. That was the sled dog safari! Those dogs are incredible.  There’s so much energy in those Siberian Huskies! Ian and I got to drive the sled for about 20 minutes each while the other rode in the sled. That may have been my favorite excursion. There were a lot of offerings for downhill skiing, snowmobiling, ice karting, and other outdoor adventures but Ian and I decided they’re probably better in wonderful Montana. J We do have some of the best downhill skiing in the country so Finland’s “mountains” just can’t compare.  Overall: Lapland was such a unique and tremendous trip.  

Ian steering the dog sled

We learned some fun things about Germany though. You can buy dog meat in the grocery store and apparently that’s normal in all of Europe. Whoda thunk?! Also, if somebody in Germany buys a snowmobile they’re only allowed to ride it in specified areas. Montana: 1, Germany: 0.

A Taste of Russians...in the Czech Republic

Onto the adventures of the Czech Republic!

Prague is about a four hour drive from Vienna, so all of us threw a few things in a bag and headed out! We got there at night, which was an “adventure” within itself. And here’s why:

-          Getting anywhere in a big city, with the Czech language, which is nothing like anything except Russian (I know more Finnish words than Czech words! Haha.), in the dark is frustrating beyond belief.

We finally made it to our hotel! When we booked it we noticed it was a four star hotel for a seriously reasonable price. Thank you Czech Republic for being so cheap, it’s refreshing coming from Finland. J The hotel was an episode of The Twilight Zone…

Five Americans and two Austrians enter ‘The Gorbochov Palace’ expecting a comfortable four star hotel in Prague. Nobody was in sight, they were alone…or so they thought. There was one cashier who was not inclined to speak much English. Dinner was the same atmosphere: alone in a giant restaurant which was meant to serve unexplainable amounts of Russians during World War Two. The waiter arrives and proceeds to tell the group there is only a buffet, that has been there for ‘a while,’ we get one free drink and it costs 200 crowns per person. He was unhappy about serving these aliens who order milk with dinner.

Bedtime finally came, still not a person to be seen. While sleeping soundly there is a bang! Twenty (not an exaggeration) Russian children, all with mullets, running through the hallways banging on doors and screaming awake the aliens! Where did these people come from?! Nobody knows. They’re adults, however, were in the bar area drinking their own Russian-made vodka while the children ran and screamed as they pleased.

The Gorbochov Palace = Annoyed Aliens.

That is the episode of The Twilight Zone.

It really did feel like an episode of The Twilight Zone. The Russians are everywhere in the Czech Republic. They’re ideas of what is acceptable in society is much different than what we consider- hence, the screaming, running around children and parents nonchalantly drinking vodka in the bar.

We finally get out into the city after our Russian introduction. Prague is quite breathtaking. It has so much to see! The Old Town Square has two very, very old churches with one being able to climb to the top of the tower and see the entire city. Also, there are more Christmas markets to look at! One really can’t get tired of Christmas markets. Everywhere we walked was old cobblestone. There’s a very famous bridge, if you google pictures of Prague this bridge shows up, St. Charles Bridge and it is gorgeous. There are old statues all along the bridge with a killer view of Prague’s castle. Also there are many street vendors and talented musicians, this bridge is really long!

We cross the bridge, eat Czech goulash for lunch, and head up to the castle! The castle is mainly based on this GIANT and intricate church! I love how we get to go inside all these neat things. The castle itself wasn’t as amazing, in my opinion, to the one in Germany but still a wonderful sight to see.

The thing I loved most about Prague, other than being extremely cheap, was the Jewish Cemetery! A bit creepy, but totally awesome. There are 200,000 graves there and we can only see 12,000 due to graves being piled on top of each other. And the graves aren’t nicely laid out like pretty much every other cemetery I’ve seen; they’re only inches away from each other! The entire cemetery was about the size of two Avon, MT cemeteries. The oldest graves were from about the 1400’s. One of Ian’s great quotes: “This is definitely where the zombie apocalypse would happen. All those Jews getting revenge…” Cute, Ian.

That night we ate at a good Czech restaurant, drank traditional Budweiser, and Ian and I found a grunge bar with a Led Zeppelin cover band.

Next day! We headed to a small town, Czesky Krumlov. This town was incredible. Although Ian and I stayed in a hostel with a high creep factor, it turned out alright. We just didn’t shower. J This town was such an old and medieval place to be. Everything is cobblestone and all the buildings are still made out of rock. The castle was built out of the cliff it is on! You can see where there is the rocky part and the part that is smooth and painted for the castle. The tower is even painted! Inside the ceilings and courtyards are painted. My camera died so I’ll have to steal pictures from Ian because this place was incredible.

After checking out the castle we headed back to Vienna! And that’s a whole new blog in itself.

Sprechen sie englisch?

Okay, finally here are the Christmas vacation blogs! I decided it was a good time to stimulate my brain and write something relatively interesting.

Warning: There will be multiple, long blogs. You have been warned. J

First of all, we had the glorious process of actually getting out of Finland. The two times that I’ve left Finland it’s been such a hassle! I guess this didn’t actually happen in Finland but still. After our train ride to Helsinki and our flight to Munich we had a few hours to kill to wait for our flight to Vienna. We were about to board our flight and our tickets scanned red! First thought: Oh, my god we’re in trouble. False. After eavesdropping on a group of French people in which the same thing happened and we weren’t told why our tickets scanned red. My French finally came in handy!  The stupid airline overbooked our flight and didn’t ask customers if they would wait, they just chose randomly who was to wait! As Americans, in which everything is run like a business and customers are always right, Ian and I were beyond peeved. Also because this was a forty five minute flight we were waiting for. We could have taken a train to get there faster. Finally we get our turn and we have to wait another hour and a half for the next flight to Vienna. We didn’t get anything free except a telephone call to Ian’s aunt, Jan. It didn’t go through but we somehow got a hold of Laura, Ian’s mom in the freaking United States. We were so frustrated and slightly panicking, now I don’t know why. We probably scared her calling from Munich and panicking just because we needed to get a hold of Jan to tell her we were going to be late. After fifteen hours of travel, we made it to Vienna safe and sound and bit irked.

The next day we immediately got on a train and went to Germany! It was only five hours and once we got there it was so nice. We were near the Czech border, in the Bayern region (Bavaria in English), in a town named Cham, Christoph’s hometown. If you have eyes that excel at reading microscopic letters, feel free to find the town on the map. :) The first night we got there Christoph insisted he takes us to an American bar. Our thoughts “Our first day in Germany and we’re going to an American bar to eat burgers?” They still don’t compare to American burgers, which can be so enormous, juicy, and purely delicious. These were pretty tasty though and we got a good German beer.

The next day we went to Christoph’s university town, Nuremberg, where he helps put on a huge party in their university. Just imagine on of the largest buildings on campus being rented out, a mock bar being thrown in, and a few deejays! So awesome. This would have never flown in the U.S. There was a DJ, MC Hollywood who is from the Bronx! Hahaha! He’s this hilarious black man who randomly lives in Germany now.

Before the party we went to the biggest Christmas market in Germany. There’s anything and every kind of food, knick-knack, or trinkets you could imagine. I had a sausage overdose in Germany. Eating a sausage a day keeps the doctor away?

Photo courtesy of Ian, who took pictures of the party.  

The next day, after about four hours of sleep, we got some cheap Chinese food and saw a castle!! They’re amazing. There was this well, and it takes seven seconds for water to hit the bottom. It took ten years just to build the well. The entire thing was build out of stone, and it’s almost like a little village since people who actually lived in castles never left them.

After we got back to Cham, Christoph took us to this sauna complex. And I don’t mean like the local gym with a sauna that fits five people. This was massive! For about an hour we did waterslides then we went to the sauna area. There are an unimaginable amount of saunas and they’re all themed with  a ‘sauna master.’ Therefore: somebody controls how much flavored water goes on the rocks and therefore controls how hot the sauna is (the more the water, the hotter the sauna). Ian and I were pretty nervous for our first mastered sauna that was eucalyptus flavored. It so unbelievably hot! Ian got sick and we both had to leave early. Apparently this is why: a) it was our first time, b) we sat in the worst place in the sauna in which Christoph failed to tell us, c) it was unusually hotter than normal. We could not get outside fast enough! Haha! We survived though and ventured to try it again. Christoph made me go with him to a “surprise sauna.” It’s the traditional Finnish sauna (they say it’s Russian, but now I think the Russians are trying to claim that everything is theirs) where they beat your back with wet branches and leaves. All Christoph said to me before we went in “Don’t worry, just remember it doesn’t hurt.” Thanks Christoph! It didn’t hurt, but I was the only female in a room of German men.

And last but not least about the saunas: everyone’s naked! Men and women go to the saunas together… completely naked. In fact, you’re not even allowed to go in with a swimsuit.

The next day was pretty laid back. We drove to a schnapps distillery near Cham. It’s very traditional Bavarian, all the schnapps are made with berries, herbs, and natural things that grow in that region. Take one shot after a fatty meal and it’s supposed to be good for your digestive system.

Our last full day in Germany, what did we do? Went to another, bigger, and more wonderful sauna complex! It’s funny we go to Germany and spend plenty of time in the sauna, something that is totally free  and encouraged in Finland. But they’re so much different than Finnish saunas! This one had about thirty waterslides and maybe forty saunas! There was a manmade lake you could swim in, indoor pools with bars you can swim up to, outdoor pools, anything you could imagine it was there. The slides included one where you go straight down, jump off (!) and land on a mat then into the water and one of the bowl slides where you go down the slide and into a big toilet bowl then back down another slide! These saunas were so amazing, I can’t even say everything about them. We did salt scrubs, yogurt facials, sugar scrubs with vanilla flavored water, honey peels, swam, a citrus flavored sauna, Celtic sauna, anything you could imagine! We ended up staying there fifteen hours and didn’t even do half the saunas.

If you feel like checking it out, here’s the link because this place was incredible. Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s the biggest in Europe!

http://www.therme-erding.de/

The next day we headed back to Vienna! Successful first five days of being a European traveler.

Am I Really Half-Way Done?

Well, it's the middle of December and I can't believe I'm halfway done! Such a strange feeling. It feels like the semester was such a blur of emotions and events. Ian and I are leaving for Vienna on Tuesday! YEEEEE! But, this evening a big group of us went to get pizza and everyone wants to meet to say good-bye and spend time with you. The goodbye's just don't seem real! We're all pretty adjusted to Finland but so many people are leaving soon. Jyvaskyla gets about four hundred exchange students in the fall semester so you can imagine how strange it will be when most of the students leave! There's a good group of students staying the entire year, most of them being French. :) And this means I will be speaking French. So, that's the most recent thing right now! Everyone  leaving...

My culture shock is becoming easier to deal with! I feel accustomed to missing people, Montana, MSU, America, my 'real' life. The gratitude list is amazing! Ian was funny today. I bought the Frank Sinatra Christmas album today and listened to it three times. I told Ian how happy the christmas music made me, because I never had time to enjoy the holiday season since I was working. And he replied "everything makes you happy." Of course, he said this sarcastically. But I couldn't help but be happy by his comment (obviously), why shouldn't I be happy with simple things? Silly Ian... :) Life is exponentially better in Finland.

I went to my first "pikkujoulu" (Christmas party) a few weekends ago with Anu. It is so refreshing to hang out with Finns, people who have normal lives and aren't living in shit apartments that are only for exchange students. We drank a drink called glogi, which is essentially heated red wine, juice with some almonds and raisins. And we continued to eat our body weights in baked goods and chips. :)

I had my FOUR Finnish exams the last two weeks. Holy crap do Finnish schools take their tests seriously. Firstly, I had a dialogue. I was partnered with RoseAnna, a Dutch, and Samantha, an Italian. And basically, we totally winged it. After learning Finnish for a mere three months we had to prepare a five minute dialogue! We survived... Then there was the listening exam, that was a disaster for me! Listening is SO hard, especially because it seems they are speaking so fast! Again, I passed and survived. Written exam! My forte! I rocked that exam, me and my verb conjugating skills. Lastly, we had another speaking exam! The teacher was highly critical. I figured we just had to say something. No, not the case. I had to precise! We were given pictures with every day activities and had to describe them. Two of my pictures involved the character watching TV, what verb did I forget? To watch. My answer: "Han ei luke" = He is not reading. Good, Mariah.

There's the update! Hopefully, I can update during my travels. Firstly, I will fly to Vienna then go to Germany to see Christoph. Back to Vienna, spend Christmas there. :) Afterwards, we'll probably go to Prague. We haven't completely decided. :)

Gratitude.

I have no idea why some of this has a white background, I haven't figured it out quite yet.

grat·i·tude

noun the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful

As Thanksgiving rolls around I’ve been thinking quite a bit about gratitude and what I’m thankful for. The usual: great family and friends, school, a healthy body, etc. But I’ve learned a new form of gratitude: accepting Finland and being away from the wonderful U.S. before I go nuts.

A few days ago I had a huge ‘culture shock.’ It includes:

·         Extreme homesickness

·         Desire to avoid social settings which seems threatening or unpleasant

·         Physical complaints

·         Sleep disturbances

·         Difficulty with coursework and concentration

·         Loss of your sense of humor

·         Boredom or fatigue

·         Hostility toward the host culture

Basically, I was hysterically crying and seriously considered booking a flight home at the end of the semester. I got so fed up with not being able to see my family, friends that I don’t have to tone down my English for, and school that I cared about. I would have done anything to go home that weekend, and I almost did. Thankfully I didn’t! It was such a pain in the ass to get over here in the first place. Anyways, I very much experienced all of these things and learned a lot about myself and studying abroad. Firstly, I’ve been missing Montana like crazy and been feeling so hostile towards Finland. It’s not Finland’s fault I chose to move here. J I haven’t gone out in literally weeks, I had to buy an eye cream because of dark circles, I sleep way too much (does this count as a sleep disturbance?), my moods have been out of control, I failed that damn Finance exam, and I’ve been ‘bored’ with my experience. I had no idea this was what culture shock was. I imagined this feeling when I first arrived of adjusting to extremely strange things. In reality, the language was the strangest thing to me when I first got here but then I realized nearly everybody speaks English. I wasn’t prepared for my emotion center to be totally out of whack or that culture shock essentially equals my adjustment to being away. Obviously the advisors covered this during the orientation but how can I pay attention to things like that when I just want to figure out how to get all my stuff overseas?

I think studying abroad for a whole year is so different than one semester; probably the main reason for this is year-long exchange students don’t have something to look forward to at the end of the semester. We don’t have Christmas Eve followed by a great Christmas day with family. We don’t get to tell all of our experiences and say how great and amazing it was, because we’re still not home. This is probably the hardest thing. I think why I had my momentary freak out was due to going to Amsterdam and expecting to come back to a place that feels like home, whereas I came to a place I haven’t fully adjusted to yet. The things I do get to look forward to are so neat though! First, Ian and I are visiting Christoph in his hometown near Munich. I also get to see his girlfriend, Simone, who is such an awesome girl and I’m bummed she doesn’t live in Finland too. Then, we’re going to Vienna because Ian’s aunt lives there and that’s where we’ll spend Christmas. After that I may go to Berlin or London to visit Amy and David (Meg’s niece and boyfriend). So I have some pretty awesome things coming up! It’s very easy to forget about these awesome things when all you can think about is beautiful Montana snow and mountains.

To cure my boredom and hostility toward Finland I write down one thing every day that I’m grateful for in Finland or my study abroad experience. It’s literally a list in a little notebook. And, for the last four days it has helped! So, here is my ‘Gratitude List’ thus far:

11.19- Not being in Montana because the Bobcats got killed by the Griz. I’m glad I won’t be  hounded by obnoxious Grizzlies this year. FTG!

11.20- Jyväskylä Christmas Market.

11.21- SNOW! Finally.

11.22-   1. Being good at conjugating Finnish verbs.

2. RoseAnna, my Dutch friend, who also will not see her family over Christmas because she is staying until January.

3. Finland having the perfect amount of snow now, I can still ride my bike.

4. The option to retake tests! I never want to revisit that Finance book again…

I’m grateful for my gratitude list! It truly is helpful when I’m feeling down and now everybody knows the downs of studying abroad. J Hopefully happy blogs from here on out!

P.S. FTG. Go Cats Go!

Amsterdam!

Finally! My blog about Amsterdam, it is almost three pages long so hopefully you understand why it took me a few days.

Most people think of Amsterdam as the city of legalized marijuana and prostitution. Thankfully, I got to find so much more!

Day 1, November 5: Ian and I meet Stephen and Erin at 6:30 to catch our bus to get to Helsinki. Getting out of Finland is the biggest pain, traveling inside Finland was worse than the actual two and a half hour plane ride to Amsterdam. We’re all still a little confused with the public transportation system, probably because all they speak is Finnish and we have to change buses a few times to go straight to the airport. We asked the driver where we need to transfer and he told us only once, in Tampere. So, we change buses and are feeling pretty accomplished! There were a few more stops along the way to pick up more people. There was one stop where the new driver said something but we wrote it off because we knew we only had one stop. That was wrong. Apparently, the airport in Helsinki is about twenty minutes away from the city center; where did we end up? The center of Helsinki. So, after our 40€ taxi to take us back in the direction we came, we got to the airport! We did the normal airport thing and got on our flight. If anybody is in the EU and is flying to Amsterdam on the KLM airline…you get free Heineken. J We drank a lot of Heineken in those four days. David (Meg’s niece’s boyfriend whom I’ve met a few times prior to Amsterdam) lives about fifteen minutes outside of Amsterdam and he picked us up from the airport then took us to our hostel. We got our own bathroom! This is a really impressive thing for hostels. Then we decide we were famished (and needed more Heineken). We walked around, and by then it was dark, and the entire city was lit up and looked amazing. We found an Italian restaurant (among the many) with real Italians! Woo! They told us we got free bread, so they won us over. Our first dinner was a lot of pizza and beer with Italians swearing at each other.

Fun Fact: There are literally three or four ‘coffeeshops’ on every street. ‘Coffeeshop’ in Amsterdam equals place that sells weed.

Day2, November 6: We got to sleep in! We needed it after our bus fiasco. And the beds in the hostel were more comfortable than our actual beds in Finland, isn’t that sad? We took full advantage of our beds and pillows. We walked around and looked for breakfast. After a lot of debating over which place to go we found an awesome bakery. It had great cinnamon rolls, bagels, muffins, good and easy breakfast food. I got a bagel with goat cheese, walnuts and honey…it was delectable! I’ve never liked goat cheese before visiting Holland. We find our way to Dam Square to meet up with David. There were many street performers. Dam Square is the area in my facebook pictures with the tall monument and the royal palace. There is a lot of room for people to perform; this is the picture of Darth Vader and King Neptune. There was also Freddy Krueger and some other weird costumes, I was really only interested with Darth Vader. We met David and found some bikes to rent! Stephen and Erin decided not to rent bikes and walk around the city for the day. Ian, David and I rode about an hour to Zaandam, his home town. I loved, loved, loved this part of The Netherlands. It’s so green and beautiful! It’s actually a big tourist hot spot because of the windmills. There were so many of them! They’re massive and very historic looking. We got to visit a clog making museum where you can also buy real clogs to take home with you; I really wanted a pair by the way but I settled with a small knick-knack sized one. They used the clogs for a lot of different things; since Holland is so wet they had to use them to keep their feet dry while working outside. Another example: there were clogs for weddings with intricate carvings or clogs for walking across ice with little spikes on the bottom. After that we went to a cheese museum. I’ve never tasted such fantastic cheese! I will never eat cheddar again. Why? It’s not real cheese. Cheese does not turn yellow, it is an added dye. And cheese is formed in a circle shape, not blocks. I could have eaten cheese all day. I decided to buy the pesto cheese, it’s the bright green cheese in my pictures. J Let me tell you, it makes the very best grilled cheese.

After getting to see great landscape we went to David’s home where his mom cooked us a traditional Dutch meal. Sadly, I can’t remember the name but it was mashed potatoes mixed with sausage and a spinach-like green. She also made some really great soup. It felt so good to have Mom’s homemade cooking again.

We got back to the city centre and are dying to go out and explore some more. We’re strolling around where we see some random red lights but think nothing of it. And then we see a girl dancing in a window with only a bra and underwear on. I’ll give you three chances to guess where we were. 

I loved The Red Light District. It sounds strange, I know, but it’s so fascinating! Literally, there are girls in windows all down a street. If there is a red light lit above the window it signals that there is a girl ‘working.’ Another fun fact: the blue light district is for transvestites. Don’t worry, we only saw one. We sat in a bar for two hours just watching ‘business transactions’ with the prostitutes. Erin and I were very intrigued with The Red Light District.

Day 3, November 7: We had to switch hostels. We loved our first hostel because we didn’t have to share a room with fifteen other people. But, we could not afford the nicer one all four nights. Our new hostel had twenty beds in one room and one giant bathroom for two of these giant rooms to share. I’m so happy we went at an off time of the year because we were the only ones in the room and bathroom. The new hostel was very clean and convenient so it worked out. Erin and I decided to go wander by ourselves on Monday, the boys wanted to go find a certain coffeeshop. We went to the Erotic Museum! It was a good thing to do with another girl. We just thought it hilarious and weren’t freaked out by all the intense artwork. It really is a porn museum but we still had fun! And it gave us another excuse to visit The Red Light District again. Afterwards we went to the giant Heineken store, which of course we loved. There are bottles painted as the Sistine Chapel, Christmas Heineken, almost anything you can imagine. I bought a little souvenir package for 5€ that comes with a painted bottle and two small Heineken glasses and some new headphones (I needed new ones anyways and Heineken presented the perfect opportunity to buy new ones). We finally met back up with the boys and we decided to see the Torture Museum. We had so much fun at the Torture Museum. There were medieval torture devices, like a chair with spikes on it and people would have to sit on it while somebody tightens the straps to make them go deeper onto the spikes. Or a real life chastity belt! Those looked scary… or an iron maiden. Unfortunately, there is no record of an iron maiden ever actually being used. I’m bummed I didn’t take any pictures! I thought it was against museum etiquette to take pictures.

That night, we ate a ‘shoarma’ which is thinly sliced lamb with vegetables and some kind of a delicious sauce in a tortilla shell. Amsterdam has a crazy amount of international food: Argentina, Brazil, Indian, Spanish, Italian, Greek, so much! The best late night food: frosted waffles. 

Day 4, November 8: Another great day of walking around and gazing at the great architecture. Today was the day we got to see the Anne Frank house! Erin and I were looking forward to this for weeks. It’s truly an amazing experience. They’ve turned it into a great museum. We got a tour through the entire building from the office space through the annex. Everything they owned was confiscated when they were arrested so they left the rooms empty and wrote exerts from the diary on the walls and posted some artifacts that were found. At the end there’s another really nice museum that talked about what happened to Anne Frank and her family after they were arrested. We saw the actual diary she wrote in, she also revised it because she wanted it to be published so we got to see those pages as well. It was in German so we didn’t understand it but it was still very moving. We also saw a video of the concentration camps, which is still so horrifying to see. The Dutch actually are still not very fond of the Germans because of the invasion in World War 2. When they invaded Holland they decided it was necessary to bomb it when Holland’s army was nearly nonexistent anyways.

After we made ourselves happy again and got some lunch, the boys wanted to go to the Sex Museum (there is a difference between the Erotic Museum and the Sex Museum). They were not prepared with what they were about to see. They were freaked out by the ‘intense’ pictures and wanted to get out quickly. Erin and I had no sympathy since we saw it twice. J

Our last meal was at a great Spanish restaurant. We ordered delicious sangria and wonderful tasting food. The last thing we did in Amsterdam was find the Dampkring coffeeshop because a scene from Oceans 12 was filmed there.

We were not looking forward to traveling back to Finland the next day.

Day 5, November 9: We come back to Finlandia! And it welcomed us back by being colder than when we left.  But, now I get to look forward to Lapland.

Moral of the story: put Amsterdam down on your bucket list because it’s an incredible city that I would gladly visit again.