Monday, April 28, 2003
Well, we arrived safely back in the US. Since the last post...
We spent the following night at a small hotel further out from the center of town. This hotel had the steepest stairs I've ever had to climb! However, it was a place for us to sleep, so who can complain. We spent some time lost but managed to find our way back into the town. Somehow we managed to run into the pancake house that Becky had wanted to take us to! Anyways, we relaxed for most of the rest of the day. We found a fabulous little tex-mex restaurant for dinner. Dan and I shared the largest plate of meat for our fajitas! Becky decided to order these huge shrimp, that still had all the guts and eyes attached. It grossed her out at first, but that she seemed to fall in love with them. Apparently its popular to have them served like that in Europe!? Becky reserved a room for us online at a hotel near the airport, so we wouldn't have to get up so early on Sunday. Our flight was scheduled fro 7:05am!On Saturday we got up at a decent time and headed to the Van Gogh museum, which was very cool. We were a little dissapointed at first, as many of the paintings mentioned in our book were missing. It wasn't long until we found out that most of them were hiding in a separate exhibition gallery attached to the museum. It was amazing to be able to look at these famous paintings in person. It was kind of surreal in some ways. I'm certainly glad that we did it. We found a restaurant that served Pizza Hut and had some good old-fashioned American pizza. We picked our packs up from the hotel and went to the train station since Dan was leaving for Brussels. Becky and I stored our stuff in some lockers and waited with Dan for his train. Afterwards, Becky and I wandered around the shops until it started pouring rain. We sought refuge in a McDonalds to try to wait out the rain. It became obvious that the rain wasn't going to stop, so I decided I would by an umbrella. Although the thought of buying an umbrella sounds uneventful... you are quite wrong. I stopped at the first shop that was selling umbrellas, and grabbed the only one in a black case. (All the other umbrellas were leopard print, or some other un-manly print). I paid my 5 euros and walked out. I pulled the sleeve off of the umbrella and saw a portion of the green emblem on the actual umbrella... and instantly realized what I had done. I had just purchased an umbrella with a marijuana leaf on it, and "Amsterdam" printed under it. Although it is not something I want to endorse, I had already paid for it and it would serve its function. Needless to say Becky and I got a huge laugh out of it.
After a couple hours we had our fill of shopping (and rain) and decided to take a train out to the airport-hotel. The train took us the Schiphol airport where we caught a shuttle to our hotel. When we got there we were blown away. It was easily the nicest place we had stayed at all week. It was actually quite overwhelming. We decided we looked like white trash when we walked down to the pool in our sandals and swimsuits, but didn't care. It was awesome to relax after a busy week.
We got up on Sunday at 4:30am so we could catch the 5:30am shuttle to the airport. We were a little worried when we go to the airport, as there was a huge line for security. Thankfully the line moved quickly and we were on our way to the gate. We did notice that security sent Becky's bag through the x-ray machine twice, but finally let us pass. We arrived in Frankfurt a little late, but had plenty of time to get to our gate. We encountered SEVERAL more security checkpoints and finally another x-ray machine. This time security got concerned after their second scan of Becky's backpack. It ends up the Becky had accidentally left her swiss-army knife in her backpack. Thankfully they let us just check her backpack and she didn't have to surrender the knife. Now this obviously poses one big question!? How secure was the Amsterdam security? Its kind of a scary thought in some ways!?
The plane ride was extremely HOT!!! On top of the heat, there was some serious body odor issues with other passengers. Then, to make things worse, they served us the worst food I've ever had on a plane! Oh well, we got home on time and thru customs quickly. My parents were nice of us to take us to lunch at Chili's! It was nice to have good old American food, with American servings and free refills! Wow.. what a trip!
posted by Dave 11:45 AM
Friday, April 25, 2003
We made it to Amsterdam! Our train was about 20min late arriving, but it was a smooth trip. We stayed last night at: The Amstel Botel. Almost all the hotels are full, so we have to move to a different hotel tonight... and then again tomorrow night. Its kind of a pain, but things could be worse. We visited the Rijksmuseum today and saw some Van Gogh pieces and Rembrandt pieces. We are planning on going to the Van Gogh museum tomorrow! We'll see what other trouble we can find!
posted by Dave 8:13 AM
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
HEY!!! Well, we got into Berlin yesterday, but first an addition to my last post. I forgot to mention that the room we had in Prague was actually a retired prison cell. Now mind you, the place had been painted... new locks, carpet, etc. It was actually pretty cool. They had obviously had kids paint the hallways with fun colors and murals. I'll post pictures eventually.Anyways, we took a train into Berlin yesterday and found our hotel. We are staying at the "Mitte's Backpacker Hostel". It is another fun place to be. The place is pretty relaxed and hip. If you go to their site, we are staying in the "Skyline Room". We took a walk around Unter den Linden, one of the main roads, which ends up at the Brandenburg Gate. We attempted to eat at Hard Rock Cafe, but they had karoke night. Since when does Hard Rock have a karoke night? We finally found a decent Italian restaurant for dinner. We went back to the hostel to do our laundry, but they wouldn't let us do it. They are required to do the actual washing for us. This actually worked out well! We gave them the clothes... and some money... and we could pick our clothes up in the morning! It was only about $5.00 per load.
This morning we got up and met for the Berlin Walk. Its an english walking tour of the city. Ironically the guide was from St. Paul, Minnesota... and had moved to Berlin in 1987. It was an awesome journey and quite intriguing to learn the history of the city. We finished up and grabbed some lunch before going to the "Checkpoint Charlie" museum. That took quite a bit of time, but was very interesting as well. By this time we were pretty tired and went back to the hostel to rest for a little bit. A little bit later we went to the Reichstag building to climb the glass dome. We were famished and made our way back to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was cool to just hang out and relax a little more.
Tomorrow we are planning on going to some museums and then taking a train to Amsterdam. We should hopefully arrive to our hostel mid-evening. We'll have to wait and see how everything pans out. Well, thats all for now!
posted by Dave 2:02 PM
Monday, April 21, 2003
We are alive and in europe!Saturday we arrived in Frankfurt with a 7 hour lay over. We took the train into town and wandered around for a little while. We finally arrived in Prague about 6pm and were at the hotel about 7pm. The taxi ride to the hotel was an adventure. He was easily driving 75 in a 45... and almost had a couple accidents... but we survived. We were supposed to meet Dan around 8pm, but he wasn't there. We decided to go wandering around to see if we could run into him. We ended up missing him by about 5min. We finally met up and went and grabbed some dinner. We went and tried to track down Shannon, but missed her too.
Sunday, Shannon met us at the hotel and we went to the Jewish Quarter in Prague. It is supposedly one of the most historic Jewish sites in europe. It was interesting to learn that the Jews have been persecuted for centuries... we often merely think of the Hitler invasion. The persecution started much earlier than that. We were hoping to go to the Bone Church, but there weren't any busses going out there. We decided to wander around the Prague Old Town. We ate some awesome food at a cafe in the square.
Monday (today), we got up and went to the Castle on the hill. I felt lucky, cause we got to go inside the church, which had been closed last time I was here. We came back to town and ate lunch at TGI Friday's! It was nice to have a good old fashioned American burger. We're taking it easy for the rest of the day, and will be leaving for Berlin tomorrow morning. The internet connection is kinda flaky here, so I probably won't upload pictures yet. So far the trip has been a blast. Its fun traveling with Dan and Becky! Let the adventure continue!
posted by Dave 7:36 AM
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Well, we just got confirmation for our reservations at Pension Unitas. Its a hotel that was recommended by the Rick Steve's Book. It is located in the Old Town of Praha (Prague). So, we're currently planning on staying there from April 19th thru the 21st. Only two days now, till we leave!
posted by Dave 12:45 AM
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
The chronicles of the 2003 Trip to Europe
posted by Dave 11:29 AM
