Amstie!

Amstie is my pet name for the city of Amsterdam! I paid it a little visit with Katilyn over the last weekend of April. This series of pictures seems like a good lead in, just to reinforce where we are:

That little thing there is Kaitlyn

Sadly that is not me climbing the S

There I am!

Captain Morgan pose!

Casually reclining

The first thing that I wish someone had told me about Amsterdam is that there are more bikes than people. Literally, more. It was there that I developed a deep and profound hatred for bicicles and their riders because I can't count the number of times that I was almost killed by those ugly little machines. They're like an army:

Apparently we picked the wrong (or right) weekend to go because, as we found out after we booked the trip, Saturday April 30th is a huge Dutch celebration called "Queen's Day". It's the birthday of their favorite Queen who died a couple decades ago. They like her so much that, no matter when the actual Queen's birthday is, they say it's on April 30th and throw a nation-wide party then. The Queen was in The Hague but the party went on in Amsterdam without her. The only downside was that with so many people wanting to be in the same place at the same time, there was a shortage of hotel rooms and hostal beds. We were looking at hostal beds at upwards of 100EUR/night until SuperMom (that is @Toni Greenlee) stepped in and lent us her holiday inn points to get a free room on friday night. We booked the mystery hotel room for Saturday night. The deal is that they don't tell you the name when you book it, but it's much cheaper than the rest. It turns out that we had booked the Hilton Amsterdam. If you think we're lucky now, wait til we get to the hotel. When we checked in at the Hilton, they told us that they were all full so the only room they had left for us was the Queen suite on the executive floor. That is luck. And here is where we stayed:

Me in Kaitlyn's bed at the Crowne Plaza

Before we got at the beds

Bathroom, the only picture I have of the Hilton

So after we were done revelling in our awesome beds, we hit the streets. I have a bunch of pictures to show you what these streets actually looked like:

This is the entrance to a surprise mall

Some kind of government building

typical street

Some of the streets in Amsterdam are actually canals. They're beautiful, unlike any other city I've been in. We were sure to get a bunch of pictures.

Me + Canal

One of the main canals

Kaitlyn + Canal

Kaitlyn: "put your arm around me so we look nice"

Me: "ew, I have to touch you? What if I don't want to touch you?"

I finally touched her

On friday we did the flower market and the Van Gogh museum. Technically we were not supposed to take pictures inside the museum, but Kaitlyn is a sneaky little thing and got us some pics anyway.

They're famous for Tulips, but these are actually Daffodils

This is what the museum looks like inside. It's a very modern building. The downstairs with the blue carpet is a bar/cocktail area and the 3 upper floors are museum.

Last legal picure inside

sneaky self portrait

Cherry blossoms

something about dots that is apparently very famous....



On Saturday we went out to experience the party. It looked very impressive but in all honesty, it wasn't crazy. Europeans keep telling me that they're smarter than we are because they know how to properly use alcohol because there aren't strong taboos about it in the European culture. I now believe them. We only saw two really drunk kids and no ambulances so I'd say that, as crowded as it looks, it was a success. See for yourself!

Our first stop was authentic Dutch Heineken!

Kaitlyn got one too!

The main plaza

That's the current Queen. Her face is draped on the side of a museum.

Party on the canal!

Bigger party, still on the canal!!

Centraal Station

Another cool thing they do on Queen's day is that they host a city-wide garage sale. Anyone can set up a table outside their building and sell stuff. It was really cool. Here, check it out!

On a much heavier note, we went to the Anne Frank house Saturday night. It was tough, buy definitely necessary. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside and we respect Annie more than Vinnie so we actually complied this time. We still got what we could though:

The lobby and the ticket booth

The door. Not the one that we go through, but the one that she used.

Right before we got to Anne's house, we played a little hide and seek in an alley. I realize how that sounds, but it was a beautiful alley:

Where am I?

Where is Kaitlyn?

There she is!!!!!

And now for some randomness:

They set up a carnival during the day!

Best sign I saw in the city

These funny-looking things are urinals. This is the Dutch idea of a public bathroom. Obviously, there are no laws about indecent exposure. Ew.



So with that lovely impression, I leave you. Several other cities are on the way, but hopefully I will give more attention to studying for my finals than to updating the blog. No promises though....did you ever notice how having alot of work makes you actively seek out other things to do? This qualifies as "other things".

Hasta pronto!!

Surprise Sardinia!

Hola guys! Today we're gonna talk about Sardinia, which is surprising because it is completely out of order. Madrid, Toledo, and Florence are in the works, but the pictures are not ready yet so I figured that surprise something is better than nothing. So, without further ado I give you Sardinia:

We selected the Italian island of Sardinia to visit in celebration of Kaitlyn Nolan's birthday. Kaitlyn was my roommate for the first 2 years of college and remains, as we say in Spain, my media naranja (literally: half orange. In practice: other half). Marie and Erica met us there. For the more visual learners, here are the players:

From L to R, Marie, Kaitlyn, Erica, and some random stranger

We got off to a bit of a rocky start. We had booked a villa on the beach (cheaper than it sounds) but 24 hours before arriving we found out that the property is actually closed for renovations. Expedia had let us pay regardless, so after some brutal phone calls on the part of Kaityn's daddy, we got refunded and did not have to pay the cancellation fee that they wanted to charge. Luckily, we were able to book a hostal for 3 nights in Cagliari, which is the same town the airport is in. The reception was nice and the rooms were much better than we expected. We had booked an 8 person room (that was all there was left) but they put us in a 4 person instead. Kaitlyn, Erica, and I were in one room with a random woman and Marie was in a room down the hall, cuz of the short notice. This is more or less what it looked like/what we did there:

Kaitlyn, in our window

The room! Kaitlyn and I slept upstair and we stuck Erica downstairs because she snores

Me! and the view

The plaza below our window, plus a rooftop garden (what i'm pointing at)

Many of you know that I am a raptor in my spare time....

Marie's room, trying to fix the bathroom doow

The Birthday Girl!!!

Us! If you need a refresher, we are Marie, Erica, Self, and Kaitlyn

The city itself was beautiful, when it wasn't raining. It poured both mornings but cleared up around afternoon and we were able to go hiking around an old fort area and the main port:

This is also the plaza below the hostal

No idea what this building is

Marie and Me!

2 lighthouses

Old fort-type thing

Hiking to the fort

Tower with drawbridge!! scroll down for more...

So Spiky!!!

From the stairs of the tower

We had coffee on this street

This one's for you Momma!

Lunch!

Erica and Kaitlyn at the birthday lunch

Patio where we had coffee

Birthday dinner!

The main port

So there you have my Italian adventure. Well, one of them. I have quite the week coming up, finals start in 11 days and I have a few presentations to give. I'll be back at this every spare minute, I promise! For those of you who are counting, I will be home in 34 days. This is kind of bittersweet, but I'll be poorer than a rock in a few weeks so it's probably best that I come back. On that cheerful note,

Hasta Luego!