Amsterdam, Netherlands

I went on a weekend trip to Amsterdam with Dini, my Indonesian friend from german class.

We took the night train there but we took the lowest cost option: seats, which were already at 120 euros! We were too late for the special deals. :( They leaned back quite a bit though, so I was able to sleep, say better than on an overnight plane trip. Most people were pretty quiet, but we got lucky and had one old man that practically coughed himself to death.


When we saw this building behind Dini, we were saying, "Wow! That's beautiful! I wonder what it is! Maybe city hall, or a museum?"







Turned out...it was a mall. But oh, what a beautiful mall it was!







We took a guided tour of the city through Mike's Bike Tours. The people in our group were pretty cool. The girl in green and her husband in brown were from Ottawa, Canada, who JP and I actually met up with when we visited Canada last year. The other four guys were Australians, who were doing a European vacation tour for several weeks.


Here is one of the many canals of Amsterdam. Many people call these boats Home and this guy even has a lawn!





This is the only, or one of the few windmills left in the city. Windmills use to be torn down after they did their job (pumping out water to reclaim land to live and farm on) but within the last 50 years, the country started to preserve them as national monument type things. Half the country used to be under water (long long time ago) so you can imagine how many windmills had to have been built.



Part of our tour was riding a boat through the canals. This was also the Sunday of SAIL, a huge sailboat convention. It was also a day of, everyone in Amsterdam who owned a boat, was using it too. This made for boat traffic jams, and spectators on bridges watching the crazy big boats (like us) pushing their way between small boats and barely squeezing through the space under bridges.



There's an explanation to the skinny houses. Amsterdam used to tax on the width of your house! So, rich people lived in the wider houses. Oh yeah, and the rule with bikes is, make sure your lock is more expensive than the bike! No joke.


The Netherlands has a strong agricultural economy. They have some of the most fertile lands in the world. (The reclaimed land that was under water for so long was nitrogen-rich.)

Tulips in every color for you.







Another type of flower that I don't know.








Those bug eating plants









Lots of cacti







I like to buy magnet souvenirs (instead of postcards, shirts, or spoons) and Amsterdam had the best selection of magnets I'd ever seen.





I almost bought a clog shoe plush slipper (on the right). They looked really comfortable. People on farms wore (and some still do) wooden shoes when they're working outside in the mud and dirt.




But what else is Amsterdam famous for...marajuana of course. Items for sale in the picture: "Cannabis Lollys", "Canna Biscuits", "Cannabis Pastilles", "Hemp Cnusper Chocolate", "Cannabis Tea", and Cannabis seeds, in case you're allowed to grow them in your backyard.




Interesting things I saw....



Instructional picture on how to operate the cross walk signal









A public toilette for men. No, there's no urinal there.







We believe this guy was stealing a bike. He was sawing the bike lock for at least 20 minutes (counting from when we arrived at the bus stop across the street). Then he rode off with two bikes (kinda suspicious...)





Dini in front of the train station.







A church.








See the trash piled on the sidewalk there? The trash picker uppers were on strike! So there were huge piles of trash everywhere. It didn't smell, thank goodness, since the weather wasn't very warm, but our tour guide mentioned there was a garbage strike one time during the summer and the heat made the trash smell really bad. The doctors were even giving health hazard warnings.




I'd have to say, this was one of my favorite places to visit in Europe. I highly recommend it and make sure you take the tour! Our tour guide Shawn was so cool. Make sure you get him!

Paris

JP and I went to France for Christmas and New Years. First we spent Christmas at his grandparents' lovely home, then took the train to Paris to ring in the new 2005 year.

Dinner with the family and grandparents on the mother's side at the grandparents' house in Lutterbach, which is on the border of France and German on the French side. They speak a German dialect that's mixed with French due to the French/German border being moved back and forth several times in history.



Then we ate this special holiday marzipan pie called Galette, to celebrate the 3 kings that brought gifts to baby Jesus, normally celebrated on January 6th. When you buy them at the store, they come with a paper crown which I'm wearing here. Suits me better than those Burger King crowns, don't ch'ya think?





Here's the famous but under renovation Arc de Triomphe. Around it is a big driving circle where crazy French drivers test their driving skills and prove that traffic circles aren't always efficient. And I quote, it's "vehicular roulette with more balls than numbers" and yes, it looked like it too. It was CRAZY I tell'ya. The circle has no lanes painted but is about 5 cars wide and has 12 streets radiating out with no traffic lights with no traffic coordination whatsoever. In the picture, it doesn't look like there were many cars, but there were, and I was expecting an accident to happen at any time.



One of the most famous streets coming out of the driving circle is Champs-Élysées, a name brand shopper or a window shopper's paradise, where the famous names become bigger than life.





How much junk can a woman hold in these Louis Vuittons??







There's nothing like fake snow on trees out on the streets of Paris...







Standing outside in the Louvre Gardens. Unfortunately, we didn't go inside the museum because the lines were so long!!! We apparently went during one of Paris' peak seasons (week of New Years).





See the men in the khaki trenchcoats? Their job is to harass you into coming into their restaurant. I'm not sure how effective their approach is since they're more annoying than anything else. We chose chose a restaurant that didn't have anyone standing outside and I tried escargo for the first and last time! No, it didn't taste bad, but the thought of eating snails is bad enough. If you want to know, it's chewy, like eating those little squids.





There's a square where portrait artists hang out and wait for tourists to come by. This one is not that bad!







We took a cruise on the Seine river and got to see all the beautifully ornamented bridges up close.



I love visiting churches in Europe and I can't seem to get enough of them. And I love the beautiful stain glass windows.




Happy 2005! (although it's almost 2006 as I finally put up this post!)

First day of snow in Raubling

It actually started while I was in Paris.

Carnival / Fasching

It's like Halloween except instead of kids in costumes going door to door in the rain to get candy, kids and adults in costumes stand in the freezing, winter cold on the side of the road waiting for candy to get tossed to them from the parade. The biggest Carnival, or "Fasching" in German, event is in Mainz, which is where Marie and I were. There are other cities that have the celebration too, but Mainz is known to have the biggest one.

If you don't have a costume, then the next best thing is to wear a funny hat or wig. See the rastafarian by the pandas?

Here's a game for you. It's kind of like where's waldo except you have to find certain hats from the pictures below:
Santa, jailberg, soccor ball, viking

This costume was a little freaky looking.


Marie and I were party poopers and didn't do either but we still got plenty of candy!


There's all sorts of floats in the parade. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of political ones.


These characters are called Mainzelmännchen which are the mascots of Fasching.


This mouse man was funny. He must have grown up in the area because he was dancing to the parade music the whole time we were there.


Can you say, "packed like sardines"?


As the parade comes by, you're supposed to shout out, "hela!" and wave at the parade people while they do likewise. Marie (on the left with the red jacket) was into it, since she's gone a few times.

Marcus, her husband, grew up in the area and so grew up with Fasching. Apparently, it's not just a parade. It's another holiday (where only that German state gets a day off) to celebrate life and drink a lot of beer.

One of the floats had "The Macarena" song playing, so this playgirl bunny danced along.


Some funny colored marching band.

The music was great from every float/band.

Don't these look like big bobble-heads?


The parade lasted for like 5 hours! If you ever visit, make sure you're securely bundled and bring a lot of hot chocolate!