Semana Santa 2012, Part 2

Where was I? Oh! Amsterdam. Oh, Amsterdam. Easily my favorite city on our trip. We spent Tuesday morning walking around the city, going in and out of shops (delicious cheese shops, and flower shops full of tulips!) and admiring the canals and row houses. We walked down to the IAMsterdam sign to take pictures, and then headed back towards the train station to meet up with the Sandeman's free tour group. Our tour guide was awesome, and snuck us into her group even though it was already full. We toured the Red Light District and learned a lot of the history behind it, and walked through the rest of the city learning about Amsterdam and the mentality of the people who live there. Abby and I snuck out of the tour early and headed to the Anne Frank House. It was unbelievable to actually be in the place where Anne was hidden away for over two years, and it was moving to go through and see everything. Thinking of what Anne's father Otto must have been through as the only survivor of his family has always broken my heart, and reading his quotes and watching videos of him speak moved Abby and I to tears. As with every city I go to, I'm glad to have experienced some of the history behind the Amsterdam. After the Anne Frank House, Abby and I stuck together for the evening and walked along the canals, just admiring the city. Once it got late enough we headed over to the Red Light District, which is a lot different at night than during the day. Seeing all the women working their windows was an experience, for sure... still not sure how I feel about that one. Ha. It started to rain after awhile, so Abby and I headed back to the hostel and called it a night. As a side note, Abby and I were really proud of each other for finding our way around the city all by ourselves the majority of the day. :)

Wednesday morning we were off to Cologne, Germany. Walking out of the train station we were greeted by the sight of the 2nd largest cathedral in the world. So impressive! After dropping our stuff off at the hostel (a very hippy sort of place), we headed back out to wonder around the city and made our way down to the Rhine. We stopped at a friendly little bar, where a middle-aged man quickly became our friend and talked to us about Germany over beer. He recommended a jazz club for us to go to, and then we headed out and left him to go get supper. After supper we went to the jazz club he told us about, and I'm so glad we did! It was such a cool, cozy place with awesome live music! It's the oldest jazz club in Germany. We sat in the balcony enjoying the music and drinks, and before we knew it, the waitress came up with free drinks for us, courtesy of the man we'd met at the other bar earlier. He was at the jazz club too! As we kept watching the performers and enjoying the music, and old man in a pinstripe suit and and bowler cap made his way up the balcony. He had roses for all of us ladies! What a sweetie! He stayed up there and talked to Taylor Anne and I for awhile, and took pictures with us and gave us his address so we could write him. The next morning we decided to rent bike and ride along the Rhine river. What an awesome choice! We rode down to the Lindt chocolate factory, and then kept riding along the river out of town. (*side note, I've been to/on a lot of rivers that I'd only ever dreamt about: the Thames, the Seine, the Danube, the Rhine... I'm one lucky girl!). We stopped along the banks of the river to skip rocks in the Rhine and draw in the sands, and then headed back towards the city on our bikes, singing Sound of Music the whole time (hey, we were close enough to Austria, right?). We rode into the city to go through their central park area, and stopped and played at a playground. We might be college students, but there is something innately fun about playgrounds, especially German ones! If anyone made playgrounds as fun/dangerous as that in America, they'd be sued. I was a big fan of the zip line. After we turned our bikes in, we had lunch (best french fries ever) and then headed to the cathedral, which was just as impressive inside as it was outside. Absolutely gorgeous. After than Abby and I headed back to our hostel and stopped at a grocery store along the way-- we were going to have a 'family' dinner that night. That night, with a little help from Taylor Anne, I made a spaghetti dinner for everyone and we sat around our hostel just relaxing and enjoying each other.

The next morning our big, happy family split up and Jess, Andrew S., and I hopped on the train bound for Vienna, Austria. The train ride was 8 hours long, and every minute of it was gorgeous. The German and Austrian countryside was so green and gorgeous, the river was full, and the fields were planted. Speckled with little cottages all along the way, it was very quaint. Our hostel in Vienna was a pleasant surprise-- the first word that popped into my head was swanky. Super, super, super nice. I'll give myself a pat on the shoulder for picking that one out. It was already a little late when we got into Vienna, so we went and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and then had a few drinks at an Irish pub before calling it a night. We started off the next morning by heading to Naschmarkt, a big, outdoor food and flea market. So cool! It was so much fun to walk through and to see everything. And the food market was an olive-lovers heaven, made just for me I'm pretty sure. After that we headed to Cafe Kawelka, which is decked out with artwork by many famous artists who used to trade art for food there. After that we headed to the music hall, which is an interactive music museum exploring the musical history of Vienna. We then walked around the city, seeing all of the palaces and other historic buildings, like the opera house. The boys wanted schnitzel for supper, and there was a famous place right down the street from our hostel, so we headed back that direction. Such typical German cuisine! And German beer! No complaints there. We were so full we couldn't hardly move after supper, we found a bar with a couch, and chilled out there until we were finally ready to move on. We walked back through the palace complex and headed to the Bermuda Triangle-- the main bar area. We found a bar that was't too busy and looked pretty cool, plus it was happy hour, so we decided to go in for drinks. Within an hour the bar transformed entirely-- it was packed, standing room only, full of people on the dance floor, and definitely the place to be that night. So we danced the night away, and I met a guy from Kyrgyzstan who took a keen interest in dancing with me. Jess and Andrew pulled me away from him eventually-- we had to get back to our hostel because we had a flight to catch in a couple of hours. It wasn't worth going to bed back at the hostel, and after showering and chilling out for a bit, it was time to leave.
We took a plane from Vienna to Valencia (it was nice to be back there again, even just for a few hours), then the AVE (high speed train) from Valencia to Madrid, where  we stumbled upon the rest of our travel group on their way home, too. And then finally from Madrid to Cáceres. So good to be back home!