Adventures of a teenage nomad

wow- its been non stop and i haven't really had a chance to get to a computer for a while, so, where am i right now? more on that later!

So i left off midway through Berlin, history, yadada... don't get me wrong, i loved Berlin- its one of my favorite cities, but i need to catch u up on everything!

WE went to Potsdam which is about 20 mins from Berlin to see the beautiful castles/palaces, these were amazing! there was a whole room with walls covered in sea shells, and another with a gold spider web. it was kind of ridiculous what extravagance were in these places. They used to be the vacation home of king Louis the #? he was really, really rich. I sent a link with pictures and its all fountains, and just really cool houses in general. It was Isa and i plus a girl we met from Quebec- Lisa Marie. awesome girl i really hope our path crosses again!

after Potsdam we came back to the Berlin hostel and grabbed our stuff and had yet another night train to cologne. we got there, dead tired took a lovely nap! when we woke up we were talking about what to do. Then i remember passing a sign for the musical "we will rock you". I've been wanting to see that SO BAD! its with all queen songs! So we went hoping for REALLY cheap ticket because is was REALLY last minute and luckily we found them! Some guy sold it to us, (might have been illegal?) for 2 for 70! we later checked and the real price was 60 each! ya for saving money!! The whole theater was made for that particular musical and it was: AMAZING!! it was all in German, so isa had to explain some parts but the music was incredible- it sounded like the real thing! it was kind of a bad story line, i'll give a run through:

So- its set in the future where everyone is basically clones and robots, but a few people like classic rock which isn't really allowed. but what is REALLY illegal is instruments. so after some adventures they somehow realize that queen has hidden the instruments in a rock.

ok... so that’s pretty much the story. i little umm, simple but the music! so great! and the main character guy, i did not mind looking at...mmmm....

WE came back, dead tired, slept.....

the next day we went to the place that actually brought us to cologne: THE CHOCOLATE MUSEUM!!! mmm!! It was really cool to see how they did everything, but my favorite part was the chocolate fountain! I really thought i heard angel music when i first set eyes on it! it was a large coco bean tree! the beans were in gold and chocolate was pouring out of the base, i was a bit disappointed that i couldn't eat the chocolate directly out of the fountain, but the wafers were a good substitute! There were a lot of cool things there, like the milka cow and just a lot of things to make funny pictures with!

that reminds me- sorry the pictures are so out of order, but i really don't have the time to sort through them all, maybe i will at some point, but not any time soon!

anyway, so then we went to the huge cathedral in cologne. its really huge. i mean- extremely big! i think it might be the 3rd or something biggest in the world!

I'm not much of a churchy person, but it was kind of nice inside, it took 700 years to build because they keep running out of money. that means theres a ton of different architecture styles going on. some parts were kind of creepy though. they had a lot of dead people in there. which i don't mind so much but instead of making sculptures of the deceased doing something, they actually made them dead and sitting on top of the casket. other than one guy who looked totally lounged out on top of the casket. he had an expression of complete boredom. definitely the coolest.

after that we walked around a bit. o! food description time:

So previous to coming to Europe i really didn't eat any meat. i started to have some before i came but not much.
... and then there was Germany.

amazing beautiful juicy sausages. holy crap. they are about a foot and a half long with a little bun you can use at a handle. they are delicious! but my favorite was in a potato soup. the sausage soaked up all the creaminess and shared its meat throughout the flavor of the soup. it was heaven.

yogurt is also really good here. who knew!

so that night we were hoping to just stay at the hostel like before, but there was a huge convention in town and the hostel was booked. we asked the guy at the desk if we could leave our luggage in the luggage room, and he was fine with it.
so that night we went out with this guy we met from the previous night. He was one of our roommates, very nice British boy! We walked through some sketchy parts of cologne where i had this guy come out of nowhere and sprint past me. I was so scared! but thankfully i survived! we finally found a Mexican bar after a long walk! We had some of the best nachos in the world. Ever since then I’ve been craving a dos amigos burrito from Dover!!! mm! December 6th i'm going to pig out!!!
It was a really nice bar, there was even a dog chilling out. He kind of scared me when he started licking my foot, but again, i survived.

We came back and were exhausted! we didn't really have anyplace to go, so we snuck down to the luggage room and slept there for about 3 hours. we also went into the lockers, so thats what those pictures are about! Then REALLY early we got up and Isa went back to her home and i went to AMSTERDAM!!!

i love Amsterdam. i want to live in Amsterdam. i almost wish i could speak dutch, so i could be an amsterdamian.

ok, so I’ve fallen in love with this city. I mean i liked Berlin for visiting, but Amsterdam i could see myself living there! but one of my favorite things about visiting there was that DAD was there!! YA!!! it was so nice to see some family because I’ve missed everyone!!! So i got back and i took a nice nap! (side note- i really think naps should be enforced everyday. i think in Spain they actually do it. for this reason and only this reason, i want to go to Spain).
So i think this might be a little out of sequence, but with dad after i woke up in the lovely hotel we went out and went to the van gough museum! it was nice, i'm not really an art person, BUT i was really excited about seeing this sweet picture:
http://www3.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/mmbase/images/7698
why, you may ask... because for odyssey of the mind one year we remade this same portrait completely out of llama wool!
so i saw the painting, got chills, but then everything else was eh. i think i was more impressed with the quantity rather than the quality.

after that dad and i stood in line for the the Heineken experience, but they closed right before. but thankfully in line there was a guy passing out newspaper books on Amsterdam and told us about boom Chicago.
boom Chicago is like mad tv, but it was an improv comedy called me, myspace and ipod. it was cute for the most part, the end got a bit creepy, but it was nice all the same!
the next day i got really sick and spent half the day in bed, i really needed some sleep! i woke up and then spent the second half of the day trying to find the Laundromat. after about 2 hours of carrying dirty clothes around to inexistent Laundromats, i gave up and asked one of those bike taxi people to take me there. we found it right away and had a nice chat on the way! when i came home dad and i went out for a canal cruise! it was so nice seeing all the lights!

i love Amsterdam so much! i love all the canals!
I feel like i'm forgetting something we did, but it was amazing!!

so before dad left we went to check out the hostel i was staying in the next night. its called the flying pig downtown. i walked in and it was a mess. pillows everywhere, a sign actually saying "no sleeping please" and about 15 people at their highest, sleeping.

i was a bit nervous, but thought- hey! its part of the adventure! so the next day after saying goodbye to dad (which sucked.) i got all my stuff and went to the hostel. THANKFULLY i had actually reserved my stay at flying pig UPTOWN not downtown. so i hopped on my bike and rode to the hostel which was right next to a lovely park with singing birds and not prostitutes (unlike the last one).

i didn't do that much that night, i went on the randy roy tour of the red light district. it was ok, lots of history, but it was mostly walking down sketchy alleys and the tour guide telling us what ethnicity of ladies we'd be walking by. i don't think i'd go again, but it was ok.

the next day i slept in and got up and bought my eurorail ticket!! finally! now for the next 2 months i can travel 5 days in France, Benelux, and Switzerland!!! so! i started the train ride of hell!

So France train workers decided to go on strike which left me stranded in a small town in Belgium. This was really crappy. I had no other train until later the next day and there wasn’t a cheap hotel anywhere. So.. I went to Luxembourg! I knew it was a bigger city, and we found a connection there (somewhat). So off to Luxembourg I went, planning on a 5 hour layover. So for the first 2 hours I slept in the arctic train station, but then at about 1am, the policeman kicked everyone out. So what do u do in Luxembourg when there is really no where to go? You go to a Portuguese bar! So I did that, stayed warm, got no sleep- but it kept me entertained!

Finally, my train left and I was on my way to Switzerland!! In total when I got there I hadn’t slept in about 40 hours, and I am sick of trains. But I’m here, so I’m happy!

I’ve also gotten to see one of the craziest people in the world: Betty! For those who don’t know she was an exchange student at my school, and like isa, we got pretty close. So she’s going to school here in winterthur!

She’s in a lovely apartment with 2 other international people, one from Bulgaria and another from Columbia. They are all so nice (as everyone in Europe is!) Her town in really cool because everything really old. It makes sense because nothing got destroyed in the war, so the old buildings stay old and gorgeous!

Hmmm, so my favorite food here is definitely the birchermuesli! Its pretty much amazing! Its almost like a parfait, except without the layers. It has yogurt, banana, apple, random berries, oats, and pretty much heaven. The oats make it really thick so its perfect even as a meal!

Betty’s been really busy with school, but she’s doing really well! She’s studying international management.

So I really wanted to cook her a meal, but I’m really clueless in the kitchen. But I still decided I’d at least try. So- I wanted to make bbq chicken. So we went to the store and barely found bbq sauce (it was bright orange, a little scary right?) and the chicken (I got 4 legs) and brought it home. So we let it marinate for a bit and then it was time to cook it. The only problem was that we had no clue how to use the oven. (something about matches next to gas?) but after a lot of tries, we gave up with the oven. SO! We tried it on the stove. Note to self- never cook a chicken leg on the stove- it doesn’t really work.
After about 30 mins, we decided it might be cooked, since the meat had turned a bit whiter than before.

We were wrong. It was extremely underdone, but we ate it anyway. Later that night we went to a party from her school (700 people there! Nuts!) but I got sick. So I chilled on the couch and talked to the people around. Thankfully, Betty was fine- and she even found a really nice boy! Ya!!

Yesterday, we walked around the city a bit, even had roasted chestnuts! Mmm! I can’t really buy a lot in Switzerland because its extremely expensive.

There is one thing I think I am going to have to purchase while I’m in Europe, and that is a winter coat. I was stupid enough and gave my old one to dad to bring back home, and after Amsterdam- its been freezing ever since. And today- ITS SNOWING!! Ahhh! I’m going to dress in a lot of layers, but I’m not sure if its going to be enough.

Tomorrow I’m heading for France! Yikes! I’m going to a farm near Laval? They don’t speak English, so the next 3 weeks should be interesting… who knows! But I get to take the really fast train there! I hope they don’t go on strike!

Ok~ until next time! I miss you all!
~Mary