Saturday was a day trip to go to Brussels, Belgium. It basically felt like it was a trip to go to Chicago or St. Louis, we were just in another country is all! That was pretty weird and cool too. We all had to take our passports with us, but were never asked to show them. It was just for emergencies I suppose.
Once we were in Brussels, we were driving down one of the main streets and up ahead of us was a mini Arc de Triumph. I felt like I was back in Paris haha. We found a parking spot for the car and then started out wandering around Brussels. We didn’t really have an agenda, except to get to go see the Mannekin-Pis statue, of the little boy peeing into a fountain. It’s apparently Brussels most famous sculpture haha. We started out in a kind of huge court area, with a church that looked very gothic, along with shops, chocolate shops all over of course.
We headed to the far right corner of the court and walked down a couple of side streets and came up to this crowd congregating. I looked over and there was the little Mannekin-Pis statue. There was a sound system being played and they were playing “The White Cliffs of Dover” !!! How weird was that haha. I miss those cliffs hehe. The joke between Jen, Erin, Patrick and I was that we had seen those cliffs so many times from our Paris trip, and being in Dover for a field trip that we were kind of sick of them. We would say “Cliffs of Mour, who needs that when we have the amazing Cliffs of Dover” being very sarcastic about the whole thing and it was funny for me then to hear the “White Cliffs of Dover” being played in Belgium!
Once I had taken a couple of pictures there we headed back to the court and ate at a restaurant that was kind of like an old fashioned tavern. It was pretty cool, but the waiter was not very nice. Once we were done with lunch we headed over to another market place to look for a present for my sister Sam. I still didn’t really know what to get her, so when I saw a cute purple scarf I thought that she would like it. Plus scarves are very European haha!
I took another picture with this other statue that is famous, but not sure why because Marielle’s book on Belgium was all in Dutch, so I had just seen the picture in the car.
After the market, we wandered over to a very pretty church that reminded me of the Notre Dame Cathedral. We went inside and stayed for a little bit of the service, listened to another beautiful choir sing, and then sat outside in this little park area in front with some lounge chairs.
After that we wandered around some more. There were tons of tour buses all over with a lot of people with their cameras and groups on tours. We then kept on walking and found the royal palace. It was pretty grand and was fun to see. There was also a huge park across the street and we went there to walk around as well. There was a kind of young adult circus going on and we stopped to watch some jugglers performing a short show. They were pretty good too.
The buildings in Belgium were mixed with modern ones as well as historical ones, which made it very strange to look out at all the different types of buildings. We then found this huge inside shopping mall type place. There were tons of chocolate shops, all expensive, puppet shops, perfume stores and designer clothing. People were sitting at tables outside of the stores, and the whole place was inside. I saw some people having little bowls of chocolate mousse and wanted to get one very badly haha I can’t resist chocolate mousse, especially if it’s from Belgium. So we went into the French store and I asked about how much was one of the chocolate mousse cups to take away. But the men inside said that it was on the house and gave me one for free!! Sweet! It was also very good too!
Once we were done looking at the shops we turned down a side alley of the mall strip and there were tons of food restaurants all displaying the different types of meat that they served, with managers and servers standing outside trying to coax in customers. We decided to find a less crowded area to eat and ended up looking for a souvenir shop for me to buy postcards.
Once we were done souvenir shopping we were ready to get something to eat and head on over to another part of Brussels to see a famous structure. We were passing by the chocolate shops and I had to buy some before I left. I got to pick out a number of different kinds of chocolates, like 30 pieces for 8 euros! Good deal! We then found a restaurant to get something to eat. It had 3 levels to it and was pretty cool because it was so big. I got a hot chocolate and a giant chocolate crepe to eat :D Hehe it was very good!
When we were done eating we headed back to the car and over to this place where it had this gigantic statue that looked like a giant atom. You could go up in it, but we got there too late to do that. So we just took pictures under it and then got back in the car and left.
When we got back to Made and Marielle and Erwin were still hungry so they got these meat sandwiches with French fries. We went back to their house and watched The Last King of Scotland, well I watched it and they both fell asleep haha. Marielle was never very good at staying awake when we would watch movies :D
Then we all went to bed.
All in all a great visit to see Brussels and now I have eaten REAL Belgian chocolates too!! :D Life is good ;D
Saturday, May 24, 2008
First couple of days in Amsterdam!!
Once my plane landed in Amsterdam’s airport, I went to the luggage area and called Marielle’s cell phone to tell her that I was in the airport. Marielle is our Dutch student that we hosted when we were in 8th grade. She went to ICC for a semester from January to May.
She told me that she was waiting outside of gate 1 where I came in. I rounded the corner and down the hall was Marielle and her friend Annet! We both had huge smiles on our faces and gave one another a BIG hug!! I’ve missed my big sister!
We sat at a little café place to talk and have a drink. I got some iced tea haha and told her how my flight went and how Paris had been. She said that her English was not as good as it used to be, but I told her that it was fine and it will get better by the end of the week when I left haha.
We headed out to the parking lot and got into Marielle’s car. Annet sat in the back and we headed out of the major part of the city of Amsterdam’s airport area and went to a part of town about an hour or so from the airport to eat some dinner.
We found a parking spot and Marielle was telling about what her boyfriend Erwin did for a job. She said that he sells compressed air to companies, like elevator companies, ummm.. And other companies that need compressed air haha, like hospitals?? Erwin also sells used bikes out of Marielle’s mom’s barn to people online. When Marielle was telling me this though, I thought that she meant that Erwin would steal the bikes from off of the streets, because she had pointed to a bike and said, “A bike like this.” and so I thought that he was stealing bikes from off of the street and selling them illegally from Marielle’s mom’s home! I was thinking, “Marielle! How is that legal? How can he get away with it?” She says, “Oh yeah, people do it all the time here.” Haha I was soo confused, so I said, “He steals the bikes, like takes them off of the streets!!” And then she understood what I was thinking and we started to laugh because that wasn’t it at all! Erwin’s cousin has a bike store where he sells new bikes. People bring in their old bikes to trade, and Erwin sells the used bikes to older people or students who can not afford a new bike. Hehe so lost in translation moment there!
We found this restaurant called King Arthur’s that was tucked away along a canal in this smaller town. Marielle used to live there and a club near King Arthur’s was where she would go out a lot when she was younger.
We had to wait at the bar for our table and I was not sure what kind of drink to get, since I usually would just get a Strongbow when I was in England. But I then spotted it and gasped! I got a bottle of Strongbow and Annet did too. Marielle got a glass of wine. But she tried my Strongbow and said it was all right.
We ordered our food and talked some more about what I had done in England, the places I went, the friends I made. Annet I found out is a secretary at a doctor’s office. Then I later found out that most of Marielle’s girlfriends were secretaries in one office or another. Must be a popular job huh haha!
After dinner we made our way back to the car and then back to Marielle’s home town called Made. Annet told me the joke that things are made in Made, hehe! We stopped to get McFlurries for dessert :D It was good, I hadn’t had McDonalds in a looong time!
After dessert we dropped Annet off at her house and then went to Marielle’s home a couple of minutes away from Annett’s home. Her house has 2 levels and is quite big, with a medium sized back yard with a tool shed. Erwin was in the living room watching television, a football game actually.
He is a very nice guy and funny too. His English is not as good as Marielle’s but with hand gestures and fishing around for words, as well as some help from Marielle, we understood one another :D
Marielle gave me a tour of the house and it was decorated by both of them. It is very cute and the rooms are actually quite big. Pictures are coming soon to an aol album near you :D
On Thursday the 8th of April, Marielle let me sleep in a little bit and we all got ready for a night in the city of Amsterdam! We packed a change of clothes and got into the car and set off. The ride there was filled with landscape of green grass, houses spread out around the countryside, and windmills placed here and there! It was very cool to see the windmills. Other than that it reminded me a lot of home really. The long stretch of countryside was nice to see and made me miss home a small bit.
Once we got into the city, we had to park at the civic center called AJAX, and we took a train into Amsterdam and made our way to the street called the Dam, which is the popular street in Amsterdam. It was also where our hotel was located too :D
Once we found our hotel, we checked in and took the tiny elevator up to our room. The carpet was kind of bad, had something like bleach it looked like it, but it was really just to sleep in, so it was fine. We got free breakfast in the morning too, so bonus haha!
We started out for the day and walked down the street of the Dam. We stopped to take pictures by an obelisk, and across from it was the Royal Palace of the Queen. It wasn’t as grand as some other palaces that I’ve seen, but it was still pretty big!
We turned around to go towards the boat canal tours. On the way we stopped to get lunch. It was called a croquet, and was delicious! It is supposedly a variety of meats all in a kind of tube style, that is deep fried. Served with mustard, it was very yummy! :D We ate it with fries while we walked towards the tour place. There were two different colored lines to take for the boat tours that stopped at historical places all around Amsterdam.
We took the boat that was going towards the Anne Frank house. That was our first stop.
We took pictures outside of her home. It was quite nice area, with the canal right outside the buildings. It was weird though, thinking if Anne had ever seen anything that I was looking at now. We then waited in line for our tickets and made our way upstairs to the Attic. Technically we were not supposed to take pictures or videos, but no one yelled at me so I just continued to video and take a couple of pics. Plus there were other people doing the same thing.
We went through the bookshelf, after taking a picture of course :D, and came up to the main floor that the Damm family slept in, which was also the living room. The kitchen was connected to that and then Anne’s room. She still had pictures on her wall too, that the Nazi’s didn’t take down. Everything that existed in the house was taken however, when the Nazi’s invaded. The kitchen things were still there, such as a stove and a sink. The attic, where Anne and Peter would sometimes go to talk or hang out, was closed with a glass window over it. That was so people could still see up to the window, but not go up there. Then we walked back downstairs to the museum part, where there were videos, pictures, and some artifacts from the concentration camps from victims. Mostly it was talked about the Frank & Van Dam family, what happened to them after they were all captured. A video of the Frank’s friend Miep, talking on a video of what happened. Another video was a friend of Anne’s who helped feed her in the concentration camp, and then never heard from her again. Anne had died the week before her camp was rescued. Her dad was also on another video, and he talked about how he had read Anne’s diary. He said that that was a side of Anne that he never had seen before, and how smart and grown up she seemed. It was very sad to listen to all of the stories and the whole factory felt eerie and sad.
After buying some souvenirs at the gift shop for my sister Mimi, since she likes all of that WWII era stuff, we left the factory and headed outside.
We stopped to have a drink at a pub while waiting for the boat to come back. We hopped back on the boat and headed on over to the I Amsterdam sculpture to take pictures. We then walked across this park to go to the Vincent Van Gogh museum. He is originally from Amsterdam and then moved to Paris to study art and lived there with his brother and his sister-in-law. He worked in the Montmartre district of Paris.
We were not allowed to take pictures, but we saw a good number of some of his famous art pieces. He liked to paint the workers in the fields, hard working class really. His “Starry Starry Night” portrait was in New York though. But there were a lot of other good pieces to look at and read about. He worked and lived with another impressionist artist for a while, but there personalities did not go well together, and Vincent moved out. This was also around the time when he started to go crazy. We did see one of his more famous paintings called “The Potato Eaters”. He was also influenced on Japanese art and did a number of paintings and catalog work during that time. While in the museum, I had Marielle listen to the “Starry Starry Night” song that Josh Groban sings hehe.
After we were done in the museum, we walked along the more expensive part of Amsterdam, where Burberry, Polo, Armani, and all of the high society stores were. We were getting a little hungry and we made our way over to a square to find a pub called the Three Sisters Grand Pub. It’s a chain that is supposedly all around the world. We sat down next to a table of men who were all really drunk already and it wasn’t even the end of the afternoon!! I ordered a cherry flavored beer called Kriek. It was good, and they didn’t have Strongbow haha, but I was the one that wanted to try something else as well.
Marielle got a glass of white wine and Erwin ordered beer after beer. The guys at the table next to us were being mean and making fun of Erwin’s weight. I asked why they were being so rude, and Marielle said that the Dutch are really honest with their feelings, hmm…weird.
Erwin decided to stay and have a couple more drinks while Marielle and I went over to H&M across the street, where I ended up buying a swim suit and a blue dress shirt, along with black stockings to go with my new outfit from Sweden :D When we got back to the pub, Erwin was talking to the guys next to him. They all asked me what I bought, and when they found out that I was American they started trying to speak in English, but failed a lot of the time.
Before we left the pub, the guys next to us (ok they were middle aged men to be honest) asked for some Euros, because they were short 20 I think. We said no, but asked them how much their bill was. It was 700 Euros!! They had all started drinking at 11 in the morning until about 6:30 when we left!!
We walked down another street to go find some place to eat dinner. We didn’t really have a preference until we saw this giant Chinese restaurant. It had 3 floors of seating!! But the fun part was that it was where the Red Light District started. Ok so maybe not fun but interesting haha.
The food was good and we all got soo full!
After dinner we headed out and Marielle and I walked arm in arm with Erwin walking behind us, and went into the Red Light District. It’s called the Red Light District due to all of the neon lights above the bars and sex shops/stores, as well as the windows with scantly clad women. It was an interesting experience and kind of weird too. Like, it’s a must see place to do in Amsterdam, but not all that interesting as it was more awkward than anything. I felt like a horse with blinders on, trying to keep my eyes straight ahead and not veer off to see the windows. If the women had customers, there were curtains over the windows. We turned down a side street and saw a guy come out of one of the window/doors. He kissed the woman’s hand and headed to the next window!! Crazy!
I was also glad that Erwin was with us, for protection and support. It wasn’t that bad, just a little weird being surrounded my tourists and creepy men really. More tourists just walking along the street mainly. When we had had our fill of seeing the Red Light District, we headed down another street to take us back to the hotel. I could smell the pot in the air. It was VERY strong. And for general information, a coffee shop may sell coffee, but it is predominantly going to sell pot. They looked ok from the windows that I saw. Amsterdam tries to keep the environments safe for the tourist and people that come into the stores. But it was so heavy in the air that night, that my contacts were starting to dry out a little, it was so strong in the air!
We also passed by one of the famous pot factories called the Grasshopper on our way back to the hotel.
Once back at the hotel, we crashed and fell asleep right away after our busy day.
On Friday the 9th of April, woke up, took showers, ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, then left our baggage in the baggage closet while we did some more sight seeing. We started out on the boats again, this time heading out to the Rembrandt statues. On the way we stopped at a coffee shop, an actual coffee place to drink coffee lol. On the street I spotted a Heineken Bier Wagon being pulled by Clydesdale horses! That was pretty cool! We also spotted one of the Ice Bars where people have to wear fur coats inside and are only allowed a certain amount of hours inside, due to everything being made out of ice inside the bar!! But it wasn’t open during the day, so I just took a picture of it from the outside.
Once we were done visiting the Rembrandt statues, we went over to a flower market. There were soo many stands full of all kinds of flowers, plants, bulbs, garden things etc. It was pretty cool. I bought some tulips for my mom to have actual Holland tulips.
Next we went to another market, that kind of reminded me of Portobello Road. It had tons of stuff. Food, clothes, home décor, garden things, shoes, all kinds of stuff. We tried these waffles that had some kind of maple syrup in the middle of it. Yumm hehe.
Once we found nothing in the market that we needed to buy, we headed back to the hotel to get our things. On the way we bought some hot dogs and ate them as we walked. Got our luggage, took the train back to the AJAX center and got back into the car.
The next place to go on the agenda was to go to this Zaanse Schans museum. The museum itself was closed but there was still a lot to do there. We first got our picture taken by some of the workers so that we could buy them on the way out before we left. They had us stand in a spot where the windmills would be in the background of the picture.
Then we decided since it was late in the afternoon that we would head over to the windmills to look into them and then do some shopping and stuff afterwards.
The one we went into was a windmill that sawed giant logs of wood. We watched a video on how it was made, then how it works to cut the wood. We went down some stairs to the part where the saws cut the logs and a man running the windmill told us about it all. The windmill wasn’t sawing too much due to the lack of wind when we were there, but the guy went up top outside to push one of the wings to start it so that we would be able to see it work. It was neat to see I thought.
After we were done in the windmill we headed back outside. There were houses and little farm islands where billy goats were sitting and eating grass. There were also chickens around and some cows too. We wandered around the little town place for a bit and then decided to go into this shop that sold all kinds of cheeses! It was great because they let you test out the cheeses. I had an apple from breakfast, so I had Marielle try apples and cheese together since she had never had that before! It was great haha! I ended up buying two kinds of cheeses to take home with me.
The other store we went into was the clog store. It had hundreds of clogs, all different kinds too. There was first the story of how the clog came be made, what different kinds were made in the early stages of the clog. Some very cool and scary looking ones were on display.
Then there were also all kinds of souvenirs to buy, a diamond shop in the middle of the store and funny hats as well, which I had to try one of them on for fun of course haha!
After we were done in the stores, we were ready to head on home to Made. Before we left the Zaanse Museum though, we looked at the pictures that the camera man took of us when we got there. I ended up liking them both and bought 2 copies. Marielle bought one too and has it up at her house now :D
Once we were home, we ended up going out to the local Made pub a few drinks with Marielle, Erwin, Annet, and her boyfriend. It was fun and we talked a long while. We walked back home and went to sleep after a looong day.
She told me that she was waiting outside of gate 1 where I came in. I rounded the corner and down the hall was Marielle and her friend Annet! We both had huge smiles on our faces and gave one another a BIG hug!! I’ve missed my big sister!
We sat at a little café place to talk and have a drink. I got some iced tea haha and told her how my flight went and how Paris had been. She said that her English was not as good as it used to be, but I told her that it was fine and it will get better by the end of the week when I left haha.
We headed out to the parking lot and got into Marielle’s car. Annet sat in the back and we headed out of the major part of the city of Amsterdam’s airport area and went to a part of town about an hour or so from the airport to eat some dinner.
We found a parking spot and Marielle was telling about what her boyfriend Erwin did for a job. She said that he sells compressed air to companies, like elevator companies, ummm.. And other companies that need compressed air haha, like hospitals?? Erwin also sells used bikes out of Marielle’s mom’s barn to people online. When Marielle was telling me this though, I thought that she meant that Erwin would steal the bikes from off of the streets, because she had pointed to a bike and said, “A bike like this.” and so I thought that he was stealing bikes from off of the street and selling them illegally from Marielle’s mom’s home! I was thinking, “Marielle! How is that legal? How can he get away with it?” She says, “Oh yeah, people do it all the time here.” Haha I was soo confused, so I said, “He steals the bikes, like takes them off of the streets!!” And then she understood what I was thinking and we started to laugh because that wasn’t it at all! Erwin’s cousin has a bike store where he sells new bikes. People bring in their old bikes to trade, and Erwin sells the used bikes to older people or students who can not afford a new bike. Hehe so lost in translation moment there!
We found this restaurant called King Arthur’s that was tucked away along a canal in this smaller town. Marielle used to live there and a club near King Arthur’s was where she would go out a lot when she was younger.
We had to wait at the bar for our table and I was not sure what kind of drink to get, since I usually would just get a Strongbow when I was in England. But I then spotted it and gasped! I got a bottle of Strongbow and Annet did too. Marielle got a glass of wine. But she tried my Strongbow and said it was all right.
We ordered our food and talked some more about what I had done in England, the places I went, the friends I made. Annet I found out is a secretary at a doctor’s office. Then I later found out that most of Marielle’s girlfriends were secretaries in one office or another. Must be a popular job huh haha!
After dinner we made our way back to the car and then back to Marielle’s home town called Made. Annet told me the joke that things are made in Made, hehe! We stopped to get McFlurries for dessert :D It was good, I hadn’t had McDonalds in a looong time!
After dessert we dropped Annet off at her house and then went to Marielle’s home a couple of minutes away from Annett’s home. Her house has 2 levels and is quite big, with a medium sized back yard with a tool shed. Erwin was in the living room watching television, a football game actually.
He is a very nice guy and funny too. His English is not as good as Marielle’s but with hand gestures and fishing around for words, as well as some help from Marielle, we understood one another :D
Marielle gave me a tour of the house and it was decorated by both of them. It is very cute and the rooms are actually quite big. Pictures are coming soon to an aol album near you :D
On Thursday the 8th of April, Marielle let me sleep in a little bit and we all got ready for a night in the city of Amsterdam! We packed a change of clothes and got into the car and set off. The ride there was filled with landscape of green grass, houses spread out around the countryside, and windmills placed here and there! It was very cool to see the windmills. Other than that it reminded me a lot of home really. The long stretch of countryside was nice to see and made me miss home a small bit.
Once we got into the city, we had to park at the civic center called AJAX, and we took a train into Amsterdam and made our way to the street called the Dam, which is the popular street in Amsterdam. It was also where our hotel was located too :D
Once we found our hotel, we checked in and took the tiny elevator up to our room. The carpet was kind of bad, had something like bleach it looked like it, but it was really just to sleep in, so it was fine. We got free breakfast in the morning too, so bonus haha!
We started out for the day and walked down the street of the Dam. We stopped to take pictures by an obelisk, and across from it was the Royal Palace of the Queen. It wasn’t as grand as some other palaces that I’ve seen, but it was still pretty big!
We turned around to go towards the boat canal tours. On the way we stopped to get lunch. It was called a croquet, and was delicious! It is supposedly a variety of meats all in a kind of tube style, that is deep fried. Served with mustard, it was very yummy! :D We ate it with fries while we walked towards the tour place. There were two different colored lines to take for the boat tours that stopped at historical places all around Amsterdam.
We took the boat that was going towards the Anne Frank house. That was our first stop.
We took pictures outside of her home. It was quite nice area, with the canal right outside the buildings. It was weird though, thinking if Anne had ever seen anything that I was looking at now. We then waited in line for our tickets and made our way upstairs to the Attic. Technically we were not supposed to take pictures or videos, but no one yelled at me so I just continued to video and take a couple of pics. Plus there were other people doing the same thing.
We went through the bookshelf, after taking a picture of course :D, and came up to the main floor that the Damm family slept in, which was also the living room. The kitchen was connected to that and then Anne’s room. She still had pictures on her wall too, that the Nazi’s didn’t take down. Everything that existed in the house was taken however, when the Nazi’s invaded. The kitchen things were still there, such as a stove and a sink. The attic, where Anne and Peter would sometimes go to talk or hang out, was closed with a glass window over it. That was so people could still see up to the window, but not go up there. Then we walked back downstairs to the museum part, where there were videos, pictures, and some artifacts from the concentration camps from victims. Mostly it was talked about the Frank & Van Dam family, what happened to them after they were all captured. A video of the Frank’s friend Miep, talking on a video of what happened. Another video was a friend of Anne’s who helped feed her in the concentration camp, and then never heard from her again. Anne had died the week before her camp was rescued. Her dad was also on another video, and he talked about how he had read Anne’s diary. He said that that was a side of Anne that he never had seen before, and how smart and grown up she seemed. It was very sad to listen to all of the stories and the whole factory felt eerie and sad.
After buying some souvenirs at the gift shop for my sister Mimi, since she likes all of that WWII era stuff, we left the factory and headed outside.
We stopped to have a drink at a pub while waiting for the boat to come back. We hopped back on the boat and headed on over to the I Amsterdam sculpture to take pictures. We then walked across this park to go to the Vincent Van Gogh museum. He is originally from Amsterdam and then moved to Paris to study art and lived there with his brother and his sister-in-law. He worked in the Montmartre district of Paris.
We were not allowed to take pictures, but we saw a good number of some of his famous art pieces. He liked to paint the workers in the fields, hard working class really. His “Starry Starry Night” portrait was in New York though. But there were a lot of other good pieces to look at and read about. He worked and lived with another impressionist artist for a while, but there personalities did not go well together, and Vincent moved out. This was also around the time when he started to go crazy. We did see one of his more famous paintings called “The Potato Eaters”. He was also influenced on Japanese art and did a number of paintings and catalog work during that time. While in the museum, I had Marielle listen to the “Starry Starry Night” song that Josh Groban sings hehe.
After we were done in the museum, we walked along the more expensive part of Amsterdam, where Burberry, Polo, Armani, and all of the high society stores were. We were getting a little hungry and we made our way over to a square to find a pub called the Three Sisters Grand Pub. It’s a chain that is supposedly all around the world. We sat down next to a table of men who were all really drunk already and it wasn’t even the end of the afternoon!! I ordered a cherry flavored beer called Kriek. It was good, and they didn’t have Strongbow haha, but I was the one that wanted to try something else as well.
Marielle got a glass of white wine and Erwin ordered beer after beer. The guys at the table next to us were being mean and making fun of Erwin’s weight. I asked why they were being so rude, and Marielle said that the Dutch are really honest with their feelings, hmm…weird.
Erwin decided to stay and have a couple more drinks while Marielle and I went over to H&M across the street, where I ended up buying a swim suit and a blue dress shirt, along with black stockings to go with my new outfit from Sweden :D When we got back to the pub, Erwin was talking to the guys next to him. They all asked me what I bought, and when they found out that I was American they started trying to speak in English, but failed a lot of the time.
Before we left the pub, the guys next to us (ok they were middle aged men to be honest) asked for some Euros, because they were short 20 I think. We said no, but asked them how much their bill was. It was 700 Euros!! They had all started drinking at 11 in the morning until about 6:30 when we left!!
We walked down another street to go find some place to eat dinner. We didn’t really have a preference until we saw this giant Chinese restaurant. It had 3 floors of seating!! But the fun part was that it was where the Red Light District started. Ok so maybe not fun but interesting haha.
The food was good and we all got soo full!
After dinner we headed out and Marielle and I walked arm in arm with Erwin walking behind us, and went into the Red Light District. It’s called the Red Light District due to all of the neon lights above the bars and sex shops/stores, as well as the windows with scantly clad women. It was an interesting experience and kind of weird too. Like, it’s a must see place to do in Amsterdam, but not all that interesting as it was more awkward than anything. I felt like a horse with blinders on, trying to keep my eyes straight ahead and not veer off to see the windows. If the women had customers, there were curtains over the windows. We turned down a side street and saw a guy come out of one of the window/doors. He kissed the woman’s hand and headed to the next window!! Crazy!
I was also glad that Erwin was with us, for protection and support. It wasn’t that bad, just a little weird being surrounded my tourists and creepy men really. More tourists just walking along the street mainly. When we had had our fill of seeing the Red Light District, we headed down another street to take us back to the hotel. I could smell the pot in the air. It was VERY strong. And for general information, a coffee shop may sell coffee, but it is predominantly going to sell pot. They looked ok from the windows that I saw. Amsterdam tries to keep the environments safe for the tourist and people that come into the stores. But it was so heavy in the air that night, that my contacts were starting to dry out a little, it was so strong in the air!
We also passed by one of the famous pot factories called the Grasshopper on our way back to the hotel.
Once back at the hotel, we crashed and fell asleep right away after our busy day.
On Friday the 9th of April, woke up, took showers, ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant, then left our baggage in the baggage closet while we did some more sight seeing. We started out on the boats again, this time heading out to the Rembrandt statues. On the way we stopped at a coffee shop, an actual coffee place to drink coffee lol. On the street I spotted a Heineken Bier Wagon being pulled by Clydesdale horses! That was pretty cool! We also spotted one of the Ice Bars where people have to wear fur coats inside and are only allowed a certain amount of hours inside, due to everything being made out of ice inside the bar!! But it wasn’t open during the day, so I just took a picture of it from the outside.
Once we were done visiting the Rembrandt statues, we went over to a flower market. There were soo many stands full of all kinds of flowers, plants, bulbs, garden things etc. It was pretty cool. I bought some tulips for my mom to have actual Holland tulips.
Next we went to another market, that kind of reminded me of Portobello Road. It had tons of stuff. Food, clothes, home décor, garden things, shoes, all kinds of stuff. We tried these waffles that had some kind of maple syrup in the middle of it. Yumm hehe.
Once we found nothing in the market that we needed to buy, we headed back to the hotel to get our things. On the way we bought some hot dogs and ate them as we walked. Got our luggage, took the train back to the AJAX center and got back into the car.
The next place to go on the agenda was to go to this Zaanse Schans museum. The museum itself was closed but there was still a lot to do there. We first got our picture taken by some of the workers so that we could buy them on the way out before we left. They had us stand in a spot where the windmills would be in the background of the picture.
Then we decided since it was late in the afternoon that we would head over to the windmills to look into them and then do some shopping and stuff afterwards.
The one we went into was a windmill that sawed giant logs of wood. We watched a video on how it was made, then how it works to cut the wood. We went down some stairs to the part where the saws cut the logs and a man running the windmill told us about it all. The windmill wasn’t sawing too much due to the lack of wind when we were there, but the guy went up top outside to push one of the wings to start it so that we would be able to see it work. It was neat to see I thought.
After we were done in the windmill we headed back outside. There were houses and little farm islands where billy goats were sitting and eating grass. There were also chickens around and some cows too. We wandered around the little town place for a bit and then decided to go into this shop that sold all kinds of cheeses! It was great because they let you test out the cheeses. I had an apple from breakfast, so I had Marielle try apples and cheese together since she had never had that before! It was great haha! I ended up buying two kinds of cheeses to take home with me.
The other store we went into was the clog store. It had hundreds of clogs, all different kinds too. There was first the story of how the clog came be made, what different kinds were made in the early stages of the clog. Some very cool and scary looking ones were on display.
Then there were also all kinds of souvenirs to buy, a diamond shop in the middle of the store and funny hats as well, which I had to try one of them on for fun of course haha!
After we were done in the stores, we were ready to head on home to Made. Before we left the Zaanse Museum though, we looked at the pictures that the camera man took of us when we got there. I ended up liking them both and bought 2 copies. Marielle bought one too and has it up at her house now :D
Once we were home, we ended up going out to the local Made pub a few drinks with Marielle, Erwin, Annet, and her boyfriend. It was fun and we talked a long while. We walked back home and went to sleep after a looong day.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Swedish meatballs, trolls, moose! Oh My! The Swedish Adventures :)
When I saw Jen get into the luggage area, I left my bench and yelled, “Jennifer Rago!” Hehe she looked around and we hugged! It was very nice to see a familiar face, and I had missed her as well! Even though we’d been gone from Canterbury for like 3-4 days haha!
I got to stay with Jen and her grandmother’s cousin Anders and his wife Elizabeth. They had a lovely house and their front yard over looked an amazing lake!! They had the cutest little sheltie puppy named Leonard ;D He was so sweet, but you had to be careful about your scarfs, fingers, hair etc. because he liked to bite haha!
We got to sleep on a gigantic air mattress, with actual sheets this time haha, in some parts of Europe they don’t believe in sheets with a duvet cover haha ;)
While we were unpacking, Elizabeth and Anders were making us dinner. It was soo good! They were SOO nice to make us breakfast AND dinner almost every night! It was so good too haha!
Our breakfast’s were the same, but very good. We had hard boiled eggs, in the little eggs cups, and I was unsure of how to actually open it. I’ve seen people eat them in the movies, but had never had one for myself for breakfast haha! So Anders laughed at me and helped us open our eggs :D I felt kind of stupid, because all you have to do is tap the top of the egg on the table, then take off the shell on the top and scoop your spoon into the rest of the egg. It was delicious! Anders had us try it with a tube of caviar, so try everything at least once haha, and it was gross!! Haha sorry but I am not a fan of caviar haha!
The first morning in Stockholm, we slept in after a hard day of traveling and much needed rest. Then we got dressed, had breakfast, and then Anders dropped Jen and I off at the metro station to go into the city of Stockholm. The subway was very easy to figure out, only 4 different trains to choose from.
We had the rest of the day to just wander around the Old Town, called Gamla Stan, and get our bearings for the city. It was very pretty, with a lot of the houses and buildings colored on the front. The story behind it is that the King Gustaf III traveled to places like Paris and Italy, saw the colors and wanted his whole city of Stockholm to look like it. So he decided to have everyone paint their homes in gold. But unfortunately, not a lot of people had gold paint or could not afford enough paint that looked the color of gold, so some of the homes have just the front of their houses painted in gold. The king never really knew I suppose haha.
We walked around the streets, and found out where the first royal palace is, went to a couple of souvenir shops, ate lunch at an Italian restaurant, talked about our travels, mine about Paris, Jen’s about Prague & Salzburg. The whole town is surrounded by water, with a lot of tourist boats for boat tours, as well as sail boats for the people that live and work there.
I also learned to beware of the bike paths along the streets. They look like sidewalks except for the bike signs on the ground. Me of course not looking at the ground but at the time, I was looking at the Royal Palace, heard this "Bling! Bling!" sound and stopped. I was unsure of which way to move, so I did the first thing that came into my head and moved to the right. Bad move Shannon! I ended up moving righ into an elderly man on a bike. Who had no problem yelling at me in Swedish and me just responding with the "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" and not speaking any Swedish haha! I wasn't hurt, and I don't think that he was, since he had the time to yell at me. He didn't fall off his bike either, so that was good too I suppose haha. It was just me being a tourist and not being aware of my surroundings at the time haha!
So I learned VERY quickly to beware of the bikes in Sweden!!
Once we were done exploring for the day we headed back home and Anders picked us up from the station.
The next morning we took a boat to the Vasa Museum. It is a 15th century ship made for Gustaf III for his war and also as a show-off ship. His crew was building the ship. It usually takes ship builders about 1 ½ years but this ship was special and took 2 ½ years to make. To test the ship to see if it was ready, what the crew members usually did was run back and forth across the ships top deck to see how many times it would take to make the ship tip to one side. It was a lot like what happens in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, when they had to save Johnny Depp. Well it took a lot less runs for what a ship usually needs to pass the sailing test. So that was a bad sign. But the ship builders decided to continue to build the ship anyway. When it was ready to set sail out of the port, there was a grand ceremony. The cannons fired off and the ship was ready to set sail out of the harbor. Well there was a big gust of wind that tipped the ship to one side. Then a stronger gust started to sink the ship!! It had only sailed 20 minutes out of the harbor and it started to sink!! The townspeople pitched in to go out and save the crew. Only 15 men died out of the 150 on board. The ship builders had to send a message to Gustaff III to tell him that his ship sank! He wasn’t very happy, but no one was blamed when they held a trial. The whole mystery behind the sinking of the Vasa ship was due to it’s structure. The ship builders decided for some stupid reason to put the heavier cannons on the first deck and then the lighter cannons on the second deck. There was not enough stones in the hull (bottom of the ship) to keep the ship weighted down. Then the back of the ship was too heavy and grand as well. So thus the sinking of the Vasa ship.
There were lots of things to see and do inside the museum as well. You could explore some artifacts, feel what it was like to walk along a ship deck, see a couple of movies about how the ship was made, what it was used for and when it was discovered in the 1960’s. All in all a fun visit to see.
Once we were done, we hopped back on the boat and went back to Old Town. For dinner that night we had an interesting meal. We had one slice of bread with mayo, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggs, and little shrimps on top and then more mayo haha. It was an interesting sandwich. I’ve never had that kind of sandwich before, ioit was good :D
On Saturday morning, Anders and Elizabeth took us to a very old 1600’s home out in the country. A friend of theirs lives in it with his wife, and the home used to be a soldier’s barracks. They still had an old stove that they still used and outside their backyard was a beautiful lake too!
After that, Anders and Elizabeth took us to Drottingham where the royal family resides. We went on a tour and there of course were amazing colored in gold, huge rooms, lots of portraits, and lovely gardens as well! It kind of reminded me of the palace at Versailles, but maybe a little bit smaller hahaha!
We hung out at the house once we were done. Anders’ son came over and brought his little children to hang out with their grandparents. Benjamin who is about 6 and Tindra who is 4. They were so cute, and Tindra became our best new friend by the time she left haha :D
Sunday involved a boat tour of Stockholm. It was a lot of fun to see some historical sights such as an old orphanage home for children that was huge and very nice! There was also a theme park that the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix & The Rolling Stones played in the past! Pretty cool! After the boat tour we walked around a part of Stockholm called Soddermalm, which used to be a dodgy part of town but now is very posh, with a lot of shopping!! So we were going to window shop but found this cute store called Gina Tricot, very cool store :D I ended up really liking this one navy blue dress, so I tried it on and got it :D
We ended up watching the Skeleton Key, hanging out, and figuring out what to do for the next couple of days that we had left.
On Monday we had planned to go to this island called Sandham, but we first of all had a hard time trying to find the boat, and ended up not making the boat time to catch it to Sandham. We decided then to try to find the National Museum, but since it was a Monday, of course it was closed haha, so we then decided to go to the Royal Palace and see the changing of the guard. It was kind of funny because a group of the soldiers started to kind of march/doing some kind of leg lifts and I tried not to laugh but it was very hard! We wandered around the city for a while longer, looking to get the right boat for the next day. After the palace we were getting hungry so we found this tiny little restaurant and got to enjoy REAL Swedish meatballs with salad and mashed potatoes and loganberries on the side! They had this yummy sauce and were very good! So now I’ve had Swedish meatballs in Sweden! Haha!
Once we were finished doing some more souvenir shopping, we went back to the house and talked over dinner about the differences from the States and what it is like in Sweden. Anders and Elizabeth had been to the States a number of times and they liked Florida a lot haha!
On Tuesday we woke up extra early so as to make the boat to go to Sandham. The island of Sandham is a little town island around Stockholm. We landed on the island and ventured around for a while. It was a cute little town and we felt like we were the only tourists visiting it haha, everyone else was a local, which we only saw about two or so people other than us out and about haha!
It was so quiet there and we ended up wandering along this path in some woods. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings or something hehe, where and when was Legolas (ie Orlando Bloom) going to show up?? :D No such luck! And I didn’t see any moose in the woods either!!
(There were a lot of moose souvenirs all around Sweden and I expected to see one in the woods! Maybe it wasn't the right season to see moose haha ho hum, oh well, maybe next time :D haha)
At the end of the path there was a very pretty view of the water. We ventured onto someone’s dock, thinking that we would just tell them that we didn’t know if was a private beach (if they spoke English haha) but luckily we saw no one, and enjoyed taking pictures and listening to the wildlife across the way, mostly sea gulls squawking on another island ;) But then something horrible happened!!
I was passing my camera to Jen to take a picture and it slipped out of my hands and landed onto the dock where we were standing!! It didn’t break open or anything, but the lens wouldn’t go back into itself correctly whenever I tried to turn it on and off!!! So for the rest of the time I had to have Jen take pictures. I was sad, but it was also not too horrible, considering that this was almost the end of my travels, and that my camera didn’t break earlier!
So looking on the bright side of things, we decided to head back into the small town, have some lunch in a cute little light house/hotel kind of restaurant and then back onto the boat to take us back to Stockholm. When we got back into Old Town, we had some time to spare and I really wanted to go into the National Museum since they were having an art exhibit on Toulouse Lautrec! It was about an hour or so to closing time, so Jen didn’t want to waste the money, but I didn’t mind and bought myself a ticket. Jen said that she would enjoy the atmosphere outside while I was gone.
It was an amazing museum, and I wished that I had had a longer time to look and enjoy all of the art in sooo many rooms!! But I headed up to the second floor to the Toulouse Lautrec part of the museum. It was so cool! Just to see the different places that he painted, actually knowing where some of them were, since Toulouse spent a lot of his time in the Moulin Rouge haha! Other pictures were very pretty and some very artsy as well. I kind of felt that I was glimpsing into what Paris was like during late 1800’s. There were also pictures of Toulouse himself, little messages on the walls that told some things of his life.
That afternoon for dinner, Anders has a cousin who is also related to Jen, so we all ate dinner at Oakey’s and his wife’s house, which is right around the corner from Anders’ home! They were all very nice and kept feeding us so much food! I felt that I was going to be HUGE when I got to Amsterdam because of how much food and drink that they kept offering us haha!
After dinner Anders, Elizabeth, Jen, and I took a walk along the lake and got to see a very pretty sunset. We slowly wandered back to their home to pack our things and sleep for our last night in Stockholm.
The next morning Anders and Oakey and his wife, along with Jen, took me to the bus station, which would then take me to the main airport in Stockholm. I said goodbye to them all, thanked them soo much for everything and said that I would see Jen soon when I got back to the States.
I had an amazing time in Sweden and would like to return some day, but I think that Anders and Elizabeth kept telling us to come back and visit in the summer time when the weather is much nicer! Which would be so much fun, since they have a speed boat! We could coast around from island to island :D Haha!
Thank you for reading Swedish travels, and now our next destination will be Made, Holland, where things are Made in Made haha! Coming soon! :D
I got to stay with Jen and her grandmother’s cousin Anders and his wife Elizabeth. They had a lovely house and their front yard over looked an amazing lake!! They had the cutest little sheltie puppy named Leonard ;D He was so sweet, but you had to be careful about your scarfs, fingers, hair etc. because he liked to bite haha!
We got to sleep on a gigantic air mattress, with actual sheets this time haha, in some parts of Europe they don’t believe in sheets with a duvet cover haha ;)
While we were unpacking, Elizabeth and Anders were making us dinner. It was soo good! They were SOO nice to make us breakfast AND dinner almost every night! It was so good too haha!
Our breakfast’s were the same, but very good. We had hard boiled eggs, in the little eggs cups, and I was unsure of how to actually open it. I’ve seen people eat them in the movies, but had never had one for myself for breakfast haha! So Anders laughed at me and helped us open our eggs :D I felt kind of stupid, because all you have to do is tap the top of the egg on the table, then take off the shell on the top and scoop your spoon into the rest of the egg. It was delicious! Anders had us try it with a tube of caviar, so try everything at least once haha, and it was gross!! Haha sorry but I am not a fan of caviar haha!
The first morning in Stockholm, we slept in after a hard day of traveling and much needed rest. Then we got dressed, had breakfast, and then Anders dropped Jen and I off at the metro station to go into the city of Stockholm. The subway was very easy to figure out, only 4 different trains to choose from.
We had the rest of the day to just wander around the Old Town, called Gamla Stan, and get our bearings for the city. It was very pretty, with a lot of the houses and buildings colored on the front. The story behind it is that the King Gustaf III traveled to places like Paris and Italy, saw the colors and wanted his whole city of Stockholm to look like it. So he decided to have everyone paint their homes in gold. But unfortunately, not a lot of people had gold paint or could not afford enough paint that looked the color of gold, so some of the homes have just the front of their houses painted in gold. The king never really knew I suppose haha.
We walked around the streets, and found out where the first royal palace is, went to a couple of souvenir shops, ate lunch at an Italian restaurant, talked about our travels, mine about Paris, Jen’s about Prague & Salzburg. The whole town is surrounded by water, with a lot of tourist boats for boat tours, as well as sail boats for the people that live and work there.
I also learned to beware of the bike paths along the streets. They look like sidewalks except for the bike signs on the ground. Me of course not looking at the ground but at the time, I was looking at the Royal Palace, heard this "Bling! Bling!" sound and stopped. I was unsure of which way to move, so I did the first thing that came into my head and moved to the right. Bad move Shannon! I ended up moving righ into an elderly man on a bike. Who had no problem yelling at me in Swedish and me just responding with the "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" and not speaking any Swedish haha! I wasn't hurt, and I don't think that he was, since he had the time to yell at me. He didn't fall off his bike either, so that was good too I suppose haha. It was just me being a tourist and not being aware of my surroundings at the time haha!
So I learned VERY quickly to beware of the bikes in Sweden!!
Once we were done exploring for the day we headed back home and Anders picked us up from the station.
The next morning we took a boat to the Vasa Museum. It is a 15th century ship made for Gustaf III for his war and also as a show-off ship. His crew was building the ship. It usually takes ship builders about 1 ½ years but this ship was special and took 2 ½ years to make. To test the ship to see if it was ready, what the crew members usually did was run back and forth across the ships top deck to see how many times it would take to make the ship tip to one side. It was a lot like what happens in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, when they had to save Johnny Depp. Well it took a lot less runs for what a ship usually needs to pass the sailing test. So that was a bad sign. But the ship builders decided to continue to build the ship anyway. When it was ready to set sail out of the port, there was a grand ceremony. The cannons fired off and the ship was ready to set sail out of the harbor. Well there was a big gust of wind that tipped the ship to one side. Then a stronger gust started to sink the ship!! It had only sailed 20 minutes out of the harbor and it started to sink!! The townspeople pitched in to go out and save the crew. Only 15 men died out of the 150 on board. The ship builders had to send a message to Gustaff III to tell him that his ship sank! He wasn’t very happy, but no one was blamed when they held a trial. The whole mystery behind the sinking of the Vasa ship was due to it’s structure. The ship builders decided for some stupid reason to put the heavier cannons on the first deck and then the lighter cannons on the second deck. There was not enough stones in the hull (bottom of the ship) to keep the ship weighted down. Then the back of the ship was too heavy and grand as well. So thus the sinking of the Vasa ship.
There were lots of things to see and do inside the museum as well. You could explore some artifacts, feel what it was like to walk along a ship deck, see a couple of movies about how the ship was made, what it was used for and when it was discovered in the 1960’s. All in all a fun visit to see.
Once we were done, we hopped back on the boat and went back to Old Town. For dinner that night we had an interesting meal. We had one slice of bread with mayo, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggs, and little shrimps on top and then more mayo haha. It was an interesting sandwich. I’ve never had that kind of sandwich before, ioit was good :D
On Saturday morning, Anders and Elizabeth took us to a very old 1600’s home out in the country. A friend of theirs lives in it with his wife, and the home used to be a soldier’s barracks. They still had an old stove that they still used and outside their backyard was a beautiful lake too!
After that, Anders and Elizabeth took us to Drottingham where the royal family resides. We went on a tour and there of course were amazing colored in gold, huge rooms, lots of portraits, and lovely gardens as well! It kind of reminded me of the palace at Versailles, but maybe a little bit smaller hahaha!
We hung out at the house once we were done. Anders’ son came over and brought his little children to hang out with their grandparents. Benjamin who is about 6 and Tindra who is 4. They were so cute, and Tindra became our best new friend by the time she left haha :D
Sunday involved a boat tour of Stockholm. It was a lot of fun to see some historical sights such as an old orphanage home for children that was huge and very nice! There was also a theme park that the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix & The Rolling Stones played in the past! Pretty cool! After the boat tour we walked around a part of Stockholm called Soddermalm, which used to be a dodgy part of town but now is very posh, with a lot of shopping!! So we were going to window shop but found this cute store called Gina Tricot, very cool store :D I ended up really liking this one navy blue dress, so I tried it on and got it :D
We ended up watching the Skeleton Key, hanging out, and figuring out what to do for the next couple of days that we had left.
On Monday we had planned to go to this island called Sandham, but we first of all had a hard time trying to find the boat, and ended up not making the boat time to catch it to Sandham. We decided then to try to find the National Museum, but since it was a Monday, of course it was closed haha, so we then decided to go to the Royal Palace and see the changing of the guard. It was kind of funny because a group of the soldiers started to kind of march/doing some kind of leg lifts and I tried not to laugh but it was very hard! We wandered around the city for a while longer, looking to get the right boat for the next day. After the palace we were getting hungry so we found this tiny little restaurant and got to enjoy REAL Swedish meatballs with salad and mashed potatoes and loganberries on the side! They had this yummy sauce and were very good! So now I’ve had Swedish meatballs in Sweden! Haha!
Once we were finished doing some more souvenir shopping, we went back to the house and talked over dinner about the differences from the States and what it is like in Sweden. Anders and Elizabeth had been to the States a number of times and they liked Florida a lot haha!
On Tuesday we woke up extra early so as to make the boat to go to Sandham. The island of Sandham is a little town island around Stockholm. We landed on the island and ventured around for a while. It was a cute little town and we felt like we were the only tourists visiting it haha, everyone else was a local, which we only saw about two or so people other than us out and about haha!
It was so quiet there and we ended up wandering along this path in some woods. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings or something hehe, where and when was Legolas (ie Orlando Bloom) going to show up?? :D No such luck! And I didn’t see any moose in the woods either!!
(There were a lot of moose souvenirs all around Sweden and I expected to see one in the woods! Maybe it wasn't the right season to see moose haha ho hum, oh well, maybe next time :D haha)
At the end of the path there was a very pretty view of the water. We ventured onto someone’s dock, thinking that we would just tell them that we didn’t know if was a private beach (if they spoke English haha) but luckily we saw no one, and enjoyed taking pictures and listening to the wildlife across the way, mostly sea gulls squawking on another island ;) But then something horrible happened!!
I was passing my camera to Jen to take a picture and it slipped out of my hands and landed onto the dock where we were standing!! It didn’t break open or anything, but the lens wouldn’t go back into itself correctly whenever I tried to turn it on and off!!! So for the rest of the time I had to have Jen take pictures. I was sad, but it was also not too horrible, considering that this was almost the end of my travels, and that my camera didn’t break earlier!
So looking on the bright side of things, we decided to head back into the small town, have some lunch in a cute little light house/hotel kind of restaurant and then back onto the boat to take us back to Stockholm. When we got back into Old Town, we had some time to spare and I really wanted to go into the National Museum since they were having an art exhibit on Toulouse Lautrec! It was about an hour or so to closing time, so Jen didn’t want to waste the money, but I didn’t mind and bought myself a ticket. Jen said that she would enjoy the atmosphere outside while I was gone.
It was an amazing museum, and I wished that I had had a longer time to look and enjoy all of the art in sooo many rooms!! But I headed up to the second floor to the Toulouse Lautrec part of the museum. It was so cool! Just to see the different places that he painted, actually knowing where some of them were, since Toulouse spent a lot of his time in the Moulin Rouge haha! Other pictures were very pretty and some very artsy as well. I kind of felt that I was glimpsing into what Paris was like during late 1800’s. There were also pictures of Toulouse himself, little messages on the walls that told some things of his life.
That afternoon for dinner, Anders has a cousin who is also related to Jen, so we all ate dinner at Oakey’s and his wife’s house, which is right around the corner from Anders’ home! They were all very nice and kept feeding us so much food! I felt that I was going to be HUGE when I got to Amsterdam because of how much food and drink that they kept offering us haha!
After dinner Anders, Elizabeth, Jen, and I took a walk along the lake and got to see a very pretty sunset. We slowly wandered back to their home to pack our things and sleep for our last night in Stockholm.
The next morning Anders and Oakey and his wife, along with Jen, took me to the bus station, which would then take me to the main airport in Stockholm. I said goodbye to them all, thanked them soo much for everything and said that I would see Jen soon when I got back to the States.
I had an amazing time in Sweden and would like to return some day, but I think that Anders and Elizabeth kept telling us to come back and visit in the summer time when the weather is much nicer! Which would be so much fun, since they have a speed boat! We could coast around from island to island :D Haha!
Thank you for reading Swedish travels, and now our next destination will be Made, Holland, where things are Made in Made haha! Coming soon! :D
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