The Netherlands and Germany

Right now, I am just waiting to go on the next part of my adventure. I recently finished my last days in Barcelona. The first day back was Sant Jordi - kind of like Valentine's day, but the men give the women a rose and women give men books. It was absolute madness on Las Ramblas because there were so many people out going to buy flowers and books. I was not happy to leave this city for good. It has been my home for 4 months now and I was sad to have to tell Bibi and my roommate, Hannah, goodbye. I have mixed emotions because I am sad that the semester is over, but I am excited about the next 20 days of traveling and excited that in 20 days I will get to see my family! … and then it is on to the next chapter of my life… getting ready for medical school (MCAT studying,

 MCAT, research at the National Institutes of Health and filling out a billion and a half medical school applications!)

So anyways, the last few days Vanessa and I have been in Amsterdam (aka Holland, The Netherlands) and Frankfurt and Köln (Cologne), Germany, and now I am sitting in a café about 5 minutes from the airport waiting on two of my friends from Georgetown so that we can go to Venice and Rome, and then meet back up with Vanessa to go to Greece.

Amsterdam 

Amsterdam was very different than I thought it would be, and it gets the Most Non-Judgmental City Award. It was even explained to us that the city is not “liberal” as everyone says, rather, they let people express themselves and do not judge. Because of this, there are some crazy things going on in Amsterdam, but it also just makes it a very interesting city. While there we went to the Anne Frank House which was very interesting and educational, but also sad to see where the people in the book were cooped up for 2 years. After going there, I know that Auschwitz is going to be terribly depressing when we finally get there. We also went on a 4 hour bike tour through the countryside. This was funny, if only you could have been here, because I have not been on a bike in who knows how long – it has been years and years – but luckily I did not crash or get hit by a car. The city is absolutely packed with bikers (more than I have seen in my entire life combined), people walking and cars, so riding a bike can be dangerous if you don’t watch out! We got to see one of the few remaining family-run businesses that make wooden clogs and cheese, and we saw a working windmill.

:::All of the bikes on one of the streets:::

:::Anne Frank House:::

:::With all of the wooden shoes:::

Germany

Firstly, it has to be explained that we all have a “Stupid mistake budget” while here in Europe because when traveling and not knowing the languages you are bound to make dumb mistakes that you end up paying for. We booked a ticket to Frankfurt, only to find out that there is nothing to do in Frankfurt (Mistake #1) so we booked a train to Köln (Cologne) which was beautiful! We got to see the Rhein river and the most beautiful cathedral that we have seen so far (as the story goes, this is the cathedral that holds the bones of the three wisemen). We also had a fun time in the interactive Olympic museum (designed for 10 year olds, but V and I had a blast anyways!) where we got to sit in a Bobsled (which was exciting, considering we had just watched Cool Runnings two nights before). Then we traveled 6 hours to Hahn (Mistake #2) for our flights before realizing upon arrival that we could have just traveled for 2 hours total.. so we felt dumb, but at least we got where we needed to go!

:::The Cathedral that wins the award for the best cathedral:::

:::Playing in a bobsled:::