Brussels & Amsterdam

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Wow. This weekend was crazy. We left our apartments at 630 am, and all ten of us loaded into two van taxis to take us to the airport. I don't think I really realized the full quantity of people I was going to be traveling with all weekend till we were waiting in line at the ticket counter to check in. And to think it was originally just to be Laura and I that would be heading off to Europe for the weekend. The plan was landing in Belgium, take an hour long bus ride into Brussels, then catch a bus over to Amsterdam for two nights, then return back to Brussels to stay for the third and final night.

Well for starters, there was a man on our 8am flight that was DRUNK. He kept yelling "here we go" and raising his hands in a cheer as we prepared for take-off. Not to mention he kept trying to hold the hand of he woman across the aisle from him who had a baby sitting on her lap. Apparently he had several friends on the flight with him, strewn throughout the plane, and as other began to get agitated by the yelling drunk man (we of course found the whole situation quite hilarious) his friends would yell "hey! Jimmy! calm down!" or "Jimmy, come on man, bring it down" or "Jimmy, go to sleep". ... It was possible the best hour and a half flight of my life.

Off the flight, four of us went to the ATM to get money for the weekend, and while waiting in line a man came up to us, asked what language we spoke, then proceeded to hand us a bunch of condoms to go with our informational package (in English, or course) titled "the facts about AIDS". Ooooh Europe. Hopped on the bus for Brussels, THANKFULLY Jimmy was on the bus with us as well. We found out after getting to the train station in Brussels that there was no such thing as a bus that would take us to Amsterdam... which would have been good to know when we almost booked it on a website claiming to have a direct bus. We were able to hop on a train fairly quickly though which was good, and the train was nice an comfortable so i had no complaints!

We found our Hostel in Amsterdam fairly quickly, but the desk attendants seemed very confused when our giganto group walked in the door claiming to have a reservation. To make a long story short- I will never again allow someone else to book my lodging in a foreign country. The two people that did, ended up booking our stay for the Wednesday and Thursday of that week rather than the Friday and Saturday that we were there. Granted, I'm sure it was an honest mistake- blah blah blah, but regardless Josh had printed out the confirmation email and it had the wrong dates on there as well. The hostel did seem pretty sketchy and during the rest of our stay it seemed that everyone who came to check in had some kind of problem with them (usually a payment something-or-other) but still... you had the thing printed out!! This then meant, that we had to pay the first night (the Wednesday) anyway because it was a no-show, then they "scrambled" to find us rooms for the rest of the weekend. It ended up working out, and we all had a place to stay, but I'm still fairly bitter about having to pay for entire extra night for no reason.

Once we were finally able to check into our rooms, we were all pretty hungry, so we wandered around the area to find something to eat. What ended up happening however, was that the "men" in our group who had gotten recommendations for places to go and good places to eat, led our entire massive group around in circles which ended up coming across as some kind of epic journey that was neither epic, nor had any kind of seeming purpose. We did end up going into some random little place though that had a seating area in front of the restaurant where we sat, ate, and people-watched (really, some of my favorite things!). I among others were pretty tired from our long day of traveling and headed back to the hostel early to get some sleep and to wake up early to explore the city!

Next morning we met and sought out breakfast, coming across a little deli-esk place that had delicious looking pastries, waffles, and sandwiches. Pretty sure the one girl that was working there felt a little overwhelmed when she saw ten people walk in for food, then became even more frazzled when they all started yelling at her in english, expecting her to understand (I think there was two MAYBE three of us who even attempted to say basic phrases in french and dutch. ugh.

We went to walk around with our breakfast and found a canal boat tour that was similar to the "jump-on, jump-off" buses that would take us to the other side of the city where the museums and such were. On the canal tour was when we discovered the most awesome fact that Amsterdam was holding their pride festival and parade the weekend we were there!! The most fantastic part about it was that the parade wasn't held on the street but along the canals! So as we putted along the tour, we kept passing by gigantic floats of singing, dancing, yelling, gay-awesomeness. Probably the greatest thing about it too was that every time we encountered a float all the girls on the trip got really excited and yelling with them and such, but all the guys we obviously uncomfortable by it... serves them right for leading us to the red light district later... ugh.

Went to to the Van Gogh Museum, saw beautiful art and took longer than everyone else to get done. It was funny seeing half our group obviously hating it the whole time... whatever, I was going to Amsterdam to see and do things- I loved it. After the museum we tried to walk to the Anne Frank house, but after an hour and a half of walking around we decided we failed. However, I did end up with a lot of gorgeous pictures of the city. Later that night we went on a pub crawl with a bunch of other people, including Louis Coleman the pitcher from LSU. He was a bit of a jerk, as were the LSU football players he was with- but really, I guess you're allowed to be a bit of an arrogant ass after you're named first-team all-American and win a college world series. More than anything though, I was excited about the shirt I got from the pub crawl that says "I joined the party kings in Amsterdam".

We woke up in the morning, had breakfast at a place that got really offended when we asked for tap water, then got on the train to head back to Brussels! Basically, I've decided Brussels is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Granted, I haven't been to too many places, but the city itself is impossible to describe. First, it was sunny and warm- drastic change from Dublin, that's for sure. But then everything from the buildings, to the statues, to even the streets gave off a much different feeling than anywhere else I've been this summer. It was what I imagine Europe to look like in my head- it was somewhat stately, and has so much history. I don't know how to explain it, but in retrospect I really wish we could have been in Belgium a lot longer. Not to mention, my work puts on a festival each year called the Belgium Beer Fest, where they import 7 or 8 Belgian beers and put them on tap for 10 days or so... it was during this festival that I found my favorite beer of all time, which I thoroughly enjoyed in Belgium- mostly because I was drinking it IN Belgium, and it was cheap. It's not as though I drank a lot of it, but it is just so delicious that you just sip and enjoy. Tripel Karmeliet is the name, check it out- you won't be disappointed! We went out to a wonderful dinner, then went to a little pub and sat outside to listen to the Bob Dylan cover band they had that night. There we met three girls, two Belgian girls, and one girl who was studying abroad, originally from Connecticut or something random. They ended up bringing us to a different bar/club type thing where we literally spent the rest of the night. It was strange being in a pub till 6 am. Can't imagine ever being able to do that unless in Europe. Afterward most people went home, but a few of us went to a park and just hung out while we watched the sun come up behind the buildings. It was definitely my favorite part of the trip, but is definitely top 5 for the summer.

We went back to the hostel eventually, took a bit of a nap, then woke up to explore the city. Went to an area called the Grand Place that has some of the most majestic buildings ever. Got a Belgian Waffle for breakfast- I was surprisingly unimpressed. Although, everyone else LOVED there's, and I was the only one who didn't get a whole bunch of extra fruit and stuff on top, so maybe that was it haha. We basically just walked around all day, eventually walking towards the bus station where we had to catch the bus to get to the airport that was an hour away.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend and I will forever look back on it fondly... however there are a few things that I realized to myself along the way:

1. 10 people = far too many people travel with. It leads to indecisiveness and wasted time, thus resulting in Caitlin not getting to go to the zoo in Amsterdam.

2. Don't let the men lead... they don't know what they're doing.

3. Amsterdam is beautiful, but very scary... I don't plan on going back again unless I have my big brother at my side.

4. I missed Dublin, and was incredibly happy that it I was going home to Ireland for the rest of the summer.

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Photos

The Group
Our GIGANTIC group.

Street in Amsterdam
Trying to find our hostel

Pride Festival
Didn't think it was possible to do it better than Seattle

THE Glasses
Andrew bought these off of some street vendor... everyone shared them throughout the night. They flashed... they were absurd.

:o)
deeelish.

Yay for Amsterdam
Most literal "floats" in a parade ever.

Van Gogh Museum
couldn't take pictures inside obviously- so I got the one on the outside.

Amsterdam still
Waiting for the train

Our Hostel
This was called a double... but there were three beds? How does that work?

Laura and Josh
Resting up from our early morning