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Published: March 16th 2011
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Carnival
Alice and Little Red Riding Hood :) Sandy and Me I could not have asked for a better birthday. I woke up nice early and headed to work, where we had a carnival. So carnival is huge in Spain and at the school as well. The morning consisted of all the students making costumes for the carnival. Each grade was given a different story they had to dress as; infantile was split into 101 Dalmatians, Peter Pan and 3 Musketeers, while 1st grade was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 2nd grade was Little Red Riding Hood, 3rd grade was The 40 Thieves, 4th grade was Alice in Wonderland and 5th grade was the Perfumed Rat (a Spanish children´s story). All the costumes had been designed by the parents and were made from colored trash bags. During class one of the parents came in and showed us how to make the costumes. I was with 2nd grade so I spent my morning helping the boys make wolves and the girls red capes. We had so much fun. After patio the entire school headed outside to the basketball courts where we lined up around the perimeter and the Vice Principle announced each grade. Then we took turns walking around the entire
court to show off our costume. Parents were packed together peering through the gates watching the carnival. Sandy and I both dressed up with our class’ theme and had a great time acting like the kids. After school finished up I headed to my tutoring, expecting the normal routine, but I was actually given a surprise concert by Ignacio for my birthday. It was so sweet. He played me three songs on his cello and did amazing. I can´t believe he is only 7. Overall it was such a better birthday than I expected and I am really glad I got the opportunity to spend it in Spain.
As for the rest of the week, it passed normal with work and tutoring. Friday however was another weekend of travels. Friday morning I woke up, packed my suitcase and headed to the airport for my flight to Amsterdam. The flight there wasn´t great....I got sat next to a bunch of typical Spanish middle aged guys who proceeded to drink and yell the entire flight to Amsterdam. I was more than ready to get off the plane by the time we landed. After leaving the airport I hopped on the train
to the city. The first place I headed was straight to my hostel to drop my bags before exploring the city. It was so beautiful, with tons of canals and I swear more bikes than people 😊. After wandering around for a bit I headed to the Van Gogh museum. The museum was so great; not only filled with Van Gogh´s work but there was also an exhibit of Picasso in Paris. I have always loved Van Gogh´s Starry Night paintings but I haven´t really known any of his other works. While at the Museum I fell in love with a few more; I actually ended up walking away with a replica of one of them. After leaving the museum I walked back towards my hostel, stopped for some traditional Dutch food and then called it a night.
Saturday was an amazing day. I woke up and headed across the street to Ann Frank´s House. Wow, talk about powerful. We walked through the empty house, reading parts of her diary and watching videos about what occurred in the house and to her family. It was so enlightening. At the end of the museum was an interactive video in which
we listened to numerous controversial events that are occurring throughout the world today, including banning female children from wearing headdresses at schools. We would watch the video and then push a yes or no button on whether we agreed or disagreed with what was occurring. It was so interesting to see all the opinions of the group and the overall opinions of all the visitors that have ever participated in this; some results were very surprising to me. After leaving the house I headed across the town to Mike’s bike shop. I joined a small group of other tourists for a tour out in the country surrounding Amsterdam. We started our tour by headed across town, through a famous bridge before coming upon a crew race that was occurring in the Amsted River. We watched for a bit before heading to the country road and out to the oldest Windmill in Amsterdam. We went a few houses farther down the road until we arrived at 1 of the 5 companies that hand make the wooden shoes, and that also owned a dairy farm. We took a tour through the farm, watched them make the shoes, got to try on all
the shoes and then taste the cheese they were making. After leaving the farm we headed through the low lands, which is 10 meters below sea level, and got to hand feed a rescued deer. (Made me feel right at home 😉). After leaving the low lands we headed through the forest and continued to the outskirts of town to a houseboat community. To finish of our tour we headed through a park and back to the shop. This tour was amazing; I highly suggest it to anyone who goes to Amsterdam. It was 4 hours long and 13 miles, but honestly it didn’t seem like it. We stopped so many times to talk about the sites that I didn’t even notice how far we had gone until the following day when some of my muscles were a bit tired. After leaving the bike shop I headed through the red light district, to the Oude Kerk church for a free musical performance. After leaving the church I headed to the canals to take a canal tour. The tour lasted about an hour but included the harbor and canals of Amsterdam. It was kind of nice to see Amsterdam from this
Carnival 1st grade
Evil step mother and Snow white perspective since I had already seen it from the bikes. After the tour I grabbed a bit to eat and headed back to my hostel.
Sunday was a very relaxed day. My flight back to Madrid left at noon so I really didn’t have much time to do anything in Amsterdam. I left my hostel a bit early so I could walk to the train station and see a few of the things I missed. This trip was a blast because Amsterdam is so different than the places I have been to thus far. These next few weeks I won’t be traveling as much , maybe day trips here or there, but I will keep you posted on anything new and exciting occurring here with me 😊.
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Janet Simpson
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Happy Belated Birthday
Thanks for the great picturs, it is nice to see the children your helping , but why are the houses sinking in Amersterdam???? Take care Janet