Amsterdam and my last entry

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I'm so sad. Everyone is leaving. Most people have already left. some are already home. and we leave on wednesday morning. our apartment is pretty much packed up and it looks so bare. But even though i'm going to miss it here, i'm really excited about seeing everyone at home. i'm a little bit worried about how shelle's going to react. i just hope no one gets hurt.
So. Last tuesday, keri sarah and i headed out to Fiumicino airport to fly to amsterdam. i hate flying. keri ended up with the worst flight experience though. she didnt get to sit with sarah and i so she was stuck between a guy leaning all the way back and a lady turned around in the seat behind her constantly banging on her seat. The Schipol airport in amsterdam is sooo nice. its brand new and beautiful. if only we could have our 20 hour layover there instead of at gatwick. then on the train ride into town we accidentally sat in the first class section and almost got charged 40 euro by a guy who sounded like sean connery. We stayed in a Christian hostel in the Jordaan district which is really posh with lots of art galleries and nice shops. They have a sister hostel that is right in the middle of the red light district. The shelter jordan was really close to the anne frank house so that's the first place we went. There weren't a lot of people there and it was really emotional, especially the letters otto frank wrote afterwards while searching for his family. I'm really glad i bought the book in munich and read it so recently. That night we went exploring around town and found the red light district where the little streets are seriously lined with windows with almost naked girls in them. Its a little disturbing. The next day was very cultural. We wanted to go to the van gogh museum, but we found out that the concert-gebouw (the really big concert hall) has free concerts at noon on wednesdays, so we went there first and heard a concert of classical indian music. interesting. The museum was amazing. i enjoyed it so much. we spent all afternoon there. that was the day we stopped in so many little cafes for coffee and snacks. we had this dutch raisin roll thing that was really good. amsterdam is so much fun just to walk around because everything is so beautiful. the houses all look so cute they look fake, and they're all a little bit crooked. i had no idea there were so many canals in the city. and all along the little streets there were trees wthi yellow leaves falling in the wind. so pretty. there was a christmas market near dam square, but we just walked around it a little bit. there was ice skating but it was way too cold to even try it. that night we were going to try this pancake place where they advertized lots of kinds of pancakes for really cheap, but we got there and they were closed. we miss our chance once again. so we went to the expensive pancake place, but the pancakes were more like giant crepes. still good, but expensive. i got the apple ones. the syrup they use there is like molasses. the next morning, breakfast at the hostel was pancakes, real ones. go figure. that was really nice about our hostel. fresh made hot breakfasts every morning. we spent the next day walking around other parts of town and doing some souveneir shopping. there's lots of really quirky things there. we had dinner at the hostel that night because food in amsterdam is really expensive. they had this shoarma casserole thing. it was interesting. we talked to a bunch of the people who work at the hostel and they're all really cool. one girl was from russia. another girl was from west virginia and she'd been working there 9 months and was finally going home today actually. she's the one who told us how most of the girls who work in the Red light district get tricked into it. the girls from foreign countries were brought over under th impression they wree going to have a good job a like a house cleaner or something only to be told that they're already 40,000 in debt for the ride there and they get put behind a window without any way to escape it. the dutch girls who work there were targeted by this group of guys called the loverboys. they're usu. moroccan and get insecure girls to think they love them, then they break them down and make them sleep with their friends and they get violent and they end up prostituting and not seeing any of the money they make. and amsterdam really sugarcoats the whole red light district by making it really touristy, when they're really just turning a blind eye to the darker side of it. then the next afternoon we flew back to rome, but we were so tired when we got home we just passed out and didnt even see cassie and megan until the next morning. sarah stayed at our house that night because ryan has really obnoxious friends over from america who stayed up drinking all night long. jeez. We've been having so much fun these past few days, trying to get in the last bit of stuff we wanted to do. on saturday morning we got up and went to st. peter's with the italian architect student matteo, who's coming to the u of a next semester. me keri sarah cassie megan and matteo all climbed the dome of st peter's all the way. we didnt take the lift b/c it was really expensive and it didnt get you up very far. i think it was something like 550 stairs. it gets soo tight up top and it slants in with the curve of the dome so you have to walk sideways. it was a little hazy when we were there, but the past few days have been soo clear. you can see the snow covered mountains in the distance. it was so nice we saved that for last when we knew the layout of the city and knew what everything was. And finally we went inside the basilica. it is so enormous i cant even describe it. enormous. and the very last thing i saw was the pieta. that's one of my favorite works of art. and i wrote about it in one of my essays onthe appplication to come on this trip. its so beautiful. we tried to find this good restaurant in the vatican afterwards, but they were closing up so we were denied. that night we met one of the other students coming to the u of a who cassie is living with next semster. so francesca and her friends all went around with us trying to find a bar with enough room for all of us. there were none, so we just got some wine and had a party at our house. it was really fun. they're all so crazy and we stayed up soo late that night. on sunday was pranzo at the seminary. keri cassie megan and i met james's friend eddie outside the college and he showed us around the grounds. they have a really pretty orange grove and a bowling alley. its really fun there. mass was soo cold. seriously i wanted to wear my coat and gloves the whole time. james was in the choir so he wore his cassock to lunch. lunch was sooo good. a really nice, white table cloth 4 course meal. we ate with a couple more seminarians and priests and they are so much fun. they're so funny and silly. after lunch james and his friends were showing us how they look like the matrix in their robes. we were having so much fun there we didnt want to go. that night emilio had his big party for all us students at his apartmetn. we were so sure we were going to be late because of all the traffic, but we were the first ones there. and he showed us all of his paintings and his picture of when he was a driver for ferrari. he looked good. we were all looking at his pictures all night. then we went home and keri and i hung out with sarah for a little bit at her apartment and watched some more of the crazy european music videos. finally saw the dario video. it goes like this "my friend dario has a super mega car. drives too fast. drives too flash. dario knows its prohibited." and this weird looking lady in a leather body suit is just saying this while girls in the back are dancing wearing bikinis and silver go go boots and football helmets. so strange. this morning we woke up really early to say goodbye to sarah, who is in london right now, and took her to breakfast. went home and went back to sleep and then we all ate a big bowl of banana pudding and some matzo ball soup (sp?). keri and i are about to go do some last minute shopping. oh and we both went up to the top of the janiculum hill at noon to see the cannon go off. it was crazy. i brought my earplugs and put my hands over my ears, but i could still feel the impact in my chest. i'm glad i finally went up to see it, it was pretty cool. and that's about it for now. there's a good chance this is my last entry. at least from europe. how sad.

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Photos

at the van gogh museum
or in the kids part at least.

the red lights
but you cant take pictures of the girls. they dont like that

ok...
prostitution information center. right next to a gothic cathedral..

i got my french fries
without mayo

climbing st. peters
slanted staircase