Amsterdam Holland

Recently I had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam again!!! I had 2 friends from Duke come visit Amsterdam (since they claim its their "favorite" city in the WHOLE world)...and since I'm "only" 1.5 hours away by train, I felt I should take the time to see them since we were pretty good friends back in college and its not everyday your friends fly ALL the way from the USA to Europe!!! :) Plus I had only been to Amsterdam once in my 10 months here...and I felt I should really see it since i've seen so many other cities in europe and I actually LIVE in Holland!

It was really neat- I only went for 1/2 a day because I also had to work in the morning, but while in Amsterdam i saw the "magere bridge" (skinny bridge), walked around the canals, went to leidseplein, rembrandtsplein, RLD (eeek), royal palace, flower garden/market and the Anne Frank house. It was a really cool experience- Amsterdam, as I've stated in the past, is SO different from eindhoven. The atmosphere is completely different- eindhoven realy is an industrial city, whereas amsterdam has the european city feel- with the canals literally every other street, and the typical dutch houses that you see in the movies. To be honest, I think Amsterdam is a neat place to be; I kind of wish i lived right on the outskirts of amsterdam so that i could visit more often.

Anyways, here are some pictures. Enjoy!

Typical view seen in Amsterdam:
(literally every other street!!!)

Anne Frank House:

Some lady won a grammy(?) for her performance in Anne Frank
and donated her award to the house:

Typing at Anne's typewriter:

madame toussaud's:

Royal Palace:

Flower Garden in Amsterdam:

Awesome pink flowers:

Rembrandtsplein:

More canals in Amsterdam
at the Magere Bridge (over the Amstel River):
(see the typical dutch houses here)

view of magere bridge
(apparently this bridge was used to seperate the jews
from other inhabitants of amsterdam..
they lifted the bridge to prevent people from crossing over...)

Windmill Village Holland

I went to the famous Windmill Village in Holland about 2 weeks ago. Its kind of like a mini-park full of windmills. Also at the park, there are demonstrations of how they make their famous cheese and wooden shoes. It's really a neat area; very "typical dutch"...though I know quite a few dutch people who have never been there. HAHA. Anyways, we got there kind of late... so it was a super fast tour of the area...and then it started pouring. like really pouring, not drizzling! And of course we had no umbrella...so yeah the trip got cut really short! haha but I was still able to see the "main" sites and take some awesome pictures. Enjoy!

Windmill:

The Park in the rain:

Wooden shoes galore!

Wooden Shoes for the snow:

Making of the wooden shoe:

Wooden shoe-making workshop:

Munich Germany Continued

As promised, here are the rest of the pictures from Munich. Enjoy! Hope it can kind of portray the beauty we saw!!!

Neuschwanstein Castle
(see how the disney castle looks similar?!?)

Hogenschwangau Castle

Wading in the creek

Waterfall

View of how far we hiked (we were at the bridge)

Overview of Schwangau (where the castles are located)

View from the tobaggan!! (notice the metal tracks)

Munich City Centre
Marienplatz Square

Chinese Pagoda (in English Gardens)

A famous waterfall (created 1815)

The munich "arc de triomphe"

Munich (aka Munchen) Germany

As I stated earlier, I will be/have been traveling quite a bit this month. It's kind of funny how it all worked out...I mostly chose to travel on the weekends and just take a friday or monday off but then it turned out there were so many holidays...that I haven't really missed "too much" work !!! Thats been good for me so I dont always have to ask for days off...if its already a holiday Im really not expected to be at work...though i have gone in a few weekends I have been in eindhoven to make up for any days that I miss that aren't holidays. confusing yes. important no. haha

This past weekend I made it out to Munich Germany. It was kind of a "ghetto" route I had to take- train to Dusseldorf Germany and then fly to munich germany. The flight from Dusseldorf to Munich was all of 55 minutes, but if I took a train straight to Munich, that would have been about 6 hours from Dusseldorf..and over 200 euros (which is WAY more than my flying) because I finalized plans to munich about 1 month before. (apparently you have to buy these kind of "long distance" tickets like 3-4 months in advance if you only want to pay about 60 euros round trip). SO.. yeah, it was a lot of train, airport, train, bus... traveling this weekend, but it was SO worth it because I got to meet up with my high school buddies April and Reuben, AND meet some of April's friends (who were SOOO cool!!) Shigs and Christina.

SO back to the point... while in Munich, we toured the city, went to Dachau concentration camp, and Neuschwanstein Castle. Pretty productive 3 days! The city of Munich is nice (not as clean as stockhom), but it has all the aspects of a typical european city- pedestrian shopping area, big churchs, lots of monuments/statues, and nice parks. the one thing about munich is...they had beer gardens EVERYWHERE! hahaha just like we saw at busch gardens (VA). Dachau camp was really neat to visit- totally worth it, and really sobering experience. It makes me feel SO lucky to be alive today rather than back then. And after that, i now want to see Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam! And WOW, Neuschwanstein castle... beautiful!!! It is the castle the Disney castle is inspired by!!!! And we even went hiking around the area- saw waterfalls, waded in the water, got lost in the forest, saw loads of cows, and went tobaggan riding!!! It was really neat. Definitely recommend a trip out there!!! (despite the 2 hour train ride to the castle from munich).

Here's some pictures to convince you of the "awesomeness" I experienced in Munich. Enjoy!

The pictures will come in "parts" since there are just too many to decide on.

Here are pictures from Dachau Concentration camp:

Front entrance- after you enter through the gate, you had to give up
your identity, possessions, and your opinion(?) [not sure about the last thing]

The clothes they had to wear and the locker they had:

Concentration camp grounds:

Crematorium:

This is the room the gas was sent instead of "water for showers"

edges of camp: with the electric wire fence

bunk beds:

memorial at the campsite:

me, looking like a nerd with the audio guide
(reuben was SO insistent on getting this):

Uppsala Sweden

While in Sweden, we also stayed in Uppsala a few nights. What a cute town! It is mainly a college town for the students of Uppsala University. It is so quaint and definitely in the "countryside"!!!! We could literally walk across the whole town in ~30 minutes!!! Even though it is mainly a college town today, there are still a few really nice things to see there- such as the Uppsala castle where the king used to live (apparently), the botanical gardens (lovely, but of course not keukenhof), the new music center (very fancy), some famous church in Uppsala, and the university library (which contains a silver bible).

Here are some pictures; enjoy! (sorry not so many pics of me, my friend has all of them on her camera since she had "speical" settings to make me look nicer! haha )

Library with the "Silver bible"

Music center

At the botanical gardens

At the castle (beautiful sky)

Stockholm Sweden

This past weekend I went to Stockholm Sweden! What a beautiful city! It is a really neat place to be! It has the typical "big city" feeling- high rise buildings, lots of bustle/hustle going on, high end stores, loads of restaurants, etc etc..but since its comprised of islands, there is LOTS of beautiful scenery around!!! WOW. I liked this city a lot...wouldn't mind living here actually..and the people speak REALLY good english!!! Like almost NO accent at all! What a pleasant surprise!!! It ALMOST felt like I was back in the USA! HAHAHA amazing right?!?! Went to all the typical toursit areas- the Old Town, Gamla Stan, vasa museum, Djurgarden(spelling?), walked along the harbor, ate swedish meatballs, etc etc. great trip! below are only SOME lovely photos!!! (more to come later...when i get them from my friend!!! :) )

the Harbor area:

Vasa Museum
(famous ship for sweden that was designed
by a dutch guy...sank after 20 minutes at sea!! HAHA)

the ship today:

what the workers did on the ship:

the ship back in the day..with all the color

Another part of the harbor:

about to enter the "old town":

mmm candies at an open market: