More pictures from athens! :)

Here are a few more pictures from Athens; mostly scenary.

The Partheneon with olive trees in the foreground:

Some of the ruins of the akropolis:
The greek flag flying at the akropolis:

Akropolis at night:

Plaka/Monastiriki area:

Famous place for GYROS:

Corinth Isthmos Canal:

Athens Greece

YAY... time for a real update! This past weekend I went to Athens Greece... WOW what a place! The city was SOOo beautiful! I have some friends who live down there, so I decided to check out the area. It was such a great trip- I went to all the sites in Athens (akropolis, partheneon, monastiriki, plaka, 1986 Olympic Stadium, University area with Socrates and Plato, etc etc)...and I even had enough time to check out Ancient Corinth and Mycenae. I was blown away by all the ancient structures there... next time I need to hit up the greek islands! :) who wants to come with????

Here are some pictures of my time in Greece. Due to privacy issues, most of the pics are either me or just landscapes. Enjoy!

View of Greece from the Plane:

View of the Aegan Sea from Mycenae:

Socrates:

The Guards: (check out those fluffy balls on their shoes )

1986 Olympic Stadium.. if you look closely you see the Olympic Rings:

Temple of APollo:
Akropolis :

Flowers at the akropolis:

.... more to come after I have some more time to add more pics! :) stay tuned!

Winter in Holland

I know the point of this blog is to mark all the places I go to visit during my year in Europe... well unfortunately it is QUITE COLD these days...so traveling has been to a bare minimum - i would rather stay in my little studio than go out... not even to go shopping (one of my fav activities)...any day . hahhaa sad but I grew up in North Carolina...where it can be 70F even in January (so I've heard from my friends). That being said, I'm waiting for Spring to hit Europe... I'm told about march is when it starts to get sunnier!! YAYYY I can't wait!!

But I figured it would still be nice to update you with some of my adventures this past month...within Holland. I mostly spent my weekends in Spakenburg and Delft. In spakenburg i checked out the "spakenburg museum"- which was really neat. it chronicled the lifestyles of spakenburg back in the day, and in delft i checked out the "priesonhoef"... something like that - it is a museum all about William of Orange (very famous guy in Holland's history..look it up on wiki. haha).

Here are some pics: enjoy!

Spakenburg Museum:

Our tour guide- she was dressed in typical dutch women clothing:

This is how they took care of fish:

The typical classroom with the typical dutchware:

Taking a "Snooze" on the typical dutch bed:

Being "adventurous" : "wall climbing"

Delft City Centre: in a wooden shoe:

William of Orange's kitchen: (haha note i didn't take pics of anything else)

some random piece of art we saw in the city centre (maybe its supposed to be musical?):

PICTURES of my bike... well my bike lock

SOO this is what I came back to in HOlland... after going on Winter break - my bike lock TAKEN out from the chain with no other means to unlock my bike from the radiator...I thought I would post some pics so you can see the "real deal". tell me what you think:

1. Here is my bike chained to the radiator...with the lock taken out ... how a person was able to do is, is beyond me. (notice the beginnings of using the bolt cutter..)

2. Here is a close up... notice how there is a hole - that is where the lock used to be:


3. Here is the final product: I cut through the chain with a pair of bolt cutters from the lab ... for 1 hour


I told a bunch of my lab mates.. and they all thought it was the MOST hilarious story ever. :( I guess reflecting back... yes its funny but my goodness going through it was the MOST frustrating ever- my hand muscles are very sore now- after lugging my suitcases up 2 flights of stairs (to my house) and down 1 flight (at the train station), and then spending over 1 hour to cut this chain ....

Hopefully this will be the end of my issues with my bike and my later blogs will be of "happier" times in Europe... (like traveling) :)

Brussels Belgium

The LAST stop of my super nice vacation in November was Brussels Belgium!! My friend Adriane was visiting a friend, and they decided to check out Brussels...which is about 2.5 hours by train from Eindhoven- so I met up with them in Brussels for the day. It was pretty awesome.. except my train from Eindhoven to the Belgium/Netherlands border was about 10 minutes late..and the connecting train to take me into Brussels was right on time. SOOO I missed my train!! ARGHH. and I had to wait 1 hour at the train station for the next one!! I felt So horrible because I had no way of contacting Adriane...and I was really worried she would just leave and then I would be in Brussels ALL by myself trying to find her. BUT thankfully she waited at the hostel for me! OMG i felt SOO bad!! (cuz the trains are usually so on time.)

Anyways, after it all, we had a blast in Brussels. very neat city- reminded me of italy-ish. very typical style of set up for european cities- have the city centre with amazing historic buildings, have the art museums and of course the "open markets" (well they are called "christmas markets" in belgium).

Here are some pictures from Brussels:

Museum of Modern And Ancient Art:

This globe was FULL of bugs:

Chocolate and gold ornament: WOW

mmmm waffles:

Famous statue of the peeing man:

Light Show:

Amsterdam Netherlands....finally

So after the whirlwind adventure through spain, france and italy, i finally made it to Amsterdam!!! I've been in Holland for about 4 months and I never visited Amsterdam until now!!! How sad right?? but I went...and its a pretty sweet city! (way nicer than Eindhoven.... ) Went to the Albert Cuypstreet market...(not that impressive), Heineken Museum, and the Museumplein. I am totally going to go again so that i can visit Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum, Leidensplein ... etc etc. sooo if anyone wants to go with me... let me know when!!!! I'll be here until July 2009!!!!! :)

The Museumplein reminded me of Harold & Kumar 2. It was exactly as depicted in the movie!!!! (i guess there is SOME truth in movies.... hahaha) the heineken musuem was awesome- it is totally worth a visit!!!! it was reallly neat to see how they make beer and learn about the history of heineken. they have some awesome "hands-on" activities for visitors.

I think my 2 fav cities in Holland are Amsterdam and Den Haag. Maybe my opinion will change after I've gone a few more times... as I've heard a lot of local dutch people don't really like Amsterdam (they claim its too toursity). Here are a few pictures of amsterdam:

Amsterdam City:

Heineken Experience:

Brewing Beer!!!!

Bar tenderrrrr:

"This MUST be Holland"

Museumplein:

Just like in Harold & Kumar: