Thursday, February 24, 2011

Amsterdam (Pt. 3)

 Got into Amsterdam around 6ish maybe and saw city right from the train station. A ton of old fashioned buildings and a ton of people crowding the streets. I herad that Asmterdam looks much like new York city did in the 1800's so it was really cool to walk around the city with that in mind. It was also nice that everyone i talked too knew English quite well. The dutch language is very obscure and sounds like a throat disease. A street name that was less 5 syllables was rare. Went around Amsterdam for a short while because my feet were killing me. I took a bus to the Uptown Flying pig hostel which was much more larger than the one on the beach in Noordwijk. The bar area a bit more classier and there was even a seating area.

That night I met an interesting Japanese surfer from Tokyo named Ray. I got to know Ray pretty well. He is 26 and is travelling the world before he goes and works for his Dad who owns a company that sells electronic devices to auto manufactures. I met him about have way through his journey as he had already visited France, Spain, and Italy. He said his favorite place so far was Barcelona I convinced him to go visit Athens before he leaves back to Tokyo.

The next morning me and ray went around town. We had some of the hostels complimentary breakfast which consisted of toast, nutella, hard boiled eggs and cereal. I also met, probably, the only other American in the hostel named Phil Defranco who happens to be a pretty big youtube star.Waited in line for the Ann Frank museum for about 20 minutes. The family ahead of us noticed that I was speaking English. the mother asked where i was from I said, New york, they said where in new york, I said Buffalo, they said where in buffalo, and I said Orchard park/Hamburg border. Turns out this family was from Hamburg as well. They said they could notice my Buffalo accent. They were visiting a daughter that was studying in Amsterdam. Small world.

The Ann Frank museum was really interesting. We got to see things like an actual layout of the annex that they all stayed in that the father described in his own words. We got to go through Ann franks room as well as everyone elses room. We were not allowed to take any pictures.After seeing the annex, we got to see actual journals, shorts stories and all the diaries she wrote in an English translation. It was very neat and interesting yet I would have to say that the next museum we went to was much more fruitful and interesting.

Next we went to the Heineken brewery and museum. First we saw old memorabilia and history of the heineken beer. next we went through old brewing "tuns" and saw where the ingredients were mixed. Heineken is made with hops, barley, water, and "A" yeast which only 2 people in the world know how to culture. We got to make and taste the "wort" which is the barley and water mixed together i think. Next we got to go through a "4-d" experience as if we were being made in the beer, with moving and shaking floors, water spray, heaters etc. next we got to do a Heineken beer tasting. Next was pretty cool but it really just felt like we were being brainwashed into buying Heineken. At the end, we got 2 free Heinekens at the bar.

Afterwards I convinced Ray to go get some Japanese food because he was saying that japanese food is often made by Chinese. The difference is that Chinese food is much more oilier. Turns out the place we had our rice and chicken was made by Chiness people.

We tried to go to the van gogh museum but it was closed so we went back to the hostel. Our room finally had everyone in it. There was one guy from Japan (ray), me, a Spaniard (david), 2 french and 2 Germans(nina and daniel). It was an eyeopener that the only thing we had in common was that we all could speak in English. The Spaniard was ordering beer specials up from the bar so things in our room got pretty crazy. That night me and david wanted to see Amsterdam at night and both of us had to go to the train station anyway the next morning. The streets were empty probably because it was a Monday and the tourists had exited the city. Walking to the train station got pretty eery. Lots of deadbeats and people talking to themselves.

Train Station
Got to the train station safely and said bye to David. He wasn't very good at English so I couldn't really understand him. He was from Santander, Spain and really wanted to go to the Red Light District. That's about it. I got to the airport at about 4 Am so I got burger at burger king and fell asleep sitting up on a chair. The plane left for Madrid at 9:30AM.

Got in Madrid and it was around 60 degrees which was what i needed. I think I am keeping my beard but I'll probably take a shower maybe sometime this week when I feel like it.

Nordwijk and Leiden (Netherlands) (pt. 2)

Once again I didn't get much sleep, but got to sleep through the flight to Holland. I had Ana's second sandwhich for breakfast upon arrival. This time it was a baguette with some sort of white, sharp cheese which was surprisingly really good. Took a train and bus to the flying Pig Hostel in Noordwijk. My hostel was a stone throw away from the center of the town where the huge light house was. It had free wifi, a surf bar, and even a shower.


Noordvijk is a beach town.  It wasn't warm enough to hang out on the sand but still their was a bunch of people walking along the shore line and board walk shopping. There were a lot of alleys full of people shopping even for the chilly weather. The hostel was pretty small but was booked to capacity. I took a needed nap on my cot and went back out and looked for the super market where I got dinner (nutella and a loaf of bread).
 

That night i hung out at the bar where I met Johannes Forster from Leipzig, Germany, who happened to be my bunk mate. Johannes worked at an intergovernmental organization called TEEB. He was visiting Amsterdam as well for a job offer to work for environmental analysis. This entailed analyzing environmental costs of certain projects and endeavors. He did work for things such as the BP oil spill, the disappearance of the cod industry in Canada, water cleaning in the Catskills etc. He often went in to depth about certain projects he did. One that comes to mind is the narrowing of a river in Napa valley in order to maximize space for farming, but doing this sped the river up and eroded the land which was hurting a nearby village. I even got some good advice from him about what I'm looking into when i get out of college about socially responsible investing (sri).

The next morning I went into by Leiden 20 minutes away by bus where I saw a bunch of lighthouses. Leiden had a much homelier feel than Amsterdam. It was much more less inhabited by tourists than Amsterdam and the streets were a lot less conglomerated with people so there were no souvenir shops. Also, the streets and canals were not lined with x-rated shops and shady characters which made this town a very comfortable place to spend the day. There was a pub that I went in to get a wee pint of guiness to go with my nutella and bread lunch. I didnt get a knife so i had to dip the bread in the jar which more or less didnt quite work to well. Walked along the waterways and went around the town by looking for all the churches that could be seen by looking up. I stayed here until around 4-5 pm and took a train into Amsterdam.


Geneva pt 1


I had my winter break already last Thursday till Tuesday of this week. I got the chance to take advantage of a deal of 25% off at Easy Jet, but by the time I found the deal, it was ending at midnight that night, so I booked the two places I could go to, Geneva and Amsterdam. Before leaving Ana made me two sandwhiches because I would be missing dinner. I ended up packing them for breakfast the next morning and just raiding the kitchen for a yogurt and cookie dinner. My flight left at 8:30 PM thursday. I hoped that two pairs of pants, 1 pair of briefs, 6 pairs of socks and 3 shirts would be enough. A good traveler always brings a surplus of socks, everything else is expendable.

The flight Geneva was fairly smooth. I tried to ask for Sanka because that's what I heard when they were listing the drinks in Spanish. So I asked for it but of course it ended up being the stewardess' name and said she was not for sale. I got in to the airport around so to save money, I thought I could just save money and sleep in the airport that night. I had many places to choose from but I thought it was most fitting to set up camp in the Swiss Chalet seating area.. It was here that I met the first person on my journey, Nil Goldman.

Nil is an Israeli soldier from Tel Aviv I met sleeping in the air port Swiss Chalet. We both had set up 4 chairs apiece to rig up some sort of chair-bed. Of course neither of us were able to sleep so we ended up talking about things from Hezbollah, Duquesne, training, youtube, life in Israel, Life in America and whole bunch of other things. He said he could have joined ranks with something about intelligence he kept on saying, but decided to stay in the army because of the shortage of soldiers. In Israel, it is very hard to get hired unless an applicant has been in the army. He went on say some other interesting stories about the war, some funny and some sad. He says that the American soldiers are massive compared to Israeli soldiers and he blames it on the fact that in Israel, soldiers are fed slop and Americans are given meat fruit and vegetables for their meals.

I got some sleep, I got woken up by some cleaning crew guy. He was speaking in french and was angry. It obvious that he was mad because I had my shoes on the chair. From their it was some time around 7-8 am. Took a train to from the airport to Geneva. I'm pretty sure that I saw everything in Geneva besides the 2 places I only wanted to see upon visiting. The UN building and the only man made thing that can destroy Earth, The Large Hadron Collider. Nils told me I had to book a visit at least 3 months in advance anyway.

For the first half of the day, I explored the up town. I had one of Ana's sandwiches, a baguette and churrizo sandwhich. Uptown consisted of some cool architecture (notre dame basilica, a neat clock tower), as well as some souvenir shops, very expensive. I walked North and went through a park that went along Lake Geneva as well as the Rhone. I turned around because the city was starting to disappear behind me. I heard a large noise and turned around and saw the Jet d'eau. I went to a small pier with a light house at the end of it to get some pictures of it as well as some swans that seemed to everywhere.

Afternoon I went the cottage cafe for some coffee right behind the Brunswick monument and the fountain in the distance. The place looked exactly like a cottage, complete with the smoking chimney and mossy brick. I think in all of Europe, all coffee shops use the same machine to make the same frothy coffee but each place sells it at different prices. This was by far the most expensive. But i got to have it outside in some very nice weather.

Here I met 2 girls that I got to have coffee with. One was Mi from the Phillipines and Amina from Bosnia. Both were vacationing in Geneva for the day like I was. We were exchanging places to check out as well as the usual foreigner-to-foreigner conversation (where you from, where you study etc.) Mi was trying to get me to go Philippines next as if I had no direction home. Amina thought I was a backpacker. It was here that I actually felt like a vagabond. The phrase continued through my head for the whole weekend. I looked at mirrors as often as I could to see how far my beard had grown and how greasy my hair had gotten since last i saw it like a true backpacker.



We parted ways and took some pictures. I was heading into the City across the Rhone by 12PM. the city was much like Madrid in that there were no skyscrapers, yet very different in it own style. building were about same size and shape, and just about all of them had some brand advertised. Mostly Rolex and Victorinox. On the map it looked very much like the shape of Pittsburgh with two rivers converging into one with a city in between. Rather than spending money on museums in French, I wanted to see all the green spaces in the city on the map. One park stood out in that it was the highest part in the city. from here the whole city could be saw as well as the huge fountain splitting the city down the middle. the Jet made it easy to navigate the city as it could be seen everywhere in the city. Parts of the city reminded me of Toledo with the small walking spaces between buildings as well as the street performers. One guy was playing tambourine man who was pretty good. I went to the point of Geneva after exploring  in the city, nothing much out there, but coming back along the Rhone with the sunsetting was pretty neat. Pretty sure I saw everything in Geneva and my shoulders and feet were starting to burn for it. I went to a cool Pizzeria within one of the parks along the Rhone and got the chefs special Pizza. It was peppers, cheeses, other veggies, ham and sunny-side up egg cracked right on top in the middle. It was good but starting to miss pepperoni. After wards I took the train back to the airport. Staked out my spot at Swiss Chalet until it closed and set up shop till morning. My flight leaves for Amsterdam at 6.



Enhanced by Zemanta

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Spanish Sore Throat Cure

I went to the kitchen for dinner and Ana immediately noticed that I had a sore throat from the way I talked. After dinner she pulled some kind of old woman's secret cure.

1. Juice one lemon and heat it up. Mix with 2 spoon fulls honey. The concoction is a hot drink that packs a massive punch of sour and sweet.
2. She then put vapor rub all around my neck.
3. Soak cotton with alcohol and wrap around neck with a peace of fabric to keep in place.
4. Then she gave me some tablet which was probably "airborne" and told me to suck on it.
5. She then shoved me off with eucaliptus cough drops.

Still have my alcohol wrap around my neck

She's not letting me go out tonight.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Toledo

Tried my chances this morning and hoped that someone overslept. The day excursion was booked to capacity so I was either going to somehow sneak on the bus or take someones spot. I didn't have to do either because there was exactly one more seat for one more student to go on. AND no one said anything about paying who and when. So im not going to ask and im not going to remember.


Toledo is only an hour away. This is the second student trip there because of the high demand to go on the first trip. After seeing everything today as well as probably seeing things that most people haven't, I can see why. Weather today was at least 65 once 2:00PM came around

The street were very narrow and concave, I think some sidewalks doubled as roads as well. Navigating in Toledo was near impossible. Our tour guide described it as a labyrinth. We saw "The Burial of Count Organz" El Greco's most famous painting and #5 best classical painting. (according to a group of artists). We were told before going in that pictures and cells were prohibited, but I got a nice pocket shot. El Greco lived and died in Toledo.

Stopped at a cafe for coffee and ended the tour at 2. We had 3 hours to walk around by ourselves. Got lunch at a small restaurant specializing in baked potatoes. I had a tuna bake potato and it wasn't bad. It came with mayonnaise, tomato sauce, corn, and olives. Window shopped for while after. Toledo is known for making blades and knifes. For the lord of the rings movies, they got the swords from Toledo, so we saw a ton of replicas in all the store windows. After that we wanted to see the river running around the city/village. (Tajo river). Zigzagging down hill, we found many lookout points to see the craggy cliffs on the other side of the river. I found some ruins from something that we definitely were not allowed to go in, but we did anyway. After the ruins we hiked along the river taking shots along the way of the bridge and rocks. We took some shots on an old water wheel and then found a really nice lookout point/ park way outside of Toledo. By then it was time for us to go back.



Go Pack!
Enhanced by Zemanta

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Parque del Oeste

Dinner tonight was another bacon hamburger with fries. She also made us peas with ham. The ham (or serrano) came from a dry-cured pig leg that sits on her counter. These pig legs are everywhere. Bars and discos have cutting stations inside just for people who want to eat dried ham pieces. (last night was salmon, and the night before that was steak!). I like to gloat to a lot my friends about how awesome our dinners are, cause a lot of them have mundane 1-course dinners. Once they start to sulk about how ehh their dinners are I like to tell them that I had bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast every day this week. (Breakfasts here are supposed to be bread and yogurt.)

Today I spent some time working on my Spanish and econ presentations coming up this week. I found a really nice spot at the campus where I hope only I know about (it has a cool view of the mountain range outside Madrid. Here are some pictures of it as well as other pictures of the main building where many classes are held.



Oh yah it got up to something like 65 degrees today.

At 3PM i went out running to a park also nearby, Parque del Oeste, largest park i think in Madrid from what it looks like on the map.The park was of course decked out in inordinate sculptures and fountains, I tried not to stop and take pictures of  all of them but I think I did. Their was also a massive flower garden, probably an acre, of numerous flower patches, (not in bloom yet so ill have to go back and get a picture)

Saw a bunch of dogs today too. No leash laws here in Spain so its very rare to see dogs leashed up, even in the city. (easy explanation as to why there is dog crap everywhere) Surprisingly they dont attack at people or at other dogs here. Maybe that's just Daisy.

Right next to the park was a old rail road which was pretty cool to go down. A lot of look out points and bridges to view the outskirts of the city. After the railroad i got to what seemed was the main part of the park because of all the congregated people sitting down on the grass. It was very popular today i guess because of the first day I think since ive been here where it was shorts weather. This was where the best view of the outskirts of Madrid was. I saw a couple of people juggling bowling pins (which was very impressive) as well as a guy who was absolutely amazing with the toy that i don't know the name of. (the one with the spinning object that spins on the rope by jerking your hands up and down). Anyway that was cool, heres some pictures.

These pictures are from the park.