Coffee shops and currywursts.

The Netherlands
September 1 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
We made our way into the bus station in Amsterdam at night. We walked around trying to figure out how to buy bus tickets and find the bus we were supposed to take to Tara's friend Aafke's place. We settled into Aafke's friend's room (who was away interviewing in another city) and went out to the corner store to grab random food for dinner. The next morning, we started out with some street wandering in the centre and some shopping. We saw the Dam Square, passed a decently-sized Chinese restaurant and the red light district by daylight. We continued wandering around and encountered Amsterdam's Chinatown! Yes, Amsterdam has a Chinatown too! Gee! It was actually a pretty big Chinatown, bigger than the one in Montreal -- pretty sizeable. Just wandering through the streets of Amsterdam was a unique experience. I have never seen so many advertisements for weed/marijuana-related accessories. It was seriously in every other window!

This was part of the China town that was actually quite large!

In the evening, we found ourselves at a cafe, where we enjoyed some coffee near one of the many rivers in Amsterdam. We were a bit on the outskirts of town.

We later returned to the centre to check out the infamous Red Light District. Earlier in the day, we had already seen old horny men lining up for peep shows in the Red Light District. I thought it was rather amusing.
The next day, we took another one of those Europe free tours and the random stories told were pretty entertaining. Apparently they are looking to close the coffee shops and the red light district slowly. If those are things you want to experience, then go in the next couple of years before they are all phased out! They plan to close coffee shops as they break regulations. This means that they are more stringent now. We also saw the Anne Frank hideout. I just stood across from the house -- a house that looked like any other house in Amsterdam. The memories of reading her diary and imagining all of that unfold in the house before me was incredibly moving. I can't believe that history was so cruel to some, and that people were responsible for such abominable acts. It was definitely a sobering moment of the trip.

The coffee shop filmed in Ocean's 11.

On the last night, we hung out with Aafke, our host (thanks Taras!) and had some delicious bread, cheese and wine before we took off to the bus terminal. Amsterdam was quite interesting, with some stories that I don't think I will repeat in this blog in case it offends anyone. I will end off Amsterdam with an attempt an artsy shot. Yay Heineken!

Germany

September 3 - Berlin, Germany
We took a night bus into Berlin: a grueling 9 hour bus ride. Joey was fast asleep throughout, having slept right across the back few seats. It was a pretty bumpy ride for me, but I got to experience the German autobahn! Damn those cars go faaast! No wonder all the guys love the autobahn! We got into town, found the subway and made our way to the hostel. After getting a little lost a few times, we managed to find the hostel and a supermarket nearby. This is where we purchased our breakfast and snacks for the day. We then made our way to the Brandenburg Gates -- the site where the free Europe tour was meeting (as our hostel had told us). This was also the location of the hotel where Michael Jackson hung his children over the railing.
We took yet another free tour through the vast city of Berlin. It is hard to imagine that Berlin has gone through so much in its history. The Jewish Memorial was quite outstanding and is meant to be left to the viewer to interpret. There was also an amazing Jewish museum that we later re-visited. The memorial is essentially concrete blocks of different sizes for one whole block. Below is a an example of one of the aisles.
Next, we stopped at the hide out of Hitler. It looks like an ordinary street now. We would've never known it was the location of Hitler's bunker without the tour guide telling us. It was crazy imagining the last seconds of Hitler's life right on the very spot where he was found. We later visited the site where Nazis burned all of the books from the university. There is a memorial now with empty bookshelves for symbolism.
After this, we also visited chunks of the Berlin Wall. The last stop on the tour was to the Berlin Dom and the art museum we didn't end up going into due to entrance costs. Below is a picture of our tour guide explaining stuff to us.
The next day, we decided to explore on our own and see the East Side Gallery -- the longest remaining portion of the Berlin Wall. We didn't end up walking the whole stretch because Joey got tired. However, it was still a unique experience. Shortly after returning to the metro station, we found hot dog vendors. They carry the grill literally like backpacks facing forward. It was only 1 Euro and more delicious than the $2.50CDN hotdogs back in Canada! So good!
At one of the Berlin Wall sites, we went into a Holocaust memorial. There were many placards of information as well as photographs. Some of the photos were so heartwrenching and completely sobering. There was one photo that had a particular impact on me:
Playground. Reserved for children. Forbidden to Jews.

Notice the smiling faces of the children, ignorant to what was going on. It reinforces once again to me why the right education is so important. (Well, I mean there is always that argument of what constitutes as the "right" kind of education, but I am sure you catch my drift.) Obviously it is not the children's fault that they were taught this way. They don't have a mind of their own yet. This way, unchecked, children can grow up in a controlled environment to whatever adults teach them to know. That's how we get our expert child suicide bombers and militants. Anywa, enough depression... Afterwards, we continued roaming around and gorged on a huge sausage dinner. I felt so gross after. lol. We revisited the Brandenburger Tor at sunset and took some beautiful pictures with the sun setting in the background. We then made our way to the Reichstaag, one of the political buildings in Berlin (the one that a random man allegedly burned down (whether on purpose due to his mental state, or under the influence of Hitler, we don't know)). This is the historic building that was burnt and triggered the entire Hitler regime. The building has been reconstructed with a clear glass dome, symbolizing the political process that would be entirely transparent to the German population now. It is actually a really cool dome and it served as the subject of many of my best amateur photographic works ;)


After hanging out in the Reichstaag dome for awhile, we headed back to the hostel and got ready to fly out the next morning.

United Kingdom
September 5 - London, UK
After flying back to London, we finally encountered some bad luck with weather. Well, I wouldn't call it bad luck, because it wouldn't have been a true cultural experience if I couldn't experience rain in London! Because of the rain, we decided to stay in on the first day, just lying around checking email and watching TV. We got the luxury of staying at Joey's friend's place, who happened to be out of town. She had an entire townhouse complex to herself -- which meant we had an entire townhouse complex to ourselves!

The next day, we headed off to the British National Museum with Charlotte. Again, it was a chill day of just walking around, having a few drinks here and there and catching up with Charlotte before getting ready for our flight the next day. We had lunch on Brick Lane, the Little India of London and walked around that trendy district (it reminded me of Queen St.) It was a really cool neighbourhood that I am sure Jason Chow would have loved! In this neighbourhood, we saw a restaurant that was in a double-decker bus! It was pretty cool:
... and so ended our European adventures! I hope you enjoyed following my belated blog! I wonder if I will end up writing about my trips since then: Vancouver re-visited (Dec 2008), Cuba (Feb 2009), NYC/Saint John/Halifax re-visited (July 2009). We'll see! Until next time, tata for now!