Last week in Paris

So, we got home from Paris 2 weeks ago but since then I have been trying to relax AND am now currently roadtripping through the west with Cole, so I will try to remember some things about my last week in Paris!

First of all, we were completely and totally exhausted after our trip to Amsterdam, but we couldn't stop talking about how much fun we had! On Monday back in Paris, Cole went to Versailles (without me) but we had a picnic near Trocadero afterwards which was really fun! Cole whipped up some pasta salad, a green salad with avocado, and we brought a bottle of white wine along as well. It was delicious and lots of fun! I was sort of sad we didn't have more opportunities for picnics during our stay, but it was a great way to start off our last week there.

As it turned out, Wednesday was Bastille Day (July 14th) so everyone had the day off! We wanted to head to the Champs Elysee for the parade and to Trocadero for fireworks afterwards, but it was POURING all day! So, we got to sleep in for once and lounged for a few solid hours. It was pretty nice to just relax, no work or sightseeing.

On Thursday night we finally made it to the Musee d'Orsay. Since we went at night, it was only 5.5o each (they keep the museum open on Thursdays from 6-10 pm). That was definitely one of my favorite museums-- some Van Gogh, Monet, and lots of other awesome art, plus the museum itself is really interesting.

On Friday night we decided to go all out at hit up the Louvre which we hadn't been to at all yet. It was also cheaper on Friday nights, plus some random guy gave us a free ticket on the way in! So 6 euros wasn't bad at all for both of us to see the most famous museum in Paris. We saw the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa and all that good stuff. It wasn't my favorite museum of the trip, but I was glad we got to see everything!

Saturday was also our last day in Paris. We packed up everything and cleaned the apartment. We also went to the post office in the morning to send my umbrella and our posters home (wrapped up in bubble wrap and tape). Finally, after our cleaning session we went out for a nice dinner nearby the apartment. Chez Paul was a pretty darn fancy French restaurant and it was delicious-- especially the creme brulee which was AMAZING!

Anyways, we headed out on Sunday morning pretty early and caught our flight to Chicago through Montreal. Everything went pretty smoothly and I watched 4 movies over the course of the trip since it was daylight the whole time and I didn't sleep at all.

So, we are back in the USA with plenty of A/C everywhere we go!

AMSTERDAM!!!

Probably one of the craziest but also most fun weekend ever! I don't really know what me and Cole were expecting of Amsterdam. We knew about the red light district coffee shops and "sex workers" but we didn't know much else.

When we got into town, it was pretty late in the evening on Friday night so we checked into our hotel, The Bulldog, which is a pretty popular hotel in the red light district of Amsterdam. Upon check-in we noticed a pretty hilarious sign as you can see below.

The Bulldog hotel and coffeshop

No cigarettes but pot is OK!!

We decided to wander around for a while in the area around our hotel. We hadn't eaten much since we were on the train for 3 hours on the way from Paris, so we looked for something to eat. We found a small place that had some pizza etc. so I got a slice of vegetarian pizza while Cole got the hot dog smothered in cheese with peperoni on top! Looked like quite the delicacy. After eating we walked around and took note of all the craziness but didn't partake just yet.

Me and Cole on the canals in the red light district

On Saturday we got up pretty early to hit one of our main attractions for the weekend-- the Anne Frank house. Being a pretty small museum in a city of many attractions, we had to get there early in the AM (around 9 am ) to beat the lines. We only had to wait 10 or so minutes to get into the house. It was an extremely powerful experience and I'm really happy we had a chance to see it. It was basically a tour through the house and the secret annex that Anne Frank and her family lived in during WWII and the Holocaust. Even though she was just a little girl (I think she wrote in her diary from around 8-13 or 14 years old) she had some pretty profound things to say about what was going on around her. We didn't get any good pictures of the actually house (because we weren't allowed) but we got some cool pictures of some nearby attractions!

Tulip museum

After the morning museum tour we decided to do some shopping (well, I decided to do some shopping while Cole followed along). We found a street with some cute shops on it and I bought a pretty necklace there. We also went to the main department store in Amsterdam, DeBijenkorf, and hung out there for a while. There was lots of stuff on sale (yayyyyy!!!) so we spend some time there, and I ended up buying a nice skirt. It was pretty exciting for me at least. Cole was pretty ready for some food.

We made our way back to the red light district around our hotel and perused the area for something good to eat, but not until after we stopped at the Bulldog bar for some Heinekens! Then we stumbled upon a little place called Wok to Walk which was a noodle takeout restaurant. Basically like HuHot but better... you could choose your type of noodle, veggies, meat, and sauce, and they cooked it all up and put it in a chinese takeout carton. DELICIOUS! We grabbed our Woks and sat by the canal to eat it. We ended up eating Wok to Walk a couple times that weekend, and I'm pretty sure I speak for Cole as well when I say that it was one of my favorite restaurants of all time!!!!! Definitely at the top of the fast restaurant list.

Post WOK we wandered around the town for a while, hit up the bars and coffeeshops, and just hung out in the area near our hotel. Pretty soon it was time to get ready for our "wine and cheese candlelight canal cruise"!!! We spruced ourselves up a little and walked over to the meeting point for our cruise. It was definitely one of the best ideas I've had for a while. It was only 30 euros per person but we had some cheese and snack mix to snack on, plus 2 bottles of wine per table. SO that means that me and Cole shared a bottle of white and a bottle of red. There was plenty of wine to go around!

"Dancing houses"

Canal

But anyways, about 3/4 way through our tour it unfortunately started to rain, but we were fine since the boat was covered and we could still see all the sights through the windows. However, post tour, instead of being able to walk straight back to the hotel we (most "unfortunately") had to stay at the bar. There was basically a hurricane going on outside with monsoon type rain. So we stayed at the bar by the dock for a few drinks. Once it settled down, we braved the rain to head back to our hotel. Once we got to the Bulldog again we hung out around the area in the bar and coffee shop etc.

At night on the Canal Cruise

Sunday morning we woke up (not quite as early... closer to noon this time) and once again got our favorite Wok to Walk for lunch!!! We still had a few major sites to hit up before we left that night. First, after eating some wok we walked to the other side of town to the museum area. That also happened to be there area near the "Museumplein" which is a big field/park area where they were playing the world cup games on a giant screen. Since that night was the world cup final and Holland was in it, it was definitely pretty crazy over there. However since we couldn't stay that night we didn't really partake in any of the world cup party festivities :(

Our first stop Sunday was the Van Gogh museum. The tickets were very expensive (14 euros each!!!) and we also got the audio tours for the trip. This might have been one of my favorite museums in Europe of all the ones I've been to this summer. There were lots of works by Van Gogh and all the other artists that influenced him/ that were influenced by him. One of the coolest parts of the museum was the way they showed the progression of his art from the point in time when he started (making very dark paintings at first) to his most famous period (when he used very vibrant colors, i.e. Starry Night and the many self-portraits we saw). I bought a print of his "Almond Blossom" painting and I'm pretty excited about it!!

After the Van Gogh museum we had some lunch at a little sandwich shop and then decided to head to our last tourist destination, the Heineken museum.

We loved the Heineken museum! It was a very innovative museum based on the way they presented their product and the process of making the beer. We saw the mash tuns and even got to taste the "wort", or the liquid that is made of water and barley and is the beginning of the beer making process before they add the hops for taste. It was very sweet and definitely tasted a lot different than the end product!

One of the coolest parts of the museum was a video/ride called "BrewYouRide" where you stood in a room and watched the brewing process from a first-person point of view. In other words, we were the beer. The floors moved and shook to give you the feeling that you were really being brewed! We both thought this was a pretty hilarious and also genius part of the tour.

Another cool aspect of the tour was that we had a bottle of Heineken made with our names on it... not to mention the 2 free beers we each got at the end of the tour!! The museum shop was also awesome and I wish we could have bought some more souvenirs, but once again we don't have much room to bring souvenirs back! However, fortunately for us, the Heineken museum has a website and I know for sure that I will be buying the cooler backpack in the future!!!

Cole at the Heineken museum

Brewing some beers

Sadly, after our Heineken tour it was already almost evening and we had to grab our bags and head back to the train station for our train back to Paris :( :(

But overall it was an amazing, really fun and really interesting weekend and I LOVE AMSTERDAM!!! I will definitely be making a trip back in the future!

Brussels and Bruges

2 weekends ago me and Cole took a weekend trip from Paris to Brussels (I know, it has taken me forever to write about it, but I've been too busy working actually doing stuff to write about it!)

We took off on the Thalys train from Paris Gare du Nord Friday afternoon, and it only took 1 1/2 hrs to get to Brussels-Midi station. Upon our arrival we checked into the Thon hotel, and our room on the 25th floor! It was a pretty fancy-shmancy hotel but we only paid $60 per night for it on hotels.com which was a pretty good steal. It was also only 5 minutes walk from the main square. The only problem was that even when the A/C was on the maximum cooling setting, it still wasn't very cold. However, since that weekend we have adapted to the lack of adequate A/C because they pretty much just don't have it in Europe. In Paris they really don't have it anywhere, not even our apartment, which is pretty inconvenient when its 95 degrees outside.

Anyways, Friday night we just strolled around and looked for food. We found a doner kebab place, and I was hoping that they might have some falafel, unlike the Paris doners! Happily for me, they had some delicious falafel and feta sandwiches. Cole had some yummy shawarma too! After that, we picked up some Belgian beers to drink at the hotel and headed back.

Saturday, we woke up and decided to forgo the 26 euro hotel breakfast. (Outrageous!) Instead we walked down the street for something quick. The only real option (other than doner) was a sandwich shop which turned out to be pretty delish. After our brunch, we wandered into the main square to check out the St. Michel cathedral.

Cole in front of St. Michel cathedral

After the cathedral tour, it started to rain a bit, so we opted to take the metro to our next stop, the Cantillon brewery. This brewery is the last of the breweries left in Brussels. It was pretty sweet, very small and old, and we did the brewery tour and tasting there. The kind of beer they make is the lambic, a sort of tart and fizzy beer to which fruit is often added, most commonly raspberry or cherry (called kriek).

Wheelbarrow

Hiding behind a barrel of lambic

Kegs!

Bottling and labeling

Thousands of full bottles!

After the brew tour, we headed back to the main area to find some food and some shopping. We found the possibly coolest beer store ever. They had tons of different types of Belgian beer, as well as Belgian beer posters and all of the proper Belgian beer glasses. They had so many awesome accessories but after all we can't take too much stuff home... (we are going to struggle packing as it is!) but we did buy two Delirium Tremens glasses to use back in Iowa. We also bought some delicious Belgian chocolates at one of the many chocolate shops, and also found a strangely delicious Italian restaurant that served amazing gourmet baked mac and cheese! Once again we stopped at the convenience store for some (slightly cheaper) Belgian beers, went back to the hotel and drank and watched the Spain/Paraguay world cup soccer match! Later that night we grabbed a quick bite at the nearby Brussels grill for some cheese croquettes, burger and fries, and hit the hay so we could get up early the next morning and head to Bruges.

Glorious. A Western Shop in Brussels. (They didn't even speak English)

Early Sunday morning we headed to the north station and bought tickets for the train to Bruges. It took about an hour to get there from Brussels. When we arrived, it was beautiful weather, sunny and warm with a little breeze. Perfect day for walking around! We strolled through the Sunday morning antique/flea market where they had just about everything, including an amazing crystal decanter that I desperately wanted, but was just too heavy to take home with me :(. We wound up on the other side of the market, and headed towards what looked like a more popular area of town. Luckily, Bruges is pretty small, so we were headed in the right direction.

On the canal in Bruges

At the main square, we sat down for some lunch. I think I had cheese croquettes again with salad, probably because it was the only thing without meat on the menu (they are very reluctant to add/delete specific things from menu items around here...) but it was pretty delicious, and we also got some HUGE 50 cl Hoegaarden beers. Not too shabby at all.

GIANT Hoegaarden!

Beer and fries-- Welcome to Belgium!

After lunch we strolled for a while. Lots of parks and shops all around the city. Our next destination (and pretty much our only planned destination in Bruges) was De Halve Maan brewery, which means "the Half Moon". This brewery was definitely a must-see if you are heading to Belgium. In fact, I would say Bruges is a must see, and I wish we could have stayed there a little longer. Anyways, at De Halve Maan we took a tour, and our guide was awesome! She was pretty hilarious, but also knew a hell of a lot about beer. At the end of the tour we got 2 free beers and also chatted with a couple from Minnesota who were currently living in London. They gave us some of their beer recommendations as well!

De Halve Maan brewery tour

Cole lookin' good on the tour

View from the rooftop of the brewery :)

Yes, that is a Budweiser can in a Belgian brewery!

After a great day in Bruges, we sadly had to rush to the train station to head back to Paris. However, we had enough time to snag some ice cream at a shop along the way, and saw someone familiar... PUNKY! This time with all his friends in tow.

PUNKY AND FRIENDS!!!

Giverny

I forgot to mention in my London blogs that we also went to Giverny that week, before taking the Eurostar from Paris to London. Its a very tiny town an hour outside Paris where Claude Monet lived and had his famous gardens. His house is still there, now a museum, and the gardens there are BEAUTIFUL! I can't really do justice to what I saw with words, so here are a few of my favorite pictures. The japanese bridges and lily pond were my favorites, but there were so many vibrant flowers there as well!

Cole in front of some pretty flowers

More pretty flowers

Smelling the roses

Lily pond

This one is my favorite!

Foggy London Town (Days 4-5)

DAY 4: Wednesday, we started off by heading over to the British Museum. It was FREE! A nice break from all the 10 EUR/pound museums all over Europe. The British Museum has lots of historical artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone which was pretty cool to see! Other than that we saw a lot of ancient Egyptian artifacts, including many human sarchophaguses (sarcophagi???) and even a CAT sarcophagus! Cats were pretty important to the Egyptians and they even buried cats with people because they were good luck in the afterlife or something.

Rosetta Stone

After the museum, me and Cole made the trek to Harrod's to meet Julie and my parents. But there were more important things to do than shop-- soccer! The England-Slovenia game was on. We stopped at a pub pretty close to Harrod's to watch and it was packed. Everyone was standing around, crowded in a tiny space and there was only 1 TV so everyone was craning their necks to see the game. We had a few beers there and stood and watched the game. Luckily England won (!) so everyone was happy and in a good mood. We also met a Scottish man who had bet $2000 that England would win.... the WORLD CUP. At the time he might have been happy, but now in retrospect maybe not so much because they got booted their first game in the tournament. But oh well. USA was also playing Algeria during the same time slot, but obviously not many people were showing that game. However we did find out afterwards that USA won too!

Me and Cole celebrated post-game by finally going to Harrod's!!! I was pretty pumped, Cole not so much but he trooped along with me. I got a pretty sweet umbrella there. Its awesome, but post-purchase it became apparent that it might be difficult to transport home since its long and doesn't fit in the suitcase... we'll see how that goes but I'll probably have to just hold it all the way back. But all in all, England and USA both won, and I bought an umbrella at Harrod's in London. A pretty darn good day all around.

DAY 5: On Thursday me and Cole made a looooong trek to the Tower of London. We walked past Westminster, Big Ben/Parliament, then along the Thames past the London Eye, the Globe Theater, and finally to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. On the way we even stopped at a museum called the "Clink" prison museum (which is apparently the origin of the word "clink" referencing prisons).

Parliament

Some dude using the loo in front of Parliament... haha

Me and Cole at Parliament-- where James Bond jumped out the window into the Thames

Big Ben and Parliament in the background

London Eye

Clink Museum

Clink Museum-- kinda creepy (Cole was totally scared)

Tower Bridge

Although our feet were pretty tired from walking, we decided to forge ahead and go to the Natural History museum. Me and Cole both loved the Natural History museum in NYC so we really wanted to see the one in London! It was pretty great. I wish we could have stayed a little longer there too. There was so much to see! Some of the highlights included a dinosaur exhibit, the evolution of different species of elephants, and a huge blue whale skeleton. There were some other exhibits about human biology that I would have liked to see, but alas, not enough time!

Natural History-- dino skeleton

Momma and baby elephants

Tusk-less elephant!

Later that night after our sightseeing trek, we went to the Picadilly Circus area once again, this time to see a play called Avenue Q! Before the play started we went to Pizza Hut for dinner-- the British version, which for some reason is 1000x superior to American Pizza Hut. The salad bar was superb. Anyways, Avenue Q: OUTRAGEOUS. Totally worth seeing, if you can handle a few jokes about sex, racism, and just general inappropriateness. But it was pretty much hilarious and I'm really happy we got to see it!

DAY 6 (departure day): On our last day, we got up early for breakfast since Julie was leaving from the London airport. We decided to go all out for the $16 (actually 16 pounds, so more like $20) breakfast per person. Although a little overpriced, it was pretty tasty and we tried to get our money's worth!

After breakfast we packed up and took a cab to the train station to get the Eurostar back to
Paris. However we did make a quick stop at one of the places I was dying to see in London-- Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross!

Off to HOGWARTS!!!

Mom wants to go too!

Foggy London Town (Days 1-3)

Artsy Underground pic

Me and Cole in a phonebooth!

Foggy London Town!!! To summarize, probably my favorite place I've been so far! There was so much to do-- we stayed 5 days but I want to go back already and see more!

DAY 1: We got there Sunday night (as in 2 weeks ago) and went out for some Indian food. The highlight of the meal was PUNKY, a small penguin-type animal with ice cream inside. He was described as "creamy vanilla ice cream in an attractive plastic toy". Oh Punky. He also got a little crazy later that night as you can see.

Julie, me and Mom with Punky

Punky Gone Wild

DAY 2: On Monday, we took a stroll from our hotel. Our first stop was the Albert, a British pub with good beer and good food! Then we saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament. We also went to the Churchill War Rooms, which was an amazing museum to go to. It was really interesting and interactive. I would recommend it to anyone because I'm not the biggest war history buff (like Cole) but I still loved it! After the museum, Cole and I walked around to the Picadilly Circus area and saw all the shops and restaurants there. BUT we couldn't wander for too long because we had a Jack the Ripper tour that night!

The Albert

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

The Ripper tour was excellent. Our guide was an amazing story teller! We walked around with him to all the sites where Jack the Ripper supposedly killed people, and where his victims lived. He told the stories of all the victims and how they died. It sounds really morbid but it was actually really entertaining and the guide was pretty funny to liven things up. Overall it was a night of stories and gore and even conspiracy! (my favorite part) Sadly though I didn't take any pictures during the tour because I was too wrapped up in the stories :( After the tour we went out to a Lebanese restaurant in Picadilly. Lots of pita and hummus!

DAY 3: Tuesday we decided to go on a tour instead of wandering on our own. We hopped on a bus pretty early in the AM, and headed off to Windsor Castle. It was beautiful! We saw the changing of the guard there too since we missed it at Buckingham Palace. We walked through the church, the courtyards, and all of the beautiful ornate rooms. There were some pieces of furniture that I would like for myself (haha).

Windsor Castle

The next stop on the tour was STONEHENGE! We didn't stay there for long, mostly because there isn't a whole lot to see there except for a bunch of rocks. But in all seriousness it was really interesting and fun and once again I especially enjoyed all the conspiracy stories about how Stonehenge was built (it was built by aliens). I also saw some really cute little sheep in the countryside which I was looking forward too!

Me and Cole at Stonehenge

Our last stop on the tour was Oxford. It looks like such a fun college town! I wish we could have stayed longer but we only had a few hours in the afternoon. There were a ton of coffee shops, boutiques and restaurants/bars as one would imagine in a town full of students. This lovely statue was probably one of the highlights that I saw there. I wonder what he is thinking?