Expedition to Europe: Brussels and Amsterdam

Belgium: home of waffles, chocolate, and Hercule Poirot. Erin and I flew from Palma Mallorca to Brussels on Saturday, April 18. The next day, we went to church:


I almost didn't want to go to church, but Erin thought it'd be a good idea (which is ironic, as I am a Christian and Erin is an atheist). She was right. The church was beautiful, but more importantly, God was more present to me in that Belgian cathedral than He had been in a long time.

The cathedral also had a great view of Brussels:

Brussels is a pretty business-oriented city, so it was pretty unbusy (what is the word for the opposite of busy?) on a Sunday. That was great, though; it was nice to get away from crowds and to not have to wait in line for our waffles-with-chocolate-and-strawberry lunch. (Yum, I know.)

Erin and I stopped in the Grande Place, which is big and grand and impressive:

We also visited that famous statue, the Mannekin. It was not big or grand or impressive, but there you go:

The highlight of our day in Brussels was the Atomium. This is the Atomium:

Seriously cool, right? It was built for the 1958 World Expo, and it has been in Brussels ever since. Here's what was even cooler, though: there were two random days when people could zipline from the top of the Atomium (335 feet tall), and Erin and I just happened to visit on one of those two days! I did not zipline (not because I was afraid, but because I was broke), but she did! Seriously cooler, right?

And here is the Belgian Arc de Triomphe:

It has a really nice park, where Erin and I ended our day in Brussels.

The next day, we went to Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Amsterdam is now one of my favorite cities. The 'coffeeshops' (where you get pot, versus cafes where you actually get coffee) are sort of whatever, and the sex trade is pretty gross (the Red Light District is honestly one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen), but minus that five-block area of whateverness and grossness, Amsterdam rocks.

The buildings are awesome, there are canals running through the whole city, and there are bikes everywhere:

And Anne Frank used to live there. Erin and I visited the Anne Frank Museum, which is just amazing. Here's another book shout-out: The Diary of Anne Frank. I feel like everyone has to read this in eighth grade, but if you, like Erin, somehow missed out on that part of education, go read this book. And then maybe visit Amsterdam to drive the whole thing home. Here's where Otto Frank's business and the Frank family's hiding place were:

Okay, like I said earlier, there were bikes everywhere in Amsterdam. There are also lots of pretty colors (of which I am a huge fan) and people who like happy things. This is how bikes like this come into existence:

Please look closely at the kickstand: it has wooden clogs on. Amazing.

Our second day in Amsterdam, Erin and I went on a windmill hunt. We rented bikes, which was so fantastic, and we rode all around and outside the city. We found things other than windmills, too:

The first windmill we found was the most impressive. It was also someone's house:

The second windmill was actually impossible to get to and kind of run-down, but...hey, it was a windmill:

And the last windmill had a restaurant in the bottom of it, which, in this picture, is covered up by Erin and me.

The bike rental place was by Amsterdam's library (the largest library in Europe and one of the newest-built), so Erin and I stopped in to use the Internet after our bike-riding adventure. And, lucky day, we saw royalty! The Swedish king and queen were in The Netherlands to promote peace and goodwill throughout the earth (or something like that), and the Queen was in the library to help open a show of children's books illustrated by Swedish artists. So, of course, Erin and I stayed in the library until the Queen left, because, seriously, royalty from a socialist country (how does that work, exactly?) is still royalty!

The Queen is in pink. I never got a picture of her face, but if you want to see it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Silvia_of_Sweden

Like a lot of European cities, Amsterdam is beautiful. I think it seemed more beautiful to me, though, because these buildings aren't as iconic (read: I've seen pictures of them so much that they're almost common) as the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben or something:

I don't even know what this is, but it's just there, functioning in Amsterdam as if it's not totally big and awesome.

Our final day travelling, Erin and I visited the Van Gogh museum. It was fine, if you like Van Gogh. On the way, we completed our Dutch trip by finding a giant wooden clog:

We took a free and fantastic tour later that day, where we found another icon of the Dutch:

The next day, we went back to Oxford.

Dear Readers, we've finished with my spring break travels!! (Hey, it only took three months...) I loved nearly every minute of my trip, and don't regret a bit of it. I saw God in so many places and so many people, and I learned so much about His amazing world and my role in it. I discovered that tours are nearly always good ideas, most museums are not really my thing, ice cream always makes the end of a long day perfect, Italian men are the funniest flirters, it does no good to worry about money unless you're actually going to make a budget, you should always carry chocolate and apples, hikes to views are always rewarding, the beach at night is so lovely, overnight trains make you feel like a little kid because they're so cool, books are necessary to a good travel experience, there is rarely a need to wash clothes (unless it's underwear) between wears, you should always give a city at least a day before judging it, and it's better to travel with people, especially those people you love.

Though my continental adventures have come to a close, my European adventures aren't over yet! Check back soon for an update on my last term in Oxford and my time in Antibes!

Expedition to Europe: Paris and Palma

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the adventures of our intrepid adventurer: me. Sorry for the delay in between episodes. There was a writer's strike.

Anyway, we last left me in Nice with Madison and Ashton. I enjoyed my time with them immensely (this is an incredibly popular word in Britain, by the way, and incredibly misused), but alas, I had to leave them on the south coast and train all the way to Paris alone. I also spent my first night in Paris alone because my next travel partner, Bill, missed his plane. That is typical of Bill.

Bill arrived in Paris on Sunday, April 12, which was Easter Sunday! Bill and I spent Easter morning here:


That's Notre Dame. I love Notre Dame.



And that's Bill. He's a goofball that has a penchant for Dungeons and Dragons, philosophy, and being late.

We spent the Easter service inside Notre Dame, which looks like this:



The service was in French, so I understood a bit of it (words like "Jesus," "Christ," "God," and "Amen"), and it was mostly beautiful, beautiful music. There were also a bunch of guys in white doing mysterious sacred-mediating-between-the-people-and-God-type things:

So here's a little-known fact about Notre Dame: the back of the church is way cooler and prettier than the front:

I know, right? Why do they keep showing pictures of those two really-kind-of-boring towers (seriously, most of their interest value comes from imagining Quasimodo saving Esmerelda from the flames of death and shouting "SANCTUARY" as he hoisted her above his head whilst standing between the towers. Anyway.) when the back of the church looks like this?

After church, we went to the Eiffel Tower:

There is not much to say about the Eiffel Tower that you don't already know or can't look up on wikipedia. I mean, it's huge, and there are some really impressive views:

Like this view of the French Parliament. Sorry the photo is crooked, I took it myself.

That night, we went back to the Eiffel Tower:

Those white lights flickered on and off, which may sound seizure-inducing but was, in actuality, magical. Like Harry Potter was having Christmas in Paris or something.

Bill and I spent the next day at The Louvre:

The Louvre is a gigantic, gigantic museum that is vaguely overwhelming. And by vaguely I mean completely. There are four wings with about eight billion rooms each (for those of you who like math, that's 32 billion rooms). I visited some rooms that were new to me, and some old favorites, like my second-favorite statue ever:

The Winged Victory. So cool.

Bill and I also stopped by the Sacre Coeur, the Church of the Sacred Heart. After visiting this church, I have absolutely no insight into what it is or why it was built. I'm not sure if it's Christian, or inter-religious, or what, but one thing it was: busy.

After this, Bill and I left Paris and headed to a small island off the coast of Spain to join up with our friends. Our journey there was...awful. The night of Monday, July 13, and the whole day of Tuesday, July 14, were the worst 36 hours of my whole trip. It's way too complicated and awful to talk about the gritty, tear-inducing details, but let's just say that what we thought was going to be a train ride from Paris to Barcelona and then a plane from Barcelona to Mallorca (all in one day) turned into an overnight train from Paris to Irun, a train to San Sebastian, a bus to Madrid, a frantic call to my dad who bought us new plane tickets, a surprise overnight stay in Madrid, and finally, a day late, a plane from Madrid to Mallorca. However, I have to remember to praise God for all the incredibly nice and helpful people we met on our no-good, truly awful day.

But once we finally got to Mallorca, it was great! We met up with Jacque (you may remember her from Italy and Greece), Erin (from Prague), Sabrina (an Oxford housemate), and Nicole. The first order of business was to bury Erin and me in the sand and then draw a yin-yang around us:

There are pretty much only two things to say about Mallorca: it was beautiful, and we did nothing but relax.

This was a sunrise:

This was our daily view from the beach:

And this was the last sunrise:

And thus concludes April 12-April 18. Coming up next: the final stages of my trip. Join us next post as we gape at more big buildings, admire more statues, and visit more museums.

Expedition to Europe: Berlin and Nice

I rode the train all by myself from Prague to Berlin (which, for the record, is one of the most beautiful train rides you will ever hope to have), and met my friends Ashton and Madison.

Oops, just kidding, those aren't my friends Ashton and Madison. Those are goats. This picture was taken on our first night in Berlin.

I have very few photos from our first day in Berlin, because I spent most of it in bed with a very sore neck watching MTV and the World Curling Federation. Long story. The first night, though, we went to a market where I haggled to buy some earrings (which are super-cute, by the way) and found a small zoo with the cutest baby goats (see above).

We also found Kinder eggs, which excited me to no end. Shout out to Mimi and Poppa, who brought Reid and Abbie and me Kinder eggs when we were little. Kinder eggs are hollow eggs made out of milk and white chocolate, and they have toys inside of them:

It was like a little bit of my childhood--and a little bit of Mimi--found in Germany! PS, Ashton's in the middle and Madison is on the right.

For dinner, we went to the oldest beer garden in Berlin, the Pater Garten:

As I am not a drinker, I decided to try some non-alcoholic beer. Although I have never tried beer, I would bet that non-alcoholic beer is to alcoholic beer what fat-free Oreos are to real Oreos: you've taken out the one thing that made it worthwhile! The non-beer was...disgusting. Just totally gross.

The next day, we went to the Brandenberg Gate. Funny story: Napoleon once stole the chariot statue from the top of the Brandenberg Gate because he was...well, Napoleon. When he was defeated, Germany took back the statue and, to add insult to injury, turned the head of the charioteer to stare at the French embassy (which is to the right of the Gate). Way to go, Berliners!

We also went to thhe Reichstag, and then...we went to the Holocaust Memorial. Which is, to put it simply, stunning:

There are 2711 slabs (the number is insignificant) of differing heights. You can walk through the slabs:

On an uneven path. It's meant to be unsettling, and it is. When you walk through, there is a lot of darkness and a sense of being lost that makes the memorial totally effective. At least, that was my impression; you're supposed to make your own meaning of the memorial.

After lunch was Checkpoint Charlie! I was pretty excited about it, because I think Berlin's history is pretty darn fascinating. Berlin was a pawn in so many conflicts, but it was also an instigator of a lot of conflicts. Berliners (or whatever they are called) exude this mixture of apologies--we are so sorry for trying to take over the world and for killing lots of people--and strength--our history may affect us, but it will not make us. It's great.

Back to Checkpoint Charlie:

And then on to the Jewish Museum. At the Jewish Museum, we got to hang wishes on a Wish Tree:

And we saw some funny yarmulkes:

The Holocaust Tower in the Jewish Museum is also pretty impressive. The only light comes from a tiny window in the corner, and it's cold and huge:

Next stop, the Berlin Wall! If you ever get a chance, look up the history of the Berlin Wall. It's too long to put here, but it's absolutely fascinating:

Finally, we went to Museum Island. It has lots of museums and a very large church:

The next day and night, we took a train from Berlin to Paris and then an overnight train from Paris to Nice. I quite like overnight trains. Once we got to Nice, we met Jacque and immediately headed off to Monaco!

We went to Monaco for one reason: to add another country to our list. It was pretty cool, though. It was Madison's 21st birthday, so we had a picnic on the beach and did some wading:

Clearly Jacque was the only one of us prepared for that photo.

We also visited the Japanese Garden in Monaco:

We headed back to Nice for dinner and the best sorbet I have ever tasted (seriously. It was like they picked raspberries in heaven and then made them into delicious). We ate our sorbet on the beach at twilight:

Walking back into town, we saw these:

I have no idea. Let's call it art. They are naked men who light up as colors, and the colors change...

The next day, we hung out around Nice. We visited the beach again, this time in the daylight:

And we climbed the big hill in Nice, which led to this view:

Afterwards, we relaxed in a park and ate dinner at Subway, and that was pretty much Nice.

Coming up next: Paris and Palma Mallorca!