Nuremberg - Day 2

Yesterday was day 2 of being in Nuremberg but I was too worn out last night to write about it, so I will just write about yesterday tonight and today during the bus ride to Paris tomorrow. Other than this admission right now about it I will pretend like I wrote this yesterday.

Day 2 in Nuremberg was enjoyable! We woke up whenever we felt like it and hopped on the train to town to get started with our day of sight-seeing. We started out by taking the subway to the courthouse where the Nuremberg trials were held, but were notified that the room that the trials were held in is under renovation until 2010, so we were a little sad about that. The courthouse itself is massive and interesting to look at.





After the courthouse we went back to the old part of Nuremberg and met up with Drew while he was on lunch. We decided to walk up this huge hill to the main castle and look at the city (since the castle itself was somewhat boring to look at and cost money). The view of the city was really great and I will eventually piece together all the shots for a panorama, but for now I will just go with a few random shots.







The next plan for the day was to visit the Documentation Center which is a museum dedicated to showing the Nazi parties rise to power and all the horrible things they did as well as how they transformed Nuremberg into one of their main rally cities.

The museum is located inside of a section of the never completed Congress Hall which is a huge coliseum style arena that was planned as a place for all of the upper members of the party to come to Nuremberg to hear Hitler give speeches as well as planning and other important aspects of their war mongering. This section of Nuremberg is particularly interesting because of the sheer number and size of buildings built to display the power and might of the Nazi party in Germany. The Congress hall looms over a beautiful recreational park and made me feel the same way that photos of the Chernobyl power plant makes me feel. It's huge, useless, and was part of something that once cause a lot of death and suffering.





Another area we visited opposite of the Congress hall across the lake was the Zeppelin Field which was a giant expanse used for parades and rallies. The architecture is reminiscent of the roman or greek empires. Many steps and towers made out of white limestone. We climbed around on the main grandstand which used to have countless pillars lining the top of it with swastika banners and a huge swastika sculpture accenting the top. All of which were blown up and torn down by the allies after the Nazi defeat.









While making our way back to the old town a young German kid totally pan handled us for change even though he didn't speak English. He kind of creeped me out a bit.

We met up with Drew after he got off work and ate dinner at a hotel that serves legit Bavarian food as well as his favorite german beer Andechs. He ordered me the most german meal he could think of and I'm not even sure what it was really other than knowing it was pork and had a ball of weird mashed potatoes and a pile of sour kraut. I really enjoyed it that one time but I think I wouldn't last long if I ate it on a regular basis.



We made it home without incident after hanging out at the hotel for a while longer. I've really enjoyed my time here so far.

It's almost 1 in the AM so I will write about "tomorrow" on the bus. I am too tired to crank out two blog posts at once.

G'night!

Amsterdam - Day 3 to Nuremberg - Day 1

I'm starting to get behind on the posting which is bad because the more I get behind the larger the task is to get caught up.



Our last day in Amsterdam was pretty awesome. The weather was a bit more cooperative and we were able to enjoy riding around town. Amy wanted to hit up the Pancake bakery again because their lemon and sugar pancake was so great, and we wanted to get one more decent bike ride in before we had to return them. After pancakes we checked out of our hotel and returned the bikes and had made plans to meet up with Rachel and Kurt in the main square, where it was VERY touristy and crowded. We took the train up to Zaanse Schanse, which is the somewhat kitschy windmill filled replica old dutch village. We got lost in the real town (which smelled like chocolate because of the chocolate factory located there) and couldnt figure out how to get to the other side of the canal where the village was.













Finally we found the ferry and got to the village where we enjoyed cheese samples and a lesson on how wooden clogs are made. Everyone but Amy was eager to have a beer and Amy wanted ice cream so we went back over to the normal, chocolate smelling part of town and upon arrival at the one bar in the town, Kurt said "we will have 4 beers" and we were all mad because Amy wanted ice cream and Rachel and I wanted anything other than a Heineken. Also, I forgot to mention that while walking to the bar we found a random machine with a huge lever on the side and discovered that it dispensed maps of the area we had already visited.













After taking the train back to Amsterdam we went Rachel's to grab our bags and head to the bus station. The bus ride was very uneventful and all I really have to say about it was that I didn't really sleep much at all.

We got into Nuremberg at exactly 8 when we were supposed to and our dear friend Drew Kreeger was waiting there for us. We wandered around downtown for a while until the train tickets he bought were validated, so we went to a cafe and drank some coffee. Drew told us all about the history that he knew of the main town (which is surrounded by a fortress wall!) and showed us a couple of museums that we would want to see while we are here.



After taking the train 20 minutes out of Nuremberg to Lauf where he lives, we got settled and went grocery shopping at the local market. I really enjoy going to markets in different countries since they have so many different kinds of things and they package their products in completely different ways.



Drew made us really good grilled salami and cheese sandwiches, and we ate out on his porch with his friend Aaron who is from houston and happens to be going back there tomorrow, so it was nice to meet him before he moved from here. A couple of Drew's basketball teammates randomly showed up to hang out. they were both really young german dudes (17 and 18) but they were both between 6 and 7 ft tall. It made me feel really short!





After lunch I took a nap and then woke up to find that Drew's fiance Carolyn and arrived and we were going to go on a walk of the town. Lauf is one of the older towns in Germany, and all the buildings are really beautiful. We wandered all over the place and ended at the castle that was used as a resting point while barons and kings made their way to Nuremberg for various activities.











Drew and Carolyn made dinner for us (chicken and risotto) and we sat on their patio since it's so nice outside. Today has been a lot of fun and AS USUAL I am very tired, so I think it's time to go to bed. Yes, that sounds like a glorious idea.

cheers.

Amsterdam - Day 2

Soooooooo...

We meant to be up by 9:30 this morning, but my alarm didn't go off and we woke up at 11. We obviously needed to sleep and I have a feeling just as we start to get acclimated to the severe time change we will have to go home.

Yesterday was a little bitter sweet in the world of weather as it was in the 70s and super sunny so Amy and I got ready for today under the assumption that we were going to have the same weather, but we got to the entrance of the hotel and were sad to find gloomy skies and 30s.



Amy had been planning since the beginning of wanting to go to Europe to visit the Anne Frank Annex, so we headed over there on our rental bikes but first went to a pancake shop and ate the bejezus out of some huge lemon/sugar and mushroom/cheese pancakes.





Then we walked over to the Anne Frank Annex. The line was really long but moved quickly, and we were inside after a half hour. The museum was pretty crowded and set up in a specific path for everyone to stay on, but it's simplicity and dark mood really conveyed the tragedy and unbelievable reality of their situation. The tour took an hour and then we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap before meeting back up with Rachel at the windmill brewery.

Rachel's friend Kurt flew in from Chicago this morning so we got to meet him briefly before he had to meet up with someone for dinner. We also met another acquaintance of Rachel's named Martin who had a couple other friends in town with him for his birthday. I wish I could remember their names but I can't. They were the first dutch people we had actually met since we've been here and they weren't from Amsterdam.

Rachel, Amy and I decided to eat falafel for dinner so we rode over to Maoz Veg for some delicious food. Not too much to say about it other than that.




That's coleslaw on my nose.



We ended the evening at an Egyptian hookah bar where Rachel taught Amy and I how to play backgammon while we drank some awesome Moroccan mint tea and smoked apple hashish. The situation was interesting because Amy and Rachel were the only two women in the entire shop. The rest of them were all Egyptian men who either stared at us oddly or watched soccer on tv.

Tomorrow night we make our way to Germany but not before we have one last stint with Rachel where we will take the train out of Amsterdam to visit some windmills and clog/cheese making shops.

Goodnight to you.

London to Amsterdam - Day 1

Between yesterday and today we have been a bit busy so I didn't have time to write anything last night, which is OK considering what little happened. Here's the run-down.

We started the day by heading up to Islington on the bus to eat at a vegan indian buffet that Anna really likes. It was really really good, and I was so busy eating that I forgot to take a picture, so I took one of the outside of the place instead.



After lunch we saw a crowd gathered down the street, along with one tv camera so we stood around to see if anything would happen and happen to hear some random dude ask another random dude who everyone was waiting for and the other random dude said "Barack Obama!" and when the first random dude showed that he was very skeptical about that the other random dude said "well, Michelle Obama then!" and the random dude basically laughed in his face and walked off. We decided it wasn't worth wasting our time over either, so we headed toward some shops and a park that was decided to take a nap in.



The rest of the day was kind of a blur. Anna had some errands to run before going to her little sister's birthday party so Amy and I wandered around Camden and tried to find something interesting to buy at H&M since we don't have one in Denver, but didn't really find anything. After we met up with Anna at her house to say goodbye we headed to the train to get to the bus station in time for our bus to Amsterdam.

I didn't get a chance to take any good pictures of our bus or the driver, but he was a crazy scotsman with a very sarcastic joking personality. He had his 8 yr old (around there anyway) son with him and their dynamic was hilarious. Even though the bus line is supposed to be a greyhound type coach that was travelling over night, they carried on the whole drive as if they were on their own road trip, listening to hip hop and rap and horrible pop music somewhat loudly while randomly singing along to parts. Very humourous when we weren't trying to sleep.

A quarter of the way into the trip the driver brought to our attention that instead of taking the ferry across the channel like the brochure said, we would be taking the chunnel from England to France and would be arriving a lot earlier to Amsterdam than we thought (he even said 4 hours early at one point) putting us in so early that we wouldn't be able to take public transportation into town or check into our hotel.

The Euro tunnel is a very weird experience. Our bus driver "told a little white lie" and said that we had a disabled person aboard, so we were put in the front of the line of buses which I was ok with because I took a really awesome video of:

I will put the video up as sonn as it uploads...

After we completed the 45 minute trip under the channel we arrived in France and were quickly in Belgium where we traded between sleeping and petrol station breaks and stops at bus stations in Rotterdam, Haag, and finally Amsterdam as the sun was coming up.



We were pretty much delirious when we checked into the hotel and found a random bagel shop to eat at before sleeping till 2:30 in the afternoon then heading out to rent bicycles and meet up with our friend Rachel whom we met in Chicago last summer at a really awesome windmill brewery called Brouerij't (the beauty of the dutch language!)

The beer garden was completely full so we took our drinks and cheese over to the canal and watched all the leisurely boaters while catching up with Rachel who is in Amsterdam writing her thesis.







All the beer and chilling out and chatting made us hungry so we made our way over to eat Roti which is a kind of south american/indian/asian cuisine that we had never heard of. It was pretty spicy and the dish I got had a lot of bones in it, but overall it tasted really good





After dinner we rode to Rachel's other favorite bar Zotte and I drank a Maerdsous. I like being out here because I get to try a lot of beers from here that are normally much more expensive at home but are almost laughably cheap in Belgium/the netherlands.



Finally we headed to a kind of squat/hippie commune/vegan kitchen/venue/art gallery to meet one of Rachel's friends from Mexico who had art on display but it was very crowded and a bit strange there, not to mention we were all pretty tired, so Amy and I headed back to the hotel to try and get some sleep so we can head to the Anne Frank annex tomorrow and meet back up with Rachel and her friend who is flying in as well.



We miss you all and hope everyone is well.

cheers!