i'm baaaack

Hi everyone! I'm back from Spring break and started class today. As I posted earlier, Evan flew out here for break and we traveled around and had a great time. We stayed in Florence for a couple days so he could get acclimated to the time change (it's 6 hours later here than in the U.S) and I could show him around Florence a little bit. In an (one of many) turn of events, my camera charger is MIA so I could, regrettably, only take a very limited pictures on the trip. Anyway, we

finally went to Museo Academia to see the David and the rest of the museum. Just as everyone has said, I was surprised at how huge it was (but we weren't allowed to take pictures). I have to say, thou

gh, that I was disappointed in most of the rest of the museum as compared t

o the Uffizi, which I

found amazing.

After Florence, we took a train to Rome where we stayed at a hostel but one that was actually pretty nice. Getting out of Florence also gave me the chance to have non-Italian food for once, even in Rome. The hostel had a restaurant/bar attached where I got to have french toast with banana and honey for breakfast. A great way to make me happy in the morning. Anyway, on our first night in Rome we wandered around the city for an hour and two and found a restaurant where we stayed and ate lamb, shared red wine, and talked for hours...it was very Italian, as we were there for about 3 ho

urs. Afterwards, we continued to wander and walked all the way down to the Colosseum, which was beautiful all lit up at night. We went on a tour through our hostel which was priced reasonably for a 4 hour tour (15 euro) and it was the most informative and entertaining tour I think I've ever been on, certainly better t

han the tour I took when I was in Rome a couple weeks ago. After Rome, we went to Amsterdam.

I think Amsterdam is my favorite place I've been so far, if not close to it. It's the most charming little city.

Dad said he loved it, and I'm glad I felt the same way. We stayed with a friend of Evan's mom named Rogier who was more than accommodating. He lent us keys to 2 bikes and keys to his apartment. He lived on Beethovenstraat, a street that was perfectly situated in town in terms of vicinity to everything we wanted to see and do. I've always been interested in anything having to do with WWII so we headed over the Anne Frank house which at first felt more industrial than expected until we got the hidden annex she lived in with her family, which was a high step up behind a fake book case. Pretty cool. We spent most of our time in

Amsterdam biking around (it's s

o common to bike there that bikes have separate traffic lights) and walking around town. The next day, we went to the Heineken brewery which I actually found really cool. I got a silly tourist souvenir that's a Heineken bottle with my name printed right on the bottle's label...kitschy, but I like it anyway. We spent our last day in Amsterdam wandering some more, trying all kinds of foods, and headed to the infamous red light district of Amsterdam at night. I found it pretty depressing, with girls in windows advertising the

mselves who looked about my age. We only walked around for about 10 minutes because I got too weirded out and wanted to keep walking.

We left Amsterdam for Brussels the next day, which ended up being a bust. The hotel I booked is apparently a big chain in Brussels and has about 5 in the city. The one I thought I booked was in the middle of town but turned out to be in the boonies by the Brussels airport. It was not near anything, and everything in the hotel had to be paid for (12 euro for the worst "buffet" breakfast I've ever seen), 5 euro for 15 minutes of internet so I could print out our boarding pass for the flight back here, etc. The hotel's restaurant was closed because they were only open on the weekdays (go figure), and since there was nothing in the area, we had to eat at the Holiday Inn next door. I was glad it would be inexpensive...until we walked in the hotel. I have never seen such a nice Holiday Inn, it was way upscale. We sat in the restaurant and I'm fairly sure both of our mouths dropped when we saw the menu. The cheapest thing on the menu was 20 euro, and things ranged up to mid-30s. Evan got a burger and I got fish, both of which were blatantly previously cooked and microwaved, and we didn't even get water because it was 6 euros for a liter bottle. (for some perspective, 20 euro=about 27 dollars). To add to our wonderful money situation in Brussels, we asked the concierge how much it would be to go to the Charleroi airport, thoroughly explaining since her English wasn't the best, that it wasn't the Brussels airport, but the one further away), and she said approximately 30 Euro. She called a taxi for us in the morning, for which we had to pay ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY euro. I was so beyond angry I didn't even know what to do. And once we got to the airport, the bag that I had previously brought on RyanAir flights that fit in the sample carry-on bag measurer, suddenly had to be checked because it was about 1 kilo overweight (about 2 pounds), and that was another 35 euro.

Suffice to say that we ended up spending WAY more money than either of us wanted to on the trip for so many unforeseen issues, which happened everywhere, not just Brussels. The Brussels part was just the most annoying. Anyway, all in all we had a great time and I'm SO glad that Evan got to come visit.

I know this one was long, but it was a lot of traveling! I gotta keep you guys updated, right? ;-)