Amsterdam, Brugge, and italy OH MY!

So, in the time that has passed, I have been to Amsterdam, and Brugge, and Italy. So, I am a lot behind but I am going to try my best to catch up not only for the benefit of myself to remember, but also to tell the tale to all you folks across the pond.

Visiting Amsterdam for the first time was... eye opening, to say the least. I definitely feel a greater need to be on my guard than I do in Leiden. Not to say that it's more dangerous or that you need to walk with your backpack on your front the whole time... it's only kind of more dangerous and you only need to wear your backpack on your front for part of the time... haha, but really, you just need to be aware of your surroundings. It's much more busy than Leiden and there are so many people it's not even funny. It's not all that difficult to navigate either, but it's definitely helpful to have a map. We basically just walked around for most of the day, popping into shops when we felt like it. We ate lunch and dinner there and visited a coffee shop. We went into the Sex Museum. Yes, there is a Sex Museum in Amsterdam, it is a legitimate thing that lots of people visit everyday, and yes, I did pay money to go in it. All I can say is that I will definitely not be going there with my parents when they visit. They are more than welcome to, I will wait inside somewhere, far from them experiencing that.
We also went to the Red Light District. I was unaware, but it really is just a portion of town where ladies stand in the window, in a room graced with an intense red light, waiting for respectable young men to come and call at them, with poise and respect I'm sure. But really, most of these girls just looked bored, they were just standing there, some in bras and underwear, some in bathing suites, some of them just stared out the window and some were texting on their phones. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was pretty nervous on this particular part of our visit to Amsterdam. This part of town is heavily populated with peepshows, strip/night clubs, coffee shops, and of course the creepy men that go along with those places. The only time I felt the need to switch my backpack to to my front was while in the Red Light District. But, we didn't spend all that much time there so it was fine.
There were a lot of really talented street performers. We walked right past a group of older men who sounded very similar to the band Gogol Bordello, very gypsy-sounding. We stood and listened to them for a little bit, they were lovely. There were also some creepsters in the center square thing, standing on stools in these terrifying costumes like the grim reaper and other things. I didn't like them at all and kept clear of all of them.
All in all though, Amsterdam was a good time, and I will definitely be going back, there's too much to get in in just one visit.

Brugge was absolutely gorgeous! I can't even get over how pretty it was. We went on an awesome day, because while it was pretty darn cold, it was really sunny and that only added to the fairy-tale-feel of brugge. We had to make 2 connections for trains to get there, so it took us like 4 hours, and we were only there for like 5, then we had to get home, so it was a very full day, mostly spent on trains, but I got to spend it with my friends, and that was a good time. Speaking of the train rides. On the longest haul of the train-riding, Jon and I needed to find a spot on the train we were on to Antwerp. Well, we stumbled across two by these two old-looking men. When I asked if we should sit with them, they seemed a little taken aback, and I thought maybe they didn't speak english, but I guess we just startled them. What I found out is that I was sitting next to Colin the retired architect from London and his friend. We talked to them for three hours as the train hurdled on to Antwerp. We learned that they had just been to Utrecht to see an architectural marvel by Van Gogh, and when he learned that I wanted to go into documentaries, he suggested that I do one on a sport called Platongue. Platonque is a sport that is probably one of the most boring things I've ever had to hear about. He literally talked about it excitedly for about 20 minutes, explaining all the rules, and the big Olympics of Platonque called La Marceilleise. I had him write it down in my notebook, so I wouldn't forget. Jon can tell you too, it was adorable, this british guy had such a passion for this pastime that he says "keeps me from being a complete couch potato" Another one of my favorite quotes from him was "Our motto was, well thank God THAT'S over." and we had a nice little conversation about how dreadful his neighbors are. "I have the most foul neighbors".
"Really?"
"Yes, absolutely foul"
"Why?"
"well, to start out, they're a little bit stupid, and ignorant, and..." the list went on.

They are now two of my favorite people. Note, we also got Colin's email address, and I got to see pictures of his family and home. We're basically soul mates. I should have told him to say hi to Alan Rickman for me. It was a good train ride.

After we got off this train to make our second connection, we found that we were going to be late for the next train, and that we didn't really know where that train was. In our hurry to run upstairs to find the next platform, we lost one of the people in our group. ruh roh. So we're on what we think is the right train, and we're debating if we want to leave him, cause it's his own damn fault for going to the bathroom without telling anyone. So, we decide that we can't go that to the poor guy and myself and another girl went to run downstairs to yell for him in the men's bathroom. Well, halfway down the escalator, we hear our names being yelled, and we see the guy running from the other side of the station towards the right train, so we, being the Jame's Bond-type we are, run up the down escalator, dodging between people, and run to the train as well, making it in time.

Once we were actually IN Brugge, we tried to find a place to eat. We settled on a nice looking Chinese restaurant, try not to judge. The lady was really nice, I felt like I was at a friend's house and their mom was just cooking us dinner. Lots of food. Once we had our full, we went up in the bell tower, there are pictures on Facebook, it was incredible! SO pretty. We also wanted to go to a Cathedral, but by the time we were set on finding it, we realized that it was already closed. So a lot of the day was again, just walking around and going into wherever we felt like. We took lots of pictures and it was lovely. I got to heat some awesome belgium chocolate, from a place recommended by Rick Stevens himself, and a belgium waffle of course, with some Nutella on it. AWESOME. It was such a great day, and I was so happy to share it with my friends :)

I will update on another blog post about Italy, it deserves it's own section because saying that it was an epic journey is a bit of an understatement.

School is still going well, I'm working on a documentary about the gold mines in Guatemala and the injustice that's going on because of them. I'm taking more of a point of view of the consumer approach though. I still love my Art History class, and the teacher of course. We took our mid term exam last week, since it's just an 8 week class. Now I'm mostly preparing for Spring break in Spain!!! and of course for my parents and sister to visit. Most of my friends are going to Scotland this weekend, I'm so jealous but I know they will have an awesome time and I'm so happy that they get to go see it!

I'm still working on the whole postcard thing, I promise.

Also, I just wanted to mention that I appreciate all the feedback you guys give on these posts, and on Facebook. It's really nice to know that I haven't been forgotten back home and your support on this trip means more than you know. :)

Goodtimes.