Amsterdam, spring sunshine

This past weekend in the Netherlands was my first foray into Euro-travel since before my program started in February. I spent Friday to Monday in Amsterdam with seven friends from Wisconsin, Australia, and Germany, of course. I know I try to speak in German as often as I can with the native speakers I'm friends with, I can only imagine how hard it is for all of them to switch so often between German and English! But that is neither here nor there. Amsterdam is beautiful. I saw windmills, I saw clogs, I saw cows and more tulips than my eyes could handle. I absolutely adore the architecture of the city. The buildings definitely look European, but different enough from Germany that I could tell I was in a different country. And the canals! There are over 1000 bridges in Amsterdam and canals follow nearly every street in the city center. My hostel was huge and clean and modern with free breakfast, so I literally can't complain about anything there. Our very first night there we walked through the Red Light District and, well, it's something. I probably said "this is ridiculous" a ridiculous number of times. There are ladies! In windows! Just chilling! Everywhere. I mean, most of them were working it, so more power to ya. In the morning, I met up with (Fern Town to visit the Anne Frank House and Museum. We listened to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and watched video clips of Otto Frank speaking of his daughter's life, and those of all them hiding in the Secret Annex. Actually seeing the rooms in which they all lived clarified so much in my head, but was also profoundly sad, naturally. If you're ever in Amsterdam, you must go to the museum. Lots of information and history there. Just go early to beat the line! We went to the Photo Museum as well, which was awesome. They had an exhibit on the best New York Times photographs, one with 9/11 shots, an expose about the war in Iraq, an exhibit featuring actors, and more. Here's Foam's link if you want to see some great work: http://www.foam.org/foam-amsterdam/calendar/2012-exhibitions/the-ny-times-photographs On Sunday afternoon, we all took a canal boat tour, which was wondrous. The sun was shining and the boat was covered (with glass) so it wasn't cold. We spent a while climbing on the I Am Amsterdam sign, then heading back to the city center for this random pop up carnival of sorts that was there. I went on one of those circle swing rides, but it rose to a height above the buildings, and went super fast in that janky-but-safe way that European roller coasters usually go. It took a solid day and a half, but I think I'm finally out of vacation mode and back in school mode. I was kind of thrust into busy-ness putting together 12 Skype interviews over 3 days for my WUD Film job back in Madison and then tons of homework for my Intensive Course this morning. At basketball today, I got an egg sized bruise on my knee and a nice scratch on my arm, and my team STILL didn't win! Ha. But by virtue of basically only having class three days a week, it's almost the weekend already! Here's to baseball, relaxing, and hopefully sun. Nothing big planned in the future, except for, oh right, I'M GOING TO CROATIA!! Five days in Rijeka for Pentecostal break, end of May to early June. Tons more updates to come, I'm sure :D I unfortunately forgot to bring my camera to Amsterdam, of course, but I can share those that my friends took!

Here's the group! (sans Kevin, he's taking the picture)

Made it on top of the E due to a very intricate three person heave and pulley system. Dream come true

I just think my hair looks epic :3

Kate and I in front of the Anne Frank Haus

Yup, I went on that. So much fun!

Look dad, System of a Down went to the same Taco Shop that we did!

Hell yeah, hell yeah

I just spent two hours hand dying my entire head blue (some things never change haha), so while I wait for it to dry and find out if I look ridiculous or completely ridiculous, I figured I should blog!

Boring typical class update first- I love all my classes and teachers! My Theatre class is small and it's the same teacher as the month long intro Theatre class I took and we've been doing lots of observing and exercises to describe what we see. It's such a different forum to practice speaking German, I really enjoy it. We're of course going to as many theatre performances as possible, including a festival in Brussels this May! I'm also taking Deutsche Medien, where we read newspapers and listen to local radio and watch movies. Awesome. Lastly is my Intensive Course which is so far so good. We have many small exams instead of one final exam, which is great in the long run but bad in that I should probably be studying right now.

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, so I went to Kinopolis with some friends to watch the remastered version of the movie in 3D. I won't even lie, I cried. Solid movie, I'm glad I went :] Saturday was awesome too- I went to a double header Bonn Capitals vs. Hamburg Stealers baseball game at the Rheinaue Park. It was a gorgeous day for a baseball game! We won both games, 10-3 and 13-2 wooo! I bought a cap. Baseball's obviously nowhere near as big here as in America, but I'm going to try to go to every single home game from now on! That night, I went to a club in Cologne with four awesome Germans and had an awesome if very late night. One of the dance floors played great music like Jailhouse Rock and Great Balls of Fire, stuff like that! It was a hoot.

Since it was his Spring Break last week, my brother Sam and my grandpa visited me from Sunday to Friday <3 We climbed to the top of the Köln Cathedral, went to the Chocolate, Mustard, König, and Ludwig Modern Art Museums, had some typical German food, and I took Sam karaoke-ing for the first time :D This weekend I'm heading to the Netherlands for a long weekend (no class on Mondays rocks) with an awesome group of people so I'm extremely excited. I want to hit up the Van Gogh museum, cry at Anne Franks house, buy tulips, and take a canal boat trip. Much fun.

awww

Sam's vision, actualized