I thought about blogging a lot while we were gone; I missed it. We rarely had internet access which was fine considering we were always exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel, but I was constantly thinking of things I wanted to write about. But now that I am home and some photos are
uploaded, everything I wanted to write about seems to be escaping me. I will, however, give you a run down of our trip.
I know I already posted about Cologne a little; but to re-state,that is where we started our trip. Well technically it was where we spent the first night. We arrived in Amsterdam at 8:00 am on Saturday morning and hopped onto a train immediately heading to Cologne (after a quick, unplanned stop in Utrecht to change trains). Our train ride to Cologne was a hoot. We were on a high speed train with great cars and plenty of space, plus it wasn't too crowded.
Sitting caddy corner to us was an old man who was keeping to himself for the most part but of course as soon as Paul hopped up to go to the cafe car for some coffee he started to try to talk to me. In Dutch. Of which I know very little and none of what he was saying were things like "Hello" or "What is your name?". So I just smiled kindly and nodded a little bit. Who knows what I was agreeing to. Paul had been gone for a few moments and I was playing poker against myself when I noticed after looking at the floor that one of the old man's pant legs was normal but the other one was bunched up around his foot. It seemed strange to me so I slowly and carefully followed the line up his leg where I arrived at his upper thigh - which was fully exposed. I immediately turned my head to face out the window completely embarrassed that this old man's pants were falling off and we didn't speak the same language for me to give him some warning. Paul came back with our coffee and after a few moments I told him to take a look. He was just as embarrassed as I was and we figured we would just make it to our stop and then hop off the train so the poor guy could realize what happened without anyone in the car. But alas, he wanted to get up and walk around. Paul and I immediately started staring at each other. We had no idea what to do as this old man slid off the side of the seat with his pants down around his thighs, his rear facing Paul. A lady sitting behind us gave a little shriek and it was if all of a sudden he realized he could feel air where he shouldn't be able to. She did speak Dutch and decided she would help him get his suspenders fixed. What a way to start Europe right? A half naked 80 year old man on a train.
We got to Cologne without a hitch (if you don't consider naked old men a hitch) and as we started to walk towards the front of the station, there it was: Cologne Cathedral. It was beautiful. I have never seen anything like it. I wrote about our first night in Cologne
here. The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast complete with whipped honey (which my dear friends, is divine) and headed out to explore Cologne. We walked down to the Rhine and walked along with our coats and our umbrellas listening to the church bells calling for morning service. We took back alleys and empty streets until we were fully immersed in Cologne and taking photos of all sorts of things. We didn't have much time because we were leaving for Basel, Switzerland later that morning.
Basel was my favorite. It was our best hotel. They had the best public transit. The City was clean and beautiful and full of history. Sundays in Europe are a day of rest. Unless you are a hotel, a hotel restaurant/bar or a McDonald's, best bet is, you are closed. No matter. I loved the exploring. Up every hill and around every corner was another building lined street with ivy and cafe tables and I wanted to move to Switzerland right then and there.
We visited their City Hall, which was beautiful, and spent the evening strolling along streets snapping photos. We split a salami pizza on the Rhine enjoying each others company (after a small fight between us about whether or not people were eating as well, and if they took credit cards) and taking in the scenery. Our hotel was the tallest building in Basel; we spent the end of our evening on the top floor overlooking the circus across the street and the city lights. Oh yeah, the zoo! From our room I watched a llama try to sit on the back of another... no, they weren't having sex, just one sitting on another's rear end.
And we were off again. Back to Germany. Munich was also beautiful but what I would consider less charming. We spent our first evening at the Marienplatz watching the clock tower show and walking around doing some shopping. We had an "authentic" German dinner at the
Hafbrauhaus where a nice German guy spent the evening chatting us up. We finished it off with dessert at our hotel restaurant and conking out in our bed. The hotel we stayed in was partially destroyed during World War II and it was awesome to see the photos of the building the year it opened, five years from that and so on. Especially the year it was hit. A huge gaping hole in the corner of the building where Paul and I's room was. The next morning we took trams and subways all over the city. I think we quite possibly saw ALL of Munich. We went to the Olympic Park which was pretty awesome and the English Gardens. We shopped some more and sat around at a sidewalk cafe taking in the crowds and the sun.
We were exhausted by 7:00 pm and our feet were killing us but our overnight train to Amsterdam wasn't leaving until 10:45 pm so we had to keep ourselves busy. We had dinner at a restaurant next to our hotel where I had the most delicious sliced cold roast beef in remoulade sauce and bourbon infused vanilla ice cream for dessert. With only an hour to go before our train left we decided to end the day in Munich in the lounge at the train station reading and letting our feet rest.
SIDE NOTE: Let me tell you, if you liked the movie Julie & Julia, leave it at that. I thought about buying
My Life in France but chose to read
J&J instead and was so disappointed. I loved Amy Adams as Julie Powell and even though her life was depicted as hard and tough in the movie (including her relationship) it was just like real life. Hard but still good. This book however, is depressing and full of expletives and by the time I was half way through I was starting to talk like a sailor. Don't bother with the book not unless you want to be depressed and angry with your husband and the state of the world.
The overnight train from Munich to Amsterdam was fun. We had a first class cabin so it was just Paul and I with our own little bathroom and bunk beds and free wine. We went to bed at 11:00 pm in Germany, woke up to breakfast in our room and shortly after arrived in Holland where we spent the remainder of our trip.
A lot of people had thoughts about Amsterdam before we went. Most of my co-workers were making "wild" comments while my brother's girlfriend and her family found it quite boring. I didn't know what to expect but we bought these cards called I Amsterdam cards that gave us access to all public transit and about a thousand museums (ok, maybe 27) for 72 hours. We were in and out of museums and on and off of trams like nobody's business. We visited the Rijksmuseusm, the Van Gogh, two canal homes renovated into museums, the resistance museum, a botanical garden, churches, Heineken's museum/"experience" and more. We went on an evening canal boat ride, ate a lot of food and shopped for gifts. I wasn't bored, nor was I "wild", it was pleasant.
We took just a little less than 1000 photos and posted about 150 of them to our
Flickr. I was about to start posting a lot of them, but it is just easier if I send you over there to see them! I hope you enjoy! I did!
I knocked off a few of the list items while abroad. I got 3 out of my 12 European countries taken care of. I shopped at a foreign farmer's market. I tried new foods and I went on a long train ride with Paul.
I am glad to be home. Sad to be going back to everyday life, but more on that later.
