Day 8 - Amsterdam

There were still things in Amsterdam that I wanted to see, and so I went back to Amsterdam on Tuesday. I first went to the Bible Museum and learned about the bible and such. I then went to the FOAM museum, which is a photo museum (FOAM is a photo magazine). I wasn’t as impressed with it as I was hoping because it was super small. I think that they must rotate out their exhibit because it wasn’t very big. Oh well. I then went back to the cathedral that I went to on my second day of Amsterdam so I could go inside and go to mass. It was beautiful inside, and very different then the cathedrals in Brussels. In Brussels, the cathedrals were big, packed with alters and pictures and lots of stained glass and statues, and they were very bright with lots of natural light and I think they were made out of stone. In Amsterdam, the cathedral was large as well, but it was wood inside and so it was very dark. Because it was surrounded on both sides by buildings, there wasn’t very much natural light, and because of the wood, it was quite dark inside. It had a lot paintings and statues, but it wasn’t as ornate as the ones in Belgium. Mass was in Dutch, so I didn’t understand any of it, and I didn’t participate in the standing and kneeling and everything (partially because I didn’t understand what was going on) and I left probably half way through (when people started getting up and greeting everyone, and the Priest was coming down and greeting people). It was neat to see though, and I hope I can go to an English one as well.

The alter

Beautiful stained glass above the alter

The dome. See what I mean about it all being so dark?

I then grabbed me some food (fries!) and went to the Schownburg theater, which is where the Jews were deported from. That too was very small (compared to what I was expecting) but it was still really neat to see. I also found the Auschwitz memorial that is right near the theater. That was really neat to see.

Read this. Its written by the artist of the memorial, and is really neat as to why he made the memorial the way he did.

The sign at the memorial

The broken glass of the memorial

I was going to go to the Anne Frank house again, but I wasn’t really near it, so I went home =] Once home, I played chess with the son in the family I was staying with, and he is super good! I was very impressed (he is only 8) and I learned a lot about chess from him. We had dinner, and on Tuesday is Glee night, so we watched Glee =]] Then to bed for me!

Day 7 - Wassenaar

Day 7 was a very chill day just recovering and catching up on sleep and such. I went on an hour long bike ride down a beautiful road where the bus had gone down. It was tree lined and really beautiful. I learned that Wassenaar has some of the most expensive houses in all of Europe, and I believe it. I’ve fallen in love with Wassenaar and plan to move there soon (like…3 years =) )

I also went to the store and to the Langstraat (walking street) to see what was there. It is a great little street and I found some ice cream. I’ve fallen in love with European ice cream; it is so much better than in the states! That was about all I did that day. I watched some TV, organized pictures, blogged a bit (but obviously not all!) and then my friends came home and we had dinner and hung out. I helped their daughter with math homework, and that was fun =] It was pretty funny because it was simple stuff like figuring out percents, but she was using fractions, not decimals, and that is a lot harder. I could solve the problems, but couldn’t figure out how to explain it to her because I was doing it the “hard” way, which in reality is easier, but not if you don’t know about decimals =] So that was Monday!

Day 6 - Brussesls

Day 6 was also a Brussels day, but it was the day we went home. The first thing we did was get off at this one stop and take pictures because they had these creepy statue things on the walls.

This is the metro stop we got off at (just in case you ever go to Brussels!)

They were like full-sized statues!

Children

There were probably 5 or 6 more!

Edited to add: My aunt googled the stop and found out this: There are several groups of statues in terracotta in white and brown shades which refer to Queen Elisabeth's last residence, the Stuyvenbergh castle. It is a homage to the queen's love of art but also to the royal family. The artist, who normally works from living models, based the 25 statues on photographic material. They were partly coloured with engobes and partly enamelled. The artist represents Queen Elisabeth in different periods of her life, with her children and grandchildren, and other people who were close to her, such as Albert Einstein, Emile Verhaeren and Jules Bordet.

We then went to find some gardens that I wanted to see if we could find, and we found some, but they weren’t really what I was expecting.

From one of the gardens

More of the garden

This was near the garden. Not sure what it was though, but still neat looking

There was one stop though that not only had what we were looking for (it was a big gate-like thing) but there was also a festival going on! I loved running into that. But we had all our bags with us...so we didn't walk through it (too many people).

The "gate"...I don't remember what it was called ETA: It is the Arc du Cinquantenaire (thanks Aunt Sandy!)

The other side of it

There was this little band that was playing in a small parade

The kids were all dressed up (complete with wooden shoes) and there were adults in the back playing instruments. So neat!

We also went back to where the market was on Saturday, but sadly, it was only a Saturday market, because it was gone on Sunday. We found us some food and just kind of hung out and then made our way back to where our bus stop was. My bus was leaving at 4 and Ryan’s wasn’t leaving until 11 PM that night (he was headed to Germany, while I was going back to Amsterdam). So, 4 o’clock came and we said our goodbyes =[

Our last picture together =[

I got on my bus and off I was. I learned when we were going to Belgium that I could have gotten on the bus at The Hague instead of having to go all the way to Amsterdam, and then taking another train to Amstel station where the bus was leaving from. So going home, I asked if the bus was stopping at The Hague and if it was, if I could get off there instead of Amsterdam and they said yes! So when I got off in The Hague, I knew which bus I needed to take, but couldn’t find it (or so I thought…dumb me). So I get on bus 45 (I wanted 43) and was just going to Leiden and then catch 43 home and I still would get home earlier. So I get on 45, and as we pull out of the station, I see bus 43…and I’m like crap. So I get off at the first stop and walk back to the station, but of course, the bus has already left….so I wait the 30 minutes and get on, and make it home at 7:30 PM, which was the time my bus would have made it into Amsterdam, so that was really nice! My friends had already eaten, but had left overs, so I had some great food and was off to bed to finish off my Netherlands adventure =]

Day 5 - Brussels

So day 5 Ryan and I were going to do Bruges originally, but we decided that we would just do Brussels instead. So our friend gave us a lot of places to see, and told us which metro stops to get off at. So we headed off and got off at the first stop that was near our hotel (Bockstael), and Ryan was like, what are we seeing here? I said, I don’t remember…let’s just see what we find. So we walked out the metro station and there was an outdoor market!! So we walked over to it, and the first thing we see (well actually smell) is this amazing food! We didn’t know where it was coming from, so we followed our noses. We found a little rotisserie chicken shop and oh my goodness, that was the best food ever!!!

Amazing chicken stand!!!

Name of the stand

Ryan demonstrating how to eat said amazing chicken!

Can't you see the goodness?? Everyone needs to go to Brussels just to eat this chicken!

Oh man. So good!!

We hadn’t had breakfast yet and so we walked around the market and it was so neat. It was mostly middle eastern people who were running the booths and buying things, and it was so neat to see!

A small part of the market

Clown walking around the market =]

And there were lots of fruit stands and such too and I so wish I had bought some because it looked so good!

Massive grapes! I know they look normal, but if you look at the apricots, you can see how huge they were!

More delicious looking fruit

There were also a ton of olive stands!

So after walking around the market and eating chicken, we got back on the metro to go to central Brussels. We got off at the Gare Centraal and started walking around. We first came across this beautiful cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Michael, and I was so excited to see it!

Cathedral of St. Michael, Brussels

So we went inside, and it was breath-takingly beautiful! I had never been inside a Catholic cathedral and so I was very excited. Ryan was telling me a bit about all the paintings and sculptures and such (since he knows more than I do) and it was neat to hear about what things mean.

I loved all the stained glass!!

And I loved seeing the candles people lit

I so wish I could have heard the organ played!

I loved seeing the architecture styles that I had studied in Humanities, such as the ceiling of the cathedral!

And of course, the dome

After that, we found us the main square and the Grand Place and enjoyed hanging out there.

Me at the Grand Place

The town hall maybe? But its a museum now

Ryan and I at the Grand Place =]

Something else at the Grand Palace

We went inside a museum that was about the history of Brussels, and that was neat to look at. Afterwards we found us some fries! I had seen a shop with them, and there were tons of people who were ordering from there, so I knew it must be good! We stopped there and had some, and boy they were good! In Europe, they eat their fries with mayonnaise (but not like American mayo) and I’ve fallen in love with eating fries with mayo! Weird I know, but so good!

Fries!

After going through the museum, we found out about Manneken Pis! So we had to go find him.

Yup, the little peeing statue.

Also, as we were leaving the Grand Place, we saw all these people touching some statue. Thanks to a wonderful friend, I found out it is "a statue of Everard 't Serclaes who protected the city of Brussels from the Flemish a really long time ago...rubbing the arm of the statue is supposed to bring you good luck"

Another one of those awesome finds!

Somewhere in all of this, we came across a neat walking street that has (no joke), 6 H&M's on it, and then we found another neat walking street where I found real, Belgium chocolate. 

Where I found my chocolate.

Chocolate =]

It was beautiful. And delicious!

After that, we went looking for something else our friend had circled on the map, and as we are walking, we came across a skate park that was packed with people! There was some kind of skateboarding competition going on, so we hung out there for a bit and enjoyed that. It was totally not a tourist area, and that was really neat. I really enjoy hanging out in not tourist areas.

This kid was amazing! Easily the best there!!

This kid was good too. I really liked him

This guy was also amazing!

After that, we walked around some more and then found us some Italian food for dinner =] It was good (but now, after having been to Italy, it wasn’t as good). We were tired, so we headed back to our hotel. We had seen people wearing a lot of red as we were walking around, and came to find out it was the day of the Belgium World Cup for soccer, and come to find out, our hotel was directly across from the stadium, and our window faced the stadium!

See? Lots of red. Turns out both teams were red =]

View from our hotel room at the Stadium

So we spent time watching the people and listening to them, and then, when it was over, oh man, there were a bajillion people!!!! The streets were just jam packed with people. I took video that I’ll try to put up. And that was Brussels!

View of the Atomium from our hotel room