London & Amsterdam
London
London, oh London. So many of my friends have studied abroad in London and loved the city, but quite frankly, London kicked our butts. We chose London to be our first destination for a variety of reasons, the #1 reason being that they spoke English there, which we assumed would make our transition into the traveling life much easier. Ha, english- easier, so we thought. It was here that we found out that it can someitmes be the 'travel' part of sight seeing and exploring the world that can make or break the trip- and the person.
Lets start from the beginning. Jet Lag. After flying Air India across the Atlandtic ,being fed more curry rice and free beer than one shoudl consume 50000 ft in the air, we arrived in London at 7am with 3 hours of sleep. Public Transportation. This was really my first experience with a metro/subway/bus system (outside of NYC where Brian took the lead) and arriving in the terminus made me realize that little old Elkin had sheltered me. It took us way to long to figure out that we should ask directions and twice as ong asking various people to point us in the right way (the British and Southern US accents don't always mesh too well in conversation). Hostelling. Since London's pound is far better than the US dollar, we knew this woudl be our most expensive country and chose a cheaper hostel to stay in for our 2 nights there. Of course the 1st luxoury sacrificed with price is the location, thus landing us in the ghetto area of London (for those of you who have been there, the far southeastern area of New Cross). Of course there is nothing wrong with this except two eager wide-eyed white 'Elon' kids with rather large packs clueless to the area tramping around at rush hour looking for our hostel. We arrive at our hostel but can't check in because it's still so early, but are told we can leave our packs and check in anytime after 2pm that day. So, thats what we do and we're off for the day.
Day 1 in London: After adjusting and understanding the metro and currency exchange, we start at the British Museum, Trafalgar Square and get tickets to- and attend- Wicked at the Victoria Apollo Theater. At this point I'm still pretty jet-lagged and Brian is practically dragging me through the museum to see the Roman and Egyptian sculptures, ancient tombs and of course the Rosetta Stone (See Pictures). Walking around Trafalgar Square we're seeing our first typical double decker buses and red telephone booths as well as loosing feeling in our feet from the miles around town. We enjoy a nice dinner, still high on life that we've really made the trip and then we're on to the show (which, might I say, thanks to Virg, Elyse, and AC I made a wonderful advertisement pitch to Brian convincing him to see the show. It was a great decision for our first night in London (Thanks ladies for the suggestion!). Of course by this point Brians' jet lag decided to 'kick in' during the 2nd act and I was 'forced' to smack him every few minute... I just hated doing that, let me tell you. So we leave the theater and head back to our hostel to check in around 10:30pm.
And this is where London kicks our butt. We arrive to our hostel through the dangerous trek across the city and its alleyways to learn that the online booking site we used had crashed right after we booked the night before and due to this our hostel had been overbooked. So the guy who owns the hostel says that we can wait until midnight to see if anyone doesn't show up and we can have their beds. At about 11pm three other people from the States arrive in the same situation (one girl ironically a freshman at Elon). So all 5 of us are waiting for a bed to open up. Midnight rolls around and the hostel owner says to wait until 1pm, in case they are out partying. 1pm, he tells us to wait till 2pm. 2pm and he has four beds open so Brian and I get our key, and the other two girls get theirs and we go to find our rooms. Brian and I search and search and apparently he was wrong in thinking he had four and only had 2 avaliable beds. So, its 2:30 our first night in London, we're extremely jet-lagged and we decide to spend the night in common room on the couch with & kind of without the hostel owner knowing. Apparently other people were night owls, so between people staying up drinking in the common room until 4 and the cleaning crew coming in at 5, we got 1 maybe 2 hours of sleep. At about 8am we woke up to catch a bus for a day trip our of London.
Day 2: We take a bus tour day trip to Bath, Stonehenge and Salisbury. Although it was raining, it was gorgeous and what we needed... the long hours on the bus ride, I mean. So, as the rest of the passengers were hanging on every word the tour guide was saying about the history of the places, Brian and I were in the back of the bus, socks off, snoring and drooling away. We may have furthered the stereotype that Americans can be rude. Oh well. Bath is an old Roman town with old buildings, Roman spa baths and beautiful views. This was Brians favorite out of the three. Then we went to Stonehenge which is really cool because its just in the middle of nowwhere, which is different from most of the other sights we have and would see. With the clouds looming overhead it gave it a really eerie feel and had us questioning how it happened and what it meant (which I'm sure the tour guide may have told us...) Finally onto Salisbury, which was my favorite. With its old wooden building centered around the grand Salisbury Cathedral, the town felt so cozy and honest. This being our first church of sorts to visit, we were eager to see it all and soaked the carpentry, solitude and artwork in like sponges. Then we were back to the hostel for the night.
Arriving at the hostel we weren't sure if we would have a place to stay or if we would be in the same situation and once again it was around 10:30pm. When we got back we found out that there were no openings for the night and since we werent around all day we couldnt have stolen any of the spots that had come avaliable, so, we jumped on a computer and searched for all of 10 minutes for a hostel before practically getting kicked out where we were on the streets with our packs at 11pm infront of a somewhat sketchy bar. This is where being a small county white female made me feel very uncomfortable and glad to have Brian, who has been the #1 or #2 bench presser at Elon for the past 3 years, and to have a cell phone. So, we started to call hotels and hostels that were in our travelling books trying to see if they had openings, and we called both our parents begging them to get online and see if they could find somewhere avaliable. (This was more difficult than it may sound because most places have check in before 10pm, and here it was 11pm... and we started off with a reasonable price range.... and we would have to travel on the train and metro which were starting to go into their night hours). So we finally find a bed and breakfast in a nice part of town that is open until midnight and we start hauling tail across town (with what we know will soon be an empty wallet). The B&B was actually really nice and it was a relief to be able to not be scared for our life, sleeping on a couch, or having to travel miles out of London's center to sleep.
Day 3 in London: We get up early, have a free breakfast (which in the hostelling world is a BIG deal) and head out to see the more "typical" London sights. First we headed to Buckingham Palace and caught the elaborate changing of the guards, then on to Big Ben, the eye of London (a big ferris wheel) and end in Westminister Abbey. For once seeing the sights that alot of people go to London to see was a nice way to end our trip to London. This was the first day that we weren't jet lagged and really enjoyed being in London (although we had our packs on through all of this). So to round our London, we made our way to the airport where we realized our flight was earlier than we expected and ran through the airport. Just our luck and Brian got checked for a random security check (yes, I agree, he looks very questionable) and we hope on the plane over the English channel.
Amsterdam
Day 1: That evening we arrived in Amsterdam, learned the bus route and made our way to the hostel. Once again in order to save money our hostel was a bit out of the way and we ended up riding the bus twice until the driver finally told us exactly where to get off. Our hostel was actually a hotel of sorts and we found ourselves with really nice Canadian roommates who were seasoned travellers (and made us look like the complete new-bees we were). Over the next day they woudl offer us advise on palces to go, what to see throughout Europe, and thus far they have been some of the most valuable people we have met. Our first night rounds out as we head to a local restaurant around the hostel with a great waitstaff and enjoy being in a new place.
Day 2: We had both heard alot about Amsterdam and decided ahead of time that we wanted to spend two full days there (for the majority of other places we would only be spending one full day and two night- making us travel every other day). So the first day started off with a visit to the main square where there were hoards of people, street performers and beautiful architecture. After walking around a bit (which ended up being practically through the main center of the city) we headed to a basic science museum that we decided that even in Dutch may be a little elementary for us. We jumped on a random bus and headed to a local market where we perused the fair-like tents of produce, cheese, breads, and fish until we scrounged together a small lunch but took in alot of the atmosphere and culture.
The Anne Frank Huis was next on our destination list around dusk when the mobs of tourist would be gone. This was by far the most well done museum I have ever been in. As I'm sure all of you have read her diary, the townhouse museum still shows her fathers shop on the first floor, his offices, the originial bookshelf infront of the staircase as well as when you move up the steep stairs you see the layout of the two upper floors where her family and friends lived. The museum was very digitally advanced with flat screen tvs playing interview clips, documentaries and such about the war. On the top floor was her coveted diary and a streaming movie dedicated to each of the people involved as well as different videos on the concentration camps. This section, which I can hardly describe in words, was extremely moving and I found myself in tears. I cannot express enough how important and amazing this museum is and if you have the chance to visit Amsterdam I will be extremely disappointed if you don't see this memorial.
We round out the night with dinner and a trip to Red Light District. If you aren't familiar, RLD is a series of roads along water passageways that sailors used to trek down in search of female company. It ended up turning into an area that has prostitutes seductively working in the windows of stores that can be see from the water. It is also a hotspot for drugs (marijuana is legal in Amsterdam). Having heard about this area, we had to walk down it once and see the culture of this area. Actually, it is just a bunch of tourist doing the same thing as we were, just trying to see it all, with few people taking advantage of the environment. Note: it was also like 9pm. And we'll leave that as that. PG-13.
Day 3: Our second full day we head to the Van Gogh Museum and the Diamond Museum. The Diamond Museum, which we found walking in the university district around the Van Gogh was first my idea but then when we got inside it had alot of science on the forming of diamonds, political corruption surrounding the mining of diamonds, and the economy generated over the years by diamonds. All in all, it was a good choice with little else to do that day. We visited a market once again and got PB&Js, a bottle of wine and had a nice cheap night on the roof top terrace with other people in our hostel.
Day 4: We rounded out our time in Amsterdam in the train station where we stumbled upon the a Eurorail lounge. This lounge is for first class passengers but I dont think they typically expect backpackers in there. It was like my dad getting off the AT and stumbling into the Ritz.. we were very out of place. But, as we took full advantage of the minibar, couches and tables to repack our things, numerous other first class travellers glared at our unpolished actions. At this point we started to embrace the 'we'll never see them again' attitude.
