London

I met my future roommate, Allison, in Eindhoven to fly to London. We both had our first hostel experience and I'm so happy we were together. Our London shenanigans included: joking about being "panicked on the streets of London" when almost getting hit by traffic, seeing lots of museums (despite our lack of interest in museums), exploring markets, enjoying afternoon tea, eating Hummingbird Cupcakes, meeting one of my all time favorite actors, drinking beer in the coolest bar built in an old horse stable, going to Westminster Abbey for Easter Sunday service, and endless hours searching for "rubbish bins." It was a fabulous time, although I'll be staying in Amsterdam for a bit. London is pretty expensive.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum.

So much lace.

Steep escalators. And This Water lemonade, which I should probably start buying in bulk online or something.

Portobello market.

Fascinators!

Meeting Zach Braff after his play All New People. It was really good.

Pimm's and lemonade, a traditional English drink we were told.

Eastern London gets it's own post because it was that amazing, so stay tuned. 

You are a Tourist.

I'm becoming much more familiar with Amsterdam and at times it even feels like home. I received this city guide moleskin for Christmas. I am starting to work on it now and can't wait to have my very own guide to this amazing city. I've had several visitors this past week and I got to explore the city as a tourist again. Namely, I went to the Heineken Experience, which I hadn't found a good excuse to spend so much money on before then. Here are some pictures from my adventures with my friend Alex.

This man in an apron taught Alex how to ride a bike. 

Chipsy King!

It had to happen eventually...

My favorite part of the Heineken tour. Minus the free beer of course. 

I bought some gawdy, Dutch slippers!

Church by my house lit up blue for Ascension week.

Right outside my apartment building. I'm in love.

And I'll leave you with this.

Amsterdam Shenanigans

I know I keep posting about my time in other cities, but I'm not recording my thoughts on Amsterdam. It seems if I'm always in a rush to leave here, haha but that's just because I'm closer to all of these exotic, European cities than I normally am. I love many things about this city. Everyone is very sweet and generous when giving directions. The canals are beautiful. I can ride my bike almost anywhere in twenty minutes. I can admire the gorgeous canals while riding my bike. I constantly meet people from all over the world. And did I mention how breathtaking the canals are? I've had to study for exams this week, which are pretty much the equivalent to finals in America. The other night I sat on our balcony and drank some wine while my Italian flatmates played the acoustic guitar. I'm living the dream.

I finally went to Burgermeester. Cows look at you with sad eyes while you eat your burger...

Crappy quality photo, but this is out of my window at night time. So beautiful.

Best ice cream in Amsterdam.

Budapest

I know I've been awful at posting...oops. I've been too busy enjoying the beautiful city of Amsterdam and exploring other cities too, like Budapest! I went to Budapest during my spring break for two nights. I didn't know much about Hungary, but the airfare was insanely cheap so I tagged along with some friends. The city is divided by a river, which has gorgeous bridges attaching the two. It was absolutely beautiful. They have delicious food and everything is cheap. These are obviously my priorities. Haha we stayed in an actual hotel, with a giant bath tub, that I unfortunately didn't get to bathe in. My favorite part of the trip was visiting the famous ruin pubs. They're old buildings that were destroyed during World War II, but have been somewhat renovated and turned into bars. There's graffiti everywhere and all the furniture is mismatched. You can even sit in an old car or bath tub.

I loved this adorable mint green building.

From the Buda side of the city.

Gorgeous cathedral with hexagon tiles.

Sunset.

The Basilica. We came at night when no one was around, it was so serene.

My friends candid reaction to Palinka, a Hungarian liquor made of fruit. It's 50% alcohol and does not go down easily.

These pubs basically look like flea markets, which is probably why I loved them so much.

Aching for Aachen

While in Brussels, we met a couple guys at our hostel from Australia. We met up with them in Amsterdam too, they were cool. They suggested I go to Germany with them in their rental car, while it seemed like a somewhat stupid idea, I went for it. I got to check off two of my goals (ride on the autobahn and do something that terrifies me a little). My friend from Missouri, Allison, lives in Aachen, Germany and they agreed to drop me off there, at the small price of Doritos and Red Bull (I'm discovering all sorts of cultural similarities). They stayed in Aachen one night and I went exploring with them while Allison was in class. I had a great time and it was nice to see a familiar face. I'm learning good things can come from spontaneity.

Blurry car shot with my new friends. And the only photographic evidence I was on the Autobahn.

Beautiful church in Aachen.

This beer was made in a church, so we appropriately called it "church beer."

German flag shots, I promise I'm not an alcoholic. 

Ice cream for dinner!

In Bruges

Yes, I titled this post after a really bad Colin Farrell movie, so what? I need to get better at blogging in a timely manner, but anyway, I went to Bruges! We took a train from Brussels for a little day adventure. I'd heard good things about Bruges and was definitely not disappointed. The city has canals like Amsterdam, but feels so much older. The architecture is very medieval and the city doesn't seem very big. We took a tour of a brewery called De Halve Maan, which was awesome. But my favorite part of the whole day was going to the roof of the brewery where we could see all of Bruges. It was at least in the top five most gorgeous things I've ever seen.

I really adore Vespas. 

Pretty stained glass.

Cartwheels in the square.

Brussels, Belgium

This past weekend I went to Belgium. We stayed in Brussels, but took a day trip to Bruges. Bruges deserves it's own post, as does Brussels. Brussels is the capital of the European Union and had lots of sites to see. We stayed in a quaint, little hotel and ate way too many chocolates and waffles. I'm still figuring out if I prefer more text or photos, but this post is really heavy on the photos. I enjoyed the weekend trip and cannot wait to start traveling around Europe more!

Netherlands countryside, you can't really tell, but there's a windmill off in the distance.

 

In Brussels there is a famous fountain of a little boy peeing. The waffle vendors really try to profit from this tourist attraction obviously...

Frites! I love that you can see the reflection of the buildings. 

Beautiful park, I wish parks like this existed in Amsterdam.

The strangest part of my trip was returning "home" to Amsterdam. I still feel like a tourist here some days, but I'm getting the hang of things much more easily now. I have yet to conquer the Dutch grocery store, I mostly buy fruit and pre-made dinners. One of these days I'll get around to making an actual recipe though. Stay tuned for my adventures in Bruges!