Welcome to Mallttttaaa!

Phew! After such an incredible weekend, I was a little doubtful that any other trips would be able to top Switzerland. Well, this weekend in Malta was definitely a contender. My roommate and I decided to go to Malta on a whim when we heard a big group of CIMBA students were going. I had never heard of Malta before but man it looks good in pictures online! I literally felt like those kids who throw a dart on a map and say, "Hey, let's go there!" After talking with the other kids going they all felt the same way: Malta? Tiny tiny island off the coast of Sicily that barely shows up on maps? Why not, let's go!

My roommate and I shared a taxi with other students who were going to Amsterdam, yet the problem was the taxi was coming at 6:30am! Our flight didn't leave until 11:30 which gave us plenty of time for some quality sleep on the airport floor. While we were waiting, airport employees were trying to move this large, marble statue, and seeing them try to preserve the statue while building wooden guards around it provided some entertainment. On the plane, our whole group of about 23 sat in the back of the plane, so of course the flight attendant made sure to call us out over the intercom for being too loud..oops. Also, apparently our row was turned into the classic "sleeping with your mouth hung open" row. When we landed in Malta, it was so nice to enjoy being outside! The temperature wasn't too cold, but it was extremely windy.

Now for the fun part: we decided to take a bus to our hostel which was in the northern part of the island. We got on the bus and immediately had a flashback to the 80's because of how "old school" the bus looked. Ripped seats, red windows on the roof, and I wouldn't have been surprised if it had a green, fuzzy carpet. The first part of the drive lasted about 20 minutes which took us from the airport to the main bus station in Valletta. I can see why many of the locals choose to take the bus since it is so cheap, I only paid 47 euro for my ticket. However, oddly enough some other student paid 40 and got a ticket so we were all confused as to what the official price was, I think we could have just handed him some coins and hop on. Anyways, when we got to the train station, I'm sure our faces were priceless! The train station was an area packed full of these retro buses with people running, standing around, watching, and waiting. It did not seem like a safe area at all and I honestly felt like we were in Cuba. One student in our group joked as we were trying to find a connecting bus, "We have unknowingly traveled to a third world country..." Wasn't so funny at the time..

Luckily we found the correct bus and enjoyed a 45 min ride to our hostel, plenty of time to "people watch". It was interesting to see the diversity of people and hear the Maltese dialect. We got our hotel in Mellieha and were pleasantly greeted by about 200 steps up to the entrance. An important realization about Malta, or at least the area we stayed: there are no flat roads. We stayed in the northern part which is known to be an area where people retire and the entire area is all hills and steps. I really enjoyed where we stayed as well because it had one main drag of shops, restaurants, and bars, but then also overlooked the bay and the beautiful cliffs.

View from the top

View from the pool area of our hotel

The gang at karaoke!

We checked in to the hotel and explored a little bit, finding both the outdoor and indoor pool. None of us had eaten lunch and everything was closed until dinner time so we ended up stopping at a little take-away store with croissants and small pizzas. Later that night we ventured off to find a karaoke bar which ended up being a little ways off from the main street. We definitely provided the entertainment for the night as our group dominated the karaoke, along with this old lady who could sing quite well! It started off with one of the students singing "Toxic" by Brittany Spears and only got worse from there. We laughed the next day saying we picked probably the corniest group of songs, but hey at least we had fun! My roommate and I treated everyone to a duet of "Brown Eyed Girl" and "All For You", watch out American Idol. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life seeing our group go up and make fools of ourselves. On the way home, we were blessed by coming across a restaurant called Hotdog Heaven, what could be better? It was a small restaurant with bar style seating decorated with American baseball memorabilia. I think the lady working loved us for the amount of food we all bought.

The next morning we treated ourselves to sleeping in till around 11am. Honestly, it felt amazing to be able to wake up and not have to worry about going to class or catching a flight. We tried to go outside and catch some sun, yet it was extremely windy with patches of clouds so we resorted to swimming in the indoor pool. Although I say this on a weekly basis, it was so weird to think that we were in Malta. I had plenty of "wow" moments later that day when we went sightseeing through the city and down to the coast. We walked to the top of the cliff and enjoyed a better view of the island. It was simply amazing! However, it was a little difficult taking pictures because of the wind; at certain times I could barely hold the camera still! I think I could have stayed the entire day up there looking out over the island of Malta. I enjoyed seeing how steep the island was with plenty of cliffs, rock ruins, and small farms with multicolor flowers.

After the view, we ventured down through the church courtyard and stumbled upon a WWII shelter museum. We decided to go through the tunnels, which turned out to be a lot creepier than we all imagined. The tour signs guided us through this huge maze of tunnels, telling us information of how the people lived there while troops raided the island. The tunnels also had small little rooms connected to it and for some reason, the people who built this museum/tour decided to put the creepiest mannequins alive in each of the rooms. Some of them I didn't even bother looking at knowing I would have nightmares..it was so odd.

Next stop for our day was the beach! We started walking down the extremely windy road down to the bottom of the island and came upon another walkway, which we at first thought was a shortcut to the bottom. Instead, it lead us down to this church called "Our Lady of the Grotto", a small underground church. It was a little eerie because the decorations all along the walls were of people's prayers for loved family members. Pages of writings, pictures, and clothing were all tacked to the wall asking for help and for prayers. Some of the stories gave me chill bumps because they were recently added to the wall.

Inside the "Our Lady of Grotto" Church

Winding street down to the beach

When we left the church we continued our walk down to the beach, which took about 15 minutes. We finally made it to the bottom and were soon joined by the rest of the group. Some of the guys we were with were even brave enough to swim out into the water despite the gusting wind and freezing cold water. It was the funniest thing to see them mentally prepare themselves for a good 10 minutes or so. Us girls decided to leave the beach a little to get some shopping done before the night. I successful bought a pair of pants for 5 euro and a dress for 9..not too bad! Oh I almost forgot, beware if you ever go to Malta because there are an endless number of cats! They are literally everywhere you look, just laying around in the weirdest places. In fact, in one of the shoes stores we went to, there was a cat laying inside the glass counter top! That's pretty normal right?

On the Malta beach!

Later that night we took a bus to a nearby town called St. Julian's, where some other CIMBA students were staying. We ate at this grungy place called Chik-king and enjoyed our 4 euro meal of french fries and chicken tenders. After, we walked around the bars and took in the local atmosphere. The people of Malta were celebrating Carnevale this weekend, so everywhere we went was packed including the streets outside!

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast from down the road while some of the guys attempted to cook eggs and bacon in their rooms. Sunday had the best weather out of the days we were there so we tried to soak in some rays while waiting for the bus to come take us to the airport. We ended up having to take a taxi back, but it was so worth the money we paid because our taxi driver took us through the countryside on the way back to the airport. It gave us great views of the island with its farms, greenery, and rolling hills. I think that if I had another free weekend to explore a warm city, I would venture back to Malta, it was gorgeous!

On the plane ride back to Venice, our group kept pointing out how random/awesome it was that we traveled to Malta. We just couldn't get over the fact that we traveled somewhere that none of us knew barely anything about, and had a great time! We kept making jokes about people asking us about the weekend... "So what did you do this weekend? Oh that's cool because I went to MALTA!" or "Yeah I'm not sure if you know, but there is amazing food in MALTA!" Hahah it was hilarious. I am so glad I went on this trip too since I had never traveled with this group of people before. At first I was a little nervous that I wouldn't know anyone, but the entire group was so friendly and welcoming, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard than I did with these people. Oh the memories...

Anyways, we made it back to Paderno safe and sound :) Again, I'm sorry I am so far behind on posting my blogs about my weekends. I always start writing then end up getting distracted by something else haha, but I promise to get better about it. So, this weekend aka today I am going to BRUSSELS!! I am reuniting with a bunch of my best friends from Clemson who are studying abroad there. We are going to a concert called Sensation, which should be a ton of fun! So be looking forward to the next blog, I'm off to do some packing!

Skydiving in Switzerland!

Yes, you read that title right: we in fact went SKYDIVING! But I'll get to that soon enough...first I had to get through easily the hardest school week here in CIMBA. Before I could relax I had to finish a paper, take 2 tests, 2 quizzes, and do an Italian oral presentation. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time Friday rolled around and definitely ready to head off to Interlaken, Switzerland! Due to my schoolwork, I was a little late on packing and literally threw a bag together 20 minutes before the bus arrived to take our group.

We left around 10:00 Friday evening and weren't looking forward to a 7 and a half hour drive overnight. And yes, we arrived to Interlaken around 5:30am...awful decision to leave so early. The bus driver who arranged this trip said we had to leave at that time in order to avoid fog on the mountains, which I could understand, but arriving that early in Interlaken meant that absolutely nothing was open, not even our hostel! It didn't help things either when the bus driver got lost as soon as we got there, driving us in circles for a good half an hour.

However, we eventually found our hostel, Balmer's Herberge and were then forced to set up camp in the hostel lobby, taking over all the couches and floor space. I'm sure we looked like the biggest fools all morning since we were room-less until 2pm.Oh and I forgot, there was about 27 of us total, so we pretty much took up every area throughout the hostel. However, I noticed that a lot of the other guests were also American so I didn't feel as bad as playing the role of "annoying Americans" haha.

Luckily, I landed a spot on one of the couches and tried to sleep till about 8am. It was a little difficult to actually get some good sleep knowing other guests were walking in and out all morning, fully dressed in snow gear on their way up to the mountain. Some of us grabbed breakfast in the hotel lobby and ended up just laying back down, building up the energy to change clothes and go out to explore the city. Some of the group left to go skiing/snowboarding, while the rest who chose to skydive, decided to walk around the town a little before our scheduled time to leave. The minute we walked out of our hostel and into the sunlight, I lost my breath. Every direction I looked there was a HUGE mountain just dominating the entire scenery, it was incredible. The size of these mountains put the Blue Ridge Mountains to shame. I couldn't help but constantly take pictures because I was so overwhelmed by how pretty the city was with the mountains in the background. As we walked, we all kept saying how excited we were to be flying above those mountains later on that day..ah so crazy!!

View of the town outside our hostel

More hotels in Interlaken

Our bus for skydiving was supposed to pick us up at noon from our hostel, but was running a couple of minutes late of course. This didn't help with our excitement, nervousness, and anxiousness at all! When the bus finally arrived, we were pleasantly greeted with AC/DC songs playing the entire way to the skydiving site. When we arrived, there were a bunch of guys laying around, honestly looking like a bunch of punks just chilling out..not very comforting. We then went through literally a 2 minute instruction session and learned what we needed to while jumping out of the plane. The jumpsuits they provided us were pretty attractive too I must say! (Haha just kidding) They weren't that flattering, but made for some funny pictures.

For those who bought a video through the skydiving company, we were lucky enough to participate in some awkward interviews. The first one started with my cameraman asking, "Hey Kacey! So what are you doing today?" Haha yeaaah..good times. My skydiving partner was named Hans and he kept making jokes about my harness not working properly, wasn't so funny at the time but I went along with it. Finally it was our time to board the plane, so we said our final goodbyes to the rest of the group. We got on this tiny, tiny plane and ended up squeezing about 12 people with all of our gear, so it was pretty packed. As we made our way up in the air, I was surprised at how calm I felt. If anything, I was far more excited than nervous, is that weird? The view from the plane was spectacular and even more so knowing that I was about to be jumping out over those mountains! When we finally reached the correct altitude, one of the divers opened the side of the plane, making the whole situation extremely real. All of the divers had their own handshake between each other and it seemed like they weren't scared at all, just another day on the job for them. One of my favorite parts was watching those experienced divers literally just hop out of the plane like it was nothing! I ended up being the last group to jump out of the plane so my nerves finally kicked in when I watched the other two simply fall out of the plane.

Here we go!

Following the instructions, I gave the cameraman (who was hanging out on the side of the plane filming us) a big smile, then laid my head back so that Hans could see. Then..all of a sudden... we were falling, falling, falling. It was such a rush and incredible feeling, even writing this 2 weeks later is giving me chill bumps. The immediate fall and feeling my stomach rise was by far the best part. From then on, it felt like we were falling but at the same time floating because my arms just stayed still in midair when I was able to extend them. The cameraman stayed with us during the free fall and at one point I thought he was going to run into us in the air, it was scary! I just remember my eyes watering a ton and trying to scream but nothing came out. It was such an exhilarating feeling especially when I started to notice the mountains that we were descending upon. I just remember at one point looking around and seeing only mountains, no flat ground or greenery at all. That image will stick in my mind forever.

After about 45 seconds, which seemed more like 20, Hans pulled the parachute and the intensity subsided. We were then floating above the Switz Alps, it was so quiet, peaceful, and all so surreal. Another favorite part of the dive was when Hans pulled the chords as we were floating, which forced us to fly in circles at a pretty quick rate. I actually got a bit dizzy and just kept thinking, "woah, my mom would not like this one bit" haha. Finally it was time for the landing, and honestly I thought we were going to land on the concrete until Hans pulled one side of the chords, turning us a complete 360 degrees and over top the landing area. I was told to lift up my legs as we slid into the ground on our bottoms. I was a little shocked at how fast yet smooth our landing was too! Good job Hans!

Phew, I'm alive!

As soon as I landed, my cameraman ran over and started filming and taking pictures. As soon as I stood up I could still feel my legs shaking and heart pounding. Also, since we were the first ones to dive, everyone bombarded us with questions. It was so weird too because I honestly felt like I blacked out because I couldn't describe what I did, how it felt, or what it was like. My responses were only, "I'm not sure.. I just kinda fell.." and "It was AWESOME!". After the initial shock, I immediately wanted to go again. I don't think anything will ever top the rush that skydiving offers and I would absolutely love to go back and dive again. I even joked with my parents that I want to attend skydiving school to become a certified skydiver so that I can dive by myself! So advice to anyone who is considering skydiving at any point: DO IT. It was honestly the best decision I've ever made and I will never forget how it felt jumping out of the plane and free falling above the mountains. I was the happiest person alive in that moment.

View from the plane on the way up

After the others jumped, we treated ourselves to a nice meal at the local Hooters. We were looking forward to some good American food, yet were a little disappointed at how different everything tasted. Not only was the food expensive, but the sauces and dressings tasted awful! Who knew ranch dressing could taste like watered down oil? We then walked back to our hostel, completely exhausted, and in desperate need of a shower. We were able to finally check into our rooms and tried to gain as much energy as we could for the night. Luckily, our hostel had an underground club connected to it so we didn't have to travel far at all. The boys headed down before the girls, and as soon as we walked in, we were immediately informed that we were now celebrities! The club had TVs along the wall and what do ya know, our skydiving videos were playing on all the TVs! It was hilarious to watch all of us in our videos and how awkward and silly our faces looked during the free fall.


The next morning we woke up and ate lunch at Hooters again, while we waited for the bus to pick us up. When it arrived, we were completely drained and it actually felt so nice to just sit and sleep. It was snowing that morning so driving the winding roads down the mountain was a little nerve wracking. I also noticed on the ride back the amount of tunnels we had to pass through. At one point, we were driving through a tunnel for at least 20 minutes. Then, later in the drive our bus driver got pulled over by the Switzerland cops, it was quite a ride back. As soon as we got back to Paderno, we all watched our videos and enjoyed laughing at our pictures. It was by far one of the best weekends here in Europe and I know I will never forget the memories of skydiving.


But that is all for now, this next weekend we are traveling to Malta!! Quite a temperature change so I am looking forward to warm(er) weather! We're alive and all is well! Until next time..

Traveling Queens!

Well hello again! Sorry about the longest delay ever on my posts, it has been a crazy couple of weeks here at CIMBA, where to begin? Well first with a WARNING: this is going to be a long, long, long blog..I can just feel it. Saturday, February 12th marked the first day of our first weeklong travel break. My roommate, two other girls from Clemson and I decided to travel and make our way to 3 fabulous places: Dublin (and also Cork, Ireland), London, and Amsterdam! It was an incredible week and where we spoiled ourselves with pub food, pub crawls, Chipotle, Haagen Dazs, shopping, and most importantly the English language :)

We first flew out to Dublin, Ireland and landed at about 7pm, thankfully meeting a guy on the plane who wrote down some of the best local places to go. The first night we ended up at a local pub and made friends with some Irishmen who shared some stories of the city and culture of Ireland, while all drinking their dark pitchers of Guinness (gross!). It was a little embarrassing though when we asked if they ever played drinking card games and they all busted out into laughter saying "Psh, please, the Irish don't ever need a reason to drink!" Silly Americans...

We woke up the next day and decided to explore the city, so we walked around the main spier of Dublin and saw a number of places like Trinity College, the Bank of Ireland, and the Post Office. I absolutely loved Dublin because the city was so bustling and everyone seemed so happy! This also may have been because later on that day was a HUGE rugby match between Ireland and France, so we got to see plenty of crazy fanatic rugby fans preparing for the match.

We ended up doing a free walking tour where our tour guide took us to a number of famous, historical spots throughout Dublin. I think the biggest fact that I learned during this tour was how much the Irish resent the British. From the way our tour guide talked, the animosity between the Irish and the British was still pretty recent, which was pretty surprising to me. Here are some of pictures from the tour:

Capitol Building--where the British ruled  over Ireland for over 700 years

Dublin Castle- notice the two different styles of architecture

The gardens of Dublin Castle- this wall was built for Queen Elizabeth to block her view of the city slums

Christ Church Cathedral--oldest cathedral in Ireland

Inside the courtyard of Trinity College--yeah, I'm transferring here

Ya know, some locals just watching the rugby match.

After the tour, our tour guide took us to O'Neils Pub where the tour guide company had reserved a room and thankfully so because the place was PACKED! I felt like the entire city of Dublin was inside this pub, beer in hand, eyes glued to the TV watching the match. Not gonna lie, I felt pretty cool watching the game too because I was wearing my bright green Ireland scarf (trying to look like a local). As we ate our fish and chips, I looked around and was jealous of how much country pride every person had in the room. I don't know, but I realized I was extremely jealous that Ireland, and all of Europe for that matter, have sports that compete internationally where huge rival matches turn into a national holiday. It got pretty intense too when Ireland started coming back in the last 3 minutes and almost scored the winning goal (?). Unfortunately the boys could not cross the line which resulted in a lot of people yelling at the TV then sitting in silence.


After the pub, we hurried back to the bus station and ended up being the last people on a bus to Cork, Ireland. One of the girls I traveled with knew a friend studying abroad in Cork so we decided to visit her for the night and see the Blarney stone the next day. After about a 4 hour drive, we got to Cork and made our way out with some other girls studying abroad there. I was so grateful to stay with these girls in their apartment because the next morning we were able to make breakfast which consisted of eggs, sausage, bagel and a banana: we were in heaven! We made our way back to the bus station and headed off to see the Blarney Castle. The weather couldn't have been more perfect for us either making for some great pictures. It was so unreal to think that at one time people lived there and was used to protect kings and queens.

Top o' the mornin to ya!

Blarney Castle!

View from the top

After making our way to the top, we were able to kiss the Blarney Stone! Legend says that kissing the stone will grant you with the "gift of eloquence". Pretty cool to think that powerful rulers like Winston Churchill climbed the same set of stairs and kissed the same stone as we did! And warning for when you kiss the stone: it's a lot farther down than you think so don't get too scared when the guy that's holding onto you makes you go farther down haha.

Me kissing the Blarney stone!

After the Castle, we took a bus ride back to Dublin getting there around dinner time. Earlier, when we went on the walking tour we met a girl our age from Australia. We learned that after graduating high school, she decided to take a break from school and travel around the world...all by herself! As much as I love studying abroad and being in a new country, I don't think I could travel and learn by myself. She is paying for everything herself and told us that she is on the lookout for a part-time job because her money is starting to run out (we all related to that). So anyways we had told her the previous day to meet her for dinner so we met back at O'Neils pub and had a fabulous girls night out!

The next morning we headed to the airport to catch our flight to LONDON! The whole way there we talked with a British accent, casually preparing for the next couple of days and trying to sound local haha. After running into a little money trouble (sorry Mom and Dad), we made our way to our hostel via train. Luckily for us, our hostel was directly across from one of the major train stations. And then we get to the good part: we changed and got ready to do some shopping and of course grab a bite to eat. Don't judge us that the two spots we had circled on our London map was our hostel and CHIPOTLE! I think we spent about an hour and half in Chipotle thoroughly enjoying our burritos and chips and guacamole; no words spoken while we ate haha. After the meal, I vowed never to take advantage of Mexican food again. We then headed off to shop and wound up a couple local stores where we made some purchases and actually found a TK Maxx (oddly similar to TJ Maxx haha) and a Forever 21. The clothes were so cute too so needless to say we spent a good amount of time in these stores. After seeing all these stores I've concluded the rumor is definitely true: Europe has the best fashion in the world. Even people just walking their dog down the street looked so stylish and put together...it was a little depressing for us.

The next day we began our sightseeing by purchasing a two day pass for the double-decker bus tours that stop at all the major landmarks. It is a hop on / hop off type of thing so we got to pick and choose what places we wanted to see. Of course, our first destination was Buckingham Palace! To be honest, it was a lot different than I pictured in my head. I thought the gates were right outside the door and there would be guards standing in front of the gates suffering from crazy tourists trying to make them laugh. However, the gates were pretty far from the actual building and there were only about two guards: one standing at the door and one pacing back and forth. Unfortunately on that day they were not having the "changing of the guard" ceremony either which would have been cool to see. Regardless, the palace was spectacular and HUGE! I couldn't even imagine what the rooms inside looked like because just seeing the outside of the palace gave me chill bumps.

Buckingham Palace!

 Also, I will apologize for my lack of stories for this blog too because waiting two weeks to write about this trip has hurt my memory a little. However, after the palace we hopped back on the bus and continued to sight see. Here are some more pictures from the bus tour:

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben and Parliament buildings

 

View from the London Eye

Our next big stop was the London Eye, the gigantic ferris wheel and one of London's most popular attraction. Before getting on, they made us watch a 3D presentation, pretty much getting us excited to get on the Eye. It showed different scenes of people on the Eye and showed one of a couple getting married...I wonder how many people have actually done that? We got inside one of the carriages on the eye which were surprisingly pretty big. We had about 10 other people with us and plenty of room to sit and walk around. It was amazing to reach the top and see the span of the city, with Big Ben is clear view. We all made sure to bring our Clemson gear this day and tried to get a picture with Big Ben in the background. Unfortunately, the sun blocked our background but don't worry we got one back on the ground with the Tower Bridge as our background. I'm sure we looked ridiculous too because some of us had to take off all of our layers and put on a Clemson t-shirt in absolutely freezing weather. After the Eye, we grabbed a bite to eat for lunch at the weirdest place that served Mediterranean food. It was big enough for one person to stand so we probably caused quite the scene trying to decide what we wanted to eat. Oh and if you decide to eat in, expect to pay more than what it says on the menu because those prices are only for "take away" food.

We ended the day with some more bus rides but had to hold off on visiting the Tower until the following day. That night, we decided to do a pub crawl in the Camden area. It was a trendy part of town with huge sculptures on the outside of the buildings. For example, a dragon scaling the top of a tattoo parlor. The pubs we walked to were all local spots, each with unique atmospheres. One of them used to be an old horse hospital so they turned the stalls into rooms that people could reserve for the night. We made our way back for the night and caught literally the last train to our side of town thank goodness!

Tower of London

The next morning we woke up and I treated myself to a nice cup of coffee and some quality book reading at the Starbucks across the street. We explored the Tower of London, which was easily one of the coolest attractions thus far. The employee who conducted our walking tour gave us plenty of insight into the castle and told us stories of different places in the castle. The Tower was a place for public executions but actually only 4 executions took place inside the castle, where the rest occurred on the hill across the street. It also holds the Royal Jems and armor that kings once wore.

Is that the Beatles?

 After the Tower we decided to lay low, eat at Chipotle (yes, again) and head back to the hostel. But before going back, we felt it was necessary to visit another London hot spot: Abbey Road. Probably not the smartest idea to go during rush hour however. It took us at least 20 minutes to get a decent picture. We went exactly sure which crosswalk was the correct one either but hey it still counts.








The next morning we headed off to the airport to our final destination: Amsterdam. While waiting in line at the airport, we spotted a group of about 8 guys all wearing the same t-shirt with their names on the back and one wearing a top hat with big letters reading "GROOM". There is no way I will let my future husband take a bachelor's weekend trip to Amsterdam haha.


We were a little nervous going to Amsterdam after realizing that the hotel we booked had terrible reviews about the noise and the owners being scam artists! It didn't help when we got there that they told us we hadn't paid yet even though one of the girls booked it and paid for it all online. Thankfully nothing had been charged to her account so everything was okay. We then walked around and explored the city as we made our way to the Anne Frank museum. Biggest lesson in Amsterdam: always watch where you're walking unless you want to get run over by a bike. I have never seen a city where literally everyone rode a bike: businessman in a suit, girls in heels, and toddlers sitting in the front basket with the groceries.

View from right outside our hostel

One of the many canals

We walked to Anne Frank's house which was again surprisingly more modern than I imagined. At the bottom was a very sophisticated-looking souvenir store. However, the museum itself was very interesting and informative. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside but trust me, it was so scary trying to picture people hiding in the tiny rooms behind the office. We got to see spots on the wall where Anne decorated with pictures and magazines and marks where the family kept track of their height.

Outside the Anne Frank museum

That night we stayed around the local square next to our hostel and went to a place called "Club Nasty". Yeah, gross right. Funny thing was that during the day instead of lighting up club they light up the word cafe making it "Cafe Nasty" during the day.

 
The next day we woke up to an amazing breakfast provided by our hotel. I think the part that made it amazing was the fact that we didn't have to pay for it. After, we walked to the Heineken brewery, the first one ever built. It was pretty cool learning how the beer was made and did you know that Heineken only has 4 ingredients: water, barley, hops, and yeast. However, after seeing this part the rest of the tour through the brewery was all about marketing and the Heineken image. I got the vibe that they wanted us to buy a lot of Heineken products once we finished.

Where they brew the beer

After the factory we treated ourselves to a nice lunch at yet another O'neils Pub. We probably had the best lunch ever considering the TVs in the pub were showing the movie Spacejam! That night, we decided to do another pub crawl that took us through the Red Light district. What were we thinking right? I will tell you one thing, it was weird..The guides made it very clear that we were not allowed to take pictures unless you wanted a punch to the face. Honestly, if you go to Amsterdam you should walk through it, but definitely a one time thing.

On this crawl, we met a couple of people who were from Australian but working in London, teaching kids in elementary school. It was a little scary at one point when we witnessed a fit in the pub. Two guys were yelling and screaming at one another, obviously not in a sober state of mind. Luckily, our group left right after this happened and ended up passing one of the guys in the fight standing outside of the bar pacing back and forth. Crazy!  The next morning we treated ourselves to a nice dessert at Haagen-Dazs. Honestly one of the best meals I've had thus far: caramel latte ice cream on top of a chocolate chip cookie. We had to sit awhile and let our food digest, but weren't complaining since our flight didn't leave until 4pm that day. We also walked around the Sunday market and enjoyed ourselves in the local flower and cheese shops.

So many clogs!

One of the many flower shops

By the time we got back to campus we were all SO exhausted and SO excited to be back home. We were all so excited to change into clearn clothes! Never in my life have I worn the same couple of outfits, so yes packing light is very very important. We got so lucky on the last fight too because there were no weight restrictions and my small rolling suitcase would have definitely been over 10 kg. My roommate and I probably had the most intense battle of rock-paper-scissors over who got to shower first. (I won in case you were wondering).

Well I think that is all I have for now, I probably should head to bed anyways considering I have to catch a taxi to the airport in about 5 hours..yikes. Get excited my next blog is about our weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland pronounced eeenturlahken, svitzurlund. Until next time!