I know I'm a whole week behind, but......What
a weekend!
Saturday, February 15:
We
were picked up at 5am, and driven directly to the airport. We arrived by 6:30, grabbed some breakfast,
went through security and waited patiently at our gate. At 9:30am, we boarded our flight to Vienna. I was unlucky and sat next to an ape of a
man; he was a very large man and didn’t have space comprehension. He had his knees in my space, his elbow on my
armrest, poking me with his elbow and just a bother to sit next to; somehow I
managed to fall asleep, and slept most of the almost two hour flight.
We
arrived in Vienna, bought train tickets, ran to catch the train/shuttle and
headed into the city. From the city, we
caught a different train/metro and headed in the direction of the hostel. We got lost a little bit trying to find our
hostel, eventually found it, it was the wrong location, and so back on the
train we went, back to the starting location and back on a different metro to
the hostel. The station we got off at
was located in a flea market/farmers market/hoarders fest. The streets were packed with tents and tables
of crap, food, and other stuff, the mix of stolen and homemade crap. Walking through the masses of people with our
suitcases was rather difficult. But
eventually we found it, and guess what, it’s located in china town…Awesome!
We
checked in, unloaded our stuff, and grabbed a bite to eat, made our beds and
set off to check out the city. Mallory
and I went outside to check out the market.
We each bought a back to city center.
We walked around, grabbed some Baumkucken (a German dessert made of
dough) – cinnamon coated, saw some interesting tents some filled with tie dye
sheets, others filled with interesting trinkets or knick knacks, Then we hopped
on the train back to city center and went to explore. We came across an amusement park, and even
though half of the rides were closed due to the season, many were up and
running. Mallory rode on a chaos looking
ride, spinning sideways, upside down, twisting and turning, I didn’t ride, the
upside down freaked me out. The
amusement park also have an old fashioned Ferris wheel, but it was 9 euros, so
we didn’t ride. We also found the
planetarium, but it too was expensive to enter, so we kept walking.
We
got back on the train, went a few stops further to see some sights, Mallory got
some dinner and we to head back to our hostel.
I had a headache and lay down for a bit, and Mallory ate her food in the
lobby area. Then we joined back up and
went to the bar in the hostel, she got some drinks, and just kept her
company. Nine-thirty approached and it
was time for me to go to bed, so we headed upstairs, we each got ready for
bed.
Sunday, February 16:
This
morning we woke up bright and early to catch our flight to Amsterdam. I woke up very itchy, and come to realize I
have itchy blotches all over my body, some type of allergic reaction. We all got dressed, checked out and walked
back to the train station, caught the train to city center and then the shuttle
train to the airport. Check in for our
flight, made it through security, however my first time ever getting patted
down in security. Walked to our gate and
boarded our plane. Two hours later we arrived
in Amsterdam.
First
stop, our hostel. It was much easier to
find than the one in Vienna. Found the
hostel, located in the red light district, surrounded with sex shops, coffee
shops (of course), many restaurants and bars, a great location! It was too early to check in, but we dropped
our bags off. Mallory and I went out for
breakfast, I wanted pancakes; we found a café down the street that had
pancakes, and was very busy, a good sign when you’re visiting a new area. Sat
down, ordered, and waited patiently.
Food arrived and it was delicious.
We had
wanted to catch a tour of the city at 11am, but it was now 11:30 and we of
course missed it. We decided to wander
around and check out the city while we waited for the later tour at 1pm. Amsterdam is beautiful city, filled with
canals, museums, hundreds of bikes, and the scent of marijuana with every turn
in the city. We walked over many bridges
overtop of the many canals throughout the city, almost got hit by bikes zooming
past, and found the lovely bars where you can smoke and drink. It was coming up to 12:30pm, and we decided
to start heading back so we could catch the next tour. However we had no idea where we were, we had
crisscrossed so many different streets; we didn’t even know the correct
direction to head back to our hostel (the meeting place for the tour was up the
street from our hostel at the city center.
Mallory and I make a terrible match because between the two of us we
don’t even equal one directionally savvy person. We wandered the streets, up and down, for hours;
by the time we made it back to the hostel it was 3:30pm, way past our potential
meeting time.
Time to
check into the hostel. We grabbed the
keys, hiked up two steep staircases. We
unloaded, freshened up and I took a nap.
I had a headache was also very itchy.
Two hours later, I woke up, and we got ready to go. It was time to check out Anne Franks House
(Huis in German), the one place I had to go while in Amsterdam. On the way, I stopped and got some gelato,
coffee and salted caramel. The task
should have been easy, however again we are directionally challenged people,
and even though we had saved directions on our phone, we again got lost. In the process we found an amazing sorbet/ice
cream shop, and Mallory ordered caramelized banana & strawberry
sorbet. We asked the gentleman at the
shop for directions to Anne Frank, and on the way we found a vegan &
organic shop, and of course we had to go in and check it out. After all that and walking aimlessly down
many different streets and over different canals, we finally found it. The line was short, we got right it, and the
ticket was 9 euros. It was 6pm and we
had one hour until the doors closed, or so we thought. At 7pm they kicked us out before we were able
to see the entire museum. It was packed
so we made a single file line to walk through the house, taking longer than
normally expected. We were kicked out
before finishing three rooms, including the room where the original diary is on
display. Even with getting kicked out
before fully finishing and taking in all the memories, it was the highlight of
my trip to Europe. I am so thankful to
have been able to visit and realize how thankful I am to be Jewish and to be
able to experience the awfulness that was WWII.
Mallory thinks I could be related to Anne Frank! I am proud to be Jewish.
After the
visit, we went back to the hostel (and made it back without getting lost,
success), relaxed for a bit before going to grab food. I was really craving a burger. We had seen French fry shops all over town
throughout the day I knew I wanted some, so we went down the street, and found
one called “Mannequin Pis – Voted No 1 Holland’s Fries”. We shared a medium and garnished with
ketchup, as true American’s do. We ended
up walking through the red light district, seeing the woman behind windows, the
sex stores open and of course the red lights lighting up the streets. Interesting experience.
I didn’t get
a burger, and just went to bed, as I was tired, super
uncomfortable and had a headache
again.
Monday, February 17:
We
wake up just as early this morning to catch the train for our plane to
Zurich. We make it to the airport; I
grabbed my boarding pass, went through security and waited at our gate for the
plane. We boarded our plane, and it was
an hour flight to Zurich.
We
arrived in Zurich. We each bought a bus
pass, caught the bus to the center of the city and began our exploration of
Zurich. First stop food. We ended up finding a café and I bought a
sandwich and pasta salad. I scarfed it
down. Then we found Mallory food at a
local grocery store that had prepared vegetarian/vegan food options. Also utilized the Wi-Fi to figure out what to
see or explore in Zurich for free.
Next
we checked out the gorgeous canal and the largest clock in Europe. We continued walking and I bought a giant
pretzel, almost the size of my head, walked through the expensive district of
stores and caught a random bus. We got
off at a stop that looked interesting, found a park and took a nap in the
gorgeous sunlight. About thirty minutes
later, we woke up and decided to venture to see more of Zurich. We caught a bus to somewhere, and rode it
just checking out the sites from the bus.
After about forty-five minutes, we decided we would go back to the
airport, we knew it was early, but Zurich is expensive to do anything.
We
arrived at the airport, printed our boarding passes. Mallory checked out H&M and other stores
inside the airport. I was just happy to
be sitting and trying to ignore my itchiness.
We had a little less than an hour and a half left before our plane would
arrive. Our gate was posted; we went,
sat and waited.
It
was finally time to board our plane. We
had to take a bus to the plane. We
climbed the stairs to the plane, found our seats; I got a window and took a
nap. An hour later we arrived in
Lyon. We thought we could go directly to
the train station, but one of our group mates was asked to check her bag due to
a full flight, so we had to wait for her bag, which added extra time to our
rather tight timetable. About twenty
minutes later, the bag arrived; we rushed to the shuttle to take us to the
train station. Hopped on the shuttle,
and thirty minutes later we arrived at Lyon Station. We luckily had one last train that we could
take to Firminy. Unfortunately, due to
the baggage issue, we missed the last bus that would take us from Firminy to
Retournac where a cab would be picking us up.
Instead we had to get a cab from Firminy to our apartment, which cost us
70 euros split four ways.
Either
way, we had a great weekend, beautiful places and wonderful experiences.
