Elephants are cool

Amsterdam-cool cool place. I had all of these preconceived notions of what everyone had been telling me, and some of them were valid but I was pleasantly surprised by the city. First of, it's incredibly beautiful. There are canals throughout the city and the buildings are old and colloquial and it's just very picturesque. So that shattered some of my thoughts of the bustling city. Secondly, there were awesome painted elephants everywhere and so of course we had to stop and capture the moment with as many as we could. It was just a cool town. I imagined it to be dirtier and just a grungy place but it wasn't that way at all, at least not the parts we explored. There were just every type of store imaginable and people were on bikes all over and the city just felt alive. I really enjoyed it. I got some fun gifts for people that are just silly. We left around 7 so we didn't really experience the night life there but it was a great day without it and I felt like I experienced Amsterdam. The Van Gogh museum was really cool and we went at the very end of the day so it wasn't crowded at all. We saw Anne Frank house in the morning so that was a really neat. Unfortunately, none of the furniture is there or anything and so I don't feel like I really got to soak it up and let the severity of what we were going through seep in. So, I'm hoping when we get to go to Auschwitz that it will be a life changing experience. But Amsterdam is not the scary place everyone portrays it to be. I'd recommend it for sure.

Puppy Chow yes please

So, we're not really going anywhere this weekend because we have a dutch art history field trip with noor our teacher tomorrow so that severely limits our travel plans. So instead we are just going to take a day trip to Amsterdam and see the Anne Frank museum and maybe a gondola ride (supposedly they have better canals than Venice who knew?) In preparation for our all day museum adventure starting at 8 am in the morning and ending at 8 pm, we decided to make puppy chow, or what we could find to compromise. Nutella, peanut butter, and cheerios make a pretty stinking good substitute. Lets just say we are going to need a little happy snack while we saunter through the Hague and other musea as Noor likes to refer to museums and listen to her describe the paintings in these terms: Do you see the blackish, brownish, grayish, greenish, sky with white flecks in the yellowish tones. I wasn't aware that colors could be "ishes" until Noor enlightened us..really Noor? And yes I like to refer to her by her first name. Well, now that my belly is full of banana, whip cream crepes, puppy chow, and my 30 things to do before I'm 30 list is complete, I can enjoy the rest of my night.

Fair Dingum Mate

Hedi!

So this weekend was my favorite thus far hands down. Austria is so quaint. We did two cities in one weekend which was kind of hard and i don't think we're going to try that again but they were both so great we couldn't skip out! Let's start with Salzburg the city of the Sound of Music. Getting there was interesting.. we took a night train again but this time it wasn't a nice couchette to sleep in but a chair. So, on top of trying to get comfortable in an upright position when it was absolutely freezing, we were accompanied by drunken British fellows on their way to the opening ceremonies of Oktoberfest haha. Such adventures we encounter. But once we got there (we barely made it-we were running through the city to get to the bus) it was magical. The tour was four hours but totally worth it. We got all of this inside info into the making of the movie and BB, Callie and I were soaking it up. Our tour guide was super cute and made all sorts of cheesy jokes. Doing the tour was something I'll always remember and was definitely top on my list of my favorite things :) pun intended. After the tour-did i mention the incredible lake districts we passed?-we just walked around the city for the little time we had left. We made a video in the tunnel that the Von Trapp family sang in the Do-Re-Mi song and had dinner at the top of some hotel which had an incredible view of the whole city. But we didn't stay long because we were onward to Vienna! This is when it gets good (as if you haven't been enjoying everything so far). But on the train, Lauren and I sat by this woman, she was a hoot and just so boisterous, and she made maps for us and told us all the things to do in Vienna while we were there. So after talking to her for a while she told us about how she owns a stone jewelry shop in Vienna and she just came from a conference and had lots of rings she let us try on! We were like kids in a candy store. So we told her we'd come find her shop and so we set out on a mission to find it once we got there and we bought rings yay and took a picture with Hedi our lovely contact. It was such a precious memory. But lets back up to the night we arrived and the hostel dilemna with Kathleen and Rachel. So we had to separate on the train and needless to say it's a good thing that they knew the name of our hostel because they got off at the wrong stop and had to find their way through Vienna at 10:30 at night with no phone and no address to our hostel. It was so stressful, we were all nervous but the lord provided a way for them in a nice lady that guided them all the way there and it worked out but we were all praying real hard. Not to mention our hostel was a popular one but it was also in a random back street that wasn't all that traffic-friendly. But all was well and Vienna turned out to be one of my favorite cities. But i must tell you one final story concerning the title to this entry and that's George. George is the Australian guy we met on the train that was coming from Munich and was wearing a pointed Harry Potter hat and lieder-hose which were ripped by random 'blokes' he met at Oktoberfest, but according to him its a good thing he was wearing good quality underwears. haha. And he was teaching us Australian phrases, hence the title. Oh the people you meet.

Czech me out-direct t-shirt logo

the czech republic... where do i begin? oh the stories we accumulated on this very short but crazy weekend. To start off the trip, we took a night train to prague or praha as it is referred to in Europe but of course I didn't get that memo until I got there and realized that no, praha wasn't just a funny name Callie and Lauren made up. Nevertheless praha is absolutely breathtaking. I had no real expectations of it apart from Chasing Liberty and so when I arrived it was a completely new experience. The buildings are incredible and the architecture is so unique and such a mixture of the eastern European influences and a little bit of the Mediterranean influences and of course the renaissance. Overall it was simply beautiful and I took more pictures of the buildings and scenery than of the people I was traveling with. We got really lucky with our hostel because it was right by the main bridge and the central hub of all the cultural activity. So, although at night, say 2 am in the morning, I was so abrubtly awoken by obnoxiously loud and inconsiderate male species, the place was perfect. But I feel like in the amount of time we were there we saw a good deal of things. We saw part of the castle, a beautiful cathedral, the astronomical clock, and my favorite: the mucha museum. I had never heard of the artist Mucha but one of the girls I travel with, Lauren, is in love with his work and so she took us to see his museum and it was incredible. I can't truly explain the new love of art I now have but it spoke to me. But for the most part we just walked around and took in the city. At night we went to some cozy restaurants and just talked for hours about our futures, what we want out of this trip and for each other and it was the best memories. I am surrounding by outstanding women. I say women because that is what they are, we are no longer 'ladies' or 'girls' but the Lord is forming in each of us womanhood in Him. It's one of the most beautiful processes I've ever been able to be apart of. Back to the interesting stories though: one: its about 11 pm and we are at a restaurant having drinks and it's our last night so we don't have any more czech money left we only have our debit cards but news to us-this particular place doesn't take cards OR euros. this is the moment we realize we have no way to pay...so bb and danielle take it upon themselves the sweet souls to run, yes BB ran, to find an ATM to get money but they were all closed duh our luck. but thankfully danielle found an exchange place. crisis averted. which brings us to story 2: its sunday and we are supposed to have an all day train transportation experience in order to get home but it's free so we were all about it. However, we weren't quite prepared for where the train station was and all we knew was that it left at 8:40 but we didn't have kathleen or anyone's phone number so we were kind of on our own. But danielle our fearless leader took charge and started to guide us through the city but little did we know the train station was located all the way in suburban prague/communist sketch neighborhoods of the ghetto. so after a few deep breaths, and some creepy men staring us down as we were frantically walking along the abandoned streets, we finally arrived at the station an HOUR AND A HALF LATER. but we made it! and i have never been so happy to be in maastricht in my life. I think ive hit the 'home' stage finally.

Well hello Crepe, love of my life

The animals + the eiffel
sacre coeur and andrew our awesome host
this is the apartment, but it was right by the notre dame--great view

I discovered the crepes under the Eiffel Tower and all I can say is that life is beautiful. Just for your information, heaven consists of bananas, nutella, and whipped cream. Done. Paris was absolutely magical. I really do love the city. This was my second time to go so it was a different experience than before. I felt like I could really just enjoy the places we went instead of feeling like I had to rush and see it all. But it's kind of hard to describe all of our adventures that we had because it seems like such a blur even now. We stayed with lauren's friend Andrew who just moved to Paris and he was so gracious and let us stay. The apartment was such a European apartment and it was great. We were nice and cozy. He gave us the bed so all four of us (Daniele, Rachel, Lauren and I) layed horizontally on the bed at night. We're all real close after the 3 night cuddle fest. my favorite part was probably the night we went to the montmarte district, a really artsy part of town, and had grabbed food for a picnic and just sat on the steps of the Sacre Coeur Cathedral and looked out onto the most beautiful view of Paris. It was so nice to feel the culture and enjoy the city while the sun was setting. The moulin Rouge was also in this district so Rachel and I performed our own rendition of Elephant love Medley in front of it before everyone started staring and we got embarrassed or before Lauren decided she didn't want to be the director anymore. Facebook posting will come shortly for our musical debut. The eiffel tower is still magnificent and never loses its charm. Sunday we got to just sit and read in front of it at a park and it was soothing. It was hard to be away from church but at the same time it was good to know and realize that He is everywhere and a grassy knoll can become a sanctuary. It was stressful travelling not going to hide that but we made it and hopefully next week we will be more equipped to handle the tempers and frustrations we encounter. I was just in another country...I'm still letting it seep. Whoa---

oh! I almost forgot to mention the killer market that we went to and i purchased an authentic Moroccan leather bag love it.

Dorm Life Again...so fun

So the past two days I feel like we have been quarantined in the dorm doing constant reading and homework for school. We literally have only left for class and this morning-the market. Other than that we have been super ansy all night trying to concentrate with little success. I have discovered a love for making others videos of myself lipsinging to old songs and it makes me happy. Others should be blessed by it as well I'm sure. Tomorrow is Paris! I love that we can just say that like it's no big deal. "Oh, we're just off to Paris" This is my life and its a wonderful dream I've decided to stay in which probably means a comatose for the rest of my life but I'm ok with it. I'll always have Paris...and the animals. Clearly I'm a bit delusional from the studying. Love you all.