Brussels and Amsterdam

Last weekend's trip took us to The Netherlands and, rather unexpectedly, to Brussels, Belgium, both on the northern coast of the European continent, between France and Germany.  We had all really wanted to make it to Amsterdam during this semester abroad to check out the world-famous and extremely unique city.  Dan and Lauren booked a flight a couple months ago and got a great price, but when the rest of us looked and attempted to book, the price had shot up and it was virtually impossible to pay to fly there for the weekend.  After talking to our friend Carly, the one we met up with in Paris and who is studying abroad in Brussels, she told me that we should consider flying to Brussels and then taking a cheap train or bus to Amsterdam for the rest of the weekend.  We were able to get great flight into Brussels, the capitol of the European Union, and then even cheaper Megabus tickets to Amsterdam and a nice train back to Brussels in order to fly out on Monday.

Ross and I, as well as our two friends Emily and Jordan, booked the travel together and headed out for Brussels very early Friday morning.  We landed in a very inconveniently located airport, Charleroi, around 9 AM and had to then find transportation for the 1 hour journey into the city.  Carly had arranged to entertain us in Brussels for the day and then see us off to our bus ride at 3 PM.  There was a shuttle bus system running fro Charleori to the city center, but it quickly filled with people and we were approached by a cab driver, who told us that if we could find 4 other people, 8 total, we could take a taxi van into the city for only 13 euros per person, the same price as the crowded bus, and only a 35 minute ride!  We did it without a doubt, got into the station, payed to go pee and then met up Carly.  She led us onto the metro system and directly to the city center.  There we walked through the downtown, the central square, and later met up with her friend Courtney, also from SLU and also joined us in Paris.  From there, we went straight for a delicious, Belgian waffle.  They were incredible! I got just the plain sugar waffle, with no toppings, but the others got Nutella, strawberries and more.  The waffles were thick and had little sugar crystals baked into the dough.  We ate them while sitting on the curb of the square, overlooking the town hall.  Later, we walked to the Royal Palace and on the way passed some sort of motorcade with police motorcycles parting the streets for a couple black mercedes to pass through.  We are not sure who was inside, but Carly and Courtney said it is a rather common occurrence in Brussels.  The capitol of the European Union is there in the city and the enormous office building, which houses the European Commission, was the next stop on our tour.  They told us that more than half of the residents of Brussels now work for the commission... sounds like Springfield.  haha!  On the way to the Commission, we walked through a beautiful park.  It has been awhile since we have been out and about in Madrid enough to notice the changing and nice fall scenery.  The aforementioned office building was certainly impressive.  It was a huge X shape and definitely looks like a place that would manage all of the EU countries.  We saw some other sights nearby, then got on the metro illegally, through a construction zone, which doesn't charge (and Carly and Courtney knew it!).  We took the metro to the city center once again, since the initial walk was much longer than anticipated.  Our next stop was for some famous Belgian frites, or french fries.  Carly explained that the fried there are double fried.  So they are super crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. They are served with a selection of sauces, but they recommended we try the Andalouse.  A sort of spicy mayo-based sauce.  Delicious!  We too the fries into a well-known cafe called Delirium.  The place is known for its beer selection and they told us that on some nights it is so packed, you can hardly walk down the street to get in.  We, of course, had to try they infamous 9 or 10% beers, so basically we only needed one before heading to catch our Megabus for Amsterdam.  It was a great stopover in Brussels and so nice to be reunited with Carly and Courtney over here in Europe!

The Belgian Waffle

Courtney, Emily, Carly, Jordan, Ross and I at the Royal Palace of Brussels

The Enormous European Commission 

Emily and I with Frites

Au Revoir to Carly in Brussels

We arrived in Amsterdam around 6 PM, but it was already completely dark and it is always terribly disorienting arriving into these cities at night with no sense of direction or location.  We followed onto the crowd onto a tram heading towards the city center, Emily and I evaded paying since the ticket man shooed us away.  Once there, we parted ways from the girls, who were forced to book in a separate hostel, and Ross and I searched out our, StayOkay hostel.  There we met Dan and Lauren, checked in, made our beds and went out to find something to eat.  The hostel reception recommended Lauren to go to the "little China" area for Chinese food, so we did.  Little China over here was not quite what I had in mind, with the roasting ducks and chickens hanging in the windows, overpriced, crappy buffets and generally weird (probably authentic) Chinese food.. ugh.  We picked the least threatening looking place and were not too happy with the food.  Dan got some dumplings, which were awful and the rest of us ordered a chicken dish, which was certainly edible, but nothing like you can find at home!  After eating, we went to meet up with Emily and Jordan, but first meandered though the unbelievable Red Light District, which was conveniently located just a couple blocks from out hostel.  This place was one of the craziest places I have seen.  Window after window of prostitutes standing and dancing for the passersby.  It was like a disgusting zoo.  Some of the girls were actually disgusting, while others were not too bad looking, but just so weird.  Needless to say we were all pretty creeped out, so kept on moving and met up with the girls in Dam square.  We walked around the streets together, got a few drinks and then ended up in a bar downtown, when randomly three friends from SLU walk into the same place!  The guys were also in Amsterdam for the weekend and just happened to run into us there. We hung out for as long we as could manage, then went back to go to sleep.

On Saturday, we woke up and took advantage of the free breakfast in the hostel.  We had made 12 o'clock reservations for the Anne Frank House tour, so we headed out, stopped for coffee at a cafe, then went directly to the house.  Anne Frank was a German Jew during the Nazi Holocaust and fled to Holland with her family to avoid capture.  The house they hid in was incredible, very secretive and intricate.  We got to walk through the home, reading excerpts from Anne's journals along the way and experiencing how they lived in complete secrecy, until their eventual capture and deaths at Auschwitz.  Next, we went to see one the hundreds of coffeehouses in Amsterdam, which are famous for selling pot!  The one we went to was featured in Ocean's Twelve and therefore drew a pretty big crowd.  They had awesome hot chocolate though!  We got some more fries like in Brussels afterwards and even had the same Andalouse sauce.  Without a doubt, the ones in Brussels were much better!  The Next we walked to a huge flower market along one of the canals and along the way, stopped into a cheese store, sampling every kind possible, and then into a couple souvenir shops to stock up on Amsterdam stuff!  After, we had to make an appearance at the famous I AMsterdam sign.  It was oddly difficult to find, but made for some fun pictures.  We separated from the girls once again, to head back to our hostels and regroup for the evening.  We met them at bar again in Dam square and then moved to another area where Emily was planning to meet up with a couple friends from highschool.  That never happened, but a repeat of the previous night occurred instead when the same three guys from SLU walked into the bar and joined us for the rest of the evening.  How fun!  We ended up leaving there later to go to a different place and I managed to escape with a pretty cool Amsterdam beer glass!!  We didn't stay out much later at the next place, but rather left to grab a snack at a place called Wok to Walk, a chain I did not know existed here in Spain, but it does and I am eager to find it!! They make fresh sitr-fried noodles on the spot and throw them into a cardboard box to take away!  So great!!

The Anne Frank House

Sunday was a more relaxed day, as it was our final day in Amsterdam.  We were returning to Brussels that evening to fly back to Madrid on Monday morning.  We met the girls at our hostel, as the four of us were storing our bags in Dan and Lauren's lockers there.  We went to breakfast, since we missed the free one, at a place for "pancakes."  The Amsterdam pancakes are much thinner and more like crepes, but we ended up getting "American" breakfasts, with bacon, eggs, a couple pancakes and juice and coffee.  Of course, nothing beats the Cracker Barrel or the Hen House, but this did come pretty close.  Despite the terrible service, it was a good start to the morning.  We had bought tickets to take a canal tour boat ride, so we went to the boat afterwards.  It wound through all of the little canals of the city, pointing out several landmarks and interesting things.  To burn the rest of the afternoon, we walked back through the city, again through the red light district (we had heard that all of the big girls are out in the day light -- very true!) and then went into the Bulldog.  The world's first "coffeeshop," according to them.  We got some drinks there a then went to the Hostel to collect our things.  Before catching the train, we stopped back through Wok to Walk for another serving of those delicious noodles!  Our train departed around 6:30 and arrived in Brussels three hours later.  We got some good sleep in on the train and I got to study a little for the two quizzes I had on Monday!  We were planning to meet up with Carly again on Sunday night, but considering the time, our exhaustion, my and Ross' quizzes and the fact that we couldn't get ahold of her, we just went to our hostel, checked in for the few hours we would stay there and went to sleep.

Dan, Emily and Lauren on our Canal Cruise 

Famous Seven Bridges of Amsterdam

I am not sure what happened to my alarm that was supposed to my alarm that was supposed to go off at 5 AM, but I woke to a very frustrated Emily and Jordan at 5:30 as Ross and I were scrambling out of bed to dress for the trip to the airport.  We struggled getting into the metro and ended up entering it illegally once again, made it to the train station (though going the wrong, much longer way on the metro) and into the same 8 person cab that we arrived in.  Despite all of the confusion of the early morning, we arrived to the airport earlier than we would have by taking the shuttle bus as we planned.  A two hour flight landed us safely back into Madrid after a long and eventful weekend.  We will rest for a couple days then head off to Netzbach, Germany for my birthday this coming weekend!