There's a kindergarten and a church in the Red Light District?

Amsterdam. A place where anything goes. We did an overnight bus ride and arrived in the city at about 6 AM but there was no sleeping because our walking tour started at 8 right after breakfast (I'm sure you getting the idea by now that we slept very little over these 10 days). Our tour guide took us through several... interesting (to say the least) places beginning of course with the Red Light District. There were some prostitutes sitting in windows even at 8 AM. We went on another tour later in the evening and it was ridiculous. There is an elite street (the hot women) and a cheap street (the not so hot women). While the girls are waiting for a guy to tap on their window they are just casually reading a book or talking on their phones as if they aren't standing half naked in a glass window. It really was the craziest thing I have ever seen. And yes down the street from one of the sex shops was a kindergarten..I'm not sure why but apparently that's how accepted prostitution is in Amsterdam. The church though does have a purpose. Back in the day men who used to be tempted to stop by a sex shop after work would stop by the church and pay to go to confession because they felt so bad about sinning and cheating on their wives. This was the churches way of making money and it seemed to work because it was a beautiful church.

Doing a complete 360..we went to see Anne Frank's house. First of all the line was out the door and around the corner. We waited for about an hour but it completely worth it. Again, learning about Anne Frank from a text book and being in her bedroom where her actual magazine clips are still on the walls and her and her sister's measuring wall where they measured how tall they were growing is still intact are two completely different experiences. The annex was up an extremely high and skinny staircase and the windows are still blacked out. I hate to admit that I have never read the whole book "The Diary of Anne Frank" but have been inspired to do so after going to visit the annex where the hid. There was a horribly sad video clip that played at the end of the tour through the house about Anne's friend. Her friend saw her one day from across the fence in a concentration camp but was unable to get to her. Occasionally her friend would throw her food.  She said they only got to see each other once because Anne died shortly after this. Her friend made it out safely though.

The coffee shops in Amsterdam do not serve real coffee..but they are a lot of fun. What they do here is not legal (even though I thought it was in Amsterdam) but the police view them as "coffee shops" and ignore what goes on inside them.

We were in Amsterdam for two full days so the second day we went to the Heineken Museum to see how beer is made. It was a very hands on museum and I even learned how to draft the perfect beer!

Food in Amsterdam was pretty good. They have this place called Wok to Walk which is like a Stir Crazy but to go. There is a lot of American fast food too. We went to this place where the have pancakes which Amsterdam is known food and they were soo good. I got a salty pancake with eggs and mushrooms. It was like a breakfast burrito. I've been craving some good breakfast food since Italy doesn't do big breakfasts at all.

Amsterdam was a beautiful town with lots of canals and a tonnnn of bikes. The bikers are insane and will literally run you over if you happen to get into the bike lane (which I would strongly advise steering clear of).

Buuuurlin

My memory of Berlin consists of 2 things: sadness and cold cold weather. We only spent one night and day in Berlin. The first night we did the usually pub crawl with our tour group which was fun and then struggled to wake up for our walking tour of the city. This morning was particularly difficult not only due to the hangover but due to the freezing cold weather. It was cloudy, cold, and a bit rainy which really set the mood for the day. Most of the walking tour consisted of a lot of World War II history (Berlin Wall, Check Point Charley, the grounds of where Hitler's bunker was). The Berlin Wall was by far the coolest thing on the tour. Although I thought it would be taller some of the stories our tour guide told us about people trying to jump over it, hang glide over it, and dig beneath it were very interesting.  She told us one story about a man who hid his mother in law underneath the carpeting of the car and installed a special seat to fold down for his wife. When they got to one of the checkpoints he flung her seat backwards and floored it through the checkpoint right underneath one of the barriers.  After this the barriers were lowered so that it could not be done again.  I can't believe people were separated from their friends and families for such a long time. I couldn't imagine going to bed one day and waking up being told I could not go past a certain point regardless of who was there.

After the walking tour we took a train to Sachsenhausen which was a concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin. As I said before the overcast and dark weather truly set the mood. It was an extremely eerie feeling being on the grounds of a place like this. The horrible murders that went on here still linger in the air. It was very empty when we went which was an even eerier feeling. We walked through the barracks and saw the beds squished together and toilets. We walked past a few memorials where the names of the victims was an extensive list. The most shocking part of all was going to the ovens. They are still fully intact. Part of me wishes that they were completely knocked down just so that we can forget it ever happened. We learn so much about WWII in school but going to a concentration camp was a completely different experience. Seeing the remains of what went on here truly made me thankful for the type of world we now live in.

We also went to a Holocaust Memorial which consists of several pillars all at different heights. Some were very low to the ground and others were towering over my head. As I walked through the memorial it is hard to keep track of the people you are with and sound bounces off the pillars in a bizarre way. The artist of this memorial wanted people to get lost in thought and remember those who were victims in the Holocaust. It is also said that the different heights of the pillars is supposed to make us realize that such a wide range of people were effected.

So..now that I have made Berlin seem like the coldest, saddest place on earth I'll prepare you for my next stop: AMSTERDAM!!!

The Holocaust Memorial

Gates of Sachsenhausen

The ovens

Bunks through the window of a barrack

The Berlin Wall

Bagels and 90s music..Prague was awesome

So I just got back from 10 days of crazy traveling and long hours on the bus but it was totally worth it. We started out our trip with a 12 hour ride to Prague. We did a walking tour of the city with this guy Issac who was one of the funniest people I have ever met in my entire life. The first night we were there we did a pub crawl which was a ton of fun. The second day we braved our hangovers and did some exploring on our own. We went to the castle and cathedral that sits high on a hill overlooking the entire city. We got STARBUCKS (coffee in Italy is small and not nearly as satisfying as Starbucks if i didn't tell you all this already). Then we went the Lennon Wall which was pretty awesome. Its full of quotes about peace and love and was painted over several times before the government gave up and let people draw on the wall. We even added our own addition to the wall with our initials. Not only was Prague my favorite city of the entire trip because of the awesome sights we saw, but the had BAGELS!!!! Bagels are nowhere to be found in Florence so this was awesome! We went to an 80s and 90s music video dance club the second night we were there which was awesome and brought me back to my childhood with the spice girls and backstreet boys.  We also tried some  traditional Czech food. I had Goolash (spellling?)  which was actually pretty good to my surprise. Going out in Prague can get a little crazy though because absinthe, an alcohol that is illegal in America is completely legal there. So lets just say we all made it out alive.

So basically Prague was awesome. How could you go wrong with 90s music and bagels? I never really knew much about Prague but now that I've been there I would go back in a heartbeat!