Amsterdam & Paris

So, last Friday we left for Amsterdam. Landed around 8 or so, the flight was only an hourish, fairly uneventful. Met up with Belinda and her cousin Wing there, then headed to the hostel. We stayed at the Amigo Hotel, and it's great if you need some place to sleep, but the stairs in it are absolutely ridiculous. More like a ladder than a staircase, and it's spiral on top of that. But it wasn't too bad, I only think it'd be a problem if you had a huge suitcase. So after we dropped all our stuff off, we headed out to see the Red Light District in all its... glory? It was pretty much what you'd expect. Any one want details, feel free to ask, but since I have no idea if my little cousins read this, Imma try and keep this pg-13. On our wandering we stopped by a donner place and got some donners for dinner, then wandered around some more before going back to the hotel to sleep.

Saturday, we woke up, and didn't really know what we wanted to do, so we started wandering around some more, went through the Red Light District again, there's an old church in the middle of it, so we went in to look at it. It was mosty empty, and they had a photography of the year exhibit in it. So, a bit disappointing since all the churchy stuff wasn't there, but it was still cool. After that we ended up going in a sex museum and wandered some more until we found this really awesome cafeteria place. There were tons and tons of kinds of foods there, only problem was how long it took because of the lines there. After, we had kind of planned on going to street market and then a museum, but it was getting kind of late, so we just went to the street market. Then we ended up in a liquor store, and found some butterscotch cream liquor. Decided it might go good over ice cream, so we wanted to go see when the grocery store was open till. By this point I needed money, so I tried to get some out, but it wouldn't give me any. I try another machine, same thing. Called home, turns out the bank had called the house, I'm like great, this'll be fun. So we went back to the hostel so I could call the bank and get my card unfrozen. (If your card doesn't work and you're abroad, call your house and see if the bank just tried calling. If they did, then your card is frozen.) It ONLY took me 45 minutes to get it all fixed, and probably a half hour of that was trying to find a way though the automated system to talk to a representative, then when I finally got to one, I had to be transferred and got put on hold. Pain in the ass. But then it worked! So we went out to start looking for some place to get dinner. On the way, it started raining. We happened to be in Chinatown, so we ran in a random chinese restaurant and ate there. After, we just headed back to the hostel and slept.

Sunday, we woke up, went souviner finding, went through another little street market, then got on the train to Paris. Got to Paris, checked into the hostel, dropped our stuff off and went to go see Sacre Cour. It's a big fancy church in Montmarte, and is the highest ground in Paris. We had wanted to go up to the top, but we didn't since we got there a little late and then missed the sign for the entrance. After, we walked past the Moulin Rouge, and over the cemetary in Montmarte, then decided to find some dinner. We ended up at an Itallian place that had carpets on the walls. Food was ok. After that, we ended up walking to the Arc de Triumph, and from there walked to the Eiffel Tower. Arc is better in the daytime, but the Eiffel Tower is super sparkly if you're there on the hour. Then we went back to the hostel and slept

Monday, woke up, had breakfast at the hostel, then set off for the Louvre, where we spent all day. ALL DAY. After it closed, we went and ate at a Japanese restaurant. I got the only cooked thing on the menu that wasn't fish. Go me! Then we went back to the hostel, stopped and got some ice cream on the way, so that we could have ice cream with the liquor we got in Amsterdam. They're better by themselves. Then we slept.

Tuesday, woke up, eventually made it to Versailles, went through the palace, then the gardens, then went back to Paris, and we had planned on walking down Champs Elluysisihsoihfoishfe street with the trees. I apologize for murdering the French language. We needed to transfer subways, but Jake lost his ticket, at this point we were one stop away, he said he'd walk, I said hang on, we'll all go, and then he disappeared and we waited forever, and eventually went back to the hostel afeter not walking down the street and found him there. So... yeah. That was ridiculous. Then at like 10pm we went to another itallian place for dinner. It was tasty. I got some limoncello after, and then all us girls split a creme brullee. Yeah, this is why I took spanish. It's easy to spell. Then back to the hostel and sleep.

Wednesday, woke up, went to Sacre Cour again to go up to the top of it, that was pretty cool. Then we went to Notre Dame, which was also cool, managed to lose Belinda and Wing for a while, then we found them. We walked around the church to see all of it, then decided to go see the bastille and the garden by Victor Hugo's house that James said was supposed to be nice, but was actually kinda boring. We had dinner at a bar there, then Jake decided he wasn't feeling too good so he went back to the hostel, and we walked down the street with the trees. Finally found a gift shop that had charms for my charm bracelet. Then I decided I wanted to go see the eiffel tower again, so we walked over to it, and stayed there for a while, got to watch them turn the lights on. Then back to the hostel and to sleep.

Woke up Thursday morning, went to the airport. France thinks I'm a terrorist too, got pulled aside for them to go through my bag because I had gotten a bottle shaped like the eiffel tower and they wanted to make sure it was empty. *sigh* I hate going back and forth between England and the continent. Continent always thinks I'm a terrorist, and getting back into the UK is a pain in the ass, because they actually ask you 4093854 questions as to why you're there. Every other country we go into is like, woo hoo! I have a stamp! STAMPY STAMPY STAMPY!
Anyway, no major problems on the trip, other than losing Jake for a bit.


Friday I had my Statics final, it went pretty good, I'm pretty sure I got at least an 80 on it, probably more like a 90, but not sure. Then I went and got my Chivalry essay back and got the grade for the class, ended up being a "low first" which is basically an A. Dunno, grading system here is weird.
Also on Friday, I woke up and realized I was sick. Since yesterday at about 2pm, I've gone through nearly 2 liters of orange juice, a liter of chocolate milk, some regular milk, some water..... Imma drown this sickness, because I don't want to be sick for London tomorrow-Wednesday. And I've still got a liter of apple juice I got that I want to finish before we leave too.
Surprisingly, I think the OJ is working. I'm feeling better today than yesterday. Yay.

Pictures... will be up eventually. Sorry for the delays.