Wow! Where do I begin? The last three days have been extremely crazy! On Friday evening after class I took a shower and then about seven of us went out for dinner at De Rector. They had all kinds of pasta for only about 5 euros. It was great food and right on the square. However, it was extremely hot inside where we had to sit. We each had about 2 stellas (beer) with dinner. Shortly after dinner the city concerts began. The main stage in the square had an Irish Folk band with Irish Step Dancers who performed. It was awesome; however, we quickly found out that no one here dancers or hollers after a song. They just stand around, drink beer, and clap lightly after the songs are over. The beers were only 1 euro on Friday evening so most of us had quite a few during the concert. There were actually 5 different stages set up around the town. Throughout the night we made it to 4 out of the 5 stages. The theme for the evening was folk so all of the concerts were variations of folk bands. All of the concerts are free street performances. Throughout the entire month of July there will be this type of event every Friday night. During teh evening we met a couple Americans, had some cotton candy, and were even able to meet up with our professors during the night. A small group of us finally made it back to our student house around midnight. I took ANOTHER shower and started packing for our weekend adventure to Amsterdam the next morning. Brad and Jaime finally made it back here after 1:00 and Brad somehow managed to lose his wallet. We looked everywhere in our dorm for the wallet (since he used his ID card to get into the building) only to later find his wallet in his backpack!!!! He had put it in his backpack as soon as he got up to his room.
On Saturday morning I woke up around 6:00 AM and went downstairs to make a sandwich for the train ride. We all met outside around 6:45 and left for the Leuven train station around 7. We caught a train to Mechelen shortly after parking our bikes in the GIANT bike parking garage. The ride to Mechelen was only about 30 minutes. We got off there to change trains. The second train went straight to Amersterdam Central Station which is an enormous train station. It was about 2 and a half hours long. When we arrived in Amsterdam we were all hungry and realized that we had left the address to our hostel in Leuven at the dorm. So we went to Ben and Jerrys to use their internet and write down the name of the hostel and the address. The internet cost money to use. It also cost 50 cents to use the bathrooms pretty much everywhere in Amsterdam. Then we went to a store in the train station and purchased about 4 maps of the city. There were a total of 16 of us on the trip. We then began our walk throughout the city in search of food. When we got to the New Market which is a fresh produce farmers market, we found a few restaurants. Half of us ate at a sandwich shop called Steven's Cafe and the other half of our group had pitas. I had a bowl of fries with mayonaise ( I didn't eat the mayonaise) and a Cola Light! Then we walked through the Red Light District where we walked through a multitude of gift shops. We ended up all buying orange Netherlands soccer jerseys so that we would fit in during the game on Sunday. The jerseys were 10 euros since the guy gave us a group discount. In the Red Light District it is very evident that weed is a legal substance in the Netherlands. Also, prostitution is legal. There were many displays of women in windows that we passed by. After leaving the Red Light District, we walked to the Ann Frank House. The house was not much to look at from the outside. The line to get into the house was very long so instead we just took a few pictures and then decided to head to our hostel. Our hostel was located on a Camp Grounds with tents and motor homes and travel trailers and cabins. We rented 2 cabins with 8 beds in them each. There is a picture above of our hostel. It was very small and hot. The toilets were a little walk from the cabin but they were free to use. However, there was no toilet paper. The toilet paper, towels, sheets, and shower tokens were all sold at the check-in lobby gift shop. The showers were 80 cents so I only took one six minute shower during the weekend. We ended up having to take 3 taxis from Amsterdam to our hostel because it was located about 20 km out of the city. The taxi ride was 10 euros per person!!! About half of us decided to stay at the hostel while the other half of our group caught a bus and then the Metro back into the city. The group that stayed at the camp drank a few beers, played cards, talked, and played some other games. A few of us girls even ended up accidently going into the Men's side of the community bathrooms. Oops! Jake was especially funny during the evening. For dinner we bought 3 packs of spaghetti noodles, 2 jars of tomato sauce, and 2 long loaves of bread from the camp store. We cooked a huge meal of spaghetti in the community kitchen shared by the whole camp. Their is a picture of our meal down below as well. Later we met a group of guys from Holland that were staying right next to us at the camp. They taught us a lot about Holland and were very nice. They had come to Amsterdam for the weekend to watch the game and go to a party. We went to sleep and later woke up when the other half of our group got back to the hostel. It had rained quite a bit during the evening so they had to buy some ponchos and trudge through the weather to make it back home on the night bus.
On Sunday the group of us that stayed behind on Saturday night decided to go site see in the city. We left on the buses around 11:00 AM to head to Amsterdam. When we arrived, we ate an American hot dog off the street from a little trailer thing. It was good. Then we bought canal boat tour tickets for 16 euros each. There were 9 of us and we needed 10 people to get a group rate so we invited a couple to join our group so we could save 6 euros each. (The tickets are normally 22 euros each). The canal boat tickets were called hop on hop off. The city of Amsterdam is FULL of gorgeous canals. There were four different canal routes that the boats followed. The ticket we bought was good for 24 hours of use. We rode the orange route all the way around the entire city. During the tour it rained on us twice but the canal boat had a movable roof that the driver closed during the rain and opened after it finished. We met a couple from Illinois and some women from England during the boat ride. We saw the World's Oldest Windmill during our boat tour. There are also pictures above. We were also able to see lots of other cool sites throughout the city. We got off the canal boat almost back at the stop that we got on. Then we walked to the Heineken Experience which is basically a museum/tour of the brewery except super cool and exciting. It was 15 euros each to get in but that included 3 beers. The tour lasted 2 hours. We were able to pay 5 extra euros to get a personalized Heineken beer bottle with our names printed on it. Brad and I purchased one that says "Brad and Sabrina." It is super cool. At the end of the tour when we obtained our free beers, we had several people come up to us and hand us their tokens, so we actually ended up having more than 3 beers each. I was able to buy a few souvenirs for friends and family back home at the Heineken Store after the tour ended. After that we ate dinner at a Kabob place. Some of us had Kip (chicken) kabob sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, and sauce. Some people had beef or lamb kabobs meat wrapped in tortillas with vegetables and sauce. They were very good and interesting how they cook the meet on a giant scewer and then shave it off. Then we met the other half of our group at the Rijksmuseum which was located near the place that we were planning to watch the game which started at 8:30 PM. They had gone to the Van Gogh Museum before meeting us. They really enjoyed it, and I wish that our group would have been able to go also. Then around 6:30 we walked to the Museumplein where there were 2 huge screens set up for the public to watch the World Cup Finals game. We went into the crowd of a million people full of drunk people dressed in orange. Several of the people in our group bought vu-vu-zelas (not sure about the spelling). They are the orange horns used in South Africa at the games. They were cool but quite annoying! About 6 of us decided that we could not handle the chest-to-chest situation so we walked to a Deli a few meters away and bought a bottle of wine. We sat around and drank it until the game started at 8:30 PM. Then we walked to the very back of the crowd so that we could actually breathe and still watch the game. At the start of the game, planes and helicopters flew over the whole city and dropped down confetti and orange flowers. It was so crazy! Our group of 6 left the game at half time so that we could make it back to the hostel before the buses quit running. We walked to the bus stop, made a stop near the Hard Rock Cafe and Holland Casino for restroom breaks and then walked the rest of the way to the bus stop. When we arrived at the bus stop, we read the schedule and decided to wait 30 minutes for the next bus. After waiting an hour and not seeing a single bus, tram, metro, or anything drive by, we decided that the bus was not coming. About 10 minutes later, a van taxi drove by and we hopped in. We told him "camping" and he knew exactly where to take us. We listened to the first round of overtime while on the way back to the hostel. It was 0-0 during that time. This taxi ride was only 7,50 euros each. During the drive he drove up to 130 km/h. Super fast! Three more in our group arrived around 2:30 AM and the rest of our group arrived around 4:30 AM.
This morning we woke up at 10 AM and began to pack up, brush our teeth, and clean our cabin. We had to check out by 11. Brad gave the keys back to the people to get his drivers license back and then we headed back to Amsterdam to get to Central Station and catch a train back to Belgium. I ate a few potato chips for breakfast. We rode one bus for 2 euros a couple kilometers to our first stop. It started pouring. Then we got on the second bus for 4 euros that was supposed to take us to Central Station. Due to construction, however, it only took us halfway there. When we arrived at the final stop, the bus driver told me that we could take tram 17 to Central Station. I looked behind the bus and saw the tram and saw that it was about to leave. So I hopped on the tram and before I knew it, the driver closed the doors and drove off. I was the ONLY one in our group on the tram. I started screaming at the driver until he stopped and let me off the tram. I have NEVER been so scared in my entire life. We then walked 25-30 minutes through the town of Amsterdam to Central Station. When we arrived at the super busy station, we looked at the departure board and found a train leaving for Brussels, Belgium in about 5 minutes. So we ran upstairs and hopped on the train which was unbelievably packed. Most of our group ended up sitting on the floor in the hallway of a train car. The train was so packed that the conductor never even came and checked our tickets or Eurail passes. The train ride was 3 hours from Amsterdam to Belgium Central Station. In Belgium Central we got off and tried to find a train to Leuven. We found a train leaving for Leuven in 4 or 5 minutes so we rushed to the stop and waited. We did not see the train and thought we had missed our chance to get back to Leuven until some nice lady helped us figure out which train to get on. We got on a train there that went to the Brussels Airport and then directly to Leuven. When we arrived back here at the train station in Leuven, we were excited to find our bikes located exactly where we had locked them up in the mile long bike parking garage. I had to urinate horribly and we were all starving since it was 5:00 PM already. We had been travelling all day! I followed Jake, Kirstin, and Brad back to the dorm. However, we ended up getting lost on our bikes for the first time since we arrived here in Europe. We finally got turned the right direction and arrived back here at the house 30 minutes later. I jumped in the shower as quick as I could. Then I unpacked all of my stuff and bundled up my dirty clothes. I uploaded pictures to facebook and check my email. Then Brad came to get me and we walked to the square to get Pizza Hut for dinner. We got 2 small ham and cheese pizzas (Canadian bacon). They were like personal pan size pizzas and tasted just like they do in America. They gave us a 50 cent student discount. So the pizzas were 6,50 and each of us got a Pepsi! They finally accepted my Visa card. It was only the second time that I have used it the entire time I've been here in Europe. Then Brad and I came back here to the dorm and met up with Kelsey and Molly to go do laundry. We found some laundry detergent here at the house and took it with us to the Washateria. The washers cost 4 euros each to use. The dryers were only 1 euro. When we got there we started talking to a guy there. He invited us to come to a bar across the street while our clothes was washing. He bought us each a round of drinks. He challenged Kelsey to a running competition tomorrow evening. Then we went back and dried and folded our clothes. We got back here to the house shortly after 9. I was then able to Skype with my cousin and roommate Claire. It was great!
Now that the weekend is over, I am pretty much out of Euros or cash. I need to find an ATM machine tomorrow very badly. I am glad that we survived Amsterdam. I am hoping that some of us can go to Muenich, Germany on Friday through Sunday. This week we have class Tuesday and Wednesday. We have our first field trip on Thursday. However, next week we have class Monday and Tuesday and a field trip on Thursday. We do not have class next Wednesday because it is a Belgium National Holiday. This week my job of the student grader begins. Tomorrow evening I will have some papers to grade for Dr. Engler's class. Amsterdam is very similar to New York City except different in many ways. It was extremely crowded and overwhelming. We met one Aggie while in Amsterdam. It was exciting. We were all relieved when we made it back here to Leuven this evening. Although the Netherlands actually ended up losing the World Cup game 1-0 to Spain, we had a great weekend. It was Spain's first time to ever make it to the Finals so I am happy for them that they won. However, it would have been super fun to see how the city of Amsterdam reacted to the win if Holland had won. Our trip was amazing, and I definitely made some wonderful memories this weekend.
Once again, I miss my mom, dad, sister, and Hope and everyone else from back home. Brad is also homesick even though we have only been here since Wednesday. We are having a great time though and trying to enjoy every minute of our stay here in Europe!
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