I.AMsterdam

While spending time in Germany with my fantastic grandparents, Anthony and I knew we would want to take a little train trip to visit somewhere new.  We decided on Amsterdam because it's only a few hours away, and it's somewhere I've always wanted to visit.  Boy, did we make a great choice!
          In short, Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful cities I've been to.  All, yes, ALL of the building are so pretty to look at.  The buildings give a bit of an old feel to it, but it's bustling with people, and is very modern with all of easy public transportation and everything.  The wonderful warm sunshine weather we got during our stay made it hard not to like.  It was glorious.
         We had planned to go Thursday and Friday, to try and avoid some of the weekend insanity, but when we went to get our tickets (we could buy them right from an office in Ratingen here) the man (who I'm positive was a German version of Ken, one of my old managers at DQ/OJ) informed us that we'd save about 35 Euros by booking 3 days in advance, so that meant Friday and Saturday.  Friday morning we got on the train and had to transfer once in Dusseldorf to get on the international train.  As we're coasting along just about to Dusseldorf, I realize..."oh bollocks!  I didn't bring our passports!"
      Anthony tries to assure me (weakly) that it'll be ok, we might not need them... entering a new country..... but it's by train.  Crapstick.  Well, it IS the E.U still. We get on the connecting train anyways, and figure we'll deal with it when we get there.  Along the way to Amsterdam, some guy comes around asking to check ID's and Passports.  First, I must point out that this dude was casually dressed in jeans and a shirt, and was walking around with a backpack on, he really didn't look very authoritative.  Everyone else was handing over their cards, most people being from the E.U, only needed to show an ID.  I did the same, and gave him my South Dakota driver's license.
       He looked at it.  "Where are you from?"  "The United States."  "Do you have your passport?"  "Uh.. no, I forgot it in Germany at home."  "You are traveling to another country?"  "Yea... sorry."  "This doesn't tell me you are American.  I can go here and get one of these too."  A pause while he takes out a little magnifier to inspect my ID closer.  "Ok," finger point! "Next time you need to remember to bring the passport." "I will, thank you!"   Then he looks at Anthony and says "Same story with you?"  "Yup..."   I try to do what I can to help improve the image of Americans in foreign countries :)
        Yay!  We made it through the border and in to the Netherlands.  After finding a map of the city we decided to skip taking buses and just wonder through the city until we found the places we wanted to visit.  Ah the weather was so perfect!  It was a lovely stroll, stopped for some lunch, and amazingly enough, we fond our first destination- the Anne Frank house.  It was around noon time, and the line wasn't very long, we waited only maybe 15 minutes to get in.  It was incredible to be able to go inside and walk around and see where they really were.  Very powerful.  I was so impressed with all the languages everything was in.  When watching videos, they had phones you could pick up and press any number of buttons to get a variety of up to 10 languages!

       Next we wanted to go see the Van Gogh museum.  These are the two attractions that gave me the main desire to come to Amsterdam.  We continued walking along the canals, in no hurry.  Along the way we stopped in a main square area.  I learned one word in Dutch (I think)  "plein" means "square."  So a lot of the area names were like "Leidseplein" means "Leidse square."  Maybe "leidse" means something too, who knows.  We stopped in this area to get a drink and watch some hip hop rapper/dancers put on a show.  This area was full of people, but didn't feel too crowded.
      Continuing on, we found the IAMsterdam sign, took some pictures, and then joined loads of other people in laying ourselves out in the grass under the sunny skies at Museumplein, (Museum Square) which is a big park area.  Conveniently, one of the museums here is the Van Gosh Museum!  We got inside and spent a while enjoying his paintings.  Only two floors, so not very overwhelming as far as most museums go.  After this we went to find food, sat around watching people, walking about.

       Our hostel was around 20 minutes outside the city area by Tram, which didn't feel like it was out of the city, really.  It was about the only place we could find that was both under 400 US dollars, and didn't require us to stay 4 nights due to the weekend.  This place used to be a hotel, but converted to a hostel a few years ago, so each room had a fancy little hotel bathroom in it!  Score.  We even got a huge breakfast with it.
        The next morning we made plans to meet up with Nate.  Yes, we seem to be following each other all around the world.  He was also traveling in Europe after leaving Taiwan, and messaged me saying he was in Amsterdam for the week, worked out that we would be there over the same time.  We met outside the train station, and while waiting here I noticed one of those big machines that play like a full band old circus type music.. but it's just a machine.  They're usually decorated quite nicely, and look kind of like an organ.  After leaving the train station and walking to (another) square area to have coffee, we passed loads of them on the street, and there were even more scattered all throughout the square.  They were very loud to walk next to, and with all the people, it did kind of feel like a Saturday morning circus!



         This was Nate's second time in Amsterdam, but he agreed to go on a boat tour of the canals with us.  He even knew a place where we could get cheaper tickets.  At the dock it would have been 14 Euro, but we only paid 8.50.  It was an hour long tour around the many canals of Amsterdam.  They gave you head sets (you could also choose up to 10 different languages to listen in) and told you all about the places you were passing by and the history of it.  It was super neat.  After this we got lunch, and walked around enjoying the city.
        Originally I had suggested we rent bicycles.  I love bicycles and it sounded like fun.  After just a short time walking in Amsterdam, I realized it probably wouldn't be a good idea for me.  First, I had no clue really where we were going, and there are SO MANY bicycles.  I remember the tour telling us an outlandish number, but I forgot, so Googling it just now it says that there are 780,000 people living in Amsterdam, and 880,000 bicycles!  Our course many people rent them while traveling here, too.  I deemed it unsafe, and that I would probably hit either a pedestrian, or another fellow biker.  Then Saturday morning while taking the bus in to the city, we for real almost hit a lady on a bicycle!  She wasn't looking and tried to cross the street, the bus had to honk and swerve out of the way.  I must be bad luck on buses, first hitting a car, then almost a person.  I figured this was a sign that I shouldn't rent a bicycle that day either.  Hence, we chose to go by boat.



       Soon it was time to leave already.  It was a short trip, and I'm sure we could have fit in many more museums or attractions.  Amsterdam is just such a lovely place we wanted to spend our time outside and looking at the buildings and bridges, walking around and checking it all out.  Next time we can see more, as already I'd love to go back again!
       We didn't get badgered about passports, or any form of ID on the train coming back to Germany.  This leads me to believe that perhaps that man on the first train was just a skeez, maybe trying to steal identities!  So, good thing he didn't get his hands on our passport numbers!

Happy Days in Ireland

            We left Taiwan on August 27th for Ireland.  Before I can get to Ireland, first we need to pass through the airport, not only in Taiwan, but also Bangkok and Abu Dhabi.  I was a bit nervous on how all these flights would go, as the first leg was with China Airlines, fine we'd flown with them before, but the 2nd two connecting flights were with Etihad Airways.  This is an airline based out of Abu Dhabi and I had no idea what it would be like.

  Also, I should note, that 2 days before leaving Taiwan, Anthony had an unfortunate mishap with a metal ledge outside Ben's apartment.  This means he fell and gashed open his wrist, right below his thumb, very near to that main artery.  He had to take an ambulance to the emergency room at 2 am and get 4 stitches put in.  I was at home this night, and woke up to him coming into the room, just covered in his own blood, looking like he had been in a gun fight!  Pretty scary.  When I hear the words "taking an ambulance," I immediately think, 5,000 USD.  The total cost of this trip was 600 NT, or 20 USD.  So, thank goodness it happened in Taiwan and not in the States!  This accident comes in to play in the fact that now Anthony has a gimp hand and is unable to use his left hand to do anything productive, like pack, or carry bags.  We visited the doctor Monday morning before leaving, and he said the stitches should come out the following Saturday. (Update on this later)

  Since Anthony and I decided to travel before coming home, this meant we wouldn't be able to bring as much luggage with us as we would have liked.  The flight to Ireland was very cheap, and then from Ireland we would fly to Germany, so we were only allowed one suitcase each.  Eeerp.  Let me take a second (just a second) to complain about our first world problems in that I wasn't able to bring everything with me that I would have liked, and trying to keep my one allotted suitcase at weight (23kgs) was also difficult.  In the end we each had one suitcase, each one duffel bag for a carry on, me a purse bursting with my computer and books, Anthony with a laptop bag, aaaand then one extra backpack.  There just wasn't any way to downsize more!
       I really should have sent some boxes home, but I worried about them getting lost, and then wasting money on shipping things.  Plus, the cheapest option to ship things would have me waiting almost 2 months for them to arrive.  Boo.
      I figured checking one extra bag wouldn't be that big of an issue.  Well, naturally I was mistaken.  When I asked about it, she told me it would be 1, 450 NT. PER KILOGRAM!  That means about 50 US for 2 pounds.  That backpack weighed 9 kgs and would have cost us over 400 US!!  No, no, no. So, we removed the bag from the scale and said, "ok let's make it a carry on."  The woman eyed all of our crap uneasily, but said we could give it a try.  Suitcases-gone.  Annika and Anthony- lugging around 100 pounds of crap through 3 airports looking like fools.  Did I mention we were both also wearing sweatshirts and jackets, as they took up too much room to pack... and it was 34 degrees C when we left!  We probably looked like first time travelers, but big deal.  Miraculously we made it through all of the security checks and onto the airplanes with all of our crap!  Happy days.
        Etihad Airways also proved to be quit wonderful.  We got served FULL meals on all 3 of our flights, even the one to Bangkok which was only 3 hours.  They had lots of options, and weren't too terrible.  I was impressed, I got pineapple crepes with sauce on one flight.
     So, now we've made it through all of the airplanes, 23 hours later (including layovers and such) we landed in Dublin!  I'm so confused on what time it is, I don't even know if I should be jet lagged or not, it was about 3 pm local time.  Our first hostel had free airport pick up, and we left 3 of our bags at the airport so we wouldn't have to carry it all over the country.  It was a little pricey, seeing as how we left it there for 6 days, but I would say totally worth it not to have to transport tons of luggage around every day and night.

     Ireland!  The first night was spent in Dublin, and we quickly became tired, so didn't make it out too late.  The next day we left on a 3 day tour with PaddyWagon.  Greta said I should take it as it's a popular tour guide option around Ireland, so we did.  They have a huge variety of package options, and we chose to do 3 days around the Southwest of Ireland.  I must say the weather was such a pleasant change from the dreadful heat and humidity of Taiwan.  It was cool, like fall!
     DAY 1 was a lot of driving from Dublin to the western cost.  We drove around Connemara which is very scenic and beautiful.  We stopped at Kylemore Abbey, an old castle, but didn't pay to go inside or up to it. Then it was just a nice drive to Galway where we listened to the song "Galway Girl" (think P.S. I Love You) and stayed in the city for the night.  We were all gathered together with people from other hostels and went on an Irish Pub Crawl.  It was kind of silly, because there were like 40 people on it, so we had to shove ourselves in to the bars, but it was a good time.  We played some games, like beer pong, and a lot of people from Europe had no idea how to play.  I also tried a Galway Hooker, which is a type of beer, not a person.  We were told Galway is like the Las Vegas of Ireland.  I didn't quite see it.

     DAY 2 we left Galway and were headed to the Cliffs of Moher!  This is one of the main reasons I wanted to see Ireland!  I was so excited.  While we were waiting for our tour guide to come pick us up, we saw another guide come to get the people on the 4 day tour.  After standing for a bit, I went to ask him to make sure that we were waiting for the other guy.  "Oh no, there was a break down and he had to go get another group."  Oh, ok, so were you just going to leave us here?!  No worries though, we got on the bus.  Driving for about 5 minutes, BAM.  The tour bus hit a car.  AH!  I had always wondered what that would be like, what would happen.  It was completely the other car's fault. He swerved right across our lane and tried to make his exit, but instead got railed by a big green bus.  Anthony and I were in the very back, but could see glass fly across the road.  Holy shit!  We later learned that the guy was trying to get some milk for his wife, instead he got his car smashed and his car was written off as totaled.  This surprised me a little, because although his entire driver's side door was smashed in, and the window gonzo, he was able to drive it away.  Luckily, no one was hurt in any way.  Just a slight delay to our trip taking off.  The driver told us later too that when he phoned the police, they didn't even want to come!  They said, oh, just take care of it, but the driver insisted, as he didn't want to get blamed for causing the accident.



      So, we're off for the Cliffs of Moher.  First we drove through the Burren, and along the coast.  Then we got to the cliffs, it was amazing.  So lucky to have a beautiful sunny day!  It was a little chilly, but the weather was fantastic.  I wish we could have spent more time here, I could have just laid in the grass for hours.  But alas, we needed to move on.  Did you know scenes from Princess Bride and Harry Potter and the Half Blooded Prince were filmed here?!  On to Kerry, where we stayed in a super small town called Annaskull or something like that.  Here there was pretty much one place- our hostel, and the bar/pub attached.  Later in the night there was karaoke where many people from our tour got to embarrass themselves, and the DJ was so kind, saying "see, you definitely don't have to be good to sing here" or "well, that was awful. Please never sing that song again."   








       DAY 3  Through Kerry and on to Killlarney where we took an early morning horse carriage ride through the National Park.  It was a little cold, but a pretty ride.

Here there were more old stone castles.  Ireland is just littered with them!  It's crazy how they built all this without any machinery.  Next we drove to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone.  If you aren't familiar with it, the Blarney Stone is a big stone way up in the top of a (surprise) castle where you must lay down and bend backward with an old man holding on to you to kiss this stone.  Kissing it will give you the Gift of the Gab (or eloquent speech) for 7 years.  We waited in line for over 2 hours to do this!  It was crazy, and had I been alone, probably wouldn't have waited in line.  But hey, it was kind of neat.














       After this we were a bit behind schedule, as we had to wait a long time, and Anthony and I had a train to catch in Dublin, but it didn't leave until 830pm.  We grabbed lunch to eat on the bus, and made one more stop at Dunamase Castle.  Out in the middle of nowhere, with pretty views of green, green fields.  Then headed back to Dublin, we drove by the fields where Braveheart was filmed! Yeahh, super cool!  Wait.. I've never seen Braveheart?  We made it back to Dublin with enough time to catch our train.  We were headed to Northern Ireland to Belfast for the next few days.
      Ok, I'm going to admit how much I don't know anything about anything.  I didn't really know that there's a Northern Ireland, and an Ireland, in the sense that Northern Ireland is part of the UK.  The rest of Ireland is just Ireland, or the Republic of Ireland.  Well whatdoyaknow?  So we got up to Belfast and stayed at a really chill hostel called Global Village and met a lot of people there.  One girl had been traveling, stayed at the hostel, decided "Hey, I really like it here, can I have a job?"  Now she works there and lives in Belfast.
       DAY 4  The next day we left and went to a tourism office to hop on (another) bus that would take us around Giants Causeway.  Along the way we also stopped at Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.  It was neat, but we didn't pay to cross it.


Then we ate at Bushmills Distillery, which makes Bushmills whiskey.  Not enough time to take the tour.  Giants Causeway was amazing to see.  It's an area formed by a volcanic eruption that happened millions of year ago.  The cooling lava formed all these (mainly) hexagonal shaped stones that go on and on.  It was kind of like the cliffs, but you could be down right against the sea, and all the stones and rock were fabulous.  The weather got a bit rainy here, but no down pours.




     After this day trip, we returned to Belfast around 730.  We went back to the hostel, where I tried to book tickets to the Titanic Museum for Sunday (the next day).  Some people from the Paddy Wagon told us about the museum, and that it fills up quickly, so although I tried to do it the day before, it was all sold out.  Actually the earliest to get in was 340, and our train left at 3.  Did you know that the Titanic was built in Belfast!  And it's last port left from was Queenstown (also in Ireland)?  There's this new museum that opened in April that is supposed to be awesome, but of course I wouldn't know, because I didn't get to go in.  Super bummed sauce.  The rest of this night we hung out at the hostel chatting, then tried to go to a pub that was way crowded with an ACDC type of cover band.  It reminded me of Benton Station (those of you from cloudy).  We left pretty quickly, and went night night.
       DAY 5  No Titanic, so we arranged to take a Black Taxi Tour.  We also heard about this through Paddy Wagon peeps.  You ride around in an old black taxi with a guy who's really old and has lived through all of the dispute between Ireland and Britain and how they came to be separate from the rest of the Ireland.  The history is quite interesting, and we shared the taxi with another couple from the states who was in Ireland for the big football game.  Oh yea, Dublin was bat crap crazy because on Saturday was a huge football game between the U.S Navy and Notre Dame.  They said the stadium was sold out!  This tour lasted around 1.5 hours, and we saw the peace wall, which is still up today.  It separates the Protestants and the Catholics living in Belfast, and it's called the Peace Wall because with it up, there can be peace that they don't have to live directly together.  Really crazy that it STILL is necessary.  I had no idea.  There are lots of murals and things along the way, and lots of British flags.  Lots of history, Google it.  


         After this we returned to Dublin on an earlier train and made it to the St. James's Guinness Brewery!  Anthony loves this stuff, and I actually like it quite a bit as well.  The tour was self guided, so we just kind of walked around and read all about it.  Then at one point you get to learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. It's complicated because Guinness Draft tastes the way it does due to the gasses in it, Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide.  After learning to pour it, you even get a certificate saying you passed, and are able to enjoy your pint of Guinness!  It was very sad to see so many people leave there pints after only taking a few sips.  But it would have been trashy to take them.  Don't worry, we really didn't.


        Since we had checked our luggage to keep at the airport, they're open from 6-11, and our flight left Monday morning at 7, we needed to collect it on Sunday evening.  We were going to just spend the night in the airport, but decided to stay at a hotel very close by, and it was pretty cheap.  Good thing the shuttle bus was broken down, but they paid for our taxi.
        We left for the airport around 4 am Monday morning and were able to get everything sorted without any trouble.  I had been anticipating paying a lot, as it was just a 2 hour flight, and their suitcase allowance was only 20 kgs as opposed to 23 kgs like every other airline.  We also needed to check the 3rd bag because they are said to be very strict on carry on's and even make you weigh them sometimes.  So we were over by about 11 kgs, but the lady was very kind and only charged us for 5 kgs over.  It was like 80 dollars, so pretty sucky, but our flights were so cheap and I thought we would have to pay way more, so it was ok.  En route to Germany to see Oma and Opa!!!!

     Side notes about Ireland.  Everyone really does seem to love Guinness, or maybe the tour guides are paid to promote it.  Our Paddy Wagon guide said "Happy Days" A LOT.  Like alll the time.  Everything was "oh, happy days."  I learned a wee bit of Irish/Gaelic.  Craic, pronounced like crack, means fun/entertainment/news.  "What's the craic?"  "Oh, it was some good craic last night."  "The craic is mighty in Galway."  I found this very entertaining.  You could even hear people saying it to each other on the streets.  It just made me think of Mean Girls "We gotta crack Gretchen Wieners."  "Say crack again."  "Crack."
     Overall, Ireland is very green and beautiful.  It was weird being in a bus for so long, after having just come from scootering myself all over Taiwan, so I was antsy to go exploring, but just had to sit and watch from the windows.  The people were friendly enough and offered a lot of advice.  We made it pretty much all across the country, aside from the very Southeast and Northwest corners.  Being in an English speaking country again was nice, but honestly it was still a bit difficult to understand such thick and strange accents, I felt at times they weren't even speaking English!

What's for Supper? plus Chinese Lessons with Anthony

         Taiwan is byebye.  Soon it will feel as if my year of living there was just a dream, but I hope not anytime too soon.  As Anthony and I have been traveling now full force, time for blogging has not been found.  However, this morning we arrived in Germany, where we are now staying for the next 9 days with my grandparents, aside from a 2-day trip into the Netherlands later in the week.
      I realize there are tons of things I could have should have written about while still in Taiwan, like the weird food, but that just makes me feel like such a touristy newb.  "Uck there's pig's blood cake and chicken feet!"  Local Taiwanese food is pretty different from the standard Chinese food you would think of, or at least I thought of before arriving.  They are really in to all the intestines and using all parts of the animal to eat.  In fact, they believe that when you are sick you should eat that same part of an animal to make yourself heal.
     For example, my stomach hurts, I should go out and eat some animal stomach, whether it be pig or cow.  Oh hey, my tongue is sore, I'll just go grab some tongue down the street.  Dang arthritis is getting the best of me, no worries, just have some pig's knuckles to heal you right up.
     This is not to say that the Taiwanese only eat random parts of animals for all meals every day.  You can find all sorts of rice and meat dishes, noodles, soups, dumplings (my favey fave), sandwiches, you know.  I know I've mentioned Lunch Boxes before, and those are a super great way to be able to try new things that you don't know what the hell they are, as well as choose something you know tastes good and you are able to swallow.  Many Lunch Box places are buffet style so you can just point to things.
        I may have told this story before, but one of my first times going to a non-buffet style Lunch Box place by myself, I had my Chinese all ready to say what I wanted.  Well, what do ya know, the lady had no idea what I was trying to say, so after trying to repeat myself a few times, I gave up and just pointed to a picture behind the counter.  Brahbrahbrah Chinese?  Uhh.. yes, I nodded.  I walked back to work with my food, and opened my box.  It looked like an ok mix of meat and vegetables and rice.  After I had a bite or two of the main meat, it was easy to decide that I did not fancy it.  A few weeks later I went to this same place, but with one of my Taiwanse co-teachers.  I told her what I wanted so she could order it for me, and I explained to her how last time I think I got something that was just like a huge piece of fat.  "Oh yea," she told me, "one of the options is pork fat."  So that explains that "mystery meat."  Moving on.
        Being surrounded by Chinese for the past year, it's pretty likely to pick up at least a small amount of the language.  Some are able to learn new words and phrases easier than others.  Some people study and take lessons, others use interesting ways to remember these words, and by others I mean Anthony.
     Anthony would hear a new Chinese phrase and immediately repeat it in a manner that mimicked it, but was extremely English.  Examples:    (please note I will only try to type these phrases to my understanding of how to pronounce them so that you may read them!)

 Chinese                  English                     Anthony's Chinese 
She nian quwhy luh        Happy New Year                 Shinny koala
 Pee-ow-luh                  Pretty                                   Pee on Londa
 Eee tee en dee en         A little                                 E.T Indian
Wuh I neee                   I love you                              Wall eye knee                                                                      
 
Some of them make a bit of sense, others are just silly sauce. That's all I can remember for now, his Chinese is quite limited, as is mine.