One week into our travels...

Sorry my last blog ended on such a ridiculous note. Let me continue with the story of our first night in Prague.

James and I had previously made a reservation for the next night in another hostel further into the city. We already had the address, so we decided to go see if they had any beds available. They didn’t, of course… but they were nice enough to point us across the street to a somewhat sketchy hostel that pretty much looked like heaven compared to what we’d just experienced. We needed a place to park our car though, so the nice man running the place let us squeeeeeze the Fiat into what seemed to be a storage room. I had to get out of the car before James pulled in, and he barely got his door open to get out either. But frankly, at that point, it was a miracle that we were about to go sleep somewhere that did not ensure death; we were very thankful.

The next few days were spent exploring the city, which just so happens to be BEAUTIFUL, and hanging out with Bryan, James’ roommate. There’s a really gorgeous river running through the city, and the Charles Bridge had a famous tower that we went up to get a 360 view of the area. We saw the astronomical clock toll in the city square and all of the apostles come to the little windows in the clock (it’s very strange and kind of anticlimactic, but people freak out about it). We explored a big hill and park on one side of the city and ran across a cherry orchard and ate ourselves silly. We went to a lot of STRANGE restaurants that play even stranger music. Everything from oldies to 90’s to some random Praise music in a Thai place. All of the music I have experienced so far in Europe has been more American than the music I listen to in the States. It’s sort of disappointing honestly.

We ended up staying in Prague an extra day because we loved the city so much, but we did eventually make our way to Berlin. Prague was a hard act to follow, but we enjoyed Berlin very much. My favorite part was definitely poking around an antique bookstore on our last day. I was looking for something interesting for my daddy and had sat down on the floor in front of the Physics/Chemistry/Astronomy section and amongst all of these volumes of German science was a completely random biography on Calvin entirely in English. I decided I had to buy it, I mean it was placed there specifically for me to pick up, was it not? Haha. We lost track of time there, which made us late to Amsterdam, but it was completely worth it. I bought an old journal with lots of beautiful handwriting in it that I can’t read, but a lot of pages are still blank so I’m going to finish it for the person who never did.

Bryan was still with us in Berlin and it was incredibly helpful because he’s fluent in German. Who knows what we would have eaten or which train we would have gotten on. We’re lucky ducks. We saw some more very pretty churches and some really sweet art galleries—one if which was once an abandoned building that a bunch of artists took over and just turned into a huge work of art. You’ll be seeing pictures of it, I promise.

Berlin was a strange place, it was very sparsely populated for a city one would assume to be some major center of business or study.

Bryan had to leave us to go back to Bamberg for class, and we headed toward Amsterdam, where I am currently. The hostel we’re staying at is something right up my sister Mandy’s alley. It’s just a bunch of hippies in campers by a lake about 10 minutes outside of town, I love it. There are ducks, roosters, and other little animals everywhere and the atmosphere is just incredibly chill. It’s nice to stay outside a city for a couple of nights and not have to hear sirens and traffic constantly.

Amsterdam was much, much different than I assumed it would be. I’m sure you’ve heard all of the stereotypes about this place, but I thought it was pretty nice. We never ran across the red-light district, and even the advertisements/etc. were tamer here than in the other places we’ve been. Canals run through the city; old couples and groups of teenagers just sit on their boats and ride up and down. There are tons of really interesting little stores with random things like puppets and tins. I didn’t however find one particular store I was looking for that my Swedish friend Sophia told me about; I guess I’ll just have to make another trip back here very soon to look again!

In the morning we’re headed for Belgium. We decided to go to a smaller town than Brussels, so I’m excited to see it. Also, I think the countryside we’ll see tomorrow will be beautiful. I promise to try to write again before I leave Paris next week!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Mindy <><