The Good, the Bad, and the Extensive Learning Experiences

Thursday, July 7th - Back to Amsterdam

As indicated in a previous post, we did make our way back to Amsterdam almost a week and a half ago, where we did the pub crawl in the Red Light District again.

Given the fact that we have made several friends in our program, this crawl had a different feel to it. Maureen and I met some amazing Swiss Germans and Jenna engaged in some unique business dealings for a friend who shall remain anonymous. No one made it back to Den Haag before 3 a.m. One of our friends got on the wrong train. I can only imagine what other people on the trains must have had to put up with.

Friday, July 8th - Adventures in Den Haag

It was around this time that we really started getting into the local establishments. We actually ended up making quite a few Dutch friends during our time in the Hague. It's a fairly small town, so not hard to meet locals when you frequent the same establishments pretty often. We tried to take some pictures of some of our daily sights, which were quaint and really nice.

Our way to the Duck and the circle:

The view from the rooftop of one of the dorm buildings was gorgeous also:

Lots of alleys:

Epic bridge in town:

We also got directions from our friend at the Duck to an ATM. He said it was across from the Alfa Romeo, and by God...it was.

Thanks to a recommendation from Aussie John (our IT guy/badass) by yelling up at my window, we found a fantastic beachside restaurant to eat at with Jon, Maureen and a professor from Stetson. We had a lot of wine (some of it from plastic bottles), a lot of food and a sensational waiter from New Zealand. We got to watch the sunset from our table, it was absolutely perfect.

There was a palace, and bungee jumping. It was unbelievable at night.

We got back from the beach and wandered around Den Haag looking for a bar that looked like fun. We walked by one that was playing loud alternative music and thought it looked like a good idea. Turns out, it was a great idea. We got an older British bartender who hooked us up on all kinds of beers and wine while we were there, and then charged us practically nothing for all of it. We also met the owner, and there were a bunch of late teens/early twenties just straight headbanging. It was pretty cool.

The British bartender, Martin, told us about a bunch of cool stuff going on around The Hague during our stay. We hung out there for a bit then Maureen, Professor Vaughan and I headed back (I wasn't feeling too well - had a cold coming on). So Jon and Jenna went to another local bar (and the only one open late at night), Cremers. They met some locals there and had their first Siberian Tiger experience...followed by a twenties' movie moment on a bridge. Truthfully it does feel like another era here; all the buildings are so old it's sometimes hard to remember where we are...

Saturday, July 9th - Delft

After realizing on Wednesday that we could no longer afford to go to London, we resigned ourselves to having fun all weekend around Den Haag. So Saturday we started out early at a local place that knew us pretty well - the Duck. We met a lot of local people there and hung out with people from school as well.

After finally getting our first batch of laundry done, Jenna, Jon and I ventured down to Delft - a small university town about 20 minutes (by tram) outside of Den Haag. We had heard good things and decided to check it out.

How I usually hailed Jon from his room, since no one has phones around here: "Jon! Are you awake?"

We wandered the small city and admired the architecture and justice buildings for a while. 

After that, we found a Mexican restaurant to have dinner. We had a few margaritas and enjoyed the ever-entertaining people watching. While we were there, we ran into some other classmates who had decided to join us instead of seeing a movie as they originally planned. After dinner, we decided to check out the night life.

We found a couple of fun dancing club bars as soon as we arrived. We ended up at one called Speakers for a while before we found a really crowded one.

Sadly the only picture I have of Speakers is the chandelier above the dance floor. Better than nothing, I suppose.

After a short time at the way-too-crowded club, we decided to head back (our fellow classmates had peaced out long before this). We ran into some locals on our way out though and ended up hanging out with a guy named Joey, who showed us some historical attractions around Delft. We wandered around for a while and went to William the Lion's former mansion and took some pictures. They may not have turned out too well since it was so dark, but we tried!

We also got the huge clock tower all lit up. It was breathtaking.

Sometime around maybe 3-4 a.m., we made our way back to Den Haag for the night.

Sunday, July 10th - Belgium for dinner? Why not?

Predictably, we had a late start after our late night in Delft on Saturday. After rallying everyone together (Maureen, her classmate from SC Harris, Jon, Jenna and I) last minute, we decided to go to Antwerp, Belgium for dinner. Thanks to Jon's perseverance and a delayed train, we made it.

On our way, Jon diligently studying:

While we mess around:

Arrival: 

Belgium was, of course, beautiful and full of historic architecture:

We stopped at an italian pizzeria and wasted no time ordering large beers. 

We walked around the city center, bought some souvenirs, and drank some Stella Artois since it originates in Belgium! (Another aside: something I really enjoy is that most beer glasses in Europe have the actual beer logo. Baller!)

And doing some work:

On our way back to the train station we had to try some world-famous Belgian fries. They were pretty good, but some of the sauces were not so much...

After another brisk walk, we made our way back to the train station for an hour ride back to Den Haag around 11 p.m. Then we took to the streets and Maureen had our first of many brilliant planking ideas:

Double plank:

Monday, July 11th - Harborside Dinner

After our first Law of Armed Conflict class, Maureen, Jon, Jenna and I decided to hit the town for the day and just wander our fair city of Den Haag. We managed to find an awesome bakery and go to town on some yummy desserts.

Before:

After:

On our way around (and in an attempt to see the Escher exhibit), we also took pictures of some local (and very strange) art.

While at the bakery, we ran into our friend from the local bar, Martin. We were originally planning on Korean barbeque that night but then he suggested a restaurant in a harbor area of The Hague, so we decided to check that out instead.

The harbor:

So we got a huge group together for dinner! 

Cool sink in bathroom:

The dinner was great (we had lobster soup, YUM), but the wine was better!

Upon our arrival back in town, we hit up Cremers (Siberian Tiger) and partied for a while.

Tuesday, July 12th - Peace Palace

Tuesday was very eventful. Instead of class, we went on a tour of the Peace Palace and heard a judge speak. We got to take tons of cool pictures while we were there (which apparently isn't usually allowed, so we got really lucky). 

Most of the palace is built up with gifts from different countries. For instance, Germany gave them the gate, the US built a ceiling, England some stained glass...there was a lot from Holland since obviously that's where it's located. Unlike the ICC, the Peace Palace isn't international territory (with the exception of the International Court of Justice which, when in session, is considered international). That misconception actually prevented the Germans from attacking during WWII to avoid the political mess that would otherwise be caused.

Here are a few of my favs:

Entrance:

International Court of Justice:

Belgian Fountain out back:

The manliest Lady Justice ever:

Our tour guide was great, and she was Dutch so that was cool too.

After the Peace Palace we hit the Duck (for cheese) and witnessed a straight up (potentially bank) robbery when we got back. These guys were trying to get on the second floor of what looked like a commercial building. None of us knew what to do. We all just walked by silently, open-mouthed, and stared. One of the guys said something to us about "losing his key" up there while the other guy climbed the drain pipe. It was completely absurd!

We decided to check out the Korean barbeque after all, and I cannot accurately describe the deliciousness of that meal. It was all you can eat, and man did I eat!

It ended up just being me and our classmate Manley at the end. We ate something between 15-20 courses, including spring rolls and dumplings. I have never eaten so much in my life. I had never had Korean before, so the others assured me that this was particularly good and not something I could find in the states.

Afterwards we may have hit up Cremers or that local bar again...all the days unfortunately blend together slightly at this point....(hence the extensive update).

Wednesday, July 13th - MC Escher

On Wednesday, we went to class, had a volcanic experience, and went to see an MC Escher exhibit at a local museum (after my first European McDonald's - Rolo McFlurry = winning). It was really fun. Most of his artwork is really trippy, so of course we took pics. It was recommended by everyone in our class and we were not disappointed.

There were awesome chandeliers: 

This was one of my fav pics:

Jenna liked this:

And an endless tower:

After that we wandered the streets of Den Haag looking for Jon, whose lovely girlfriend Kassie came into town that day. We were heading in the direction of our usual hangouts when we ran into them on the street! We all went to Cremers for some drinks and hung out until God only knows what hour...

Random aside: My beer of choice in Noordwijk was Palm, and we were drinking a lot of Hertog Jan in The Hague. It was all pretty good though! Trying to stay away from American products.

Thursday, July 14th - Chess and a Rainy Farewell to Den Haag - Bonjour Paris

Thursday we had our last day of class in Den Haag. It was kinda sad because we all really enjoyed the class and the professor. I made sure to thank him at lunch (he was retired military and showed us the most unique war videos in class) before we left.

Jenna and I took some time to pack before going to the Duck for the last time to say goodbye to our local friends. She and a classmate had an epic game of chess before we were on our way.

Unfortunately, Den Haag was about as upset as we were about our departure, and chose to make it as difficult as possible. This was the worst, rainiest day we had in two weeks, by far.

After the coldest transit and the rudest cabby ever, we hit the train for Rotterdam then on to Paris, which was only like 2 and 1/2 hours I believe. 

We got to Paris relatively late. Maureen and Maria (from OCU) were staying in a separate hotel, so we dropped her off first (Maria's train was delayed and came later) and then went to our hotel.

Maureen's staircase:

Thinking it wasn't too far, we decided to walk back to Maureen's hotel to get her. It turned out that it was a 20 minute walk in a not-so-great area of town. So that should give you an idea of how our weekend went right off the bat.

Ghetto, but still oddly pretty, streets:

I took a pic outside our hotel window at sunset:

We met Maureen and went to a bar on the corner for a beer before calling it a night.

What we stupidly didn't realize was that it was Bastille Day...so we barely got any sleep due to the explosions going on outside our window. Confused and annoyed, we tried to watch some French TV while I lamented the US release of Harry Potter and missing The Netherlands already...

Friday, July 15th - Bike Tours in Paris!

Friday morning we got up bright and early for our scheduled (recommended) bike tour through Fat Tire! It's an American run tour, so it was nice talking to everyone in English comfortably for the day.

Our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower:

We started off at the Eiffel Tower and went to the park to take some fun pics!

Police force around Eiffel Tower:

Funny, awesome, and true shirt:

We found out that basically all the tour guides are frat boys from Texas A&M. The company was started by a graduate from there, and word of mouth kept being passed down so that they all moved to Paris for like 6 months to a year to run bike tours. They were all pretty cool, despite their Texas roots =P. 

The day tour was from 11-3ish and was amazing! We hit all the major sights and took a ton of pics!

The main theme of the tour was domination, haha. We were all a little nervous about getting on bikes since it's been literally years since I rode one - but the saying proved true. You can never, ever forget how to ride a bike.

We started with the Peace Wall and the park behind the Eiffel Tower, which is all directly across from the military school that Napoleon attended. There are still bullet holes from WWII in the side of the building, and apparently these bullet holes exist all over the city (we spotted a few others!).

From there we went to a Palace/Napoleon's Tomb:

We also went by the Louvre for the first time:

And we upped our planking game....TRIPLE PLANK!:

And we went to a small cafe where I had crepes and Jenna and Maureen shared a french hot dog (yum to both!):

We were not the weak gazelles in the domination pack! Our tour guide wouldn't tell us his name, either. He went by "Peaches." I maintain my belief that Texans are odd people...anyway.

After the tour we met up w/some classmates and did a little shopping! Jenna and I bought cute skirts to go out in and Maureen got a kickass fall jacket (that has served her well in Switzerland, but I'm getting to that). 

We also walked down to the Arc de Triumph:

After much debate and deliberation, we ultimately decided to do the night bike tour with the promise of ice cream and a booze cruise instead of going out that night!

Highlights were Notre Dame:

The bridge where Big told Carrie she's the one!!!!:

There were also locks on all the bridges. What you do is two people write their names on it, then you lock it to the bridge and throw the key in the river, and it's supposed to symbolize everlasting love or something...haha. Anyway, it was cute. Although the padlocks kinda defeat the purpose...

We also rode all around the extensive courtyard of the Louvre, which was just...breathtaking.

We also stopped by an island where a lot of celebrities (including Johnny Depp!) have expensive flats:

And last but certainly not least, the booze cruise!!:

We made friends with some really cool Aussies (see above) who were super fun. And although the "booze cruise" ended up being on a huge boat and involved only one bottle of wine per three people, our tour guide Ben hooked us up with some extra and we were feeling pretty good by the end. We were also sitting by some New Yorkers on the cruise, who were pretty stereotypical, to say the least.

The best part was them expecting us to successfully ride bikes home after the cruise. They took us back by the Eiffel Tower before the end, and we took amazing pics of it lit up as well as some video.

After that, things got a little dicey.

This was the point at which Jenna and I realized that we cannot like Parisians.

Admittedly, we were a large group of mostly Americans with a wine buzz going, so we were being loud, sure. We were all taking pictures and gazing at the lovely Eiffel Tower (a tourist attraction, btw). So we all have our bikes parked in this parking lot when a car pulls out, narrowly missing some of us. Thinking little of it we continue our merriment until a second car starts to pull out and physically HITS Jenna's bike. 

What happened next was utter chaos. Jenna started yelling at him to stop while grabbing the bike, the driver pretended not to hear her, and the rest of the tour group moved around uncertainly. Finally he pulled forward away from her and the bike, and our tour guide flipped out (which made us quite happy). He banged on the driver's window and yelled at him that he knew she was there and shouldn't have kept going. After a lovely show of pretending not to speak English, Ben told him that just b/c we don't speak the language doesn't mean we aren't allowed in the country.

From out of nowhere behind us, the lady who pulled out first starts yelling at us about how "France has laws." I chime in and yell that they cannot involve hitting tourists on bikes. After a few minutes we all tried to calm down and just told them to drive away, which they did shortly after. It was completely absurd and soured us on the French for the remainder of Paris, anyway. 

After we got back from the tour, we promptly tried to get some sleep.

Saturday, July 16th - Museums and Clubs - Doing Paris up with a bang

After another night of seemingly unsuccessful attempts at sleep, we got up as early as we could manage to go to the Louvre (which wasn't too hard considering our curtains were a joke and kept out zero light).

Jenna was, of course, very excited for Winged Victory:

Other "highlights" were Mona Lisa (totally not worth the wait or the chaos or the shoving, but a must-see):

Venus de Milo of course:

The Hammurabi Code (oldest written law):

And there were lots of amazing sculptures, paintings, etc. We posed like a few of them:

After that, we tried to go to the Catacombs...but it was already 3 p.m. and apparently there was a 3 hour wait, and it closed at 4. So unfortunately that didn't pan out.

We went back by Notre Dame and took some more pictures before heading back to the hotel to go out on the town for the night!

So we went back to the hotel and put on our skirts and heels and went to Maureen's hotel.

Originally, we got this idea to go to the only skyscraper in Paris to take pics of the entire city at sunset (and getting the Eiffel Tower in them), but that didn't end up panning out either for one very important reason: JON CAME TO PARIS!!! After much prodding and convincing, we got him and his girlfriend out there with us!

But before they arrived we had dance parties and heart-to-hearts in Maureen's hotel room:

Finally Jon and Kassie arrived at the hotel, and after three small bottles of wine, we were already feeling pretty good...

We made our way to the Eiffel Tower since Kassie has never been to Paris. They did a different kind of light show that night which was amazing:

Then we accidentally found some cute French boys who we thought were coming to the Discoteque, but that didn't pan out. We got refused from a club for no apparent reason (we suspect it was either b/c we were being loud or b/c we were speaking English - hard to say).

But we made it to another one anyway.

After several more hours and way more champagne than necessary, we realized in disbelief that it was 5 a.m., and the club was still open. We said goodbye to Jon and Kassie and went our separate ways for the night (or at least what remained of it).

Sunday, July 17th - Mad Race to Switzerland

Unfortunately my blogging patience has reached its limit. In the interest of this NOT being the longest post of all time, I'm going to stop here and not continue on into Switzerland just yet. I'll find time this weekend hopefully to post about Switzerland so far!!

My Personal Insights

Last but not least, I have to inject my purely subjective feelings toward the entire trip so far, which is precisely half over as of Monday. If you'd like to avoid rambling and stick to the objective facts (and those directly involving Jenna as well), feel free to stop here.

In a very short time, I feel as though I have learned an immense amount about human nature and how small the world truly is. I've also learned a lot about myself.

I thought this whole trip would be extremely difficult for me. I'm very much a creature of habit and routine, and typically when I'm without these things, I'm completely miserable. I'm pleasantly surprised to find the exact opposite to be effortlessly true here. I did manage to catch a cold while in Den Haag (the jet lag, lack of sleep, constant partying and 40 degree colder climate caught up with me), but even that didn't slow me down as it otherwise would.

I thought I would be homesick. I was sure I would be desperately searching for internet to connect back home every chance I got. Instead I seek internet only to update things and vainly try to attempt to chronicle every experience, good and bad.

Honestly, in a perfect world, the #1 thing I would love to do is get off the plane back in Amsterdam on August 5th and go back to Den Haag for an indeterminate amount of time. Of course this is impossible and the real world is calling me home, but I do not answer the call eagerly. Moving around and meeting new people has been more fulfilling than I could ever have imagined. It's hard to tell whether I want to stay mostly because I just don't want to go back...I admit that the thought of OKC makes my stomach turn a bit, and I'm running full speed away from it. I think it's more than that though. Even if I were going home to Indy, east to DC or elsewhere in the US, every fiber of my being would fight it. Every part of this experience has been...indescribable. It's been fulfilling, amazing, wonderful, irreplaceable, eye-opening, miraculous...etc. It's going by way, way too quickly.

My only regret when I started writing this was not having seen Harry Potter...and now I have...but that's a post for another day, and only for those interested. Suffice it to say that although I already feel like a completely different person, I will always be me. How deeply I was affected by that movie...was in no way surprising.

French HP poster in the metros of Paris:

One thing I know for sure is that this is not the last trip abroad that I'll be taking. I will also be making every effort to learn new languages in the coming years. Dutch and French are at the top of the list. Places I have yet to visit but will definitely do sometime include the UK, Ireland, Prague, Berlin, and anywhere in Spain.

Jenna and I also agreed that it's the people we've been meeting that really make this experience worthwhile. The best nights we've spent have been exchanging stories, opinions, traditions, slang, and customs with people from other countries. Listening to their music, learning their language, communicating on different levels, down to the most basic possible levels inherent in all human nature.

I cannot put words in her mouth, but I am forever changed. I'm not who I was when I left the US almost a month ago, and I never will be again. It's refreshing. I never, ever want this to end. Every day is precious, every hour important. Every experience is bittersweet in its brevity; every encounter fleeting.

All in all, every moment here is priceless, and I've never felt luckier.