Amsterdam! And the last night in Edinburgh.

The end of my exams were both dreaded and highly anticipated. Dreaded because I knew that when school was over, that meant I had to go home and anticipated because as soon as I finished my last exam I was off for one last jaunt to Amsterdam.

In my head I had an association of Amsterdam with sex, drugs, and rock and roll but it turns out that while the city does have those things, it has much more as well. I arrived late on Monday evening and met my friend who had been traveling for 10 days. We met up at our hostel and after a brief walk around the area of our hostel (called Museumplein, where all the notable museums are located) we went to bed. Tuesday morning we put on all our layers to brave the cold during a nearly 4-hour walking tour of the city. This was the best thing we did over the three days in Amsterdam! The FREE tour was advertised in the lobby of our hostel and left from Dam Square (the city center). Our tour guide was a recent graduate of McGill University who, after not knowing what to do with her psychology degree and having a dad from the Netherlands, moved to Amsterdam and became a tour guide! She was very knowledgeable about the entire city and my friend and I were happy to see areas that we may not have found on our own! The tour included the infamous Red Light District, the canals, Rembrandt's neighborhood, the Dutch East India Company, and a bunch more! The tour ended at an authentic Dutch restaurant. I had no idea what typical Dutch food was, and I'll probably never eat it again, but when freezing and tired from hours of walking, mashed potatoes and carrots smothered in gravy topped with an enormous meatball or sausage hits the spot surprisingly well. After the waistline danger zone, my friend and I went to the Anne Frank House. For any of you who haven't heard of The Diary of Anne Frank, it is the story of a Jewish girl and her family who were kept in hiding for two years during World War II when the Germans were occupying the Netherlands.  It was fascinating and scary and heartbreaking to see the "secret annex" where Anne and her family were hidden and to hear her father's testimony as he was the only survivor of the Holocaust.

After the Anne Frank House we spent a couple of hours walking around, window shopping until 7pm when it was time to meet up with a tour group to learn about the Red Light District. This was a super interesting outing. Women actually do stand in windows, under a red light, advertising their bodies. While safer because it is legal and regulated, prostitution is still an uncomfortable idea. More than anything it was just funny to one minute be avoiding eye contact of scantily clad women, and the next passing a cute boutique or a church. Yes, the oldest church in the city is smack in the middle of the Red Light District....right across the street from the ritziest restaurant in the city. While I will add photos that I took of the city at the end of this post, I will not be adding any of the Red Light District because we were warned that the sex workers are known to come out of their windows if someone tries to take their picture, and they will chase you and smash your camera...yikes!

After a good night's sleep we set off to see the van Gogh museum. However, the museum was under construction so we were directed to the Hermitage where a van Gogh exhibition was being held. The Hermitage was a long walk and we saw the biggest canal in the city that the majority of the trade used to come in on. Very cool! Alas, when we got to the Hermitage , the entrance fee was way out of our college student budget so we kept walking. That afternoon we went to the Heineken factory which was neat. I'm sure the self guided tour would have been more enjoyable had I not been exhausted.

After a nap, my friend and I went out for a nice dinner. For dessert we stopped at the grocery store near our hostel to pick up stroop wafels. Stroop wafels are little wafer cookies with caramel in the middle...unbelievable. We must have eaten 4 packages in the three days we were in Amsterdam.

On our third day we wandered around for a while before the cold got to us so we decided to go to the airport early. We got back to Edinburgh that night. I went to bed early so that I could get my packing out of the way to enjoy my last day in the lovely city of Edinburgh. I went with three of my friends to a pub for one last pub-food lunch and then hung out with all the friends I made over the semester that night. It was sad to say goodbye to the people and the city that I have loved so much over the past four months, but I must say it is nice to be sitting here on my couch listening to my dog snore.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog as much as I enjoyed writing it! It was a way for me to keep a journal of my adventure whilst sharing it with friends and family.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Back side of a flower market in Amsterdam, a city known for tulips

Dutch East India Company building that is now part of the city's university

A small neighborhood where only 30+ year old women can live

Narrowest building in Amsterdam. The man who lives there is taller than his house is wide.

Canal in the Red Light District

Liz and I!

Cool drawbridge over the major canal, Hermitage is the building on the right 

Amsterdam is a beautiful city!

One last visit to the Christmas Market in Edinburgh

Last pub lunch. From left to right: Brook, Hannah, Becky, Liz.

Until next time! xoxo

Exams

While exams are never enjoyable, the University of Edinburgh sure did make them beautiful!

My Fluid Mechanics final was in McEwan Hall, one of the university's oldest buildings.

Inside McEwan Hall

Outside McEwan Hall

The UK examination system means that the grade I get on the exam will have the majority of sway in my final grade for the course...so that's nerve wracking. Thankfully, my grades transfer back as pass-fail!

Rosslyn Chapel

Any DaVinci Code fans reading this? If so, you'll hopefully find this as bafflingly interesting as I did.

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, after I got out of my Linear Algebra final exam, I took a break from studying to go to the small town of Rosslyn about a half hour outside of Edinburgh. My friend and I scoped out the bus schedule and found the public bus that would bring us to Rosslyn Chapel. She had suggested it a while before and the name had sounded vaguely familiar until I remembered the Dan Brown books. For anyone who hasn't read them (other than the fact that you should change that) Rosslyn Chapel is a key site of conspiracy theories about the quest for the Holy Grail in the first book.

After about 25 minutes, Edinburgh faded away and was replaced by farms and sheep and rolling hills. Gotta love Scotland. The bus let us off a short walk from the chapel, and after a quick peek at the visitor's center we entered the walls surrounding the chapel.

Alas, no pictures were allowed inside.

The chapel is much smaller that I expected. However size was not an issue because the chapel is not known for grandeur, but for its intricate carvings. There is hardly any symmetry inside which makes every wall panel, column, and window unique. There is a lot of speculation about the meaning of the carvings in the chapel. There are many "hidden" carvings of Christ strewn throughout the chapel, most famously amongst stars and flowers carved into the ceiling.

Another example of the intrigue of the carvings is: around the edge of one of the windows are ears of corn. One of the chapel's informative plaques said that corn does (or did) not grow anywhere in the UK, and this chapel was built long before English settlers had gotten to America...so how did the masons know what corn was? Did someone in Scotland discover America before Christopher Columbus? These are the conspiracies that arise in the chapel. Amazing!

This afternoon was the perfect outing to take a break from studying before putting my nose back into the books.

Exams and the British healthcare system

As I said in my last post, classes ended last week. This week has been empty: no classes, no exams. For many that meant trips around Europe but for me it meant a relaxing week to catch up on life with maybe a little studying thrown in. Now that reading week is coming to a close, I am feeling the pressure of my upcoming exams. Unlike the US where we get (what I now see as) a cushy chunk of our final grade dedicated to homework, other assignments, maybe midterms, here they are not so kind. Out of my three exams, the one worth the smallest percentage of my final grade sits at an uncomfortably high 80%. In another class the exam is 100% of my final grade. So basically: don't expect another post until I get through finals. Oh and then a couple days more because I will be going to Amsterdam!

In other news: the UK's healthcare system totally rocks. I had to test it out about a month ago when I injured my back. A quick flash of my university ID and my passport got me free care for my stay here. I registered with a GP, had a nice meeting with a doctor, and walked across the street to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled free of charge. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. Unfortunately this morning I had to test it out again. I got up in the morning to go for a run as I have done countless times here. I don't know what it was about today, but I got approximately 200 yards before slipping on some salt on the sidewalk and completely wiping out. Long story short I was taken to the hospital and am very frustrated with the fact that I have a sprained ankle the size of a baseball...but at least I didn't have to pay for anything!

The beginning of goodbyes

The goodbye process has started, and I can't say that I'm happy or unhappy about it. Among other things, last Friday marked the last class I will most likely ever take at this university, and on Monday I sold my bike. Theorems, investments, and even friendships that I have learned and made here will come to an end in two short weeks. I hope I do not sound too pessimistic, I am thrilled to have made friends here that I will be able to retain when I return home. But I will only have the memories of riding my bike through this wonder-filled city.

I do not want to wish my time left here away, but I am very much looking forward to going home. A friend gave me advice about dealing with reverse culture shock: make a list of everything you missed about home, and all the things you will not miss about the city in which you immersed yourself for a short, yet long, time. I have been making a mental list so that when I get sick of the lack of nightlife in Gloucester, I can remember that at least the US has figured out how to combine the hot and cold water into one faucet.

The first sunrise I saw over Holyrood Park

Monuments, Museums, Wine, Cheese, Crepes, and Friends!

This past weekend was spent in Paris! I can see why people rave about it. The beautiful store fronts and stylish people are a sight to see!

My flight was at 3pm on Thursday. I went to my first class of the day in the pouring rain. After finally getting onto my flight and running through Heathrow to make my connection, I arrived in Paris. Next I experienced something very foreign indeed: I went up to a man who worked at the airport with hopes of finding out where the train station was. Upon my question of "parlez vous anglais?" the man began speaking to me in French. Either my French accent is better than I thought or he just wanted to make me suffer. It then hit me that I did not know how to say "I don't speak French" or "I don't know" or "this is annoying" in French so I just shrugged and left. The friend who I was staying with had given me very good directions so I did manage to find the station. But then I didn't know how to buy a ticket because the machine was in French. So I finally found someone to help me and I bought my ticket for the train from the airport to the center of the city. While standing on the platform waiting for my train I noticed that none of the signage was in any other language but French. Last weekend in Germany just about every sign had had multiple languages, so I did my best to look for cognates. While waiting a woman came up to me and started speaking French...I'm pretty sure she was asking me about which train was coming next. After I got over my initial flattery of being mistaken for a French person, I used more of the universal shrugging language.

After a very stressful train ride, switch onto the subway, I emerged right in front of the Louvre and easily found Addie's apartment. Could not have asked for a better location...but I'll get to that later. I used Addie's ever handy instructions to get into the building and upon seeing Ben and our friends (Addie, her roommate Lillian, Caitlin, Graham, Nick followed by Mo and Emma on Friday) I burst into tears because I had made it! They had a lovely college student Thanksgiving dinner prepared. After we ate I got a call from my friend from Hopkins, Jake, who was in Paris as well! I was so excited that I ran over to the Louvre (all the way across the street) and met him in front of the glass pyramid. I hadn't seen him since May, so that was lovely. That night after much eating and catching up we all went out to one of the bridges over the Seine to watch the Eiffel Tower get lit up at 1 oclock (it sparkles for five minutes every hour).

Thanksgiving in Paris: Left to right: Ben, Nick, Lillian, Addie, Caitlin, Graham.

Jake and I and our first sighting of the Louvre!

Friday morning I woke up bright and early so that Jake, Caitlin, and I could be at the Louvre when it opened at 9am. Fun fact: a quick show of one's student ID gets one into some of the most famous museums in the world for FREE! The three of us saw what we were interested in (of course we saw the Mona Lisa and yes I told Jake and Caitlin all about my obsession with the DaVinci Code) and then met up with everyone else for the afternoon. It is pretty fantastic to look at a piece of art and see da Vinci or Donatello on the plaque.

There was a lot of really cool (and really big!) art at the Louvre!

Caitlin and Jake

On Friday afternoon Addie took us on a mini tour of Paris. It began around the corner from her apartment at a crepe stand. I don't know why I must eat anything else in this life, they are so delicious. The first real stop on our tour was Notre Dame Cathedral. Despite the rainy day, it was majestic. I had heard stories and seen the Disney movie, but nothing ever compares to seeing something so beautiful and so famous in person.

Next up: Shakespeare and Co. in the Latin Quarter. This well known bookstore has mostly English books and is often mistaken for the original Shakespeare and Co. where famous writers such as Hemingway once hung out. Next: the Lock Bridge. When Addie had mentioned it I was all excited because I hadn't known that Paris had a canal system and locks! But alas, it was something very different but just as cool. The Lock Bridge lies over the Seine and is a place for lovers or friends or whoever to attach a padlock to the bridge before throwing the keys into the river. Random, but cute.

Most of the locks have engraving or writing with initials and dates.

Next, Addie gave us directions to the Luxembourg Gardens, the location of the French senate. On our walk to the gardens we window shopped and stopped at Laduree, Paris' most famous dessert shop, popular for their macaroons. I got the caramel flavor, others got chocolate, and these were only a couple of the flavors among rose petal and pistachio etc. So dainty and amazingly yummy. I'm sure the Luxembourg Gardens are beautiful in the summer, but on a rainy November day when everybody is tired and has sore feet is really overrated. No offense, Paris.

Friday night we all contributed to a dinner of spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce and salad. This was in addition to copious amounts of wine, cheese and the best baguettes ever. Friday night we rallied the forces and saw another bunch of things around the city! We left Addie's and walked along the Seine, past the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay, past the Tuileries, and to the obelisk that marks the beginning of the Champs-Élysées (a long boulevard with the Arc de Triomphe at the other end.) There was a Christmas market along the length of the Champs-Élysées so we meandered and finally made it to the arch.

Beginning

End

From there we walked to the Eiffel Tower (I hope all of you reading are using Google maps to see how far we walked in this one day). The Eiffel Tower is just as cool as I thought it would be. Having written a paper on it last year about the wind loads on the structure, I was obnoxiously telling everyone fun engineering facts while we walked. Although I didn't get to go to the top, seeing such a monument was incredible.

We then hopped onto the Metro to go home to bed. Saturday had just as much in store. We all woke up early to beat the line at the Musee d'Orsay. This museum (unlike the Louvre which is in an enormous old palace) is housed in an old train station. After another free entry we made our way to the impressionist wing. Within the first room we saw a bunch of Monet's and Renoir's...so cool!

Great venue for a museum!

After that museum we rushed home to Addie's, got fresh baguettes, made sandwiches and packed up to take the Metro to Les Buttes Chaumont, a park in Paris. After our picnic lunch we got back on the Metro to go to the north of the city to see Sacré-Cœur Basilica. Easily one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. Infamous for being a site filled with pickpockets, we kept our belongings close and watched as other tourists accepted bracelets that were offered to them by one man, while another picked their pocked. Scary stuff. Anyway, from the top of the hill we had an amazing view of the city and to top it off we went into the church. No pictures were allowed inside, but it was gorgeous.

View from the park where we had lunch, Sacre Coeur in the distance.

Sacre Coeur

View from Sacre Coeur

On the way home we made sure to walk by the Moulin Rouge in the old red-light district. After the metro ride home we all went grocery/wine/dessert shopping. We went to a boulangerie so that we could all pick out a special dessert. After having made and eaten the fake American ones countless times, I got an eclair. Yum.

We went home to Addie's, and eager to see more of Paris we threw our desserts in the fridge and put dinner on hold. Next up: the Pompidou Center. I was psyched to see this because it is another structure that I have researched for a paper. The Pompidou Center is controversial because it is very different from the Parisian landscape. The designer put all of the building's usual contents (HVAC, electric, water, escalators, structure) on the outside. Huh? It makes for an amazingly open space inside, because no interior columns are required to hold the building up or to hide wires and pipes. Pretty cool if you ask me. We were pleasantly surprised by another free entry and rode on the outside (though enclosed) escalator to check out the unbelievable collection of modern art. The Pompidou takes the cake out of the museums that I saw in France. Maybe it's just me but seeing vibrant colors, photographs, furniture, and gravity defying sculptures made out of spices that involve all of your senses (yeah.) is cooler than seeing 500 renditions of Mary and Jesus. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

Not a great photo of the exterior...Google it if you're curious! 

Look, Mom! Chairs!

Sunday morning was time for goodbyes. However, Mo, Caitlin and myself were not leaving until the evening so we went on another exploring adventure. Sunday was also GORGEOUS! After a day of rain and a day of dismal clouds, I was thrilled to wake up to clear blue skies. The three of us set off for crepes and walked along the Seine, through the Tuileries (pretty gardens), past the Palais Royal, over Pont Alexander (famous bridge), back along the Seine, stopped at a cute cafe for lunch, and polished the day off with the coolest art gallery I've ever been in (called 59 Rivoli: six floors of studios with art on everything from the stair risers to the doors).

Caitlin and Mo infront of BLUE SKIES!

some pretty fountain, rendition of the Parthenon in the background

Mo and I on Pont (meaning bridge) Alexander

view of Pont Alexander

The bridge has these great statues hanging off of it

59 Rivoli

After a jam packed weekend I sleepily made my way to the airport. It was good to sleep in my own bed, but I don't think I will ever forget visiting the city of Paris.

On another note: I have an essay due on Friday, but this is the last week of my classes here! The time has truly flown. One of my friends left today. It is starting to hit me that there are some people who I have met here who I will never see again, and others that I will surely keep in touch with. Next week is reading week so I will have even more time to reflect on my experience here. Then I will have three exams, followed by a quick trip to Amsterdam before coming home!!!

Now that your eyes are probably as tired from reading as my hands are from typing, until next time!

BERLIN! JA!

After 9 years of Waldorf, losing all of my language skills in high school, and a tedious two semesters of college level German, I FINALLY MADE IT TO GERMANY!

Ben picked me up at the airport on Thursday night. In his time in Berlin he has conquered the public transit system so that it how we got around all weekend...so easy and convenient! Shockingly enough it was far colder in Berlin than it was when I left Edinburgh so Ben and I savored our time on the bus and then the Straßenbahn. I met Ben's host dad over a bowl of pumpkin soup and tried my best to speak German! Although I must say that Ben has surpassed me in skill level.

Friday morning Ben and I started our day with a ride on the tram to Alexanderplatz, the largest square in Berlin! In Alexanderplatz is the Fernsehturm (televison tower) which is over 200 meters tall! It was very cloudy so I was just barely able to see the top. There was a Christmas market being set up when we visited the platz, but alas it does not open until next weekend. Then we walked to Berlin's Museumsinsel (Museum Island). The Spree river that runs through Berlin surrounds a piece of land with five huge museums on it. Ben and I only walked around to see the outside of the museums, but that was cool enough for me!

Fersehturm, Alexanderplatz

Random Olympic bear along our walk

Das Altes Museum (the Old Museum)

Die Alte Nationalgalerie (the Old National Gallery)

Der Berliner Dom (the Berlin Cathedral)

Next up was the Brandenburg Gate. It is a huge tourist attraction so there were swarms of people, along with video game characters, Star Wars characters, and dressed up soldiers with whom pictures could be taken. It was quite amazing to see such a substantial monument that I have learned about in the past.

Ben infront of das Brandenburger Tor

Through the gate and to the left was the Holocaust Memorial, to the right was the Reichstag (one of the main government buildings). We started with the Holocaust Memorial. This memorial was one of the attractions that I knew I wanted to see when I visited Berlin. As I approached I thought...hmm...that is not what I had pictured. From afar the monument appears as a cluster of built up blocks (each about 3 by 6 feet) that couldn't be much taller than me. However, as you walk through the blocks, the ground begins to fall away. It slopes down in multiple directions, with some hills and valleys, until one can be swallowed by the monument as if in a corn-field maze. It was a powerful effect.

 Then we were off to see the Reichstag. It was too cold to wait in line for a ticket to see the inside and climb into the dome, so we just walked around.

After the Reichstag we went to see where Ben has classes! A very plain, boxy, communist looking building, but interesting none the less! For lunch we went to a soup place...warmed right up!

Next up was the Berlin Wall Memorial. This being another attraction I knew I wanted to see, I learned so much than I had previously known! The wall was not a single wall (as I had thought of it) but "the wall", a no man's land with sand to make it hard to run across, and a shorter wall with barbed wire. Only the west side of the wall had any graffiti on it at all, since if one tried to do so on the east side, they could be shot.

A section of the wall as it would have looked when it was in use

We went back to Ben's super cool apartment to warm up and get ready for the evening. We got a traditional dinner of Spätzle and beer. Sort of like a chewy pasta, I got spinach and ben got plain, both with yummy sauces and veggies and ham! Next up: a little cul-cha. Ben's program had tickets to see Mozart's Magic Flute and I got one of the extra tickets! It was in a beautiful opera house and while I couldn't entirely follow the plot being sung in German, the sets were gorgeous and it was a fun night out! Afterwards I got to meet all of Ben's friends from his program and we all hung out.

Before I devoured my Spätzle

The Opera House

I snuck a photo during the Magic Flute

Saturday was even more sight seeing! In the morning we got Ben's favorite Berlin food: Döner. Chicken, yummy yogurt sauce, and a ton of veggies wrapped up in a pita-bread-thing...SO GOOD, and there are places selling döner just about every ten steps. We ate them as we walked to the East Side Gallery. This is another section of the Berlin wall that is still standing, but it is covered in art. Most of the art has a message about peace. Very amazing to see.

After the East Side Gallery Ben took me to a concentration camp (at my request). We rode the train about 45 minutes outside of Berlin to Sachsenhausen. Sachsenhausen was used as a concentration camp under the Nazis, then as a prison camp under the Soviets. Today it is a museum and a memorial.
I know I asked to see it, but boy was it a sad sight.

Entrance to the museum

Entrance to the camp itself. "Labor Frees"

The gravel boxes mark where barracks used to stand

The "hospitals" where prisoners were killed

After such a morbid visit, we were wanting something happier. What better than a German Christmas market??? Our train ride back put us in Potsdamer Platz where a Christmas market was already going on. A man made sledding hill, Glühwein (essentially spiced wine served hot with rum), candy, scarves, pommes frites, the list goes on. After walking around and eating some warm, honey roasted cashews we were feeling very jolly indeed.

My first time in Germany was jam packed and I never wanted it to end. I attempted to speak my best German which was sometimes answered by a kind soul who would humor me, other times I was just answered in English. This was my first time traveling by myself in Europe and I had a blast!

Next up: crepes, Eiffel tower, and turkey sandwiches!