Eurotrip Finale: Amsterdam

For the last leg of our trip, we visited Amsterdam, the city most famously know for its beautiful canals :) right? Its laid-back style was a welcome pace for our tired feet after London and Berlin.

Amsterdam

The day we arrived was warm and sunny, so we took advantage of the weather and hopped on a canal cruise around the city. It was a lovely way to see the sights!

Centraal train station (not misspelled!)

Pretty houses

Houseboats!

We made the right decision, because the other two days were chilly, cloudy and windy! So we ducked into the world-famous Rijksmuseum for warmth and culture. We loaded up on Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, Steen, and Van Gogh, as well as decorative arts. It is a wonderful collection!

Theme of Dutch colonialism throughout the museum

Gorgeous library

After three hours and a yummy crepe lunch, we strolled a little further down the road to tour the original Heineken Brewery. The tour was a little hokey (there's a ride!), but it was fun and ended with delicious beer!

Stained-glass windows in a stinky brewery - the Dutch are classy!

Horses still pull delivery carts!

As Amsterdam was the home of the artist Rembrandt, we stopped by the life-size sculpture of his Night Watch in Rembrandtplein for some touristy poses. We saw the real painting in the Rijksmuseum, so we were pros at interpreting the fine art:

I swear we didn't visit the neighboring coffeeshops before this photo shoot! 

Thank you, Amsterdam, for being so beautiful! Hard to go back to our busy lives after relaxing by the canals. And thanks again, Mom and Dad, for a great trip! Love and miss you already!

Eurotrip Part 2: Berlin

Guten tag! The German language is quickly disappearing from my brain, and that's pretty much all that I can remember. And entschuldigung - excuse me. Such a fun word to say! So onto Berlin! 

Berlin

I love this city. It's full of rich history, art (old and new), outspoken and free-thinking residents, and amazing cuisine. And the city is even better when you stay in a luxury, renovated, 1920s art-deco themed hotel: Hotel am Steinplatz. Thanks Mom and Dad!

View from courtyard of the gothic windows

Art nouveau doorways

Lovely view from the window

If the hotel's breakfast didn't close at 10:30am, I think we could have spent half the day in the hotel suite. Luckily, we were forced outside to enjoy the perfectly sunny and 70-degree days. We toured the Reichstag building (Parliament), which ended with a rooftop view of the city:

Rooftop stylin'

Dome at the top/center of Reichstag

And visited the Berlin Wall Memorial, where original wall pieces still stand. (We walked by Checkpoint Charlie too, but it's a recreated tourist-trap.) It's chilling to imagine what life was like on this site only 25 years ago. This November is the milestone anniversary!

We visited the East Berlin hotspot, Alexanderplatz, where we shopped and refreshed ourselves at an outdoor biergarten. Too bad we missed the Berlin Oktoberfest celebration by one day!

Berliner Dom (cathedral)

Prost!

One of my favorite outings was the Berliner Unterwelten tour (Berlin Underworld.) It is a museum in one of the few preserved World War II bunkers created for German civilians. The tour takes you through the rooms, which are filled with artifacts, and the active subway below the bunker creates an eerie soundtrack. The guide claims that the subway train engines make the same noise as low-flying airplanes.

We visited the concentration camp, Sachsenhausen, which was a short train ride outside the city. It was my second time visiting Sachsenhausen, but it was just as powerful as the first. Everyone should see one of these memorials in his/her lifetime.

Aaaaand because it's too depressing to end on that note, and I've been depriving you of cuteness, here is a photo of Cleo after she dragged my new bedroom rug into the living room. What a diva!

She's so fancy…

Stayed tuned for the final installment of the Eurotrip series, Amsterdam!

I'm back! Eurotrip Part 1: London

I've just returned from a lovely holiday with my folks. We had a blast! They visited London for a few days first, then we went to Berlin and Amsterdam. They were our first guests in London, so I got to practice my hostess/tour guide skills. I'm ready for more visitors, so book your tickets, friends! Here's a little recap:

London

We traversed all over the city in five days. My dad's pedometer counted nearly 20,000 steps in one day! We saw museums, a play at the Globe Theatre, and several parks. We had to visit Abbey Road for The Beatles fans in the group. My mom dutifully recorded our presence.

Hurry and run across before drivers get mad and yell obscenities!

Cheers to London!

We popped in to call on the queen, but she was in Windsor. So she let us tour her house, stables and museum instead.

The Bieber Bunch!

Dad is absorbed by the Reubens painting

I would eat off this gold china every day

And ride in this carriage

Mary Tudor is one of my favorite historical figures (Henry VIII's daughter)

After a proper romp around Buckingham Palace, we went to Portobello Road for some lunch and dessert. 

Playing tour guide was so much fun! Can't wait for more visitors! Stay tuned for Eurotrip Part 2: Berlin!

Cleo and Lindsey in Kensington Gardens

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is one of my favorite books. It's the main Neverland story by J. M. Barrie. So I was pretty excited to learn that Kensington Gardens was only a short tube ride away from our flat! I swear Cleo could smell the park as soon as we got off the tube. She was pulling and running and knew right where the entrance was, even though this was our first time. We entered at the Italian Gardens, which are gorgeous, grabbed a latte at the stand (I love that all the parks have coffee stands!) and waited for our friends Kelly (human) and Fletcher (Westie.) 

Cleo is more and more interested in ducks lately…

Cleo would not let me get any closer to this fountain. She hated the spray!

We strolled around for over an hour while Cleo and Fletch zipped through the tall grasses with a childlike abandon that would make Barrie proud. 

Then we found the Peter Pan statue! I was pretty pumped. Pan at the top is flanked by Wendy and fairies below.

We had a blast exploring J. M. Barrie's inspiration for the classic story. We'll be back soon!

Turkish Adventures!

Sorry for the gap in posts! After coming home from Turkey, things really picked up in London. I actually had things to do! :) Which is a good thing for me, but maybe not for those of you who like the blog posts. So on to Turkey!

I visited a longtime friend from good ole’ Bishop Foley High School, who teaches English at an international school in Izmir, Turkey. Izmir is Turkey’s third largest city (after Istanbul and Ankara,) and it is beautiful! It has a great combo of fun city life and gorgeous coastline along the Aegean Sea. Seriously, this was the view from the freakin' bus stop. I mean, c'mon!!

Happy to be in warm weather! London was freezing that week.

Please ignore the sweatiness - it was 90 degrees! Rach will kill me if she sees I posted this photo. Hope she doesn't subscribe to the blog! :D

I spent two days in Izmir eating tons of delicious Turkish food (I could live on their four main food groups of olives, cheeses, tomatoes, and cucumbers), shopping in the bazaar, and taking in the gorgeous sunsets. 

Turks know how to breakfast

Ruins in the subway! ha

Then we hopped on a short flight to Antalya on the southwestern coast. Our destination was Olympos, an ancient Greek city with mountains and ruins on the Mediterranean…we could taste the saltwater and feel the sun on our faces…but first, we had to stomach the 2 hour bus ride from Antalya to Olympos on this:

I should have taken a photo of the outside, but it was a 1970s conversion van. This type of vehicle is called a minibus, or dolmus. The name comes from dolmas, (grape leaves anyone?) meaning it is akin to stuffing as much inside as possible. No seat belts (or even seats for some) or puke bags provided. Good thing Rach advised me to bring Dramamine! The bus driver picks up paying customers along the road until he cannot fit any more. It was an experience! Needless to say, we needed a cold one upon arrival at our pension in Olympos.

Olympos is known for its treehouse pensions, which are little hotels with individual bungalows and a main eating/bar area. Our proprietors at Saban Pension were really friendly and helpful guides. But for the most part, we sat on the beach with this view:

Absolutely breathtaking! The Jurassic Park theme music played in my head the whole trip. When we weren't sunning on the beach,

we explored the Greek ruins around the area. I've never been to a city where you could climb on ruins! My art history/museum personality was, to use a British term, "gobsmacked."

It was an incredible trip, and I can't wait to bring Brandon to Istanbul in the coming months! Farewell, Mt. Olympos!