Adv. 9 A weekend to Amsterdam

The XXX rated city

Mon 13 Feb
Simone and I went on a trip to Amsterdam with ESN and a group of about 60 other international students in the weekend, we caught a train and 20 minutes later arrived just outside of Amsterdam

first we had a tour of the AJAX Stadium, ( pronounced: ahh-yaks) Ajax is Hollands most famous and most successful soccer team. The stadium is huge, the tour guide was very passionate about his soccer team and this stadium is the best in the country etc etc etc, we saw the team practicing and it was very amusing for me to watch fans assault the players afterwards for autographs and photos. Some people are fanatics

Then we made it to Amsterdam... when you get out of the train station your vision is assaulted by tourist shops selling the 'happy weed' in various concoctions and then you hit the red light district where there are ladies sitting in windows, just waiting... and smoking... in the middle of the day... not pretty ladies either....

anyway, the rest of Amsterdam is beautiful, the houses are so cute and colourful and box like and some are so mis shapen. they are all along the canals, and there are so many canals,with cute boats and cute bridges, the streets are little and cobbled. The buildings all lean forward slightly , which is a little worrying, but im assured they are quite safe.

we had a guided tour of the Joordaan, an older part of the city, and the buildings lean forward so that goods that come on the boats can become hoisted up to the top floors without hitting the side of the house. quite ingenious really.

then we had dinner at an Italian restaurant. so good!!!
we walked aound at night a bit

then Simone and I headed to our hostel for the night.
in the morning we went to the Rijks museum, and to the Van Gogh museum
then we missioned to try and find the church we wanted to go to. it seems to be the only decent one in the whole of Utrecht and Amsterdam, now that is a lot of people who arent invovled in a hurch!!!
well, if we were coming straight from Utrecht we would have to bike to train station, 15min, then train to a junction, 20min, then catch a tram, 20 min, then walk 5 min, what a mission to get to church!!
it was a brilliant service though, when it was finished we were disgusted to see that it was snowing out. never mind, you get that sometimes...

Adv. 8 The Almighty Bicycle

It is not possible to go anywhere and not see a bicycle, everyone has them!!
bicycles, bicycles, bicycles, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere






I could spend all day just watching the different types of people who ride by.
There are old grannies on bicycles, wearing old grannie hats and big warm jackets, biking along in typical old grannie fashion
Old men in old men suits who meander along smoking their cigars.
boys who hoon past on fast bikes.
bikes with those baskets that you put on your handle bars, which you had when you were like 8 years old and the cute bell!!!
bikes with postman bags on the back.
bikes with small trailer type things attached to the front or back.
bikes pulling baby buggies.
bikes with a baby seat on the back (and sometimes also on the front)
girls sitting on the back being doubled by their friends.
husbands biking with wife and kids all sitting on the same bike!!
little girls standing on the back holding onto the shoulders of their mum or dad.
People riding while trying to juggle their grocery shopping, or a cell phone or even stranger things, like planks of wood...

I now have a bicycle, this is a very important device to get from one place to another. it is not a very good bicycle however. it is one that i am borrowing from my flatmate. we had to buy some new brakes for it because the cable was cut, it rattles A LOT, many things are held together by wire and masking tape. But the condition of my bicycle is not that uncommon, the bicycle doesnt appear to be a symbol of social status. there are rich people who ride around on dirt cheap bikes because it doesnt seem to matter, not the same as a car...

The bicycle gets its own path to ride on, their own set of traffic lights, alot of the time the bike has right of way over the car.
Of course generally you have to ride on the path on right side of the road which is backwards to us in NZ. but then sometimes to confuse you, you can ride on both sides of the road but make sure you are riding on the right hand side of the path...

It is crazy, there are a combination of things which make the bicycle a deadly thing, people here bike really fast, and they are really silent, (unless you have a bike like mine that squeaks each time the pedal goes round), so if you step out onto the bike path without thinking and of course are naturally inclined to look right instead of left it could end in disaster. Its not till the bike is right on you that the rider dings their little bell and YIKES you jump out of the way only to be assaulted by another bike right after it or coming the other way if its one of those tricky two way bike paths.

This is more insane than trying to navigate the streets of Rome!!!!

Adv. 7 The Kingdom of the Netherlands

Tue 7 Feb
I've been putting off writing or trying to establish my first impressions of this place, because i know that first impressions of a place are very important for how you feel about the place for the rest of the time that you are there.
Well when i arrived the whole place was covered in fog, so there wasn't much to see from the train window. therefore i missed a lot of the 'countryside' and the windmills... if you can call it countryside, theres barely any land that doesnt have people on it. This country is just over 200 x 300km square, so its smaller than Southland and Otago combined. but there are an insane 16million people living here!!!
So i tried not to develop an opinion based on what i first saw, which was the awful weather...
And still the weather is awful, it is notorious for it, DONT come to the Kingdom of The Netherlands for the weather.
The Kingdom of The Netherlands is the official title of the country, though most people refer to it as Holland, which is in fact a northern region of The Netherlands, where there were a lot of traders coming and going and refering to the country as Holland. So there you go, ou learn something everyday.

Well i am living in Utrecht (oo - trekt), a student city, half an hour by train from amsterdam, population 200,000. It is nice here (if you ignore the dreary weather), i have yet to explore the city centre properly though the beginning of my impressions is that it is nice.
Today I went on an orientation of the city with The Office for International Relations and the Exchange Students going to the art school. We had a guided tour of the Dom, the tallest church in Utrecht, we climbed the 400 or so very windy stairs to the top of the Dom Tower. The view was really nice, i took a liking to the way the city was laid out and the colour of the roof houses, a mix of orange and brown and greenish, (much more quaint than paris... which is now what i compare everything to)


we then warmed up with a drink in a pub. There are two other girls from my school in Dunners on this exchange, Simone and Aliki, we walked around the city centre streets and found a nice Greek restaurant to have dinner at. Aliki is Greek, so she sweet talked them into giving us a a good deal, us being poor students and having to pay with the euro and all. The meal was soooo good!!! I'm not genreally one to get very excited about food, but my friend the food in Europe is sooo good! Italian, Greek, French, so many difernt kinds of bread and pastries and waffles and crepes and pizza and cheeses and all kinds of things.

I really like the city centre, there are canals running through and cool little bridges, the streets are narrow and cobbled stoned, so there isnt really cars driving through much. The Bike!!!!! The bicycle has a place of great importance in Holland, it is very strange. but that is an adventure all on its own and deserves a post all to itself. There are many different shops and many differnt fashions, it is great! and they have markets in big squares that sell cheap food and other things.

well my opinion of this place is still forming, but i am getting the opinions of my flatmates, which is very interesting.... you could say...
I am living with two Dutch boys both studying at the university and an Argentinian acrobat who has been living here for nearly seven years, he has really been thrust into this culture that was sooo so foriegn to him and has some very interesting stories to tell.

more later...

Adv 6. When in Rome....

...You must walk out in front of cars, to cross the road and pray they stop for you

Thur 2 Feb
I am still on the train, but it is morning now, another beautiful sunny day, and the landscape of Italy is very nice. The other people in my compartment have all gotton off at other stops. I am looking forward to being in Rome. My goals for this place is to learn some basic Italian and eat good food and see all the famous paintings and places that we keep being taught at art school. First impressions of a place are very important, they are the basis of your opinion of a place. My first impressions of Rome were mainly a comparision of Paris, and i can tell you, Rome is MUCH nicer. The landscape is more beautiful and greener, the air is cleaner, the streets appear cleaner, the buildings have more character, more colour, more lively. There are trees here that are more interesting and they are still green. The language has more character, the people here are more fun :) even the graffitti is cooler. And the temperature is much warmer here. I met Nomes and Laura before lunch, it was so good to see them and be in Rome together. In the afternoon we went out of the city centre and went to the catacombes underneath St Sebastions basilica. It was a really fascinating tour. There are so many tunnels under the ground, really comprehensive and economical way for the Christians to bury their dead, and a great place to meet and worship together. Its amazing to think of the history that is in Rome, where the early church planted its roots and where my beliefs have come from. We learnt all about St Sebastion today, i never knew about him before, he was a very brave man to renouce himself as a Roman soldier and proclaim christianity. This was an amazing experience. The metro in Rome is very basic, and the bus system appears very disorganised, so we had to wait quite a while for a bus to come. but we meet some nice australians. Then we wanted to get to the Pantheon, we got a little lost walking and then we had a lot of fun jumping on and off buses, wondering where it would take us, hoping it was the direction of the Pantheon. They dont check tickets which i found to be really bizarre, but when in Rome... By the time we got to the Pantheon it was dark, the basilica was really quite cool,the biggest dome of its time! Then we walked the Roman streets, and found the Trevi Fountain, also really beautiful, but full of people trying to sell roses and other nic naks. I had my first Gelato and a nice place, and i got my first kiss from an italian!!

Fri 3 Feb
Today we walked around Ancient Rome, it was very fascintaing and amazing to think how long ago it was built. All around the Roman Forum and Colloseum we went and soaked in the history, Nomes bought a guide book of Rome and told us what everyhting was, she was a brilliant tour guide. We bumped into an American group a couple of times and listened in to their tour guide. They were really passionate about it and it was great to hear about the Christian martyrs killed in the colloseum and try and understand a little of what it was like back then. It was a really good day.

Sat 4 Feb
Today is my 21st birthday and i am in Rome, Italy. this is so cool!!
We met a very cool Australian, Danielle, in the morning as we were checking our bags for the day, she had just arrived in rome and so she came with us to the vatican. We went to the Vatican museum where the sistine chapel is. It was really amazing to see all the art of Michelangelo and Raphael and so many others. So much to take in there, ancient art, modern art, sculptures and architechure. To get to the Sistine Chapel takes a while, you have to pass through a labriynth of other rooms. There were so many people in there, it was insane. But very intersting. We had a picnic lunch in St Peters square, with Bread and cheese and wine and sun dried tomatoes and left over vege dahl. It was a feast!!!! and such a great way to celebrate my birthday, with cool people, and good food, and good conversation.

My 21st challenge was to get 21 kisses from Italian guys. Well i made a sign in Italian and got a few kisses, sadly not 21 though, to be honest i was more interested in the art, but there were a few good ones ;)

After that we went into St Peters basilica, it is huge!!! Very cool cathedral, i would rate it as one of the best. We didnt have any more time unfortunately to do any more exploring, i think one could easily stay in Rome many more days and explore the history and the culture, but never mind. i will definitely come back here another day. Nomes and Laura are catching a plane to Spain. Danielle and I had coffee and then i caught a night train to Paris. I feel so blessed to have come to this place and had a good time and have been kept safe, meet some really cool people, and to now be 21 years old. Life is Good!

Sun 5 Feb
Today is a travel day, so many trains , so many hours to get all the way to Utrecht, The Netherlands. but i am nearly there! I am very excited about this exchange and how much i can learn and all the people i wil meet. :)

Adv 5. Paris, the grey city

Mon 30 Jan I arrived in Paris last night, and due to some miscommunication, it turns out i came a day early. Lucy and Jono wont be here till this evening. Well i made the most of it and talked to some really nice australians and canadians for a couple of hours in the hostel that im staying at. It was good to hear their stories and they told me where to buy cheap food and how to catch the metro, so that was great, cos otherwise i would have no idea. This morning i walked around the small, dirty, smelly streets until i found the Basilica du Sacre Coeur. It is a really magnificant cathedral, i was really impressed with how clean the outside was, it was a white colour not a boring brown like so many other cathedrals. It was beautiful inside. And i arrived in time for mass. So i sat in and listened to the sermon in French. The acoustics in the building is of granduer. It was cool to hear the French singing and see some nuns praying. There were alot of tourists there coming to see the famous Sacre Coeur. After mass, i sat on the steps in the sun, overlooking the city and ate my lunch. The view wasnt all that. there is a lot of smog covering the city, but there was a man playing a harp at the bottom of the stairs, so it was quite romantic to be sitting there listening and eating in the city of love. I caught the metro into town, and now i am sitting in opera starbucks drinking coffee and writing this blog. I think Paris is a filthy city. I wouldnt like to live here. The streets are rank, they have a comprehensive metro system though, but you get wafts of urine every now and then. But it is sunny today, so somehow that makes it a little bit better, i can imagine is would be a miserable place when it rains.

Tues 31 Jan
We walked so far today! But it was good. Jono, Lucy and I caught the metro to the Lourve, but much to our disgust and bewilderment, the Lourve is closed on Tuesdays, so instead we headed for the island which Notre Dame is on. Notre Dame is a very cool cathedral, and it looks cool from all sides. Inside it doesn't look as big as you think it should, but as you walk around behind the alter there is much more space and many niches with more alters and sculptures. After eating our lunch in the square in front of Notre Dame, we walked by the Siene river, i bought a little eiffel tower from a little street stand, then we walked around the streets of town a little and found some fountains and sat in the park. It was another very sunny beautiful day, so we were very blessed. Then we walked down Champs Ellysees, the street with all the fancy brand shops, to the Arc de Triomphe. That thing is huge! It is where the tomb of the unknown soldier is. Then walked a little more to the eiffel tower. I bought a chocolate crepe,they are sooo good, expensive though. It only cost us 3€ to climb the eiffel tower, there were soooo many stairs, but we got to the first level just in time for the hazy sunset. And to the second level by the time it was dark and all the lights were on and sparkling all over the tower. It was a good view of Paris even though you couldnt see very far very clearly because of the smog that just sits on the city. So it was a very good day but i was so exhausted from all the walking, the streets are cleaner in the middle of town, but the trees are all bare, it think it would be a very beautiful place in summer.

Wed 1 Feb
WOW! Its February already. Today we went to the Lourve Museum, the home of the famous Mona Lisa, it is soo incredibly huge and there is so much art history in there, its all a bit overwhelming really. We were there for 5 hours and still didnt see all of it! Theres ancient art from all over the world and bits of artefacts and huge sculptures and massive paintings. The building itself is so impressive, lots of intricacies and paintings on the ceilings. I was most impressed by the extent of it. After that it was time to get back to the hostel and get ready to catch our respective trains. Jono and Lucy are taking the underground canal back to London. I am catching a 14hr night train to Rome where i am meeting Nomes and her friend. The compartments on the night train are quite small there are six 'beds' in here, three stacked on each wall. Not too bad for a train. But it is a very bumpy ride, I am going straight to bed.