Amsterdam.

After we took the disorienting night train to Amsterdam and wandered around for several hours looking for our couchsurfing host, we gave it up for good and tried to find a hotel online at an internet cafe.  This is what it felt like:

The internet was slower than when my grandpa had AOL Dial Up internet and we had just spent ten euros getting us all to the outskirts to see her house and then we spent another ten to get back into town to find the hotel. Once we had settled in though we started enjoying Amsterdam. Oh did I mention it started raining as we lugged our luggage to the hotel? No? Well it did.

After we settled in it occurred to us that we hadn't eaten anything for the past 18 hours. We went here:

Yummy.

By this time it was already pretty late but we explored Amsterdam a little and quite enjoyed it. I assumed it would be this small little town that is only famous for it's lax laws and cool policemen, but it was really quite beautiful. All of the old town homes were leaning because, as we learned later from our tourguide, that it was built on a swamp and that the ground kept sinking. The houses were also built to lean a little forward so that when the people wanted to store something in the attic they would just attach the cargo to a hook from the top of the house and haul it up, and because of the lean of the house, the heavy cargo would not slam into the building front. For example:

The pictures in Amsterdam didn't turn out great but we had a really great time and took some on a disposable as well, which we are waiting to be developed. But it was a lot of fun goofing around coming up with stupid things like the traveler walk:

We also abused Amsterdam's cheese shops which were giving out free cheese samples. I think we could've gotten by on those free cheese samples. And if anyone ever wants to give me a gift of cheese, know that I really like two year old goat cheese. ;)

We went on a tour which went through the red light district, the old town district and ended near the Anne Frank house which we went through as well. Amsterdam was fun.

Our tour guide warned us that if we took pictures of the prostitutes they would throw stuff at us  so I took this one from a safe distance.

Lucky Boob.

On to Brussels. 

Berlin (It's a big and sexy post. Good Luck).

On our last day in Dresden we climbed a hill that had been formed when the women left in Dresden after the bombings collected all of the rubble and piled it on the outskirts of town. It has since been covered in wild grass and plants and black berries. That day we went to Berlin on a train that took about three hours with one switch, and we continued to play "Celebrity Hands" Harry Potter style: our go-to game for long periods of waiting and training. When we got to Berlin we dropped off our stuff at our Hostel and went to see the East Side Gallery, a portion of the remaining Berlin Wall that has been covered with inspirational paintings and remembrances. 

"Berlin is poor, but sexy."

 That night at the hostel Gaby and I both slept with our purses in our beds with us because we both felt that it was unsafe to have sixty to eighty people in one building with one key and no receptionist. You would think that these extra precautions would have helped. No. 

Our bags were both searched, mine ending up next to me open and on top of the covers (whereas I had hid it underneath) with nothing stolen, and Gaby's... missing in action. Her purse was stolen from right next to her head, and her case of cigarettes chilling by the door. Nothing in her purse was of any value to anyone other than her. Prescription ear plugs, photos from the trip and her journal and notepad, and yet it cost her a fortune.

We did a lot of wandering around that day and eating ice cream we bought at grocery stores.  We went at a slower pace than we had the rest of the trip and it was very nice just wandering around exploring the scenery. We had breakfast by the river and then walked along it along a flee market when we bumped into the giant men fighitng in the water. We enjoyed Berlin despite the huge set back  and we went out with a traveling Kiwi for pizza.

We were shrunk in size by a magical troll.

 Berlin had so much life in just the one area we stayed, the only time we got out of our area was for the walking tour of all of the historical parts of Berlin which we did on our last day in Berlin. It comparison to every other city I have been to, Berlin seems to have had the most troubling and lasting problems and is therefore covered in memorials of all shapes and sizes. The following photos are strictly memorials.

A memorial

 in commemoration

of the Jews 

of the holocaust.

An empty library symbolizing the books burned there during the Berlin book burning. 

A memorial for anyone, anywhere and anytime who has lost some one because of hate. Above the mother and child there is a hole in the ceiling, allowing light, rain and snow in during different parts of the year. 

After two and a half days of active exploring, I still feel like I only just scratched the surface of that huge diverse city. We spent our last night drinking three euro cocktails at a Mexican restaurant (we had had enough of Bratwurst) and hopped on our nighttrain to Amsterdam buzzed... or we would have if our train hadn't been two hours late leaving us sitting on the platform until 1:30 in the morning.  

Dresden part II.