The finale: Amsterdam!

After some twenty plus countries we finally arrive at the last, but not least country of our trip.  Even though we were a bit down that our trip was so quickly coming to an end, we were both very excited about spending the end of it in Amsterdam.  This was Sharon's second time here, and my first. She visited here with her friend Michelle during the first few months of our relationship.  She loved Amsterdam, but she did remember missing me a lot and wishing I was there with her, so she was excited to show me around.

During my studies in Korea, I became friends with one of my fellow classmates who lived in Amsterdam and was taking 3 months off to learn Korean and live in Seoul.  Fortunately for us, Kit was back living in Amsterdam, and offered us a place to stay while we were there.  His family owned a townhouse where they rented out some rooms, and one of the rooms was vacant so we were able to crash there.  Unfortunately, there wasn't any furniture, but he was able to get us some sleeping pads, and we had our sleeping bag liners so we were good to go.

Keeping it real in our free, yet no so luxurious Amsterdam pad.

Kit met us at the train station after our arrival and took us to the townhouse which was about a 20 to 30 minute tram ride from the station.  He showed us in, and then gave us a couple hours to get situated in our new pad and all showered up for a night on the town.  In a previous life, Kit had been a tour guide in Amsterdam, so he was going to dust off some of his tour guide skills and show us some of the city. We met him in the city a few hour later, and he took us to a traditional Dutch restaurant called Moeders (which is Dutch for mothers).  We ordered the Dutch sampler meal for three which was basically just a ton of really good food.  There were different kinds of meat stews, potato dishes, red cabbage with apples, some really good apple and rhubarb sauce, and I'm sure some other things I've forgotten about.  Not the cheapest meal but definitely worth it.

With Kit at Meoders restaurant just prior to our Dutch feast.

After dinner, Kit took us around town on a whirlwind tour of city, with a final stop in the red light district which was absolutely fascinating.  It was nothing like I imagined.  I pictured maybe like one fairly long and narrow street with girls in windows, but it was way, way more than that.  It's like this huge main drag with all these alleyways splitting off from the main street.  On the main drag you have all the mainstream girls, and then when you branch off into the smaller streets and alleyways you get more of the niche markets.  There was an alleyway for big women, one for black women, one for asian women, one for men that looked like women, and it just went on and on.  I was amazed.  The crazy part was that you'd constantly seen men coming in and out of these rooms, and you'd hear them negotiating out front with the girls.  It was nuts.  I noticed that when I was walking next to Sharon all the girls paid no attention to me, but as soon as Sharon was a few paces ahead they'd lock eyes with you and give you that look of "You want some?"

We weren't very camera happy during our time in the red light district for obvious reasons, but I'll share with you the one pic we did take of some graffiti we came across.

Mad props to the guy for getting his hand up in time.

Instead of giving you the day by day of our time in Amsterdam, I'll instead split out our activities into two groups; cultural/touristy vs. food/drink/other related.  Just a warning that the cultural/touristy section will be pretty small.

Our cultural activities in Amsterdam consisted of a trip to Anne Frank's house, and a trip to the Van Gogh museum.  Visiting the Anne Frank house was both very interesting and very upsetting.  Such a sad story.  Coming out I totally wanted to hunt down the bastard that ratted them out.  The Van Gogh museum was cool, but I'm definitely not an art guy (unless that art is made of Lego of course).  Learning about his life was very interesting though.

The Anne Frank House.

On the touristy side things some highlights included a boat tour through the canals of the city, and renting bicycles for the day.

Cruising down the canals of Amsterdam.

The canal cruise was okay.  The coolest part was seeing all the boat houses docked along the canal.  How awesome would it to be to have a vacation home in Amsterdam that was a boat house?  Maybe one day...

Posing together in a park with our bikes

Peace.

Renting bikes for the day was pretty fun.  We rode all around the city getting some solid exercise in which probably burned about 5% of all the calories we took in that day.  We also had the bikes overnight, so we were able to skip out twice on a tram ride, riding back to the townhouse one night, and back into the city the next morning.  No wrong turns too which was pretty amazing.  

Kind of random, but one day we came across a Lays potato chip store that sold nothing but Lays potato chips.  Sharon was quite amazed, and had to go in and buy a bag for herself.

Excuse me sir, where do you keep your Lays potato chips?

Sharon and her limited edition Aioli e Aglio potato chips.

While on this random kick, on the way back from dropping our bikes off back at the rental place we came across an interesting sight...

Sharon and a naked invisible man.  Brilliant!

Several minutes past the naked invisible man we came across some high end department store that I'm neglecting to remember the name of.  Anyways, Sharon wanted to go in a check out the Louis Vuitton store that was inside because since the Euro had fallen so much recently compared to the dollar, all Louis stuff was super cheap compared to in the U.S.  I know...uh'oh, right?  So we went in, and I was like, "We can't buy anything!"  And guess what happended???  We bought a Louis wallet for me!!!  Seriously?!?!  Yes, completely serious.  Who ever knew Sharon would rub off on me so fast;)

And now for the food/beer section so I can wash away the fact that I bought a Louis wallet.  Here are some pics of much of the food we ate and beer we drank during our four days in Amsterdam.  We'll start with the food.

Pancakes + Bacon = BFF

Sharon about to chow down on a herring sandwich.

Oh how I miss you my sweet, sweet bitter balls.

Post-devouring of a sampler plate of some wings,
bitter balls and something else I can't recall.

Nutella and powdered-sugar covered mini pancakes.  Wow.

And now a sampling of the beer we drank while in Amsterdam:

Unknown beer & La Trappe Trappist.

Brasserie d'Achouffe: My favorite
beer while in Amsterdam.

Enjoying some beer and cheering on the U.S. Olympic team to victory.

Leffe

Sharon drink beer out of cool mug.

On our last night in Amsterdam, we met up with Kit again for a few drinks and he took us to a bar that was in the base of a windmill.  We couldn't leave the Netherlands without seeing a windmill of course.  We sat outside on a very nice, but somewhat chilly summer night, and enjoyed a few last beers before heading back to the townhouse to pack up and have our final sleep abroad before returning back home the next day.

What better use for a windmill than converting into a bar?

Westamlle Trappist Dubbel

Thanks again Kit for setting us up with some free digs while we were there, and for taking us around town on that first night.  It was great hanging out with you, and hopefully we can return the favour at some point in the future.

The final picture of our trip at the Amsterdam airport.

We finished packing up in the morning, and sadly made our way to the airport.  We were upset that the trip was over, but we were excited about going home to see family and friends.  Looking back now almost a year later, this was definitely the best six months of my life, and I hope Sharon and I will have the chance to do it again.

And for a final send off...I give you Sharon inside a giant clog...

Berlin (and Legoland)

Well, first of all, before we officially start this post I have to apologize in advance for large number of pictures from Legoland.  What can I say?  I am a bit of a Lego geek.  Okay fine, maybe I'm a huge Lego geek.

So from Prague we hopped on another train to take us to Berlin where we had planned three full days to enjoy the city.  While in New Zealand, we had met a very nice German lady who ran a hostel in Berlin, and we had planned to stay there when we visited.  She had written down the name for us and everything.  So we booked a room at the place and were all excited to see her. When we get there we ask for her and they tell us she isn't working today.  So the next day when we heading out for the day, we stop by the front desk again and ask for her again.  The front desk person goes around to the back to get her, and this girl walks out who is about 30 years younger that the woman we met in NZ.  First off, I guess the name was a fairly common German name, and second, I must have somehow booked us at the wrong hostel.  Awesome.  Not sure what went young there.  The place wasn't half bad, but it was still a bit disappointing.

Anyways, we got into our room in the late afternoon and relaxed for short bit while Sharon did some research into where we were going get dinner that night.  She ended up finding this Chinese-Korean place that was only a few blocks from our hostel.  Another solid find from Sharon.  So much so that we went there again a few nights later.  Surprisingly though, there is only one picture we took from the restaurant and it's not even of the food.

I would love to get a tally on the number of beer pictures in our blog versus the number of food pictures.  I think food would be the clear winner, but beer has definitely made a solid comeback in this final stretch of the blog.

The next day I'm sure you can guess where the first place we had to go was.  Correct.  Legoland Discovery Center.  We got a little lost on our way there and had to ask someone where it was.  He kind of gave us a funny look, and said something about us not having any kids, but did point us in the right direction.  When we finally got there, we had to wait in line for a bit.  We definitely noticed we were the only adults in line without kids.  And then we get to the front of the line, and the employee at the register says something like "You know this place is designed for kids 13 and under?"  And I'm like, "Hell yes I do!  Now give me my ticket."  I was not disappointed.  For your (and my) enjoyment, here are many pictures from our time there.

Is my very excited inner child showing?

One of these things is not like the others,
one of these things just doesn't belong.

Lego shark.

Lego R2D2.

Lego old Korean dude.

Lego Indiana Jones.

Lego Batman.

Sharon monkeying around with some Lego monkeys.

Lego ninja assassin.

Me and my Legoland souvenir.  Mini Lego Chewbacca.

After some serious fun times at Legoland, Sharon insisted that I do something manly, so we hit up the closest bar to drink some beer.  It was actually a micro-brewery and we ordered a sampler of all their beers.  We were expecting maybe at most six ounces of each beer, and then lo and behold eight pint glasses come out.  Awesome!

Sharon before...

...and Sharon after.

Surprisingly enough, that didn't spell the end of our day, and we managed to stir up the energy to explore some of the city.  We visited Brandenburg gate and the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, and tried some of Berlin's famous currywurst.  Here are some pics...

Sharon checking out sections of the Berlin wall taken from all over the city.

The Holocaust Memorial: Can you spot Sharon?

Sharon in front of Brandenburg Gate.

Berlin currywurst: We were not blown away.

The next day I remember walking around the city a ton, but we ended up taking very few photos, one of which was from a Mercedes-Benz dealership which I'll share with you.  I think we might have gone to see a movie that night, but I can't remember for sure.  Hopefully Sharon can fill in the blanks.

I must admit, it does suit her very well.

Our final day in Berlin was a lot more cultural.  We visited Checkpoint Charlie, and went to the Topography of Terror museum that spoke to the holocaust and first and second world wars and how they came about.  I could have spent all day in the museum.  It was so interesting to learn more about the economic and political landscape prior to the second world war that led to the election of Hitler and the resulting horrors.  So scary how much impact a single man could have on history.  I don't want to get too deep here in the blog, but it was very surreal to be in Berlin which was first at the center of the holocaust, and then really at the center of the cold war as well.  Anyways, we also hit up the Pergamon museum which was a bit of a disappointment.  Here are some pics from our third day in Berlin...

Checkpoint Charlie.

The Topography of Terror Museam.  One of the longest stretches of
the Berlin Wall still left standing can be seen behind the exhibits.

Bricked line running through the city marking where the wall use to stand.

The underwhelming Pergamon museum.

And that was pretty much our trip to Berlin.  After nearly a year (like 3 days short of a year actually),
I'm sure I've missed an ton of interesting stuff, but like I said before, better late than never.  Before I end this post I'll leave you with one of the highlights from our trip to Legoland (you thought you didn't have to see anything more about Legoland didn't you?!?!? Muhahahaha!)  I present to you, a Lego recreation of the fall of the Berlin wall, and the resulting makeshift concert.  Enjoy!

Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, and Prague

After Slovenia, we definitely felt that we had entered the final stretch of our trip, which was a bit of a downer.  You'll notice over this last part of our trip that we definitely got much more lazy about taking pictures.  I think a big part of it was that as we went from city to city in Europe, although each was beautiful in its own right, it kind of all just blended together a bit.  We had already seen a bunch of old towns, a bunch of cathedrals, and the like, so we really just focused on taking in the city, the food, and the beer of course.  We definitely drank a lot of beer while we were in Europe. Actually come to think of it, we drank a ton of beer during the whole trip.

So we took a train from Zagreb to Budapest which I think took about 6 or 7 hours.  I was really excited about going to Budapest, as I had been there about 7 or 8 years ago with Tom at the height of our bromance, and had really enjoyed the city.  I was looking forward to showing Sharon around.

When we arrived at the train station in Budapest, we had to haggle with cab drivers about the price to take us to the place where we were staying which was annoying and a bit stressful.  Our driver's english wasn't spectactular, and he ended up taking us to the wrong place first.  Fortunately we figured this out before he left us there, and eventually we were able to find the right place.

While in Budapest, we stayed at an apartment which was pretty nice.  Prior to arriving, we were given an access code to the front door of the apt building, and to the door of the apartment which made things super easy.  The apartment was huge (at least compared to what we were used to).  It was a one bedroom, and had a small, but nice kitchen, and even had a laundry machine.  We were pretty excited when we got there.

The street our apartment was on in Budapest.
I believe our place was just past the blue pub.

We got in pretty late, and walked around the neighbourhood looking for a place to eat.  Unfortunately, or fortunately for us, we missed the Burger King closing by only a few minutes, and everywhere else was closed too, so we just ended up going to a convenience store to pick up some sandwiches or something, and then headed home to eat and get a good sleep.

We slept in pretty late the next day as I recall, and the first order of business as we left the apartment was to find a good place for lunch.  Sharon had done her research of course, and she directed us to a reasonably priced, yet delicious restaurant.

Goulash deliciousness.

More yummy goodness.

It was so good that we actually came back here for dinner the next night if I recall correctly.

After lunch we wandered about the Pest side of the city, coming to a somber sight when we came to the Danube River.  The was a sculpture of sorts next to the river which consisted a dozens of metal pairs of shoes right on the river's edge.  Turns out this was a memorial to the hundreds of Jews who were taken to the edge of the river and told to take their shoes off, before falling into the river after being executed by Nazi invaders.  Very sad and upsetting.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the city, eventually making our way to the Buda side of the Danube where we hiked up one of the big hills to some kind of fort that we walked around.  Nothing too exciting to report, except a pretty nice view of the city.

The next (and our final day) in Budapest we of course went to one of the famous Budapest bath houses which was pretty cool.  Unlike the bath house that I went to with Tom so many years ago, this one was mostly co-ed (besides that changing rooms of course) and didn't have tons of old dudes wearing nothing but a mini apron covering their privates.  Thank goodness.  The bathhouse consisted of a series of indoor pools and baths of varying temperatures, from very hot to very very cold.  The best part was the outdoor pools in the courtyard, one of which had a river current thing that took you around and around in circles.  Once you were in the current, it was actually kind of difficult to pull yourself out.  There were also a bunch of chess tables in the pool, which were surrounded by old dudes, but at least they were wearing bathing suits.

A notable absence of mostly naked old dudes.  Phew!

We spent the rest of the day checking out a few other parts of the city.  Here are a few pics from the rest of our day:

"Oh Tom, where art thou?!?!

We both really liked Budapest and would totally live there if we had the chance.  A beautiful, clean, modern, yet seemingly chill city, with lots of culture.

The next day we hopped on a train to hit up the next city on our European whirlwind tour, Vienna.  The reason behind our decision to visit Vienna was deeply cultural.  Yes, as I'm sure you've already guessed, that reason was a Madonna concert.  We had definitely wanted to go to a concert while we were in Europe, and although we had other less embarrassing options (like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in Poland which was just too far out of our way), we thought it'd be pretty fun to go to a Madonna concert.

We stayed in another nice apartment while in Vienna.  Not quite so spacious as the one in Budapest, but still quite nice.  We arrived fairly early in the afternoon, so we basically just dropped off our stuff, and hopped on the subway to take us to the center of the city.  We hadn't had lunch yet, so the first priority of course was to find a solid sausage stand.  Sharon had a few options written down, and with only minor difficulty we were able to find one.  10 minutes later we were in sausage heaven.

Welcome to sausage heaven.

Oh my god they were soooo good.  The most genius part of it all was that they would take a hero bun, cut off one of the ends, and then slide the bun down this pointed metal cylinder to make a hole in the bun.  Then they would put mustard and ketchup into the hole, and the slide the sausage (or sausages!!!) into the whole.  Pure genius.  Why hadn't I thought of this many years ago?  This way I could put way more ketchup on my hot dogs without all the mess.  One of the sausages we got was one with cheese in the middle.  Oh my god it was awesome.  Definitely the highlight of Venice for me.  I think the hotdog stand was called Bitzinger Würstelstand.  Please check it out if you're ever in Vienna.

A very happy Sharon with her sausage and hot pepper.

Here are some more pics from our wanderings in Venice:

A seriously funky guitar.

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Some amusing Viennese shenanigans.
Unfortunately there wasn't room for me in the pool.

Ooooh, it's magic!  Until I saw him get up from
the contraption a few minutes later.

Sharon: "For only 7,000 euros, that's a steal!"

Another highlight from our time is Vienna was the delicious Korean meal that Sharon prepared for us one of the nights we were there.  Sharon was thrilled to find out ahead of our arrival in Vienna that there was a Korean grocery store there.  We had to go on a bit of a trek to get there, but it was worth it.  Sharon was like a kid in a candy store.  And here was the delicious result:

She made kogi, my favorite Korean stew, and we had some kimchi and some other panchun.  She was also excited by a pre-made packaged ox-tail soup she found.  Definitely not as good as the fresh-made version we used to get all the time in Seoul, but not too bad for coming out of a package.

Packaged ox-tail soup.

Out of the package ox-tail soup.

The day after our Korean meal was the day of the Madonna concert.  We wandered around the city a bit, and then came back to the apartment to clean ourselves up for the Madonna concert (which consisted of me just sitting around while Sharon got all prettied up).  We then hopped on the subway and made our way to the stadium for the big show.  We grabbed some delicious dogs and some beer for dinner outside the stadium, and then made our way to find our seats.

A Madonna'd up Sharon with beer in one hand and hotdog in the other.

In our seats waiting for the show to start.

The show was a'ight.  The best part was definitely the opening act of DJ Martin Solveig.  He was solid.  Madonna was okay.  First of all, she looks damn good for her age.  A little too political for our tastes though.  I guess she just had some bad publicity at a private intimate concert the week before where she only performed for less than an hour, so she made a point of swearing repeatedly to all her fake fans who bad-mouthed her.  Classy.  She is still quite the entertainer though, even though some of her acts were pretty violent.  One song was her just shooting a ton of male dancers (one in the genitals) with a fake gun.  The highlight of Madonna's act was definitely when she sang Like A Prayer and the gay guy several seats down from us danced up a storm.  I wish I had moves like he did.

The next day we headed to Bratislava in Slovakia which was only a hour train ride from Vienna.  We originally had no plans to go there, but in searching for a place to stay in Vienna, we came across a pretty cheap Sheraton in Bratislava, so we decided to live it up and relax in a nice hotel for a few days.  We ended up using cash and points for the rooms which amounted to like 3,000 points and $60 a night.  The best part was that the hotel was only a few years old, and was connected to a new mall that had a movie theater attached to it.  So for the most part our three days in Bratislava consisted of roaming around the mall, eating at the food court, watching movies, and relaxing in our sweet hotel room.  Sharon even made a trip to the hotel spa, which she really wasn't too pleased about.  I'll spare you the details.  We did walk around old town a bit which was nice, but it didn't really have the wow factor that some of the other cities we had already seen.  The beer was good though, but that was basically the case during our entire time in central Europe.

We saw a movie each day we were there.  We saw the final Batman movie, Ted (the Seth Myers movie with the talking bear) and Brave.  We really enjoyed Batman, thought Ted was pretty hilarious, but we a bit disappointed by Brave.  Pixar seems to be losing their touch a bit.  Wonder if that's because of Disney.  I'm still holding out hope for Finding Nemo 2 though.  Can't wait for that to come out.

We were so absorbed in our break from our tough life as backpackers, that during our three full days in Bratislava, we only took 3 pictures.  Here they are:

A beautiful church in Bratislava.

Not sure what Sharon was getting at when she wanted
me to get down on all fours to pose with the pigs.

What would be the only thing worthy of our third
picture in Bratislava?  Cheese of course!!

After three days of R&R from our six month vacation, we hopped on the train back to Vienna, and then hopped on the train to Prague.  It was a pretty long travel day, and we ended up getting to our cute little hotel in the early evening.  We dropped of our stuff in our room, got a quick tip from the hotel proprietor for a decent, close restaurant, and made our way there.  We had a solid meal, although our wait staff didn't seem extremely pleased to be serving us.  Not sure what the deal was.  The best part of the meal though was the beer.  Prague was definitely the pinnacle of our trip when it came to the beer.  Very cheap, and very delicious.  And if seriously f'd you up.  All the beers we had there were like 8% or 9% alcohol.

The two days we spent in Prague mostly involved strolling around the city, sampling some of the local fare, and drinking a lot of the beer.  As a result my memory of our time in Prague is a bit thin.  I do remember the food highlight of our time in Prague though (mostly because of all the pictures we took of it).

"What is this?  Could it be......"

"Why hello Mr. Slow Roasted Pork, we meet again."

Are you jealous?  I am.  I wish I was my past self right now.

Sharon double-fisting it in Prague.

Here's another tasty treat that Sharon found during our wanderings about Prague.  I can't remember exactly what it was (hopefully Sharon can shed some light) but I believe it was some kind of meat with cheese in the center.  Whatever it was, it was pretty damn good.

I present to you the whatchamacallit sandwich.

Our second afternoon in Prague we crossed the Charles bridge and eventually made our way up into a park in some high hills beyond where we sat back and enjoyed the view from our high vantage point.  Here are some pics:

The Charles Bridge and the Vltava River.

Our high vantage point over the city of Prague.

After the park, we headed back into town with the goal of finding a bar with great beer.  We found a recommendation in a guide we had, and eventually made our way to it.  Czech's definitely brew some seriously great beer.  Mad props.

My turn for some double-fisting action.

We definitely really enjoyed Prague.  Absolutely beautiful city.  I think we would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been one of a string of major central European cities we had visited.  And if you hadn't figured it out already, the beer was awesome.  Seriously.  Go visit for the beer.

Next stop, Berlin.  Second to last stop on Ted and Sharon's RTW trip.  So sad.

Sharon not so happy that our trip was almost over.