Prague, Czech Republic

Last weekend, a group of 9 people(including myself) went to Prague for the weekend. We all took an overnight train from Cologne, Germany to Prague, Czech Republic! The people who went were Kathy(it was her birthday weekend!), Chelsey, Teaghan, Jeff, Alli, Saif, John, Martin, & I. We booked a 9 person apartment deep in the city of Prague(speaking of, this is a HUGE city. I had no idea beforehand). On the train ride over there, Teaghan and I went to go sit in John's compartment to hang out and pass time on this 10 hour train ride. In his compartment were the most random people ever, haha. It was us 3, a super old lady, and middle aged Iranian man. You could say the theme of the entire trip was caricatures and it started in this compartment when John began drawing everyone. It ended up with the Iranian guy claiming to be an artist and "attempting" to draw me. 

I'm on the right. Splitting image right? ;)

We got to Prague around 9 that morning and then went to go exchanged our Euros for Crowns! One Euro equals 25 Crowns so things got crazy real fast... For example, a 10 Euro meal for dinner would end up costing 250 Crowns! We basically had no concept of money during the trip so things got weird. We ended up catching a taxi from the train station to our apartment because the Czech language is nothing like the other european languages we've encountered. Usually the words are similar enough that you can semi figure out what you're doing...not here! Once we got dropped off, we realized we didn't have the address of our apartment from the AirBnB lady. We booked from AirBnB, which is a super cool website that allows people to rent out their personal apartments. After going to a restaurant around the corner and using their wifi, we were eventually able to figure it out. Crisis adverted :)

Later that day a group of us hit up the "Old Town" area of Prague. It was jam packed full of people but that didn't take away from the beauty of Prague! 

The weather wasn't that great that day so we eventually made our way to a mall. It was the first mall I've been in to within the past three months so that was pretty exciting! Yay civilization :)))

Unfortunately for all of this trip I was pretty sick. I didn't get to do as much as I wanted and I was pretty bummed that the first time I've gotten sick in a looooong time was in this beautiful city! A lot of the trip was a blur. Later that night a group of people went out to the bars and clubs. I stayed in because I was basically dying. Not really but really. The following day, Teaghan and I woke up early and went to explore the city. We ended up going to the main palace(which is up on a hill overlooking the city), St. Charles's Bridge, and the Salvador Dali exhibition. Okay, I'm just going to start throwing up pics because I seriously barely remember details of this day.

Castle!

View from the city from the palace(iPhone quality, oops)

view from St. Charle's Bridge

Dali obsessed

(btw, we got in free because the lady working was mysteriously gone. life was good).

the famous astronomical clock tower

and finally, the fanciest grocery store I ever did see.

Oh, and I decided I wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe soooo I plugged the address in the gps on my phone right? wrong. It led us like 30 minutes outside of the city to the sketchiest of sketch place. but...

WE SURVIVED! 

That night, we went to this club that was 4-5 stories deep and each floor was a theme: R&B/Hip Hop, Oldies, Current music, Bar&Lounge, &Dubstep. It was cool and super european. Oh and packed. 

The next day we all took the train back to Germany at 6 that night. To kill time we attempted to do homework/went shopping instead. I also found a pharmacy and got drugged up on pills to bring me back to life. Right now I'm currently in Florence, Italy for Easter! I'll update the blog about my italian adventures lataaaaa. Till then, Happy Easter everyone!:) 

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverancethe race marked out for us.

SB'2013 UK LIVING (PART 2)

It's been almost two weeks since I last blogged! The month of March has just been crazy- traveling every weekend + actually having to start homework= no time for anything else! I actually just got back from a weekend trip to Prague this morning buuuuut I'm going to play catch up now and finish my recap of spring break. K? k.

I'll start off by saying that Edinburgh, Scotland is by far my favorite city in Europe(except for Venice). It was one of those unexpected surprises; we kind of just decided to go there on a whim since we wanted to be in Ireland for St.Paddy's Day & Scotland was in the area. I should have known it was something special though because my Uncle Mike has gone several times & has just raved about it. 

We flew into Edinburgh around midday on Wednesday, the 13th, and caught a 30 minute long bus from the airport to the center of the town. I'm not going to lie, we hadn't eaten since early that morning and the traffic was a nightmare so my first impressions of Edinburgh were skewered by my horrible mood. I remember sitting on the bus and saying angry things under my breath the entire ride. No need to worry though, the second we got off the bus we 1) found a bank to exchange euros for pounds (and the bank worked with my bank of america card!) and 2) discovered that they had bakeries there full of CHEAP FOOD! it was a miracle. Coming from Switzerland, we had begun to accept our fate that a meal would cost no less than 20-40 Swiss Francs. Walking into the glorious country of Scotland and discovering that food was Bonn, Germany cheap and that everyone spoke english was a serious pick-me-up. I'm pretty sure I got a sandwich for like 2 pounds and did a little dance on the street. Teaghan & I walked into the bakery and freaked out so the lady working there probably thought we were insane. I'd like to think just delusional from lack of food :)

We ended up checking into this AMAZING apartment on Princes Street(one of the two biggest streets in Edinburgh) and just explored the city until Kathy & Josh got there. We were all sharing the room together & shout out to Josh Nutter for finding it. It was a gem- it had tv's in every room, a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom with a bath tub(you don't find those in Europe often) and cool little "americanized" things like iPod docking stations and straighteners. All for the price it would cost to book a hostel! holllaaaaaa. 

Here's a quick pic I took of a bridge connecting the old part of Edinburgh to the new. The city is split up into two separate parts and the area in the middle of them is filled with just green everything- trees, gardens, etc. It was beautiful then so I can't even imagine how it looks when actual spring time hits. It's pretty neat because the city has ordained that no buildings can be constructed that would block the view from either side. 

Teaghan wasn't feeling that great(waddup allergies) so we found this drug store on the main street. I think part of the reason I was so happy in Edinburgh was because it had this really awesome historical vibe mixed with new. It almost felt like home in some parts of it just because they had things like drug stores(not your typical apothecary you find everywhere else). It was a nice change of pace. When we were checking out I remember dumping all my pounds out on the counter and the guy working gave me a quick lesson on what was what(I currently have coins from like 5 different countries in my wallet- it gets confusing!) He asked me what brought me here & I explained to him that I was studying abroad and originally from Texas. Quick lesson: if you tell anyone you're from Texas, they automatically freak out and want to become your best friend. I like to compare it to having a British person be in the same proximity as us back home. You just want to tackle them and force them in your pocket. Right? Or did I just take that too far? Hah. 

After that, we found a super cool clothing store called Primark that was amazingly cheap & filled with stuff you can't really find in the states. I'm pretty sure we both spent like 20 pounds and got way too much stuff. Clearly the recipe to me being happy is beautiful scenery, cheap food, & good clothing stores. Scotland, you got this on lock. We ended up meeting up with Kathy & Josh for dinner at this italian restaurant and then all passed out early because we had a loooooong tour of Scotland the following morning! Here's another picture of the area.

The structure on the left is the only thing standing in-between the old and new parts of Edinburgh. There's a valley type area between them and this is right on the outskirts. It's a statue commemorating a poet/auther(can't remember his name) who played a major role in bringing publicity to Scotland. On the right, you can see some of the buildings on Prince's Street. All the buildings in this town were a deep stone brown with ornamental workings and gave off this powerful vibe. I was digging it.

The next morning, we woke up around 7 to go on a tour of Scotland. My uncle recommended the company giving the tour so I knew it was worth the money. The tour was called "Scotland in a Day"...and it was literally Scotland in a day. As in they took us up to the highlands and we circled around the country. The tour literally lasted about 12 hours(it's the longest tour offered in Scotland-we were informed this after we had gotten on the bus/Teaghan's face looked like death at the thought of being on a bus all day...oops). The tour was awesome though! We got to see parts of Scotland very few people do. It's such a neat country. It's beautiful in it's own way. On the tour, we stopped thru several small towns, saw castles up on hills(it literally seems like there's a castle every 40 minutes down the road there-the country is full of so much history), saw places where Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings were filmed, &went to the Loch Ness monster lake. I remember driving past a castle that was home of Mary, Queen of Scots and realized how much history truly was in this place. It just blew my mind. I mentioned HP above...here is the mountain's where Hagrid's cabin was. A particular scene filmed here was when Buckbeak escaped.

I really just wanted a hippogriff to fly out from behind the mountain. Nerd status, no shame. 

We eventually made our way down to see Nessie(we all ended up refusing to pay 13 euros to go on a boat tour to "scan the lake for her" because we're poor starving college students who'd rather spend money on a meal than a tourist trap, haha. But while at a restaurant, we discovered these orange drinks that taste like Big Red but apparently are like one of the most caffeinated drinks in the world. (I'll bring one home for you dad!)

Here's the famous lake! It was pretty! The town it's by(Fort Augustus) is super quaint as well. It was all very peaceful and I'm going to go on another tangent about how much I love Scotland right now. It calms my soul :)

Here's a view of the precious town of Fort Augustus

We ended up heading thru a couple more cities and stopping at more sights along the way before getting back into Edinburgh around 8 that night. The day was exhausting but rewarding! At dinner that night, we went to a restaurant and were seated by some girls on vacation from TCU. I heard one of them say "Fort Worth" and I freaked out and started talking to them. Once they found out we were from Texas/A&M, it was chaos and we were all temporarily best friends, hahah (for an hour). The following day, Teaghan and I woke up(let's be real, I obnoxiously made him wake up) to go look at the sights of Edinburgh since we were leaving that night for Dublin. We went to Edinburgh castle, walked the Royal Mile(the other famous street in old town), went into some souvenir shops, explored some alleyways(a lot of the streets were constructed way back in the 1200s), and went and hiked Arthur's Seat! Arthur's Seat is this huge mountain/hill overlooking the town. It takes about an hour and a half to hike up, but the panoramic views are worth it!

This is Edinburgh Castle. It's on a giant volcanic hill overlooking the city and above is Arthur's Seat, which is overlooking the city from the opposite side. 

Oh! We also went and saw The Elephant House. It's the famous coffee shop that JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in. It's this little shop in the middle of a street with views of the castle in the back. I remember thinking that everyone in Edinburgh reminded me of people from a HP book & now I understand why! The author herself got inspiration from the town and people. It all makes sense!

I was sad to leave, but excited to see Dublin! So off to Ireland we went. That night, we went Temple Bar area to grab some food and to explore the town. It was only Friday and the major holiday was Sunday, but the atmosphere was already crazy! The one regret I had about going to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day was that you didn't really get a feel of what authentic Ireland was all about-it was like a giant spring break on a beach buuuut instead of a beach, it was in a major city filled with visitors from ALL over the world. Super cool though. The following day we took a tour of the Guinness factory(I was determined to get a new appreciation for beer- my ring dunk ruined it for me!). The factory was pretty cool. Not really my thing, but I'm glad I went to see it! Cause I mean going to the Guinness factory in Dublin, Ireland is pretttttty cool.

We later just walked around the city some more and went shopping of course. Oh and we found a really cool mexican restaurant. It was the closest thing I've found to my beloved tex-mex yet. <3

Sunday was St. Patrick's Day! We woke up and managed to catch the parade as it went thru the city.

It was a lot bigger than it looks in this photograph! Later that night was when the real craziness started though. Everyone basically just decked out in green and hit the bars. And when the pubs were full, they hit the streets. I don't really have a picture to do the insanity justice but just know that it was CRAZY.  Our flight was at 7am the following morning so we didn't get to stay out as long as we wanted to but we got to experience a good amount of it. Dublin was fun, Edinburgh was something special, and Switzerland is the definition of beautiful. Not really sure I'll ever be able to outdo this SB but I'll try!

....Australia next year? ;)

SB'2013 SWITZ LIVING (PART 1)

Hello all!

Right now I'm currently sitting in my super small/there's construction workers outside my window hostel in Geneva, Switzerland. I'm waiting till around 1:30pm to board a plane to go to Edinburgh, Scotland. These past couple of days I've managed to basically take a train throughout ALL of Switzerland. It's been ridiculously cool. On Friday, Teaghan & I caught a flight from Cologne, Germany to Zurich, Switzerland. After that, we took a train to Lucerne...to Interlocken...then to Lauterbrunnen(with hikes to Wengen, Murren, &Gimmelwald)...to Grindelwald...Bern...Geneva. 

All within like 5 days. World traveler status over hereeeeeee. hahaha.

I figured I'd break up my spring break adventures into two separate blogs in order to not overwhelm everyone(and myself). Here we go!

Friday morning, we all had a flight at 7am in Cologne. Therefore, we woke up at 3:50am in order to walk to the train station in Bonn, catch a bus taking us to the "flughafen"and then be at the airport an hour and a half early(since we hadn't mastered the whole flying around countries thing yet). It was pretty simple though! They even let us check our bags for free because...well I don't know why. But they did. Oh, there was also strikes going on in Cologne so the train station wasn't working that day. Super grateful we chose to fly instead of take a train to Switzerland! The workers under strike were also at the airport but it didn't prohibit our flight.

The flight was only an hour long and I was looking forwards to a good quality nap buuuuut...screaming child syndrome. Whenever you desperately want peace, there will be a screaming kid sitting next to you on the airplane, guaranteed. Kim Willett, you can testify to this. It ended up not mattering though because the flight was so short and we were super hyped up. I remember the second we stepped off the plane I asked Teaghan if he was tired. He looked at me and was all like "no way, I have swiss energy!" Picture him like yelling that with crazy red cracked haven't slept eyes and a weird voice and you get the gist.

We then caught a train to Lucerne, Switzerland! I've been here before with my family about 9 years ago and I knew it was my mom's favorite place in Switzerland sooo I wanted to go back. And it was a good call because Lucerne is GORGEOUS(but unfortunately way expensive...) 

It didn't matter though because I got to play with swans. 

There was about 30 of them and they were so used to people! It was neat. You could get super close to them and they were purrrrrrty. Lucerne is just a really neat town. It's on this huge lake with super old wooden bridges decorated with paintings from the 17th century. It is so relaxed and you just want to walk around all day and people watch. Or sit by the lake in the middle of swans and meditate. That too.

The following morning, we caught a train heading to Lauterbrunnen! This is a tiny village town located in the Jungfrau region of the Swiss Alps. It is known for having 72 waterfalls! It was absolutely gorgeous right now so I can't even imagine how beautiful it would be in the summer when everything is green, the flowers are blooming, and the waterfalls are fully going. Plus you can bike there then!

Hi, i'm coming back. 

PS: My new goal in life is to bike across Europe sooo I should probably just not come back to Texas & make that happen this summer. 

Anyways, we checked into the Valley Hostel & began wondering around the town. It didn't take long because Lauterbrunnen is literally one strip of hotels and homes in the valley sandwiched between two huge mountains. It has such a cool vibe! You feel very one with nature there, haha. After grabbing a quick lunch in a cafe, we decided to do something adventurous. You know, live life on the edge. Everything we wanted to do(sky diving, paragliding over the tallest mountain in Europe, cliff climbing, and bungee jumping)/(am I freaking you out yet mom?) was way too expensive...so we decided to hike up a huge mountain because it was free! Ahhh yea. So hike we did.

The mountain trail led us from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen. It consisted of literally climbing uphill on long winding paths on cliffs for over an hour but it was totally worth it! Very rewarding. I should also note that while it was 1 degrees there(Celcius), we were still sweating. Like, Teaghan hiked in a short sleeved shirt. We got weird looks from everyone in the town(who was in ski gear) the rest of the day. Here's a picture taken from the hike. We weren't at the top yet but the view was still amazing. If you look closely, you can see Lauterbrunnen at the bottom of the valley. 

Later that night, we found a cute little hotel restaurant to eat dinner at. Switzerland is absolutely one of my favorite countries(along with Scotland. But I might be biased because I'm typing this in Scotland right now).  However....THE FOOD THERE IS SO EXPENSIVE. We got sick of paying 5 swiss franks for a coca cola light so we took to buying cheap water at the store and sneaking it into restaurants. At this particular one, we were seated right next to the bar so we really learned the task of sneaking it in here. Talent y'all. Serious talent. 

The next day, we decided we were hiking obsessed so we decided to make a two hour hike to the neighboring town of Murren. Once there, we took a cable car to one of the highest mountains in Europe, the Schilthorn. It had a revolving restaurant at the top & a James Bond movie was actually filmed up there! Crazy stuff. But back to the hike. This treck through the wilderness just blew my mind. Words won't do the view justice, so I'll attempt to post pictures to give you the full effect. 

IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. I WANTED TO STAY THERE FOREVER.

It was hard to pull me away. Being completely immersed in nature is when I'm happiest so this was absolutely heaven. I have so many more pictures that I'll be posting to facebook in a couple of days so make sure to look! They'll probably make more of an impact.

We eventually made it to the top of the Schilthorn and it was pretty awesome as well. You could see out as far as the Black Forest in Germany and most of Switzerland. It was SO cold up there, but it was worth it! You felt like you were on another planet. 

We eventually hiked back to Murren and the Gimmelwald to catch a train back to Lauterbrunnen. The lady working the cable car was literally crazy. So crazy that I feel the need to blog about her. We showed up to purchase tickets and she was literally screaming at us to hurry because the train was about to leave...and then she'd calm down. We'd let our guard down. Attempt to pay. She'd scream again. Then get quiet. Then scream again. She was the most stressful human being I've ever met in my life. Even more stressful than Morgan Willett (never thought I'd see the day). Oh and after being yelled at by her split- personalitied self, we made it to the cable car and had to wait like 3 minutes for it to leave. The whole thing was comical.

The following day, we all caught a train going to Grindelwald. It was pretty cool returning here, as I was here with my family 9 years ago as well. Deja vu! Grindelwald is my favorite village city in Switzerland. Waking up to the view of these towering and powerful mountains every day was amazing. It's hard to believe a place this perfect even exists. Being surrounded by this scenery is a constant reminded of how beautiful life is and I'm so grateful I got the opportunity to spend 5 days in Switzerland this past week :)

While here, we decided to go sledging! Sledging is similar to sledding except you're steering with your feet while going down these huge hills at super fast speeds. Yay, adrenaline rush. Each run took about 30 minutes and it was amazing (I use this word too much to describe Switzerland but don't even careeee).

Also, we were going down a huge hill and Teaghan crashed and fell off his sled. However, the sled literally just never stopped once he fell and we couldn't catch up to it...so it just took off with us chasing it. Hahah, it was horrible. We literally had to leave the path and hunt through the trees and snow to find this thing because Teaghan had no way of getting down the mountain/he didn't really feel like paying hundreds of dollars to replace the lost sled. 

No worries, we found it. It was a miracle though!

Eskimo.

We ended up leaving Grindelwald the next morning and staying in Geneva because the hostel room was a lotttttttt cheaper. However, the food was not! We were all about that McDonald's lifestyle because a kids meal there was 7 swiss franks and literally the cheapest thing we could find in the city. Didn't even matter though because...we found a life sized human chess set in a park! Seriously, coolest thing ever.

I felt like I was playing Wizard's Chess(Harry Potter nerd alert) and I just wanted to knock over all the pieces every time I took one. Might I add, Teaghan & I played two games and I annihilated him every time. Thank you 6th grade teacher for forcing my class to learn chess. Win. It was funny because while we were playing, people would come up and take pictures of us. Mini celebz for a day!

The next day, we left Geneva for Edinburgh, Scotland. I'm currently here now and I'm fixing to leave for Dublin, Ireland tomorrow(SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!). I'll continue blogging about Spring Break later & I'll post 2394732 pictures later as well. 

Auf Wiedersehen! 

amster-dayuuuum

It's officially almost spring break! It amazes me how fast time is going by over here. Seems like just yesterday that Erin & I were walking to the train station, talking about how ready we were for this week to be here. Or...how excited I was that it was finally February!
Slow down life. Please.

We went to Amsterdam last week with AIB. We left at 8am Wednesday morning and rode on a charter bus for 4 hours until we got there. Party. I had never before had much of a desire to go to Holland. (Dreaming about sitting on the beaches of Italy and stuffing my face with italian food in Venice were more near & dear in my mind). Needless to say, Amsterdam was a pleasant surprise. I absolutely LOVED it. seriously, obsessed. love, love love. It is the Austin, Tx of Europe. Out of all the towns I've visited this year(and in the past as well), this by far had one of the biggest personalities of a town. It was full of quirky stores, really cool graphic design, bicycles, color, people, food, food, food x23947, canals, youth, prostitutes(ha ha), art...the list goes on. You could walk around there everyday to explore and not get bored. Not to mention it had the best flea market there. Seriously y'all, it was massive. 
I was so happppppppy!

The first day there, we went on a giant canal cruise as a group. There's 30 of us. Yes, we were that group of tourists. 

Seeing Amsterdam via the canals was neat. It's got nothin' on Venice but it's still gorgeous!

After that we went & toured the Anne Frank Haus. We weren't allowed to take pictures unfortunately. I  will say this though; this is one of my all time favorite museums i've been in. I left it feeling seriously moved. Walking through the house and seeing the size of the space they had to live in for 2 years blew my mind. Words won't do it justice, but i'll give my best attempt. Imagine having 2 floors to live on. Each floor had around 3 rooms(and you had to share your bedroom with others). Imagine not seeing daylight for 2 years. Imagine seeing the same people EVERYDAY and imagine not being able to move from morning to evening...everyday, for if you walked, the workers below might hear you. Imagine only being allowed to whisper. Imagine having no windows except in the attic, which only allowed you to see the top of trees. Imagine having nothing to vent to except a journal. Being there & witnessing everything they went through just got me. I left feeling extremely blessed for the life I live and the freedom I have. 

The next day we went to tour the company Fabrique. They are a web design/graphic design company based in the Netherlands. Lemme tell ya, they have a seriously cool office space. It was super mod and everyone was wearing your typical holland-chic-hipster-i love vnecks and sweet kicks-attire(picture it in your head. do it now). It was relaxed and awesome. I liked how the employees were split up between designers and coders. Often, companies require the employees to be able to do both, which is fine...except most people are more passionate about one or the other. Fabrique's got this dowwwwwn. Can i work there? K thx. Net, we went and toured the Van Gogh Museum which was pretty dayuuuum cool. He used to be my favorite artists growing up as a kid, so seeing a lot of his work in person was inspiring. No pictures were allowed. Sad day again. After that, we went to the city of Noordwijk, which is a small town on the coast of the Netherlands. That evening, after settling into our astonishingly nice hostel, we went on a lil excursion to the North Sea. For some reason they gave us huge torches to light on fire...yes. please give immature college boys giant sticks of fire to play with while you walk in the wind and dark 30 minutes to the beach. No worries, we did get lost but nobody died. Had a couple of close calls though ;)

Awful quality picture, i know! Just know that this was at the beginning annnnd the flames got bigger. The following day we woke up and raced vehicles that we made out of random stuff we found. Teaghan and I teamed up and made a super ghetto machine that failed miserably. We(I) named it SassE. Precious, I know. It wasn't precious though when it wouldn't move >:(

We left Noordwijk and some people went back to Bonn & some of us went back to Amsterdam(me included). We basically just explored the town the next couple of days. Fun fact: When you go to the Red Light District, you will see a surprising amount of elderly couples there. Just living out the rest of their lives I guess...lol. Teaghan & I also found this AMAZING store called Time Machine. Like seriously, I want to move to Amsterdam and work there, it made me that happy. It was basically a small hole in the wall store that was like a dream, it was so cool. It was filled with vintage pieces from name brand designers; Chanel, Alexander McQueen, Prada, Dior, Versace. You name it, they had it. I wanted it all. Buuuuut, not only did they have that, they had antique pieces that all had an amazing story! The girl working there started going around and showing pieces to us. She showed us all these authentic bomber jackets from World War 1. Each jacket belonged to someone in the war and had been hand painted with things such as the number of people they killed, the number of planes they flew, types of planes, places they had been, etc. It was all personable and just amazing. Absolutely amazing. 

Also, they had these Reebok Voltran shoes that cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Collectors from all over the world come to see them, as there are only 80 made in existence. I had no idea what they were until she explained it to me but Teaghan immediately knew and freaked out. Apparently the man who owns this store has really good connections all over the world, which is how they get all this stuff. She said that he was constantly leaving and meeting people to look at things they had to buy. 

Another piece that stood out in my mind was this suitcase they had for sale. It belonged to a woman who was a Jew. She had that suitcase with her as she was fixing to be shipped to a concentration camp. However, the bus she was on got bombed and she managed to escape with her bag. Gives me chills just thinking about it.

I didn't want to leave! If anyone goes to Amsterdam, please go visit this place. It's like a secret museum.
The rest of my time there was filled with bar hopping, people watching, shopping, annnnd just soaking it all in. Oh, I also learned to like cappuccino there. Like, I seriously woke up and wanted it one day. Now I've had it almost everyday. Miraculous do exist people. 

I'm back in Bonn now! Spring break begins Friday for us. I plan on traveling to Switzerland(Lucerne, Lauterbrunnen, & Grindelwald), Scotland(Edinburgh), and Ireland(Dublin...SAINT PATRICKS DAY!) all within a week and a half. It's gonna be exhausting but I'm ready for it! Let the adventure continue :) And with that, I'll leave you with one last picture of the beautiful city of Amsterdam.