Amsterugelona

As predicted, November was crazy busy, what with friends and The Boyfriend visiting, along with trips every weekend…but since I have a wee bit of free time (and since Mom is demanding it) I’m making time for a new post!
Two weekends ago (sigh…getting behind is the worst) I took a trip through a tour group to Amsterdam and Bruges.

The trip took forrrevvverrrr to get there—we drove by coach to Dover, took a ferry to Calais, France, then coached through France and Belgium to the Netherlands.  We left London at 6:15 am, got to Amsterdam around 6:15 pm.
Arrived, checked into the hostel, and discovered it is located smack dab in the middle of the red light district, which was grosskies sicknast interesting. We took a red light district tour that night, and were introduced to the joys that are hookers in windows and coffee shops selling “space brownies.”
The next day we went to a Dutch heritage center where we saw wooden clogs being made and lots of windmills.

 
We came back to Amsterdam and took a canal cruise (if you didn’t know, Amsterdam has tons of canals, hence all the blue…)
The cruise was pretty neat, as it gave a pretty awesome view of the city.
  After the cruise, some people with the group and I visited the Van Gogh museum and the Anne Frank house.
In short…
The Van Gogh museum was not worth the €12.50 I paid for it.
The Anne Frank house was well worth whatever I paid for it—it was amazing, completely in tact (save for the furniture, which was removed at the request of Anne’s father) and was very moving.
The hostel we stayed at was pretty cool; the bar was banging, and so were the murals in the rooms.
(Although falling asleep with this above my head was a little weird.)
Also, the hostel had a cute black cat :)


Left Amsterdam Sunday morning to head to Bruges, Belgium.
Bruges was a really really neat city and they had a Christmas Market going on in the square which was fun.
I couldn’t go to Belgium without trying some Belgium waffles.
  The waffles and hot chocolate were amazeballs.
I think I would have rather had a day less in Amsterdam and an extra day in Bruges; the city was much nicer to explore and a lot cleaner (i.e. no hookers or pot brownies).
  
Another thing that kept me busy was The Boyfriend came to visit!!
 
I mished him.
I took him to see all the cool sites in London, as well as all my favorite spots to eat, drink, have fun, etc. We packed sooo much into the few days that he was here, but we had a blast.
 
As I mentioned in a previous post, Brent and I had booked plane tickets and a hostel for Barcelona to see Muse play there. Unfortunately, they had to change the concert date, but Brent and I still went and made the most of it. We decided to make a vlog of the trip!

Overall, the city was pretty cool, although it just didn’t seem very friendly, which was kinda lamespice. I’d like to go back in the summer sometime, because it is a beach city (we didn’t have time to actually see the beach) and apparently the city is just rockin then.

Sculpture down by the docks.

You can just see the city through the trees.

 

Two buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi.

Catedral de Barcelona

 
Sagrada Familia, by Gaudi. After over 100 years, the cathedral is still unfinished. Services will be able to be held in 2010 (I think), but the entire cathedral won’t be finished until 2030. The detail on the building was amazeballs.
Along with Brent visiting, two of the LVC besties visited over T-Giving break as well—Erin and Sean! It was awesome to see them.
Other things of note from the past week:
Saw Ingrid Michaelson in concert for the third time! She was amazing, as always.
Saw New Moon!!! Yeah. Amazeballs.

This weekend will be my last big trip in Europe to Paris. Going with Mark, Sarah, and Emily, so it should be a good time! Will post about it when I get back.