Amsterdam

Well, last weekend a group of around fifteen of us went to Amsterdam. We got up really early and left London Heathrow at 8:15 and got in around 11. Traveling with a large group has its pros and cons which was pretty obvious to all of us from the start. We took a train from the Amsterdam airport to the Grand Central Station. After walking around for a little bit, we found our hostel which was a house boat in the bay. The rooms were absolutely tiny... my one friend was able to stand in the middle of the room and touch both walls. But the beds were really comfy and we never spent any time in the rooms except to sleep so we all got a good laugh out of it. The picture is of our houseboat with the sunset in the back.

After setting our stuff down, we immediately got going. We all had to break up because moving around any European city with more than 3 or 4 people is impossible, you just end up looking like stupid touristy Americans. So I broke off with my two friends Steve and Mike and we started exploring. The most interesting thing about Amsterdam is their obsession with bikes. EVERYONE rides bikes... you actually have to be more careful not to get hit by a moving bike than a car. Every light pole, gate, bridge and railing had a bike locked to it. It was pretty crazy. The city itself was interesting, and VERY easy to get lost in. There were hundreds of canals between all the tiny side streets, so everything looks exactly the same. While we were there, we did a tour of the Heineken Brewery, the Ann Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum.

The Heineken Brewery was pretty cool, and the three of us ended up running into 5 other kids we came with so that was fun. It was 15 euros, which included a two free beers, the tour, a sample of all the different ingredients of beer and this virtual ride. Learning about the beer making process was pretty interesting. It was also interesting to try all the individual ingredients that go into the beer. However, other than that, it was just pushing product in your face. You have to expect that, going on the "Heineken Experience", but it got a bit ridiculous. Every room was basically screaming BUY HEINEKEN! instead of actually showing you the history and explaining the actual product itself. It was cool to do though.


The Ann Frank House was probably my favorite. This was one of the only activities we did as an entire group. We waited in line for forty minutes, but it was worth it. It was bone chilling walking through the house, seeing the bookcase that hid the attic and walking around the actual rooms where the family hid. The father, who survived, didn't want any of the furniture to still be in the rooms, so everything was empty except a few artifacts from the war. They put quotes from the diary all over the walls. The last room of the actual house was incredibly sad; it described how the family was discovered, captured, separated and eventually killed. Each person had their picture, the Nazi's concentration camp registration card, their place of birth and their place of death. They had taped interviews playing all over the room from people who knew the family, who saw them once they got in camp and who knew the father after the war ended when he realized his entire family died. It was heartbreaking. The final room was uplifting though. They had quotes of famous people who had gotten inspriration from reading Ann's diary. They had the actual letters between Mr. Frank and Mrs. Roosevelt about translating the diary to English. It was really, really interesting. (Ann Frank House is the one right in the middle with with blue thing in front of it)

The Van Gogh Museum was definitely worth going to, but I think it was a little over rated. It was a pretty small Museum and kind of expensive to get into. The first floor only had a few of his own paintings. The second floor was by far the best, obviously, because it included Starry Night. It was amazing to see in real life. We all stood there for over fifteen minutes just looking at it. Of course I had to get my camera out and get a picture even though you could get kicked out for doing so. There were other famous paintings by him, like Potato Eaters, but nothing came close to seeing Starry Night.

Other than that, we mostly just walked around and explored. We did walk through the Red Light District a few times. We all got a kick out of it, because it is just so surreal. It's hard to believe that a place like the Red Light District actually exists, let alone being legal. It was pretty creepy all day, especially once it passed dinner time. I always held one of the guys hands to prevent getting crude remarks yelled at me. But it was still wild to watch this kind of place.

Here are some final thoughts on Amsterdam:
1. It is the most surreal, backwards place I have ever been to. Example: My one friend Corey has a very badly bruised heel. He was a trooper all weekend, never complaining of the pain or all the walking we had to do. However, the one time he did take the public transportation system, he put his foot up on a seat for a rest. The next stop, the police were waiting for him, telling him that putting his feet up on a seat was illegal. He explained that he didn't know, that he wasn't from Europe, that he couldn't read Dutch and that he hurt his foot and was giving it a rest. They didn't care, they took him to the police station and gave him a 60 euro ticket. In other words, Amsterdam allows women to sell themselves for next to nothing and they will sell weed to anyone who can pay for it, but you CANNOT put your feet on the seat on the dirty public trams.
2. I have a renewed fear of bikes. After getting over my fear of bikes after my little incident that resulted in two casts on my birthday, I finally was able to love bikes again. However, I almost got run over about thirty times. My one friend actually got his foot run over by a bike and all his toes are bruised. Another kid his clipped by someone's handle bars and dropped the drink he was carrying. Scary!
3. I don't think I will be going back to Amsterdam anytime soon. It was pretty crazy. Two and a half days was the perfect amount of time there, I don't think I would have liked staying there any longer. However, I do wish we went during the spring, when the trees and plants were in bloom along the canals. It is suppose to be absolutely beautiful.

This Friday, my friend Taylor Niceforo is coming to visit for a week. I'm really excited to have a little taste of home. It is also John Carroll's spring break, so we counted 11 people coming to visit this weekend. It will be pretty crazy. Then everyone leaves next Thursday because our spring break begins and we are all traveling.

I will try to update again before I leave for spring break.

Hope all is going well,

Torrey

Stonehenge and the Silent Dance

Friday night was one of the funnest nights I have had here so far. In Trafalgar Square, there was, as they call it, an organized flashmob event. A flashmob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public area, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. This event we found on Facebook was called the Trafalgar Square silent dance, meaning that everyone wears their own ipod, listens to their own music and dances. There were a ton of people there. We ended up climbing up the monument in the middle of Trafalgar Square, jumping off into the crowd to crowd surfing. I crowd surfed a few times and got carried like 25 feet. It was an absolute blast. No one knew each other but everyone was just dancing together and having a good time. If this happened in the US, I think things probably would have gotten out of control and people would have gotten hurt because they took it too far. We went to Gordon's Wine Bar afterwards to talk about how crazy and amazing the night was.

Saturday was our day trip to Stonehenge. We got on a bus at 9am and drove 2 hours to literally the middle of no where. Then all of a sudden, you see the rock formation. It was really cool to see Stonehenge, as it is one of the wonders of the world. However, the entire rock formation is roped off so you cannot come within like 30 yards of it. So you need like 15 minutes to take a few good pictures and take it in.... we had an hour. So as those loud, obnoxious American college students, we decided to have some fun. We tried recreating Stonehenge with people, as you can see in the picture. Everyone, even the workers, found it pretty amusing. After Stonehenge, we got back on the bus and drove another hour to Salisbury, which is your typical small English countryside town. There was an absolutely beautiful cathedral there that holds part of the Magna Carta, but you had to pay five pounds to get in. So instead, we went to a pub for some fish and chips and a few pints. We were all exhausted by the time we got back on the bus due to the lack of sleep from our crazy Friday night.



This week I have two papers due, which is the most amount of work I have heard anyone doing so far. But, this weekend a big group of us are going to Amsterdam so that is acting as my motivation.

Cheers,

Torrey

bronchitis is a drag

Well, of course with the great luck I always seem to have when I travel, I got sick. I got some kind of chest infection (they don't call it bronchitis here) that has caused me to have a terrible cough for about 3 (out of the 4) weeks. I was finally able to get an appointment at the health clinic yesterday and thankfully was given antibiotics. So I haven't been doing much other than laying around and sleeping.

The weekend was still fun even though I didn't really have energy to do much. We had three girls from John Carroll who are currently studying in Rome come up to visit. They got in late Thursday night so we just hung around the dorms. Friday we walked them around to all the major London spots. It was kind of cool to show people around the city, knowing where you are going, and not be the ones taking all the pictures. It was the first time that I actually felt like a Londoner which was very exciting. We went to this club called Fabric on Friday that was named one of the top nightclubs in the world. It has several different rooms. My two favorites were the hip hop room, which had a floor that vibrated with the bass, and the rave room, which had glow sticks, laser lights and loud music. It was pretty pricey, but one of those places you have to experience while you are there.

Saturday, my two friends and I went to Hampstead, a town in North London, while the visitors went shopping. Hampstead is best known for it's park, Hampstead Heath. The actual town itself is tiny, it only takes about 20 minutes to walk through. However, they have the HUGE Hampstead Heath Park. It was absolutely beautiful, with little ponds and very old trees around every corner. Although the entire park was very pretty, my favorite part was Parliament Hill. It was a tough walk up, a steep hill that took like 15 minutes to climb, but it was definitely worth it. At the top there are benches that you sit on and see a view of the entire city. The view is breathtaking, as you can imagine from the picture.



Other than that, I have been taking it easy. I don't plan on doing much besides resting until Saturday, when we take a day trip to Stonehenge. I heard you only need like 5 minutes there since the rocks are so blocked off and we are in the area for the day, so it should be an interesting day.

Let's hope these antibiotics work out

Torrey

ps-- here is the link to my pictures website: http://torreygrenda.myphotoalbum.com//albums.php
let me know if that works.

4 inches of snow? really?

So, over Sunday night we got about 4 inches of snow. Monday morning we wake up to find the entire city of London in a complete panic. They do not know how to deal with, move, or get rid of any amount of snow. Four inches is the most they have gotten in about 20 years. The mayor was so worried that he ordered all the buses (over 6800) to be stopped and the tube had like over half of the lines closed. So more than 75% of the city's public transportation was closed. Schools and colleges were canceling classes and tons of stores, restaurants and pubs were closed. I saw people using a broom to clear snow off of a bridge and they use sand instead of salt to melt the snow and get some traction (it doesn't work it just makes the snow look gross). Besides a few inconveniences, it was pretty funny watching such an efficient city absolutely break down. And our park looked absolutely beautiful.















But I braved the "blizzard" and took a tour of the recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It was for a school project, but it was pretty cool. They did it exactly like the one Shakespeare used so many years ago. It was actually pretty cool to get all the inside scoop on Shakespeare. I was surprised to learn that the movie Shakespeare in Love was actually a really accurate portrayal of his life, the theater and the time period. Also, it's only 5 pounds for a ticket in the "Groundlings" (area on the ground where you stand in front of the stage for the entire performance) and you can bring your own food and drinks. Overall, I thought the tour was more interesting than I anticipated.















This weekend a few of my friends from John Carroll that are studying in Rome are coming to stay with us. I'm really excited to see some familiar faces that I don't see everyday.

Cheers

trips!

Here are the trips we have planned so far:

Feb 14 - Stonehenge

Feb 20-22 - Amsterdam

March 5-15 - (Spring Break) Rome, Florence, Venice, Cologne, Hamburg

March 20-22 - Wales

April 3-5 - Ireland

April 9-13 - Majorca

April 16-19 - Brussels

Never a dull moment

Another week of classes has gone by. All the classes seem pretty easy so far, but they are at least an hour and a half long each so it's easy to get antsy and distracted (there is only so much literary London I can take at 9am Monday and Wednesday mornings). We took it easy for the most part. We walk around almost every day but other than that nothing too exciting.


On Thursday, my two friends and I decided to find Platform 9 and 3/4 from the Harry Potter books. The three of us are all really into the Harry Potter series so we were very excited to find it. So we took the tube to King's Cross (the station where the platform is) and finally arrived to find it to be very anti-climatic. It's on some little corner of the station next to construction sites. But It was cool to take some pictures with.


After that, we just walked around the city. We ended up going to Gordon's Wine Bar again for a light dinner and a bottle of wine. After that, we joined the rest of the group for the festivities of the night to begin.


Friday we woke up and decided to explore once again since there is always something new to find. We walked around for what ended up being like 8 hours. At Trafalgar Square we ran into a Gaza Protest, which was pretty interesting. There were thousands of people screaming, chanting and holding signs. We listened to a few speakers, but when they brought up America not doing it's part, the crowd got pretty rowdy. The group of us decided to not give away our accents and get out of there in case it started to really get out of hand.




Saturday we went to Bath. It was about a two hour bus ride north. It was amazing to actually see the Roman Baths, but other than that, it was really touristy. They had really modern structures around the Baths with random artifacts hung on the walls. It was jammed packed so it was a lot of standing and waiting to get through the whole thing. They gave you these big phone like things to type in numbers located next to all these artifacts to hear why they were important. Then we finally got to the Bath and it was really really cool. You weren't suppose to touch the water, but of course we all did. The bath is fed by a natural spring that pours out steaming hot water at around 46 degrees C (aka 115 degrees F) They used it as a place for healing as well as a shrine to the goddess Minerva. We spent about half hour hanging around the Bath before exploring the town. The town basically consisted of little shops, pubs and a lot of row houses. We found a beautiful park that had the countryside in the background that we walked around for an hour. We left around 4:30, the perfect amount of time to see the baths, get some fish and chips at a local pub and wander around the small town.


Today, a couple boys and I woke up and walked to this open flower market which was a lot cooler than any of us anticipated. It was just a street of any kind of flower, plant, tree (orange and lemon trees) and bulbs. All the shops along the street were filled with tea, coffee, bizarre artwork/jewelry and interesting little gadgets. We decided that every Sunday we spend in London we are going to wake up and go to one of these weekend street markets. We walked home through Hyde Park and Notting Hill, both of which were beautiful. But of course, in the rush to meet the boys on time, I forgot my camera.

Tonight is the Superbowl so the pub at school is staying open late and showing it on the flat screen tvs they have in there. It doesn't start until 11:30pm here so I'll only watch a little bit of it.