Baby went to Amsterdam, she put a little money into traveling

Now it's so slow, so slow.

Okay, so the original plan for the weekend was to go on a solo trip somewhere... Vienna and Salzburg, Budapest, Slovenia or Slovakia... didn't happen. 

My roommate Semaj really wanted to go to Amsterdam, and her usual travel buddies weren't feeling it, so I decided to go back with her. Absolutely no regrets. We got to do a lot of things I didn't get to do last time, for whatever reason. But before I get into that... lemme tell you a little something about German trains.

I had always heard how fabulous German trains are. How they're always on time, and perfect in every way, shape, and form. Well Since arriving in Europe close to two months ago, I've been forced to sit on the floor of two trains due to lack of space. Those same two trains proceeded to break down, both resulting in a minimum of 1.5 hour delay. Wanna guess what country of origin they were? That's right. German. (But I bet they were American-made)

So yeah, we sat on the floor. And drank with Germans. By the end of the 6 hour long ride (origionally supposed to be a 4.5 hour ride) we had killed a bottle of wine, half a bottle of vodka, and a carton of cranberry juice. Of course most of that was split between Travis, Paul, Rachel and the Germans. I mostly just encouraged. 

That's the first part of the story. But as some may have considered, the problem with one train being late is that it has a ripple effect. Because we got to Düsseldorf an hour and a half late, we couldn't get a train to Amsterdam until 4:00 the next morning. Soooooo we camped out in the train station. Luckily there were 10 of us, so security wasn't as big of an issue as it would've been if I were alone, or Semaj and I had gone alone. Plus we had originally planned on camping out in the park outside our hotel instead of booking a room to sleep in for just a few hours. 

So everything would've been fine if it weren't for this zombie women out of her mind on meth. She literally stumbled around like a zombie, walked through the front doors of the station, then stopped right in front of us and stared for like a minute, before limping away. Luckily I was against the wall and inbetween two huge potted plants and Daniel sleeping right next to me, but everyone else would've been zombie lunch...

Semaj stayed up all night keeping an eye out, but I really wasn't that worried. I don't think we would've had trouble. We were all finally waking up to get on the 4:00 train when all of a sudden this drunk homeless guy decided he was going to come sit right down next to us, so we immediately sprang up and gathered our belongings and went upstairs for the train. We passed the zombie meth lady, who spent the next five minutes bent at the waist half attempting to tie her shoe... and who then followed us up the escalator. It was a relatively terrifying night, to be honest. Thank god I slept through most of it.

So we finally get to Amsterdam around 9:00 the next morning- approximately 9.5 hours later than originally intended. We walk around for a bit, tour the city, get some breakfast, go to the Red Light District, then find our hotel and crash for about 3.5 hours before going out again. 

We went to the Van Gogh museum- which was fantastic. I actually didn't get any pictures whatsoever, but Semaj did and they're on Facebook. Overall it was a good trip- Rachel and "Mean Paul" (even though he's nice) went their own way, and the rest of us went another, but we all had different ideas of what to do, so the second day after visiting the Maritime Museum (the interior provided below) the girls and guys separated. Semaj, Stephanie and I went to get food, because we were close to strangling each other we were so hungry, exchanged kisses on the cheek for internet passwords, then went shopping. Feels like we didn't really do much, but it was nice just kind of chilling in the city. After we met up with the guys again we hung out in the park by the hotel and just enjoyed the nice weather and sunlight until 22:30 (10:30 PM) when it finally set.

Nice weekend in Amsterdam. The train coming back (German) was delayed too... but only by 30 minutes.

Definitely looking forward to Prague next weekend- where Cassie is meeting us! This week it's gonna be Semaj, Alex, Leah, Angela and us... should be fun. Either way, it'll be fantastic to see a friendly face. 

Florence... Rome and the Vatican

Again, so sorry about not posting anything... from the look of it, it wont get much better. My posts will be just as silly, rushed, three-quarter hearted (because I half-ass nothing), and delayed as ever.

So the last few weeks have been interesting... I've had a bit of trouble adjusting to being in a group. Which I may or may not have said in the last post. It's been really difficult for me to "join the group" and adjust myself to a strict, rigorous, and disciplined schedule. It's been especially hard trying to work and agree in a group when I've been so (functionally) independent on my own. Just this past weekend I had to walk 30 minutes out of the way to appease a drunk travel partner because they believed they knew the way to where we were going... even though I had the map. It's entirely frustrating.
I don't think the problem is functioning in a group, however. I think it's the people that I've been trying to function with. For the most part it's been people I wouldn't ordinarily hang out with, people that share nothing more than a common language with me for the most part. Luckily Outward Bound greatly prepared me to deal with situations like that... but it's been tiring and frustrating trying to readjust to the lifestyle, especially after so looking forward to having a social life after a month of solitude and "one-night-stand" friendships.
That being said, it's gotten easier over the past week. But it's still hard. I'm looking forward to being on my own for the day or so it'll take to get to France, and then traveling with Alia- who I'm already comfortable with and can tell to shut up (kidding...?). I probably shouldn't insult one-fifth of my readers like that. Anyway...

Okay so last weekend I went to Florence and Rome with Travis, Nathan, Luke and Daniel. It was loads of fun, and sooooo good to be back in Florence. It was nice being able to show them around without worrying about a map, too. We ended up staying a block over from where I stayed the last time.

So I ended up breaking my sandals the second day, I literally just bumped my foot against the curb and it just snapped. Which made me super sad, because they were my favorite shoes, my nicest pair, and ones that Sean had bought me :[ Luckily I brought an extra pair... but they weren't made for much walking and they too were destroyed by the end of seeing Rome.

We spent one day in Florence, and two in Rome and the Vatican. We basically got to Rome a little late and toured some of the sites at night, then woke up early and tackled the entire city in one day. I couldn't even tell you everything we saw... basically anything in Rome that there is to see, we saw. The Trevi fountain, Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, Pantheon, the Vatican- Sistine Chapel ect.

I wasn't a fan of the Sistine Chapel. That's not to say I didn't like seeing it- it was exactly as I imagined-- absolutely gorgeous. But as soon as you walk in you have security hushing you, and telling you no pictures or videos... it was just a really hostile, tense environment. We were packed in there like sardines, feeling like the security guards were looming over us, fingers on the pin of a grenade to be dropped if everyone touched the power button of their cameras or phones. Nathan ended up getting kicked out for taking pictures... which surprised no one.
Anyway, I just didn't like that it felt like the church was taking advantage of tourists, benefiting off of their regulations that forces them to purchase overpriced postcards from the gift shop. Just doesn't seem like something that Jesus himself would approve of... seeing as (I believe) a similar situation in the bible resulted in his only fit of fury depicted.

So Rome has way too many tourists. I'm pretty sure there's no longer any such thing as a "local." It was a beautiful city, but I would die happy if I never had to go back there again. Just not for me, at all. And I'm glad I waited to do it with a group.

Overall, it was a great trip, I had a great time- absolutely no complaints.