ok, we've been super busy lately and i know thats no excuse buuuuut we promise to sit down and update this thing as soon as we get a chance. Quick rundown though...
Ghent-beautiful, loved it! made a daytrip to antwerp which was pretty cool
Brussels-was ok but would of expected more for the "capitol" of europe...did get a free tour of eu parliment though which was pretty cool
Luxembourg-DULLEST CITY EVERRRRR
Paris-absolutely loved it, could of easily spent 3 more days there, saw everything and climbed 668 steps to get to the second level of the Eiffel Tower and then took a lift to the top.
London- if we said it sucked, 9 other people would be mad at us...buuuuut were just kidding, it was great and we had a blast seeing everyone!
Edinburgh-so far its great, wish we had more time in scotland in general but the city is amazing.
off to dublin in a few days then home...which is so wierd to say. but like we said, more updates later!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
P.S. about Amsterdam
We forgot to mention this before but Matt also has added some of the members of the cast of Miami Ink to to his list of people in which he has offended on this trip.
We where on our free tour of Amsterdam and where outside of a famous coffee shop and while the tour guide was talking Matt noticed Yoji (the asian apprentice) on Miami Ink and said "hey, arent you guys from L.A. Ink". The guy was totally offended that he got his show wrong, whoops
We where on our free tour of Amsterdam and where outside of a famous coffee shop and while the tour guide was talking Matt noticed Yoji (the asian apprentice) on Miami Ink and said "hey, arent you guys from L.A. Ink". The guy was totally offended that he got his show wrong, whoops
The guy in the hat was there too, he seemed lame
L.A. Ink is better anyway
Friday, August 7, 2009
Bruges
Were in Bruges right now, but are leaving tomorrow. It is a really small city, smaller than Venice if that puts it into perspective. Its crazy, it feels like your stepping into a picture when you walk around some of the streets here. And if you listen to Matt, it feels like an old midevil village full of mythical things...even though its not.
Still, we spent our time just walking around looking at everything. We went to a hospital museum, it cost 1 euro each so we figured why not. It was worth a euro. But other than that we just spent our time walking around taking it all in. It is the quietest place we've visted thus far and it is also one of the most beautiful.
Other than that there isnt that much to talk about, its a small intersting town but we spent the perfect amount of time here (one day). Quite frankly if we spent another day it would have been to much time.
Still, we spent our time just walking around looking at everything. We went to a hospital museum, it cost 1 euro each so we figured why not. It was worth a euro. But other than that we just spent our time walking around taking it all in. It is the quietest place we've visted thus far and it is also one of the most beautiful.
Other than that there isnt that much to talk about, its a small intersting town but we spent the perfect amount of time here (one day). Quite frankly if we spent another day it would have been to much time.
What we remember about Amsterdam
Its a very interesting city with a lot to offer. The city itself is really old while the people who inhabit it are relatively young. We went on the free tour that was offered and got to see everything all of the city. These free tours are AMAZING! But its really neat to see houses leaning every which way because the city was built on reclaimed land from the sea with really poor foundation. There are some of the smallest hosues we have ever seen and they all have a lot of character.
We were there for 4 days and did a lot of...cultural things. We went and saw the Anne Frank house. When we got there the line was wrapped around the block and we werent going to stay but we did and it was incredible. The house is still exactly the same except there is no furniture in the annex where the families stayed. You got to go through the small bookcase and go up through everything. It was really strange being able to walk through history like that. There were still pictures on the walls as well as origional bathroom and kitchen fixtures. Then at the end was Anne Franks origional diary, the whole thing was spooky and moving all at the same time.
We also saw the Van Gogh museum. It was intersting, but in the end its just another art museum. We saw a few famous pieces and some that were talked about during our art history classes so that was cool. But we have been to so many art museums that unfortunitally they are becoming less and less interesting as we go...same with churches, palaces and cathedrals.
Heineken beer tastes like dirt but the company sure knows how to create the most interesting brewery tour ever. The tour was in their origional brewery which they shut down in 1989, since then they completely transformed it into this incredible self guided tour. Every single exhibit in the plant was interactive, fun and educational all at the same time. We walked through the old brew room and it was really cool. They left all the old copper kettles in and you could play with them and look inside of them and ok, they are HUUUGE! We also got to taste unfermented beer...its sweet, in case you were curious. The rest of the place was impressive as well and even the free beer in the end didnt taste as terrible as it normally does...still, we only drank 1 of the 2 free beers we got...sorry Heineken.
The red light district isnt as cool as we figured it would be. There were not as many windows filled with girls, either because they werent rented for the night or they had a customer. It was very commercial also. It wasnt like the seedy back alley red light district that we where expecting. A decent amount of the girls looked like wierd space aliens becuase of the rediculous amount of plastic surgery that they had done. It was a little bit disapointing. But we ended up there twice, of course, and got lost the second time. The second time we were there was a little bit later in the night and there were a few more girls out but it wasnt what we were expecting.
In the end, we just had a good time...and were also proud of ourselves for actually making it out of there. For a while it was touch and go if we were leaving. :)
We were there for 4 days and did a lot of...cultural things. We went and saw the Anne Frank house. When we got there the line was wrapped around the block and we werent going to stay but we did and it was incredible. The house is still exactly the same except there is no furniture in the annex where the families stayed. You got to go through the small bookcase and go up through everything. It was really strange being able to walk through history like that. There were still pictures on the walls as well as origional bathroom and kitchen fixtures. Then at the end was Anne Franks origional diary, the whole thing was spooky and moving all at the same time.
We also saw the Van Gogh museum. It was intersting, but in the end its just another art museum. We saw a few famous pieces and some that were talked about during our art history classes so that was cool. But we have been to so many art museums that unfortunitally they are becoming less and less interesting as we go...same with churches, palaces and cathedrals.
Heineken beer tastes like dirt but the company sure knows how to create the most interesting brewery tour ever. The tour was in their origional brewery which they shut down in 1989, since then they completely transformed it into this incredible self guided tour. Every single exhibit in the plant was interactive, fun and educational all at the same time. We walked through the old brew room and it was really cool. They left all the old copper kettles in and you could play with them and look inside of them and ok, they are HUUUGE! We also got to taste unfermented beer...its sweet, in case you were curious. The rest of the place was impressive as well and even the free beer in the end didnt taste as terrible as it normally does...still, we only drank 1 of the 2 free beers we got...sorry Heineken.
The red light district isnt as cool as we figured it would be. There were not as many windows filled with girls, either because they werent rented for the night or they had a customer. It was very commercial also. It wasnt like the seedy back alley red light district that we where expecting. A decent amount of the girls looked like wierd space aliens becuase of the rediculous amount of plastic surgery that they had done. It was a little bit disapointing. But we ended up there twice, of course, and got lost the second time. The second time we were there was a little bit later in the night and there were a few more girls out but it wasnt what we were expecting.
In the end, we just had a good time...and were also proud of ourselves for actually making it out of there. For a while it was touch and go if we were leaving. :)
Can we eliminate Norway from the world?
If you ask us, so far, there is only one country that should not be part of the EU and/or Earth, and that has to be Norway. Lets start from the beginning.
First of all, its cold. Like cmon its the middle of summer and it is something like 60 degrees and constantly raining, we didnt leave Elkins Park for that. Second, its EXPENSIVE, and not center city Philadelphia expensive, like true rip off expensive. We went grocery shopping for 3 days worth of food and spent the equivilant of 100USD. For us, on this trip, thats a lot of money and the food wasnt worth it. Third, our hostel was sooooo far out of the way of anything. We got off the train and were going to take a regional train to get to the hostel but of course they were doing work on the line so we had to take a shuttle bus. We get off at the stop and of course have no idea where we are going so we ask for directions....an hour later we arrive at the hostel. In total it was something like 9km outside of the city, thats REALLY far from anything. Fourth, there are no ATMs anywhere. So word to the wise, if your going to stay in Oslo (or should i say outside of Oslo) make sure you have enough money for the bus becasue getting money is impossible. We managed to run out of money and were at our hostel when we found out that in order to get money you had to take a bus...which we had no money for. So Matt (he lost the coin toss) got on a bus (because we had enough for 1 person to go) and took the 20 minute bus ride into Oslo to get money for us...he came back 2 hours, 4 ATMs, 1.5 mile walk, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich later. We did nothing that day.
Fifth, since our hostel was so far out of the way we realized that no busses were going to run first thing in the morning, especially on a Sunday which is the day we had to take our flight out of that hell hole into Amsterdam. So, we booked a hotel room for the last night just so we could get out of the city in the morning. Sixth, we wake up at 445am, get to the trainstation buy our tickets and get on a train to go to the airport, these tickets we bought were $20 per person and it turns out they were the WRONG TICKET! So, another $40 later we are allowed to leave the train. Ok, why not label the ticket machine saying dont buy airport train tickets from here? Just a thought. Seventh (and last reason), this one isnt really the fault of Norway but we like to blame them for everything wrong in the world. We get to the airport and look on the board for our flight, its not there. We try to do sign in from a kiosk, it doesnt work. We look at our Expedia reservation, yea it turns out that our flight was for 4 DAYS PRIOR! We booked the flight for the wrong day and didnt realize it. So we tried to get it sorted out, turns out our tickets are gone and out of the system so we need to spend 3x what we origionally paid for a flight out of Scandinavia back into the motherland that is the land of the Euro. blech.
In a nutshell, Oslo, and Norway should be eliminated from the map (sorry aunt mar) its just a thought. Was there some cool stuff to see, kinda but all in all it wasnt worth the time and especially the money.
First of all, its cold. Like cmon its the middle of summer and it is something like 60 degrees and constantly raining, we didnt leave Elkins Park for that. Second, its EXPENSIVE, and not center city Philadelphia expensive, like true rip off expensive. We went grocery shopping for 3 days worth of food and spent the equivilant of 100USD. For us, on this trip, thats a lot of money and the food wasnt worth it. Third, our hostel was sooooo far out of the way of anything. We got off the train and were going to take a regional train to get to the hostel but of course they were doing work on the line so we had to take a shuttle bus. We get off at the stop and of course have no idea where we are going so we ask for directions....an hour later we arrive at the hostel. In total it was something like 9km outside of the city, thats REALLY far from anything. Fourth, there are no ATMs anywhere. So word to the wise, if your going to stay in Oslo (or should i say outside of Oslo) make sure you have enough money for the bus becasue getting money is impossible. We managed to run out of money and were at our hostel when we found out that in order to get money you had to take a bus...which we had no money for. So Matt (he lost the coin toss) got on a bus (because we had enough for 1 person to go) and took the 20 minute bus ride into Oslo to get money for us...he came back 2 hours, 4 ATMs, 1.5 mile walk, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich later. We did nothing that day.
Fifth, since our hostel was so far out of the way we realized that no busses were going to run first thing in the morning, especially on a Sunday which is the day we had to take our flight out of that hell hole into Amsterdam. So, we booked a hotel room for the last night just so we could get out of the city in the morning. Sixth, we wake up at 445am, get to the trainstation buy our tickets and get on a train to go to the airport, these tickets we bought were $20 per person and it turns out they were the WRONG TICKET! So, another $40 later we are allowed to leave the train. Ok, why not label the ticket machine saying dont buy airport train tickets from here? Just a thought. Seventh (and last reason), this one isnt really the fault of Norway but we like to blame them for everything wrong in the world. We get to the airport and look on the board for our flight, its not there. We try to do sign in from a kiosk, it doesnt work. We look at our Expedia reservation, yea it turns out that our flight was for 4 DAYS PRIOR! We booked the flight for the wrong day and didnt realize it. So we tried to get it sorted out, turns out our tickets are gone and out of the system so we need to spend 3x what we origionally paid for a flight out of Scandinavia back into the motherland that is the land of the Euro. blech.
In a nutshell, Oslo, and Norway should be eliminated from the map (sorry aunt mar) its just a thought. Was there some cool stuff to see, kinda but all in all it wasnt worth the time and especially the money.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Denmark and Sweden...Börk Börk Börk!!!
Copenhagen
Our first city in Scandanavia. Not the most exciting city we have encountered. We rented bikes and scooted around the city for a little while until we realized we arent bike people and its a lot harder than it looks. Saw the Little Mermaid Statue that sits off a jeddi. The statue is the lamist tourist attraction in the world, its not impressive at all.
The most interesting thing happening in this place where the naked hookers walking around the town square.
This city kind of sucked worse than Berlin, there isnt much else to say about it.
Stockholm and the Archipelago´s
Totally incredible. Stockholm is a very relaxing town on the water and is actually made up of 14 small islands all conected by bridges. We went to the Vasa Museum which is a museum dedicated to a ship that was hauled out of the Stockholm Harbor 333 years after its maiden voyage. (it sunk after it went 1500 meters). Its the only ship from the 1600´s that has been preserved in the world.
Our Hostel is really cool, part of it is a ship that has been preserved from the 1800´s. Our room wasnt on the boat but its still cool anyway.
We got creative with cooking food becuase its so expensive to eat out here and made some really good stuff. Made a gumbo thing and other fancy stuff.
Went to the archipelago capital of Vaxholm which is one of the small islands. Sat on the rocks and watched boats and what not pass as we ate lunch. Saw an old fortress and snuck into a museum exibition about the island prison from the 1700-1800´s.
The craziest thing about this place is that it DOESNT GET DARK TILL SOOOO LATE! The sun isnt even fully set at about 1030pm and it will rise at 4am...we kid you not. Try waking up to go pee at 4am only to see that its super bright outside, its insane. We wished we were able to get up to the Arctic Circle to see the midnight sun which is the 24hrs of sun for about 100 days but we just missed it and its a little far. Still, the color of the sky here at 1030 is what it would look like at about 8pm back home.
Our first city in Scandanavia. Not the most exciting city we have encountered. We rented bikes and scooted around the city for a little while until we realized we arent bike people and its a lot harder than it looks. Saw the Little Mermaid Statue that sits off a jeddi. The statue is the lamist tourist attraction in the world, its not impressive at all.
The most interesting thing happening in this place where the naked hookers walking around the town square.
This city kind of sucked worse than Berlin, there isnt much else to say about it.
Stockholm and the Archipelago´s
Totally incredible. Stockholm is a very relaxing town on the water and is actually made up of 14 small islands all conected by bridges. We went to the Vasa Museum which is a museum dedicated to a ship that was hauled out of the Stockholm Harbor 333 years after its maiden voyage. (it sunk after it went 1500 meters). Its the only ship from the 1600´s that has been preserved in the world.
Our Hostel is really cool, part of it is a ship that has been preserved from the 1800´s. Our room wasnt on the boat but its still cool anyway.
We got creative with cooking food becuase its so expensive to eat out here and made some really good stuff. Made a gumbo thing and other fancy stuff.
Went to the archipelago capital of Vaxholm which is one of the small islands. Sat on the rocks and watched boats and what not pass as we ate lunch. Saw an old fortress and snuck into a museum exibition about the island prison from the 1700-1800´s.
The craziest thing about this place is that it DOESNT GET DARK TILL SOOOO LATE! The sun isnt even fully set at about 1030pm and it will rise at 4am...we kid you not. Try waking up to go pee at 4am only to see that its super bright outside, its insane. We wished we were able to get up to the Arctic Circle to see the midnight sun which is the 24hrs of sun for about 100 days but we just missed it and its a little far. Still, the color of the sky here at 1030 is what it would look like at about 8pm back home.
All in all, Stockholm helped redeem our initial thoughts of Scandinavia. There was a lot to see and a lot to do and it was absolutely beautiful. If we ever came back we would like to do a tour of the Archipelagos as well as the Arctic Circle. We would try to get a house somewhere for a week or two, rent a boat and just explore...that would be really cool.
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