"it's a caravan"

Yesterday on the train was the first chance I had in days to write in my journal...so Sarah and I put our heads down and just wrote for nearly the entire train ride from Amsterdam to Köln, Germany. This entry filled 13 pages...so I'll try to condense it.

In Paris...where I left off...

We finally found Forrest (a really good friend of mine that I met in San Luis Obispo during my brief stint there...he currently is pursing his masters in Germany) the day after we arrived in Paris...it was quite the challenge! But we had a very nice dinner with him and Amelie at her flat, and could finally relax a little after trying so hard to come together and get organized.

The next day (my birthday), we met up with Stephanie and Daniela (two friends from the gym I worked at in LB) and hung out in the garden of the Louvre for a good portion of the day. It was cold and cloudy, but that didn't stop us from being outside anyway. We then met up with Forrest and went out to a nice dinner in Theresa's old neighborhood...I remembered the place from when I was in Paris last year, and I remembered the food being really good. Lots of cheese. They looked at us very oddly, probably because we were there at 6, and I guess Parisians don't eat dinner until at least 7. It was a very nice day, but for some reason, it did't really feel like my birthday. Maybe the whole foreign country thing and not talking to my family. But I did get lots of lovely emails/messages, so thanks for that!

The next day we met up with Steph and Dani again and did the boat tour of the Seine. I always avoided it because it seemed like such the typical tourist thing to do, but even Amelie recommended it, so I figured there must be something good about it. It was actually pretty nice...the weather was good and we had the opportunity to see Paris from a different perspective...as well as men tanning on the banks of the Seine in various coloured thongs (oh, the French). We got off the boat at the Eiffel Tower, where we were due to meet Sarah's and my friend Beniot, who works at on of the restaurants in the Tower. As we were there too early, we decided to attempt to find the Statue of Liberty, got really lost, and Sarah and I left to go meet up with Ben, thus separating from the group. Unfortunately, this was a bad choice, as we didn't manage to meet up with them again for the rest of the evening.

Found Ben, and he took us over to the Hotel de Invalides, where Napolean's tomb was. It was really helpful to have Ben there, as he was a history major and is something of a Napolean officianado. The tomb is really quite amazing, and the coffin is massive.
"It's a caravan" were Ben's words to describe the coffin, and it is something like 5 layers deep. Very impressive.
Sarah went off to have dinner with Amelie, and Ben and I went out for really good falafel. It claims to be the best falafel in the world, but I don't know how you can possible judge that. I went back to the apartment hoping to find someone there (I'm really not enjoying not having a cell phone), but alas, there was no one. I was almost asleep sitting in the hall when Forrest walked in the door, and then we went out for drinks and caught up on our days.

The following day, Forrest and I woke up uncomfortably early to catch the bus from Paris to Amsterdam. I bought the wrong eurail pass and can't activate it until later in the month, so I am forced to get creative when it comes to transportation between countries. We arrived at the bus station early, only for the bus to be an hour and a half late. Because transportation can never be easy or convenient. We passed out for the first 3 hours of a supposedly 7 hour ride. We had had nothing to eat, and after going through my granola bar ration, we were getting quite cranky. About an hour outside Amsterdam we stopped at a petrol station. "Why are we stopping with only an hour left?" I wondered. And that's when I jinxed it. 3 hours of traffic and far too many strawberry jam cookies later, we finally arrived in Amsterdam. Got lost trying to find the hostel (and ran into an American couple that had a legit argument about whether the light to cross was green or red)...found Sarah...had dinner at Forrest's friend Anna's house, had an early night.

The next day we went to the Anne Frank museum, which was really intense. Sarah and I both agreed that it was difficult at times not to cry...to be in that space where thost 2 families lived in fear for 2 years, only to be captured. Heartbreaking. After that we did a walking tour of Amsterdam, lead by a guy from....wait for it...New Jersey. Yep. New Jersey. I love Amsterdam, it's such a funny little city. We went back to Anna's after the tour, where she had rounded up some bikes and we biked all over the city. Got good Thai food, got some beers, rode around some more. At first I was nervous about riding bikes...last time I rode a bike around Amsterdam, I got a little stressed out (wanting to pull my own hair out rather than spend another moment on the road with Dutch drivers/cyclists). It turned out well, though. I had an awesome cruiser with ghetto gold and purple spray paint. It was a long day...we got back to the hostel around 3 in the morning, only for Sarah to find someone asleep in her bed! For lack of any choice, she woke him up, as he had passed out on top of her toothbrush and p.js, which she had laid out beforehand in an effort to not make too much noise when coming in late. So much for that.

The following day we went to the Van Gogh museum, which was overpriced, but sort of obligatory. It was nice, but something about museums makes me really sleepy. Maybe it's the quiet atmosphere, lighting, soothing wall colors...I don't know, but about an hour in, I was about ready to crawl up on those benches they put in front of the paitings and take a nap. We all agreed it was time for coffee. After coffee we went to a market, then got our things and headed for the train station.

I've realized that my backpack is far too large, and that laundry needs to happen within the next few days.