Queen's Day and Joe's Visit

So for the duration of my time in Amsterdam, I have been hearing of this holiday known as Queen's Day. According to the hype and legends, it is a day unlike any other. It is a national holiday, honoring the queen and celebrated by the entire city of Amsterdam and country of Holland. Last year, DJ Tiesto (http://www.tiesto.com/) performed, for free, so we knew that it was going to be a big party.

Here's a little background:

Queen's day, or Koninginnedag as we call it, is a national holiday in the Netherlands. On this day we celebrate the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. Although it's original the birthday of Queen Juliana (the mother of Queen Beatrix), not of Queen Beatrix, we celebrate her birthday on 30 April. Our Queen Beatrix birthday is really on the 31th January, but the winter isn't the time to party outside. Because of this Queen Beatrix officially celebrates her birthday on 30 April, so we can party with (hopefully) better weather! Isn't our Queen lovely?

Queen's Day is also a typical occasion for the world-famous Orange Craze. On this day most of the people wear orange clothing and creative orange accessories. The colour orange is a ubiquitous sight, referring to the name of our royal family, the House of Orange. Everywhere in the city you'll see orange banners, orange coloered foods and drinks. So don't forget your orange t-shirt when you join us in the Orange Craze!!!

Because Queen's Day and Queen's Night (the night before Queen's Day) are such a big deal, almost everyone in my Residence had friends visiting from all over Europe. My friend Joe Craig is currently on exchange in Madrid, so after some flight mishaps, he made it to Amsterdam Friday afternoon to observe the national holiday.

Joe and I on Queen's Night

After hearing all of the hype, I thought that it was just too good to be true. There was no way this celebration could live up to all my expectations. Somehow, the night and day surpassed my expectations. 

We began Queen's Night, like so many other nights, with a gathering in our building's Common Room. After socializing with the people in our building and introducing Joe to all of my friends, we set out to check out the city. Somehow, our group managed to stick together and about 70 of us boarded the metro all together. Wanting to keep the party going, some of the boys began leading our group in song and running between cars at every stop. This created quite the stir in the metro, but most of the people loved it and either laughed and joined in. Yes, it was true, almost all Amsterdammers were in good spirits celebrating the Queen. 

Making our way downtown, we ended at Leidseplien, where there was a band set up in the middle of the square! People were everywhere and we spent our night hearing live music in the street and inside some of the bars and restaurants. What a night!

The next morning was Queen's Day! After having a Queen's Day breakfast together, we all set out for downtown to see the sights the city had to offer. On Queen's Day, any person living in Amsterdam is given the opportunity to sell whatever they may want to sell in the streets. This means that the streets are lined with people selling everything from books, antiques, & usual yard sale fares to head massages, orange nail polish manicures, and other orange accessories. Vondel Park is reserved exclusively for children looking to capitalize on the opportunity and sell some old toys or other fares. We even saw one little boy playing his guitar-adorable!

We spent the day hearing music from Dutch Djs at a stage called Loveland, walking around the city and seeing sights, and finally making our way to Museumplein to hear Dutch Djs Afrojack (http://www.afrojack.com/) and Armin Van Buuren (http://www.arminvanbuuren.com/). These are really famous Djs and we got to see them for free!!!

Museumplein on Queen's Day-I was in there!!!

It was a truly amazing day and I am happy to say it lived up to my expectations. Everyone is out and about and in good spirits! I did not see anyone acting unruly or getting in trouble from the police. In fact, I did not see any police. Some would compare Queen's Day to July 4, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or St. Patty's Day in Ireland. I don't think that Queen's Day is comparable to any of these! July 4 tends to be celebrated more individually than collectively and Queen's Day is a family affair-definitely tamer than Mardi Gras. I have just never seen so many people take over an entire city, but do so in such an orderly fashion. Either way, it's a wonderful, fun day and I am happy to have experienced it here and happy that Joe got to be here as well.

Canals and streets filled with people in orange!

For the final day of Joe's visit, Sunday, we went out sight-seeing a bit. We saw the Red Light District, Dam Square, rode the giant swings at the Dam Square Carnival for aerial views of the city, and Joe did the Heineken Experience. I had to return home early from our day for my big interview for my next adventure in Montreal! Stay tuned to hear more about that!

View of Dam Square from the swings!

Dear Mom and Dad...

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thanks for coming all the way to visit me-even though I know that sight-seeing in big cities is not your usual idea of a vacation. It meant so much to me that you would spend your time and money coming all the way over here-especially dad who has not had a vacation in almost a year! You sacrificed family vacation and your beloved Texas fishing trip to work in West Virginia, but you managed to find the time to fly all the way over here to see me! I am happy to be one of the (very, very few) things in your life that rank higher than fishing trips.

This has been an amazing experience for me and I never would have had the courage to do it without your love, support, and encouragement. I am so truly and amazingly blessed to have the opportunities you have provided and I could never thank the two of you enough for everything you have given me.

I had an absolutely wonderful week with the two of you. I really loved showing you around my new "home" and introducing you to my friends. We had a lot of laughs, a few arguments, and made a lot of memories. I enjoyed experiencing new parts of Amsterdam with you, like shopping,eating in nice restaurants, and going to museums. I still haven't seen Anne Frank's house and the Van Gogh museum did not even begin to repay Dad for all the space centers, museums, trees, historic landmarks, and lack of pandas we have seen on his vacations. I especially enjoyed the herring tar tare and the cheese in France (NOT!). Some of my favorite times were sitting with you in Vondel Park and under the Eifel Tower, just watching people and talking. 

Thanks to mom, I have some lovely pictures of the trip displayed in my room now. I miss you both very much, but seeing you made me a little less homesick. I love you and could never say thank you enough, but Dank U Wel for a wonderful week!

I love you!

-Meggy Jo

Paris!

To top of my parent's European vacation, the three of us spent Easter weekend in Paris. We left Amsterdam on Thursday afternoon, after I finished with class. We arrived in Paris around 5 pm and set out to find our apartment. My first impression of Paris was not excellent. The airport in huge and very confusing, but that is to be expected in a large city. What I was not expecting, however, was the very poor quality of their public transportation. The trains and metros were crowded, dirty, and had no air conditioning. This was a big change from clean, pristine Amsterdam. I think the difference is based on those who use the public transportation in each city. Amsterdam is a very "green" city so using public transportation is considered the norm, as is biking. In Paris, however, a lot more people drive, so those that ride the metro are those that cannot afford cars. Therefore, the ratio of crazy/dirty/drugged out people to normal people on the metro is about 10:1. I might be exaggerating a tiny bit, but you get the idea that I was slightly disappointed in this respect.

Making our way to the apartment was fairly easy, with only one wrong turn. The apartment was very nice with a small kitchen, bedroom, pull out couch for me, and very nice bathroom. It was close to a little river and park. Nice location! 

For our first evening, we were very tired and hungry. We had dinner in a little Paris cafe', my mother ate a cheeseburger! It was actually quite good. We tried to find some English television and turned in early. I was busy reading my Water for Elephants, which I highly recommend!

For our second day, we slept in late and then hit the ground running to see all our of tourist sites. We started at Notre Dame and walked and walked and walked and walked all day!! We walked from Notre Dame to the Isle of St. Louis, which is a very cute area. From there we walked along the Seine to the Gardens de Tuileries, the Lourve, Champs Elysees, and Arc de Triumphe. I was very happy to be with my father and learn about the history of the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triumphe. The Arc was built by Napoleon after a victory. During World War II, when the Germans conquered France, they marched their tanks, troops, and generals down the Champs Elyse to the Arc. Then, when the Allies liberated France, they did the same. According to my father, Hitler, Eisenhower, and many other officials probably walked the street. It was very cool.

U.S. soldiers of Pennsylvania's 28th Infantry Division march along the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe in the background, on Aug. 29, 1944, four days after the liberation of Paris, France.

My Dad and I pose in front of the Arc de Triumphe, April 2011

 This is also one of the nicest streets in Paris, with restaurants and shops along the way. We stopped in Adidas to buy new shoes, because my feet were killing me! According to Mary Hart, my mother could find a place to buy shoes in the desert and I have to agree. Somehow we were able to find our favorite Adidas sandals all the way in Paris! My feet were very thankful! We also looked for our store to buy macaroons, but were unable to find it. To finish our day, we had a wonderful picnic of cheese, baguettes, and meat under the Eiffel Tower. We finished it up with some ice cream. We tried to go to the top, but the line was simply too long. It was a simply wonderful end to a great day!

New Shoes!

The next day, we got up early to attempt to go up the the Eiffel Tower, but the line was extremely long again. It just was not worth it! We then caught the train out to see Versailles. It was amazing!! We toured the inside and the gardens. Since we happened to go on Saturday, all the fountains were turned on so that was a nice touch. We spent the day walking all through the palace and grounds, it's a massive place. I actually liked it better than the gardens at Kuekenhof. This was probably my favorite part of the trip!

Beautiful!

After our long day, we had a relaxing evening of (finally) seeing the Eiffel Tower at night! It is an amazing sight-it actually sparkles. I got lots of good pictures and felt that our trip was finally complete! Early the next morning it was back to Amsterdam for me and back to the United States for mom and dad!

Eiffel Tower at Night!

My Parent's Visit

As most (or all since it's probably only my family) of my readers know already my parents came to spend a week in Europe, visiting me in Amsterdam and traveling to Paris. Since they have been home for quite some time, hopefully you have had a chance to see pictures/hear details of their trip. For the sake of this blog, I will run down the highlights with you, in bullet form. Here we go:

-Kuekenhof: Home of the famous tulip fields!! 

This is one of the most famous sights in Holland. It's a huge garden filled with tulips, some other flowers, old people who walk really slow, and tourists (mostly Asian) with humongous cameras. I'm going to be honest, because I always am, this is not at all what I expected. I, for some reason, was expecting huge fields of multi-colored tulips, planted to form different designs and shapes. That's not it. It's one field of multi-colored tulips, plus a lot of different gardens that all look (pretty much) the  same. I mean after you have seen 500 different kinds of tulips, there is not really a  reason to see 500 more. All in all, good experience, happy that I saw it, didn't quite live up to my expectations.

-Haarlem

Haarlem is a smaller, nicer, ritzier city just outside of Amsterdam. It has a large cathedral and the Corrie Ten Boom house. On the day we visited, all the floats from  the flower parade at Kuekenhof were on display. Think giant parade floats made  exclusively of flowers. Really amazing! Plus, the floats were designed after musicals (Wicked, Sound of Music, Hair, Alice in Wonderland, to name a few) and were really cool!

-Dinner with Julie and Lisa

Most of you have already heard me mention my best friend Julie. As luck would have it, our parents were visiting during the same week. One night, we all got together for dinner at a great Italian place. Afterwards, Julie and Lisa lead us to a little cafe with the best apple pie ever for dessert!

-Vondel Park

One of my favorite places in the city. This is a very beautiful and famous park. My parents were fortunate enough to have nice weather during their visit, so we spent some time people watching in the park!

-Canal Tour

The nice thing about having your parents visit is that you get to do all the things that you want to do but can't afford. One of the top things on my list was a canal tour. We were lucky enough to get on an open-air tour on a small boat, instead of the giant,  ultra-touristy, covered tours. It was only the three of us, one other family, and the captain. It was a very relaxing, yet informative tour!

-Anne Frank House

Unfortunately, I was late and missed this tour!

-Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum is a very nice tour, but it should offer a disclaimer stating "you are not going to see any of his famous paintings." All of his most famous works are at  the Louvre or other museums around the world. I did learn a lot about Van Gogh the man and about his influences in each period of his work. We also got to see a lot of really nice paintings, so it was not a waste of time. I enjoyed it for about an hour, then that was enough for me. My dad enjoyed it for approximately 5 minutes.

-Food

Some of the food that my parents had to sample during their visit: fries with good, Holland mayonnaise and curry sauce, Kapsalon, Stroopwafels, Stroopwafel McFlurries, delicious sandwiches (shared outside in Dam Square-one of my favorite parts of the  trip), cheese, pancakes and pastries!

Kapsalon

Fries

Pancakes

Sandwiches in Dam Square

I know this does not do their trip justice, but I wanted to post something so I hope this is better than nothing. I promise I am working harder on the upcoming posts!

Under Construction

Dear Readers,
I know that I have fallen behind on my posts. I have been traveling a lot and have finals coming up. I am working diligently to get caught up! I promise I have not completely abandoned this project. Stay tuned for posts regarding my parent's visit, Paris, Queen's Day/Joe's visit, the Canary Islands, and Carly's visit. Love you all!
Love,
Megan

Antwerp, Belgium

This week, my friend Julie had a friend visiting. It is mid-term week at school and I had only one mid-term, so all my other classes were cancelled. Julie, Jessi, and I took the train to Antwerp, Belgium for an overnight trip, just to visit and check it out.

Antwerp was a very nice city, very clean, and NO tourists. Walking to our hostel, we kept passing tons of people dressed in traditional, Orthodox Jewish apparel, so I can only assume we were staying in some type of Jewish neighborhood. Our hostel was in an extremely old building. The smell was atrocious; it smelled like an old house that had never been cleaned or renovated, mixed with cigarette smoke. Luckily, we were only there to sleep and did not have to spend any time there. We were sharing a room with four other girls, so the accommodation was not ideal.

We arrived around 7 pm, went to dinner, then out to a small bar with a live jazz band. There wasn’t much night life since it was Tuesday, but the band was good and we were able to go to bed early so we could spend the next day exploring.

On Wednesday, the weather was cloudy, but luckily the rain held off until the evening. First, we set out to find the beach. Antwerp is bordered by a river and there was supposedly a beach that you could visit. To get to the beach, we had to cross the river. Instead of a bridge, Antwerp has a tunnel 32 meters underground to accommodate pedestrians across the river. It was really cool to walk through, the escalators are ancient and wooden and you feel like you are going down forever. When we finally arrived at the “beach” it was about two meters wide and you could not even walk on it. Basically, we walked about 45 minutes to see nothing, but we got to experience the tunnel and get some good views of the city.

Antwerp has a lot of historical buildings, castles, a fortress, and is very pretty-I will try to put pictures up soon. We spent the rest of our day walking the city, shopping, and exploring. I did eat a Belgian waffle which was delicious, but we did not get any chocolate. Much to our surprise, chocolate was very hard to find. When we asked a local where a good chocolate shop was, she suggested we try Godiva.

It was a very quick, short trip, but we all had a good time and I got to put another star on my map!!

As school is picking up and funds are dwindling, my travels are probably going to become more sporadic. Currently, I am looking forward to my parents’ visit for Easter and our trip to Paris. For May break, we just booked a trip to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco. At the end, I am planning Spain, Southern France, and Italy. Stay tuned!

Kiss Me I'm Irish

Hello again! I know it has been too long since I last posted, but I swear I’m trying. Apparently, my school work has been getting neglected so I have been spending quite a lot of time catching up. The good news is I had my first mid-term today and I feel that it went really well! Since I have fallen behind, I’m going to try to post several today and tomorrow! Hopefully I will be able to catch up.

I last left you in London and after London I had another girl’s trip to look forward to-this time with my sister coming along! Ireland was actually one of the first trips we booked, wanting to make it there for St. Patrick’s Day. The group consisted of me, Carly, Marli, Julie, Gen, Gen’s boyfriend Henry, Mathilde, and Kathy. Trying to avoid the crowds and expense of Dublin, we traveled to Cork, a very small town in the southern part of Ireland.

Departing early Wednesday morning, we were excited to have the whole day and night to explore. Before our plane even touched the ground, we were in love! Never have I been somewhere so green; just seeing the green grass bordering the ocean was beautiful. After arriving, we went to meet Henry, who had arrived the night before. Sidenote: Henry is Gen’s amazingly cool boyfriend who is also on exchange in Norway. He met us in Ireland for St. Patty’s Day. At Henry’s suggestion, we decided to spend the afternoon seeing Blarney Castle. The weather was simply amazing: so warm that you did not need a coat, just a sweater! Coming from cold, rainy Amsterdam, we were ecstatic. Blarney Castle is an old castle but it also sits on acres of gardens, trails, waterfalls, and a lake. Enjoying the nice weather and view, we stayed until dusk. We climbed up the castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Kissing the stone is supposed to give you the “gift of gab” for the next seven years. Winston Churchill kissed the stone so I suppose it has a good track record. In order to kiss the stone, one has to lie down backwards and lean over a ledge, while being held by an old man. It’s quite scary and I closed my eyes.

After the castle, we returned to the hostel. Julie and I decided to make dinner in out hostel instead of eating out. After eating we showered and napped, waking up in time to meet the rest of our group at a traditional Irish pub. We joined them at a pub called Preacher’s that played American music circa 1960-1980. We absolutely loved it and I made the comment to Carly that my dad would have really enjoyed it. Irish people are some of the most fun people I have encountered. They speak English, which is so nice and are very friendly. My favorite part, though, is that they LOVE to sing. In every bar or pub we visited, everyone would be singing along with the music. People were up dancing; these were not the kind of bars where you could sit down and talk. Irish people also like to start their parties pretty early; most of the pubs closed at 12.

Our second day in Ireland was St. Patty’s Day. We got up early because we were under the impression that festivities would last all day, but that wasn’t really the case. We ended up spending the morning buying St. Patty’s Day accessories and walking around the city. Again, it was quite warm and we spent most of the day outdoors. The parade began at 1 and was about the least impressive parade I have ever seen in my life. The parade was definitely geared toward children, but there was not even candy. There were no floats, just people walking. Everyone was out of work and school though, in Cork St. Patty’s Day is a bank holiday. Most of the city was closed. After the parade and eating a quick, late lunch, the pubs opened their doors early for the holiday. We spent the afternoon/evening/night visiting different pubs and meeting a lot of people. Every place was completely packed, playing music (including traditional Irish music-which I loved), and busy with singing and dancing. It was a great holiday, although, as reported I think we have bigger celebrations in the States.

On Friday, at Carly’s urging, we signed up for the Paddywagon tour. This was a tour that began at 8:15 am and lasted all day, driving you through the Irish countryside, the Cliffs of Moor, and the Burren.  There are a lot of pictures online and I suggest that you check them out. Words cannot describe how insanely beautiful this trip was. The stone walls, small cottages, cliffs, and fields of green grass are straight from a storybook or movie. The bus ride was a little dangerous and windy driving down the coastal roads. Everyone was feeling very queasy and Carly had a very hard time. The tour was a perfect activity though, because we got to snooze on the bus ride and see some truly beautiful parts of the country.

After celebrating St. Patty’s Day then spending the day on the bus, we were all feeling a little ragged. Our plane for Amsterdam left at 6:00 am Saturday morning so we, of course, did not feel that we needed a hostel for Friday night. Our thought process was that we would go out on Friday night, and then head straight to the airport to catch our flight. However, we were so tired and dirty that no one wanted to go out. We tried to doze in the lounge of our hostel, but were eventually kicked out for some unknown reason. With nowhere else to go, we headed straight to the airport, which was completely deserted since it was about 11:00 pm. Since it was so late and flights were not departing for several hours, security was closed, meaning we could not get through to the comfy benches/chairs. This left us sitting on some wooden benches and chairs, sleeping sitting up for the next four hours. Not the most pleasant experience, but at least we saved ourselves some money. Traveling is not for the faint of heart!

This is unrelated to the trip, but I would like to share this story nonetheless. As we were eating breakfast on St. Patrick's Day, I noticed that a guy in our hostel was wearing a fraternity shirt that a lot of my friends have. I knew it was from SEMO, but I thought it would be too random if he went to my school, so I assumed maybe another school had the same shirt. Eventually, I asked him about it. Turns out, he was originally from St. Louis and goes to school at Eastern. He got the shirt last year on Spring Break in Panama City, trading it for one of his frat shirts from his school. Small world.