Adrenaline Rush

So post-Heidelberg, it was decided that a little excitement was in order. Like I said, my cousin is not one to do the boring stuff.

So we headed out to a lake ...
... and suited up ...

Yea, somehow I had a giant fear of getting wet, which is ironic, considering what we were doing.

... and went water-skiing!

It took a few tries, but I finally got the hang of it by the end! Turns out - I love this whole cable-park wakeboarding/water skiing thing. I guess it helped that I used to ski competitively - alpine skiing really does translate in water skiing. Which meant that there were good moments ...

 Along with the not-so-good moments ...

About 2 seconds post face-first wipe-out ...

 I was SO pumped up after doing this (but also exhausted, because man, it is HARD  to hold on to the bar - it really takes it out of your arms and legs. And you know what's also hard? Swimming back to the station if you fall somewhere on the opposite side of the lake. I think out of our 1hr of water-skiing, I spent about half an hour just swimming. While tugging my water skis along.)

So I suggested that we go to Baden Baden to hit up their mineral water spas and relax there. (And by suggested, I mean, it was my plan all along and I had been inserting subliminal messages into our conversations all day). Unfortunately, my cousin's boyfriend really wanted to watch the Euro Cup football match, so we had to pick something a bit closer to home. Which ended up being a super fabulous swimming pool/spa thing right there in Darmstadt.

Oh and did I forget to mention that it started raining half way through our water-skiing and was really hammering down by that time? So let me tell you, those jacuzzi's couldn't have come at a better time. I would have taken photos ... but A) my camera's not waterproof (I know I know, I need to get on that) and B) there were a few couples going beyond casual PDA right there in the pool, and tired as I was, I figured I should shoot my porn movie some other time.

Hiding out in Heideberg

On my last day with my cousin Maria, I really wanted to visit the town of Heidelberg and its famous castle. By that point I had seen numerous acquaintances pass through there and their Facebook photos made me want to see the cute town for myself.

Jealousy FTW, because man, that was a good decision.

The castle stands on a hill, so you do have to do some climbing to get up there, but after the ropes course, I had the climbing part down.

And the view at the top was completely worth it. It's just as you expect - red tile roofs, cute white houses, the winding river with a multitude of bridges spanning it and the forest-covered jewel-green hillside on the opposite side.

 

The castle itself is a beautiful redstone and is quite expansive, but you can't actually go inside most of it. So we spent all the time hanging around outside, enjoying the view and breathing in the sweet sweet air of Heidelberg.

 The place was of course totally full of tourists, but it wasn't as bad as some other attractions I've been too (*cough* *cough* museums). Although this time, the crowd was a bit more interesting ...

 

Why yes, apparently people DO wander around in traditional German attire. I especially liked the shorts+suspenders combo that the tall guy in the back was wearing. Let's just say that when he was leaning on the railing and enjoying the view, the rest of us were as well ;)

(These weren't hired actors - there was actually a 'traditional German' themed wedding going on at a manor house next to the castle ... Note to self: have German-themed party sometime. Enforce strict dress code. Enjoy self tremendously.)

Later, we descended into the town itself and walked on its main cobblestone street. It was simply a relaxing afternoon spent enjoying a quaint little town ...

Of course the quiet life is so not my style, so we did get our adrenaline pumping in the evening ... and you'll see how much fun it was in my next post ;)

Frankly, Frankfurt was awesome

See what I did there? Oh, so punny …

So let’s just say, my cousin and I got a late start. We weren’t the usual tourists, up and at ‘em at 8am. Let’s say we could’ve just had lunch at home. Maybe a linner.

But but but, it turned out to be a good thing. Because just as we got off the train in Frankfurt and started walking into the city, we walked straight into a GIANT PARADE. Which apparently only happens every 2 years. Talk about good timing.

So this parade was a ‘respect all the immigrants who come to Germany’ parade. Which meant that everybody dressed up in their national costumes and had some sort of dance. Also, there were football players and cheerleaders, which I think was supposed to symbolize American immigrants. The football players didn’t dance. Because Americans are too cool for in-the-street dancing. No worries though, I definitely saw enough dancing what with the belly-dancers (not sure what country they were from) and the booty-shaking (Kenyan, I think) and the oh-so-adorable Russian dancers. Who were almost as adorable as their very enthusiastic dance coordinator, a cute, slightly-pudgy man in his 40s. Or 50s.

We spectated for about an hour and a half, but then the call of the ADC struck and there was nothing I could do. That’s right kids, altitude driven compulsion hit again, and off we were to the tallest thing we could find in Frankfurt. That turned out to be the Mainz Tower, which is the tallest skyscraper (I think?) except for the Commerzbank tower. I mean, this is how office buildings should really make their money – just let up tourists on weekends for 5 euros a piece, and see how much money they make.

The view was definitely spectacular, albeit a bit overcast.

After countless photo ops (thank you Maria!), we finally descended into the city proper. Now I admit, by then I was a bit of a nag, because I could see that it was already pretty late in the afternoon and we hadn’t hit any museums yet. Now, since I shelled out those 9 euros for  a Museum Card (which I strongly recommend if you plan on visiting more than 2 museums ... which I didn't, oops), I wanted to get my money’s worth. Thankfully, for our convenience, all the museums were situated more or less in a straight line on a street bordering the beautiful Mainz river. Unfortunately, we were ultimately quite exhausted from all the walking, so we only managed to visit 2 museums, meaning it actually would’ve been cheaper not to get the museum card. Gah, the lost savings! Note to self: museums in Germany are very, VERY cheap (3 euros on average), so plan accordingly.

The first museum was called something about a Collection of Objects or something. I only went there because on the brochure, they showed this whole cool collection of chairs, so I thought that’s what the museum would be about – the evolution of different objects through time.

That turned out to be 1 tiny room in the museum.

The rest was furniture, true, but all random. To stifle my disappointment, I took pictures with lots of cabinets, and tried to touch everything despite the fact that there were signs indicating that I was not to do so.

But I’m a rebel, so whatcha gonna do now, huh?

The other museum was the architecture museum, which was definitely worth the visit and was totally great (well, except for that awkward moment where we totally walked in on an architecture class in session and everybody stopped talking while we weaved our way between the chairs to the exit … oh, and then we couldn’t figure out how to open the door. Talk about awkward-turtle moments).

But back to the museum – it was full of tiny models of famous German buildings and competition models and models of unbuilt stuff and also models of ideas (like a utopian society, or a self-sufficient community). We learned tons of valuable facts. Like the fact that Hitler looooooooooooved models and sometimes had 1:1 models built for projects. That’s right.

Let me build a building that I will later build again. 

Talk about revitalizing the economy.

After making the executive albeit sad decision not to visit any more museums that day (ah, the savings!), we instead took a nice and relaxing stroll beside the river. I really have to praise the Frankfurt waterfront – it is absolutely wonderfully developed and I could see myself living in Frankfurt and taking walks there.

We did have to fend off some boat captains after they tried to Shanghai us onto their ships so we could take photos with them.

But that’s more of an upside, I think.

Wherein I conquer new heights

After all the museum traipsing I did in the Netherlands (oh … well, the 2 museums that I visited; but I was thorough, so it was exhausting), I wanted to do something exciting in Germany. My cousin suggested we visit the two museums of her tiny town, but I wasn’t up to it, so instead we went shoe shopping and tree climbing. I’m not sure which one took longer.

In my defense, the shoe shopping was for the tree climbing, and thus totally justified. Plus a 10 Euro pair of cute Keds was called for. Now the reason one of the reasons I love my cousin is that she is always up for something active. That makes her pretty much the only person like that that I know. The rest of my friends are less … fitness inclined. I wonder if that’s a coincidence …. Hmm.
Anyways, instead of staring at another set of old relics, we went to climb some trees.

If you can’t see, it was a pretty extensive operation. And the harder ropes courses were up SO fricking high. And when you have to swing across a 5 meter gap at what feels like 20m above the ground, well, you, along with your adrenal gland, get plenty of exercise. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever had as nerve wracking a three hour shift as this one. Also, my arms were hard-core shaking by the end, and the next day, my lats basically refused to work. Which made, for example, raising my arms and putting on clothes pretty darn hard.

Some of the more terrifying examples? In one course, you basically had to jump straight down off a platform at the end. Bungee-jumping and all that. Except that we pulled on the rope to test it, you know, to see that if you pull hard on it, it doesn’t come as easily, but nope – we just kept on pulling and pulling and it just kept on coming and coming. Not too reassuring. The hardest part was just taking that first step off the platform of course.

There were other parts where fear literally seized my body and I couldn’t move. It’s this racing feeling in your veins and in the pit of your stomach and you’re just so, so scared. Maybe it seems silly to write about fear when I was in a controlled environment with a heavy duty harness attached to a support rope that would never let me actually fall. I’ve probably never been safer (unlike that time that I was 6 and my mom and I were on a climbing trip in Crimea and it was pouring rain and we were stuck on a little ledge on a vertical cliff face and had to wait for the rain to stop … oh yea, there, I just fell asleep and slept through the whole thing without a thought of the danger). But fear is something that is irrational and can be experienced in any environment whatsoever. There is not right or wrong place where it can occur because you can’t really talk yourself out of it. It’s like trying to talk yourself out of sweating. Or feeling in love. Both equally iffy enterprises, of course.

But what I realized is that my philosophy for things I fear in general is to face them head on. I knew I was scared to step off that platform but I also knew that there was absolutely NO WAY I wouldn’t step off the platform either. And that’s what I try to do in life as well. If I feel like I am too scared to try something and the reason is something silly like I’m afraid of what people will think, or I’m afraid that I will fail, or I’m afraid because I don’t know what will happen, which it usually is, I try to just leap straight into it.

Now all this deep metaphorical thinking above ground definitely exhausted me, not to mention the little climbing-on-a-itty-bitty-tightrope-excessively-high-off-the-ground bit, so my cousin and I trooped into town to grab a bite to eat.

It was a cute little place, and OF COURSE it had a big screen TV to show the Germany-Greece soccer game that was happening. Because, duh, it was a soccer night. My cousin and I almost bought matching Germany-coloured dresses just to fit in to the young crowd milling around. But the fact that I initially thought those dresses were shirts (happens to me ALL THE TIME!) … well, I think it’s a good thing we opted out.

I was surprised that beer cost less than water here, but wasn’t feeling into alcohol after such an active day, so instead, I ordered another German specialty – schnitzel.

Yes, Mr. Schnitzel, that you were.
 
By the time I finished salivating and raving about my schnitzel, and obviously taking a million photos of it, like the (fake) food blogger that I am (not), it was getting a bit late, so I actually had to gobble it up pretty quick so that we could make it home in time to fix the projector up for the game.

I wish we could’ve gone to a, you know, German pub, during the Greece-Germany game, but my cousin’s boyfriend was excited enough for a crowd. We watched it at home and it was still pretty rad.

Germany won, obviously.

I'm leaving, on a (relatively fast but not jet-speed) train ... to Germany!

So I was stupid and didn’t decide on my plans until the last minute, which meant that I paid 120 Euros for a train ticket to my cousin’s house. Please smack me next time I decide to not plan in advance. (There are actually super special 25 Euro tickets on sale at the last minute, but you have to keep refreshing the page after midnight and you have to snatch them up pretty quickly … but I like to sleep, so I bought my extra few hours of rest to the tune of 80 Euros. God, I’m dumb sometimes).

Anyways, if I could write an ode to trains, I would, because they are the most awesome mode of transportation ever, and I would like to take only trains for the rest of my life. I mean, how could any other form of transportation compete? It’s fast, smooth, spacious, and the conductors wear cute uniforms.

In any case, the train took close to five hours to get there; on the way, I kept staring out the windows at the picturesque scenery. No industrial towns or ugly factories here – just rolling hills and copses of dark trees and red-roofed and brick houses clustered in the hollows.

By the time I was switching trains in Frankfurt, I was famished, and was flabbergasted to find sandwiches for 2.50 Euros. OMG. Side note here – I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a panini in Montreal that didn’t cost at least 8 dollars. So …. just saying, all those complainers about how Europe is just so damn expensive are wrong. Well, kind of. There’s all that transportation and all those pesky museums and tourist traps. On the upside, you don’t have to tip. Which I figured out after I left a 2 euro tip on a 6 euro coffee. In my defense, I spilt it, and the nice waitress wiped it all up for me and brought me a free coffee.

Anyways, by the time I arrived in Darmstadt, I was quite exhausted, but the sun was still out and my cousin offered to take me around the town, so I reluctantly exhaustedly agreed.

We wandered around the cobblestone streets in the center with all of the (modern) stores and then up the hill to some sort of hodge-podge plaza that had a tower for newlyweds and a garden, an Art Deco museum (that was naturally closed by the time we got there, as were all the other attractions of the town … just my luck), and a Russian chapel. Just, you know, to cover all the bases.

Now my nefarious plan was to rope my cousin into being my personal photographer for the duration of my stay; thankfully my cousin was a good sport, and I didn’t have to exert too many of my evil powers to get my way.

I mean, why not take photos with random things that have nothing to do with the country you’re visiting?

That would be a random statue that I am chastising …

Or what about posing with a random tree hedge?
That’s not to say I was a total ass about it. I totally returned the favour and forced my cousin to pose for me in a tree hedge herself. See, I’m totally selfless like that.

Call me about my professional photography career. I take payment in white wine and European pastries. No seriously, call me.

Last Day in the Netherlands

A lack of planning and a general feeling of exhaustion (man, planning a touristing day is TIRING! After three full days, I really just wanted someone to decide where I should go, and just point me in the right direction), well, they meant that I didn’t really get anywhere on the last day. I wanted to wash my hair and my clothes, and chill out, and catch up on blogging (although the latter didn’t happen … apparently writing and editing my photos is also too exhausting).

Thankfully my host scooped me out of my lethargic state (I think I was starting to watch an episode of Masterchef … on my vacation in Europe – oh, the horror! I’m such an American sometimes). He decided a biking trip was in order to invigorate me, and boy, was he right.

The Netherlands are generally always flat, so when you bike on a dyke, you can see for miles in all directions. My experience was apparently pretty typical - we saw things you would generally expect … cows. More cows. Still more cows.

Oh and horses.

I think I stayed in this place for about 20 minutes, just being a girl and crushing hard on the horses. I was planning on stealing one, but then two of them starting practically mating and the third one ran away to give them some privacy, so I figured it wasn’t a good time.

After about half an hour, we came upon the cutest little cafe on the canal where we ended up having lunch.

Oh, did I mention that lunch was the most ostentatious and luxuriously delicious ice cream sundae ever?

Yea, it’s a hard life, being a tourist in Europe.

Amsterdam

I will preface this by saying that I was a fool, a FOOL to think that I could cover Amsterdam in one day. Listen to me, youngsters, and plan for at least two, if not three days in this wonderful city.

First of all, how awesome is it that the Centraal station is right next to the downtown area? No need to take busses or walk through creepy industrial sites – just cross the canal (first of many) and head into one of the tiny cobblestone streets that permeate European cities.

First stop of the day was the Oude Kerk (the Old Church … again, one of many, I’m sure). I have a fancy for old churches and cathedrals (due to the fact that there’s a dearth of them in North America … those modern Baptist churches are a joke compared to the cathedrals of Europe; might as well compare the waiting room at the doctor’s office to Versailles).

In any case, like any gullible tourist, I totally paid the 4 Euros to look inside the church, which looked like most other Dutch churches inside. But what the heck, you gotta live a little, right? The interesting thing about this one were the intricate wall and ceiling decorations. So I take a photo of one of the pictures on the ceiling.

Then I read up about it in the handy dandy little brochure, like the proper tourist that I am.
Guess who was in the picture?

St. Crisp and St. Crispin, patron saints of shoemakers.

Bam. Now that I’m buddy buddy with them, I’m hoping for a windfall of Louboutins in the future.
The rest of the church was also of course beautiful …

…  but let’s just say, I wasn’t looking up as much as I was looking down.

See, the floor stones are actually grave stones for the people buried beneath the church. And a lot of them had these weird symbols on them, so I decided to photograph every single one, just in case I become Tom Hanks and have to solve some sort of Templar mystery with these clues.



Dan Brown, feel free to hit me up and make me a star in your next European mystery quest. I’d be only too glad to take another trip through here … as long as it’s all expenses paid, you understand.

Anyways, I figured I should at least see some sights and visit some museums, so I headed to my first destination. (Which was neither a sight, nor a museum, but a Dutch cheese tasting, which unfortunately was full and I had to change my plans). But on the way, I also managed to see some other sights.

Why yes, that IS the world famous naked invisible man. Didn’t you stop by to take a photo with him on YOUR trip?

And apparently the secret hideout of the USSR. Guess after the union broke up, the leaders figured, why not head to Amsterdam and relax with some green? I mean, heading up a dictatorship is really hard work, you know.

With all that sight-seeing, I got a little bit hungry (plus it was what, 1pm already? Did I mention I got a late start?), so I stopped at one of those absolutely cute tiny cafes on the canal and got what must have been my most delicious meal to date. If you're ever in the area of the Hegensgracht, stop by either the Hegensgracht (cafe) or Toos&Roos for a delicious sandwich and soup.

(That is not the actual view from the cafe, but it’s close by, I promise!)

(Fresh and mouthgasmicly soft white bread, mozzarella ready to melt in your mouth, tomatoes and greens basically straight off the farm, all drizzled generously in home made pesto. I die. I die.)

Feeling appropriately refreshed post-lunch, I hit up my first museum. Still, I decided to ease into the cultural tedium of countless masterpieces of the more famous museums with a visit to a small museum with masterpieces of a different kind.

The Museum of Handbags. Yes, it exists, and yes, it was heavenly. The only thing better would be a shoe museum. As it happened, there was a shoe section there too, so I was on cloud 9 for a good hour or so.

There was a bag there from the 1400s, for example …

… as well as a whole cabinet of bags made from various exotic materials, from armadillo to ostrich.

There were also bags there that even I was a little confused about, but then I realized that this was probably a collection of the purses that Lady Gaga had accidentally left behind in her hotel rooms during a tour or something, and it made more sense.

With such an auspiciously great start to my museum-ing, I headed off with a light heart to this here little place.

That would be the Rijksmuseum. Where I paid 14 Euro to see their reduced collection, because the entire building was being renovated and so they were only displaying a small part of their masterpieces. Great.

But I’m stubborn as a bull, and if I walked all the way here, there was no way in hell I’d be deterred by such a little thing as an overpriced ticket to a not-really-worth-it-type exhibition, and in I went. On the way to the more famous Rembrandts and Vermeers and The Night Watch, I learned a few other lessons in art history.

Like that a Dutch lady once paid the price of a canal house for a dollhouse …

… and that apparently Greek men were not very well endowed …

… and that the expression ‘pain in the ass’ was probably first uttered by the model for this particular statue when the sculptor asked him to sit on a snake for 10 hours straight.

The snake’s expression indicates that he was probably not pleased by the arrangement either.

The Vermeers and the Rembrandts were nice and obviously well executed, if not rather small. I guess that’s always the case – I mean if fame determined size, the Mona Lisa would be 10 ft tall. But similarly to Da Vinci’s painting, The Milkmaid and Rembrandt’s self-portraits were all rather small and unprepossessing.

Despite the fact that this was a ‘reduced’ exhibition, I felt like I had had enough by the time I finished viewing it … I only wished it weren’t that expensive. Still, I was determined to also hit up the Van Gogh museum, so on I trudged down the street. But you know, I’m like a magpie, so when I saw a sign for a free entry to the Diamond Museum, I was on it like leopard print on Russian girls.

 No seriously, I can’t resist shiny things. Now they claim that they were showing real diamonds here, but of course I can’t tell the difference, so who knows. There were also real workers who were polishing the diamonds (much smaller ones). Then in a different room, they had actual rooms full of diamonds that were for sale. Now even though this was supposedly part of the ‘museum’, there were still mobs of salespeople anywhere, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt as much that I didn’t belong as I did there.

There were Chinese couples who were literally scooping up diamond-encrusted watches left right and center, and there was dowdy little me, snooping around with my dirty poor-person fingers. Or at least, that’s how the snobby salespeople made me feel. Well never mind them, I still went to every single room, because nothing gets in the way of me and my touristing. And then I quickly tried to exit, but got lost and had to trek through all the snobbily accoutured salesrooms once again.

Bah. I need to get rich.

Anyways, across the street was the Van Gogh museum and I rejoined the touristing crowds with ease. Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to photograph in the Van Gogh museum …

As I was reminded when I sneakily tried to take a photo. I mean, there really is no reason to take a photo of a painting, when I can get a reproduction/print/really good resolution image on the Internet later. No reason at all. But the touristing impulse is strong, and the traveller’s camera trigger-happy finger can not rest.

I actually really enjoyed the Van Gogh museum, surprisingly. Despite the fact that it was not very big (and yet still cost 14 Euros!), I liked seeing how the works of one painter progressed over time. You could see how he started with thick, dark, oily strokes and slowly progressed to small, quick, multi-coloured strokes. It was also interesting to see this evolution in the context of the events that shaped his life. All in all fascinating.

By the time I left though, it was 6pm. I really wanted to take a boat tour of Amsterdam, but had decided earlier to leave it to the end, so I could enjoy Amsterdam in the late afternoon when I was tired of walking around. But the tours were all 1.5 hours long, which would make me quite late in getting home, so regretfully, I had to get back to the train station.

I still hadn’t managed to have a cheese tasting, or visit the Heineken Brewery or take the boat tour. So clearly, one day in Amsterdam is not enough.

Still, even from such a limited exposure, I would venture that Amsterdam is my favourite city in the Netherlands – its busy atmosphere, its beautiful buildings and ever-present canals and the general feeling of European elegance contributed to a very satisfying day for me.

But seriously, next time, I’m taking the damned boat. Period.