Moving to NYC!!!

I have held off on posting stuff a lot because GUESS WHAT?!?!

I've moved to New York!

*cue cheers and giant applause* (oh wait, is that only in my head? Ah well.)

So basically the second week of August, I spent mostly packing (10% of the time) and agonizing over packing (90% of the time). When I agonize over things, I get into this state of 'rabbit in headlights'. I say rabbit because I feel much more small and helpless than a deer; I mean a deer can really put a dent in your bumper, and that's without talking about how he can just go through the windshield and skewer your ass with his horns.

Anyways, that means that most of the time, I get really irritated about my inability to accomplish anything, and so I destress by watching TV and doing nothing remotely useful. Good coping strategy, no? Thank goodness for my wonderful mother, who, let's be honest, probably did 80% of the packing herself. Let's just say I had a more managerial role ... say Director of Fashion Choices.

So, let's get to the down and dirty of my trip:
1. United Airlines BLOWS. (Note to self - do NOT forget this fact when booking plane home for Christmas even if they're cheaper.) Flight attendants? Rude. Food? Non-existent. 

But, on the upside, the whole pre-flight experience was great. My bags? Weren't weighed. (Mind you, I was a champ - 2 bags at 23.1 kg and 1 bag at 23.0 kg). The whole immigration thing? Stamp, stamp and off you go. So that was a load off my shoulders. (Although not literally, because I had to lug around a 10 kilo bag on my shoulder for 2 hours).

2. Carts at Newark cost 5$ to rent? WTF. In EVERY.SINGLE.OTHER.AIRPORT they've always been free. I mean, I had US cash, but it wasn't exactly burning a hole in my pocket, begging to be spent, if you know what I mean.

3. I probably shouldn't have hired that gypsy cab. But to be fair, Newark shouldn't have put their Taxi stand at the FARTHEST end of the airport, across all the fricking traffic. (Note to self - fly into JFK. Too bad LaGuardia is domestic only, because that airport ROCKS). Plus my cart was so huge, loaded with my 4 huge suitcases, that the thought of going over the curb with it was too terrifying.

I may have made an off-colour joke to the cabbie along the lines of 'I hope you don't kill me and put my body in a ditch' which I don't think he took well.

4. And last but not least, everybody is SO NICE. Not what you would expect, right? But everyone, from the cab driver, to the manager at my hotel (by the way, 100$ a night buys you a bed but no bathroom. But thank god for AC - that made it TOTALLY worth it), the waiter at my new fave eatery, EVERYONE.

Conclusion - so far, I love it. I mean it's hot and humid, but nowhere near how horrible Moscow was, and besides, I just spend all my time sitting at my desk with a tower fan at full blast. That baby has already paid for itself.

Oh wait, maybe I should go explore this city outside my wonderful, cozy room. They say it's pretty cool. Or something.

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.