AMAZING

K so I know I have been a terrible person for not updating, its just school started and it has begun to take over my life. I don't think I have ever had such hard classes, but the most interesting classes ever. I will get to them later because I need to write about my break, and then hopefully this weekend I will post pictures.

Germany!

I love Germany sooo much, I didn't think that I would like it as much as I did, but I just fell in love. It sucked because I was only there for a day but me and Kelsey were talking about going back for the next week break for like the whole time. Mostly because we freaking loved it. We went to Düsseldorf Germany and even though there wasn't that much to see there, it was still beautiful. I think I like it so much because of the night life there. In Rome you have to be so very elegant and well dressed and idk, there is this certain air that you must obtain, which is not a quality I posses. In Germany people were loud and fun and crazy and I laughed sooo hard while I was there for a night and gah! It was just sooo great. And then on Sunday we met up with this guy named Mattais, and he was just such a nice guy. He took us all around Düsseldorf and talked to us about traditions and the different beers that they have and the different meats. Omg I ate a lot of weird meat while I was there. Like liverwurst and sausages! Just so much hardiness. I think that it is acceptable for them to eat all these heavier fattier food though because they need insulation because it is SOOO cold! They need to be able to drink as much as they can so they can A. keep warm and B. forget about how cold it is. Haha

Then I went to Amsterdam for three days:
Well Amsterdam was not what I expected, maybe it would be better doing the weekend or during the summer but it wasn't like this craaazy place like I thought it was. No it was kind of boring actually. Well part of the problem was it was so freaking cold there that I just didn't want to go outside. I mean it was like reaaaaly cold there. We ate ALOT of fries and omg omg omg they were sooo delicious!! I swear the Mayonnaise there tastes differently. We did however go on a tour of Amsterdam which I think was the highlight of my trip there. We had a student tour guide who told us all about the Netherlands. Now Amsterdam is like the first place in Europe that I couldn't see myself living there for the rest of my life, well maybe Athens too, but anyways, what made me want to live there is the social ideologies the girl talked about. It was like a California in Europe minus the republicans! It was really rad. Like they have this HUGE problem against racism and not abiding by equal rights for everyone. During the times that Catholicism was looked down upon, the Dutch didn't really mind if people practiced their religion there. However they had three rules, if it isn't hurting anyone, if it’s good for bussniess and if you are discrete about it, then they didn't really care what you did. For example, she showed us a "secret" church, all it was a house that looked like all the others, but it was a place that people gathered for worship. It was obvious that Catholics were practicing their religion here because every Sunday, lo and behold 100 Catholics would be on the street and the street would echo with hymns. But when the cops came to investigate, well there is no cross on that building (i.e. they were being "discrete" about it) and well look at how many people are here buying food before they go in there (i.e. good for business) and well they are keeping to themselves (i.e. no one is getting hurt) then there must not be a Catholic church here. Gah! It was so cool. I mean that is their whole policy with pot, instead of calling them weed stores, they call them "coffee shops" (discrete) lots of people come to Amsterdam solely for that reason (business) and please tell me about any person who is stoned off of weed who kills people or harms themselves (safe). Another example is during WW2, the Dutch were solo sick of the Nazis taking over their lands and abusing the people of Amsterdam, i.e. the Jews. One day the Nazis decided to raid the Jewish quarter taking 100's of Jews to the camps, but they decided to do it on a day that was an open market day. So the many christens that were in the quarter saw the major brutality that the Nazis put upon the Jews, so the people of Amsterdam got together and devised a protest towards the Nazis, they joined in the streets shouting Protest Protest for the Jews!! And thousands upon thousands joined in the protest. In the end, unfortuantly, there wasn't much success, the leader was executed and many lost their lives. But the hope that it installed in the Jewish people hiding in Amsterdam was enough to get them through the rest of the struggle because it wasn't too long after the war was over. I also saw Anne Franks house, it was incredibly creepy to think that she hid up there for so long. I didn't even know that it was in Amsterdam that she lived. I think I will have to read the book again knowing what the city looks like.

There were so many other cool things like, the buildings and incredibly skinny. Mostly because the tax that was put on your house had to do with the width of your house, so many people made their house super skinny, but really long. That is also why a lot of them are tilted, besides the fact that the ground is coming out from under them because technically they are on water, but they lean forward because some wise guy decided that the best way to get furniture into house was to hoist them up with pulleys and rope and have them go through the windows, well the wind was so strong that it caused the furniture to crash into the houses, so he decided that the best way to have that not happen is to make the houses tilt forward decreasing the wind flow. Haha however, about 100 years later they realized that if they just made the polls longer that were attached to the house; they didn't have to make the houses tilt.

There were a lot of really cool stories. Erm well there are sooo many bikes in Amsterdam, it was really cool to me actually how many bikes there were and fuel efficient means of transportation. Even in the winter when I didn't even want to walk outside, people were ridding their bikes around. Another example of their progressive policies. Over all a really cool city. I just couldn't live there.

Oh almost forgot a biggy though, the Red light district. Omg it was so weird, I mean they are literally just standing there in the windows almost naked. It is so bizarre to me. Why anyone would want to do that job, idk. But it was allowed because Amsterdam was a dock city, meaning many men would be out at see for years and years and would have ONE day to come back and be away from the gross old stinky men that they had to be around for so long. Instead of letting them loose into the city, they just went straight to the red light district... It was kind of a necessary evil if you will. Today the mayor of Amsterdam is trying to get it shut down though, should be interesting.

SPAIN!

I love Spain; I could live in Barcelona for a long time. It had the best vibes out of any city I have ever been to. Unfortunately I missed the free tour for this one, which totally sucked, so I don't have any cool factoids. Besides the fact that the Cathedral that they are building by Guadi, they have been building it for 100 years and most likely wont finish in my life time. CRAAAZY! It is sooooo cool though, I mean really, one of the coolest things I have ever seen. A lot of his stuff is just so cool and so different. I honestly, dad, would recommend you going there and Rome, I mean you should really do both or at least go to Rome and then next year Barcelona or something because it really is one of my favorite cities in the world now, and O man this summer it is most likely going to be amazing. I wish I could just go live there, but unfortunately I don't have much monies!

So that was my trip, sorry it took so long, but I wanted to be able to have time and not be tired and write down EVERYTHING that I could remember. It prolly would have been better to do it each day, but when you were traveling like I was there really wasn't much time.

Classes:

best classes ever.

Cultural and Identity: This is my Anthropology class and I love it. We talked a lot today about Marxism and its influence on Italy and how ironically they were planning on having a socialist revolution that went really wrong and turned into a fascist regime. And then just a lot of "isms" about Italian culture that many people don't like. It is way chill.

Then Travel writing in Italy: my professor is like one of those women who are like very opionated and like kind of scary, but at the same time really smart and as long as you agree with her, you will get an A. But the topic is sooo interesting and like I think I can swing this class to go towards my major.

Then I have Urbanization of Rome, probably my least interesting class mostly because the ideas were kind of obvious, like in a city there are paths, these paths take you to where you want to go... blah blah, but it will still be a fun class because we go on a lot of sight visits, i.e. we go TO the street to study it. It’s going to be Awesome.

Umm I have decided that after the break I am going to go up France, starting in Nice, then Lyon, then Dijon (which is in the Bourgogne county and if I could pin point the place of my ancestry then I would go exactly there) and then Paris, fly over to Brussels to see Charlotte and then depending on my other friends from camp, either meet them in Amsterdam and then go to England or just go straight to England. :) But then again I guess a lot can change in 10 weeks but I am almost positive this is what I want to do.

:) Love and miss you all.
Arielle