We'll Always Have Masterdam

Sunday

We had a little mix up Sunday morning when I woke up, looked at Elisabeth's phone, and saw that it was already 8:43! Turns out the phone didn't automatically change, so it was really 7:43. I'm still not sure how that works with a 7:45 alarm on a phone that thinks it's later, but we woke up just in time. Elisabeth also looked at me as if she had no idea who I was when I woke her up. Sunday is pancake day at the hostel, so we ate those and headed to the Anne Frank House. Elisabeth had been there recently on a school trip, so she went into the oh so impressive Tulip Museum while I toured the house. It was incredible. We reunited and went to the Amsterdam History Museum, where we learned about the city and possibly more importantly, took some more interactive photos.

There were enough silly portraits to go around. The one I'm with is the city's mayor...not so sure about the other.

A friend told me I needed to buy some stroopwafels while in Amsterdam and I'm glad that he did, they were delicious! I'm not really sure what's going on with that window but I take it it was a coffee shop aka place to buy marijuana.

We did some more walking, spending a bit of the afternoon exploring the Jordaan area (which was really cool), but our feet were so tired we found a bench near here to sit a spell. And on our way to the train station, we took the advice of our new pal Jono to check out the library. Oh my goodness, what a library. Elisabeth compared it to a space station in her blog. Join me as we travel into the future.

There were people studying inside of those.

And because we've never been good at acting our age together, we spent at least ten minutes at the airport watching people either step in or avoid this ice cream.

Love You, Phant

Saturday

I have so many photos, I'll tell the story through captions.

First shot of the day. Like I said, we slept for about four hours, ate, then started our adventure. I'm pretty sure I was not aware I was looking at a draw bridge when I took this because looking at it just now surprised me. Obviously, this was in between cups one and two of coffee.

As much as I enjoy studying French and Spanish and would like to learn another language sometime, I'm not planning on picking up Dutch anytime too soon. The spelling would kill me, check out those words in the blue strip at the top.


This was at Museumplein, the park near museums such as the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. There are over 100 elephants throughout the city and they'll be auctioned to raise money to help Asian Elephants in Thailand. Elisabeth is with "Love You, Phant."

The park is also the site of an I amsterdam sign where we stopped for photos. I think we look like we're coming out of some doors with that m there. And for this backwards a photo, Elisabeth gave the photographers at the front a nice view.

Houseboats!

Please note the tram on the left - they run on tracks through the street and I got the impression that cars sometimes drove through the same areas. They're pretty frightening. I would also like to comment on the "Grilled Sandwiches" sign - there were some instances of bizarre uses of English (ie no anglophone would name a restaurant that), but pretty much everyone in Amsterdam spoke English really well. I heard it on the streets a lot too.

We were pretty tired after all that walking, so we had a late lunch, changed into some nicer clothes, and left the hostel again to wander around near the venue before going to see the Felice Brothers. I asked a girl at the hostel to take a photo of us and handed her my camera oriented this way so she could get a full length shot...guess she thought that was a pretty important wall behind us.

It rained on the way to the concert. And pretty much throughout the day.

The concert was amazing! The band is so energetic! I worked with them once over the summer and this show sold out, but the tour manager said he'd get us in. Since I hadn't received a confirmation, we showed up a bit early, happened to see one of the guys, and he got us in. The opening band, A.A. Bondy, was really good too and featured another musician I like on bass. When we went up to James, the accordionist/pianist, to thank him for helping us out, he invited us to hang out after the show, so we walked around the city and went out for drinks. Wonderful.

And since we don't really sleep, we went back to the hostel and again talked to our new Australian friend Jono, laughing about the oddities of living abroad until the wee hours of morning. Oh, and we cheated the sytem and got a free hour together in Amsterdam because at 2 am, the clocks went back an hour.

Here's a clip of The Felice Brothers performing "Frankie's Gun."

So you guys just meet up and go on adventures?

I just got back from Amsterdam! So as not to make one megalong post (and to not sit at my computer forever), I'm splitting up the trip.

I'm not sure how much I elaborated on mine and Elisabeth's relationship on my earlier posts when I was in Denmark with her, so here I go. We'll start at the beginning, on June 5, 1989 when she was born. Three days later, in another city, I was born. Six months later, her family moved across the street from mine in Toledo, Ohio. We became best friends, to the greatest extent that babies can, but were tragically seperated four years later when my family moved to Indiana. We visited twice a summer til we moved farther away, to South Carolina, at which point we started to spend about 2 weeks together once a year. BUT, we changed the course of bestfriendship history this year by not only hanging out in Denmark, but also meeting up in Amsterdam!

Day (Night) 1

We met up in the airport and took a train into the city. The walk to the hostel wasn't long and was facilitated by a map printing machine at the station. You type in a street and it highlights the directions on a map, amazing! Turned out our hostel was in the redlight district. Wait...our Christian hostel was in the redlight district. We found it pretty easily, checked in, dropped our stuff off, and headed out to explore. Evidently midnight isn't the best time to explore Amsterdam; the streets were well-lit and crowded enough for us to feel safe, but not to protect us from creepy comments, like the guy at a kebab stand who asked "Are you looking for me?" No, in fact, we are not. Nor were we interested in answering another guy's question of where we were from. Nor did we have a lighter or want to join some guy and his friend for drinks. We did politely tell that one that we were Canadian though when he asked, he was more respectful, but still creepy.

Amidst some jerks, we still had a good time because we got to go on a ferris wheel! We'd wanted to in Copenhagen, but it was about the equivalent of $16 there. And I bought a chocolate waffle! My anger at it surprisingly costing 4.50 euro abated as soon as I tasted it, absolutely delicious. We got to work on some planning when we got back to the hostel and ended up making friends with the night deskman, he even gave us bowls of ice cream! He's Australian, working at the hostel for a few months, and I think enjoyed some company on his 11pm to 8 am shift. He made us think of our relationship differently when he pointed out that even though we've been friends for nearly 20 (!) years, we've barely seen each other in person. We're just such good communicators that that hardly matters!

We have a thing for maps.

Elisabeth and I have always thought of sleep as a waste of time when we're together, so we slept for 4 hours, ate breakfast at the hostel, and ran off of excitement to be together and coffee for the rest of the day.

Americans in Paris

Right after my parents left, my cousin Collin and his girlfriend Kim came to visit me. Collin's grandmother lives in Geneva, so they came to this side of the ocean to see her and spend some time abroad with me as well as Kim's cousin who is also studying in France. Getting to see them is always wonderful, but showing them around Paris was even better! They came on monday night and left wednesday, thankfully taking the approach that it would be cool to see anything rather than trying to squeeze in all the sites. I must say though, we covered some ground.


They did quite well getting around on the metro, here they are on their first ride. Our first night, we went out for dinner and did a Paris by night walk from the Latin Quarter, past Notre Dame, and to the Louvre, all of which I love to see lit up at night.

We started tuesday, our only full day, bright and early with a walk to the Bastille and moved on towards the Marais, one of my favorite neighborhoods. I had just been in the Paris history Museum, Musee Carnavalet, a few days before so after we walked around the Place des Vosges (oldest planned square in the city and site of a preserved former home of Victor Hugo), we breezed through the museum. With the Jewish community present in the Marais, finding a delicious lunch at a Jewish bakery was no difficulty and from there were walked towards the Eiffel Tower (and split up because I am, after all, here for classes). The evening was full of excitement because one of my favorite American bands, The Mountain Goats, performed in Paris! My friend Molly joined us for dinner before the two of us headed to the show.


There were two openers, a British band called This Is the Kit and a Swede who now lives in Paris named Herman Dune. His music was good and the (English) lyrics were funny, but I probably would have enjoyed his set more if I hadn't been anxiously awaiting The Mountain Goats!

The show was not, however, the Mountain Goats, but rather John Darnielle, the singer, songwriter, and mastermind behind the band. I have over 200 songs by him and still didn't know everything he played. Prolific is an understatement. He played a few songs from his newest album on the piano then played a lot on guitar (returning to the piano for "Thank You Mario But Our Princess is in Another Castle," a dramatic narrative from Toadstool's point of view). I read online that the venue's capacity is 300 and I think some people left after Herman Dune; I'm pretty sure it's not possible to experience a Mountain Goats show this small and close in the US. He took requests and even closed with one (California Song), the whole set was amazing. Here's a video of one of my favorites, Dance Music, filmed with my mom in mind because she sings along now after I put it on a mix for her.

And wednesday, Collin and Kim left for Geneva, but not without a nice lunch together after visiting the Louvre.

Parks and Gardens

So much catching up to do...here are the last of the photos from my parents' visit.
One day when I got out of class, I met up with them at the Louvre then we walked through the Tulleries gardens, where we found some wonderfully random sculptures that made for good photo opportunities.




Continuing through the garden, La Place de La Concorde came into view, so we took some more interactive shots...or at least tried. Dad and I tried to lean against the tower, but with it being so far away, I think we achieved more of an about to high five shot. I like it anyway.



And thursday, sadly, was their last day here in Paris (we won't see each other until December! Thank goodness for Skype!) They met up with me and my friends Molly and Philippe in between classes for a picnic in the Luxembourg gardens, which is near where we all have classes.

We spent our final evening in the latin quarter, where I took this photo of them by the middle ages museum. After a delicious dinner, Dad opted for gelato for dessert, but I talked Mom into a nutella crepe from a street stand, a Paris essential if you ask me.

Centre Pompidou

Here are a few more photos from my parents' visit. We went on a walk (with a tour book) through the Latin Quarter to discover some of the history behind the area where I have classes. Here's Dad and me working on getting back to the hotel - I've got a Plan de Paris (thanks Mrs. Mullane!) and he's got some map program on his phone. Oh, and it started raining while we were out. Not nearly as bad as meeting my host mother and sister at a restaurant - it started pouring as soon as we left the hotel and we got there drenched.



One day before class, we went to the Centre Pompideu, the modern art museum. You can see the city really well from it's top floor - Sacre Coeur is in the back of this one.

And here's Mom and Dad on the escalator that's in a pipe-like structure outside of the main building area.

One of the exhibits we saw was called Elles @ Popideu (Elle=She/her). I liked this one where the artist made famous artist names feminine. Outside of this special exhibit, there were some cool pieces Picasso, Miro, Magritte, and Matisse.

Mom and Dad visit!

My parents got here on Friday to spend a whole week in Paris!
It's really great just to see them since I've been gone since August. I met them at their hotel on friday and after we got something to eat, they went to bed after so much traveling. The night was young for me though, as my host sister told me we were going to meet some friends at a discotheque called The Queen. That ended up not working out, so we went to someone's house instead and I got to practice my French some more (definitely less difficult than the party on my first night!). I wish I had taken photos there, Carina and I have so much fun going out together!

A late night was poorly timed with an early morning trip to Versailles, but nothing a little coffee couldn't help. This time, I actually went IN the palace rather than just running around the grounds. Tickets come with headphones and a device to punch in numbers and listen to audio for different rooms. I guess they wanted to keep the clips relatively short, but the program didn't do a very good job of interpreting the overall history of the building or give the most relevant information for each room. The random tidbits that we picked up were pretty interesting, and it was fun to just to see everything. Plus, my art history professor talked about Versailles in class the day before, so I was able to notice a few things she talked about (emphasis on few - that class would be overwhelming even in English!). Here's my dad and me strolling through the Gallerie des Glaces.



I keep forgetting my camera, so I'm relying on ones snatched from my mom's. She had her white balance on a weird setting, so all the outdoor photos look blue.



There were sheep in the field behind us. They evaded the camera.

My parents in front of the canal.

I like to think of myself as a master of interactive photos. We had some fun with the statues from a few feet away.

Dad got creative and incorporated a full body pose. I learned from the best.

Sunday my families got to meet each other when my parents came over to the apartment! That was really fun and then I got to show them around my 'hood.

/U/

Blog neglect! It's been a while - my camera's battery was low and somehow photos I took last weekend were not saved. I really liked the ones from my Saturday walk near the Champs Elysees - a Prada across the street from what I understood to be the president's house and a historic church that had some megaphone-looking speakers on top - possibly a broken bell?
A few highlights since the last post -
On Sunday, my host mother had some family friends over, which included a few adults and 3 siblings between 16 and 23. That was really fun to hear them all talking and follow the conversations because they speak far faster than my professors - real French!
Ever the nerd, I'm excited to get back good tests and papers, but my latest phonetics exam is the best - I got almost all of the hardest ones right, where we had to identify specific vowels and semi-vowels in sentences the professor read, scored 3 for 3 repeating a dictation, aaaand finally on the other speaking section - all we had to do was read a few sentences, but I got 1.75 out of 6 points! It's the damned vowel /u/. I can't say it. Carina has even been trying to help me when we speak together because she's noticed my struggle. This week we've moved on to nasal vowels, which are as awful as the name sounds.
Tuesday was my dad's birthday - I talked to him on the phone and bought a present he may or may not like.
Wednesday I celebrated 5 years of vegetarianism! I had forgotten about it but my plans to meet up with a friend from high school became a celebration of the date, and better yet, she's a vegetarian too. She's doing a program here through her school, Duke, and it was our first time meeting up since we got here. Crepes make for a great celebratory reunion.
Today is Carina's birthday - she's 20! We're the same age now!
And tomorrow, my parents get here and I'm sure I'll rectify this lack of photos problem.