Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona and London!

Here is what I did/thought about Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona and London. I will add info about the rest of my trip soon.

Amsterdam
Arrived Friday March 27th Departed Saturday March 28th

What I Did:
I went to the Rembrandt House, the Van Gogh Museum and besides that I just walked around the city.

Thoughts/Impressions:

1. People are much more friendly and outgoing, they will approach you and help you out and interact with people that they don’t know much more than in Denmark
2. The Netherlands/Amsterdam is very flat, even compared to Denmark
3. There are a lot more bikes and while the bike lanes are separated from the cars, they are not separated from pedestrians like in Copenhagen where the sidewalk is raised 6 inches from the bike lane. This makes it harder to walk around and you have to watch out for bikes even more.
4. Bikers ring their bell when someone gets in their way, which they don’t do in Copenhagen, kind of like how they don’t say ‘excuse me’ in Copenhagen.
5. Amsterdam feels much bigger that I thought it would.
6. Tram is the main public transportation, but the lines in the air give the city a busier/dirtier and not as appealing look. The lines also make it hard to get good pictures of buildings without the lines in the picture.
7. There is lots of construction everywhere, especially around the Central Station, which really ruins the cityscape.
8. There are lots of cheap restaurants and ethnic food. While there are lots of places to eat, there aren’t that many coffee shops that actually serve coffee (instead of marijuana).
9. The main grocery store chain (Albert Hech) was very nice and more of an “American style” grocery.
10. Amsterdam was much dirtier than Copenhagen, lots more litter on the street.
11. The canals are very cute and looked exactly like what I expected.
12. There were tons of Scotsman wearing kilts everywhere because there was a big football game in Amsterdam the Saturday that I was there. This made it very crowded with lots of big drunk people in the street.
13. It was extremely hard to find my way around because the canals are in a ring except for the ones in the oldest part of the city, which are straight and so sometimes run parallel to the ring canals and sometimes perpendicular. Also, they don’t have the names of the canals listed and the maps don’t name the streets running parallel to the canals. As a result, I often walked in the wrong direction and had a hard time getting my bearings.
14. The sidewalks are very narrow with posts on the side to keep the cars off of them but it made it very hard to walk on the narrow sidewalk.
15. The Van Gogh Museum was one of the best museums I’ve been to in Europe, the exhibits and the explanations were really good. The Starry Night Exhibit was interesting, especially the way the paintings worked up to the Starry Night.
16. Pancakes!! (Very good)
17. I head a lot more English around. There were a lot more tourists and so people automatically spoke English to you. Also, Dutch sounds a lot like English, so sometimes it was hard to tell if someone was speaking Dutch or English.
18. There weren’t a ton of things that I wanted to see or do in Amsterdam. If you’re not going to go to the Coffeshops (Marijuana bars) there isn’t a tone to do after being there for 2 days. However, there were a lot of places I wanted to eat at, and so I wouldn’t have minded being there for longer.
19. The bakeries were great!
20. Utrecht was a very cute, smaller version of Amsterdam.
21. I have really started to realize how easy it is to travel around Europe knowing English and that I/all English speakers are lucky that a lot of people speak English is non-English speaking countries.
22. Some things in Amsterdam made me realize what I wish Copenhagen had more of, these are: more cheap restaurants, better grocery stores, and a food/street market.

Brussels

Arrived Sunday March 29 at 2 am and left Monday March 30 at 1 pm.

What I did:
Sunday, March 29th – Walked to the Grand Place, the central square in Brussels, went to the Cocoa Museum, went on a Art Nouveau quest where I walked up to the Autrique house, passed through the Botanical gardens. I then went to the Palais des Beaux Arts, the main art museum and then walked down to Horta’s House, a major Art Nouveau building and then I walked around and meandered back to the Grand Place. On the way I stopped at the Mannekin Pis, a statue of a little boy that looks like he is peeing. I got dinner of waffle and fries (both of which were delicious) and back to the hostel early to get good nights sleep.
Monday, March 30th – Got up and walked over to the Royal Park and back over to the Grand Place, which is one of the prettiest squares, I have seen yet. I got breakfast and a real Belgian waffle. I spent the rest of the time wandering around and bought some good Belgian chocolate before heading to the airport.

Thoughts/Impressions:
1. Grand Place was verrrry pretty!
2. The buildings (Cathedrals) were very lacy looking and ornate on the outside and also very white.
3. The residential houses were flatter and had more decorated than Paris, but it still felt similar to Paris.
4. Because of the ornamentation on the buildings and the more Gothic feel, it made sense that Brussels was the center of the Art Nouveau movement.
5. The Metro/Tram system was confusing and I ended up never needing to take it.
6. Not a lot of restaurants.
7. There was both French and Dutch being spoken and all street signs had their names in both languages. You could also see both countries’ influences in the buildings, some looked like they came directly from Paris and some like they came directly from Amsterdam.
8. Very definitely getting farther south, a lot more PDA.
9. Lots of chocolate places.
10. Great weather, which was really needed after a week of off and on raining.
11. I really like Brussels, was very pretty and had a good feel.

Barcelona
Arrived Monday March 30th, Departed Thursday April 2nd
What I Did:

Tuesday March 31st - (It rained most of the day) – I walked to La Sagrada Familia (5 blocks from my hostel), and went in and up to the top of the tower where I got a great view of Barcelona. I walked around to Pasiege de Gracias and Las Ramblas. I met my friend Lexi, who lived in Barcelona and who I was traveling with later for lunch at a good vegetarian restaurant. I walked around the old part of Barcelona and then over to some more Gaudi buildings. I went in Casa Batllo (which was very cool) and Casa Mila. I then went to the main Cathedral, got dinner and then went back to the hostel.
Wednesday April 1st – It wasn’t raining, so I went to Parc Guell, then down to the other side of town to the beach and the Mediterranean, then I walked down Las Ramblas where I got fruit at the main market, the Mercado de la Boqueria. I then walked around the Barri gotic and La Riberia and went back to the Cathedral. Then I met up with Lexi and we went to dinner early (at 8 pm!), got gelato and had Cava (Spanish sparkling white wine), which was very good.
Thursday, April 2nd – I went over to the Montjuic area where I saw the Olympic Stadium and the famous Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, back to the Mercado, walked around and then went out for tapas with Lexi before heading to the airport for London.

Thoughts/Impressions:
1. Very pretty and buildings are very Spanish, very different from Northern Europe and France.
2. Lots of balconies and plants hanging off of them (it reminded me of a real version of New Orleans square in Disneyland)
3. I really liked how the Eixample (the new part of Barcelona built in the mid 1800s) and the old medieval city fit together and how each had their own feel but still fit together well.
4. The people (especially the women) were much smaller than in Denmark and all of Northern Europe.
5. There was lots of good food like tapas, paella, market food (fruit), chocolate, churros, gelato, crepes, tortilla (the Spanish Tortilla is kind of like a quiche).
6. There are lots of restaurants and they open really late, 8 or 8:30, and most people eat at 10, which in my opinion is waaay to late.
7. Cava and Sangria are great!
8. Really good Metro system and cheap (1 euro per trip)
9. Las Ramblas (the main tourist street) was really pretty but there was really nothing on the street except tourists.
10. There are lots more homeless people and beggars missing limbs which is sad to see and is very different from Copenhagen.
11. LOTS more PDA.
12. Not any food stands on the street.
13. Lots of Tapas places, which are really fun.
14. Very pretty with the mountains on one side and the Mediterranean on the other.
15. Plumbing and building interiors are much older and haven’t been brought up to modern standards.
16. Reminded me of home with the Spanish style buildings, the palm trees and the more relaxed attitudes.

London
Arrived Friday April 2nd at 1 am, Departed Monday April 6th

What I did:

Friday, April 3rd – Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, walked around Hyde Park, dinner with Lexi’s cousin (who we were staying with) at a really good vegetarian restaurant.
Saturday, April 4th – St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Fish and Chips for lunch, walked around Bayswater and Kensington and though Hyde Park. Then I went to the Tate Modern, walked around and then to dinner at a modern Mexican restaurant that was really good (I also tried cactus!).
Sunday, April 5th – Walked around Regent Park and then down Regent Street to Parliament. Lexi’s cousin took us to several markets, which were cool, and we got lunch at one that had a huge selection of ethnic food. Lexi and I then went to tea at Kensington Gardens Orangery, which was really good, then we walked around a bit and went to the second best Indian food in England!

Impressions/Thoughts on London:
1. The most similar to America
2. Not a particular attractive city overall (come nice classical buildings but the city is not that coherent architecturally)
3. Classical buildings not very ornamental and very static.
4. Most of the modern buildings were kind of ugly
5. English accents can be really annoying when you are surrounded by them.
6. People dress much more like Americans here and a lot of people dress really preppy and look like they are from a rich East Coast family. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who dress really trashy.
7. There are a lot more overweight people.
8. Very diverse city with lots happening everywhere and tons of eating and ethnic food options.
9. London is very large but it is really easy to find your way around and to get your bearings.
10. I rally like the Underground and it was very easy to use, I really liked how the stations had the direction (north/south) that the lines went because it helped give you a sense of where you were going in the city.
11. London has GREAT parks, Regent Park was gorgeous with all of the flowers in bloom and the gardens are easily the most beautiful parts of the city.
12. There are lots of different areas in London each with their own character and there are lots of main shopping streets.
13. Not really clear if there is one major center of town, seems like there are lots of centers.
14. I really liked being able to understand everything.
15. There are lots of good shops that aren’t too expensive.
16. People definitely more outgoing to strangers
17. London was pretty cheap because the pound was really low, it was worth a little more than a Euro but all of the prices were still set as if the pound was worth 1.5 Euros.
18. It was nice to be able to stay with Lexi’s cousin because he was able to show us the markets and take us to cool restaurants we wouldn’t have been able to find by ourselves.

First Week of Break - Study Tour with DIS

The first week of the three week travel break was a DIS-led study tour to Germany and the Netherlands. It was similar to the tour I took earlier this semester to Western Denmark, just longer. We left Sunday March 21st in the morning, drove to Hamburg, Germany where we spent a couple of hours walking around the city and then continued driving the rest of the day to Dusseldorf, where we stayed for 2 nights. We spent our time in Germany around Dusseldorf and Cologne which two major cities in the Rhine-Rhur valley area which is one of the largest population centers in Europe. Notable buildings/places we saw were the convereted Zollverine Mines which used to be a huge coal mining factory and is now being converted into a cultural spaces, Museum Insel Hombrich, which is a large park/garden with 16 art pavilions in it that are supposed to blend in with the landscaping. We also saw the Kolumba Museum in Cologne and the Cologne Cathedral. Unfortunately the study tours are very busy so we don’t really get any free time except late at night by which time I was pretty tired and ready to go to bed so I didn’t really get to see that much of Germany.

From Germany we drove to the Netherlands and we stayed in a really nice hotel right outside of Utrecht (which is a 30 min train ride outside of Amsterdam). In the Netherlands we saw a famous city hall in Hilversum and then walked around the new town of Almere (near Amsterdam). We also got to spend an entire day in Amsterdam, partly with DIS and partly on our own and then we spent a day in Utrecht and saw several buildings at the University of Utrecht and the Schroeder House, which is one of the most famous houses in architecture and one of the only examples of the De Stijl movement. The Schroeder House was my favorite thing we saw on the tour and I really recommend that anyone who goes to Amsterdam take a trip out to Utrecht to see it if you have time.

Overall, the study tour was okay but I’ve really started to realize that I don’t like being on large tours and being herded from place to place with 40 other students. However, it was a really good experience to see buildings that I otherwise wouldn’t have traveled to see and it was nice not to have to worry about logistics for the first week of traveling.

On my own

The DIS-led study tour ended Friday March 27th after dinner in Utrecht so I went to Amsterdam that night and planned to spend Saturday in Amsterdam before heading off to Brussels for a day and a half.