Retrospective Amsterdam

I realised what a failure I am as a blogger; I've missed out an entire city! Soooo...

A month or so ago I went on a day trip to Amsterdam with the international student organisation. We also stopped off at the wee neighbourhood of Zaanse Schans to get a dose of historic adorableness.

We're on the bus- so much excitement. 

The oh-so-Dutch windmills at Zaanse Schans. 
The windmills had epic names like the
young sheep, the seeker, the cat and,
 my personal favourite, '"the crowned poelenburg".

Look! A massive clog! And people crouching in it!

Cheese tasters! Mmmmm- we were cheese ninjas and
tried all the testers without buying any, including GREEN cheese.

Clog museum. So many facts about clogs!

We carried on to Amsterdam, arriving about lunchtime. So of course we first wandered off to get some food. The CANZ crew (people from Canada, Australia and NZ - dubbed so because we kept ending up together) found ourselves in a crepe shop eating nutella crepes. Superduper yum, and I think we were okay with not being particularly traditional, considering that apparently involved eating raw herring.

Then we were off on a canal tour! Very pretty.

Then we trooped around and found the 'I amsterdam' sign

After the sign we had 'free time', which was really exciting. We had a whole city to discover! Naturally, I went to a brewery.

The Heineken brewery and museum. We learnt to pour the perfect pint. 

After the well-spent free time, we were herded back into a group to visit the Anne Frank House. This was really cool for me, because I'd read the book a few times when I was younger. So I spent the whole time with my mind being blown that we were in her actual house. It was quite eerie.

After this we realised we hadn't had dinner, and were absolutely starving, so like the rational, well-bred people we are, we bolted to the nearest McDonald's. Then it was off for a wander around the red light district. That was a pretty weird experience.

My attempts to take photos of how pretty Amsterdam was by night failed miserably.
So I pinched this one off the internet.

Then our day was finished, so we hopped back on our nice warm bus back to Tilburg. In classic exchange style, this included blasting the music and a bottle of wine :)

I don't have many fun facts to share this time, because we visited slightly random things and I didn't obsessively research beforehand. So for more fun check out Amsterdam's wikipedia page :)

Beautiful Budapest

Taking advantage of cheap airfares, the awesome foursome set off to check out Budapest, the capital of Hungary, for five days. It's an amazingly pretty city, full of history and quirks.

The crew at the top of Gellert Hill!

St Stephen's Basilica
Fun fact: its dome is 96m tall, exactly the same height as the
dome of Parliament buildings, symbolising the equality of state and religion.
No building in Budapest is allowed to be higher than these two.  

Outside the Synagogue- one of the largest in the world

The Budapest Palace plus the chain bridge-
the oldest bridge crossing the Danube.
It wasn't until the Danube was bridged that
the two cities Buda and Pest became Budapest!

The many bridges crossing the river.
To the right is the Parliament building, one of the largest in Europe.
It's modelled  off the English building,
but is just one metre longer and wider :D

We also spent a reasonable amount of time trouping around museums learning about some of Hungary's history... 

The Hospital in the Rock Museum.
It's a cave system that was turned into a hospital during the world wars,
then a nuclear bunker.  It was pretty spooky, and an interesting way to learn
about Hungary's place in the  world wars and the Cold War. 

Shoes on the Danube
A memorial to the Jews who
were executed on the banks-
they were made to take off their shoes
before they were shot.

House of Terror Museum.
 It was an intense exhibition about the communist
and fascist dictatorships that Hungary had been subject to.

Budapest's statues were really cool; they had personality. Some would allegedly give you luck, like the one on Castle Hill where rubbing the horse's balls would bring you luck in exams.
These were two of my favourites...

The 19thC policeman- you rub his belly or moustache for luck. 

Anonymous- a statue dedicated to the unknown
author of a chronicle of Hungarian history.
Writers rub his quill for inspiration. I love how chilled he is (:

We were off for a night cruise on the Danube!

One of the reasons the Romans first settled in the area
was to enjoy the thermal springs everywhere.
We tried out the Szechenyi Thermal Baths, the largest medicinal baths in Europe.

Szimpla-The most famous ruin pub in Budapest and voted one of the best bars in the world.
We had a chilled time there trying the  mulled wine and cider.  

Taking random pics of cool stuff paid off-
we discovered a cute restaurant tucked away in this courtyard. 

                                   

Traditional goulash soup- yumyum

Rastel Hostel- our home in Budapest.

It wasn't as run-down as it looks, but it did have character.

The ruin bar below our hostel. We weren't even sure how the

locals managed to find it, it was so tucked away.

This was where we were true Hungarians-

we tried the ruthless national drink and folk danced in circles with the locals!

The Hungarian Ballet performing Don Quijote in the National Opera House.

The building was gorgeous! The story goes that that Austrio-Hungarian Emperor

at the time said that the building wasn't allowed to be more grand than the one in 

Vienna.The architect duly made it smaller and less fancy but then let loose on the interior.

So that was some of our Budapest adventure. It's up there on my list of favourite places to visit. The Hungarians were great- so proud of their language, so nice to pedestrians trying to cross the road, ever-so-slightly weirded out by four crazy foreigners. I was sold after we walked down a street on the first night and every second shop was a bookshop. Clearly they know what's important in Hungary! It was such a cheap city too (once we figured out the conversion, which meant rustling up the three times tables), and this was an excellent excuse to test out the local food :) Although I inadvertently tried the popular poppy seed paste, thinking it was chocolate. 

I won't forget the hysterical laughter of a barman after we tried to say thank you in Hungarian, almost getting done for shoplifting (long story), paying one euro fifty to see the ballet, dancing until 6am, discovering a dairy that made spectacular crepes and walking awlll over Budapest! 


Until next time,
Búcsú

Flitting around: Belgium

So a few weeks ago we popped over to Leuven and Brussels in Belgium. It was a tad spontaneous on my part, on the Friday a few of my friends were like "we're going to Belgium today, wanna come?"And I said yes :)
Leuven is a cute little town about three hours from Tilburg. It's well-known for its nightlife, as it's a student city in a big way. However, because we're geniuses, we arrived a) during exam time and b) at the end of the high school year. So we were partying with tons of 16-year-olds. And some who looked like suspiciously young 16-year-olds.
But the bars were amazing, and we were a massive group, so we made it work. One of the Canadian girls knew a few Belgians who had been on Canadian exchanges, so we got to chill with the locals.

This is the square with all the bars on it. Clubbing European style :)

YAY for Belgium! The gang in Leuven

The stunning Town Hall

In the morning we checked out the sights of Leuven, including the HQ of the biggest beer brewery in the world. Then we were off to Brussels! It's an awesome city. We trekked all over, seeing every single building possibly worth seeing, and of course eating delicious waffles. 

We also tracked down Manneken Pis, the famous peeing boy, plus to be thorough the girl and the dog versions. There are various stories about the origin of the peeing boy, and it's had a pretty interesting existence. It regularly gets dressed up in costume, on special occasions he pees beer, and in the 1700s he was knighted by King Louis XV, so French soldiers had to salute him! 

That night we hit up a typical Belgian pub. Delirium is famously awesome.
One thing that's particularly amazing is its selection of beer.
It holds the world record for the largest beer selection commercially available!

Breakfast! I get insanely excited by the fact that most hostels feed you.
We stock up :)

We emulate the dog version, Zinneke Pis :P
The background graffiti is something we saw all over Brussels-
there's an organised street art Comic Book trail,
and the Recylcart Art Centre, with walls and walls of street art. 

Outside the Royal Palace, one of our stops on what became
 The Epic Building Tour

So that's a wee snapshot of our Belgian experience, and a happy start to me attempting to take on Europe (:

Tot ziens! 

Crazy Carnival

So Carnival is originally a Catholic celebration, celebrated mostly in the south of the Netherlands. For five-ish days just before Ash Wednesday, people pretty much go mad. Everyone dresses up, drinks and parties, and there are parades everywhere!
To get the full experience, we went 'carnival-hopping', to see the cities that are meant to have the craziest carnivals! Friday and Saturday in Tilburg, Sunday in Maastricht, then Monday popping over the border to Cologne/Koln in Germany.

Starting off the craziness in Tilburg (In case you were wondering, I was an elf/robin hood/peter pan, depending on who you talked to)

On our way, training it to Maastricht. Being at stations and on trains with people in elaborate costumes and at various stages of drunkeness was an experience!

Speaking of elaborate costumes! Often the ones we saw in the crowd were even cooler. The parade was also open for random people to join in and meander along with the rest. 

Partying it up with the locals! We stumbled into the hall where one of the marching bands was letting loose, so got to listen to some live traditional music. Until suddenly everyone was in a conga line...

Pretty Maastricht

Taking advantage of a friend of a friend's couch... until security kicked us out at 2.30 and we had to move to her bedroom floor. All part of the experience :)

Cologne floats were way more hard core. Plus everyone threw chocolate and flowers into the crowd. It was a massive lollie scramble, which was super fun. I developed pretty sophisticated tactics for beating the competition. 

  After four days of partying, we managed to get in some sightseeing- this is the beautiful Cologne Cathedral. 

And these are some particularly cute houses in the 'medieval district' that we found after traipsing across the city for hours. Plus there are two Kiwis and two Canadians being silly in the foreground.

So that was Carnival! As if I didn't need more evidence that the Dutch knew how to have a good time. 

Tot ziens x

Welcome to Tilburg!

Welcome to my blog! I'll try and write interestingly about all the things I'm up to over here in Europe. So far it's been a whirlwind :)
Tilburg is a really cool city, full of bikes, cute brick buildings, and lovely people. People talk about the famous Dutch bluntness, but so far everyone's been super nice. I've also met heaps of exchange students, from Kazakhstan to Canada, from Argentina to Slovakia.

Tilburg fun facts:

- the name first appears in 709 AD, a good 500 years before people arrived in New Zealand woooaaaahh. 

- the city is big on logistics, because it's smack bang between a massive German industrial city and a major port. 

- coming into the city you see a million-euro sculpture. It's a house that turns in a big circle. Yup. 

 Bikes, bikes, more bikes- my goal is to make it through the year without being run over by one.

 Tilburg central, so cute!

The turning house, say what?

University- where I'm spending most of my time. Truly. 

I'll update more soon (:
Tot ziens!