Amsterdam and Sevilla

A couple weekends ago Whitney, Sara, and I went to the Netherlands. We stayed in Amsterdam and made a day trip out to Leiden (a 30 minute train ride) to visit Sara’s friend Amanda, who is studying abroad there. Some of the highlights of the trip: I really enjoyed going to the Anne Frank House on Thursday. It was where she and her family hid, in the back annex of her father’s business, for two years before their discovery by the Nazis. It was cool to enter through the hidden entrance behind a bookcase and be in the room that used to be Anne’s. There is glass covering the walls of her room preserving a lot of the original photos/magazine cut-outs that she pasted on the wall to make the room homier. We took a tour of the Red Light District and learned about the history of prostitution, only legal there since 2000. While prostitution is legal, pimping is highly illegal, so each woman is her own independent business.

The second day we went to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, which was tons of fun; I’d never been to a wax museum before. We took pictures will all kinds of famous people including, but not limited to, Obama, Humphrey Bogart, Sean Connery, Rembrandt, David Beckham, Lance Armstrong, George Clooney, Oprah, and Marilyn Monroe. After the wax museum we took a free 3 hour guided tour all over the city, free is always nice.

Saturday morning we took a train out to Leiden to visit Amanda. On the train ride we passed gorgeous tulip fields that were incredibly bright with color. Amanda picked us up at the train station and showed us around town a bit; we even stopped off at her favorite bakery to try it out. When we returned to Amsterdam in the evening we did a little bit of our tourist shopping. There are an uncomfortable amount of bachelor parties that go on in Amsterdam. I think I would be a little worried if my fiancé was going to a place were prostitution was legal… While looking at postcards we were accosted by one such bachelor party. They were doing a photo scavenger hunt and needed a kiss from random people. Unfortunately for them, we did not participate and they received the universal hand signal to go away when they kept pushing the issue.

We spent all day Sunday traveling back to Granada. We flew from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, Germany where we had an hour layover before flying to Madrid. Then we had to catch the dreaded Madrid to Granada bus that wastes five and a half hours of my life every time.

This past Friday (May 1st) we went to Sevilla for a bull fight. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it and could appreciate it for the artistic aspect of man vs. beast. We had a group of old men sitting infront of us who kept explaining everything to us; I think it made them feel good to be explaining things to foreign girls. We also went to the Cathedral in Sevilla and saw the Tomb of Christopher Columbus. The bull fight was in the evening and we didn’t get back to Granada until 2 am.
Saturday I slept a lot, obviously, worked a little on my Art History paper, and did a bit of shopping. Sunday was El Día de las Cruces (Day of the Cross) and there were large, extravagant crosses all over the plazas in Granada that we went out to look at. It also happened to be El Día de la Madre (Mother’s Day), so Whitney and I bought flowers for Isabel; she was so excited when we gave them to her.
Last night we went to Hannigan & Sons Pub for the Monday Night Pub Quiz. We really aren’t that great with random trivia (although Whitney and I got the answer to “Who was the Queen of the Netherlands?” right after our recent travels), but we had a lot of fun. Whenever we didn’t know the answer to a question, which was fairly often, we made up an answer. Diana Ross made quite a few appearances on our answer sheet when the question was about a person.
Tonight Cassandra, Sara, Whitney, and I are going to the mall to get Whitney's belly-button pierced. Cassandra and Sara got theirs done earlier this semester; I hope my parents appreciate that I have not (and do not plan on) piercing anything while I'm here. Tomorrow I have my Phonetics Final and will continue to work on my Art History paper; I need to find out if it's suppose to be 4 or 5 pages long... Whitney and I wanted to go to Barcelon this weekend, but tickets and hostels weren't working out so we're planning on going to the beach instead. I actually bought a new swim suit on the way home today, so can't wait to get a chance to use it. Only 16 days until I am home! Unfortunately, I have to go to classes, write a paper, and take finals during that time. Why can't I just go to the beach and fully enjoy the last 2 weeks in Spain?