So it's been a whole week since I last posted, which means there's tons of stuff to tell all of you! I'll try to make it as quick as possible, though.
Highlights from last week in Oxford:
1. I got sick (not really a highlight, but significant nonetheless)
2. Harry Potter Opening Day (wasn't really a fan, not gonna lie...quippy one-liners and intense special effects do not a great movie make...although it definitely was a beautifully done film and everyone should see it)
3. I bought a pack of 5 walking tours of Oxford which I'll start doing this week (if I feel better)
Okay, so on to last weekend...
Sydney, Bryan, Amy and I left for the airport at 4:55 Friday morning, and we got to Gatwick with plenty of time to hang out and eat breakfast. Our plane ran perfectly on schedule, so we got to Amsterdam around noon and probably got into the city by 1:00 or so. We checked into our respective hostels (we were all staying at different ones, with the exception of Bryan & Amy), then went to the Anne Frank House together. The line was MASSIVE but it was totally worth it... I had a HUGE interest in Anne Frank when I was in middle school, and it was incredible to see the Secret Annex for myself. It was a really well put-together museum as well, and I was very impressed. After doing some wandering (including a stop in the gift shop of the Tulip Museum) and shopping for the rest of the afternoon, we turned in--by the time we finished with dinner we were all EXHAUSTED.
After meeting up for breakfast the next morning, we went to an exhibit called "The Complete Rembrandt" which was really cool, even if it didn't have any actual paintings (which we did not know when we paid 12 euros to get in). It had a print of every single Rembrandt in chronological order so you got to see his development as an artist throughout his entire career. My favorite painting was of four guys doing a medical dissection; it sounds kind of gross, but each of the doctors just had so much personality! (See photo below)
After a delicious kebab lunch (kebab, how I love you so), we went on this amazing free walking tour by Sandeman's New Europe, a company with free walking tours all over the world (Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Edinburgh, Hamburg, London, Jerusalem, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Prague, and Tel Aviv). The tour guides are paid on a tips-only basis, which means they have a big motivation to make their tours uber entertaining. Most of them are also 3-4 hours long, which means you really get a chance to see a lot of the city. We learned a lot (my favorite tidbits were that 1. approximately 22,000 bicycles are pulled out of Amsterdam's canals each year and 2. people in the Netherlands didn't have last names until the French occupation when King Louis forced them to, so they picked terribly offensive ones that their ancestors are now stuck with). It was definitely a great way to get acquainted with the city. Amy had already done one of these tours in Edinburgh, and we'll most likely be doing the Dublin and London ones on the remainder of our weekend trips.
After the tour, I tried to make it down to the Van Gogh Museum, but I kept getting distracted by cool shops on the way (plus it was REALLY FAR), and by the time I got there it was too close to closing to merit paying the admission fee. I did get to see the "I Amsterdam" sculpture, though, and I found us a nice area to go eat dinner in. After that we took one of the tacky and touristy boat cruises around the city. After some wandering, we found a nice cheap pub to end the evening with a hot cup of tea (for my throat...I'm kind of lame).
By Sunday morning, I was getting kind of sick of Amsterdam (it's just really not my type of city), so I took a day trip to The Hague on my dad's recommendation. It was absolutely lovely...I did a lot of wandering around and taking pictures, which was definitely nice and relaxing. In the morning I went to the MC Escher Museum which was AMAZING and then I grabbed a nice lunch and did my reading for class today. After that, I went to the tourist information centre where they had 2 euro walking tour booklets, so I spent the rest of the afternoon showing myself around the city. You know, I know we're not a fan of monarchies in the US, but there's something to be said for sweet palaces and beautiful public gardens :-) My favorite part was that there are flowers EVERYWHERE in the Netherlands, even though we missed tulip season by a couple of months.
After another afternoon cup of tea, I headed back to the airport, where we proceeded to have one of my worst travel experiences of this trip to date. Highlights include: our plane was delayed by over half an hour, then held in a holding pattern when we got to Heathrow, the line at immigration in the UK was the longest I've ever seen it, and our bus driver missed the road to Oxford so we were on the bus for an extra 45 minutes. It was incredible to finally be home, though, and I'm so glad to be back.
Here's the link to all the pictures (there are a lot, I warn you): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017238&id=1326450024&l=26fbdf1dd7
Less than three weeks 'till I come home! :-)
Dara
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