I Could Be Dreaming

Originally posted 7/2/07.

Berlin was phenomenal!!!!! I am in love with that city.

We caught an overnight bus that got us there early Thursday morning. After some wonderful help from the guy sitting next to Sam, we were able to easily find the hostel. The transportation system is very very well done. We checked in and decided to go on a walking tour. Best decision we made because it led to everything else on the trip.

So, we went with a group of other travelers from the hostel and walked around Berlin for most of the day learning a ton of history that by walking around be ourselves, we would never have realized. It is such a cool city; a grat mix of old and new. Because of all the bombings and political turnovers, it has been rebuilt so many times. They are still continuing to build. It was nice to take a trip without expectations or any plan. We were able to do whatever we felt like, and we never felt like we were rushed. That is how all trips should be I think. If you maybe miss one or two things because you didn't end up with time, so be it.

We saw many great things including the holocaust memorial, checkpoint charlie, and museum island.

After the tour was over, we walked back to see all the things we walked by only briefly before. We also went to a few museums and a beautiful church.

Thursday night, we attempted to find places to go out on our own. Failure. We really aren't very good at that.

The next day, we decided to do some more sight-seeing on our own and do some shopping. We went to an open Turkish market, and it was great. Vendors let you taste the foods, clothing and jewelry are sold quite cheaply, and it is just bustling and noisey. We got some nice olives and pesto spreads and ate lunch by a river. We were visited by some rats, but that didn't really phase us. We went to Parliament and the Sony Center as well.

That night we went on a pub crawl run by the same company that ran the walking tour. I am not sure we could have had a better time. We met so many great people from all over the world. Everyone has a story, and most people who travel are generally free thinkers. The last stop was a club that had many types of music and atmospheres. I think this was my favorite part because everyone just danced the night away.

We hauled ourselves out of bed Saturday for a tour of Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp in a nearby town. As much as I have read about it, it is never the same as actually being there and seeing it for yourself. Most of the camp has been leveled, but there are many reconstructions and museums on site. Even being there though, it was hard to imagine the horror. I just still can't understand how something like this can happen in society.

We had so much fun the night before, that we decided to do the pub crawl again. We met a brother and sister from L.A. that were traveling together earlier that day, so we were excited to see them again that night. We met some of their friends they had met in traveling, and together, we just chatted and laughed all night. We also got to know some of our guides a little better. They are all really cool people, a lot of whom moved to Berlin after seeing it on a visit much like our own.

After seeing the sunrise, I was pretty pumped for another day of wandering. Our original plan was to go to Potsdam, but because of when our bus left, we decided just to stay in the city. We found a random flea market with all kinds of strange things and a lot of war memorabilia. We also just wandered around the city a bit more and found the olympic stadium. It was nice to have a relaxing day.

We are back to cold, rainy, dreary Wageningen for a few more days. I start bright and early tomorrow working with assays in the cell physiology department. They took me back. I was suprised. We have dinner plans with friends tomorrow night and then with Rene and his family Wednesday night. Everything is really coming to a close, and it is going to be a busy couple of weeks.

California Dreamin'

Originally posted 6/26/07.

Honestly, I just don't understand the Netherlands. You are walking outside in the sunshine and suddenly there is a crack of thunder and it is pouring on you. Two days in a row now this has happened. So I come back to my room looking like a drowned rat, and quietly change clothes before my neighbors notice that I got caught in the rain again. Most of my pants are hanging to dry right now. Pretty soon I will have to go naked.

Really all the rain wouldn't be so bad, but it has been below 60 here every day for at least a week. I really miss hot weather and sun tans. The other day, 70 felt really warm!

I have more pictures from our last zoo day, as promised. They are pretty funny really.

Yes, we rode the train and a pelican tried to eat my camera. Also, just a crazy bike we saw.

This past weekend was wonderful, despite the rain. We went to a nice park called De Hoge Veluwe. It is a large national park with wildlife preserves, grasslands, sand dunes, and pine forests. I wish I had gone around the park more, but I spent most of my time touring their superb art museum. It was really something. The set up was very well composed, and even though there were plenty of tourists, I never felt crowded. It was really a chance to enjoy the art. Beautiful Van Goghs, Rodins, and Monets filled rooms and rooms of this building. Plus, surrounding the building was a giant sculpture garden. They have over 100 sculptures out there and the paths take you through the woods and by nice ponds and fields. One of the sculptures actually floated and another had a way into it, so when you climbed the stairs you were in a giant plastic desert of sorts. I would be walking down the path and until noticing a little indicator sign, would not even see that the tree next to me wasn't a tree at all, but rather a brass statue.

They had everything from Renaissance to Modern. Sometimes though, I just couldn't see the artistry in the art. At one point in the museum, I saw a sign on the wall for a piece entitled, "meter." I looked and looked around me and nearly attributed it to the piece being out on loan until I saw two men pointing at this thing on the wall. That was it. It was just a stick of aluminum stuck to the wall. Is that really visionary? Is that art? I just don't see it.

Some of the newer pieces were really intriguing. Today, people try to make statements with their art, which accounts for some really interesting work. One woman had taken photographs of women naked and bound down by household items. The titles were all things like "Is a women just a stereotype" and such. Some others I found interesting were photos of random objects placed on record turntables and photographed while spinning, and then there were some where the artist had photographed bouquets of flowers, which seemed simple at first, until you realized that the flowers in the picture were photographs of flowers that had been cut out and arranged perfectly to look like real flowers. No cameras allowed though, so sorry, no pictures.

So, as is obvious, I spent a lot of time there, and I really enjoyed myself. Sam wasn't interested in the museum, so she rode around the park by herself for awhile and then went home. After the art, I also rode around part of the park. This park just has free bikes for anyone to take and use that you just leave wherever if you are finished. The first bike I had was way too small, so it was pretty comical to ride, but the second one was just right for cruising around the grasslands. I took a few pictures, but a big black monster of a raincloud was threatening to eat me, so I had to head to the park gates to catch the bus.

When I got to the bus stop (actually it was a little van that carted people to the real bus stop), I asked the information booth when it would arrive. He smiled and told me 20 minutes. I was a bit disappointed that I hadn't spent that time in the park, but it began to rain and I squatted on the sidewalk. Twenty minutes past, 30, 40, and then after almost an hour, the little van came. Then I was in a rush to get home because I thought our neigbor was cooking dinner for us, but when I arrived, there was no sign of dinner.

We helped this Polish neighbor the night before with editing her 106 page thesis. Took 7 hours of working and chatting, but in the end she told us that she would make us dinner the next night for our troubles. Never happened. I am not bitter at all, but Sam and I did wait all night without eating. Miraculously, another neighbor knocked on my door at around 10 and commanded that Sam and I come eat because they made too much food. So instead, at around 11 we ate with 6 crazy Brazilians and a Romanian. Great food, but it was almost all meat and cheese. I am pretty sure he invited us because the weekend before he forgot to pick us up for a party when he said we should wait for him. But hey, free dinner at the price of helping with the dishes. I'll take that any day.

This week we have been analyzing our data from the zoo. We have become more and more apathetic about this course every day. It was nice to partake in, but putting forth a lot of effort for a class you aren't getting credit from just seems pointless. And it has been gloomy and depressingly drizzly, which does not encourage us to bike across town at 8 a.m. It is all over tomorrow, when we present our project. There is an exam for the class on Friday, but we are skipping it (yes, we okayed it with our advisor, and no we aren't going to get in trouble from the University or get kicked out of the dorm (Dad)). Instead we are taking a very long bus to spend a few days in Berlin. Yes, we are slackers; we know.

Banana Pancakes

Originally posted 6/20/07.

I am alive after a week of observations at the zoo. However, I think if I ever hear the words "Apies Apies Apies! Baby apie! Baby baby baby!" ever again I will cry. I am not sure how people ever become grade school teachers. I would trip the kids on the playground and laugh.

After sitting through sun and rain...too much rain...we now have enough data to hopefully complete the last part of the course. Today we had some extra fun though, some part of the course and some that could have gotten us kicked out of the zoo, and had a nice drink provided by our professors. We got lucky the past two days with the sun, but there were some very cold and rainy days here that make us miss lounge chairs at the pool.

We finally got tired of staring at monkeys all day and decided to ride the train and play on the jungle gyms, which were huge! We also made fools of ourselves and posed with statues banking on the idea that we will never see these people again.....let's hope. On our way to a certain sealion statue we came across some pelicans that had escaped. I wish I had more than this one picture because they were trying to eat our cameras and shoes, but I will have to get one from Sam later.




For today, we had to make a prop to use while we acted like our animal. We don't have a whole lot to work with, so here is our very sad infant (it's arm and leg have fallen off at this point) that we made of cardboard and twist ties. The supervisors thought it was hilarious. Sam may have gotten a little too into it though, climbing a tree and shrieking for our video portion. I am not being sarcastic this time.

Most of our time has been spent going into this class, but on our off time I have been snapping pictures of the surrounding animals. The camel pit was right behind us. I really hate camels. Also, I wanted to include this picture of the raccoon exhibit. They are exotic here. See Mom, someone appreciates their existence.

I am going to miss that bike ride every morning. There is a giant hill we have to climb and embarassingly, I only made it up all the way once. My friend tried to comfort me by saying, "I have seen a few old people who have been riding for years not be able to make it up." Yeah, that's supposed to make me feel better. Now I know that I am beat out by everyone except really old people. Coming down the hill, we just pray that we don't hit a stick or rock, because we would just fly out of control. I ride my brake down some, but Sam just lets go. She is brave. A funny thing happened on my way home the other night though that made Sam worry that I had caught a rock on my way down and was lying in a ditch somewhere. I got stuck behind a cow crossing. To me, this was completely surreal, and I turned laughing to the person behind me, but she just glared at me like I was the crazy one. Apparently cow crossings are a normal occurance here.

Our baby lives for now, and I am glad we were able to help the zookeepers out this week with our updates. Today the other females wouldn't let the mom take her, which is how the last one died, so we are hoping this was a one day occurance. I am going to miss the little bugger. She just gets cuter and more inquisitive every day. Too bad we can't justs stop in whenever we want. We think we may start name dropping and see where that gets us. Worked for Sam at the Dolphinarium. She got a backstage tour.



We like to come home and have a nice relaxing dinner, but the other night Brazilians took over our kitchen, so we decided to investigate this Chinese place we had been eyeing since day one. Adventure and a half! The menu is in Chinese and Dutch, so we asked some questions and thought we had what we wanted. Sam's wasn't so bad, but apparently egg roll means giant, bean sprout filled wrap with eggs, bacon, and mystery meat bits. Here is what it looks like. If you can't tell, I was excited. Maybe scared is more like it.

Even if we can't get a decent meal, the evenings are worth it if only for this:

We're Going to Be Friends

Originally posted 6/13/07.

We've been very busy with classwork lately, so I used this past weekend just to relax a bit. It was nice to go to the market on Saturday and get some fresh fruit and bread. I really like the attitude of this town. Everyone is very relaxed, very easy going. It is nice to just walk through the center and see all the families out together. I may have said this before, but quality of life is much more important than quantity. There is no such thing as take home work here, and people dedicate a lot of time to just be with people. It may seem like a simple, quaint way of living, but I really enjoy it.

Friday, I had a nice dinner (not sure all of what I ate) with Jochem and his roommate. Finally, I get to chat with people my own age! We talked about anything and everything, but they were very interested in how I perceived the Dutch and they were quite willing to tell me what they thought of the U.S. There is no love for the U.S. here. None at all. But we ate outside on the roof, so I was able to see the town in a whole new way. Then it started to rain, so we took coffee inside. To my suprise however, we had Bible study. When in Rome, I suppose. Someday I may have a discussion of religion with them, but I felt like I should just sweep that under the rug for our first night together. They have both kept in touch this week though, and Sam and I may stop by for coffee tomorrow night, although she is not as okay with the Bible study part.

We also met a couple girls through our class that want to have us over for dinner sometime. Apparently dinner gatherings are the most common way to spend time with friends. We want to be able to cook for them in return, but when half the time you don't know what you are buying in the first place, it is difficult to make an old recipe. Opened a bag of frozen chicken breasts the other day to find out that they were already cooked.

I have been talking about politics with many people here. Sadly, the most common question is, "Is it true that Americans don't care about politics?" It is a hard question to answer because even though I follow what is happening, I know many of my friends who couldn't name the current candidate possibilities if you asked them. I am ashamed with how little I know about foriegn politics. My neighbor and I were just discussing election systems, and he knew so much about how ours worked, but I had no clue how the Italian system was. Also, it is sad that people equate certain beliefs with being American. People don't understand that the nation doesn't think as a whole and that there is quite a bit of unrest with the people right now. I have honestly been told, "Don't you know we all think your beliefs are ridiculous in Europe?" without even being asked what my beliefs are. Maybe I am just not as patriotic as I am expected to be, but I just can't connect living in a country with what someone believes.

On a different note, we have now had to rework our project twice since we thought we'd finished it. When we got to the zoo on Friday, the curator asked us to research something different, and then today we had to change most of that work. But, as it turns out, there is an infant, and we are trying to see how much time the infant is spending with each adult. Last year they lost an infant because it was "fathered to death." We are hoping the father allows this one to nurse so that it does not starve, and it seems that there is a lot of pressure on us to figure this out. We are just praying at this point that it does not die in the next few days.

Here are a few pictures of our macaques, and some other shots I got at the zoo on Friday.

P.S. I got to pet a giraffe. I am pretty excited!

Sittin' Pretty

Originally posted 6/7/07.

This week we started....oh no...don't say it.....OMG....class! Run and hide all small forest creatures, this is scary!

Well, it hasn't been that scary really. Pretty boring so far actually. But anyway, we spend our mornings in lectures listening to our squat professor talk about how much he loves ethology. Most of the theories he talks about are news to me, and I am not sure how I will be able to study this material for the exam because we can't access his computer files that we all apparently need. Sam and I aren't technically registered as students here, so that has caused some interesting problems for us when it comes to actually taking a class. We have no emails from the school, phone numbers our T.A. can use, access names for the class files, or a way to get onto the lab computers. I really feel sorry for the girl whose group we are in.

After lectures, we ride across town, up a hill, through the snow to get to the computer labs in ten minutes. Once we beg someone to let us use their login name and sit down, we are stuck there for over 6 hours. I have never just sat and worked at one computer on one project for that long at once. It is awful. After awhile, we can't focus, and we just stare st the screen.

Our animal is the Barbary macaque, and we will be observing this animal in the zoo a town over starting tomorrow. After slaving away with research and papers, we have decided to observe the social interactions of the younger animals to test maturation rates in captive environments. However, we didn't know until today that there is a newborn in the group, and that could change everything. Fortunately, we have two more days of staring at computer screens next week to clear things up. Beware, by then I may be a flesh eating zombie.

On a different note, I have had my second rendezvous with our washing machine. It is a trickster, that's for sure. So I put my clothes in the machine, praying that what I have convinced myself is the correct setting will not rip every seam from my shirts because all instructions are in Dutch, and I close the door. The thing sounds like a 747 lifting off, and I grit my teeth as I leave the room knowing full well that I will spend the next few weeks naked if I fail. Then I sit in my room with the door open so I can hear when it stops spinning, and I anxiously check the clock every few minutes. 30, 45, 60 minutes go by before I have had enough and strut down the hall to go check on my precious garments. The machine sounds like it is finished.....no churning or bubbling for some time now. I get to the door, and I am convinced it just waits for me to turn on the light before, "haha, I will resume spinning for at least another twenty minutes you silly girl."

So, I grit my teeth a little harder this time and huff back to my room to listen once again. Once the 747 has come in for a landing, I rush into the room and turn on the light, but the dial is only at rinse and the machine has stopped. I inspect for a bit, look around the back, turn the thing on and off, and then I figure that it must be finished because it hasn't moved in five minutes.

Here is the trick though; the lever on the door is broken and you have to pry the thing open using the end of a metal spoon to flip the latch inside. I have done it before, so I know where to push and where to tug, but for some reason, this time the door won't budge. This darn machine has decided it just isn't finished with salivating all over my shirts. So, I turn the dial to spin and as soon as I turn it on, it magically revs up its engine and starts spinning again.

Again, I wait in my room to hear the tower commander okay the landing, and when I hear it I dash toward the machine. My clothes are still inside. They don't seem fried or shrunken. So I try once more to open the faulty door with the stupid spoon, and like it was freshly oiled, it just swings right open! "You can have these back now," it says to me. So after and hour and a half of washing, I take my damp clothes out to be dried on the line and I smile like I have beaten the thing at a game or something only to realize that I had one more load. Ugh.....

Walking on the Sun

Originally posted 6/3/07.

What is with these sun themed titles lately, sheesh...you think a girl could come up with some more variety.

This week was full of spur of the moment decisions despite plenty of time off to actually make good choices.

Wednesday, I worked with a Polish guy named Kris who was preforming electrophoresis on proteins from hypothalimic rat testicles. I got to work with him through the whole process that took nearly the whole day, only to have it fail. I feel pretty awful about it because I probably screwed something up along the way. Anyway, this poor guy was so nervous around me because he didn't want to speak English around a native speaker. I was impressed with his abilities, but we kept a Polish to English dictionary up on his computer just in case.

The two Polish people in the team I am working with are quite friendly, and it is funny because everyone else thinks they work way to hard, but they say that the Dutch are slackers.

Thursday, I finally met undergraduate students. Hurrah! I was begining to think they didn't really exist and that the bachelor's category online was just to screw with me. But it turns out they must just hide in their little gnome hovels somewhere and study all the time or something.

Anyway, I was able to help (watch two men kill rats and rip their intestines out) set up for an interesting lab and then observe the class. The whole class was in Dutch, but the general idea is that the intestines were turned inside out to create sacs that would absorb sugars and then keep them inside to be measured. After the intestines hung in solution for a half an hour (just long enough for all the students to down a gallon of coffee), they were removed and the glucose contents of each section were measured using color detection. The class consisted of all food tech students, so the course was very basic. I guess the difficulty level of each course differs for each major, which makes sense but seems inefficient. But I sat in the corner by myself until a brave girl asked me why I was poking my nose around in their business. Houston, we've made contact!

After the lecture, I grabbed the ear of a Dutch student named Jochem ( try coughing when you say it, it makes it sound more correct). He and I talked about the differences between the U.S. universities and here. As it turns out, they are on a 10 point system and many classes are only based on the final exam with no curves. He also made fun of our Greek system a bit because he is in a frat, but he made a point to explain that it was a very different thing here. He and I are getting (bet you can't guess) coffee sometime to continue our discussion. I am glad to finally meet someone my age though. Most of my neighbors are at least 24, and one of them is 30.

Friday, I went in for less than a half an hour to have someone explain to me that the Dutch try to avoid working on Fridays in the summer. "Don't Americans get 30 days off a year just for vacation?" I can see now why the Polish thought they were slackers. So I took another long bike ride and saw all the ubber-romantic spots to take your girlfriend....sad for me. And NO! I have not found Sven to take me there....silly family.

Later that night, Sam and I tried to go out again, this time to the pubs. Haha, that was a joke. We walked around for awhile realizing that we were the youngest people out. Also, we must have stood out because we got tons of stares and cat calls. So, we hung our heads in defeat and came home. Maybe the international club isn't so bad......

Saturday we went to The Hague enjoying a nice relaxing day on the beach. The North Sea is freezing, and I apologize to my toes for even attempting to get in. The sand was nice though and it finally warmed up. I am pretty sure we were in a bad movie about L.A. circa 1988 however. The beach was packed with leather skined men in speedos and people playing bad beach music with their boom boxes. And yes, it is common for women to be topless on the beaches in Europe and no, we didn't do that. I thought it might be a good idea for the two of us to sip on a bottle of red while listening to the waves. Makes you feel smart when you have a perfectly good bottle of wine and nothing to open it with..heh... We were also pretty lame because McDonald's somehow sounded delicious. Tastes the same here to me, but it is now Sam's goal to try new McDonald's menu items in every new country she visits. We got back really late, and now we know the buses and trains still run at midnight. Thank God!

Today, I have just been reading and relaxing in my room. Tomorrow we enter Hell. Our four week class begins and lectures last from 8 to5 every day. Ugh. Goodbye free time! I will miss thee!

Sun in My Mouth

Originally posted 5/30/07.

I am now completely convinced that Holland is in fact the Shire. It is just peaceful and relaxed and everything is olive and hunter and lime. I am excitedly watching a hot air balloon at the moment fly closer to my window.

This evening, I decided to just bike over to the next small town to see the country. It will now be an every night occurance for me I think. Everything is so quiet and quaint. I think I even saw a Hobbit trapesing through the fields with a fishing pole.

Now the balloon is very close, and I am considering chasing it, though I know even with a bike, there is no chance I would catch it.....

Okay, back to my story, so I just took off today and luckily didn't get lost for 3 hours like Sam did the other day, but the trip just made me feel good. Breathing deeply the fresh air and letting the breeze slide past my face....amazing...well, until a speeding car dashes by, reminding you that this is in fact not a part of a Tolkein novel and causing you to pray for your life.

But anyway, I got some beautiful pictures along the way, and next time I will take my Minolta along.

Oh, and I also made friends with a wallaby.

Somewhere Out There

Originally Posted 5/29/07.

So, I know, I have pinched the hose of posts, so now that it is unkinked, lots are pouring out.

This weekend was full of mind boggling insanity. Amsterdam is the most pathetic and ridiculous city I have ever seen, yet I had so much fun there.

We caught a the first train out early Saturday morning, without an idea of where we would stay or what we would do when we got there. I had a hostel in mind that I'd hoped would come through for us, which in the end it did, but not without having us jump through flaming hoops while riding tricycles in middle of a swimming pool.

We arrive at Bob's door, smiles on faces, only to be pushed back out with, "We have nothing currently, check back after 11. You can always go to the tourist center." Panic attack #1. So we hiked back to the tourist center and waited with #488838383822, got up to the desk and found out no hostels had anything available AT ALL! Panic attack #2. We got some brochures about campsites, unfortunate that we didn't have tents. We marched back to Bob's hoping that maybe it would come through for us....come on Bob.....and we squatted at the front door until just before 11. Sam got the first spot in line while I watched the bags outside and met several other Americans in a similar predicament. We almost all rented a cabin together.

Hurrah for us, we got two beds.....and found out what Bob's really had in store. Apparently it is common in Amsterdam to have some weed with your eggs in the morning.

Two guys from Georgia thought it would be fun to pal around together in the city, but this only lasted through the Anne Frank House before we had to ditch them. The one that walked with me most of the way was quite nerdy but also very normal and nice; seemed like someone I would be friends with back home, but the other, who called himself Memphis, annoyed Sam with all his "knowledge of everything in the known world" to the point that I am glad their were no tailpipes around for her to suck on.

After a ton of walking, two small panic attacks by me, and meeting then escaping two guys, we unloaded our stuff at Bob's and quickly learned to wear shoes all the time and to not question all the bleached spots on the sheets.

Oh, and climbing these stairs with our backpacks and such, we might as well have been spawning salmon.

After some relaxation and a careful escape without being spotted by boys from Georgia, we went to the Van Gogh museum, which would have been nice if I had wanted to stare at people's shoulder blades all day, but the crushing crowds and the stupid "headset tour" were huge disappointments. Honestly, do people need to listen to the art, because I am pretty sure the history of each painting is printed on its label and would take only ten seconds to read instead of wasting three minutes of every ones time while you have someone tell you about it while you stare at a painting more famous than Michael Jackson, only to realize that you entered the wrong number and you are listening to the next paintings blurb instead. It was a nightmare.

I am happy I saw the paintings, but the experience, to put it crudely, sucked.

We stayed in the first night, exhausted from walking all day and discouraged by a cold rain, but the next day we decided to visit the redlight. On our way, we stopped into the sex museum. This is me with a friend I met there:

It was a very tacky museum, but interesting. The redlight was just depressing with girls as young as 16 waving to 60 year old men to come their way for a good time.

Also true about Amsterdam: the city is completely green. I am pretty sure it is the biggest tourist trap this side of Disneyworld. In fact, I am pretty convinced no Dutch actually live there, they just leave it to the foreign stoners and sex hounds. There were big groups of men everywhere we went. But there really are coffee shops everywhere. The smell is really just sickening.

You can tell this is a man's city. Yes that is an open air urinal on the street corner.

We did find some good foods though. There were these corner bakeries everywhere, and they all sold the same thing, including these thick sugary waffles dipped in chocolate. We also hate giant Dutch pancakes, mine with bacon and cheese, but they were so rich and so huge that we couldn't finish them and just picked at each other's for a different flavor.

We did make it to the Heineken Brewery. That was crazy, and I am pretty sure my dad would have loved it. They have made it into an amusement ride where you don't actually tour the brewery at all, but you get to go inside some kettles and watch videos on the making of beer and ride little virtual rides.

The only downside for me is that we had to down three beers while there. I was fine for the first, but the last two were very difficult. I really have not found a beer I can say I enjoy. They did give us nifty bottle openers though.

We decided to try the nightlife, and found a nice pub to wander into. What did we find but a whole team of English footballers (soccer players :) ) and possibly a famous British actor named Danny Dyer. We didn't have our cameras, but I think they took plenty of pictures. Most of these were of Sam's chest when she wasn't looking, and some when she was, and she knows now not to wear a lower cut shirt out around here. Many of these guys were nice, but there were two very annoying ones (they were taking the pictures) that I am glad I stayed away from. However, sitting on the end, I accidentally attracted a persistent Hungarian that insisted that I drink and dance with him....He even told me I had beautiful eyes in Hungarian to try to get me to dance with him. He was also creepy and about 40, so I just looked to a Brit to save me and ended up having great conversation about British television. The "actor" was very calm, and I think his friends were sad that we weren't hanging all over him and freaking out that he was this Dyer person. We were thoroughly disturbed when we saw grandmas dancing on the tables and doing chest shots with the footballers, and we knew it was time to flee when two beers and a candle were spilled all over our laps by a drunkard in a superman suit. All together, a good night I think.

We shopped and took our last pictures Monday morning before coming home to actually get things done. The getting things done part was foiled on my end because I lost my travel partner for the rest of the trip, but I hope to figure out how to travel alone soon so that I can still see Paris and Rome. Plus, I am homeless for a week at the end, so I have to figure out something. Anyone know someone to visit in Europe, let me know.

Anyway, that ends my weekend. I am glad we went, but it is not a city I would like to stay in very long.

I am making it a tradition however to find a Dana establishment everywhere I go because I happened upon one this time too. Plus, it sells falafel. So much fun to say......