"Grachten" of Amsterdam

Now Amsterdam is world famous for it's canals called Grachten.

They were used to be a direct link for all the trading people back in time. The time of trading with ships and stuff... no not the 20ties.
Ahh that's what I was looking for the 17th century, the Golden Age.
When they were sealing around the world, trading extraordinary spices...

...building new inventions, the art was blooming...

... and not to forget, were enslaving other cultures to work for them and steal their resources. Have a look at this map from the historic museum.

But hey let's not complain about the past, let us enjoy the present.

The Grachten are a really special thing to see, don't miss a cruise if you're there. They have day tickets or weekly tickets often in combination with other things, for example the trams. It's not the cheapest option, but it's worth it.

They have different routes to cruise with, some bring you a bit out in the port, near the high class hotels, in the front of the Anne Frank House or to the Tulp Museum.

Others will bring you through the Grachten with the houseboats. Which I found the best part.

There are still people living at houseboats. You may think, "Living at a boat? That can't be comfortable!" I might thought that too, but since I was there and had look, it seems very reasonable. Have a look for yourself:

chill :)

You definetly have to make sure that your getting up at the right side of your bed or you have your moring shower in an instant.

And okay your right, it may be a bit narrow, but hey... Amsterdam IS narrow, EVERYTHING! (At least the old towncenter ;). They have cafés which have room for three people and are profitable! Even the toilets, you can hardly sit and have shhsss... at them.

I have no idea how tall dutch people do their "big buisness" at such a toilet. There was like one cm space left between my knees and the door and I'm not tall! :)

Errmm... Anyway, where was I? Aja, the lovley Grachten.

Like most things, it's more fun to enjoy the Grachten with sun. You'll sit in one of the flat boats and enjoy Amsterdam in a quiet, relaxing way.

Also it's good fun to see a city from beneath, floating by at the water. Instead of seing a city from above, which is the more common thing. The Grachten are so amazing that they are an official world heritage since 2010. A must if you're in Holland and a should if you're in Europe.

And here's a movie to give a even closer look:

a day in Nijmegen

Next day after the pubcrawl, I went to Nijmegen, which is in the east of Holland, to meet up with Moni. I still was hung over, that's why it was hard to get up early to travel from Amsterdam to Nijmegen. I thought it will take me 1,5 hours to get to Njimegen with the train, but I guess it took me two hours or even two and a half, because they rebuilding the rails.

Anyway finally arriving in Nijmegen I met Moni and she was so kind to make me a nice breakfast to get rid of my hangover :)

Later on we grabbed a bike and explored the city, Moni showed me around. She had to go to a grocery and to the gobbler. She also met some of her friends, they seamed all nice and funny people, everybody was smiling and had fun! (Even the gobbler! But I guess it was because he made fun of me ;) But I loved to hear dutch, because as a german speaking person, you now and then understand some pieces.

Then went to the old town:

 

Of course we went to the church, you'll always go to these nice buildings, even tough you're not religions! Why is that anyway? :)

We also had a look at the market place, walk around and to the bridge:

I'm a bit sad that I didn't took pictures of the nice little backyards and smaller roads near where Moni lives, because it's lovely there. I only got this one (actually the one before with the coloured houses is one too):

And we went to the cheese shop in town.

Moni chose some good cheese for me, which I enjoyed the next days in Amsterdam. Two big chunks, that was enough for the hole week.

So that was a great day in Nijmegen and I enjoyed it very much! Thank you Moni! :)

Amsterdam, city of joy

With only one and a half hour of flight time from Zürich to Amsterdam, I was in Amsterdam in nooo time :)

(And to all how say "You'd have better traveled by train, because it's cheaper, more economic and things like that" SHUT UP! :p I just couldn't be bother to travel 9 to 10 Hours, I bought we time with flying. And by the way flying is great! :D Just love it when the plane takes off)

So there I was at the central station, with no accommodation and no clue what to do :)
Let the adventure begin :)
So I was looking for a hostel and I spare you with the boring details, but I often got to hear "THERE ARE NO FREE BEDS"!
Often the hostels or hostel agencies couldn't even say me where I could ask too. So after like 2 hours walking and exploring, I surfed in the i-net and found a bed for a night. So I put my backpack there and immediately went to get a bed for the next nights. I didn't want to do that again tomorrow.

I found a the "flying Pig" hostel, which was great. Very nice atmosphere, relaxed people, it's narrow and friendly. Easy to get in touch with other travellers.







There were a lot of Australian people, some of them told me that they will join the pub crawling. My first thought was, I'd like to join too, but I can't get drunk the first night in Amsterdam.

I'd spend all my money and won't be able to get up early to explore the city. After a walk in the Vondelpark, I thought why shouldn't I join them? There's no one telling me what to do and I wanted to get in touch with other people! And it was a unique possibility!
So of course I joined the pub crawling! :D

And for a Tuesday there were heaps of other travellers! I guess around 80 people. And later on also other people having fun in the different clubs. So I met a lot of people from countries like New Zealand, Brazil, Australia, Austria, Scotland and even Russia. :)

Hopping from pub to pub was great, because if you get bored, your group will soon go on... But later in night, we didn't realized that our group already went on. So we found your self with the other part of the pub crawling team, the orange team. Look for others went outside and decide to just stay at this pub, when we went in again, we got another round of free drinks :D

Get a impressions here:

  

And you'd like a sneak peek of the party in Amsterdam? There you go:

When I finally arrived in my bed (of course I got lost), at 4am. I sat there in my underwear and checked the pictures I had taken till then, when 4 girls came in the room. Well that was a good surprise :) It turned out that I stayed in a room only with girls :D

So first night was awesome, and heeeeaps of fun :)

creative comment

I've just stumbled over this and thought I gotta share it!

Now that's what I call a creative comment, the author must be a man of genius!
Any funny comments read lately? Or you've just got a flash of inspiration?

At this point, I must give a shout out for a very funny girl, Nath. She's making hilarious, good short movies on Youtube and I bet she's seen some similar comments :P

next day in Freiburg

In the evening after the EuropPark we went to the town centre of  Freiburg, but only for hour. We drunk a very good beer and so ended a great day in the EuropaPark.

The next day the sun was even stronger, but we braved the heat and went into city anyway. We've seen some nice buildings, had a look at the latest fashion in town and even went through the horror of being in a "C&A" even it sale! 

  

Ben wanted to get some new shorts and I was looking for a nice leather jacket. Unfortunately the batteries of my cam went out, so I couldn't get a picture with the jacket, it looked quite good, but I'd never wear it at weather like this.

Walking in this heat was sooo exhausting so we stopped at a fruit juice restaurant, I was overwhelmed with the selection they offered. Hundreds of juices and cocktails, some with alcohol but the most without. I didn't dare to take one with alcohol, it was two o'clock in the afternoon and terribly hot. I guess a real cocktail would have knock me out! :) So we chose a delicious shake.

In the evening we hang at the Augustiner place,

 

every evening a lot of the students sit there, chat and have fun. It's kind of the piazza of Freiburg.

THE place in Freiburg to get drunk ;)

We met Luke, a nice guy from Australia, at the Black Forest Hostel.

We went to the Augustiner place, talked and drunk warm beer. Which is a shame, when you're in THE country of beer! I guess none of the fridges was working in Freiburg.

I realised I have so much fun talking English and it's always a delight meeting people from abroad. Made me miss New Zealand again and getting another country on my Todo-List!

Thx Luke, may the force be with you! ;)

a day in the EuropaPark

Me and Beni had holidays and wanted to do something in europe ( Checkout 2008, Luxemburg, Belgium, England and Scotland ). I read an advertisement in a bus and heared from a coworker about the EuropaPark, which was enough to give it a try.

From Winterthur in Switzerland to Rust (near Freiburg) in Germany we had about 3h. Google said we'd have 2h but with a break and the traffic it was 3h. So that means we were in front of the EuropaPark around 9am. (At that time it wasn't crowed.)

Theme shows

We watched the show "High Diving" which is show with tower jumpers.

They jumped from 10, 15 and 25 meters. It was a good show, we relaxed a bit drunk a beer and watched.

Later on we watched the "King Athur" show. They had pretty good armours and helmets. And made a lance tournament, mixed with a acrobatics and show fights. They even had a clown.

It's more a show for kids. Even thought if you like mediaeval tales it's interesting anyway.

Cinema 4D

At the evening we watched "Shrek forever" at the 4D Cinema. The Cinema is huge!

The movie was in 3D and greeat fun. They really made another good shrek sequel.

The fourth dimension (in the cinema) was the water, wind or similar effects right at your seat which surprise you. They're funny but not that amazing. ;)

Food

There are many various food corners and restaurants. We ate fresh made little donuts, Ben had pasta for lunch, which he claimed to be "the best pasta he ever had". Unfortunately it was only a small plate ;)
Later on we ate at the Norwegian restaurant. I was delicious food and the portion were big enough.
Also the restaurant was very nice decorated, as you can see at the side picture.





A word to the decoration itself. All the little countries in the park are very accurately decorated and for every theme park they have a story in the beginning and they are full of details.

EuropaPark roller coasters

Silverstar

The Silverstar roller coaster is mostly outside the actual EuropaPark and it's directly in front of the parking area. So the first thing you'll see when you get out of your car is this awesome roller coaster track.

So of course we thought let's go on that thing! Something in my head said "Noooooo don't" but I shut that voice up and we quequed us in. And we thought let's go as long as there aren't a lot of people. I guess everyone arriving at this time had the same idea, so we ended up waiting pretty long in a queue. But of course it's worth it!

It's one of these roller coaster which starts with long steap part. You'd have a perfect overview of the park, but didn't dare to look around to much. I was scared anyway. Then arrving on the top you know one thing for sure: You're going down!

A thought popped up in my mind: I want out of here! But it was too late, too LATE!

While waiting in the queue I made fun of the people on the steap, I said: "You gonna diiiie". Now my time has come, I'm gonna die up here!
So I screeeeeeamed all the way down :)

And we went down with free fall feeling. This first part was overhanging so it lifts you up in your seat. And I tought I'd fall out. Holy shit was I scared, I screamed my lungs out until I spit blood!

Actually there was no blood ;)

(Next comes a high curve were you'll slow down at the top and again drive down.)

But you know we weren't on a damn roller coaster for like fifteen years! And getting older I achieved a scariness of highs. ( And getting older I got scared of highs.) And what did we? We sat in the f***ing first line!

It was horrible, fast pace and great fun! I recommend it to anyone how likes roller coaster and to everyone else too! :)

Maybe you should go on the Silverstar as your first roller coaster after a long time ;) nor as the first roller coaster of the day. Because the most of the other roller coaster were just LAME after this one.

Bluefire

Another great roller coaster is the bluefire. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of it...

Anyway we waited for maybe 40mins. The funny thing is with these queue is, you're waiting a long time in the hot weather, sometimes in the direct sun, and you're getting sleepy. And then, when you alomst fall asleep, you'll sit in the coaster starting to get nervous and finally it scares the shit out of you :P
Then you'll get out of it with wabbly legs. And the circle starts again.

In front of the queue they sell nappies for these adults, who are that scared that they might shit in their pants! Hahaha... no that's actually not true, but they should sell them, I bet hundreds of adults would buy them. And nobody would have an excuse, because it'd be shit-proof! :)

The Bluefire has a looping and some rolls, which I enjoyed the most, they lift you out of your seat and filp you around. Great fun!

Wanna see how much we enjoyed it? Check out the movie.

(Attention is a bit a loud movie!)

A word to the big ball in France: crap! I wouldn't go on it anymore! I went on it when I was a little kid and it was dangerous! Because it's so shaking you really have to stabilize yourself, a kid might get hurt. And it's lame anyway, the shaking is the only "special" thing.