london recently

since my last post, i have wandered the streets of london with nikki and anna and successfully seen much of the city. i saw big ben, the london eye, where the harry potter cast and crew taped shots inside gringotts bank, buckingham palace, one of the oldest pubs in london which was frequented by great authors such as dickens, tennyson and twain, covent gardens, trafalgar square, 10 downing street, st pauls, millennium bridge (also appeared in the harry potter movies), and westminster abbey. speaking of westminster... i attended the evening service there. no big deal. its only the location of the quickly approaching nuptials of kate and prince william! so i walked down the aisle that kate will walk down! it was exciting. another cool experience we had was walking towards the westminster bridge and seeing countless policemen lined up across the bridge with three helicopters hovering above. we talked to one of the cops and he asked if we were with the protest (we werent) so he suggested that we walk to the next bridge over to cross. we saw the hoards of people protesting against the government cutting the funding for services and the hundreds of police cars and policemen. it was crazyyyyy! its a beautiful day outside today so anna and i are going to abbey road and tonight, i am planning on going to les miserables!

foreign cuisine

since my last post in leiden, i have been to england and scotland and the weather has been absolutely perfect! i am trying to experience each culture to a higher degree. in order to do that, i have been experimenting with the local cuisine. in holland, i ate poffertjes (mini pancake type things), pannekoeken (dutch pancakes that are really thin and have different stuff in them like bacon and cheese), and the delicious traditional dishes that gert and monique made for us - mashed potatoes with cabbage type stuff in it, sausage, and a vegetable dish. in amsterdam, we had a heineken. i also ate a bite of herring. for those who dont know what herring is, its a fish with its head cut off and sliced in half length-wise.

it actually wasnt bad tasting, i just couldnt get over the mental barrier of eating raw fish, holding its tail, and dangling it over my mouth to take a chomp. 

in england, i ate crumpets with nutella, went to a tea room and had tea with milk like the british do, i tried nikkis fish and chips, and had yorkshire pudding. 

the haggis is the one that looks like a veggie burger

in scotland (nikki and i went to edinburgh for the day), we asked the waitress what a scottish person would traditionally order for breakfast and she suggested a plate with bacon, pita bread, an egg, toast, sausage, baked beans, a tomato, and something called haggis. she described the haggis as a mixture of meat and oats and spices so we decided to get that. it wasnt our favorite meal and we didnt love the taste of the haggis so we each only ate about half. we also had some scottish whiskey which wasnt a favorite either. the next day when we were telling the girls in england what we ate, we discovered what the "meat" portion of the haggis consisted of: sheeps heart, lungs, and liver which is traditionally simmered in a sheeps stomach. we thought she was kidding but she wasnt... she wasnt. 

first few days summary

the netherlands is great so far! have only taken 265 pictures. thursday was spent exploring haarlem then me and nikki got up early and met the girls in amsterdam. went through the anne frank house for 8.50 euros and it was pretty cool! a lot bigger than i expected actually. i took the train from amsterdam to heemsteede alone and sat across from an unfriendly dutch couple. when i got off the train, my distant cousin erik was there to meet me. we recognized each other from facebook pictures so that was kind of cool and fun! had dinner at their house which was very big and beautiful. a couple other relatives (gert and his daughter fleur) came for dinner as well. for dinner, we had an indonesian dish - a dutch colonial heritage dish. they really liked the gifts i gave them and charlotte (another "cousin") gave me the top 100 dutch songs! i went to a gymnastics competition this morning for kiki, gert's 7 year old daughter. then i went to leiden which is a university town and met up with all of the other girls and sean, the guy who they are staying with. its been a long day of walking through the streets and the market but it was fun! ill probably be sore tomorrow. definitely be sore tomorrow.

itinerary

I LEAVE TODAY!!!
heres a brief run down of my general schedule if youre interested:


**itinerary is susceptible to change**


march 16: fly out of chicago to amsterdam

march 17: arrive in amsterdam

march 18: netherlands

march 19: netherlands

march 20: netherlands

march 21: netherlands and then fly to london at night

march 22: bus to york, england

march 23: day trip to edinburgh, scotland

march 24: york, england

march 25: bus back to london, england

march 26: london with possible day trips

march 27: london with possible day trips

march 28: london with possible day trips

march 29: london with possible day trips

march 30: london with possible day trips

march 31: london with possible day trips

april 1: london, england

april 2: fly to barcelona, spain

april 3: barcelona, spain

april 4: montpellier, france

april 5: montpellier, france

april 6: marseille, france

april 7: marseille, france

april 8: marseille to geneva, switzerland

april 9: geneva, switzerland

april 10: interlaken, switzerland

april 11: interlaken, switzerland with possible day trips

april 12: interlaken, switzerland with possible day trips

april 13: munich, germany

april 14: munich, germany with day trip to dachau

april 15: salzburg, austria

april 16: salzburg, austria

april 17: vienna, austria

april 18: vienna, austria

april 19: prague, czech republic

april 20: prague, czech 

april 21: rothenburg, germany

april 22: heidelberg and bacharach

april 23: rhine river cruise from bacharach to koblenz

april 24: brugge, belgium

april 25: paris

april 26: paris

april 27: chunnel to london for the night

april 28: fly to belfast, ireland and go to derry

april 29: derry and northern coast

april 30: northern coast of ireland

april 31: northern coast of ireland

may 1: galway or dingle

may 2: galway or dingle

may 3: dublin

may 4: fly home in the morning, be in chicago right around noon!

soon and very soon

another john denver song has recently paralleled my life: all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go! the 30 year old backpack has been washed and waterproofed. another patch was found and added to its already impressive collection. pre-switzerland patch:

i finished up some last minute duties like purchasing tickets to edinburgh and a flight to belfast and revamping my blog page with a few songs. i also made a cute cover strap for my camera. you can now add "seamstress" to the list of my many talents and abilities! :)

in conclusion, i leave in 6 days! and i have completed almost everything on the numerous to-do lists that are scattered around my house. im feelin pretty good!

2 weeks notice

i am at the two week mark. the home stretch. i feel as though the planning has come so far and yet there is so much that still needs to be accomplished. this past week has been productive, though perhaps not quite as productive as i had hoped. i bought my eurail pass, a financially exhilarating process; started booking some hostels; bought a physical journal to write down more thoughts that don't make the cut onto the viral journal; and purchased les miserables from bargain books, my new favorite place. im excited about reading les mis because a) its a french novel and i will be spending a little over a week in the country in question b) its a challenging read so hopefully it'll last me through most of my trip and i'll only need to take the one book c) i haven't seen the musical yet but i plan to someday so it will be nice to know the story intimately.

now for the things that still need to be done:
- make a list of things that i think i need to bring and then cut the list in half (im nervous about this one)
- book more hostels
- purchase miscellaneous tickets for trains (pre-eurail validation), buses, and a flight from london to belfast

wish me luck!