As you already know...I am home from my Euro trek (as of December). I became less faithful to my beloved blog there towards the end do to lack of internet and time to play catch up...once you miss an entry it is quite difficult to regain the ground... My last post was Vienna...and after Vienna my travels took me to Budapest, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Amsterdam. I cannot begin to do these venues justice (my personal journals are very lengthy indeed).
Budapest
After a 9 hour car ride on the auto bahn (through snow, fog, rain, ice, construction, and questionable Garmin directions) took us to Pest (Buda and Pest are two cities that have merged into one). Our hostel kept with the over all theme of Europe on $22 a day and we had a room adjacent to the women's public bathroom...which were home to showers with no hot water. We didn't know the water was out because the sign was posted outside the bathroom...and we actually lived in the bathroom. We also took a night tour through the historic Jewish district and best pubs in town (the tour boasted something for everyone--I thus dubbed this the "Jews and Brews Tour"--odd combo I assure you). The next day we toured the city all day and before we had to leave we took in a Turkish Bath...luxury! The day had been cold and wet with the Hungarian winter and the hot steam baths were the perfect way to spend the remaining time in BP. After a bowl of goulash we were on our way back to Germany (9 more fabulous hours) where we would have infants to work with the next day.
After BP we went on a quick weekend to Belgium and Luxembourg. If you can only go to Europe once and only one country...go to Belgium. It is beautiful!! Home to over 350 beers, fine chocolates and waffles...you won't go hungry in Belgium. We spent a day in Brussels and Bruges and an afternoon in Luxembourg. We went on our own tours around the city and saw the EU and a performance in Black Face. [See David Sedaris' essay on Dutch Christmas traditions...it was incredibly different from ours] . I have had few experience like Dutch Christmas traditions.
Switzerland and Liechtenstein provided a great Thanksgiving break. We stayed with one of the interns family friends (a native Liechtensteiner) and enjoyed our Alpine adventure. We went out one evening and began our evening with drinks in Switzerland, went to a concert in Liechtenstein, and then ended in the wee hours of the morning in Austria with a few of the Royals at a night club--in the span of one night we partied in 3 countries--new record? Our host was Liechtenstein's English teacher (well, the original, a few more have moved in since then) and her students were honestly royalty of Liechtenstein and children of bank presidents in the tax haven...a great opportunity to fraternize with a few blue bloods ; ).
Amsterdam was just as I thought it was going to be...full of sex, drugs and Anne Frank. Coffee shops are full of carefully regulated, decriminalized herbal supplements--no need to fake glaucoma here =D. We took a night tour of the Red Light District (like I was going to pass that up). Prostitution is a legitimate business and like all businesses they range in quality from Sam's Choice to Sak's. Friday and Saturday night courtesans have prime real estate and prime prices. The Sunday morning whores have the cheapest rent for the window and will make you feel the guilt of skipping mass that day to go "window shopping" for sure--yesh! You do need to be careful when trying on products you see in the windows--many women come with Adam's apples. If the pricing seems to good to be true it probably is. It was on this tour that I stopped into a S&M shop for some last minute souvenirs. When I turned to head out I knocked into the giant Christmas tree made entirely out of cockrings. Instinctively I began frantically cleaning up and apologizing (you can take the girl out of the Midwest but you can't take the Midwest out of the girl..). It wasn't until later that I realized that I had picked up hundreds of cockrings and stacked them on a table with a latex adorned ass gnome as the center piece--only in Amsterdam :) Our next day was a little shorter and had a walking (in the rain) tour of the city and a trip to the secret annex Anne Frank's family was in. We then departed from our hostel (a dodgey boat in a canal) and followed the British Garmin's directions home to Germany.
My last week in Germany was one of sad goodbyes and last minute trips to the brewery. The next thing I knew my plane was touching down in Chicago and I was trudging my way through customs...home at last!
