Amsterdam

I left London the morning of July 31st. I had the sense to book my ticket in advance this time, and had no problems whatsoever with my ticket and seat.
The difference with this trip was that somehow, during my stay in London, my backpack had managed to grow exponentially in both size and weight. I had given Chad a duffle bag full of my stuff to bring home less than a week earlier to lighten my load. But somehow my backpack leaving London was so large and overweight that it was the first time I was unable to put it on my back without help!  I had managed to completely fill up my entire 95 liter backpack, and I would estimate it weighed at least 24 kilos. I have this miraculous ability to accumulate ¨stuff¨, when I travel, and even in my own home in Toronto/Hamilton (as anyone who has travelled with me or helped me pack while moving can attest to).
Lucky for me, there were many kind gentlemen who were willing to help me with my backpack, and when I didn´t have help, I would either drag it or kick it across the floor (it´s smooth, so it doesn´t provide much friction when dragging). If I was walking a long distance I would ask  someone to help lift it up so I could get it onto my back. Once it was on my back it wasn´t too bad.
To make matters a little more amusing was the fact that I didn´t pack my backpack straight, so it was lopsided, and looked a bit funny when viewed from the front.
I do believe that the photo doesn´t do the backpack justice, as the photo makes it appear smaller than it really is! Believe me when I tell you that I have never seen my bag so large (and heavy) in my 6 weeks on the road!
I arrived in Amsterdam after a 6 hour journey to find Fieke waiting for me on the platform! Fieke lives in Amsterdam and we met by spending 1 month traveling together through Japan last summer. I was thrilled to see her! (on a side note: she immediately burst out laughing at the sight at my oversized lopsided backpack).
She brought me by metro to her apartment. She lives in a refurbished sea container (yes the kind that they use to transport goods across the ocean in large transport ships…), in a sea container village, right next to the Amsterdam prison. The sea containers are stacked up one on top of the other, and each one houses one person. Each unit has its own bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and balcony. They are so cool! When she described them to me I couldn´t really picture them in my head, so I have provided some photos below to help visualize this idea:

Inside the apartment/sea container:

After dropping off my enormous backpack at her container we set out to see the city!
Amsterdam is a beautiful small city with lots of canals! It reminded me a bit of Venice, except that in Amsterdam you can drive OR boat around town, while in the city center of Venice you can´t drive as there are no roads, only canals and walking streets.
Amsterdam was very busy with people! This was because a) it was a Friday night, and b) the following day was the Gay Pride Parade and the whole town was pre-partying in preparation. 

Like my shoes?
We thought we would walk around and check out the Red Light District.  I´m not sure what I was expecting, I had heard so much about it over the years, but I didn´t have a clear vision of what it would actually look like.
Imagine a street, all lit up with lights and signs of different colours, lined with stores. All the stores have windows, and in the store windows, instead of displaying the merchandise, women in small bikinis or lingerie would stand. If you looked closer into the ¨stores¨ you could see that each woman had their own small room, with a bed in it, and curtains could be drawn so the people on the street couldn´t see into the room when the woman was ¨busy¨ with a client. In addition to the ¨stores¨ of woman, there were many sex shops, where one could buy toys, creams, costumes and many other objects to fulfill different unique fetishes, as well as small theatres when one could watch live performances.
I was unable to take a photo of the stores, and I wouldn´t have wanted to, as I felt really sad for the women in the windows. I can´t even imagine what it would feel like to be them, standing there, while horny tourists walk by, or even worse, actually go in and take part in the ¨services¨offered. We did not stay long, only long enough to do a quick walk through of the area.
We spent the rest of the evening hanging out and catching up with each other.
The following morning we made a trip to the Anne Frank house. Anne Frank and her family were Jews, originally living in Germany. They fled to the Netherlands when Hitler came into power, but when the Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, the Frank family went into hiding. They occupied the two upper floors of the annex of Otto Frank´s (Anne´s father) company warehouse and offices, in a very small space accessible only by a small doorway and very steep stairs, concealed behind a bookcase.
They lived in this small area, which they called the Secret Annex, for over 2 years, in almost complete darkness and silence, as any movement or noise could reveal them. During these 2 years, Anne wrote diaries about her daily life, her feelings, her family, and the terror of the idea of being discovered. The office personnel working for Otto Frank helped them by bringing them food and supplies daily. After spending over 2 years in hiding, on August 4, 1944, they were betrayed by an anonymous phone call to the German police, and everyone in hiding as well as the non-Jewish helpers were imprisoned. Anne died after contracting typhus in March 1945, only one month before everyone was freed. Otto Frank was the sole survivor from the Frank family, and had Anne´s diaries published when he returned to Amsterdam. He also helped turn the Secret Annex into a museum.
While walking through the museum Fieke and I felt a sadness come over us. It reminded us of how we felt while looking through the museum in Hiroshima (Japan). It was so sad to see how they lived and suffered.
After the Anne Frank House we went to Amsterdam´s Royal Palace, built in the 17th century as Amsterdam´s city hall. During that time Amsterdam was one of the world´s most important trade center. In 1808 it was turned into a royal palace by Louis Napoleon (King of Holland and brother of Napoleon Bonaparte).
It was beautiful, with so many sculptures, chandeliers, paintings and decorated furniture.


From there we did some walking and found this enormous shoe!
After our photo with the shoe we made our way over to the Gay Pride Parade. We were so excited about it, so we thought we would be festive for the occasion by buying pink and purple scarves.
This would be my 5th Gay Pride Parade worldwide, as I´ve been to pride parades in Paris, Milan, Boston and Toronto. But this one was unique because the whole parade was on boats! 


¨Everybody Should be Free to Celebrate¨



There were people everywhere!! (on land and in boats!)


We had such a great time!! There was so much energy, music and happiness in the air!
We spent the rest of the day relaxing and hanging out at Fieke´s container before going out at night. The city was still energized and full of people through the whole night!
The following day, and my last day in Amsterdam, we slept in, relaxed, did some shopping, and other low key activities. I also had a chance to repack my bag. After my struggles getting from London to Amsterdam I knew I needed to make some changes!! I removed a small backpack (used for day trips) from my large one and filled it with stuff. I spent quite some time reorganizing my backpacks and finally was able to balance out some weight in preparation for my journey to Berlin the next morning (August 3rd).
I had a wonderful time in Amsterdam with Fieke, and I was very sad to leave her, but she promised me she will come see me in Canada very soon!

Last Impressions of London

On the morning of July 29 I set out on foot to continue my exploration of London. I had discovered how expensive the ¨tube¨ was (aka. the subway, as us Canadians know it as), charging 4 Pounds for a single ticket (which is equivalent to $8 Canadian). If you live in the city and use the tube every day then buying an ¨oyster¨card (a pay as you go refillable card) makes each trip much more affordable, or day passes are also available. But since I was hardly using the tube, none of those other options made traveling too cheap.
I first walked through Hyde park. I had been there the previous day with Adam, but the park is so large and beautiful that I wanted to see it again!
I spent the rest of the day walking around the city, checking out the shops, markets and other parks.
I really enjoyed the Piccadilly area, and I spent a lot of time walking through the streets around Piccadilly Circus shopping. Actually ¨shopping¨ is the wrong word for what I was doing, as everything was completely unaffordable for regular people. So I was walking through the stores, wishing I could be purchasing all the amazing and beautiful things I was seeing, and promising myself that one day  in the future I will go back and will be able to do some major shopping in this incredible city!
One thing I noticed about the city and the streets is that since the cars drive on the opposite side of the street than they do in Canada (and most of the world), they have signs at most crosswalks telling you in what direction to look when crossing! It helped me immensely since I was always so confused when crossing the street!!
Later that day I met up with my friend Patrycja, who is living in London for the summer. She took me to Covent Garden, and the Covent Gardens Market, which is a market with lots of shops and restaurants.
We had a dinner and drinks at a bar and restaurant overlooking the square. The square featured some street performers doing all their standard tricks.
We had a great evening together, and it was really good to catch up with her!
The following day, July 30th, I woke up super early so I could spend the whole day at the British Museum. It was founded in 1753, is the oldest public  museum, and it is one of the world´s most visited museums. It´s collection spans over 2 million years of history, and has collections from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americans and the Ancient world. As an added bonus, entrance to the museum is free!! It was the first thing that I haven´t paid a fortune for since arriving in London!!
The building:

The Great Court, in the center of the museum:

Visiting the museum was one of the most amazing things I´ve done since arriving! I´m so happy I decided to visit it! I spent hours walking through the museum, but I will only highlight my favourite parts.
The first thing I saw, and my most favourite piece in the museum was the Rosetta stone, a famous stone which contains texts written in two Egyptian scripts and Greek. This stone enabled historians to finally decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.
  After the Rosetta stone I went through the galleries on Greece and Rome. It was interesting to see the Parthenon gallery because they boast that the museum contains about half of the artifacts recovered at the Acropolis (the other half are in Athens at the New Acropolis Museum). What´s interesting, and what they do not mention anywhere in the British museum, is that I remember our tour guide in Athens telling us that the city of Athens was trying to get back these Parthenon and Acropolis artifacts, and Britain wouldn´t give them back as they were taken many many years ago. I´m not sure how accurate this information is, and it could have just been the opinion of our tour guide, but it´s still interesting!!
They also had a large exhibit on Ancient Egypt, and had many mummies on display.
Here are some photos from the museum:

Cleopatra´s Mummy:
The museum also had pieces from the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Below is a set of sculptures from this Mausoleum:
Below is the cameo-glass Portland Vase from Rome, made during the turn of the 1st century. It is a masterpiece, that is very difficult to make. It was preliminarily blown into shape and coated in opaque white, and then blown into full size. Once at full size, then the design was carved out of the white layer to create this masterpiece.

After the museum I went back to my hotel to rest and pack my luggage before going out for dinner with some friends. But I arrived at my hotel room to a very unpleasant surprise. The door to my room was open, and the lights to my bathroom were turned on. I searched my room for another person, but I couldn´t find anyone. Apparently the cleaning staff at my hotel had forgotten to close the door after they were done cleaning, and it was left open all day!! Luckily all my belongings were intact, and nothing was stolen, but I was very angry.
I immediately went down to the front desk and told them what happened. They assured me they would talk to the manager and the housekeeping staff. This wasn´t really enough for me, so I convinced them to let me have a meeting with the manager. I told the manager how upset I was about having my hotel room left open all day, and that I was really disappointed in management, and if I wasn´t leaving London the following day I would have switched hotels. The manager was very nice about it and came up to my room with me, and then she had my room switched to a larger room, with a larger bed and a larger bathroom. She also offered me wine and drinks to make up for what happened. She even carried my extra large and heavy backpack down to the new room for me!! I was satisfied with the service after that (even though I was still unimpressed with why it happened in the first place).
After my meeting with the manager and my room change I went out to meet some of my contiki friends for dinner.
This was my last night in London, and I was sad to leave!! I loved the city (apart from how expensive and unaffordable everything was), but I was super excited for my next stop: Amsterdam!!

First Impressions of London

On July 28th, my first full day in London, I met up with my friend Adam at 9am to get started on a full day of touring! This was my first time in London and I wanted to make sure I saw as much as possible! Adam volunteered to show me around and be a tourist with me, making my day much more enjoyable and fun, and definitely much more efficient, as he had planned out our route based on the key sites I wanted to see.
We started with the Tower of London, a large fortress built to guard the entrance of London. It has been used for many purposes over the years including a royal residence, an armory, a treasury and a prison.



My favourite place in the Tower of London was the Jewel House where the Crown Jewels were on display. It was just incredible to see all the diamonds and jewels in the crowns, the swords, and all the other Royal items.
From the Tower of London we walked across the Tower Bridge, which was completed in 1894.
  Me and Adam on the bridge:
We then stopped for a quick lunch, where I ate some very British food (¨Sausages and Mash¨) then continued on to see the London Eye, the world´s highest Ferris wheel. It reaches a height of 135 meters, and takes about 30 minutes to ride. Unfortunately the line was incredibly long, so we decided not to go for a ride.
From there we went to see the Houses of Parliament and the famous clock tower Big Ben.
Right behind Big Ben is Westminster Abbey, London´s oldest church. Since it cost equivalent to about $30 Canadian to enter, we decided to admire it only from the outside.
From there we walked through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace.
Me at the gates to the Palace:
We then made our way over to Piccadilly Circus. I was a little surprised when I arrived. I´m not sure what I was expecting, but Piccadilly is basically a square in London, with a fountain. Piccadilly also refers to the area around the square, which consists of lots of shops, restaurants, etc.
Our last stop of the day was Hyde Park, a huge and beautiful park in the city. It has a very large pond in the middle, where people can rent paddle boats and take a little boat ride.


It was a long but amazing day!! I love London!! It is such a great city, with lots to see! It has a very good vibe to it, and it helps, of course, that everyone speaks English!!