The randomness that is my life...

So, apologies for being MIA recently. Life has been busy for sure...I've been doing some intense traveling recently.

Picking up from last week, I flew to Prague on Wednesday night, thus missing my Thursday class. Fortunately for me, Thursday class was canceled anyways due to my professor getting into a bicycle accident (really unfortunate for him...no worries, he is okay). So I met up with Hannah in Prague and from Prague, we took a train straight to Berlin the next morning. Berlin was absolutely amazing. We went to Museum Island and inside the National History Museum where we saw that famous picture of Martin Luther. We also walked down Idiot's Mile (currently a fabulously expensive street called Unter Den Linden), named this because during the Cold War, it was all that visitors to the East saw and this gave them little idea of the city. We saw statues of Frederick the Great and Bismarck amongst plenty other statues. We went into St Hedwig's Cathedral, which wasn't that majestic inside. We also saw Berlin Cathedral, a Protestant Church that was built in 1905 to look like it was built in the 1600s or so! We learned a lot about Karl Friedrich Schinkel, a very famous architect in Berlin who designed many of the famous sites we saw. Of course we also walked through Brandenburg Gate on many occasions. It's my favorite site in Berlin because of the history behind the gate. Legend is that every army that's occupied Berlin since (1800s?) has walked through the gate. It's beautiful and sits in Pariser Platz along with the U.S. Embassy (Hooray!).

Aside from those sites, my favorite story of the trip is Hannah and I went to take a walking tour of Berlin last Friday where I (randomly) run into Colleen, Lauren's hallmate who I met a couple of weeks ago in London! She happened to be meeting a couple of friends in Berlin for the weekend but they weren't arriving until later in the night, so she ended up spending the day on the tour and hangin' out with us. We met up for drinks later that night and drank some Berlinerwis (some strawberry or green apple beer). Seriously, what a small world!

Okay, so more things we did in Berlin was to go walk to the top of the Reichstag, where German Parliament resides. We also walked over the bunker where Hitler shot himself and walked through the Jewish Memorial as well as several other WWII/WWI and probably some other war memorials. Of course we also saw the Berlin wall and straddled the line where the Berlin Wall once stood between East and West Berlin. We walked through Tiergarten and saw the Victory Column where Obama spoke at last summer. We saw the famous Hotel Adlon where Michael Jackson dangled that blanket outside of the balcony. We saw Checkpoint Charlie where there was a pretend guard by day and male stripper by night (no joke). We also went to Potsdamer Platz and Alexander Platz (both not very exciting, so skip it if you're in Berlin). Finally, we wrapped it up by seeing Charlottesburg Palace, which had a backyard the size of Tiergarten (imagine a smaller version of Central Park in NYC) and a lake. All of this would have been much more enjoyable had the weather not been snowy, rainy, or cold as it was when we were there. However, the food was pretty cheap and the cost of living in Berlin seemed pretty low. Even though rarely anybody spoke any English, I still had a great experience. I would definitely recommend Berlin as a city to see one day. The history behind the city is so incredible and the architecture was so cool, somewhat different from the rest of Europe.

I'll write on Prague and post pictures a little later. I just wanted to go ahead and get this up.

As a side note, Wharton just informed me that I do have to take another class at Erasmus (even though this class wouldn't really fulfill any necessary requirements for me), thus completely ruining my plans to end class on March 5th and travel extensively through Europe. Darn! No worries, I still found a class that only meets once a week on Wednesdays.

Life in Rotterdam

So what have I been up to lately? Not too much, I love my life here in Europe. I hang out and travel...A LOT! I went to a Euro night/dance club last week called Club Watt where dancing on the dance floor(s) generates electricity for the club. how cool is that?! By the way, one thing I learned is that you just wear SNEAKERS to clubs...I realized why after 5 hours of dancing in heels! I also went to Utrecht, another picturesque town in Holland. This is a picture in front of one of the many beautiful churches in Holland. In Utrecht, there are a ton of second-hand shops. You could find old clothes (I even thought of buying some clothes/shoes but it didn't fit), old movies, old electronics, teapots, and whatever else you could possibly ever need! I realized Dutch people are VERY thrifty.

So other than Utrecht, I went on a boat tour through the Rotterdam harbor (the second busiest port in the world! used to be busiest but Shanghai took its spot several years ago). It was a pretty classy affair...there was a mini-bar inside the boat! I think I may try and go on an extended tour to get more insight into the shipping industry here in Rotterdam.

Anyways, moving on, this weekend I went to a tennis tournament here in Rotterdam. It was the ABN-AMRO (a Dutch Bank) Tennis Tournament. I watched the quarterfinals where Rafael Nadal (currently #1 ranked tennis player) played against Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. It was a rather good match, a very tight game. Nadal wins (but to my delight, loses the tournament in the finals...I'm not a very big Nadal fan, he's constantly pulling at his underpants in games amongst other things).

Another thing I did this weekend was to throw a Valentine's Day Party for the exchange students. It was good times; I turned my common room into a mini dance floor. I even decorated my apartment, which explains why my roommate and I are sitting with heart-shaped pillows in the picture below. Lastly, I don't think I ever gave you an idea of my life here in Rotterdam. I live in the middle of a shopping center, an entire shopping mall is right outside my door.
I have my own room and share an apartment with my roommate. Here's a picture of me with my roommate. As mentioned in an earlier post, we get along really well. We cook together pretty often, and I feel have gotten to know her very well. She's from the island of Curacao and I am already planning to go visit one day. Anyways, life is good, for sure. I hope all is well with you.

Lots of love from abroad! Stay tuned for Prague and Berlin...

A place where I can understand, well, kind of....

Picking up where I left off, it's been a rather insane past week.

Last Thursday, right after class ended around 4p.m., I took two trains, a bus, and then a plane to London airport only to take yet another train to get into the city of London. After finally arriving, I met up with Lauren (a friend from Penn).
I dragged Lauren all around London and did the usual touristy things. We took the usual "phone booth" pictures and we went to Covent Garden and witnessed several magic shows and ate the sweetest cupcake I had ever had! Afterwards, we walked to Trafalgar Square where I successfully climbed (read a stranger pulled me up) onto a lion statue.

Here's the fantastic picture of me actually on the lion.
So aside from statue climbing, we went to see Big Ben/Parliament and of course Westminster Abbey, where I took this awesome photo without cars even though the street was insanely busy! Of course we also went to Buckingham Palace and took a picture with one of those no fun guards. We went to Notting Hill and saw the travel bookshop (YES, like the movie!). We walked through Portobello Market (with the best dessert shop ever, Hummingbird Bakery!) and picked up fresh food to cook later that night. We even saw some dogs driving a car, yes right there in the market. haha Yes, awesome, I know!

On Sunday, we went to East London and ate some fantastic Indian food (yes, I think London probably has better Indian food than India!). We went to the bar where Jack the Ripper met all of his victims; it's still a bustling bar regardless of that fact! We went to another market and then it started snowing in London. I happened to be in London for the worst snowstorm it has had in 18 years! We had a snowball fight and made a miniature snowman. Also, despite the snow, Lauren and I still schlepped around the city and went to the British National Museum. That was the last fun thing I did because I ended up having to spend the night in the London Stansted Airport. It was disgusting, but due to the snow, a lot of busses/trains/planes were delayed or canceled. I wanted to make sure I was there in time for my 7a.m. flight out so I could make it to my Tuesday class, so spending the night in the airport was my solution.

To end my post, I arrived back in Rotterdam in time for a nice shower and my Tuesday class. And here I am, on a Thursday night, resting up instead of going out and finally realizing that I actually do have classes and an abundance of homework to do.

Cheers!!