Hookers and Nazis

Once again, I have waited so long to write in this thing that I honestly don't really feel like writing about everything I should. However, there are some people (pretty sure only my mother) that want to read about some thangs, so I'll try to oblige.

My trip to Amsterdam and Berlin was legitimately incredible. I really loved both cities, a lot. I especially fell in love with Berlin. Here's a quick recap:

Amsterdam: A much more beautiful place than I thought it would be. The city is shaped in something of a circle, with about six canals surrounding the center. It’s also pretty small, we were able to walk everywhere we went. We stayed in the heart of the Red Light District; what a crazy, crazy place. There really are prostitutes all over the place. Apparently our hostel was actually in the seediest part of the District. Right outside the window of our room was a lovely view of the grossest hookers in the city, kicking it their red-lit boxes. Clearly most of you know what the main activity of this trip was, and that aspect of the visit was certainly a lot of fun. But we also did some other stuff. We took the tour of Anne Frank’s house, which was interesting and sad. Also, there were more bikes in this city than any other city I’ve ever been to. Seriously. SO MANY BIKES. All in all, it was so much fun, and I hope to go back there before I leave Europe.


Berlin: Amazing. I loved it. Getting there was quite the adventure, though… We were supposed to take a train from Amsterdam to Brussels, and then fly from Brussels to Berlin. Our train to Brussels was meant to continue on to Paris. So, as we were approaching Brussels, we had our stuff all ready by the door to go. We stopped, we waited for the doors to open, and… they didn’t. And our train started up again, and went on to Paris! Luckily we weren’t the only ones in our position, and we had some pissed off Belgians trying to figure out what we were supposed to do thereafter. They were amazing, and we all became fast friends. So in the end they told us we’d have to go to Paris, then they’d put us on a train back to Brussels, then they’d put us on an eight-hour sleeping train to Berlin (since we clearly missed our flight). It was a huge hassle, but it ended up maybe being a blessing in disguise, since we actually only had about 30 minutes to make it to the airport to catch our flight in the first place. Plus, the sleeping train was pretty fun.
Anyway, we got to Berlin at 8:00AM, super exhausted. We had to wait until the afternoon to check into our hostel, so we decided to go on a free walking tour of the city. This was awesome. We saw all the major monuments and buildings, and learned a lot about the city, which made me appreciate it even more. After the tour, we checked into our (really cool) hostel, took naps, and then went on a pub crawl that night. The pub crawl took us to 4 different bars, where we were offered various drink specials. We also got free vodka/orange juice shots all night. We ended up at a club, and danced danced danced. In general, I found Berlin incredibly interesting and fascinating, and I’m definitely going back there before I leave Europe. While I was there I found myself thinking that I wouldn’t even mind living there someday.

Last Friday: Kitsuné Maison Tour. Kitsuné is one of my favorite electro labels, and they put on a show on a boat called Le Platform. I got to see datA, Gildas Laoec, and Johnny Love from Guns N’ Bombs (among others) do live sets, we danced for about six straight hours, and went home around 5:30 in the morning. Great night.

In other news, second semester classes have started and I’m so much happier with what I’m taking this term. I have a French Lit of the Middle Ages class, which will be hard, but I need it for my French major, and it seems like it might be kind of cool because we’re talking about fairy tales and wizards; an American poetry class, taught in English, with an awesome teacher. We’ve started with Poe, and we’re doing Dickinson next; an American Literature class taught in English with an asshole teacher, and it’s significantly more boring because we’re only covering Melville’s short stories, but whatever; a gender studies class, taught in English and French, with an adorable and hilarious teacher, and this class is so much fun; and another Translation class. I know it might seem like a cop out that I’m taking so many classes in English, but I really hated school so much last term, these classes are more interesting and enjoyable to me, I feel like I can participate and understand what’s going on, and I was never really learning/improving my French in school anyway. So, I’m happy.

Last night, Institut Lumière was showing The Big Lebowski in English, and tickets were two for the price of one since it was Valentine’s Day. Ruby, Morgan, Sarah, Rachel and I filled a bunch of water bottles full of White Russians and drank during the movie. Afterwards we went to various bars with the Brits. It was a fun night.

Other than that… I’m going back to both Switzerland and Barcelona this upcoming week (it’s our February vacation!), so I’m excited for that. Maybe I’ll try and write a blog post about all of that sooner after I return from those adventures, than this one.

Of course I miss you all. But I’m actually really loving Lyon… I know time is going to go by so fast from here on out, and it’s starting to make me sad. But life is beautiful right now. : )