The Rest of AMSTERDAM!

May 24: Today Eric and I ventured into the Red Light District here in Amsterdam... famous for their legal prostitution and many sexual related experiences! WOW... I have to admit that it was very strange, but very Amsterdam. They say California is liberal, but I think we have now seem the most liberal city in the world. I like it here, it is still very safe and clean. At the end of our experience, Eric ended up with only one hooker, aka "lady lumps".... (just kidding). For those of you who have played Call of Duty II, you know who that is.

We also went to one of the street markets in the city and bought a few cool small prints for souvenirs. Then we bought some mighty fine looking steaks from the grocery store for dinner. Although they looked very good, they sucked. Word to the wise... don't buy beef in Europe unless you want a soar jaw! I think there might be some good places to get it, but they are hard to find... just leave that to the US!

May 25: This morning we walked to the Central Station and rented some bikes. Our bikes were bright red with a big sing that said "Mac Bikes". The bright colors of the rental bikes let the locals know that you are inexperienced at biking in the city! Anyway, we figured out that this is the best way to see the city. It is a little nerve racking but still very fun and fast. They gave us a clear demonstration of how to lock the bikes, there are two locks per bike, on for the rear tire and the other one for the frame and front tire. They warned us that the bikes should be locked even if you are just taking a picture because it is common for thieves to just take a bike from you while you are distracted (stupid tourists).

Once we had our bikes we toured the Dutch Resistance Museum. This was a very interesting museum depicting Amsterdam through out the Nazi occupation in World War II. Many highly educated people went into hiding to carry out their part in the resistance (about 80% of the college students at the time). There were many underground newspapers that were created, but many of the columnist were executed once they were found to be guilty. Then of course, there were MANY Jew's that were evacuated and murdered or forced to work in the camps. The (NSB) Nazi's were in control of Amsterdam for 5 years 1940-45, until the Canadian forces liberated the city. Some Dutch were very excited while others had lost to much to care. One person, Otto Frank, was among those who lost everything. He was the father of Anne Frank, and Margot Frank. Eric and I visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. This house was only about 2 blocks from our apartment. At the time the secret annex was in the back of the house located behind the warehouse that Otto ran (he made spices). They were eventually found out (by an anonymous call) after 4 years and sent to different camps. There were 8 people that hid in that annex. Anne Frank died after her sister of typhus one month before her camp was liberated. Otto Frank was the only survivor of the eight, and later published his daughter's diary. This day was a great reminder of the importance of tolerance.

After our tour of the actual Ann Frank house/annex, we went out to dinner with Eric Hespenheide. The restaurant was just around the corner in a building that used to be a warehouse for Tea. The name of the restaurant is d'theeboom (The Tea Room), and the food/wine were great. Our favorite part of the meal was the desert... cinnamon ice cream with candied cherries in an amaretto sauce. After the two bottles of wine, we went back to the apartment to sleep. Eric H. had to leave for Detroit the next morning (early) and was so nice to take us out to dinner while he was here! Thanks again Eric!

May 26: Once we woke up in the morning we rode our bikes to the movie theater to get tickets to "Pirates of the Caribbean III" because movies sell out very fast here. We had to get the VIP seats because the rest of the seats were sold out! This was really only 3 Euro more and well worth it. We were upstairs in the balcony of this old theater called Pathe Tuschinski (check out the pictures). We felt like we were going to see a play! Anyway, we had to return the bikes before 12:30 PM so we headed back to the central station Mac Bike rental.

Next we took a 1 hour canal boat tour. This was very cool and allowed us to see the city from a different view point! The boat went right down the canal Eric's apartment was located. It was described as the Gentleman's canal because of the many wealthy men that lived in the mansions along this canal back in the day. Now many of the mansions are businesses or high end apartments/condos.

The evening rolled around and it was time to go to the movies! This theater, as I said before, was amazing on the inside. Our VIP ticket included a drink at the bar. I got Champagne and Eric a Heineken. We relaxed in the lounge before our movie started enjoying the architecture. It was in English with Dutch sub-titles... all in all, it was a great movie and night! We walked home in the rain and got asked for directions for the second time that day...maybe we were actually starting to fit in???

Arriving in Amsterdam

May 22: We woke up today around 6:45 AM to start our travels to Amsterdam. We needed to catch a bus in Wutta to get to the train station in Eisenach around 8:00 this morning. We walked down to the bus stop (we weren't sure where it was but found it relatively easily) where an older man was waiting. He assured us that we were in the correct place. Eric wrote down about three different bus numbers that we could take just to make sure we would get to the train station in time. All of the sudden Eric says "look there is Connie driving!" (Connie is Reggie's girlfriend, who are friends of Eric's dad)... just then she offered us a ride to the train station! We couldn't of asked for a better deal! So needless to say, we ended up being about an hour early for our train out of Eisenach.

We took the train from Eisenach to Frankfurt Main to catch our Amsterdam train. It took about 3 hours from Frankfurt to get into Amsterdam after about 6 stops. We ran into a little rail track construction problems, and the staff made an announcement to apologize for being 8 minutes late (you wouldn't find that kind of sincerity in the US). From the train station we had to get the keys to the apartment that we were staying. My father's cousin, Eric Hespenheide, offered us his apartment for the duration of our stay in Amsterdam. Eric H. is not going to be back in Amsterdam till Wed evening because he is speaking to a group of people in Denmark. We were very appreciative of his kindness, and the apartment was right in the middle of the city! It couldn't have been better! Once we got the keys we started walking back to the area were the apartment was located (in a very nice area might I add). So Eric and I took advantage of the nice weather and went to grab a bite to eat. We found a little pub a few blocks away were a local convinced us that this was the place to eat! And it was very good... the people in Amsterdam are very nice and outgoing. We sat by the side of the canal as the sun went down taking it all in!

May 23: We woke up around 9 AM (our new wake up time:-) and went to the grocery store for some food! That is the good thing about having a kitchen, so that you can cook or at least have some snacks around. We went straight to the old Heineken Brewery in the city to take a tour (they call it the Heineken Experience). This was not the typical museum... there were rides and bars (where you got 3 beers included in the 11 Euro charge). It was very entertaining and fun to learn about the history of the family and marketing of the company.

Then we walked around a little through a park where many groups of people were smoking tobacco, week, or hash???? It was a great place for people and pet watching! We got some ice cream and started back to the appartment (3 beers will catch up to you really fast).

Eric H. returned from his trip and we all went to a pub to catch the soccer championship game between AC Milan and Liverpool. The bar was standing room only and the fans were crazy! Eric works for Deloitte (audit company) and travels 100% doing just about whatever he wants to do (now). He has been with the company for about 30 years and has been all over the world and involved in many huge business deals! It was very interesting talking to him about his goal to be on the board of directors, traveling so much and work. He really likes what he does and it shows...inspiring for both of us.

By the way... AC Milan won the game! Yea... I was cheering for them since I lived there for a short period of time!

Eisenach, Germany

May 16: Pulled weeds today...

May 17: Today is a holiday here...called Man's day...kind of a cool idea...all of the men walk around in the woods and carry around a bunch of liquor and get canned...at least that's the part I got out of it

...we pulled more weeds...

May 18: Made another trip to tegut (the local grocery store) today, this time with the trailer in tow (see the pictures below), I tried to make it up the hill on the way home with it full of drink bottles and a backpack full of groceries...I didn't quite make it...

...then we pulled another crap load of weeds...

May 19: Today is Sunday...so the no making loud noises rule was in effect, our neighbors Gerd and Sabine invited us over for dinner, we were not expecting a huge deal but they pulled out the whole German spread, pork BBQ'd in every which direction and some really good pasta and vegetable salads. It has been really fun getting to know them, they are about as far along in English as we are in German so it makes for some interesting conversation, although we have been amazed at what all we can talk about...we had a dessert that I thought they were saying had pot in it because they kept talking about coffee shops in Amsterdam since we are on our way there Tuesday, but they were just saying there were poppy seeds in it and it will make you fail a drug test.

May 20: Got invited today to go to a local motocross race. My (Eric) Dad's friend Reggie is involved in a motorcycle club. It was just like the US...all the guys there were showing off their scars and all the girls had dyed hair and various piercings...it was a fun day...we had bratwurst...which has kind of been the theme so far since we have been here...and we drank a few beers...Leslie is still getting used to the bigger and stronger beers here! You all know I'm no lightweight so I'm doing fine.

May 21: We rode our bikes into Eisenach today to find a wireless signal so we could blog! Holy crap we finally have free Wifi in Germany, yah!!!

The slide show below is a summary of our trip up until now. Hopefully we will get pictures out and the blog updated a little more regularly now that we are getting everything figured out.

We Are Here!

With only an hour of sleep we woke up at 4:30 AM for the airport (Ontario). We flew to Dallas then to Frankfurt (9 1\2 hour flight), which went farely quickly. Then we had to take the train to Eisenach (1 1\2 hours) and catch a taxi van to the house. After about 23 hours of traveling Eric and I made it to our little house in Wutha-Farnroda!

Here is a recap of the past week since we were trying to figure out the computer\internet situation at the house.

May 9th: Eric had to help the taxi driver find Mossbacher Weg (our street) because it is so small... looks more like a bike path! Needless to say we were happy to be at the house since we both had two large suitcases, a carry-on roller, and a back-pack. We tryed to stay awake by playing Rummy and Scrabble, but we fell asleep around 4 PM till 9 PM. Then we took some medicine to try to make us tired again.

May 10th: Jet lag is a bitch.... we are still trying to figure out if we are wide awake or completely exhaused. Our colds followed us here to Deutchland too. Even though it is cold, the hills are so green here and the clouds seem to drift by at a remarkable pace. Eric had to start a fire for us because he was worried that he would find me as an ice cube upstairs in bed. By the way... an ice cube is a very hard thing to find here... since we don't have a freezer.

We went to the grocery store today on our bikes. I really miss my beach cruiser, these bikes are very strange! They just sit up really high? Everything at the grocery store was sold in much smaller portions. It was fun trying to find all the things we wanted to get. Like the cheese... once we found it, we had to figure out what what type of cheese we were buying. I let Eric pick one randomly. Then we packed my back pack full of food and biked back home. I had the eggs in the basket of my bike so I was carefull not to hit many bumps. When we got to our street I was tired. To bad our street is all up hill... a very steep hill! I had to stop 4-5 times to catch my breath, and my lips were turning purple because I was sick.

May 11: We slept all day. Really, we slept all day!

May 12: Today we finally unpacked our clothes. We moved some stuff around to make it all fit, but eventually everthing worked out well. Our clothes are downstairs in the bathroom... we have a bar for our hanging clothes and a couple of drawers for all other clothes. Eric called Sabatian (computer man) to help us get connected to the internet. He said that we can't get DSL here because we are outside the city... he said that in Germany it takes a lot longer (years) to get things like wireless and DSL service available. So we tried to get my computer connected by dial up but the new Mac doesn't even have a phone outlet. Ha! Once Sabatian left we ran into Gerd and Sabine outside and they invited us over for some pizza. Gerd and Sabine are our neighbors... and they are the nicest people ever! Gerd gave us their computer to use since mine didn't work untill Eric's dad arrives on Friday. Sabine gave me some herbs from her garden to help with my cold.

May 13: Eric and I called our Mothers today since it is Mutterstag! I am still very sick so I started taking another round of antibiotics that Mike Levine gave us (thanks Mike). Eric tried to mow the lawn today but was interupted by Gerd. Gerd kindly told Eric that Sunday was a quiet day and that no one works or makes noise for that matter. I really liked that idea and so I slept all day. A storm is starting to roll in tonight. I missed storms while I was in California.

May 14: Eric went to the grocery store for us today. He rode is bike all the way up our street... quite the accomplishment. He is taking good care of his sick fiance... I am starting to feel a little better today. Eric was also able to mow the rest of the lawn today.

Uploading pictures is still a bit of an issue, but here is an arial picture of our place...it is the one in the middle with all of the dirt in the back yard.