Continuing on with my springlike adventures, at 6AM I took a plane from Venice to Amsterdam, sitting next to a kid who had just come back from Ibiza and smelled like hangover. He was very nice, though. As much as I hate flying, this flight was actually pretty nice. A couple from Amsterdam was sitting in front of Hangoverboy and I, and told us that we better go to Vondelpark while we were there.
Best advice ever.
I have a theory that the merit of cities can be loosely based on the number and quality of their parks. There is just NO way to start out your introduction to a city by checking out their best park, and if it also happens to be the best park in the WORLD (and a two minute walk from your hostel) then you're pretty much set. The weather was also spectacular, so you could just walk into this absolutely huge park with TONS of people just milling around, but nobody's rushed or unhappy, just all out enjoying the great weather. Even the bums with beer cans in plastic bags (no picture, sorry). Another great thing about Amsterdam (get ready to hear that phrase a million times) is that it's kind of too small to have a separate tourist and local area. So you got to see the people with their suitcases peering around confusedly, and the people zooming around on their bikes in their work suits.
About bikes. I thought it was funny that I saw little business women in heels riding MOTORCYCLES around Spain? Wait until you see a 6-foot dutch man dressed like a CEO riding his bicycle through the middle of the park, chiming his little bell at people going too slowly. People in Amsterdam do NOT screw around with their bikes. I honestly could have spent hours just watching bike traffic, it was so entertaining.
Apparently I failed to mention earlier that I flew in on my birthday, and the lovely and aforementioned (see: Rome) Sarah Kane was SO kind as to meet me in Amsterdam. Or so kind as to try. Because of course, the SIM card on my phone stops working as soon as I get into the Netherlands. Obviously. After the man at the Phone House tried to sell me a new SIM card I finally remembered that Skype existed. Crisis averted, but Nora's birthdays continue to make sure she's unhappy for at least an hour. Just in case anyone was worried.
Anyway, the weather continued to be SPECTACULAR the whole time we were there, Sarah's friend from school studying in Utrecht came to visit and told us some in the Dutch culture ins and outs, and we had some amazing food (BAGELS. And french fries dipped in mayo...by dipped in I mean drowned in). The Rembrandt house was amazing, they had a huge collection of his etchings, and (close your eyes mom and dad) the Red Light District was just a whole other WORLD. Then I hopped on another train to Paris, where I arrived and passed out at my hostel, skipping the Eiffel tower that I had planned for my first night.
Which pretty much sums up my time in Paris. I had prepped for this one: I bought the museum pass and a day-long unlimited metro pass. Unfortunately I decided that since I paid for one day of metro I shouldn't use it the other day, and should walk everywhere.
Which would be fine except Paris is HUGE. By the end of the first day I'd knocked off half of my list, seen some ridiculously famous art, but returned to the hostel with feet that hurt so much I could not even come close to bringing myself to stand in line to go up the Eiffel Tower. I promise I thought about it, then realized that whenever I stood still my ankles started shaking. So back to the hostel, where I ran into a boy and I knew in HIGH SCHOOL who was staying at the same hostel as me. WHAAAT.
Having the metro pass improved my second day significantly. I got to shuffle off to the all the museums I wanted, be impressed by how developed my metro-reading skills have become, and even ordered a chocolate croissant and half a baguette in "French" (don't worry that I originally wanted the whole baguette).
Probably my highlight of Paris was the Rodin Museum.
Back to my park theory, there is a sculpture garden all around the (beautiful) building that the museum is in, so you get to go in, see models and molds for all of his AMAZING sculptures, and then go outside and see the real things in the middle of one of the most beautiful parks ever. It might have been my favorite museum ever.
THEN I hopped on an overnight train to Port Bou, Catalonia (there was a girl with her CAT and it sat in her lap the whole time and the guy next to me thought it was hilarious how much I was freaking out), where I got to watch the train to Barcelona leave as I walked into the station, and notice that the next one didn't leave for another two hours. As THAT train moved through the province more and more hungover old people (St. Jordi's Day, the Spanish equivalent of Valentines with the added benefit of being the day before Easter, had just happened) piled onto the train, finally I got out into the blazing sunshine, screwed up buying a metro card, and knew for sure that I was back in Barcelona :)
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