So we spent a week or so in the Netherlands, and today entered Germany, Land of Beer. We've only been here a few hours and already Tom had a schnitzel and pint, and I had a big ol' sausage.
Maastricht was extraordinarily pretty, and also extraordinarily stocked with waffles and icecream. It has not been a healthy holiday. We wandered around the old town square and took in all the nice things, then headed off the next day. Seriously though: best gelato ever. I would go back just for that gelato. And waffles with chocolate inside. INSIDE.
Next stop was Amsterdam for a few days. We made it to our hotel in one piece and settled in, and I noted there seemed to be a party or something going on outside. Then at 1.30am, a loud boom, and a van is aflame. We checked it out later, it's well and truly fucked - photo on Facebook of the interior, as one of the windows was smashed in to light the fire. We found out later talking to a barkeep that that suburb, Osdorp, is well known for crime, and various international bombings are often traced there. Fun! But we never had any issues ourselves, at least.
The next day we wandered into Amsterdam Central, and got a good feel for the place. It's definitely a city of contradictions in the centre - that's the oldest part of the city, and most of the buildings are old, quaint, askew, and quite pretty. But they're all covered up with tacky signs and advertisements for sex shops, weed, souvenirs, etc. It's not a bad thing necessarily, and I really enjoyed it, but it's certainly strange. We had a wander around the red light district, though it wasn't fully fired up by that point. There's a certain point I was fascinated by, near the Oude Kerk (Old Church, basically). It's the oldest church in Amsterdam, and ringed by red light hookers out on display. A very weird contrast, but very suited to the city.
The next day we went on a walking tour, which proved to be a fantastic idea. The tour guide (another Australian) took us through a bunch of spots we never would have found ourselves, got us some cheese, and generally taught us a bunch about the city, including why all the buildings look like they're slowly falling over. We ended up not going to any museums beyond the Sex Museum, and spent some of the evening wandering around the red light district to see it properly at night. Despite some recommendations we decided to skip the sex show experience, as to be honest it sounded uninteresting and ethically questionable. Definitely an enjoyable city though!
We headed down to Eindhoven over the Easter weekend, which was definitely a very different city for Europe. It's been destroyed and burned down various times over the centuries, and thus has almost no historical buildings. It's a very contemporary city, with a big focus on modern design and industrial production. As an example, it's city symbol is a smiling light bulb, as it was home to Philips for decades. Despite this, it's also got some beautiful canals and gardens, which we happily wandered around for a few hours. One of the things we've noticed about Europe - everyone has dogs! I suppose a lot less people have apartments, more townhouse/terrace style places, which means a yard to have a dog in.
Today we departed Eindhoven for Dusseldorf, heading back through Amsterdam (though we found out that wasn't entirely necessary ... stupid train sites not being in English) and arrived in Dusseldorf, whereupon it slowly worked up to rain. We still ventured into the city centre to have lunch and see the Old Town, which has over 260 bars and such places in one square kilometre. It really is just a mass of places to drink!
After we're done here it's on to Dortmund for me to see sloths in the zoo (SQUEEEEE) and then up to Sweden for the Northern Lights!
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