A Dam Good Time, Part 1

The first thought that came to my mind when I got off the train and saw Amsterdam was: I am so moving here. After a day of sitting on a train, our group arrived in Centraal Station after dark. On the walk to our hostel, we were already taking in some of Amsterdam’s iconic sights: the many canals, the unique architecture, and bicycles everywhere! Towards the end of the trip I stopped gawking, but in the beginning you would have thought I had never seen a bike before in my life. Supposedly there are 600,000 bikes in the city of Amsterdam, and anywhere someone could possibly chain one up, there were at least half a dozen.

Our hostel was a total dump, but with a name like ‘Amigo Hotel’ we should have known. One might have thought the guy running the place would have been Hispanic, but he was instead a creepy, overly forward Egyptian. Roark and I were ‘given’ the two beds that were not with the group. When we checked out our room, we promptly grabbed our blankets and headed up to the room with everyone else to sleep on the floor--it was that bad. Rotten Indian food barely begins to describe the smell, and the other four people in the room were snoring like it was a competition. I am surprised that they didn’t knock the shutters off, shake the foundations of the building, or at least wake each other up. Still, the floor wasn’t too terrible for the one night we slept on it.


The city itself was great, no complaints there. The Dutch are extremely friendly people, and it seemed like everybody spoke English, which was nice. The city is a bustling metropolis, but it manages to maintain the atmosphere of a quaint little town. We took a great boat tour of the city's many canals, which was a great time. The views from the water gave us an interesting perspective of the city, and there was some interesting tidbits in the audio portion of the tour. For instance all the houses and shops have a hook built in to the top of the building that is part of a pulley system used to haul furniture and goods into the upper floors. It was developed because most buildings have extremely steep staircases, since the building plots are so narrow. These pulley systems are in use even today.


We visited a few museums, some better than others. The Heineken Experience was a total waste of money. We put up with a warehouse full of Heineken propaganda but were only compensated with 1-½ beers for our whopping 15-euro entry price. The Rembrandt house was disappointing since it contained little of his work, but standing in the spot where he painted most of his masterpieces was quite an inspiration. We also saw the Anne Frank house, which was very touching. We got to walk through the crawl space behind the bookshelf where the two families hid from the Nazis. It was unfurnished as a request by Anne’s father after the war, but the atmosphere was still very palpable, and somewhat haunting.


After visiting a few coffee shops there could not have been a better time to visit the Van Gogh Museum. The collection contained over 200 of his paintings all in chronological order on the wall. Unfortunately, I was rushed through the latter half of his work in the name of making it to the Heineken Experience before it closed. But, I am not too bummed out: as the title of this blog implies, there will definitely be a Part 2.

Metzin' Around

Well I would love to say that it has been an eventful week and that is why we have not posted anything in awhile, but really we have not done much since our arrival in France. We are enjoying our time here though. Everyone in the program is outgoing and nice. We have spent time (and saved Euro’s) hanging out in the dorms getting to know everyone. It is already a tight-nit group and I look forward to sharing more time and adventures with everyone.

We have successfully set up our room. The dorms are really nice and brightly colored, although they look like something out of an Ikea ad. The mattress is awful; we might as well be sleeping on the floor. I think I like the bathroom the best, because there is no separate shower; rather the entire room is the shower. I could complain of the mess this creates, but I am grateful after having seen the size of the showers in everyone else’s room.


In the past week there have been plenty of trips to Cora, the French version of Super Walmart, and to Simply, the grocery store down the street. Today we successfully navigated the grocery store for the first time and actually made it home with food we will enjoy. This comes after we had an incident with ‘cheese dip’ and ‘Mexican’ chips that tasted like rotten cheese and Indian food… yum!

The flight overseas was a piece of cake. Roark and I were totally amazed at how large the plane was. Our plane hit a little turbulence, but nothing too bad. Thanks to the stress ball Will gave me, Roark’s hands were not crushed by my death grip this flight ether. We watched some movies, read and even fell asleep. It might have been the fact I was not near a window, or that is was so dark outside that I could see nothing anyways, or just because the plane was so damn big it was hard to believe it was a plane high in the air over the deep ocean below, but for my first time flying I did not envision our plane crashing and burning.

Once we landed in Paris it was a challenge getting to Metz. It seemed like everything was not clearly marked, we had a ton of baggage, and very little sleep in the past 4 days. We took turns napping on the train from Paris to Metz, though to be honest I was nodding off when it was my turn to stay awake. Then after being told incorrectly by a cab driver that we could walk to our dorm, walking 30 minutes aimlessly, and an argument, we flagged a cab and finally made it here.

Three nights ago we went out to Irish Pub in downtown Metz with our friends Luisana and Steve. There was a band that night that played only American cover songs. The female singer was something special. I only wish I got a recording of her slaughtering ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’ After drinking our meter of beer, we went to a hookah bar with some other people from the program that we ran into. It was a fun night.


Yesterday we walked to downtown Metz and went to see one of the Cathedrals in town. We walked down by the river and ate sandwiches while watching birds beg for food from the locals. There is still a ton more of downtown Metz left to explore, but that is for another day.

Missing the Big Sky

Bonjour! Greetings from France.

Before we started posting everything about France, we wanted to get the last pictures up from our trip to Bozeman first.

We really had a great time! Thanks to my mom for letting us stay at her place. Sorry about the ‘hurricane’ of a mess we left, but we did not want to miss our flight all for the sake of piling dirty sheets and towels together… ☺ Also, a big thanks to Jessica who let us tag along on New Year’s and introduced us to some great people, as well as brought out to her mom’s for one hell of a day. We had a great time.

We drove out to Jessica’s mom’s ranch in Wilsall, MT which is through the Gallitan Pass from Bozeman. It was a beautiful drive; all the trees were still snow covered. Once we got there we got suited up to go sledding. Walking to the hill was no easy task in 2 feet of snow, although Jessica’s dog had it pretty easy.


By the time we got inside we were wind burnt and tired. The weather had turned bad and while we were sledding we were getting beaten with snow. We made a few calls to make sure it was safe to drive home so we would not get stuck in a pass. Once we had confirmed it was safe we headed off. We would have been home sooner if not for our 30 minute detour in the wrong direction towards Billings. Can’t complain though since nothing is better than Bob Marley and breathtaking scenery.


The next day we went to the Norris hot springs with my mom. ‘Water of the Gods” they called it. The spring is located in the middle of nowhere Montana, but surprisingly it is always a full pool. The spring, which is supposedly 120 degrees Fahrenheit naturally, but is cooled to 106, fills a large wooden pool through slats in the bottom. It is absolutely freezing standing outside of the pool in your trucks, but once you get in and stay for a while, you will steam once you get out.


The drive home was once again beautiful. The Bridger Mountains were stained pink in the sunset. We got some nice shots of the Madison River frozen over. Overall it was a great trip and we can’t wait to get back… next time in the summer though.

New Years with Archer's Mob and Friends

First of all, happy and healthy New Year to all.

Secondly, a special thanks to those who came through in the clutch: Nadine, Michael, Gina, Sabio, Matt, Rahul, Israel, Carolyn, and a happy birthday to Eddie and Gaby.

We spent last night in high style, at the Pine Creek Café, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Montana. While there, we hung with a friend from Atlanta, Jessica C, her friends, and the band: Archer's Mob. We met dozens of very cool people, and listened to some very excellent tunes from a unique group. One of my favorite sounds from them was the sound of a phased out funk banjo... it was a kind of music I'd never quite heard before, but I am glad that my ears had the privilege.


Bienvenue a 2009,
-R