Ok, so...

Since I apparantly am not as good at this whole blog thing as I would like to be (aka is anyone really surprised that Rebecca, and not I, am the writer in the family?), I will try to post shorter, more frequent posts, but they might be a little less life-altering. Or I say this, but nothing will really change. Who knows?

So since I really don't want to spend a long time writing about my last trip, I will try to sum it up in a few short words. Key word being TRY.

Brussels: Not what I expected, much cooler. They have a really cool underground art scene, and amazing food. As previously mentioned: waffles, fries, beer, chocolate. It's probably a good thing for my arteries sake that I don't live there. We ended up skipping all the EU stuff due to exhaustion, weather, and not wanting to die of boredom (sorry, but we hear about it every day in school!).

Amsterdam: Pretty much exactly what I was expecting, minus the canals. I have seen movies, etc. so I knew to expect the Red Light District, and walking past "coffee shops" really wasn't as exciting/funny/disgusting as I thought it would be. The city is absolutely beautiful; I loved seeing all the house boats and riding through the canals. The Van Gogh Museum can't be beat though.

Berlin: Right, so we stayed in East Berlin. I know the Wall came down (saw it) and Berlin is one city and all that now, but it is definitely still divided. Where we stayed, the favorite type of architecture seemed to be poured concrete. Umm, pretty? Seriously though, I liked Berlin. Despite the heinous weather and the utter depression that sweeps over you as you go from cultural site to site, it was important to go to, and extremely interesting. Also, the people definitely make the city, and the music and fashion vibe in the city is AWESOME. A lot of techno/punk/80s LA grunge, but done in a very modern way that works for them. You (I) can tell that the people there spend hours putting outfits together to make it look like they don't care at all. We also met a bunch (as in 15 or so) Irish boys who were really cool. They were a little younger, but still cool to hang out with. And I loved going to the zoo; it was only my second time!

Munich: Probably my fave place on the trip, though it's hard to say. Basically the whole reason I wanted to go was to see Cinderella's castle (Disney's inspiration for), which we didn't get to do. The weather and a public transportation strike had a little to do with that. Here we met a really cool group of people, mostly the people who were on our tour to the concentration camp Dachau the first day. That is something I think everyone should do. Even if you don't want to (Rebecca), I honestly am at a loss for words to explain the changes that take place in a person once you physically stand in the camp, in the gas chamber, see just how they were tortured and worked literally to the bone. It's not fun or enjoyable, per se, but it's one of the most important things I've ever done, and I hopefully took some lasting knowledge from it. We ended up hanging out with Canadians, Australians, and Kiwis, plus a few other nationalities, obvi. It was great- hanging out with a bunch of native speakers was so refreshing, even with the slight differences in our speech patterns. We all went to the BMW museum after Dachau to relax a little bit. And you really can't beat the Happy Hour prices at our hostel. It's great for me- have a beer or 2, then go get dinner, come back, shower, talk to strangers, go to sleep. I can do that. One night we did end up getting convinced to dress up in togas, but that's another story.

For now all I can say is that my people-meeting skills are at their prime right now, and I had an epiphany or 2 over the week about who I want to be and what I want from life. Haven't figured it all out by any means yet, but then again, I still have 2+ months over here to work on that...I guess I'll go get started.

PS-Can you see how I can't tell a short story?