Week #4 in Marburg + Amsterdam weekend

Week #4 in Marburg

So things are really great - my German course is easy but I've found that going over the picky little grammar things is making me alot more confident in speaking it. Living in a student dorm is pretty much what I thought it would be, and I'm really liking all the independence of studying abroad.

I am still getting the top mark in my class - although sometimes I feel a bit like Hermoine (like in Harry Potter) because I'm always putting my hand up and answering questions when no one else does. Haha oh well! I also have culture class in the afternoons - the aim is to sum up 1000 years of German history in a couple of weeks - but the problem is I keep wanting to fall asleep!

My hand is still bruised, but I'm thinking it should be okay in a few days or so. Thank goodness because I'm sick of writing with my left hand in class!

Amsterdam

So this weekend, a group of us decided to head off to Amsterdam. I love the centrality of being in Europe - there are soo many countries that are so close! We ended up renting 2 cars (5 people in each car) and drove there. I wanted be a driver but there was no way I was driving on the wrong side of the road (which is, of course, the right side ;)) 

Courtney & I - Woot, road trip!!

200kmph on the Autobahn!

Josh and I - are we there yet??

Turns out our hostel was right in the middle of the famous red-light district! Awkwaard (again - I stayed in the red-light district at Frankfurt too, accidentally!)

Our definitely-not-seedy-looking hostel! (At least it was next to a nice canal)

We skipped culture class that afternoon and arrived late Friday night.

 

Bright and early Saturday we went walking around Amsterdam. The canals are so beautiful and I love the architecture of the Dutch buildings!

See the wonky angle of the buildings in the pic to the right! Crazy!

We also walked to the Royal Place - it was pretty busy. One bad thing about the trip was that there was alot of people in our group. 10 people walking around together is a big number and can get annoying if we want to get food at a small restaurant or something. Also, it takes ages to get anywhere and no one is decisive! It was good though because there was a real sense of friendship. One thing I've found on my travels so far is that the only person that you can depend to look after you is yourself. I felt like on this trip everyone was looking out for each other, we would all wait for each other and make sure everyone was included in the group. So that part was really really nice :-)

Courtney, me, Daniel, Rolando, Matthew and Tami!

A thing I forgot to mention - it was bloody cold!! Minus temperatures with a freezing wind - it sucked! Should have bought thermals :P

A few of us went to the Amsterdam museum, it was okay - not the best museum I've been to but it had some interesting stuff on Dutch history and stories about Amsterdam, like this room full of treasure chests!

Amsterdam's tourist slogan is "I amsterdam" - which we found outside the museum in giant letters. There is also huge one near the Anne Frank museum (which I didn't get a chance to go to because the lines were too long :()

Sunday was pretty much the same - we walked around the city in the freezing cold haha. Seriously, if your hands were exposed to the wind (thank goodness for pockets) they would start to hurt and burn from the cold!

Anyway, whinging about the weather aside (at least it was kind of sunny-ish) Callum, Josh and I went on a walking tour which was pretty cool - it was all about the Dutch settlement, the canals, buildings etc. 

Then our whole group went on a river cruise down the canals,
the scenery was beautiful :)

On the way back to Marburg, we wanted to go find the Postcard district (with the windmills and stuff) but we got so lost - should have hired the GPS with the car! After driving around aimlessly for a while (stopped to ask a random for directions - turns out she only spoke Spanish - lucky Rolando can too!) we still didn't find it so we just headed home. The hire car only cost us 40 euro each for everything - to the Netherlands and back to Marburg in the middle of Germany, petrol, and the extra few kilometers we did over our 750km limit. All in all, it was a great trip with some great people! :-)