Amsterdam

From Bruges, we went to an almost unknown town called Amsterdam in the Netherlands. We stayed quite busy during our three day stay in the city. Our first night there, we explored some of the side streets and canals running close to our hostel. We also got a little taste of home with a double scoop cone of Ben and Jerrys. The next day, we rented a paddle boat and explored the many canals. 

And I do mean many, because we kept getting lost. There were no signs and everything looked the same. But sometimes getting lost pays off. After finding ourselves at a dead end, we came upon tons of cool house boats. Apparently, the house boats were introduced when overcrowding in the city became a huge problem. We finally made our way back to the port and a couple of hours later, did a bike tour of the city. It was a very active day.

Oh and one thing to mention about Amsterdam, if you ever plan on visiting, PACK LIGHT! They build up so most of the stairs, especially the higher up you go, are almost vertical. Walking up 8 flights of stairs with two larger bags was not fun. Callie definitely got in a good workout walking all the way to the bottom. From Amsterdam we took a train to Heerlen, where we would stay one night before we headed off to Italy! Super exciting!

Cologne Zoo

As we were traveling in Cologne we noticed a sign for the zoo. While we have skipped most of the zoos Amanda had a strong urge (most likely from her Uncle Bill) to visit this zoo. Thankfully we went. It is one of the most extensive zoos we have seen in awhile, including Houston's zoo. The variety of animals was phenomenal! We spent three hours there before it started down pouring; we could have stayed longer. These are only a fraction of the animals we encountered.

Belgium

So here we are in Belgium, another country that neither of us had ever visited. We took a short train ride from Köln to our first stop in Brussels. It was rainy and slightly chilly as we walked from the train station to what we thought was our hostel, but turned out to only be the location of our check-in. 45 minutes later after hearing some awful directions, we found our hostel. What we hadn't anticipated about our hostel was the fact that it was just a small side street away from the main center with tons of cute restaurants and lots of interesting people, our time in Brussels was mainly spent around the square.

A few days later we took yet another train ride to a small town called Bruges. And yet again, we got stuck walking around in the cold rain. Our time in Bruges was mainly spent making new plans for the remainder of our trip, but was still beautiful. We didn't get any pictures, but there was a beautiful square with a fountain and lots of older buildings. So that was our time in Belgium. A bit shorter than a lot of our other stopovers.

In Bruges, Amanda found out that her grandmother was ill. So we spent a lot of the time trying to figure out the best course of action. We decided to finish out the parts of the trip we had planned up to Naples while sending all prayers out to DC.

Cologne

So we've tried many times to publish a post about Cologne, but for some reason the blog is being very finicky.

After Prague, we took a train to Cologne, in western Germany. Our first night there we ate at an amazing Japanese restaurant where we got to cook our own food. They had the most incredible spices to cook with.

The next day, we attempted to rent bikes so we could explore the city, but a set of bad directions led us to being confused and walking in circles around a cathedral.

So instead we walked around the town center. We found a sushi restaurant, but it was nowhere near as good as the sushi in Miami. We wandered around for a little bit longer and found a bridge that had lovers locks on it.

On the other side, there was an office building that had a panoramic view of Cologne. It was absolutely stunning!

The next day, we walked to a chocolate museum that was right on the river. It was a really cool experience and the chocolate was delicious! They showed how to make giant chocolate molds of things like bunnies, ships, and even buildings! There was a chocolate fountain that you could eat out of. Needless to say, it was delicious. It was basically the Blue Bell factory of Cologne; they showed it being molded, made, and packaged.

Also, they also had this rainforest room and we got a little taste of the weather back home! It was weird to actually miss the humidity!

Our last night there we had the best food we have eaten since leaving Houston.  It was an amazing South African restaurant.  We have no idea what we ordered, but we devoured every bite!

Prague

We will go on record and say we HATED Prague. Too many tourists! We know that we are tourists, but we are not THAT touristy. We found that the only people who were Czech who lived in Prague actually worked there. No other natives. It was an overly expensive city which showed zero Czech culture or history unless you wanted to pay for over priced museums that were practically bare inside!

Nevertheless,  we met interesting people.  On our first night in Prague Amanda ran into a friend from Miami whom she hadn't seen since freshman year. Turns out, it really is a small world! We all hung out and visited a couple of local bars that weren't too flooded with tourists.

And as we do in towns where we find nothing else to do, we went to a wax museum. Nothing interesting happened in Prague.

Sorry!

We know it takes us awhile to post, but we assure you it is because we are having a lot of fun and are keeping very busy. We are trying to remember to post during our down time, but it interferes with naps. And no one likes a grumpy travel partner, so naps out way blog every time. But we love you all and this is an a, amazing adventure!

Love,
Callie and Amanda