Germany!!

I have a little catching up to do! Well I'm finally in Osnabrueck! I'm stuck in a hostel for a few days, but more on that later...

Okay so yesterday was my last full day in Amsterdam, and it was a good one at that! So after my late wake up I was still able to make the tour & buy my train ticket to Osnabrueck for today. The tour was reallly great, I learned a lot as cheesy as it sounds! Like that the canal water doesn't smell because every three days the water in every canal is changed, or that the oldest prostitute in the red light district is like 74 years old and has a waiting list! I even actually saw a man approach one of the windows and negotiate with a lady! I ended up meeting a girl from Vancouver on the tour (who was a little strange) but anyways we chatted and ended up sharing a space cake afterwards haha. only in amsterdam! :P I also met up again with my friend that is living in Amsterdam and went shopping with her and her friends. It was actually really neat because her friends are from all over like Romania, Czech Republic, and Russia.. but they are all studying in english in Amsterdam, so when they talk to each other they all talk in english, but they still all have their own accents it was kind of cool to hear. Anyways, last night I ended up having a couple of Beers in the bar in my hostel with a guy from Montreal and then ended up going to a coffee shop. It was really great! Everything is so casual there, like we felt like we should be secretive ahhaa but like say you want a 'space cake' they're like 'Okay one space cake!:)' SO non-schalant about the whole thing its great! I swear only because I was in Amsterdam :P

Anyways, so I had such a good nights sleep and then this morning actually saw the Aussie girls and say goodbye to them :) and then had enough time to buy some souvenirs.. a couple postcards, magnet for my mom, and shot glasses for both my brother and I. It has been raining actually nonstop since I arrived on Tuesday, but I (being the cheap person that I am), refused to pay 5 euro for an umbrella. And well, sometimes I'm too cheap for my own good because it was raining SO hard when I got to Osnabrueck today. So I finally decided to get an umbrella and it ended up costing more than 5 euro! ridic.

Okay, so just when I thought having the brightest pink suitcase in the world couldn't get more embarrassing... having to carry it up flights of stairs and in and out of trains tops it all. Maybe I'm just weak but I struggle SO much to just lift it up, let alone carry it up two flights of stairs by myself to get to the train platform. And then, when the train doors opened I noticed that it was basically just one big leap. One big leap that I just knew was going to be a fail. And its worse because there are people waiting behind you to get onto the train as well. So it is basically a full body thrust and praying for success to get my suitcase on the train. I think I would rather have a backpack actually, because even though it gets really tiring carrying it, most of the weight is put onto your legs... and when getting in and out of trains there is no chance of falling on my face along with my backpack.

Okay so after the train ride adventure, I made it to Osnabrueck!!! Its almost surreal to be here, because I've read quite a bit about the city its almost like I thought the day would never come. I met my friend who had been studying at Laurier for exchange last term, and she picked me up from the train station and brought me to my hostel which was really nice. So I'm stuck in a hostel for four nights! Ugh this is the only one in the city actually, but its not so bad with wifi and a kitchen. So I got here around 5 and for about an hour and a half I just went wandering & exploring the city. My main mission was to find a grocery store, because it is SO much cheaper to just cook for myself at the hostel, and usually healthier as well. So anyways I bought an umbrella and found a grocery store eventually, AND I had this glorious idea of buying a children's book in German to motivate me to study the language more, but I even had to look up some of the words that were in the title hahah. So after having to ask directions of how to get back to my hostel, I decided to start to read my book, which my German-English dictionary by my side. And then in walk these two girls who were definitely german, and here I am struggling to read my book about a mouse go goes searching for love. haha How embarassing for me.

So that brings me to now :) Oh! I actually got to see some olympics today, but I had to follow along only by the video because all the talking was in German! Even german interviews at the games. Ugh! So lame, maybe I'll have to test out watching the olympics online.

Thats all for now! Thanks for reading! :)

lovelovelove
Susie