Amsterdam and Northern Germany – May 2009

This trip was really my first time out of the country (Canada and border town Mexico don’t really count) and it was really a whole new world for me.  I didn’t know what to expect of the different countries, the food, the people, the transportation, everything.  I was pleasantly surprised at everything.  It takes a few days to get your bearings, but after that, there are many sights to see.

The first day was really almost two days.  I flew standby on a flight direct from Minneapolis, and my mom and sister took a flight through Chicago.  They left 4-5 hours before I did, but I beat them there by an hour. After arriving around 6:00 AM, we took a train from the airport to the central train station in Amsterdam.  We tried to get some tourist information after getting off the train, but they didn’t open until 9:00 AM. After finding a place to eat breakfast, we went back to the tourist information center and waited in line for a long time to get some information.  Shortly after that we took a canal tour of Amsterdam.  During the tour I think I fell asleep several times because I did not sleep on the plane at all.  We also saw the Van Gogh exhibit at the Van Gogh Museum, got lost several times on the tram,  and saw the Anne Frank House that first day.  After the long day we went to Shelter Jordan Christian Hostel to get a good nights sleep.

On day two, we ate hot breakfast at Shelter Jordan, saw the Rijksmuseum which features Dutch history in the 17th century through paintings, metalwork, and many other means. We got lost on the trams several times, left items on the tram and luckily tracked them down, picked up the rental car and made our way to Hamburg, Germany.

Day three was spent driving to Bremerhaven, Germany to do some sightseeing, and to try to find some things that my grandpa would recognize.  My grandpa was stationed on Bremerhaven during WWII.  As we found with most of the German cities that we visited, there is very little left that is as old as WWII or older.  After visiting Bremerhaven, we made our way to Stade, Germany to stay the night.

On day four, we went to see a castle in Baderska, but we didn’t get muchout of it because none of us spoke or read German very well.  After that we went back to Stade and found an Internet cafe to catch up on some e-mail and to let family know that we are doing well.  The rest of the night included seeing the sights in Stade, including the German version of Wal-Mart.

On the 23rd, we made our way back to Hamburg and spent the day seeing some of the sights.  We spent some time at Landungsbruken, went to the tower of St. Michaels church, and went on a double decker bus tour of Hamburg.

On the 24th, my mom and my sister left me in Hamburg and made their way to Coppenhagen.  I started my day off with going to the Deichtorhallen, where I found someone to hang out with that had similar interests.  We couldn’t get into the museum, so we decied to sit and have some coffee and tea at the shop.  I had an iced tea with ice!  It is a hard thing to find over there. At the Haus der Photographie, there was an exhibit of Herbert Tobias and Wolfgang Zurborn.  I enjoyed looking at all the photos from these photographers.  We also had lunch, went up in the tower of the ruined church St. Nicolai,  and went on a canal tour.

The 25th was my relax day.  I slept in and then found a park to read at in the wonderful weather, ate lunch, found Elb park to read at and enjoy the nature that was around me, saw the World Press Photo exhibit (the top press photographers in the world presenting what they took), met the friend I made at Miniatur Wunderland, and had crepes for supper on the canal.  After that I grabbed my things and made my way back to the bus station to take an overnight bus ride back to Amsterdam.  The night was full of crazy storms and not much sleep.

I arrived on the 26th, took the train to the Central station, ditched my luggage in a locker and saw the NY Perspectives photography exhibit.  The exhibit was about Amsterdam amd how it was discovered by New York photographers.  After that I made my way back to the airport only to find that the weather had messed things up, and there were no seats available.  I waited in the gate are and there were two people that didn’t show up, so me and another lady made it home.

Check out the photos below.  They are only a small glimse of what I saw, but it is a start.  Enjoy.