amsterdam

hello folks,

so we spent a few days at gerrit's relatives outside of a city called bremen in germany. the town was called sottrum. it was a really good time, we met alot of his relatives and they were all really nice and accomadating despite a language barrier. we ate alot of food and cosumed alot of alchohol while there. on the monday gerrit's uncle took us on a bike ride through the countryside and we stopped at a lake to hang for awhile too. on tuesday gerrit's dad's cousin herman, took us to bremen and showed us around the city and the city hall where he used to work. we got to stand on the same balcony that only privelaged guests like micheal jackson are allowed to go out on. we felt honoured. we also got shown the special meeting room where mostly everything in there is plated in gold.

on wednesday we made it to amsterdam and it has been a swell time ever since. the flying pig hostel is a really cool place with a bar and lots of people to meet. yesterday we checked out the van gogh museum and hung in the park for awhile. other than that, we have been doing other usual touristy things.

anyways, we are home on monday, so we have three nights left here.

above are some pictures from the city hall in bremen, then some of amsterdam so far.

2 days to amsterdam

so we have not done too much in copenhagen, just sort of taken it easy during the day and drinking a bit at night. we saw the carlsberg brewery, which is more of a museum. it was pretty good to see, we got two beers at the end which was good.

on thursday night we headed to christiana and hung in a bar there called the woodstock cafe. walking into this community we could hardly see a thing, our path was lit by barrels. it was a pretty odd place to say the least, there were some eccentric characters about, but it was a cool experience.

lastnight we got our dance on at a club around the hostel called vega which was was a good time. today we went back to christiana to check it out during the day. it is like this tiny community of artists within the city. it has a lot of different vendors and art studios and some skate parks too. you are not allowed to take photos for a few different reasons. it also has this lake within it too which we hung out at for a bit.

anyways, tomorrow morning we leave for gerrit's grandmother's place which is outside of bremen, germany. we are staying there for a couple days and then we are off to amsterdam for the last five nights. there is no internet at his grandmother's so i will post when we make it to amsterdam, and i will put up some photos too, damn i've been slacking.

talk to yous later

berlin continued, denmark

on monday in berlin we went on a quick boat tour around some of berlin which was good. there is some really cool new architecture around the city. i will post some pictures later. tuesday we trecked off to the saschenhausen concentration camp which is outside the city in a small town.we spent a couple hours there and it was very interesting and powerful to see.

so after a another 8 hour train ride and a ferry across to denmark, we are now in copenhagen for 4 nights. we met an eccentric fellow at the generator hostel before we left berlin and he told us to check out this district called christiana, which is like a hippie hangout, so i think we are going to head there tonight. today we slept in late, so i think we are just going to go check out the carlsberg brewery if we can.

more updates soon! yeah!

berlin

berlin
so we made it to berlin, germany around 6 pm lastnight. we are staying in this ridiculously big hostel called generator, it even has it's own bar, how exciting. it is more like a hotel but it is really cheap to stay here, it's clean and you get free breakfast. so lastnight after realizing that really no one stays in the hostel to drink we thought we would hit up the berlin club scene. so we got all spiffed up with our pance and dress shirts. we stood in line for the first club for about fifteen minutes and after conferring together we realized we were most definetely in line for a lesbian bar. so we moved down to the next club which looked really sweet but we got shut down because we did not have girls on our arms and had a serious lack of blazers and italian made leather shoes. the next one we went to was full of forty year women which is ok i guess, but we decided we could do better. the next club was matrix and it was a cool little place full of gangsters but we stayed and danced for a good little bit before heading home.

today we walked a good distance around berlin and saw some important things to see. it's a really cool city, graffiti is legal here i believe so it's all over the place and gives the city character. we saw the chunk of the berlin wall that is still up and that was pretty amazing. there was some really cool graffiti done on it. we also went up the tv tower which is the highest building in berlin, so we got a great view of the city.

gerrit warned me about gypsies in the city and promised me that we would spot one, and my wish came true. there was about three women and their kids who continually asked for money and food as we were having lunch outside the tv tower. i didn't think i would get to see them so up close, but i must say, they were something. so we are going to be here for a few more days and then we are heading to denmark for a few more days. i can not preview the pictures before i put them on here so i will just put up a few for now of berlin.

peace out compadres.

in poland

hey folks

so we made it to poland after a 36 hour train ride, and it was a long and tedious one. we left at midnight on the 13th adn we were awoken at 6 in the morning by russian border guards checking our visas. and the thing is, our visas said we were only to be in russia until the 13th, and it was now the morning of the 14th. so after sitting down with us in the train, throughly examing our passports and pestering us for being 6 hours later in russia than we should have been, they let us go.

so then our train split off from gerrits and dylan and i sat in our train in belarus for about five hours waiting for a train to connect to us. we finally got going around 6 pm and fell asleep around ten. then came the belarusian border guards as were leaving belarus. they woke us up at one am exactly and lo and behold, our visas said we were only going to be in belarus for until the 14th, and it was now the 15th. these guys were even freakier than the last ones. once again, they sat down across from us and informed us about 20 times that it was now the 15th, they pulled out their phones to show us the date and made me whip out my calendar on my ipod to see which date it was. after telling them about 19 times that we understood he started talking about what was going to happen, did i mention they spoke terrrible english. so after explaining that we would have to go stay in a "police hotel" for the night, then get our visas renewed the next day and then we would continue on to poland in an "unnofficial" train, whatever that meant. so dylan and i were now sitting there wondering what this police hotel would look like and what gerrit was going to do when we didn't show up at the train station. after making some ridiculous hand signals to us and saying who knows what in his language he wrote down that if we paid 200 euros we could stay on the train. so we eventually paid 100 euros each to keep going which was really annoying because we were only in belarus an hour over our visa limit.

anyways, now we are in poland for the night, it's a beautiful city, and we are heading to berlin tomorrow.

i will post pictures soon.

oh st. petersburg

so yesterday we took a walking tour of the city with a university student. it was a good little trip, we saw some cool parts of the city that you would not see normally as a tourist. lastnight we hit up a club called metro, which was a cool place with three different floors. we got our dance on until about 4 in the morning, it was a good time. today we didn't feel like doing much, but ended walking about 12 km around the city to get a transit visa so we could go through belarus and then to a place to get gerrit's train tickets but once we arrived gerrit realized he was reading the wrong address and in fact we had passed this place just about everyday. good times.

anyways tonight we took it easy and packed and did a photo shoot with our new hats cause we're trendy like that. tomorrow we get on the train for warsaw at 12:30 pm and we arrive there the next night at 11:45. so a 35 hour train i think it is, i don't know about you, but i am pumped.

so i will get in touch when we arrive to warsaw, the photos above are from our fantastic hostel we stayed at and us with our new hats trying to look badass.

st. petersburg

so we made it to st. petersburg and the puppet hostel, which is a depressing depressing hostel. we are trying to spend as much time as we can away from because it just has bad vibes overall. it is in an old rundown building, theres no kitchen and the showers are these open dirty stalls, i will attempt to post pictures of it later on, and they will explain better. but anyways, st. petersburg is a beautiful city, more european than moscow and more convenient for tourists. yesterday we took a big walk around just sightseeing and today we checked out the hermitage. i think it is europe's largest museum and art gallery, but i'm not sure. part of it was also the winter palace for royalty. it was really amazing to see, lots of cool exhibits and amazing paintings and sculptures. van gogh was one of the artists i recognized and it was interesting to see some of his paintings.
above are some photos from around st. petersburg, the turqouise building is part of the hermitage. we also checked out a hookah bar lastnight.

anyways, that's all for now folks, we leave for poland wednesday night.

and i'm not sure why all this white space happens at the end.