From Berlin to Benelux

And the travels continue!

First off, we had a pretty great experience traveling from Berlin to Amsterdam. We actually used a website to find someone who was driving from Poland, through Berlin, and going all the way to Amsterdam, charging 40 Euro per person for a seat in his car. This was cheaper than any other form of transportation we could find and it sounded pretty exciting, as we would be meeting someone new and getting to know them for a few hours during the ride. And we survived! I could not have been happier with the decision. He picked us up by the bus stop in Berlin and we were on our way. It was me, Alex, our driver Konrad, and another Alex from Lithuania. We had a great time getting to know each other during the drive and of course, we were driving on the Autobahn which meant no speed limits. This was normal for the other guys with us but Alex and I thought we were so cool to be driving about 100mph on the highway! It was a great experience, and I would love to do it again for wherever we travel. It was somewhat similar to couchsurfing, only for rides to certain places, and with that same mentality of just meeting new people and enjoying the ride to the next destination.

On one of the many canals in Amsterdam

After our entertaining trip from Berlin to Amsterdam we met up with our other Aussie friends we had been traveling with at our hostel, since they took a train with their Eurail pass. We spent a few days in Amsterdam and I think I forgot just how beautiful this city was. It’s still one of my favorite cities because of how unique it is from the rest of the cities in Europe ;) I love everything about this city and wouldn’t mind living here if I get the chance. 

From Amsterdam we split up with our Aussie friends and it was just Alex and I for the first time since Glasgow. It was good to be back on our own and going at our own pace, although we definitely enjoyed our time with our other friends in our own little traveling group. We met up with a mutual friend in The Hague, just south of Amsterdam. Our friend, Ramon, lives there and was able to host us for the weekend. He was an amazing host and we couldn’t have asked for a better time there. The Hague was also a really cool city, and although Amsterdam is the capital of The Netherlands, The Hague is the seat of the parliament and most of the government buildings are there which provided for some great sites to see. It was great to be in a quieter city and relax for a little bit on our trip. The downtime is always good for regrouping and figuring out where to go next.

Probably my favorite photo of Bruges - Magic

We had a potential host in Hamburg, Germany, but it was a little out of the way so we weren’t entirely sure what to do. So we decided to let Facebook choose what we should do, and I posted a status for people to choose whether we go to Hamburg, Germany or Bruges, Belgium. Bruges had a majority of the votes, so that’s where we went. Although I’ve heard some great things about Hamburg, I was really happy with the choice to go to Bruges. Bruges is an awesome little city in the Northwest corner of Belgium, in the Flemmish speaking area (similar to Dutch). There was a famous movie filmed there called In Bruges, which we watched in Bruges (of course) and it turned out to be a really cool movie. It’s one of those fairy tale looking towns (as described in the movie) with some amazing little canals and beautiful architecture. And of course, we had our fair share of Belgian waffles and chocolate and all that good stuff. We actually spent quite a bit of time in Bruges, about 4 nights, before moving on to our next location. Again, it was nice to lay low for a little while in Bruges after we saw most of the sites, and again, we had to figure out where to go next.

Our initial plan was to actually still try and get to Hamburg after Bruges, but that sort of fell through, so instead we did what anybody else in that situation would do…we went to Luxembourg. I knew nothing about Luxembourg before. I still know nothing about Luxembourg, but we spent one night there and I don’t think I know anyone else who’s been there before so I’m glad I can cross it off the list of countries visited. Luxembourg was actually a really cool place. We stayed in the capital city of Luxembourg and really enjoyed our short time there. It was really just a scenic city to walk around and see the sites and amazing architecture there.

I'm in Luxembourg!

It was crazy to be in a place that I knew nothing about, wondering what the heck goes on here and why I was here in the first place. I’m really glad we stayed there and got to check it out, but I found out that the median age there is 40 years old so there were a lot of old rich people walking around everywhere doing old rich people things, so everything there was pretty expensive. I might go back there when I’m 40 and rich, but if I’m 40 and I’m not rich I don’t think it would be as much fun. All in all, I was very satisfied with going there, and from there we went to Paris. And here I sit, courchsurfing in Paris planning the next phase of the trip. We’ll be in Paris for a few more days before going to the next place in France as long as we don’t go broke here. But we’ve started using our Eurail passes and that will be the main form of transportation all the way through Italy.

But until then, we’ll see where we go next!