Spring Break!!

So for Spring Break I was joined by the lovely ladies, Carmen and Maia. I was so happy that they came to see me! It was a great week, and it was also really good to have people from the states, and to see my sister!!
They got here on Saturday morning, and after some meeting place confusion we went back to my homestay, where I showed them around, prepared their bed, and then we all took a long nap! Poor little jet-lagged girls. Afterwards, we went to Museum Night Fever, where for 7 euros we gained entrance into tons of museums, where they had tons of fun things going on. In Bozar, there was a lyre player and renaissance-era breakdancers- we also got the PLEASURE of visiting the "museum" of "fantastic" "art", which basically just had tons of strange things (like a was figure of a guy with a shrunken head and a cow's udder) in this building. Weird.
But the other museums were real and were great! We made it home on the Metro and then went to sleep to prepare for our early morning excursion to Cologne.
We got up very early for the train because Carmen has an immense fear of not catching trains- good thing we did too, because we had a mini-crisis where all of our important papers were left at the homestay. We made the train and upon arrival in Cologne we went to find our hostel. we dropped off our things and then went to eat ice cream at this faaaancy cafe- after that, we went to the former Gestapo headquarters of the city which was one of the only buildings in Cologne that was not completely demolished in the heavy World War 2 bombings. They turned it into a museum which was sad but also very interesting- it was a really good find! After that we went to the Cathedral and looked around there.
Then we went to the hostel to.... nap!! love these girls because they appreciate a good nap as much as me!
After the nap, we went to where the Animal Collective concert we were going to attend was and ate some German food at a Kebap place? It was good, though. Then we made our way to the concert- the opening act was a little creepy and just spent 837492478293 hours on his synthesizer (not my cup of tea- sorry Farley), but then Animal Collective went on and they were really good! It was a totally fun concert, too. We rocked out, and then went home to rest for AMSTERDAM!

The next morning, we boarded an extremely efficient and awesome German train to go to Amsterdam- we got off on the train station and made our way to OUR HOUSEBOAT, THE BEAGLE!!! Seriously, this boat rocked: two stories, two computers with free internet, a kitchen, a bathroom, so many plants, and to top it all off the guy who owns it, AJ, was such a BABE. We marveled in the loveliness of our houseboat and then went off to explore the city. We saw the red light district and walked along the canals, then went to the Sex Museum- very strange- and then we went to the grocery store to buy goodies to eat for dinner. After that, we were pretty tired so we went back to the houseboat to eat dinner and hang out before going to bed.
The next day, we decided to walk to the other side of Amsterdam and stroll through the park (where there were SO many puppies romping!) and then we tried to enter the Van Gogh Museum (which we didn't enter because it was 15 euro each and they wouldn't give Carmen a MoMa discount), so we went to the other museum and saw more classic paintings- it was a very good museum.
After this, we went to meet Carmen's friend Lotte, who lives in Amsterdam and has an awesome bike- and eat some delicious but expensive Thai food. We hung out with Lotte for a while, and then made it back to the Beagle.
The next morning we had to take a train at noon for Brussels (sad!) so we got some breakfast, and then got on the train very reluctantly.

Amsterdam was great- I'm off to make mini pizzas and antipasti for Italian night, so the rest of Spring Break will come later! I love you!