Amsterdam, Christmas, New Years

Howdy y'all!

Well the time is shortly arriving before I make it back to the US. I depart from Austria on the 22nd in the morning and arrive back in Chicago on the same day in the afternoon.

But enough about that, let's talk about my Christmas Break!

First thing that we did over Christmas break was go to Amsterdam!! Let me just say that Amsterdam is one of the prettiest cities I have seen. For those who have been to Pella, IA, it looks like the city version of Pella, plus canals. The architecture looks just like what you would imagine dutch architecture to look like. And it is huge. Although it is a big city, it has a very small town feeling to it.

To view pictures of Amsterdam, follow this link: http://miniurl.com/25991

The first day we were there, there was no snow on the ground. Everything was awesome. But then, overnight, the snow storm came. It snowed a lot! The next day, there was snow everywhere, and no plows to move the snow. So basically, we walked in slush for 2 days. That was not fun. With the snow storm, they also canceled a lot of trains and flights . Our flight was out of Germany, and the airport there had canceled a lot of things. The train that we were planning on taking was canceled, and the alternate route (trainwise) cost way too much. We ended up taking a chance and catching an airport bus (that was not canceled) and got to the airport.

Our flight was not canceled, thank god, but we were delayed because it was still snowing in Germany. first, by 30 minutes, then, by an hour. We got to the runway, and the pilot announced that the runway was unsafe for takeoff, and they needed to clean it off again. So, that delayed us an hour.

But we did do a lot of fun things in Amsterdam. We went to a couple of museums, went to the redlight district, which was actually really cool, and just walked around the city. The Anne Frank museum was very much well worth the visit. I learned a lot while going there, and actually got to see the place where Anne Frank was in hiding before she was captured. It was a lot smaller than I had imagined. I knew it was small, but all the floor plans that I saw of it made it seem bigger than it actually was.

Oh, and I broke my camera the last night I was there.... so yeah, there will be very few pictures for the rest of my adventures.

Ok got back safely. And then came Christmas! An Austrian friend of ours invited us over to her family's Christmas celebration. The traditions are mostly all on the 24th here in Austria. Before we came, the tree is put up and decorated during the day. The parents are the ones that usually do that. Then, after we got there, we went around the house with incense and holy water, prayed the rosary, and blessed every room in the house. Every room meant every room. It was actually really cool. The last room to be blessed is the room where the tree is. The tree is supposed to be seen for the first time by everyone else in the family at that time (atleast this family's tradition). It was really pretty. There were candles all on it, lit up, and some ornaments and such.

But before we opened up gifts, there was still a lot to do. We sang a bunch of traditional Christmas songs with recorder and accordion. Of course, all in German. Then we took a 'family' photo, and then, after like, 5 photos, we opened up gifts, ate chocolate, and thanked everyone for what they gave us.

Dinner was quite amazing too. Everything was home cooked. We had this soup (rindsuppe) with some egg/meat things in it for an appetizer, homemade turkey schitzel for the main course (SO DELICIOUS!!!) with salad, and then an assortment of homemade cookies for dessert. All served with wine or whatever drink you wanted.

Then we walked to church and went to a Catholic Mass, which was really awesome too.

That, my friends, was basically Christmas.

NEW YEARS

New Years was really cool. We started off the night celebrating at my place: drinking, eating, and being merry. As we were leaving, we kindof got into a tiff with each other, and the mood drastically changed. But, we went to Rathausplatz (right in front of the city hall) and watched a short concert before new years. It was there we counted down to the new year, drank champagne, and waltzed in the new year. They traditionally play the Wiener Waltz as the first song of the new year. There were homemade fireworks going off everywhere, and it was so pretty.

We all apologized and hugged for the fight we had earlier, and then left to go get some food at Happy Noodles! From there, we went home.

The end.