Bicycles, wooden clogs, and a whole lot of canals

We had a surprisingly smooth journey all the way to our hostel in Amsterdam, and we were excited to reunite with Ana and our Belgian friend Gary, who we'd met in Barcelona. While Sarah and Ana rested, Gary and Renee did a self-led walking tour around Amsterdam. After dinner, we went to the bar at the hostel (I think Ana, Sarah and Renee were the only three females there) for a drink. We then met with one of Ana's friends at a close by pub. No wild shenanigans were too be had that night. 

We woke up to a glorious hostel breakfast to pump us up for our bicycle marathon that day. Gary, Renee, and Sarah rented some bikes and toured around the city.

 We need to brush up on our rules of the road on bikes, as the only thing we know how to do is ring our bells and hope we do not get run over by a car or other bikers. 

We ran into Ana later randomly on the streets and shopped around the red light district and the Dam plaza where the palace is located. After our day of cruising we are now inspired to return to Canada, spiff up our hot rod two-wheelers and tear up some pavement on our way to school (Although both of our routes to our schools are only about 200 meters away.. Gotta start somewhere. Look out Tour de France). 

We had to say goodbye to Gary unfortunately. Good luck on your exam. We will miss you very much! 

As we were meeting Ana's friend at the pub, we were approached by two pub crawl promoters. Sarah and Renee were hooked by the words, "free t-shirt." We left our stamps on each dance floor that night with our signature dance moves. Amsterdam now knows how terrible Canadians are at dancing. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the red light district at night. Our trip here was way too short. We will save that for our next adventure here. 

Now here we sit on our plane ride home, reminiscing on all the memories we have created with the friends that we have made. It feels like it was all a dream. As much as we will miss Europe, we are very excited to see our family and friends back home.

Goodbye for now, Europe. 

Hello, reality :( 

Thanks for following our blog on our European adventure. We hope we fulfilled our goal of keeping you entertained longer than your grandma's favourite game of bingo. 

Game over. 

That's all they wrote. 

Renee and Sarah

Platz and Straße and Bretzels.. Oh my!

It's been a whole week since we've last wrote. Our week in Berlin went by faster than we expected and left us with only a taste of what Germany is like.

Our first day was low key; we toured around our hostel neighbourhood and checked out the bar on the top floor of our hostel, the Wombar, for some casual drinks with our new roommate, Andy (Bet you can't guess what country he is from... Australia of course).  

We thought we'd start out our time in Berlin with a walking tour so we could get an idea of where we wanted to check out during our time here. We ran into our Australian friends that we met in Edinburgh and saw some historical landmarks including:

• Brandenburg gates

• The Berlin Wall

• Checkpoint Charlie

• The memorial for the murdered Jewish individuals in the holocaust

• Humboldt University, where Einstein and John Lennon studied

• location of Hitler's bunker

• Concert House

 • the square of the book burning memorial

• Luftwaffe headquarters

• and, much more!

We finished off our afternoon with some souvenir shopping too of course!

That evening we spent a night out on the town in Berlin.. Which may be another city that never sleeps. 

The next morning we woke up bright eyed and bushy-tailed, excited for the arrival of Renee's friend, Lily.

We took Lily on a mini tour and visited the museum located below the holocaust memorial. 

We headed to the Wombar once again, but because it had started raining we decided to stay in and chat with our friends from the hostel. 

We got up early to check out the flee market. Renee was excited to support two local buskers and purchase their cd.

Got a bit lost on our way back, which meant we got a uber cool tour of some neighbourhoods in Berlin. Next we checked out checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin wall. We were sad to say goodbye to Lily, but happy she could make it for the night. 

Potsdam was on our list of things to do, so we headed there with our friend Andy for the day. We explored the palaces and gardens. Wouldn't mind having property like this one day. 

After lunch in the adorable city centre, we headed back to Berlin. Renee went out exploring and Sarah and Andy checked out White Trash Fast Food Restaurant. 

The next day the three of us headed to Sachsenhausen, a former concentration camp, just outside the city. The weather was crazy and really set the mood for the day. As soon as we got off the train the 35 degree weather disappeared and the clouds started forming a spinning vortex. At one point on the tour it started to pour, and Renee found herself and ten other poor individuals, hugging the wall of a building to shield themselves from the wind and hail storm.

It was incredible learning experience and we highly recommend that everyone visits a concentration camp in their life. It really opens your eyes to our past history.

Renee went and explored random parks that afternoon, and found herself caught yet another rain/wind storm.

The next day we did another waking tour, Alternative Berlin, that focuses on local street art and lesser known areas of Berlin. Check this tour out of you find yourself in Berlin. 

We cruised by Victoria park for the afternoon to see a waterfall. For the four night in a row, lightening was filling the sky, so we decided not to go out again.

For our last day we walked to the Reichstag, the German parliamentary building, and meandered we through the park beside it. Renee went to the Berlin Wall documentation centre to learn more about it and saw some of the original preserved wall.

We checked out that morning because we were catching a night train to Amsterdam the next day, so we hung out in the hostel lobby for the evening. 

We spent the latter half of the evening and wee hours of the morning in a coffee shop inside the train station. We saw many interesting individuals, even woke up to one dude throwing up his hands in a surrender from trying to get near our stuff, but we caught him red handed. Get stuffed bud!

We were happy to find out our train was leaving one hour earlier (and also very thankful to find this out by chance, or else we would still be sitting in Berlin right now.. Although we wouldn't mind having a longer stay there). Off we went to Amsterdam!

Sarah and Renee 

Luck of the Irish

Needless to say we had quite the entrance to Dublin. Please refer to previous post. We headed straight for our hostel to check in and meet up with our friend from Finland, Johanna. Sarah and Johanna went to the Guinness factory, while Renee had some R&R after the traumatic flight experience.  

Sarah and Johanna arrived back at the hostel with a bottle of cheap Irish wine, in preparation for the pub crawl. We filled ourselves up with Guiness (Renee - baileys), fun Irish music, and new friends. 

We woke up in a rush for breakfast and feeling fab from the night before.  After breakfast, Renee was curious as to why multiple people kept on giving her strange looks. In that moment Sarah realized not only was her shirt inside out, but her shorts were on backwards. Question resolved. It's unfortunate when things like that happen at the start of your 5 night stay. 

We figured we would conquer the day regardless of how we were feeling. We stopped dead in our tracks as we rounded a corner and saw a sign advertising Tim Hortons. Since the start of the trip Sarah has been craving a Timmy's coffee. 

We wanted to pick up some Irish souvenirs so we stopped by one of the main Irish shops. With our purchases in hand we picked up some lunch at a local grocery store. Sarah got caught trying to steal a plastic bag, and declined when they asked for 22 cents. We opted to be eco-friendly and use our paper bags from the souvenir shop. Bad decision. As soon as we left the grocery store there was a torrential down pour. Being islanders this did not phase us. We were slipping and sliding in our flip flops, no jackets, and summer shorts, clutching our paper bags, heading back to the hostel. Sarah laughed as Renee's bag started to rip. Sarah, feeling invincible, started swinging her bag in the air proudly. This lasted all of one second. Moments later Renee looked up just in time to see the contents of Sarah's bag sore through the air, buns skeetering across the flooded sidewalk, and a wee cry of upset as she realized her postcards were lying in a puddle. Renee being the good friend that she is, was keeled over laughing, turned away from the scene (If she looked at the sad scene of Sarah and the scattered contents of her bag, she surely would wee her pants.. Not that it would have made a difference, as she was already soaked through from the rain). Renee finally gathered up the strength to pick up the soggy buns, but by that time a kind Irishman had already stopped to help the poor Canadians. He offered to carry our stuff back to where we were going, but we were so close and couldn't get any words out through our laughter, so we respectfully declined. Thank you kind Irishman, you are a real gentleman!

We arrived back to dry off and eat some food (that seems to be the only thing we do). Once dry and full, we joined Johanna for some more shopping that afternoon. We got caught in another down pour.. Who knew a place could have more rain than raincouver itself. Attempted to partake in the free movie and popcorn night, but apparently they didn't have any popcorn and the movie room was filled with people more interested in drinking. We went back to our hostel and learned that the hangout room in the basement was flooded. All signs pointed to an early night.

We woke up this morning with a pleasant surprise of a sunny day. We seized the opportunity to visit the beach town, Howth. We lucked out as it only drizzled a little bit while we were there. We could hear the thunder showers in the distance. If you have the chance to visit Dublin, take a day trip to Howth. It is an absolutely beautiful little fishing town. We met a few old Irishmen fishing in the harbor, but were not having much luck. We also met a seal we named Murray, who was probably to blame for the lack of fish being caught. We had a lovely day down by the water. To hide from the rain we stopped at Mauds cafe for a spot o' tea. Of course there was some people watching involved too!! 

Day three. We got up early and headed out on a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher and the City of Galway. It was a long day, but well worth it. The cliffs of Moher were absolutely spectacular. Our tour guide warned us of the wind, but we did not realize just how strong it was. We nearly got blown off the cliffs. We heard that Harry Potter and the half blood prince was filmed here. Another stop on Renee's impromptu Harry Potter tour of Europe. The pictures do not do the cliffs justice. The only thing that scared us away, were the rapidly approaching rain clouds. 

On our way to Galway we stopped at Burren Atlantic edge walk. Miles of granite is actually a pretty cool site. Even the country side is post card worthy.

Next, we stopped at the city of Galway for a little bit. We toured the city center and had a delicious lunch at a local cafe. We enjoyed learning about the Irish history from our tour guide along the way as well. Brushing up on the local history is always a bonus. Our tour guide told us of an Irish drinking game, which would work quite well back in the farmlands of Black Creek and Merville: every time you see a cow, you drink. On this  6 hour bus ride we would have been a wee bit intoxicated in the first ten minutes. Another very successful day in Ireland. 

Day four. We joined in on the walking tour around the city. It was interesting, and bit heartbreaking to find out that St.Patrick himself wasn't even Irish and his name wasn't even Patrick. He was Welsh and we couldn't even pronounce his real name. Universe shattered yet again (Although it will take a lot more than that to stop us from celebrating St.Patty's day in the future!).

That evening we went out to a cool Irish pub for dinner and some good live Irish music. We made friends with the singer and he played the only two Irish songs that we know, along with some Beatles. 

We were up before the sun to catch our flight to Berlin. We are really going to miss Ireland and their friendly accent!

On to another country. Only a week and a half left :(

Renee and Sarah