Day Seventy-Three

This morning we went to the Anne Frank House. We had to wait for almost an hour to get in, but luckily there was some nice sunshine to keep me at least somewhat warm. I wasn't able to take pictures inside the actual house. The house was different than I expected. I thought there would be furniture inside of it to give you a feel for how they lived while they were hiding, but I guess that would have gotten in the way of the walking path for all of the visitors. They did have pictures of the rooms in a refurnished state so that you could have a bit of an idea how the rooms looked. I also got to see Anne Frank's original diary. It was on display in the house along with some of the pages where she started re-writing her diary in hopes of publishing a book after the war.

When we left the Anne Frank House we went to pick up our bags from our hostel and then we went to the train station to leave Amsterdam. It took a while to get back to Antwerp because we had to take a weird route to get back and when we got to one of our stops we had missed the train by only a couple of minutes so we had to wait an hour longer. We eventually made it though.

After dinner I tried to work on my studio project with my group, but the program I was using was running really slow and I have been having a sort of creativity block lately. I did eventually manage to think of a couple things to add to the design, but we still have a lot of work to do in a little over a week.

Day Seventy-Two

This met with our professor near the Anne Frank house. We didn't get to go inside yet, but we plan on going tomorrow morning. We walked around that area a little bit so that he could show us and tell us about the canal houses that are located there. We then rode the tram to a place where we got an architectural tour of a social housing project for workers in old Amsterdam factories.

We also rode the tram way out into the new areas of Amsterdam. There was a neighborhood that was completely made of floating houses. It was pretty awesome. Another part had some really interesting row houses. It felt like an area that I would lie to live in one day.

When we got back to the center of Amsterdam our professor took us through the red light district. That was a bit odd. It's really strange to walk down streets and alleys where a lot of the windows have women in very little clothing. He told us a bit about how the regulation of the red light district works.

After dinner, I went with two of my classmates to the carnival and they rode two of the rides. They seemed like the type of rides that would make me vomit so I just watched while taking photos and videos of them. Maybe some of my videos will make it into the trip video for Amsterdam.

A community center that has an exterior covered in plants

The floating houses

There are some really strange houses in Amsterdam

Day Seventy-One

I had McDonald's for breakfast this morning. European McDonald's don't really have much for breakfast options. The only things on the menu that I actually liked were muffins and apple pie. So that's the nutritious breakfast I had, plus a cappuccino that wasn't very good.

We met with our professor this Koenig to go your around the city. Rather than taking a bus or a metro train to get to different places in the city, we took ferries to get around. There is a large canal in the middle of Amsterdam that makes traveling by boat a better option than usual forms of mass transit.

We went to a new theater building that had exhibits focused on film and photography. The building was really awesome on both the outside and the inside. We walked through the exhibits for a while, but I wasn't really interested by them. A lot of the films that were being displayed were really artsy and I just don't understand films like that.

It was really windy out today, almost unbearably windy. The sun was out sun was out so it would have been a really nice day if the wind had stopped making us cold. The worst place for wind was when we were walking to a complex of student housing made out of shipping containers. The area used to be where they built ships so today it is pretty wide open.

After lunch we went to a science museum that had a ton of fun interactive exhibits. It was more for children and teens, but we still had a lot of fun. When we were done at the museum we went to the library that was nearby. It was such a massive library. We rode the escalators to the top and went out on to the rooftop patio to see a view of the city. There happened to be another Vapiano connected to the library so that's where we went for dinner.

I did some souvenir shopping with one of my classmates after dinner while the rest f our classmates went out. We also walked through the carnival that is going on just down the street from where we are staying. There was a swing ride that goes really really high up in the air. I don't think I would ever ride on something like that. I can't wait for the county fairs this summer back in America.

There was actually a bike parking ramp in Amsterdam!

The photography and film museum called "The Eye"

Inside The Eye

Student housing made from shipping crates

The Nemo science museum

One of the things in the Nemo was a kaleidoscope you stand inside of

Day Seventy

I didn't get home until after midnight last night and when I got back I went straight to bed so I am posting this blog late.

We slept in this morning and then went to the train station to go to Amsterdam. The train we were going to take ended up getting delayed for an unknown amount of time so we waited an hour for the next train that went there. We didn't get there until late afternoon and once we got there we checked into our hostel and then went for dinner. I had an awesome steak with french fries.

After dinner we met up with a girl that one of my classmates knows and is currently going to school in Europe. We went to a bar and had a couple drinks and then afterward we went to another bar and had a couple more drinks. There was a DJ t the second bar who looked really drunk and wasn't even actually DJing. He just played music from her laptop and then took a smoke break every five minutes. I had a great time just hanging out and chatting with my classmates.

Day Sixty-Nine

I worked more on studio today. I feel like I have gotten quite a bit done over the last couple days, but I am still a little worried about getting it all done for the presentation.

This afternoon I went to the fashion museum in Antwerp. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I still enjoyed it. They had a whole bunch of different fabrics on display as well as some dresses, but there was a lot less stuff that I thought there would be.

I am both excited and slightly scared for this weekend trip I am leaving for tomorrow. We are going to visit Amsterdam with our teacher. I am excited because there is supposed to be some really awesome architecture. I am nervous and scared because marijuana is legal there. Using any sort of drug is something I have chosen not to do with my life and I don't want to get into situations where I might get pressure to do it. I know for a fact that I will not give in to the pressure because I am sticking to my decision, but I hate the possibility that people may not understand that and might still try to talk me into it anyway. I also don't want to be around smoke of any sort because lately I have been getting a shortness of breath from it. I think I may be slightly asthmatic. I hope that this weekend I don't have a daily account of pressure and uncomfortableness. I think that in the end I will have a great time though.

Day Sixty-Eight

We are drawing closer and closer to the deadline for our studio project. Today I worked a lot on the design and tried to get some good ideas down for the public plazas that run the length of our site. It is really tough to find things to add though since I have never really done an urban design project before. All I can think of putting in there is trees, benches, tables, and some bike racks. I have also created some patterns with the paving, but there is so much open space left that I have no idea what to do with.

Most of what I have done today has been school work with some breaks to watch random YouTube videos mixed in. It hasn't been a very exciting day, although the ice cream man did drive by the window earlier and he even had some music playing from a speaker on top of his van. I had a good laugh at that one. One of my classmates paid me back for the couscous dinner I made last week. He made a point to pay me the one euro in only copper coins and of the copper coins he only gave me one and two euro-cent coins. So now I have a ton of coins I will probably never use. I may have to do the same thing and pay someone back with them as a joke as well.

Day Sixty-Seven

Apparently this didn't actually post last night and only got saved as a draft.... weird.

A majority of today was spent traveling. We left Berlin around ten-thirty this morning since it is quite the trek to get back to Antwerp. It had been cold and snowy all weekend in Berlin, but most of the way back it was sunny and nice. It figures that would happen on the day that we were stuck on trains for hours on end. We didn't get back to Antwerp until a little after seven.

There has been a bit of a fiasco going on with my debit card this weekend. I checked my bank account while on one of the trains today and I noticed that there were withdrawals listed that I had never made. The one that especially caught my attention was one for four hundred and forty dollars that I had apparently withdrawn today, but I had not been to an ATM since Saturday. I sent an email to my bank when I got back to Antwerp and I also notified my dad. Everything got worked out in the end. The bank agreed that there were fraudulent charges and I was told the money would be refunded. I'm glad it all worked out and I hope that this doesn't happen again. I have