Emma Joan

Hey Dolls,

 I know it has been almost a month since I last posted (Shameful I know). I have no excuses as to why I haven’t been keeping up with writing except for the fact that I just haven’t been in the mood for it. Pure laziness. However I am back with the next instalment of my travel segment. So picking up from where I left off, we were in Amsterdam and from there we moved on to Berlin. I was beyond excited to go to Berlin because of all its history, and the city really didn’t disappoint with that.

The first day in Berlin we went on the free walking tour around the city. I definitely would recommend doing this if you’re in Berlin and want to see most of the sights in one day. Our tour guide was really informative about the history of the city and was just good fun. You get to see the likes of the Brandenburg gate, memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe (which is the area with all the different sized grey blocks in case you’re wondering) and Hitler’s Bunker well where the bunker was its now just a car park and loads of other cool areas around the city.

Museum Island was another place we visited, it used to be where the royal family used to live but now it is just filled with a bunch of different museums, hence the name. I must say they really out did themselves with the museum buildings. Each building was made to resemble the type of museum it was, which was really cool. We decided to go to the Dutchland museum which as you can probably tell is all about German history. It was only 4 euro entry for students and if you had the patience for it you could literally spend all day in there the place was huge! Following on from then went to see the Berlin wall, now we didn’t get over to the east side gallery unfortunately, we went to a different part that was beside another museum/exhibition centre that was all about the Nazi regime (can’t remember the name of the place)

Berlin Nightlife on the other hand was an interesting experience. The first night we went out to probably the most Hipster area I’ve ever been in. If my memory serves me correctly we were in the Prenzlauer Berg area. This place had the coolest bars ever, it had such a chilled vibe. However, be warned if you are going out to nightclubs and all that jazz in Berlin, try and do so in an orderly manner as they have a serious issue with people being too loud.  We experienced this first hand. Also my recommendation would be to try have a few words in German. What happened to us was we were with a group of German speakers and apparently we were being too loud but those in the group who spoke German weren’t and they were let in and we weren’t. So you can imagine how that looked to us. This may not be the case with all nightclubs but that was just our experience so just be on the ball and try not to be too drunk and disorderly around the streets of Berlin.

Overall though Berlin was one of my favourite places I have been and I defiantly want to take a trip back there soon. 

Emma x.

Hey Dolls,

So the next stop on our trip was Amsterdam. The train from Brussels went fine it only takes like 2 hours to get there so it was grand. The hostel was actually a boat called the Christina. It was way over priced though for what it was! But then again Amsterdam is super expensive, so I suppose it was reasonable enough for there.

What we done:

A definite must for Amsterdam is to rent out bikes and cycle around the city, the city itself is really big and you cover more ground by cycling rather than walking. Plus it is what everyone does over there. There is even separate roads for cyclists, not many people drive over there. We rented bikes from star bikes near the central station, the only cost 7 euro for the day which was unreal, most places are around 7-10 euro anyways. We ended up cycling around the city to Museumplein which is where all the museums are, including the Van Gough Museum. And it is also where the IAMSTERDAM sign is! We went to the Stedelijk museum which was all about contemporary art. I would defiantly recommend checking out this museum if you’re interested in contemporary art. It was really inexpensive to only 8 euro for a student and I think it was 12 for an adult.

We were only in Amsterdam for a day and a half because of how the train times worked out so we did not make it to Anne Frank’s house. However I would recommend booking it a day or two in advance before you go because of the queue.

Nightlife:

We stayed just on the docks outside the red light district which is possibly the tackiest place I’ve ever been (& that is during the day). However at night it is shocking. I’m not going to get into it too much. But the way the girls were in glass windows and people were just passing them by staring reminded me somewhat of a zoo! It literally was degrading for the women to be stared at behind these glass windows! That part of Amsterdam I was not at all impressed by. It really is something you must see though if you go it is crazy to think that kinda shit is legal.

As for the actual night life, it is for stag dos really. The ratio of men to women at night is probably 10:1 (excluding the ladies of the night of course)  There are some really good pubs there though, and of course if you want to try something different to drinking there is always the coffee shops which the city has no shortage off. There is a more chilled out vibe in them than the pubs which can be a nice change, especially when the city is filled with lads on holiday. We all know they can get a little cray!  

That’s about it for our Amsterdam adventure. Berlin will be coming up shortly.

                                                                Emma x.