DAY FOUR:

It was my last moment in my first hotel, and it was a sad moment indeed. It had one of my favorite hotel rooms, though not the best. Not to say the hotels were bad, though. P2P provided almost all good hotels...almost.

I showered, and having near-control of the shower head, I managed to get "cleanish" without spraying water all over the bathroom floor. (Instead of a shower curtain, it had a minuscule glass door) Never underestimate the power of a shower curtain, my friends.

 I stayed behind for room checks while my roommate tugged our suitcases. That's generally how it works. In room checks, our delegation leaders check for broken beds, lamps, trash, dead bodies, etc. Almost all of our hotels didn't have anything wrong with them...almost.
Anyway, our room was clear, so I was free to eat food!

I had bread and ham!

Then we got on our bus!

We departed for Belgium. We probably stayed in Belgium for about 36 hours, so it was my shortest country stay, but I liked what I saw. On our two hour journey, while still in Holland, we saw windmills! That  got me excited, cause, you know, Holland and windmills is like peanut butter and garlic. They just go together.

The majestic windmill in its natural habitat.

Belgium was a 2-hour trip from Holland. When we arrived at a Belgish (no, I'm not saying Belgian) rest stop, everyone magically spoke French and Dutch, so now I had a better idea of what people were saying, since I take French.  I felt pressure to buy something, so I bought a Twix bar. It was the only snack I bought. Same with drinks. I recycled water bottles I got at my lunch by refilling them, so I didn't have to BUY water, no sir. I'm too cheap for that! 

We arrived in Brussels soon after that. I probably won't remember a lot of this day, because my camera ran out of battery by noon, and I didn't write much in my journal at night, but this was one of my favorite days. Brussels is kind of like an American city...maybe Indianapolis? Either way, it's a pretty blend of new and old, and I only wish I had more pictures to share.

The center of town! Surprisingly traffic-free!

First, we had a small tour of Brussels. It's quite a lovely city. We stopped by a shopping district which is like one giant, beautiful alley-way. We were walking, and then a giant hall opened to our left. It was awesome!

Isn't it pretty? We ate on the second level, right about in the middle.

We had lunch in a cool little place. It was a cozy, two story restaurant.

Our table.

Turkey with sweet gravy, boiled potatoes and asparagus, and bread.

Creme brulee -- yum!

We went to Grand Palace next! It's considered one of the most beautiful plazas in the world, and I completely agree. It's beautiful! I wish I managed to get more that one picture, but my battery died after I took it.

Entering Grand Palace. It gets prettier past the turn, I'm afraid.

We had some free time to go shopping, so we did. Two guys from the North Dakota delegation were really sneaky. They took an empty can, placed it near a bench, and then proceeded to lay on said bench. They got 10 euros in ten minutes by looking like homeless boys...or something. Maybe in Brussels if you see a can, you throw money in it. I bought a few things at the market place, and I found something  I really liked for my friend. I didn't get it at first, so I walked back to Grand Palace, and upon realizing that I really wanted to buy it, grabbed a friend and ran back. It was a lot of fun. My best shopping experience. I got WiFi sitting on the steps of a building, so I tried to chat with the people back home. No one was online... *tear*

Next we had the chocolate factory! It was full of chocolate and yummies of all shapes and sizes. We saw a chocolate chess board, chocolate shoes, chocolate letters, the works. Belgish (yup, still Belgish) We had a cool presentation about chocolate making. When the lady asked for volunteers, my hand shot up like a bullet. So I poured chocolate in a mold, shook it to get rid of bubbles, and put it aside. My shaking wasn't up to the lady's standards, so made me do it over.

I bought a few things afterward, but not much because Belgian (fine) is so expensive. It is, for the record, very good, though, so if you ever want some good chocolate, call Planet Chocolate!

We went to our hotel after that. I do not remember what my room looked like -- oh, yeah, I do. It was a pretty good room, small as it was. It had a shower with a curtain, so I can't complain! And beds are the best thing ever invented for human kind after a 16 our day on your feet.

And so that was day four! It was a lot of fun because at the point, everyone was making friends with each other. I liked the things I bought, and the city is beautiful. Until next time!

Day Three

I'm baaaaack! I might have lied about updating yesterday, so yes, my word is technically useless by this point, but hey, I was studying for my learner's permit...*grins*

DAY THREE, AMSTERDAM:

I was fully asleep when the hotel room phone rang and jolted me awake. I was thankful for it, actually. I was having a terrible dream about checking in my luggage at the airport. There was a lady with a really big black hat in my dream, and she told me that my luggage was too evil to pass through the force-field of good, past which was where all the luggage was kept. And then all my delegates were all like, "Boo you, Esther! Boo!" Anywaaaay....

Breakfast! It was in a dining hall and was a large, white table laden with food -- mostly bread. Europe likes bread, I really must say. So I had a bowl of unsweetened cornflakes (the only cornflakes Europe has, because Europe is also health conscious) and ham. I LOVE ham!

Shortly after this, we got on our bus for our tour of Anne Frank's house. I was really looking forward to visiting Anne Frank's Huis, because there is so much history rooted in such a small building. I used to read a book about Anne Frank's life when I was young over and over again, so I had sentimental memories attached to it as well.

We stopped in front of an Anne Frank statue to regroup.

Anne's house is right around the corner.

And then we took a thirty second walk to the real-deal.

Ain't she a beaut?

I've seen pictures, but the house is definitely smaller in person. There was already a massive line building up in front of the museum, and it wasn't even open yet! But being an all powerful people to people person (P2PP) we got to bypass the line and head straight in. Myahahah.... Before we did that though, we all paused to take pictures.

Me and a friend on the front steps of Anne Frank's house.

And then in we go! We had a short presentation on the history of the place, which was interesting to say the least. Past this point we weren't allowed to take pictures, so I took pictures of the ... pictures on the wall. I have a tendency to take pictures of pictures, a habit that you will be familiar with by the end of this blog.

Diagram of the main house and annex.

Time line. The picture above 1941 really had an affect on me: I loved the wistfulness of it.

Next we had our tour. Wow. Everyone was still tired from jet-lag, including me, but you just had to wake yourself up for something like that. I wrote something in my journal that kind of sums it up:

I knew of Anne Frank because I had read of her, but as I walked through that house I felt as if I actually knew her. It was great, and it was depressing. . . When I looked in her room and saw all those pictures glued to the walls, (Note: all cut and pasted by her from books and magazines) I realized that she was real. She had to go through all of it.

 I learned a lot about how she lived, and it was a very small space to live in, yet she made in bearable. I have yet to read her actual diary, which is kind of shocking because I have wanted to read it for so long.

We saw the toilet, which is an odd thing to say, but I thought it was interesting because they could only flush it when the building below was closed, which was very late at night. They also had to be dead-quiet, no sounds or anything to give their position away. I couldn't imagine living like that, especially for so long like Anne and her family did. A life like that should be the stuff of fiction, but it isn't.

After our tour, we exited through the . . . Okay, I'll give you a chance to guess. . .

We exited through the gift shop! Shocker! It was actually really neat. They had Diary of a Young Girl in every major language, and lots of post cards. I grabbed a couple of the latter, but when I got home I realized they had been smushed. A shame, since they were some of my favorites. A friend of mine grabbed a muffin, and shortly after declared that it was the best muffin he had ever had. I never throughout the trip bought food, which is a good thing because my money ran out at the end. Instead, I feasted off the snacks of richer, junk-food-loving delegates like a vulture. Good plan, right? P2PP TIP: Spending-money is important. You get three square meals a day, but sometimes breakfast won't be enough for people with big appetites.

We had lunch next! We had to do something new where we had to pick someone we had never talked with before, and talk to that person throughout lunch. I got a tall guy named Tre, who had a one thousand dollar camera.

Word.

We got to choose our meal. I chose the giant bowl of Ramen.

I think that green stuff is grass.

My ramen tasted like grass. I think the green things were chives, but they tasted like grass. I filled up fast though, since the bowl was the size of my head. The chicken was good.

Tre messing with my camera.

Next up, canal tour! The canal tour was a lovely chance for all the delegates to unwind, or in some cases, fall asleep immediately.

"Lullaby, and good night...oh, they are already asleep."

I got some good pictures of Amsterdam.

A boat!

A boat house!

Anne Frank's house.

The world's largest floating Chinese restaurant..and possibly the only floating Chinese restaurant.

Next up, diamond factory! I have to say that I don't really care for diamonds. They are basically just very shiny rocks, and I would actually rather someone buy me a PS3. But after the tour, I was enlightened a little bit. A lot of hard work and talent goes into making the perfect diamond, so I respect those shiny rocks a bit more. I have tons of pictures, but I will only show a few because my internet has a horrible upload speed.

After learning a few things, we went upstairs where our guide locked us in a room so he could show us the pretties. We were all still tired, so when we weren't going crazy over the shiny beauties, he declared that we must be very bored. I was actually quite interested, but like I said, but I didn't go bombastic.

Our guide pointing out the various carat sizes.

My favorite necklace. I liked the ruby.

Here I learned that the price of a diamond is not determined by its size, but rather it's clarity and color. Interesting, huh? That's why the black diamond isn't valuable.

After our tour, we went back to our hotel. Yay! I had a very nice day that day, and learned a lot. Amsterdam is one of the most interesting cities I visited. Just don't visit the gift shops, unless you want to buy something X-rated, ha.

I'm off to bed!

Esther

I'm Home!

Well lookie here! I'm home at last! Well, I've been here for several days, actually, in somewhat of an exhausted stupor, but I am back to tell you that I am happy and ready to show you my trip.

Huzzah!

I had a wonderful time while I was away. I had so many new experiences, and made so many friends. My delegation traveled alongside another from North Dakota, which as a whole formed a group of 41 students. By the end we were all like a family...singing repetitive, yet catchy songs on bus rides, eating each others food, assigning familial roles, etc! (Well, it was mostly me eating other people's food, I have to admit...) 

I did so much, and I have so much to say, that to tell you everything about my trip in detail would take a very, very, long time. Quite honestly, I'm not sure how to tell you all the details! I might have make several posts, each including an enthralling narrative and sprinkles of pictures. Or, I could do it all in one fell burst. We'll see. I'm doing this as I go.

Soooo....

Let's jump right into this!

DAY ONE:

I slept surprisingly well for a girl who's experience of a life time was to start the next day. It's a good thing, too, since I was going to be up for the next forty-eight hours. My flight was at noon, and I was supposed to be there at the airport two hours early. Since we had to do a few things before the flight, I woke up at seven. We had Subway for breakfast, and it would be the last of the fastfood I would have for seventeen days...yeah. Sad moment. Fried food is good food.

So good. . .

*snivel*

Anyway, I wouldn't mourn deep-fried goodness until late in the trip. Should I really be morning the loss of heart disease, anyway? We arrived at Indianapolis Airport a little later. I am pretty sure that JFK Airport in New York is bigger, but Indianapolis Airport seemed bigger to me. It's massive and shiny! We met with the rest of our delegation. Passports were handed out, bags were tagged and put on the conveyer belt, and we gathered in the shopping cul-de-sac until preparations were ready. We had a lot of down time, my mom, my sister, and I, so we bought a frappe from McDonald's and chilled.

The airport dining area.

We gathered together again after that. We each have a delegation number so we could keep track of ourselves. We started with twenty-five, since the other delegation from North Dakota had numbers one through twenty-five. We have count offs, where each delegate counts off his or her number in succession. I thought I would mention this now, since count offs happen a lot during the trip, and there are some funny stories with them! I'm number thirty six, and luckily I never missed saying my number unless I fell into a session of deep thought. That, like, totally happened like, twice.

I do not have much pictures of my airport experience, but I won't forget it. Soon we were all ready to go, and it was time say good bye to our family. I was emotional about it, but I didn't shed any tears, thank goodness. I think crying would have made saying good bye harder to do.

Off we go! We had to wait for our flight.

The dramatic silhouette of two girls waiting for our plane.

 But then we boarded. The plane from Indianapolis to New York was a small, 32-seater with a cabin that lingered with the smell of stale sweat. It was clean, though, and I had a good seat mate. Have I ever told you that I had never flown before? I wasn't very scared because I have the up most confidence in today's technology, but I was wary of the whole cabin pressure thing. I have sensitive ears, and a friend told me that chewing gum helps with the ear-popping, so I was chewing my gum vigorously to say the least. The plane took off, which I must say is my favorite part. I was giggling like mad with glee. But I don't fly very well. It isn't the fear of heights, and I don't think it's motion sickness because I don't look out the window, but I suddenly got very ill halfway through the 2 hour journey. The girl next to me took good care of me by distracting me with a game of cards. It helped a lot.

We landed, and I was alive! After my feet were on the ground I was as right as rain.

My fellow delegates are fine too; THEY didn't get sick at all.

We checked in and did all of that wonderfully entertaining airport stuff before we had a 3 hour dead-time. We all got something to eat, because we wanted as little of airplane food as possible.

P-I-Z-Z-A is G-O-O-D

I won't get into the details of the airport. We hopped on our plane and this time it was a massive thing. Three rows of seating in the middle, and two rows on the sides. It was a fat bird of a plane, and the one I had ridden before it was just its scrawny offspring. I got a window seat, ha ha, which mean I had a wall to lean against when I wanted to sleep. The flight had free movies, and an excellent selection. A friend of mine, Josh, went simply ecstatic when he learned that he could watch Harry Potter, which is is favorite movie series ever.

Three and a half hours of happiness within one small remote.

Me? All I wanted to do was sleep, but you know what, that wasn't going to happen! During the 8 hour flight, I didn't sleep for more than thirty minutes. I have no clue why. About four hours in, we had airplane food. Not much to say about it except that

The Legends Are True

And so, Day One quite literally melted into Day Two, whilst I flew on Momma Bird across the ocean.

DAY TWO

Tired yet? I was. I stayed awake enough to watch the sun set, then rise again only a few hours later. It was weird, but in a really cool way! Kind of like riding in a time machine with glass windows and scrawny metal bird offspring. Yup, just like that.

We landed in Amsterdam! Yay yay yay! Oh, the ability to move blessed limbs, how I missed thou. I bounded off the plane with my group, raced to baggage claim, where we...claimed our bags. My bag is a wonderful standout color of black, and I had no trouble spotting it among the other, much less black suitcases. More bounding to our meeting place. We had an hour of dead-time to wait for our North Dakota delegation to land and join us, so we set off and had a party, baby.

WOO! WE'RE OFF TO THE PHARMACY!

Woo! A sign in Dutch!

It's a giant clog on a giant pedestal! 

It's a thousand mini clogs with various, non-cloggy uses!

      Mid party, we decided to get something to eat. Well, my friends did. I was still full from my Food of Legend dinner. We stopped at the largest Burger King in all of Holland! Not a hard thing to achieve, but hey.

Duh duh duh!

The guy in management got really ticked shortly after we took the photo. He waved his arms about maniacally, pointing at us and jabbering various phrases in Dutch. Apparently, it is so not cool to take pictures of fast food restaurants, and you shouldn't do it, ever. While I was waiting for my friends to order, I was approached my a security guard. He was burly, and I was afraid I had done something wrong until he said,

"Don't worry, you haven't done anything wrong" and we had a nice pleasant chat. Interacting with the locals already, yeah!

We went back to wait for North Dakota. We waited by the window looking into the baggage claim, in order to spook them out, but they must have had a different baggage claim because they snuck out behind us! North Dakota had a lot more students to our eighteen, and I was a little shocked when our group suddenly grew to forty-one strong. Wow! A full bus from hereon out, huh? Speaking of buses. . .

Our first bus! The girl holding the microphone is our delegation manager, and I think she was only 20 at this point, but she was really mature and cool! She's English, too, which makes it even better. She was going to manage our activities from this point onward. Our first activity was the cheese farm.

We met the family early on, and they were really kind. The cheese farm was a quaint, homey place, and I liked it a lot. We went to a giant barn that was filled with structures of hay, set up like a play ground.

We swung around on a giant rope. I gave it a whirl, and had a blast. When I tried to get down, my foot got tangled in the foot-hold, and I got stuck. But, thanks to my amazing dexterity and flexibility, I put one foot on the ground while my other leg was vertical to my head, and this was where I untied myself. Good fun, good fun!

Our delegation!

Next, we learned how to make clogs. The man teaching us was really funny, and he made the clogs like he had made them hundreds of times. Judging by the basket of clogs behind him, I think he has, ha.

I made a clog from a log and it made me kind of groggy/ don't let your clogs get too wet or they will get so soggy

We also walked the cow fields. We all hopped into a wagon pulled by a tractor and set off for those moo-velous cows...until our tractor ran out of gas. Then we trekked it on foot, which was awesome. I barely stepped in any cow pies, which is a feat to behold because there were a lot of cows. Speaking of cows...

My wonderful, intelligent, grinning cow.

You may have seen this cow once, before, but even if you have, tough luck. I am showing this cow again. I simply adore this cow. I loved him so much I adopted him. Yup. He reminded me of my guinea pig back home. I think cows and guinea pigs are closer than chimpanzees are to humans. Just an observation.

Next, we learned how to make CHEESE. Sweet, delicious cheese. I love cheese almost as much as I love cows, so this was interesting. Of course, there was a slight problem with me trying not to fall asleep as I listened to the nice cheese lady tell us about how cheese is made. It wasn't that she was uninteresting, it's just that I was really tired.

Look at our smiling, completely exhausted faces.

We got to try a lot of cheese. Peppercorn cheese, garlic cheese, smoked cheese. It was all there. At dinner we got to try stroopwaffles, which are delicious. They are caramel squished between two paper thin waffles. Yum yum.

After dinner, we boarded our bus for our next destination. The two little girls who lived on the farm greeted us by riding next to our bus, riding donkeys. One lucky boy got the opportunity to ride one.

Weeeeeee!

And we were off for a brief orientation of Amsterdam! We visited Dam Square and a few other cool places. I don't remember the exact details of the tour, since I had by that point turned into a zombie, but I have PICTURES!

View of Amsterdam streets from our bus.

Some, as soon as they hit the bus seats, found themselves rendered unconscious.

One of my favorite pictures. Taken from a bridge.

Okay, not a lot of pictures, but there are more to come, trust me! What I didn't fail to take a picture of was my very first hotel room in Europe. It was probably the largest hotel room I had all of my journey, actually. It was very nice.

It's...a bed!

It's...a toilet...

Pleasant view.

Relaxation at last! And what a full 48 hours of consciousness! It was a really good day, and even though I was sleepy, I enjoyed every moment of it! I wrote in my journal, which is something we have to do every day, and fell asleep.

More days to come tomorrow!

Esther

On a boat on my way to Ireland

This is a really, really, big boat. I'm sitting in the restaurant on about the fourth level, right next to the window, and I am getting a little bit dizzy, but it's nice here. I'm sitting with a delegation from Georgia; not much conversation, but I suppose I need to blog right now anyway.

There is so much to cover, I don't even know where to start, seriously. I have done so much in the past few days that they are actually blurring a little. I'm glad I have my journal, so I can remember most of my trip. I am so behind in telling you about everything, I am thinking that maybe I'll tell you about this morning, okay? I'll probably get to more details after my trip, which sounds terrible, but it's the best I can do.

So, I went rappeling down a castle wall today as a part of the Full On section of my trip. (!!!) It was amazing! First, let me tell you a little bit about Full On. It's a program based in New Zealand that focusses on helping young people with leaderships skills and confidence. I really learned a lot about focussing my energy on the important things, and not on the unimportant, pessimistic things. I am going to do my best to concentrate on a more proactive outlook from now on, because it really felt great looking at life in a different perspective. We did workshops yesterday, and we rappelled today. Yesterday was great. We broke boards with our bare hands. I was afraid that I wouldn't get it, but I broke the board on my first try, HA HA! It felt great! We get to keep them. I had my friends sign them and now I kind of have a yearbook of sorts, except it is a wooden board and it's broken in half straight down the middle. (I have good percision, no?)  I don't have any pictures of that, but I have some for the next day. My friend took a video of me flying down the castle wall, but it isn't interesting because I am not actually flying...I am creeping. Like a little bug. But I did it, still!

I wish I could upload pictures, but the internet is too slow! I promise that I will as soon as I can. There isn't much trip left: like only four days, and one of them is dedicated to travel. I can assure you that there will be a lot of uploading when I get back.

So, about rappelling today. I started with confidence. I was all like, "I can do this, I can do this!" We arrived at the castle, and it was really pretty there. I saw the tower that we were about to go down, and it was tall. Still, I was like, "I can do this!" We strapped ourselves in our harnesses and helmets, and separated into two different groups. My group was first. We climbed the winding stairs of the castle tower, which was dizzying. We lined up behind a ladder leading to the top of the tower, and prepared for our descent. Up until I got to the top I was perfectly confident. But when they hooked me up, put me on a metal platform, and told me to lean back I got scared, to be honest. We were really high up, and there was nothing beneath me at all. My hands were shaking as I gripped the rope, but the guy who was helping me was really nice, and he helped me a lot. I leaned back and got rid of the slack, and now I was hovering over the ledge with only a rope stopping me from falling.

I stepped off.

AAAAAAAAAAH!

I'm just joking. It wasn't that bad. As soon as I stepped off and planted my foot on the wall I felt a lot better. The hardest part is taking the first step, putting all of your faith into what you are doing and going for it. It's kind of metaphorical, isn't it? I feel like I learned a lot from that moment. I went really slow down the castle, but everyone cheered for me anyway. By the time I got down, I was feeling great. A little woozy, but great. Like I said, I wish I could post pictures, but all you have is words for now.

I splurged and bought a sweatshirt for myself, and a photo pack of my adventure. It was a little expensive, but I'm glad I have momentos for something as awesome as this.

I'm on the ferry to Ireland now. I can't believe I am already to the last country in my journey! It has gone so fast, hasn't it? I should get off now, for I am getting seasick. I'm doing great, everyone!

Esther

At UKSA

I am at the United Kingdom Sailing Academy, and having a blast. It's soo much fun here! We built rafts today, and it was great. We split into four diffenent teams, and we each had to build rafts using wood, surf boards, rope, and barrels. Then we had a relay race with our teams, which each split in half so we could relay, of course. It was lots of fun. We did a lot of other challenges, too. About five. My team was in last place, and we had to belly flop into the cold, cold, ocean water. It was amazing, ha! We also had a challengfe for the best team cheer, and we didn't have one so I totally winged it and had the others follow my lead. It actually worked out. Kind of. I sang slightly off key. Our teacher gave us a 7 out of 10 for our cheer. Not bad for something made on the spot. We are going to have dinner soon, so yes, I probably have to go. I thought I would share some pics with you though! Starting with Amsterdam, and I will see how far I get.

Me and some gals at the Amsterdam airport. We browsed the shops for a while, but I didn't actually get anything.

Our two delegations in the hay barn of the cheese factory we visited. My tiny head is visible in the background! It was so much fun there.

My cow. I adopted him from the cheese farm, I swear. His name is Minos. He winked at me.

Nice Dutch man making clogs. It was really interesting to watch.

The streets of Amsterdam.

A view of a house from a bridge. Amsterdam is full of bridges and canals.

Me and a friend in front of Anne Frank's home.

My pigeon. I adopted him in front of Anne Frank's house. His name is Walter. He glared at me.

Me, friends, and an Amsterdam park bench. (Look, mom, pictures of me!)

A view of a house from Amsterdam's canals.

A windmill! It really is Holland!

One of the few pics I got of Brussels.

Getting ready to eat some food, baby.

Grande Palace entrance, I believe.

Okay, out of time. I hope to post more soon!

Esther