2 Fraine's and a Connearney in Frankfurt

What up world, it's me again. I have been seriously lacking at blogging and failing to fulfill promises of new blogs to you people. And you have all been so kind as to remind me quite often. I am sorry. I am still trying to play catch up with life but I think I have almost done that. Look at me being behind at the blog as a sign that I am out living!

So we are still playing catch up here, and we are on to one of the most exciting parts of my time here. The day that LEAH stepped foot back onto European soil! That is right folks, my sister got some big kid, fancy job and decided to buy a plane ticket to see me! And within days of her booking a ticket, our cousin Jessica, who is studying in Finland, decided to book one to see us for a weekend! That is right, three Fraine kids decided to hang out in Frankfurt for a weekend. Germany is still trying to figure out what hit it! So after leaving Bruges I hopped on a bus and got to Frankfurt. I got to the hostel and as I was trying to get my bag into a locker for the day I heard Leah and Jess coming down the stairs! It was a very exciting moment, as you can imagine!

Leah, Jess, and I had a fantastic weekend together. We arrived Thursday and stayed until early Monday morning. The weekend was full of crazy stories, crazy adventures, and crazy people. We met more people than I can really count. There was our roommate Doug, these peace corps guys that had just been evacuated for Guinea, some crazy people that worked at our hostel, some people that actually LIVED at our hostel, and then the random people we met going out. We toured around Frankfurt on Friday which was nice. It was fun for us all to get to experience a new city together. Saturday was Halloween and we went to a small town nearby called Heidelburg. They have a nice castle grounds and the world's largest keg! Standing at over 220,000 liters (or over 55,000 gallons) it was pretty massive! We went out for Halloween and had fun. We also met up with our "German Cousin" Johanna who lives in nearby Wiesbaden. Sadly, this was the first Halloween I can remember that I did not dress up. It was a little strange and didn't quite feel like Halloween, but it was a fun night regardless. And we even sang some karaoke! Sunday the country of Germany essentially shuts down! But we took a train out to Mainz where we thought we could find a few things to see and do. We were mistake and we instead wandered around a little bit. We got back to Frankfurt and had one last dinner together. Then we went to bed early so that we could get up early and catch our buses and planes home. It was awesome to get to spend a weekend with Jess. Leah and I hopped on a bus and she came back to Prague with me!

Mid Term Break!

Hello world. It's Anna. Do you remember me? I know it has been quite a long time...
Sorry for the lack of posting. The past month has kept me so busy it is crazy. So get ready for a series of mega posts to inform you all (or whoever still cares) about my adventures. We are going to break these up into probably 4 seperate posts so none of us are sitting here staring at a computer screen wanting to stab our eyes out.

Round One: Mid Term Break
First off let me say that midterm break is a genius idea. Whoever thought it was a good idea to give you a week off in the middle of term is just amazing. WOU should introduce one of those. So being in Europe and without classes for a week just screams opportunity to travel to somewhere. And somewhere that deserves more than just a weekend. So where did I go? I went to 3 countries (4 if you count the Czech) and 9 cities (10 if you count Prague) in that week! Ok, now some of those cities probably shouldn't really count since it was just an airport and then got on a bus to another place, but still- that is some serious travel right there.

AMSTERDAM: The Land of Legal Marijuana
Friday afternoon Katie and I got on a plane and flew to Eindhoven where we then got on a train and went to Amsterdam! I really liked Amsterdam. I already want to go back. I wanted to go back about two hours after we left. It was just so pretty! It was full of canals and boats and bikes and alot of character. Here are the highlights from that leg of our journey...
-Hot waffles with hot chocolate poured over them are amazing.
-The Anne Frank House and The Van Gogh Museum are both very amazing.
This is the actual annex that Anne Frank and her family hid out in during WWII. It was very cool to see it. Anne's father, Otto Frank, was the only one of the family to survive and after the war he agreed to work towards turning the annex into a museum for people to see but said he didn't want any of it to be furnished again. So what we saw was how it was left after the family had been taken and after most of the annex was cleared out. So it was really like a few empty rooms but the pictures and magazine clippings that Anne had glued to her walls were still there and parts of the kitchen were still there. It was very interesting. We also saw her original diary as well as some of the added pages she had written. After the Anne Frank House we went to the Van Gogh Museum. This is the largest collection of Van Gogh's work in one place. The museum houses over 200 paintings as well as many letters he wrote to family and friends. It was very cool. There was so much to look at! If you ever make it out to Amsterdam these are two things that are definately worth seeing.
-There are bikes EVERYWHERE in Amsterdam. It was crazy and I thought I might get hit by one!
-We slept homeless the second night. That was an experience. Don't worry mom- We were perfectly safe the whole time!
-Wooden shoes are seen around every corner and you can find them in every color with every kind of design! I was slightly obsessed with them.

After two nights in Amsterdam we got on a bus and rode down to...

BRUSSELS: The Capitol of Europe
Brussels was a nice city. We arrived Sunday morning and immediately found our hostel. Then we went to wander the city.
-The best gelato in all of Europe that I have tasted thus far was in Brussels. I don't know that it has been mentioned but I am on a mission. To get gelato in every city I go to. Krakow was holding the top rank with their disaronno and their tiramisu. Amsterdam had some really good homemade chocolate. But Brussels had an amazing butter pecan and some kind of amazing vanilla with chocolate swirls and chocolate cookie, crispy, gooey, goodness. So if you go to Brussels, go the the Austrailian Home Made Ice Cream shop and get the one I just described. You won't regret it.
-Belgian waffles are AMAZING! The ones that have the sugar baked into them are like a little piece of heaven! Gooey, sweet, goodness is what they are...
-The Mannekin Pis is a cute little statue that is very tiny but attracts alot of attention. I completely forgot about wooden shoes and got hooked on that little guy in Brussels!

We only stayed one night in Brussels. We got up on Monday and went to the train station to figure out our best option as to where to go next. We decided to buy something called a "Go Pass" that allows you to make 10 train trips within Belgium and you can share it with as many people as you want. So we split one and hopped on a train to...

BRUGES: The City of Romance
Bruges, the place for lovers and the place the Collin Farrel movie "In Bruges" was filmed. I've never actually seen this movie and I had never heard of it before going to this town, but Katie had heard of it. Bruges is a tiny town that was very cute. It was easy to walk around and we saw all of the town in about a day.
-We met some Austrailians the first night that were travelling and we had a good time hanging out with them.
-I had a 57 year old man by the name of Stefan approach me the first night. He said, "You have beautiful eyes." Then it became, "You have a beautiful heart," which quickly became, "You have a beautiful personality and I just don't want to see you give it away to just anyone." Yah. That was really said. He also told me that he had been waiting 30 minutes to come tell me that he thought I was beautiful. That's right folks, 57 year old (older than my father) was sitting a few tables away watching me for 3o minutes! Not creepy at all!
-There is a chocolate shop on every corner in Bruges.
-With our "Go Pass" we also went to Antwerp and Ghent which were pretty neat cities as well.
-Katie and I were going to stay up all night so that I could catch a train at 4am to get to a bus to Frankfurt but we didn't want to spend money drinking all night. When the bartender at our hostel saw us sitting in a corner he came and gave us a free beer. Then when he got sick of listening to the drunken locals he begged us to come sit at the bar. He kept giving us free beer all night. That is my favorite kind of drink. Eventually I missed my train so we just went to sleep but I was able to stay up all night the next night and actually made my train and made it to Frankfurt!

Frankfurt is where I met up with Leah and Jessica! But That will have to be saved for another blog post. It was a pretty epic weekend.

There are no pictures to show of Amsterdam/Belgium because I didn't have a camera with me. But Katie did take alot of pictures which I do plan on stealing from her. I will post some once I do!