Now that it's February...I'll tell you about New Years!

Hey-yo!

So let's talk about last month! I spent the first few days of the new year in Berlin with my bffl Katie chilling, exploring, cooking, and enjoying ourselves. Our friend Courtney came to visit the night before I left for Amsterdam, and we enjoyed some real Californian Mexican food courtesy of Katie's mom. Basically, it was just a few days of nothing which was welcome- I got to enjoy Berlin, as well as the company of one of my favorite people!

On the 5th, I woke up early and headed to

Amsterdam via train-about a 6 hour train ride. It ended up being really nice, it was almost empty, and I was able to sleep for a while, so the fact that I had to get up at 4 was mitigated. In Amsterdam, I met up with Haleigh, Anne, and two of Haleigh's friends from her college in the States-Harry and Chris. We were in Berlin together, but they went to Prague while I stayed with Katie, and then we just re-met up in Amsterdam.

We stayed at a hotel(!) in Amsterdam, because with all of us, it ended up being cheaper than a hostel, something we were okay with. Having a hotel was like living in the lap of luxury- we felt really classy and rich. While in Amsterdam, we went on a city tour, went to the Heineken Experience (read: brewery), the van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and walked around a lot. We took a walk to try to get to the Rijksmuseum at

one point, because riding the public transportation was something like 2.70 per one-way ride, and we thought we'd be clever and just walk. We followed the maps (well, we

thought we followed the maps) but ended up on the direct opposite part of the city than we wanted to be. After that, we decided next time we'd take a tram.

As you can see, we eventually found it, and also found the Iamsterdam sign that is in front of it.

We stopped and took a few pictures. Amsterdam is a beautiful city. I loved all the canals and row houses. I think it would be a cool city to live in.

Haleigh and I returned to Heidelberg on Sunday (Anne left on Friday because she had orchestra stuff to do) and then school started on Monday. The semester is now over: it finished on the 4th, and now there is a two month break until the next semester starts in the second week of April. In that time, I'm going to be hanging out with people coming to visit (people like some of my family!!) and then in March I'll be taking a German class.

The picture of the castle is in Heidelberg, just to be clear. My friend Krista and I took a walk one night, and probably spent 20 minutes trying to capture the beauty of the moon and the castle- I'm definitely pleased with the result!