Puff Puff Pass...Amsterdam is painful

Oh wow. Well, hmmm. Zach and I had fun in Amsterdam. We certainly did our fair share of walking-it just seemed simpler that way. Luckily our hotel was a 10 minute walk from the train station, and 4 blocks to the Red Light District and Dam Square. We basically walked Amsterdam as south as the Flower Market, to the west side near the Anne Frank Haus, and east to the Red Light District.

Well, we did a small amount of tourist stuff and a huge amount of going to "coffee shops". The second day we went to the Anne Frank house, which was very sad--so a coffee shop visit was necessary after that. The third day we were in Amsterdam, we went on a canal tour...of which I remember very little. Must have not been that fun.

I took so many pictures in Amsterdam. It really is a beautiful a city, the best tourist attraction here is just to smoke a little bit then explore on foot. There's so many little alleyways and narrow streets waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, Amsterdam is very dirty, literally and figuratively-the streets seemed to be filled with trash after the weekend. Also, walking around in dangerous if you don't watch where you're going there's people on bicycles and motorbikes whizzing around everywhere. There was actually one point where Zach and I were accidentally walked along the bike path instead of the walking path whilst crossing a busy road-very bad idea! FYI there's 2+ car lanes, 2+ tram lanes, 2+ bike lanes to cross on foot when crossing a road--and nobody wears a helmet-there must be some spectacular wrecks there. The Dutch are fucking crazy.

The Red Light District was interesting...we didn't do much there besides visit some coffee shops as they are most plentiful there. We were going to try and go to a sex show, but we chickened out both times out of fear of nasty performers. Thankfully there was coffee shops pretty much everywhere in the city-except for the more residential area (anne frank house region). Our favorite was actually about 20 steps from our hotel. Coffee shops seem to range from VERY dive like to almost small club like atmosphere, complete with trance/techno crap music--Zach was happy.

Well we arrived in Bruges, Belgium with hurting lungs and a desire for calm.

Bratwurst Will Never Be The Same...

Well, I've officially had my fair share of sausage here. Apparently Nuremberg is one of the capitols of Bratwurst--here they are small little ~4 inch sausages served in 3,6,8,10, or 12. That's pretty much all we ate here, we had Schnitzel once though, also delicious--food porn to follow in pictures. We actually ate at the oldest Bratwurst place in town, which starting making the tasty little sausages in 1419.

Yesterday we walked all around old Nuremberg (within the old city walls) touring be ourselves. We saw a few churches, St. Lawrence being the oldest with construction starting 1250. Basically we just hung out and looked around whilst drinking at a few Biergärtens. It was pretty incredible walking around a city where medieval buildings were still intact. Oh, Zach and I also took a tour of the Nuremberg Dungeons used back then-although the tour was only in German, so we didn't understand a fucking thing. But it was creepy all the same--video of me being stupid to follow.

Today we took an English speaking tour of the entire old town, including the Imperial Castle, where the views of old town were amazing. Other than that, we just kinda Biergärten hopped our way along--drinking 1/2 Liters of delicious Weizen beer.

Zach and I were able to learn a little German which was fun, although most people knew enough English to understand us if we spoke slowly. In all, German people rock and were really friendly and welcoming. Unfortunately, we learned the sad part about Nuremberg. The tour guide said the 80-90% of the city was destroyed in WWII, but luckily some of their old medieval structures and works of art remained in tact.

That’s all for Germany—we’re off to Amsterdam in the morning for 5 days of debauchery and fun!

22 hours...3 planes, 3 trains, and 1 bus

Wow, it took a long ass time to get here, but Zach and I are finally in Europe! We were worried for a while with all that volcano ash nonsense, but luckily that shit cleared. Unfortunately, the plane ride was 9 hours as they had to divert around the ash cloud.

Once we arrived, it was pretty easy to figure out the local public transportation to get to our hotel. Exhausted from being up for 22 hours, we took a 2 hour nap (any longer could have messed up our sleep schedule)--then headed to the local Biergarten. We attempted some very bad German whilst enjoying 1/2 liters of Hefeweizen and locally made Bratwurst.

Today we went to InterZoo (pet trade show), the whole reason we were able to come to Europe. We spent the day visiting current important vendors just to say hello, and they were very surprised we came all the way from little 'ol North Carolina. Thus, we made some relationships a little stronger today methinks. Anyways, that's the boring part of the trip-work-but we decided one day at the show was sufficient--hey, we showed up, now we can expense the flights! Oh and by the way, all the big booths at the show had bars and were serving beers at 10am!

Zach and I headed to the same Biergarten from last night as we were tired and wanted to get something good to eat early so we could start tomorrow early. Low and behold, the same dudes were drinking there from yesterday--as well as some loud drink young Germans enjoying a football (soccer) game. The best part was a old man of about 80 that was also there yesterday, who when he leaves the place, rides his electric scooter straight up the middle of the road, thus slowing traffic to make way for him-and he smuggles his own booze to enjoy along with his beers. Zach and I dubbed him as our hero for the day--I wish I had the camera ready for a picture, but I missed my chance, oh well.

Well, nothing too exciting yet as we just go here and spend the first day at the trade show. But tomorrow we shall be exploring Nuremberg and all that it has to offer. Here's a couple of pictures that we've taken so far--just Zach and I enjoying our first beers in Germany.

Auf Wiedersehen!




oh you can see the old dudes wheel chair in the above pic...nice