So my mom and I were in Amsterdam. We got there on Saturday. It was crappy weather the entire time we were there. On Sunday we went to church. We got there in time for Sunday school. We went to the English one which was being taught by this guy from Africa.
Sacrament meeting was cool. My mom and I opted not to have headsets. But the translator sat in a sound proof box, which I thought was awesome. So then we left after church and went back to our TINY hotel room. By back hurt so I took some drugs and checked out until like 9 pm.
Ok, Monday morning woke up at 5:23 because it was raining and we needed to close the window. Later when we got up we went to the Anne Frank house and had to stand outside in the rain for like a half hour45 minutes ish. The house was cool but all the furniture is gone. It's a lot bigger than I ever imagined it to be.
Here's where it started to suck: We went to France. So we left Amsterdam at like 2:30 and got to Paris at like 6:30. When we got there my mom made our train reservations to leave and go to Graz, Austria via Salzburg. Then she bought us 3 day transportation cards. She also asked the lady at the info desk how to get to our hotel. We followed the directions to a train station called Bondy. When we got there, we asked the guy at the info thing for further directions. He was really helpful and pulled out a map and everything. Only problem was that he was wrong. We followed his directions and when the bus came we asked the driver if it went to by our hotel and he said no, that he didn't know that street. So then we tried calling the hotel to have them send a taxi. True to the non customer service tradition in Europe, they gave us a number for a taxi and told us to call. The problem with that was that it was for a single taxi and not for a taxi service. Problem: my German phone was almost out of battery and my supposedly international phone wasn't calling France. My mom called on my almost dead German phone to no avail. We ended up callin my dad on my "International" phone. He called the taxi but they didn't know where we were.
At this point, my mom and I decided that we were never going to find out hotel and that we should just head back to the Bahnhof. So we did. But by the time we'd gotten back, all the trains had stopped running. What? When do long distance trains in Germany ever stop?? And then it got better. I mean that with as much sarcasm I can muster. It got worse. THEY CLOSE THE BAHNHOF!!! WHO DOES THAT?? Paris du Nord was the one we were in. Until the security guards showed up with dogs and started telling everyone to leave. So the station was closed from 1 am to 4 am for cleaning. My mom, all of our stuff, and I went to a cafe across the street and got union soup. But by the time we were done it was only like 1:40. The we went and sat in a bus stop thing. That at least kind of blocked the wind. I got so cold wearing just jeans that I put on my stretchy pants over my jeans.
Around 3:30 this Russian guy comes over and started talking to us. He barely spoke English because he was a bad school boy. Good school boys speak English. He's married and has 3 kids. A 4 and a 2 year old and then a baby who was only 18 days old on the 22. His wife wanted to come with him on vacation but he told her she needs to stay home with the kids. Awesome.
They finally opened the Bahnhof again at like 4:20, typical French lateness. The random Russian guy took my luggage inside for me. Oh, I forgot to mention that my mom and I had also draped ourselves with my blue clues beach towel to stay warm. Also looked awesome. After we got inside, we took up residence on another bench. This whole time my dad had been calling us periodically because he was making arrangements for us to stay on one of the military bases in Germany. The ticket office opened up at like 6 and my dad had gotten reservations for us at Ramstein so we came here.
So my mom and I took the 6:58 train from Paris East station (one U Bahn stop away from Paris du Nord) and came back to Germany and to kind of America. With free laundry facilities on everyfloor and they use the dollar and there aren't any overseas charges! HAHAHA!!
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