Our trip to Nice was very relaxing, which translates to not much to say. It was a lot of sleeping in, lying on the beach (didn't burn!), hanging out with our new friends at the hostel, and swimming in the ridiculously blue water.
We shall never speak of the train ordeal from Nice to Amsterdam... 250 euros and 24 hours, enough said. However, it was worth the trip. Amsterdam is beautiful! The weather was lovely, the canals were cool, and the hotel we snagged for cheap was super nice. We took it pretty easy here, visiting Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh Museum, but not doing too much else in the way of attractions. We did go to the Hard Rock Cafe... our craving for meat combined with the promise of free hot fudge sundaes made it impossible to resist.
Anne Frank's house was really cool, as well as depressing. No pictures inside, but it was barely furnished - her dad requested it be left as the Nazis left it. The videos interviewing Anne's dad and childhood friend were extremely moving. The only disappointment was that the actual diary was being restored or something, so we could only see a facsimile.
The next day we did the Van Gogh Museum, which was super cool. It had a ton of Van Gogh obviously (Almond Blossoms was on loan though, to Ottawa of all places!), but also both his influences and those influenced by him. A really cool collection. It was surrounded by a nice park as well, so we laid out there and relaxed in the sun for a bit before dinner.
From Amsterdam we took an easy train to Cologne, and it turns out the girl we met on the platform in Amsterdam and befriended on the train was in our very room in Cologne! We've been hanging out with her, which has been really nice. The first night we went to stroll around the famous Cathedral, and realized it was some kind of Museum festival, and we got into a museum nearby for free. It was a super weird modern art museum... Warhol, Picasso, Lichtenstein, etc. It was a good thing we went because the next day was a Monday. We hadn't even been thinking about days of the week, but of course everything is closed Mondays.
So we didn't do much for our one full day in Cologne. Just checked out the inside of the Cathedral (amazing!), the SUPER cool pixilated stained glass window, climbed the million steps to the top of the tower (one of the tallest churches in the world!), and went out to a biergarten for some sausages and local beer.
Next is Berlin, where I hope to finally shake the brutal cough/cold that has been demolishing me since Amsterdam.
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