AMsTERdAM

So Amsterdam....definitely something. We arrived early afternoon and wandered around for a bit with Mike, who was on our flight. First thing is the train station isn't that impressive on the inside but is gorgeous on the outside. we walk out and it a balmy slightly overcast day and there are bikes EVERYWHERE. The internet has told me that the 750000 people who live in Amsterdam own 600000 bikes.... EVERYWHERE!


Directly across from the train station is the beginning of the red light district. I'm pulling out my camera and Rachel and Mike are talking about how they'd read up on the laws and there are no cameras allowed in the red like district. Ha. probably for the best anyway.... We visited a coffee shop (they sell weed unlike the cafe that sells liquor) that had an irish rock theme. Interesting.


We then spent the next few hours "finding" our hostel. We stayed at the hans brinker hotel which prides itself in being the worst hostel with the most unfriendly staff. they were actually pretty good.


This is still friday so we dropped out bags in a locker at the hostel grabbed our white gear and then headed out to meet up with the gang for sensation white.

It was nuts. Throughout the whole downtown center you would keep coming accross groups of young people dress in shiny new white clothes gearing up for a huge night of dancing.


The event was happening at the arena which we had to take a train (full to capacity with drunk and high white party goers) there.


The group of people streaming down the escalator towards the aren is something that i will probably never forget.....


Sensation itself was incredible. we got there around 9 and lined up ( huge line) at our entrance along with the other 45000 attendees.


The center of the arena was this giant white creation and in the center was a spinning dj table. I don't think i can describe the show. there were about six djs and we danced until 6. when we left the sun was up and our feet hurt. alot.


we took the train back then rachel and i wandered back to our hostel taking in the sights of early morning amterdam after most of the parties have died... That day after some sleep i was still fairly useless but we went to the van gogh museum which was phenomenal. There was a second collection of more contemporary stuff as well which was very cool. We also toured the Heinekin Brewery which was interesting but i probably wouldn't pay to do again.


The red light district was ridiculous. we wandered after a asian tour group and got led through some of the really narrow streets ie one lane of walking traffic in each direction and either side is lined which prostitute windows. apparently the prositutes rent the windows for the night.....
yup.


it was good! i'm not sure if i'll do it again any time soon because it was a huge mind warp but yea. it had to be done!

and nothing got stolen

So Marseille was a bit of a last minute decision. The flights were cheap so we booked it. Just Luke , Rachel and I went which was a bit of a different dynamic but not a bad one!
We arrived at the airport around 1pm and took the shuttle into the town. The historic/ tourist area is centered around the old port and luckily our hostel was only about a 10 minute walk from the water. We were also on the seventh floor of the building so there definitely wasn't going to be anyone climbing in our window! For those of you who hadn't heard one of the other interns got her whole backpack stolen in marseille. The thief apparently broke into the room they were in through a window while they whole group was in the room sleeping! Shitty luck for sure. Anyway, our hostel was simple but nice and clean! This is a view from our window....

We wandered around the town on the on the first day. Grabbed food, enjoyed the port and walked up to an old church. There was a festival called "la fete blue" happening in town that weekend (lucky for us!) which was focused on the performing arts ie dance, music, ect.... The first day we saw this terrific interpretive dance troupe. The stage that they set up was right on the old port with Notre DAme de la Garde in the background with all the port lights. It was gorgeous.

Ps. Notre Dame de la Garde is the really big church perched on a huge hill in marseille. Apparently that was where fishermen would go to get their boats blessed. It was hugely touristy when we went to see it on saturday there were people EVERYWHERE. And it was really windy so we were having trouble keeping our skirts down. I think Luke was fairly impressed with the church itself but i got this relly cluttered vibe because there was slightly touristy artifacts all over the place. It did have a gorgeous ceiling though!

On our fist full day we headed out to the islands off the coast on a tour boat. The first one we stopped at was called le Chateau D'If which is the set of the prison in the Count of Monty Cristo. It was neat. Barren and hot but absolutely beautiful. Next we headed to Frioul which was an island that actually had some kind of population... We wandered around and found a cute little inlet beach that we stayed at for a while then we walked up the hill to some sort of fort, Fort Ratonneau which was abbandonned by everyone except the seagulls... The picture of what looks like rudimentary crossed is an unfinished ammunitions shelter dating from the second world.

After the islands we got some food at a lebanese place called Habib's which was a little ways from the port center. It was so delicious and "economical " that we ended up eating there every night... After dinner we headed down the coast on the bus to visit the beaches where they were having an extrem sports tournament as well as a beach rugby tournament and some sort of sea swim race. We sat on the beach watching very talented french soccer players juggle to music while skydivers fell down into the sunset and came in to land directly over top of us and then skidded down onto the beach.

Day two took us up to Norte DAme de la Garde as mentioned and then we headed over to the Marseille city museum. It turns out Marseille is ancient, lots and lots of history taken place along those shores.... We headed back to the beach tournament for a little while in the afternoon just in time to catch one last skateboarding "session" and then when we got back to the port we were in time to see a dance troupe that was more like stomp the yard followed by a sweet rockish band which i really don't think the french appreciated. we were ths only ones dancing. Then the french reggae came up and last but not least the french boyband : the Starliners. ha now there were 12 year-olds dancing too... But on the third day we firgured out what it is the french like to dance to. eurotechno. surprise, hah. They had a huge street party with a bunch of different guest djs.

We also took a bus up to the Calanques on the last day. It was a bit if a hike but you wind your way down the mountains into these naturaly protected coves. The water was quite cold but absolutely beautiful and since all the locals were cliff jumping, we did a little of that too!


All in all, we saw a ton of stuff. Luck was definitly on our side that weeknd!