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As we traveled north from Greece, free internet got harder to come by and I refuse to pay for it, so I got realllly behind on this site.

From Crete we got to Geneva, Switzerland by planes and trains - another epic travel day almost ending in disaster. We found last minute beds in an all-girls hostel that used to be a convent next to Geneva's cathedral. Geneva was beautiful and rich, which meant we couldn't afford much of anything but loved walking around it. I loved the fountain, their main landmark, which shoots water into the air at over 100 mph so that there is 8 tons of water in the air at any time.

We went from Geneva to Interlaken, a small city between alpine lakes and mountains and one of the top extreme sport destinations in the world. Some activities, like paragliding, would have been cool and worth the expense, but others we would never have been up for. Canyon jumping, for example, is illegal in the US and seemed like absolutely the most painful experience from the videos. We were also kind of sick, so we decided to spend our money on going to Jungfraujoch, the top of Europe, and then left a day sooner than planned. Jungfraujoch was completely worth it. You take a train to the highest train station in Europe and then can walk out on a glacier and up to a look out point in the Alps. We took the earliest train so we were there with very few people but lots of clouds, and then stayed until the clouds had lifted and lots of people had arrived. Standing on the lookout point in the clouds was just as amazing as the views with clear skies because you are actually in the cloud and everywhere around you is just white.

Next on the map was Brussels, which was much cheaper but not as nice the other cities. It had a few of my favorite places though: a Tintin gallery, a comic strip museum, and Le Pain Quotidien (my favorite bakery in NYC).

The train from Brussels to Amsterdam didn't have any open seats so we were stuffed between cars with a bunch of backpackers coming from an outdoor rock festival and they all smelled badddd.

Amsterdam was amazing, maybe our favorite place on the whole trip. We discovered that there is actually more to it than pot and prostitutes. We did walk through the Red Light District our first night though, and accidentally walked through another time during the day. You take one wrong turn in Amsterdam and you end up right next to a prostitute behind a glass door. The prostitutes are expected though, so the most shocking part is the live sex show theaters with guys outside trying to get you to attend the show. The strangest part of the whole experience though is actually seeing guys go in or come out of the prostitutes' doors. Otherwise, the other districts were really pretty along the canals and we found lots of cool places to eat and shop, and lots of cool people. We were in Amsterdam for a few more days than other places, so we got to settle in a little bit, and we both could imagine living or studying there. In our hostel room, we met a hilarious group of German kids. One boy talked the most and the others told us that he got the equivalent of a D in English class in school. His first question about California was, "There are great white sharks? Aren't you scared when you go swimming?" And about Seattle, "I read a report, Seattle is going to have big shaking and going to disappear soon?"

We took a train through Germany to get to Copenhagen. Copenhagen seems very cool, but we sort of did everything wrong there so didn't enjoy it quite as much. Our hostel was the dirtiest we've had and the rooms had 9 people in bunks 3 beds high. The man in the bed below me snored like I've never heard in my life; the whole room was awake all night except him. We started off our day paying for a museum we didn't like, but we asked the girl working there where to find a cool area with interesting shops and cafes. Later, after some bus confusion, we asked a bus driver how to get to one of her suggested districts. With a weird look on his face, he asked why we wanted to go there, and then told us it was the sex district and all the shopping was porn. So we were convinced the girl tricked us and gave up. We looked it up later though, and it used to be Copenhagen's Red Light District, but now is full of new designer's, boutiques, student cafes, etc. This was kind of the story of our stay, so Copenhagen didn't work out as well as everywhere else for us.