Today, we traveled from Stuttgart to Munich. The train ride was a tolerable three hours, but we didn't have to leave until noon or so, so since we got there at 3, and Germany falls asleep at 8, we didn't really do much today.
We did visit the grocery shop there though. I found some neat things in the supermarket. And by "some," I mean one, and it is this AWESOME Pokémon typing game that comes with a KEYBOARD FOR YOUR DS.
Beats Mavis Beacon any goddamn day.
Although I think if you brought this to school, you'd probably be bullied too much to be concerned with typing.
Oh and look at what the Germans called me!
"They called me creative! How flattering."
RFotD: I brought one shirt for every single day that I'd be here in Europe so I never have to do laundry here.
We visited the German Department of Motor Vehicles today. And let me tell you, it is faaaaancy.
But you already know.
It's not in the fast lane from LA to Tokyo though, it's kinda stuck in Germany.
It's an eight-story structure, and the whole thing, surprisingly, has no stairs that you're supposed to climb. The first thing that happens when you enter the museum is that you take an elevator to the very top floor. Then, you slowly make your way to the bottom one story at a time by walking down really nice, long ramps. So even though the museum was HUGE, we didn't feel tired after it because there were no steps to climb.
It was a neat format too. The top floor started with the origins of the steam (and later diesel) engine, then went to the history of the first automobiles, then to the origins (and merging) of the Benz name, all the way to modern day.
A lot of it was just informative text to read, but they also had some very cool cars on display.
Kinda looks like a paintless version of Sam's car.
A classic kind of cool.
Mercedes. It means rise grace.
Double decker buses were way cooler when they had spiral steps.
Joby likes his classic cars. He doesn't like being focused on camera though.
Fun fact: These gullwing doors were a last-resort design necessity because of the awkward shape of the car, not because of style.
The school bus that Christina, Angela, Kayla and I rode in kindergarten.
Mercedes-Benz also made a few specially-designed cars. I only took a picture of these two because they were my favorite.
The Popemobile, with bulletproof windows and everything.
DINOCAR AWWWW YEAH.
Later on, we got horribly, HORRIBLY lost in the city. We misread a map and tried to walk to a bus station that we thought was only a five minute walk away that ended up taking THIRTY MINUTES. And then we made a few wrong turns, ended up in a suuuuper sketchy German neighborhood where no one was out, not a creature was stirring, not even sauerkraut.
Eventually, we did stumble upon a subway station and from there we reoriented and found the beautiful city square.
Fountains in the left third of photos in front of fancy buildings always make for nice photos.
The fancy building I referenced earlier, now with 200% more overexposure!
Our timing was incredible though. We're only in Stuttgart for a single full day, and you know what happened to be here today, for one day only?
A gay pride festival.
You know, if the rainbow flags weren't there, it would just look like a normal festival. That's mostly because gay people are basically normal people. But gay.
I don't think my parents realized what it was though until they saw the billboards of large muscular men with even larger, more muscular packages.
They had a really funny performer too. I just found his flamboyantness funny, but if anyone could translate German, could you kindly tell us what he's singing in the comments?
Thanks, readers. I knew I could count on at least one of you guys.
RFotD: We went to Stuttgart for a single day just to visit the Mercedes-Benz Museum.
One of the coolest things about Amsterdam's central station is the fact that they have a public piano there where they ENCOURAGE people to show off their skills.
So of course, I did.
Yeah sure they cheered after I finished, but the next piece I absolutely BLEW IT. I forgot the notes midway through and I messed up everywhere and it was terrible and the crowd left and I walked away in shameful defeat.
Oh well.
So today, we travel over to Germany via their bullet train. I brought along a journal on my way there and since I had no internet connection nor an outlet to charge my laptop with, I decided to flaunt my artistic skills by drawing the people I see on the train.
First up, the guy sitting in front of me, who marched onto the train, slumped onto his chair, and immediately passed out.
Is it creepy that I'm taking pictures of people
without consent? Yeah. Do I care? No.
Apparently, instead of that gentleman, I drew John Cena.
The burgers were Megan's idea.
I also found this man who told me he and his family was from South Africa before promptly falling asleep.
Literally, the conversation was "Hello, I'm from
South Africa! Zzzzzzzzzzz..."
I think I'm prouder of this one than my John Cena drawing.
There's an interesting theory that the more acclaimed you are as an artist or a writer, the easier it is for you to get away with calling something "art."
Case in point: we visited the Huis Marseilles (the museum of photography) in Amsterdam and I had no idea what one of the exhibits was.
"Sure."
The exhibit supposedly centered around Brazilian favelas being composited on top of picture of the Amazon forest. That was it. Boom, find it at your local art gallery, pass go, collect your 200 dollars.
I mean I guess.
Seriously, it looks like an assignment I had to do in kindergarten where I had to cut and paste pictures to describe my personality that my teacher told me to redo because I taped a picture of Kate Upton on it.
Where's my art gallery, huh?
They had another installation that I really liked though. They were old pictures from newspapers that has anonymous photographers because back in the early days of journalism, giving credit to photographers wasn't commonplace. So even though some of these pictures were fantastic, we'll never know who took them. Take a look at some of my favorites.
Me and Samantha, circa 1929.
A lawyer covering his face to protect his identity
when defending an infamous client.
Hitler wearing lederhosen.
What do I rate it? Nein out of ten! HAAAAAAH!
Joby found one of his ancestors too.
Godspeed, little guy.
This one actually had a very interesting story, so I took a picture of the plaque.
Here's a picture of two explorers who managed to capture two natives and a gorilla on a trip. For some strange reason, when I see that gorilla's face, I am reminded of our very own shirtless Mikey.
"I regret nothing!"
"NOTHING!"
And lastly, here are African women and their lip plates.
Looks like my mom when she yells at me.
Today was a pretty chill day though. Our last day in Amsterdam, and we didn't really have anywhere to go, so we just walked aimlessly until we stumbled onto something, kind of like blind wingless seagulls.
We tried bitterballs though. They're apparently a Dutch traditional treat, and no, despite their name, they aren't just an occupational hazard for prostitutes in the red light district.
Although they certainly look like they are.
They're fried veal balls filled with gravy. And they taste... Okay. I didn't particularly like them, and I certainly wouldn't try them again, but I didn't hate them either. Ehh.
RFotD: In hindsight, I actually would eat those bitterballs again, they have a very interesting taste.
I don't know if I've told you this already, but Amsterdam has a FANTASTIC public transport system. They have tap to scan subway cards (made of paper too!), a monitor with the list of stops on all their buses and trolleys, and they have BEAUTIFUL train stations. I got a few very pretty shots of their main hub, Central Station. Take a look.
It's like you're my mirror (woah), my mirror starin back at me...
Megan was quite impressed by the size of this woman.
Today was the first time we visited the station since we had to take the ferry today. Most other times, we just took the bus or the trolley, but today, we decided to be adventurous. We completely ignored my mom's pleas that "there were sharks in the water" and that "she gets seasick really easily" and that "there are still bloodstains on that boat" and hopped on to the fairy to this place.
The world's shittiest prosthetic eye.
...Yet you can still see that Joby likes it. Hehhehehehhehehe....
This is the Eye. And despite looking nothing like an eyeball, it's very appropriately named because it also goes by another name: The Netherlands National Museum of Film.
There were a few cool exhibits. I think my favorite was this Splatoon Simulator on the wall.
There was also this cool room that had a 360 degree view of each individual frame in a film reel. It reminded me of that room in the second Matrix movie where Neo talked to Colonel Sanders.
My father, however, is neither of those people.
We happened to be there at the perfect time though, since right before we were about to leave, a Dutch filmmaker named Johannes Guille approached us. He said he needed Asian extras for a few short films he was filming later that day and wanted us to be in it and we FLIPPED. So here's the films we were in:
Yeah, I don't know about the plot either.
Later, we went to Dam Square. We weren't exactly sure what was here, but it was on our "must see locations" list on the free map we got at the airport, so it must be worth it, right?
Yeah it was basically a tourist trap. But it was a funny tourist trap. Their gift shops here had some very interesting items for sale.
Those actually aren't salt and pepper shakers, they're the severed penises of people with kidney stones.
Someone call Nevin!
"Oh, so that's why the maid did that when I rang the service bell..."
They had some really funny street performers doing some breakdancing/stunting on the middle of the street. We caught them towards the end of their grand finale, where they were gonna do a flip over four strangers, so I only have a little footage of them, unfortunately.
Actually, I lied, They weren't gonna flip over four strangers. They flipped over three strangers, randomly picked from the crowd of people watching them, and then they picked ME. And when they picked me, they got a pretty big laugh out of the crowd because they said they would be searching for the "strongest man in the crowd" and they said "Give it up for Jackie Chan!" when I walked into the circle.
My mom said she got some footage of them flipping over me, but when I checked her phone, I found out she was on TIME LAPSE MODE. So the entire 4 minute buildup the street performers gave ended up being condensed into 15 seconds of a suuuuper fast flipbook. Sorry guys :(
They were REALLY funny people. They had a bunch of synchronized shouts whenever people donated and whenever they emphasized the "danger" of the stunt they were performing. And they hit on girls FREQUENTLY, it was really funny.
Okay, HIGHLIGHT OF TODAY. We took a COUNTRYSIDE TOUR.
First place we went to were the DUTCH WINDMILLS
This view really blew me away AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHHA.
And yes, we got to climb the windmill.
They originally constructed the windmills to drain the water in the Netherlands, but they were made obsolete when they built steam-powered pumps. So now, a lot of them just make peanut oil. And they make it by grinding up peanuts with these big ol' grinding stones.
The painted thing on the right, I mean. Not the guy with the GoPro. He doesn't lift.
The view from the top was also very cool.
Magnificent.
The only downside was that it smelled like animal poop everywhere, but honestly with how beautiful those windmills were, I think it's worth making some of my other less important senses suffer.
Next up, the tour took us to a really cute fishing village. They had a cheese factory and it smelled AMAZING in there. And they had stacks of cheese wheels on a bunch of shelves that look like they were straight out of Mickey Mouse's wet dreams.
This wheel was not real.
But these were. And they smelled amazing.
Stacks on stacks.
After a little presentation about how the cheese was made, they let us sample all of their cheeses and they were DELICIOUS. Some of them tasted like the traditional cheeses that we Americans like on our spaghetti and our burgers. But other ones had a really unique taste to them. One of them had herbs in it that made it taste "taco-like" (that's my best description for the taste, because it honestly tasted like a taco), one of them was a year old and tasted SUUUPER strong, but my favorite was this white cheese (I think it's called gouta but I'm not sure) that kind of melts in your mouth with a savory, flavorful taste. It's hard to describe because I've never had anything like it, but it was so good that we bought a tiny little wheel of it to take home to America.
Afterwards, we had a LOT of time to eat and look around the fishing village. I discovered a very cute pastry shop that was selling traditional Dutch pancakes, so I gave it a shot.
Yumyumyumyumyumyum!
Delicioso!
Here's some other pretty shots of the fishing village I got.
Which one's the real Michael???
Then, we took a ferry across the bay to a place where they made CLOGS. Clogs as in the Dutch shoes, not the things that happen when the ball of hair in my shower falls down the drain.
They also had a cute little sign.
We didn't buy any wooden shoes, but we did see how they're made. And they make a LOT of them.
Shoes.
Oh my god.
Joby is clogging the clogs!
They're not particularly comfortable, but damn are they stylish.
With these shoes, I shall make my way downtown.
After the tour, we ended the day with a little visit to the red light district.
And Megan was with us. When did I realize this was a bad idea? Right around the time we walked through the first hallway.
"So... they don't call it the red light district just because of their bulbs..?"
See those red lights right over there? Yeah. That's a peepshow area. And while we didn't see any nudity (thank GOD), we did see women in their underwear tapping at the glass to try and get the attention of passerbys. And they FREAKED Megan out because they weren't just tapping. They were slamming their hands against the glass.
Yeah, we turned around and left after that. With a last name like Evangelista, it's kinda implied that we won't be living that sort of life anytime soon.
RFotD: Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, the internet in Germany was too slow for me to post anything, but I have a BUNCH of entries coming your way!
