Returned back from Amsterdam/Germany late Sunday evening. Took off from Chicago to Minneapolis literally 7 minutes before the big computer glitch that grounded all domestic United Flights. Thankfully!
Germany:
We spent 4 days in Germany, my wife worked the majority of the time since that's ultimately what took us on this adventure and I spent the days just roaming pretty much. Flew into Frankfurt and took the train to Mannheim. Mannheim is a fairly large city and we stayed right near the main hub or "Central Station" as they called it. Walking distance to the wasserturm which is the central most beautiful part of Mannheim. We were also within walking distance of the Rhine Dinner. It made for some nice sunsets and we had a fantastic meal along the river the last evening. Took a day trip to Heidelberg and saw the castle and such as well. All in all though, I was rather disappointed with Mannheim. There wasn't a ton to do and I really had a hard time adapting to the language barrier. I stopped into a local german restaurant about 12:45pm one day for some lunch and grabbed a seat. I was the only one in the place that spoke english and it was very obvious that the owner was very upset with me. I asked what was wrong, couldn't for the life of me figure it out. I took my hat off thinking he didn't appreciate the Cardinals hat while sitting to eat, I hung my coat up instead of sitting it on the chair next to me. After about 5 minutes of him yelling at me and other locals yelling and throwing their arms up in the air, an american who was studying abroad walked in about 10 minutes later and come to find out they were all that upset because I took a seat 15 minutes prior to place closing. Unlike Amsterdam there was absolutely nothing in engle anywhere, no signs, nothing at the train station nada. I should've expected this, as it is freakin Germany, their country not mine. I've just traveled enough to know that it's harder in some places than others and I found it very hard here. Just wasn't as prepared as I should have been. I did go on a great private tour of the John Deere plant and it was very cool to watch a tractor be built from chassis up in 4 and a half minutes.
Amsterdam:
My wife and I took the train from Mannheim to Frankfurt then from Frankfurt to Amsterdam. The trip by train took a little under 5 hours. Again, the language barrier made it very tough on the train. What we didn't realize is that after we left Mannheim we go onto the correct train traveling to Frankfurt. But these trains actually connect to eachother and eventually one will split off and was set to do so in Frankfurt. We had absolutely no idea that was going to happen and got to Frankfurt and had it not been for someone checking to see that we were in the right seats, we would've wound up in Brussels. I am a very impatient person and get annoyed very easily. It's a work in progress but I have a lot of work to do. Needless to say we were traveling to Amsterdam on a Friday night. Public transportation like this allows people to come from Paris, Ireland, London, Germany etc etc etc just to spend a weekend in Amsterdam, So 5 hours on a train mean't by the time we arrived in Amsterdam it was Friday night at 9pm. The shi tshow for most started on the train and it became very annoying. Then again I was exhausted and grouchy, had it been with a bunch of tailgating buddies, it would have been fun. We arrived in Amsterdam and got to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel V- A very unique and retro type hotel on the outside of the downtown area or New Markt or Red Light District as some would describe. So it was about a $13 uber ride to and from each time or the train ran right by close as well. The hotel was amazing, very very unique and eccentric at a fairly reasonable price.
Amsterdam folks all speak English, well they speak Dutch, Germany and whatever else also but they are taught English growing up in their schools so it was 100X easier to get a long. The people were simply awesome. Every person we met a long the way asked where we traveled from and wanted to talk for hours about "America" our views on Trump etc. BTW...they are a VERY PRO Trump city. We toured the Ann Frank House and went to the Rijks Museum. Both very very col places and I would highly suggest taking the time to do both. However, do what we did and buy your Anne Frank tickets months in advance or you'll never get in the place. The line or "queue" as they called it was outrageously long. More to come in a few minutes about Red Light District/ New Markt/ Airport Etc.
Germany:
We spent 4 days in Germany, my wife worked the majority of the time since that's ultimately what took us on this adventure and I spent the days just roaming pretty much. Flew into Frankfurt and took the train to Mannheim. Mannheim is a fairly large city and we stayed right near the main hub or "Central Station" as they called it. Walking distance to the wasserturm which is the central most beautiful part of Mannheim. We were also within walking distance of the Rhine Dinner. It made for some nice sunsets and we had a fantastic meal along the river the last evening. Took a day trip to Heidelberg and saw the castle and such as well. All in all though, I was rather disappointed with Mannheim. There wasn't a ton to do and I really had a hard time adapting to the language barrier. I stopped into a local german restaurant about 12:45pm one day for some lunch and grabbed a seat. I was the only one in the place that spoke english and it was very obvious that the owner was very upset with me. I asked what was wrong, couldn't for the life of me figure it out. I took my hat off thinking he didn't appreciate the Cardinals hat while sitting to eat, I hung my coat up instead of sitting it on the chair next to me. After about 5 minutes of him yelling at me and other locals yelling and throwing their arms up in the air, an american who was studying abroad walked in about 10 minutes later and come to find out they were all that upset because I took a seat 15 minutes prior to place closing. Unlike Amsterdam there was absolutely nothing in engle anywhere, no signs, nothing at the train station nada. I should've expected this, as it is freakin Germany, their country not mine. I've just traveled enough to know that it's harder in some places than others and I found it very hard here. Just wasn't as prepared as I should have been. I did go on a great private tour of the John Deere plant and it was very cool to watch a tractor be built from chassis up in 4 and a half minutes.
Amsterdam:
My wife and I took the train from Mannheim to Frankfurt then from Frankfurt to Amsterdam. The trip by train took a little under 5 hours. Again, the language barrier made it very tough on the train. What we didn't realize is that after we left Mannheim we go onto the correct train traveling to Frankfurt. But these trains actually connect to eachother and eventually one will split off and was set to do so in Frankfurt. We had absolutely no idea that was going to happen and got to Frankfurt and had it not been for someone checking to see that we were in the right seats, we would've wound up in Brussels. I am a very impatient person and get annoyed very easily. It's a work in progress but I have a lot of work to do. Needless to say we were traveling to Amsterdam on a Friday night. Public transportation like this allows people to come from Paris, Ireland, London, Germany etc etc etc just to spend a weekend in Amsterdam, So 5 hours on a train mean't by the time we arrived in Amsterdam it was Friday night at 9pm. The shi tshow for most started on the train and it became very annoying. Then again I was exhausted and grouchy, had it been with a bunch of tailgating buddies, it would have been fun. We arrived in Amsterdam and got to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel V- A very unique and retro type hotel on the outside of the downtown area or New Markt or Red Light District as some would describe. So it was about a $13 uber ride to and from each time or the train ran right by close as well. The hotel was amazing, very very unique and eccentric at a fairly reasonable price.
Amsterdam folks all speak English, well they speak Dutch, Germany and whatever else also but they are taught English growing up in their schools so it was 100X easier to get a long. The people were simply awesome. Every person we met a long the way asked where we traveled from and wanted to talk for hours about "America" our views on Trump etc. BTW...they are a VERY PRO Trump city. We toured the Ann Frank House and went to the Rijks Museum. Both very very col places and I would highly suggest taking the time to do both. However, do what we did and buy your Anne Frank tickets months in advance or you'll never get in the place. The line or "queue" as they called it was outrageously long. More to come in a few minutes about Red Light District/ New Markt/ Airport Etc.
