Oh my Norderney

We had one day in Bonn, which was well deserved after the weeks that we have had. And then we immediately left for Hannover. Hannover is now on my list of things to go see when I turn 50. It was so green everywhere we went and we went to a beer garden that was sooOOooOOoooOoo good. I got something called a strawberry bowl that had fresh strawberries floating in it and it was amazing. While we were in Hannover we also got to see spiders and salamanders. The salamanders were actually axolotls which were super duper adorable!

My favorites were the golden axolotls which were of course golden. The spiders were also super cool because we went into a room filled with them and there was one right on the door frame. The science behind them was also super cool because they use axolotls for researching about regrowing limbs and the spiders for cell bases for things like skin grafts. The next day we left for Norderney and it was cold. It wasn't that the air was cold, but the wind was horribly terribly cold. I was not prepared for a Texas winter. However!, we went to a spa there that used treated sea water and mud. My favorite was a pool with more salt concentration so you were able to float easily. It was also heated to body temperature and it felt utterly amazing. I can't even put into words how relaxing it was. Also it had a water slide and a wave pool!! So much FUN! The other thing that we did was do a mud peel with mud from the wat ["vat"] which is mud from the Wadden sea intertidal zone where the tidal change is over 2m of water! The mud has huge biodensity, but no worries, the mud was treated. After doing the peel, my skin felt baby soft! So soft. Norderney was fun, the north sea was cold and the sunsets were amazing.

That weekend we went to Amsterdam and it was surprising for me. This is because I came into Amsterdam with a blank slate. For instance, I didn't know what the Red light district was, that was an experience. Even so, we went to the Anne Frank house which was incredible. We were able to go into the actual hiding place which was much larger than I expected. The saddest thing for me was learning about Otto Frank and about how he had so much hope that his family alive after the war. Just terrible. On the happy side, I went to the Van Gogh Museum afterward and it was AMAZING! They had nearly all of his works and they also had over 800 letter written between him and his brother. While they didn't have my favorite piece they had my other favorite, the Sunflowers.

I took the multimedia tour so it was really awesome learning more about Van Gogh. The next day was really relaxing and we just traveled around the city before we left. The canals around the city are beautiful and not only that but we went through a park that had an amazing tree.

 Overall everything was beautiful. And one day I will go back. This was our last free weekend so it was bitter sweet, but mostly sweet because we had stroop waffles. We then went back to Bonn and now we are getting ready for Berlin. I can't wait.