Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, Lubeck...

Hi all! So I was thinking today about how long it had been since we last blogged but when I logged in I was shocked to see that it hadn`t even been a week! So much has happened.
When we last updated, we were leaving Paris for Amsterdam...Amsterdam was a blast. We got there late in the evening, but a few girls in our hostel were going out to walk through the notorious red light district, so we decided to join them. It was a pretty weird experience, but it was fun to walk around Amsterdam that first night. Afterwards, we all went to one of Amsterdam`s many ´frites´ stands...they know how to do french fries there. The next day, we were all really excited to go to the Van Gogh museum, having seen some of his paintings in Paris. The museum was really close to our hostel, so we went right after breakfast. We loved the museum and spent a while in this gift shop afterwards (Megan and Gina bought Van Gogh lunchboxes, which actually came in handy for our picnics). After the museum, we took a tram to the center of the city because we had seen a brochure for a free walking tour. Despite the torrential downpour that was taking place during our 3-hour tour of the city, this was probably one of the best things we`ve done. Our tour guide was a college student from New York who was doing a study abroad program. She knew a ton of good stories and trivia about Amsterdam, so it really helped us see and understand the city. Just a few things we saw included the original Dutch East India Company (VOC), the smallest house in Amsterdam, execution square, and the `coffeeshop` featured in Ocean`s 12 (when George Clooney and Brad Pitt talk in code to that guy while Matt Damon tries to understand but ends up making an insulting comment). When the tour was over, we were exhausted and soaked, but definitely knew a lot more about Amsterdam. The next day, we went to the floating flower markets in the morning (LOTS of tulips) and walked around the Jewish district before catching our train to Berlin.
That was an experience. The was a broken-train-incident that resulted in a fun-filled day of waiting at train stations, taking extra buses, and great stuff like that. Anyway, we got to Berlin in the middle of the night a little travel-weary but excited for the next few days.
After having such a good tour in Amsterdam, we decided to do the same thing in Berlin. The company, New Europe, offers free tours in a bunch of cities so on our first day in Berlin we went to the Brandenburg Gates for another tour. We had another really good tour guide and were especially glad we took a tour because Berlin is really confusing but he showed us all of the good sites. Im out of internet time so I`ll stop here but just know that we had a great time in Berlin and Hamburg and are leaving for Copenhagen tomorrow! See you soon.
Emma