After we left Düsseldorf Celeste and I had a busy week. We visited 4 different countries and I feel like we didn’t spend enough time in any of them. I do however, feel that it was worth every minute of travel time and craziness to get to visit so many of our amazing friends and getting to spend even a little time with each of them.
Our first stop after Düsseldorf was in Amsterdam. I think this was the only leg of our travels where we didn’t have problems actually. Our friend Lisa dropped us off at the bus depot and the bus ride to Amsterdam was only about 3 hours. When we arrived there it was about 2:30 in the afternoon and knowing that we only had basically one afternoon/evening to spend there we wanted to get going as soon as possible. We walked to our hostel which was about 20 minutes away from the bus station, got checked in, dumped our stuff and then hopped on a bus to the city center which was about 30 minutes away.
When we originally looked at Hostels in Amsterdam we debated whether or not to book something closer to the city center, and if I went there again I probably would do that. But because of where the bus station was and because we were leaving from that same station early the next morning we decided that it was more of a priority to be close to the station than the city center. The first sight of the tourist part of Amsterdam is actually so beautiful. The main station is such a beautiful old building and as soon as you leave it you can see the old buildings and canals that Amsterdam is known for. The fact that it was near Christmas time just added to the effect because of all the Christmas lights that were hanging up all around the city center.
For the afternoon and much of the evening we just wandered around the city near the central station. We didn’t really have the time to visit many of the attractions that Amsterdam is known for but we did pass a lot of museums and go inside many big churches. We also walked past the Anne Frank house and that’s something I definitely want to visit when I’m in Amsterdam next time. It was super fun to just be able to walk along the canals, visit the cool little shops and experience the atmosphere of the busy city. There were also bikers literally everywhere and so we had to be careful not to get run over by anyone; they can literally appear out of nowhere so I’m actually surprised that we didn’t run into anyone.
We had dinner at a little restaurant to finish off our day before heading back to our hostel. It took a little while for us to find the right bus but eventually we managed it and packed it in for the night. One thing that I didn’t love about Amsterdam was that so so many people smoke and so it smells like cigarettes (and other things) literally everywhere and it was even worse on the buses with so many people packed together.
The next morning we got up early and walked back to the bus station in time to find our bus which was supposed to be leaving around 8:00 to go to Antwerp in Belgium. From our experiences, usually the buses for international trips get to the stop anywhere between 30-15 minutes before leaving, so when it was 10 minutes to 8:00 and the bus wasn’t there, we started to get worried. Soon enough it was 8:00 and there was a crowd of people at stop but still no bus. A few different people that we talked to said that they had tried to call the number on the ticket but there had been no answer. After another half hour of waiting, we were pretty sure that the bus wasn’t coming at all. We also spoke to a lady that said that she knew someone who had booked with the same company and had also had a bus that didn’t show up, so we decided to book a different ticket. Luckily for us, there were a few different options that were inexpensive (like 8 euros or something) and would be leaving only an hour later than our original bus was supposed to. This bus got in at a different station than our original bus, but we called our friend who was supposed to be meeting us and she said that it would be no problem to come get us at the different station.
A few hours later we made it to Belgium where we were met by our friend, Lise, who we also know from Sweden. We took the metro to her house where we spent a couple hours just relaxing and meeting her family. A bit later, we used bikes that their family had and biked all around Antwerp. This was probably one of my favorite parts of our whole trip because it was a completely different experience than we’d had in other cities. You get to see much more than taking a car or a train but you can still see a lot of different things in a little time; Belgium is so so beautiful so this was an awesome was to see it.
She took us down some streets to see some huge old houses with some crazy architecture and also showed us the main station which was also super massive and beautiful. We biked through a bunch of different parts of the city and past the harbor which is apparently a really important port for bringing goods into Belgium. Next we made a stop at a quirky little coffee shop before going into the main part of the city to see the Christmas market. We locked up the bikes and spent a few hours just wandering around the lit up streets. All the buildings had a ton of Christmas lights and it made it easy to see everything that was happening there even though it was getting dark outside. One thing that Lise told us was a super common thing at Belgian Christmas markets was that you do shots. It was different for Celeste and I because we have both been to a lot of markets in Germany where the big drink that they sell is Glüwein.
Once we were finished at the Christmas market we biked back to Lise’s house. The bikes were really fun but also a bit scary because there didn’t seem to be many traffic laws surrounding them so it was basically just anything goes and you just drive all over the road. We had dinner with her family and then just spent the evening hanging out and watching a movie because we were really tired after a few days of such busy travel.
The next morning we packed up and Lise took us to the station where we would catch the train to Brussels. That was where we were supposed to be meeting someone who would drive us back to Stuttgart. This again was a bit of a transportation adventure. We checked the tickets and found the platform in the Antwerp main station without any problems. The train was on time and so we quickly said goodbye to Lise and got on. Somehow though, this wasn’t the right train and this still puzzles me. According to the ticket that we had, there was supposed to be 5 stops before we would get off at the south station in Brussels and it was supposed to take 50 minutes. But after 50 minutes, it had only been 2 stops and then the train started going in the opposite direction. Someone even checked our tickets while we were on the train and confirmed our destination with us.
Realizing that something was probably wrong, we quickly called Lise and asked if there was any chance that we got on the wrong train and she said no. When we told her the station that we had just stopped at, called Leuwen, she told us that this was 40 minutes in the wrong direction from where we needed to be. We double checked the tickets, the platform, the station and the time and it was all the same as the train we got on. You can imagine how confused we were. To prevent us from going any further in the wrong direction, we got off at the next station, (a tiny one in literally the middle of nowhere) and checked for trains going where we needed to be. By this point, there was no way that we were making it to Brussels on time and we were panicking a bit because we were unsure if the guy that was supposed to be driving us would wait for us. When we were finally able to get in contact with him we explained the situation and thankfully he said that he would meet us at the station in Leuwen even though he was 40 minutes away and it wasn’t what we had agreed on.
When we finally got back to Leuwen (about 45 minutes later because the train was delayed) he was there waiting for us . Something that I should probably explain is that we got in contact with this guy through an app called BlaBlaCar which is basically a carpooling app for long distances. It’s kinda comparable to Uber except you only pay for the gas that it takes to get to your destination. The benefit of this is that it is waaaaay cheaper (like 200 Euros cheaper) than taking a train and it takes way less time than a train because you drive directly there. At first I thought it sounded kinda sketchy but it actually has a really good reputation and you can read the ratings that other people have given the driver. The website also has really strict policies about drivers so it isn’t as crazy as I first thought it might be (don’t worry Grandma). The guy was actually really nice and we are really glad that we did that instead of taking a train. It took us about 6 hours and we drove through Belgium and Luxembourg to get back to Germany. At one point near the border of Luxembourg we were only a few kilometers away from Germany and France.
Our driver dropped us off at the Stuttgart airport where we were picked up by our friend Stefan who took us back to his house where we spent the night. The next day we went to an international church in Tübingen. It was pretty cool because the pastor gave the sermon in German but they had sermon notes in English and he also gave the key points in English so it was really easy to understand. He also spoke pretty slowly in Germany so it was even easy to understand. I guess they have lots of people at that church who only have German as a second language so they’re used to having to translate. Our friend Jan also met us there because he was the one who recommended the church. After the service they also had a lunch so we stayed for that and got to talk to some cool people, many of whom had heard of Torchbearers and were interested to hear more about why we were there and additionally why we were going back to Austria.
After that we drove to Jan’s house where we just stopped really briefly to get some food items that we needed and also got to meet some of his family which is always cool. For the rest of the afternoon and evening we met up with our other Holsby friends Friedy and Elias at Friedy’s house. We had such a good time there with them just catching up and making supper and waffles. It definitely turned pretty crazy with so many people in their kitchen but it was so hilarious.
Later we were joined by Joe and Mari and we all hung out together and played Telestrations until probably almost midnight at which point Joe and Mari took us back to Joe’s house which is where we stayed from the 23r to the 26th.
On the 23rd we mostly had a chill day but one thing that we did was go to a basketball game which according to our friends was like the second highest division in Germany. It was actually the level of bad college teams in Canada but there was a lot of people there who were really rowdy and we had so much fun!
Joe, Friedy, Elias, Celeste, me. Jan
Christmas this year was definitely a different experience, even different from last Christmas which I also spent in Germany. One of the weirdest things is that Germans say, “Merry Christmas” on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day. On Christmas Eve we helped with preparing some food before going to the Christmas Eve service with Joe’s family and Mari. It was actually really nice because Mari translated pretty much the entire service for Celeste and I so we could actually understand it. Once the service was over we went back to Joe’s house for a really nice meal which his Mom mostly made. I’m really not sure what all the food that we had was but it was all really good. We had potato salad, sausage, regular salad and something that Joe described as being something like a dumpling which was really nothing like a dumpling but still tasted good. After dinner we exchanged gifts and then just spent the evening together and watched a movie.
Christmas day was also really chill. We had another big meal for lunch of wild boar, venison, cabbage, salad and a few other things, all of it was really good. In the afternoon we took a long walk around where they live and played some games and watched a movie. It was really low key but actually it was really nice to not have a super busy Christmas. I really enjoyed spending Christmas with Joe’s family and they did such an amazing job of making sure that Celeste and I were included and felt at home.
On the 26th we drove back to Austria with some of the other staff members. I really had such an amazing time traveling and especially getting so see so many friends from Holsby. I’m also really excited to start this next season. This week we have our first ski camp and will start to get into more of a routine so get ready to hear more about that in the coming weeks!
Kelsi's Travel Times 