Back From Trip Two

I'm glad to be "home" after being gone for 11 days sleeping in random beds in strange towns, i can't imagine how nice its going to be when i actually get home. But the time spent on my second sketching trip was amazing. I went with my roommate Charlie and friend Liz to Brussels in Belgium, a very historic city known for its beer and chocolate which lived up to its reputation. Then afterwards we went to Amsterdam in Holland, which was the most overwhelming city i have ever been to. A city of "vice", prostitution and many drugs are legal and both of which are displayed everywhere in the center of the city, the red light district, which was where our hostel was (it was the cheapest place we could find). The city was great though, one of my favorite on the trip because Amsterdam is divided by a system of canals and like Venice, Italy is built on somewhat of a swamp, so all the buildings have a slant to them, and outside of the city are lots of really cool contemporary apartment buildings. After Amsterdam we went to Cologne, Germany, which was ok, not the best but i really liked the food there (very traditional German) and the Dom (the largest church i have ever seen), then we took a day trip to Aachen, Germany and saw a really cool Church there (the Palatine Chapel at Aachen) and then went to the second largest port city in Europe, Hamburg, Germany (also the farthest north i have ever been), which was an interesting city. There wasn't much to do there in the way of touristy things, but Hamburg has a really cool music scene and most of the population is my age so i felt pretty comfortable there. Then we went to Berlin, Germany, by far my favorite city thus far in Europe. Berlin was at the center of WWII and the communist east/west Berlin conflict that ended not too long ago, so there is a lot of history there as well as rebuilding after the devastation of WWII. So it was great to come home and sleep in my bed, but i got to meet some interesting people (a girl from turkey, a guy from the states and another from canada, some aussies, two girls from manchester england, two others from spain, and some really loud snoring turkish guys) and we saw some really awesome places. looking forward to traveling again in febuary.