Internship!

So I am interning at the Western European Office for the State of Illinois. They are part of the Department of Commerce and help with FDI and getting European Firms into the state and getting Illinois' firms to expand to Europe.

So far it has been really great. The office has four other staff members; one British woman, one French woman, one Irish woman and an Italian woman.

It is also great because I hope on the tram a block from my house and just ride it down about 20 stops.

Amsterdam: The Trip

I can only apologies for the long pause in blog posts!

Amsterdam seems so long ago but it was only two weekends ago. I had a wonderful first weekend in Europe.

We got to the bus station and sat down for a three and a half hour bus ride. I got to see Rotterdam along the way.

 Here is what our hostel looked like. The bathroom was just a floor with a toilet and the shower came out of the wall. We had a great view of the canal and we were about a block from the hopping area of town.

 This was our staircase of doom. Three flights of death.

 Our group in front of the Can Gogh Museum. Which was amazing!  It liked it because for like 5 euros you got in and also got an audio guide. My favorite was one of Van Goghs paintings that he did for his nephew and was this deep blue color. 

 Me in a clog. It took a lot to not buy a large clog to take home...

After we took pictures we went to the Anne Frank house which was very moving. 

Sitting outside the Rijksmuseum. It was supper nice there. Lots of Vermeer and Rembrand. My favorit was this painting called Old Woman at Prayer.

Oh yeah. We also did a two hour tour of Heineken and got to drink three beers for 15 euros. Good deal.

Saturday we went on a pub crawl and made friends. All and all an exhausting weekend filled with lots of touristy activities.