Moving On

I have safely made it to Amsterdam! My bag weighs a million tons (no seriously, damn you Oxford and your two textbooks. Imagine carrying two Harry Potters in your bag, not Sorcerer's Stone but Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows). There is some purging to be done if I am to survive these next two weeks.

Traveling by train was, as it always is, an adventure. We illegally used the German train system as, like true idiot American's, we didn't read the instructions to our Eurail passes. Eurail passes require validation by a human being, not a time stamp machine. Today was a bank holiday in Germany, there were no humans at our tiny train station. Luckily we made it Mannheim, found a real person and caught our next train (all in 9 minutes). Best thing about train travel? There's always another one. It might be slow. You might not have reservations (and thus have to stand next to the stinky toilet for 2 hours) but there is always another one. Unless it's 1am. We arrived safely and hit the tourist info station to purchase a map. Yay maps! They tell you how to not get lost.

I am splurging in Amsterdam and staying with my friends in a nice woman's house. At 35 euro a night it's comparable to a hostel in this town. I call it splurging because there are some cleaning fees that up the price. I'll get over it. Want to know why. THIS WOMAN HAS ANIMALS!!!!! There is a dog and four cats. The dog is cool but after 5 weeks with no Jax I did not get my fix with only 5 min of petting. I need some Jax-cuddles. Because Jax cuddles are pretty amazing.

Just writing about Jax has helped the funky mood I've been in all day. Leaving Speyer was harder than I expected it to be. I loved the small town and at 5 weeks you are just starting to make connections that matter. It's always hard to leave people behind but even harder when you're likely to never see them again (unlike leaving highschool or Butler where you know everyone is within driving distance, not a $1500 plane ticket). So it goes I guess.