One week later...

So I have been in Europe for ten days and haven't really had a day to myself, which is good, but exhausting. Life here is getting better and I really enjoy the city now, I just wish I had time to explore more of it. I stopped trying to speak dutch because everyone speaks English and I am lazy.
On Thursday I went to the VanAbbeMuseum, which was full of modern art. Michiel from work gave me a cool tour and then we went to Bruno and then to the bars, which interestingly enough ended with me on stage doing Karaoke in front of a bar full of Dutch teenagers. I thought I did pretty good, it was "Bad" by MJ and I speak good English.
On Friday a coworker had a party and we got to go up on the roof, which is pretty sick considering there are no tall buildings in Eindhoven.
Last weekend I spent my time in Eindhoven and went out to the bars. This weekend I went to Mannheim Germany with a stopover in Cologne or Koln as they say in German. The German countryside is really beautiful and the highway is absolutely insane. I think at one point my friend Hendrick took his car to 180 km/hr, 110 mph, but in a small ass Renault. When we hit the mountains I found it really cool that the highway just stayed flat and if there were valleys there was a bridge, creating a really cool vantage point of small villages.

Two things I found awesome. You can drink in the streets. No matter what it is, bottles, cans, liquor, they have everything. The second is that you can drink in your car, obviously not if you are driving. I found it frustrating that the US government puts all these restrictions on us to prevent us from doing something stupid instead of letting us learn our lesson and then really know why its dumb to do it...if you know what I mean. The stairs in Germany are also like the stairs in the US, while the Dutch stairs are small and steep.
Germany is really like the US, just older, and sometimes because of the war not even that old. The women are fat because of all the bad food, but here in Holland the women are thin and blonde, mostly. I find it interesting that so much can be different in two very similar countries. The Germans don't speak English as much as the Dutch, I guess its because Holland is so small. The beer is awesome.
When we arrived in Mannheim there was a festival going on and we went to a really cool party courtesy of my friend Peter. We ended up on a balcony overlooking the main parade route where the concert was, no popular US bands, but I think Pink played a couple years ago there. After that, we headed to another party at my German friend Volker's place. Oliver let us crash at his pad, and was a really cool host. The next day we left and stopped over in Cologne for some sightseeing and there is this enourmous Cathedral. We got some Currywurst which is a really popular snack in Germany, I wanted a Kolsch, the Cologne beer, but I couldn't handle anymore. After a little shopping we headed home. It was a good trip.
Check out the pics and let me know if you will be in Europe, a lot of people will. I will be in Amsterdam next weekend and Bruge the weekend after ;)