Amsterdam

Hallo!

On Saturday morning we woke up at 6.a.m because we needed to catch a bus to Amsterdam!
We had registered to a student trip to Amsterdam by Studifahrten. Studifahrten is an organization which organizes trips to students all over Europe. It is cheap and the traveling is made by bus.
The bus left at 8. The journey took 5 hours because we needed to drive to Aachen first to get some travelers from there.

There were 4 full buses but we knew only each other and Martyna.
We arrived to Amsterdam around 1 and left right away to explore the city! We had no arranged program for the day so we were on our own 12 hours :) We had still checked some web pages so that we know where you need to go and what to see there.
At first we went to shop some souvenirs!

After souvenir shopping, we just walked around the city and checked some most popular sightseeings.

Bikes EVERYWHERE

And also Coffeeshops.. Which means shops where you can buy weed. There those guys were just making their joints in front of everyone, in the middle of the day..No problem.

Magic mushrooms and below weed lollipops!

Flowers in Nieuwmarkt

Koninklijk Paleis = The Royal palace and next to it Nieuwe Kerk, the most important church in the Netherlands

#SELFIE

Bike parking lot :D

Then we took a tram to Museumplein to take the mandatory tourist pictures! There are those huge I AMsterdam letters. It was really crowded so we did not get that good pictures, but what can you do..

Then it was dinner time! We walked to the Dam Straat (=street) and picked randomly a restaurant. Jenna and Martyna ordered pizza, Maiju ate chicken. Prices were reasonable and the food too. Not that special but ok.

After eating we decided to go to Anne Frank's museum. When we got there, we realized that the line was really long.. Still we wanted to get in and decided to wait. Luckily there was free wi-fi so waiting was not that bad :D And we got in quite quickly.

Anne Frank was a Jewish girl who wrote a diary of her and her family hiding in a house in Amsterdam during the holocaust. Unfortunately they were found after two years of hiding and were taken to the concentration camp. Only family member who survived was Anne's father, who decided to publish the girl's diaries.

The museum was worth visiting! It was built in the house where they hid and all the information was stated clearly and made impressive. And the price was not that bad, 9 € per person.

We grabbed couple drinks from a store and headed to the red light district! Btw Maiju was so happy finding Strongbow :D

The red light district was something you cannot believe until you see it. There they were, girls wearing only underwear and standing in the windows trying to get men go inside. There were lots of tourists just to go and watch what's happening, just like us :D But yeah, also actual customers.. When a man went inside just the curtain closed and then he came out after 15 minutes like nothing had happened :D it was so weird.. No pictures because naturally photoshooting was strictly forbidden.

Waffles before going back home

 1 a.m. we started our journey back home. The day was unbelievably great, but tough. We were so tired in the bus.. And the journey took more than 5 hours.. We were home at 7 in the morning. The feeling was awesome when we went to bed :D

Next post is about our week here, just the usual.
Byeee :)
Maiju&Jenna

Our apartment

Hallo!

First to tell you guys how we managed to find this apartment. At first we tried to get accommodation from the CBS dormitory, but all the rooms went in a second. So we needed to find an apartment on our own. There is a web site called WG-gesucht Köln, where you can find apartments to rent in Köln. We mainly used this site and a Facebook group in order to find a place to stay. We send out hundreds of emails to different people and normally we did not get an answer and if we did the answer was no....Luckily some of them did answer to us, but not nearly all. About two weeks before leaving to Köln, Jenna found this place from the web page and after few emails, the guy told us that we could move in!

Our front door!

The apartment is 45 square meters big with one bedroom. The apartment is also fully furnished, so we didn't need to bring anything here. The rent is 770€ per month and includes water, electricity and wifi. This can sound expensive, but it's not that bad when we split it. And comparing to the prices in Oulu for example, this is not that high either. Köln is still almost ten times bigger than Oulu. Many of our friends have told about their apartments and it can be that they are paying for one room around 500 €. Really we have found a good place!

The apartment is located right in the center of Cologne. We live next to Rudolfplatz, which is one of the most central tram stops here in Cologne. Also Neumarkt is really close to our place, about 500 meters. Neumarkt is the place where the best shopping opportunities are and the main shopping street starts from there. Zülpicher Platz is also very near to our place, there are all the clubs and bars.
We had no idea before we came here that this apartment is so centrally located, actually it took us about a week to realize where we are. :D All the services are really near us, just to mention couple of them: Lidl, McDonald's, Rewe (grocery store), KFC, Starbucks, gay bar (:DD), pharmacy...There is also a kiosk in our building!

Usually in the mornings we walk to school and it takes us about 15 minutes (1.5 km). We can also take the tram, school is only 3 stops away, which also takes approximately 15 minutes. One good thing that we didn't get into the dormitory is its far location. When we go from here to the dorms, we need to take first a tram and then a bus. This takes about 30 minutes (if we don't get lost! =D ). We really happy to be living in Rudolfplatz!

View when entering the apartment

Our living room

There is also another bar right outside our window!

Living room

Here was our apartment! Next post about something, maybe Amsterdam.... ;)

Auf Wiedersehen!
Jenna&Maiju

Vogue Fashion's Night Out @ Düsseldorf

Hallo!

On Wednesday we went for a walk with Yvonne and she told us about the Fashion's Night out in Düsseldorf and invited us to join her and her friends. 

Vogue Fashion's Night Out is an event where different stores are open until midnight. It is arranged in different countries worldwide. In Germany it is held in Düsseldorf and also in Berlin. In addition for the stores being open late, they also offer free drinks and DJ's play music. 

Our train to Düsseldorf left at 18.34 from Köln Hauptbahnhof and the journey lasted only 30 minutes and it was for free!! We have our student ID cards from CBS which allows us to use all the public transportation in Köln and also in Nordrhein-Westfalen state. By the way nobody was checking the tickets at any point, so no matter if you have a ticket or not...:D

Mirror selfie :)

Even though the name of the event was Fashion's Night Out, it really wasn't about the fashion....better name would have been Free Champagne's Night Out :D:DD Everybody was there for the drinks, nobody was looking the clothes or buying anything. Except Maiju found a bag!

Not all the glasses are ours! :D

One store had really put an effort to the event. They had a real bar inside the clothing store and also the music was playing quite loud. They offered free vodka-mix-something-drinks, but you could also order anything else for a cost. We kept to the free-ones :D

Can you see the mannequin inside? She is actually a real person!

Free sparkling wine in Zara! Not in Finland!

Then a bit before midnight we headed to the Düsseldorf Hbf and took a train back to Köln. When we got back to Rudolfplatz (our home stop), there was a full party going on in the street. Lots of men partying near our house, the street was actually packed. The reason for this might be, that we have a gay bar right next to our place...Even though we were really tired, the music was so good and loud that we felt like going to dance with the men! :D Still decided not to..

Next post is about our apartment and the location!

Tschüs!

Jenna&Maiju

Recently

Hallo!

Saturday evening. Time flies here really fast! It was just a couple days ago when we came here..? :D
Two weeks, actually!
This week the school started. We are not sure how to handle all the classes... there are so many as 9 in a week XD In Finland we have like 9 per day haha.
Enough about the school for now, we will tell about it later!

We have had many events this week: on Tuesday we had a welcoming reception for new international students. It was held in our school's garden and cafeteria. The meaning of the event was to get to know everybody and meet our study buddies. Well, it did not go that well :D it was fun but Maiju doesn't even have a study buddy and Jenna didn't find hers and later we heard that he didn't even show up.
We just hung out with our friends drinking Coca-Cola and Kölsch (do we even need to mention this anymore, it is obvious that they serve it everywhere). We planned to go to Yvonne's place in the evening, but we never made it there..

Here we are! Jenna is shining like an angel XD

Just before leaving for the welcoming reception, our toilet seat broke :( It was flushing all the time! We called the caretaker of the house and he promised to come see it in the evening, after he comes back from a football match. Well, he came after 23 and could do nothing to it. After that we were quite tired and Jenna needed to go to school 8.45 in the morning so we decided to stay in. (End of story: the plummer came to repair the toilet next day)

On Wednesday I (Maiju) had no school so I just slept late and waited for Jenna to come back from school. In the evening Yvonne asked us to go for a walk. We walked around the city about two hours :) It was nice.

Rhein

A beautiful hotel next to Dom :)

On Thursday we had a party called Crazy College- Welcome Party for CBS students! Maiju had school until 20 so she needed to hurry getting ready for pre-party in the dorms :D
Around 21 we left home and took a tram to Chlodwigplatz (better known as CH platz :D) and then we took a bus to the dorms, or that is what we thought.. Somewhere far away we noticed that we are going to the wrong direction. Then we got out of the bus and realized that we are like 2 km away from the dorms :D After walking like 30 minutes we found the dormitory.

There we hung out and drank wine in the back yard's garden. Jenna had some problems with her wine :D Of course there was a real cork in the bottle and we had no opener. In the dorms they had every other bottle openers but not one for wine bottles.. Luckily Pablo managed to open it with scissors :D Some guys got some wine to their shirts.. And Jenna to the eye :D:D

From the dorms we took taxis to Diamonds. We left there at 4 and there was a full party going on. Unlike in Finland, the bars here do not close at 4. Later when we talked to our friends we heard that it closed somewhere 6 am. We had FUN! Pictures below..

Andrea, Pauline, Jenna, Yvonne, Maiju

Andrea, Pauline, Jenna, Yvonne, Maiju, Christine, Manuel

Now I get it why people always think I am from Italy, Spain or Turkey :D

Yeah one picture tells more than thousand words..

On Friday we went to Düsseldorf (separate post coming!) for a Vogue Fashion Night.

Today! We had yeat another event, Crazy 88. A student from the Netherlands had introduced this event two years ago. It is based on a tv show in the Netherlands and basically about doing stupid and crazy stuff around the city.

We were divided into three groups and we got 88 tasks to perform in three hours. It was super fun and silly :D Example tasks:

-Cause a traffic jam of five cars

-Order a glass of milk in a brewery

-Propose a stranger

-Tell a stranger that you are the love of his/her life

-Eat a hamburger in only one bite

-Do moonwalk with the whole group

 Hopefully we get the pictures of today later!

At Hauptbahnhof there was a protest! Lots of police officers and protesters.

Next post is about our trip to Düsseldorf. Bis bald!

Maiju&Jenna

Weekend

Hallo!

Our weekend was full of partying and everything else.

On Friday we went to school just for a couple of hours. We had a library tour ("This is the library, ok bye") and we filled out the registration forms for the city of Cologne. You need to register as an inhabitant of the city if you are staying here more than 3 months.

After school we went home, cooked, cleaned a bit and started getting ready for the evening. First thing was to go to Rewe (our favourite grocery store so far) and buy some alcohol. We found Somersby from there in a cute four-pack! The only cider we have been able to find here.. We had "some" problems opening the bottles because there is no bottle-opener in our apartment.. :D As smart girls we realized that we could use lighter, but it was not that easy..

The lighter got some damage :D

Success! :D (emptying the bottle)

At nine our friend Yvonne came to our apartment. We spent an hour here together, and then we left to Il Forno to meet with the other exchange students. There we drank one glasses of wine, which we had to order in German because the waiter did not speak English, and continued our way to Diamonds club.

One of our group works in the Diamonds, so we all got in for free. At the door we received a "credit card". You did not need to pay for the drinks when ordering them, but the sum was marked into the credit card each time. When you left the bar, you needed to pay the whole sum. We also heard that if you lose it during the evening, you need to pay a 40 € fee.

Smoking was allowed in the bar. Or actually it wasn't, but everyone did it still and nobody really cared. The EU laws huh? :D And another thing we have noticed: Coca-Cola bottles are thicker here! Finnish people, don't you remember the old bottles? Nowadays they are different in Finland, but not here..

At some point we were invited to the upstairs, which was a VIP area.
The evening was great and cheap for us :D A lots of free drinks, at least then when we noticed we are sitting in the same table with the owner of the club..

Jenna, Maiju, Irina and Pim

Pim photobombed us :( :D

What a great quality

On Saturday we slept over noon. Maiju had a headache... Caused of what? No idea. After arise from the death we agreed to meet with Yvonne and Martina at Neumarkt.
Neumarkt is one of the best areas in Cologne to shop. We went to Primark at first, and spent there like 2 hours.. The shop was crazy! Hundreds of people and 4 floors. Everything under 15 €.

Not that happy husbands waiting outside :D Juho and Jaakko, get ready for this! XD

After some shopping we decided to go grab Döner. We took Döner sandwich, which costed 3,50 €. It contained of course the kebab, then salad, tzatziki etc. It was so good and fresh! The meat was really different than in Finland: it wasn't that dark and it tasted fresh. A lot better!

Yummy!!

While we were eating, Facebook informed us that there is a party in the dorms. We decided with the girls that we will meet at Yvonne's place at first and then go to the dorms.
We met Irina at Rudolfplatz at 20.40 and then we took the tram to Yvonne's place. It was raining a LOT, and we were not sure where to go so you can guess the result :D
At Yvonne's we met some new nice people and spent there couple of hours drinking vodka and playing cards. The Spanish-speaking guys needed to drink a lot, because during the game they were not allowed to speak any Spanish and... well they did. All the time. :D
The time was about 23 when we left for the dorms. There was a party going on! A lot of people, music, beer pong, drinking games and fun !! Me and Jenna were actually quite good at beer pong, considering that we were playing it for the first time. We lost only with one cup :(

Around 2 the police showed up because some neighbor apparently did not like our noise.. It was funny to notice how differently people react to the police. An example: some girls over there were taking it seriously: they were concerned and worried what is going to happen because the police showed up. Others could not care less. Me and Jenna were like running to the door to see what the police looks like :D:D "Yeyy, the police! Come and see it!!"

After the police left the party kinda stopped, so me, Jenna and Irina decided to go home. We left there 2.30. Until then the party was super fun! :)

Maiju, Yvonne and Jenna

Kleiner Feigling! This bottle was tiny, the height was about 5cm. Contained 20% alcohol and tasted like apple. Sweet!

This is how our (both..shhh) evening ended: McDonalds. So greasy but so good :D

On Sunday we did nothing.. Except Jenna colored my hair. And we ate. And watched tv.
Jenna actually was coloring hair for the first time and she did it so good :)
And yeah! Hair color is here super cheap! In Finland one color costs 10-13 €, here it was 1,95 € haha :D Not too expensive.

This was basically (huh? Basically? How long this post is going to be?:D) our weekend. Today we had our first lessons. We will come and tell about them later this week.

Tschüs!

Maiju&Jenna