EuroTrip...Amsterdam, The Netherlands

My mom arrived on Friday the 19th here in Paris.  Once we got her things situated and dropped off at my apartment we went straight over to the Sacre Coeur to walk around inside the basilica.  I had already done this when my friend Lauren was here visiting me but she didn't get to the last time she was in Paris.  After we did that we walked around my neighborhood and bought a few souvenirs to take back to her friends at work.  I also got my friend Andrea a couple gifts as well.  Oh and I forgot to mention we had lunch at the Italian place down from my apartment called Pulcinella.  I got the tortellini with the truffle cream sauce and my mom got something kinda similar.  The cooks were heavy on the salt that day and anyone that knows me, knows I love salt!  Okay so back to the day...we had on the agenda to do the Fat Tire night bike tour that started at 6:00 so we stopped off for a beer at the Cafe Ziem and then got ready to book it over to the meeting spot.  The bike ride was a ton of fun.  It started off drizzling right when we pulled off but no big deal.  The night bike was a lot more biking and not as much talk, which is what I kinda prefer.  We were weaving in and out of the busy streets in the rain and it was just an awesome experience.  Don't have any pictures from it as we were using my mom's camera more and plus most of the places we stopped off, I had already been to and gotten pics of.  About an hour and a half into the bike ride we stopped off to get an ice cream and it was yum.  I got a caramel butter flavor and can't remember what mom got but I remember mine being better.  The rain started picking up a little heavier and I had a few complications with my bike as the chain kept coming off but one of the guides was able to fix it right away.  Another highlight was that we got to take a little cruise on a Seine River Boat.  We parked all our bikes and loaded up on the boat.  The guides brought along several bottles of wine for us to drink and we got up close views of the Eiffel Tower at night and when it sparkled at the top of the hour.  Once we got through with the tour we came straight back to my part of town since it was really late.  We grabbed a kebab for dinner and went to sleep as we had to catch an early morning train to Amsterdam from Gare du Nord.

The train station was a bit chaotic since a couple of the escalators weren't working and we had to lug our suitcases up the stairs and they were HEAVY.  Then we waited for them to post our platform number.  Getting on the train and finding our seats was pretty easy and we were off in no time.  We took a high speed train and the trip was only around 3 hours.  Being the internet junkie that I am, I was able to purchase some wifi and blog a little on the train.  Finally we were only 1 stop away from reaching Amsterdam and our train stops in a dark tunnel.  They come on the loud speaker and explain that there is something wrong with the train and it would be about 25 minutes.  Immediately after the conductor got off the loud speaker we hear a LOUD BOOM!  Several of us look around at each other with a worried look in our eyes.  Was that normal?  Was that a bomb?  Then about 10 minutes later we hear it again!  At this point I'm a little freaked about but finally our train started moving and all was okay.

Once we got to Amsterdam we knew we had to take a tram to get out to our little hotel.  We find a tourist information area and mom gets our tram pass for the next couple days.  We get on the tram and ride that sucker forever!  We were a little outside of the main areas but still just a few tram stops away.  We stayed at a quaint little 2 star place called Hotel Wilhelmina.  Our room had a little tv that played 1 English channel, Animal Planet!  Wow, I just decided from that last sentence I'm going into way too much detail!  Since we got to Amsterdam around early afternoon we hook it back into town and hit up the Heineken Brewery first.

I made mom be the guy, haha!

After the brewery it was onwards to the Anne Frank House.  They stayed open pretty late and from one of the travel books mom picked up they said to go around 6:30 in the evening because the line wasn't as long.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the house but it was really neat.  It made you feel like you were the the time period when the family was hiding out.  I believe they were there for a little over 2 years before they were ratted out by someone and all sent to concentration camps.  Below is a picture of the outside of the house.

After the Anne Frank house we decided to switch it up all together and head to an entirely different type of museum.  The Sex Museum!  Whoa what a weird bunch of stuff!  Here are a few pics taken from inside, they are somewhat comical.

Somehow after the Sex Museum we were hungry, so we decided to eat at an Indonesian restaurant and have a "rice table" that mom had read about in one of her books.  Way too much food! We ate as much as we could and had to stop.  It was getting late after dinner and we headed back to our little bungalow and hit the sack.  The next day we were to do a bike tour and some more sightseeing.  We slept in the next day and went downstairs and grabbed a little free breakfast that was included in the price of the room.  It was less than stellar but the orange juice was decent.  We walked around town for most of the early afternoon and then caught the bike tour.  Since Fat Tire didn't have a branch in Amsterdam we went through Mikes Bike Tours and I would recommend taking this to anyone that visits the city.  The Dutch know how to ride a bike and Mike is very knowledgeable on all things about the city!  

This above is a picture of the Amstel River and around 10,000 bicycles are pulled from this river every year!

If you look closely you can see that some of the buildings in the background are actually a little crooked and are leaning sideways!

One of the many "coffeeshops" you can find in Amsterdam.  We didn't go into this particular one, but we did step inside one just to see what it was all about.  No purchases were made though, perhaps on another trip without ol' mom!

After the bike ride we took our guides advice and hit up the Pancake Company for dinner.  These weren't normal pancakes as you could get ones with meat, cheese, etc. inside them.  They were similar to a crepe.  Mom got The Hungarian and I got The Mexican and I really preferred her's over mind.  We should have share just one to be honest because they were giant and neither of us could finish ours.  Afterwards we went into a coffeeshop just to use the internet.  We were told they had computers with internet access and since our 2 star didn't offer wifi so I could get on my laptop, this was our excuse to step inside an Amsterdam coffeeshop!  Next we just headed back to the hotel since it was getting late. We had an early wake up call to get out to the airport for our next leg of the exciting EuroTrip!

St. Patricks Day

I arrived back in Paris on the 17th, also more popularly referred to as St. Patrick's Day.  I was originally supposed to get back to Paris the day before but about 3 weeks prior, EasyJet decided to cancel my flight that day leaving me the option to fly back the next day.  I got home around 7pm, showered and got ready and met my friend Maggie at (where else) CORCORANS!  Good thing my favorite bar in town just so happens to be an Irish one.  I figured the place would be crowded but didn't realize it would be packed to the brim.  Everyone was sporting Guinness hats and drinking the dark brown milkshake lager.  Somehow Maggie and I managed to find a little nook with 2 bar stools that we could sit in comfortably and do some people watching.  Guinness not being my favorite beer, I opted for my 1664 blonde that I have come to love.  Corcoran's also had a live band playing some traditional Irish tunes and ever so often someone would walk by with a bucket to tip them with.  I contributed about 2 Euro's worth and called it great.

Later on Maggie's friend Cyiril showed up with a couple of his friends and they joined us in our nook.  It's there we decided to play paparazzi picture time and snap a bunch of photos.  If you're wondering where my "green" is, it's my hat dammit, and yes it counts!

That's my french moustache with a couple of Guinness stickers that some girls were handing out.  Despite the above pictures I kept it pretty tame that night since I needed to get some things done the next day before my mom arrived for our EuroTrip 2010!!!

Kilt Kountry Part 4...Edinburgh & Aberdeen, SCOTLAND!

The next morning, after many attempt from Terri, Tiffany and I sadly shot down the idea of hiking over AND up to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.  It literally looked like it was miles in the distance and it seemed like the only way to get to the top would be by helicopter.  Okay okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration but it didn't look close that's for sure.  So instead, what do 3 girls do on their last day in a historic beautiful old city?  Why SHOP of course!  In Texas we don't have stores such as H&M, TopShop, and Next which are three trendy clothing shops.  So we browsed up and down the main strip of shops on Princes Street.  I bought a leather wallet at Top Shop which I needed badly since the last time I bought one I think I was in high school.  It was genuine leather and only set me back 15 Euros which I think is a pretty good deal.  Next place we go to is H&M but I don't buy anything here.  Tiffany bought a couple of cute dresses and I think Terri just perused the store.  Last place we hit up was Next where I bought a sailor print top and some jeggings.  I love those things.  They are tights/leggings that look like denim jeans thus forming "jeggings!"  We also made our way over to the newer area of town where some high end stores were.  We found a store similar to the US' Abercrombie & Fitch but it was even more overpriced than A&F.  I think it was called Jack Wills.  In here we took a little nap on the Great Britain flag couch.

While strolling down George Street we happened upon a restaurant called Browns that Terri had eaten at before.  Feeling a little parched, we decided to peek our heads in and walk towards the bar area.  Come to find out it was happy hour pricing on selected drinks.  We sat outside on the sidewalk and each had 2 cocktails and gossipped about nonsense.  Just before leaving we took a gander at the dinner menu and decided we wanted to come back that evening for supper.  Afterwards we did some final souvenir shopping and I mailed off postcards to a few friends.  Poor Terri bought a cover for her ipod and it didn't fit.  It was a bit too small and she kept trying to cram it in, only to find it getting more stuck.  Back to the flat we went to relax before getting ready for our last night out.  Grabbed a taxi back to Brown's for dinner.  Wish I could remember what I had to eat but I guess that shows you how memorable it was.  Next we decide to go have some cold ones for our last night in the big city, which was a Monday night.  After getting lost and backtracking a few times we finally found the piano bar Terri was telling us about....and it was shut down!  We were then forced to just go to any place that happened to be open.  Went to a traditional pub first for one beer but it was quite the snooze fest, not too much going on there so we hit the pavement again in search for our next venue.  We happened upon a few promoters handing out flyers for free cover and 2 GBP vodka and red bull's.  The name of he place they were promoting was Shanghai.  We were a bit weary so Tiffany proceeded to ask one of the guys, "So if you weren't promoting club Shanghai, where would YOU go on a Monday night?"  And as any good promoter and loyal employee would say he replied with "Shanghai, of course!"  So what do we end up doing?  Going to Shanghai.  Once inside Shanghai we found that this place was a haven for the youngsters.  Not that any of us three are "old" but the average age of the clientele here was between 18 and 21.  Apparently Edinburgh has several universities and is somewhat considered a college town.  The girls were wearing next to nothing, but here's the kicker...it was FREEZING outside.  I mean I'm all for looking cute but these girl just looked like morons cause it was so cold outside.  While in Shanghai we did chat with a few friendly people and danced around a bit.  After several vodka and red bulls we were feeling good and we too felt 21 again!

Somehow we managed to shut down ol' Shanghai and we took a taxi back to our place.  We had a fairly early train back to Aberdeen so we pretty much passed out.  Woke up the next morning, got to the train station and slept most of the entire way on the train.  I can't recall if we grabbed any lunch but I do know we went fairly quickly back to Terri's place to rest up a bit more!  I played around on the internet (big surprise) while the others dozed off.  Found out that Terri's co-workers were to play in a soccer match later that evening so we conjured up a plan to figure out where they were playing and to surprise them.  We ate dinner at Pizza Express first.  Terri had a coupon voucher for an appetizer, glass of wine, and pizza for just 12 GBP which was a helluva deal.  We each got our own pizzas and they were delish.  We then walked over to the guy's soccer match.  They were pretty surprised to see us and they actually won their game.  We only caught the tail end of it, but that 15 minutes was enough for me.  Andrew, Terri's co-worker gave us a ride back in his car so we didn't have to walk which was great.  Andrew dropped off Terri and Tiffany because Terri had to work the next morning and Tiffany had a 4:30am wake up call to get ready and be at the airport around 6:30am.  Andrew drove me around Aberdeen for awhile showing me some places I hadn't seen while walking around. We went by an area that looked somewhat like Putt Putt Golf & Games, went by the lighthouse (who doesn't like lighthouses?!), showed me a "dogging" spot which apparently is a place where people will drive to, park their cars and wait for others to come knock on their window for a quick hookup!  That is just crazy but I guess to each their own!

                  

                  

Overall I had a fantastic trip in Scotland!  The countryside is absolutely beautiful and the people and towns are great.  I will definitely have to return to the country one day and maybe head over to Inverness to see if I can get look at the legendary Loch Ness Monster!

Kilt Kountry Part 3...Edinburgh, SCOTLAND!

We arrived at the train station in Aberdeen a bit early despite being out fairly late the night before.  We pretty much slept the whole way to Edinburgh to feel refreshed and ready to hit the streets when we got to the bustling city.  Once we arrived at Waverly train station we grab a taxi to take us to our flat that we rented for the next couple days.  We had originally booked to stay in a budget hostel but it was really only supposed to be for 2 people rather than 3 so we decided to play it safe and nixed that idea.  Terri found us the cutest little furnished apartment right in the center of the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh, that we called home the next couple of nights.  I wish I would have gotten some pics of it but unfortunately I didn't.  It had a shower and bathtub (something I've been lacking in Paris), a fully furnished kitchen, a bedroom with a queen size bed and the most comfortable mattress I've slept on in AGES, and a nice sized living room complete with satellite tv and a faux fireplace that when flipped on looked like a fire was burning!

Since the place wasn't quite ready when we arrived and needed a bit more cleaning from the previous occupants, we just dropped our things off and decided to walk up to the castle that wasn't too far from our area.  We ended up not going inside but took a few obligatory photos so we could indeed say "Hey, I've been there before!"

A giant church also lay in the streets of Edinburgh just outside the gates of the castle.  I'm not sure how old the church is, but it's gotta be getting up there due to the charred black look it's got going for itself!

Walking down the streets I spot a ghost, or perhaps my eyes were deceiving me.  After I did a double take I realized that I was indeed right the first time...when suddenly appearing before my eyes was the man himself...Mr. William Wallace aka Braveheart!

After losing the sword fight and surrendering to your's truly, we decided to call a truce.

Souvenir shopping was on the agenda next.  I've been sending postcards to various friends back in the states from all the places I visit so I snagged a few of those while Tiffany shopped for her boyfriend and his family.  She was also looking for some little food items and candies to take back to her classroom.  Poor Terri had already been to Edinburgh several times and she was subjected to all our various stops at the different stores which essentially all sold the same things.  It wasn't quite dinner time after the shopping but we had worked up a little snack appetite and stopped off at a cheese stop.  We grabbed a baguette and some soft cheese that was similar to brie only more yummy.  We took that back to the apt. and chowed on that a bit to hold us over until dinner time.  Somewhere between relaxing at the flat and having the bread and cheese, we drifted off into a short slumber.  By the time we awoke, took showers, and got ready it was around 9:30pm.  But hey, this is Edinburgh, a large tourist city and hailed as a party place right? WRONG.  We went to a small little restaurant to grab some food and they were closing! I had specifically remembered reading this particular restaurants hours of business in a brochure and their hours were "10am to Late."  Well apparently their definition of late and our's are completely opposite. We asked the waiter where he recommended us to go that might still be open to which he replied with a smartass answer..."I recommend you find some place that is still open!"  How rude! We decided we would not be spending money in that establishment for the rest of our stay.  Since it was pretty late AND a Sunday, the girls and I decided to just eat some bar food at "The Last Drop" that was around the corner from our flat. Story is that this pub was the place that people who were about to get executed went in to have their last drink before getting the axe, literally.  I opted for a traditionally Scottish meal of minced mean, neeps (turnips), and tattis (mashed potatoes).

I would give this meal about 2 and a half stars. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't unbelievably great either, then again that could have been because it was served at a bar rather than a proper restaurant.  We then went in search of a pub to have a cold one but did not succeed as it seemed the entire city shuts down early on Sundays.  Knowing we had a full day ahead of us on Monday and more sites to see we took it back to the flat and got a good nights rest to gear up for day 2 in Edinburgh...

Kilt Kountry Part 2...Aberdeen, SCOTLAND!

So after a wild Friday night us girls were a tidge hungover the next day but we managed to peel ourselves from the confines our our comfy beds, or in my case, the sofa and head to the train station.  We caught the train down to the next little town south of Aberdeen called Stonehaven where there was an awesome 15 and 16th century castle called Dunnottar Castle.  The best part was that it was situated on a cliff overlooking the North Sea!  We climbed up an endless amount of steps to get to that puppy but it was well worth it!

Before we actually made the trek over to the castle we of coursed hiked around a bit and took various picturesque photos, the pictures do it no justice!

After walking around the castle for awhile and going in and out of the different rooms we had worked up a bit of an appetite.  Thanks to our fabulous tour guide, Terri, she knew of a great little fish and chip shop right on the coast in town.  We grabbed a taxi and headed to Bay's Chippery.  We all got some haddock and chips and sat on a bench that overlooked the ocean.  The ambiance was simply amazing besides a few pesky seagulls that were eyeing our fries!

After lunch we played around and walked along the rocks and posed for various cheesy pictures.  Finally we made it back into the city center and caught the train back to Aberdeen.  Here's a pic of the train station in Aberdeen, its quite nice and they have recently opened up a shopping center connecting to the train station.  Of course we had to take a stroll through the H&M and do a little girly shopping.  I tried on a couple things but nothing I was too excited about.

After doing a little window shopping we made it back to Terri's and relaxed.  We ordered in a pizza for dinner and it was delicious. And the best part was that they delivered and we didn't have to leave the flat.  After we were rested up from the day's activities we started to get ready to go out for a few drinks.  Once again we let Terri be our tour guide and we headed to our first pub called "The Globe."  We just had 1 drink in there because it was extremely crowded and they had a live band that was way too noisy.  Poor Terri had nearly lost her voice from the previous night from yelling over loud music so we didn't stay long.

After this it was over to the "Monkey House."  Here we were able to snag a seat and listen to some dance music.  We would have stayed here longer but the bar was closing around midnight and we needed a new venue.  This bar was pretty fancy though, it looked very upscale on the inside but the clientele would suggest otherwise, ourselves included, haha!

After Monkey House closed down, we decided to meet up with my friend Steve (from Paris) who is originally from Scotland and who recently moved back.  It was his birthday on Saturday night so I figured we would grab a drink to celebrate.  We ended up at some dance club/warehouse called....well you guessed it, Warehouse!  It was super packed but again we were lucky enough to snag a seat so we could all socialize.  I was unlucky, however, as a girl with a large ass decided to post up next to me and stick her j-lo booty in my face, damn near knocking me out of my chair!

You cannot capture the fullness of that thing from the picture!  Andrew, Terri's co-worker, who was out with us the night before met up with us for a few cold ones.

And here is the birthday boy, errr girl (according to his pink pin)!

We finally decided to call it an "early" night around 3am as we had to catch the 3 hour train ride to Edinburgh the next morning.  And of course part three is to follow...

Kilt Kountry Part 1...Aberdeen, SCOTLAND!

So a little over a week ago I booked an easyjet flight over to Scotland, a mere 1 1/2 hr. flight from Paris, to go visit my friend Terri who has been living there for a little over a year.  She works in the oil and gas industry and was relocated from Houston to Aberdeen, Scotland which is the oil and gas capital of Europe.  She was gracious enough to open up her flat to me and another of her girlfriends, Tiffany.  I arrived on Thursday, March 11.  My journey there was no easy task, I have officially mastered public transportation and to be honest it feels quite good.  Starting from Paris I took the subway to Gare du Nord to catch the RER train out to Charles de Gaulle Airport.  From there I flew into Edinburgh where I then caught a shuttle bus that took me across town to the Waverly Train Station.  I then hopped a high speed train to Aberdeen that took around 2 1/2 hrs. finally landing me in Aberdeen.  From there it was just a short taxi ride to Terri's door. Whew!  I got there about 11:15 and Terri greeted me with a glass of red wine and a lot of banter that we needed to catch up on.  Tiffany arrived the next morning, her flight went directly into Aberdeen which was nice.  Friday was our first day in the "big city" and Terri had to go into work for a little bit.  We walked with her to her office and met some of her co-workers that we would later be going out with that evening.  While Terri was taking care of a little business, Tiffany and I wandered around the streets near her office and into a little gift store called Nova.  They had lots of cute trinkets and stuff, but neither one of us purchased anything.  At this point we were pretty hungry and snuck into a little sandwich shop called Food Story.  I got a bowl of Thai Chicken Soup and a cheese and bacon sandwich.  Pretty tasty.  Afterwards we met Terri back at her office.  We then decided to go back to Terri's flat and rest up for a little bit before our first big night out.  Plus Tiffany was pretty jet lagged from just getting in earlier that morning as she said she didn't really sleep on the plane.

Around 6:30 we had dinner plans to eat our first round of the delicious Fish and Chips at a restaurant called Ashvale.  My new friend Amber who also lives in Aberdeen with her husband made reservations for all of us.  Amber and her husband Mike also had friends in town visiting from Texas.  At dinner we had a total of 10 Texans, it was Awesome (even if some of them were Aggies...just kidding!).  Here's a shot of our table.

And of course the delicious fish (haddock) and chips with lots of salt and vinegar, yum!

Outside the restaurant they had one of those cheesy little props where you can stick your head through a cutout and take a picture. And since I'm never one to turn down a photo-op...

After filling our bellies full of food, we embark on finding a nice little place to throw back a few.  Our first stop is the Howff, which I would refer to as a traditional pub.  I tried to document all the places we stopped off, but I very well could have missed a few.

After a beer at The Howff, we let our tour guides lead us on our merry way to the next drinking establishment.  I'm not sure of it's name but the whole point of us going in was to check out the really cool bookshelf....or was it even a bookshelf?!

Surprise, it was the women's bathroom!  Kind of a cool design but I'm glad I had friends to tell me where it was otherwise I'd be one of those people with the lost look on their faces when trying to find the WC.  After a few photo's of the bathroom we continued on our journey to the next watering hole, Ma Cameron's.

Above is Amber, Terri, Tiffany, and myself...all proudly representing the Texas State Bobcats...eat 'em up!  Also at Ma Cameron's I discovered a delicious Scottish beer called Tennet's which was a nice break from the usual 1664 I get back in Paris.

After having a pint or 2 at Ma Cameron's it's then time to meet up with a few of Terri's co-workers whom we have heard many a story about.  They decide to take us to Soul which conveniently happens to be a renovated church turned bar.  We learn during our time in Aberdeen that these are quite popular and tend to be the norm.  We snag a table at Soul and the first to arrive are JC who works with Terri, his friend Clarke, another of Terri's co-workers, Andrew and Doug who could easily be mistaken for Alan from The Hangover .  In true gentlemanly fashion they order a bottle of vodka for us at the table with some red bull.  It didn't take us anytime to polish that bad boy off, but in the mean time Tiffany and I said a quick prayer.

Here's a picture of the stained glass window that you can somewhat see in the above picture

And a picture of the church/bar from the outside

Soul closed down around 2am and we emptied the bottle of vodka so what else were we to do? Certainly not go home so we mosey over to Espionage!  This place had 3 levels.  The bottom floor had a bar and dance music but they were spinning oldies tracks like Greece Lightening.  As much love as I have for John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, I just wasn't feeling the bottom floor.  On the 2nd level it was mainly just a bar area and booths to chat and mingle.  This is where most of our group holed up.  And last but not least was the 3rd floor filled with bumping booty shaking music, sweat, and B.O.!  Spent quite a bit of time upstairs dancing the night away with my dance partner and protector, Andrew.  White boy can drop it like it's hot, haha! 

Here is a pic of Terri and Clarke with the Espionage sign above!  I'm pretty sure we closed ol' Espionage down as well which was roughly around 3am.  We took a cab back to Terri's where we went up to her flat and hung out a little more after finally drifting off sometime after the sun started to rise.  And that, my friends, was just night 1 in Scotland.  To be continued!

Montparnasse Tower

I kept hearing rave reviews on the Montparnasse tower and how it has a better view of the "City of Lights" than from atop the Eiffel Tower.  Because I've already been on top of the Eiffel the last time I visited Paris back in 2005, I decided to check out Montparnasse.  Apparently the Montparnasse Tower is a bit more centrally located and most importantly it lets you see one of the most popular landmarks of the city that you can't see when you are on top of the Eiffel Tower!  What is this landmark you ask?  Well I'll tell ya....it's the EIFFEL TOWER!  Clearly if you are on top of the Eif you wouldn't be able to see it, so that is what is so incredible about Montparnasse...it's also taller than the ol' Eif.  Okay so moving on.  I decided to go at night since previously I went to the top of the Eiffel during the day.  I got there right at dusk so I could see the sun set and I also got to see the Eiffel Tower twinkle at 7:00 pm although it wasn't quite all the way dark.  Here is the sun setting.

After I snapped a few photos I went back inside from being on the 59th floor outdoor terrace.  I read a few little fun facts on the tower and had a coffee to wait for the next twinkle time at 8:00pm when it was completely dark.  I got some gorgeous pictures and a couple cool videos on my camera.  The wind was absolutely crazy that evening.  It the videos you can hear it in the background.

Here are the links to the videos I took on top of Montparnasse Tower of the Eiffel Tower sparkling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGAROjjOIEA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_YgEeLmfZs

Overall I would recommend hitting up this spot if you ever visit the city!  There is no crazy lines to get to the top and it is actually Europe's fastest elevator that takes you to the 56th floor!  The price is around 10 Euros for adults and 7.50 Euros for students, which of course I used my old student ID...always trying to save a buck, I am!