Finally a new post!!

As I sit here, drinking a cup of tea at my hotel in London, I recap on the last 5 days of travel.  I feel like I have been 'going, going, going,' ever since I have arrived to Europe.  It has been very hard to find free internet in this country, and buying the internet is quite expensive.  Therefore, I have been journaling as much as I can in an awesome journal that my fiance, Tom, gave to me.  It has been hard to talk to the outside world of the United States, and taking everything in has been somewhat hectic.  I am planning on typing up some of my journal entries to explain more details of my trip, however, those entries may have to wait until Wednesday, as we have yet another travel day ahead of us tomorrow.  So, here is a small recap of my trip.  To say the least, it has been wonderful!  I am so blessed to have been able to go on such an awesome trip and to experience such great things! 

Amsterdam was definitely more than I expected!  I was expecting 'coffee shops' on every street corner, thousands of girls in the windows, and bitterballen everywhere.  The things listed were not things that I experienced often.  I had the privlidge of meeting my friend Erika in the Amsterdam airport! She and the people she was traveling with gave my mom and I helpful suggestions and fun places to go and visit while in Amsterdam.  However, we never found the amazing white asparagus soup that they were highly talking about!  After some confusion on how to get to our hotel, we finally arrived!  Check- in was smooth, and our hotel was extremely nice and in a great location!  We started our day with a stop at a typical European cafe, people watching, cappuccinos, and all.  Next, we walked around the city for a little while.  We hopped on a canal cruise of Amsterdam and saw some pretty amazing buildings and sights.  After only about 2 hours of sleep on the plane, we decided it was a good idea to take a short little nap before we saw anymore sights.  Rested and energized, we headed to the infamous red light district.  It took us a little while to find it, but when we found it, we knew we had arrived.  It is crazy that this people in Amsterdam do this for a living.  We watched girls, that looked as if they could be some of my sorority sisters, get ready for the night.  They were laughing, drinking some drinks, and trying to look seducing in the windows.  I am sure that they were waiting till much later to get some business, as it was still a little light outside when we saw all of this.  On our way back from the 'district,' we saw more 'coffee shops,' and started to smell a little more marajuana.  I thought that I would see this everywhere, but it wasn't as obvious as it would seem.  After our small adventure to an unknown territory, we headed to a corner pub in a really awesome square.  (I will get the name later.)  There, we decided to try some typical dutch food, some of which was good, and some of which was not so good.  Our meal; bitterballen, young dutch cheese, and tomato basil soup.  I would put the bitterballen in the not so good category.  However, the young dutch cheese and the tomato basil soup were absolutely amazing!  We also had beer to top it off!  We ended up sitting next to some relaly nice Danish people.  Well, one was Danish and one was Dutch, they gave us a lot of great suggestions, and it was nice talking to someone from a different culture!  At 2 in the morning, we finally decided to go to bed.

Day 2 started off a little late.  Not thinking about the time change, alarms were set, but did not go off at the time we had expected!  At 1:30, we finally woke up and were out the door in 15 minutes.  We decided to head straight to the Rijks Museum.  The fact that we are not really museum people, helped us out.  We were in and out of there in a little under 2 hours.  We saw some amazing pictures and dutch heritage, but we were more excited about walking around the city, seeing the market, and especially... the Anne Frank House at 5:15!  After the musuem, we went to the Albery Cryptmarkt (I will double check spelling a little later in my notes.).  It was a cute little market.  Well, I should really say large market.  It had everything from fruits and vegetables to purses and glasses.  I really enjoy spending time in these places and taking in the atmosphere.  We walked around for a while, grabbed some chicken drumsticks and some absolutely amazing pears, and headed on our walk to the famous Anne Frank House.  I also bought some spice from a cute little spice and tea shop.  The lady working there said that it was a popular dutch spice, and I should use it in Christmas cookies.  So, whoever is lucky enough to try my cookies near Christmas will get to experience the dutch spice that I bought!  The Anne Frank House is a whole other journal entry in itself.  To say the least, it was absolutely amazing.  So many thoughts go through your head when you experience such an amazing museum.  The courage and strength it took for all of the people in hiding is something that I admire so much, and pray that no one ever has to experience that in their lives!  The Anne Frank House brings together so many people from around the world. It also makes you realize how lucky we really are.  We choose to walk around a little more afterwards, visiting shops, and watching the town.  We ended our night with a lovely brasserie near the opera house.  Knowing that we had another early day ahead of us, we decided to go back to the hotel and prepare for the journey ahead.

After waiting in the airport for a delayed flight, we finally arrived in the city of London.  Excited, yet exhausted, we attempted to figure out how to get to our hotel by using the trains.  Not knowing that some of the trains had been closed, we decided to take a 20 pound taxi for the remainder of our journey.  It was definitely worth it, however, we have now figured out the easy underground system.  Day one in London was quite hectic.  We were not expecting to see so many people, but they were everywhere!  I think that this is the most crowded city that I have ever been in!  We saw a few sights, but we were planning on saving the 'touristy' sights for the next day when we weren't so tired from traveling. 

Day 2 was filled with sights and history.  It is amazing how much history is over here!  We got up early, had some tea, and headed to the train station, where we met the train station captain.  He became our tour guide for our stay, to say the least, he is an awesome older man who loves his city!  We first headed to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.  That lasted a while, and we got some great video and pictures.  We then headed to Westminister Pier and purchased tickets to take a river cruise on the Thames River.  Knowing that we had to wait an hour for the next ferry, we headed to see Westminister Abby, Big Ben, Parliment, and of course, a little red telephone booth.  It was cool to see Westminister Abby, the place where Princess Diana's funeral was held, and the place where the kings and queens recieve their crowns.  The river cruise was awesome! We saw so many sights that we did not have to take the underground to see!  Shakespeare's globe theatre, the London Bridge, the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, the place where the Mayflower was built and took off to the new world, and more things that I am probably not thinking about right now!  I was amazed at the sight of the Mayflower construction sight.  Supposenly, some of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower, so this was an incredible sight for me to see!  The boat stopped in Greenwich, a great place to explore.  A cute little market was where we found food from all over the world, and purchased some English Breakfast tea to take home.  We proceeded up the hill to the Greenwich Meantime area and took all of the touristy pictures possible.  The view was amazing!  We then headed back to the theatre district and saw a preformance entitled, "Michael Jackson's Thriller Live."  Yes, Michael Jackson.  But, it was an experience to remember.  Not just because the preformers did a great job at portraying this legacy, but because it was so neat to see all of the people singing his songs.  They may not know English at all, but they can sure sing all of the words to Michael Jackson's greatest hits! Getting back late to the hotel, we decided to have a few snacks before bed, and put our exhausted selves to sleep! 

Today, day three, was much more relaxing!  Getting up early really allows you to get things done, so we got up, and headed to the Kings Cross Station to get our Eurostar tickets to Paris tomorrow (Tuesday).  We did a quick stop at the British Museum to see the mummies and the Rosetta Stone, and headed to Harrods to see the famous department store and Lady Diana Memorial.  It is crazy how there seems to be little to no existance of Lady Diana in this town.  It is as if she never existed, which is completely devastating.  When you are in London, it is hard not to think about Royalty and all of the inns and outs behind it.  Actually, right after I write this, I am going to do a little research on Prince William and Kate Middelton.  I am not jealous of the role that she is about to take on, talk about stressful and always in the public eye!  We headed over to Kensington Palace, a total dissapointment.  They are trying to redo the Palace and really need to maintain the gardens and building itself.  We then walked back to the hotel, propped up our feet, and recharged for dinner......Fish and Chips.  Something that everyone has to do in London, right?  Well, we ate it allright.  Well, I ate it.  My mom did not care for it much.  Now, I am sitting back in the hotel room, thinking about all of the things that I want to look up on the internet about Royalty and how absurb it really is, drinking my tea, and getting ready for another day ahead of me.  We leave London at 4:55 and head to Paris.  As one adventure ends, another one begins.  I will post pictures soon, as we have free internet in our Paris flat.  Hopefully, communication will be a little better and I can share my thoughts, feelings, and of course, pictures with the rest of you! Cheers!