European Journal July 8, 2010

Chiara had arranged for a 6:45am wake-up call, and it was a good thing! we had set our alarm for 6:15am, but my idea of hitting the snooze button didn't work too well... the alarm never went off again! We got ready quickly, had our luggage out at 7:15am, and had breakfast. It was another buffet, and again, very good. Bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, breads, yogurt, and fruit. And again, strong coffee!

We boarded our bus at 8:15am, and drove to Amsterdam's center to meet our local guide, Bridgette.

We took an hour cruise in a boat along the many canals while Bridgette pointed out landmarks and gave us a history lesson on Amsterdam. There were A LOT of orange decorations rooting for the Holland soccer team, as they were in the World Cup finals. We learned a lot about Amsterdam from Bridgette's humorous, fun commentary.

There are an EXTRAORDINARY number of bicycles in Amsterdam. EVERYONE rides a bike! We even saw men and women in suits and dresses riding bicycles! There are bike lanes throughout the city. We also didn't know that Amsterdam is an amazing series of canals, with a set limit of 2,400 house boats that can live in the canals. The canals are freshwater, and kept very clean by almost nightly cleanings. Bridgette said the canals are 3 meters deep... "1 meter of mud, 1 meter of bikes, and 2 meters of water." Apparently, they drag many many bikes out of the canals!

We took a short ride in the bus, with Bridgette as our guide, to the Coster Diamond Center. Here we saw some diamonds being polished, as well as some cut/polished diamonds that were for sale.

We re-boarded to complete the rest of our city tour with Bridgette, and ended at Amsterdam's City Station. We had some free time for lunch. Bryan and I stopped at a little place called Blom.

We had Amstel beer and sandwiches. We sat next to a really nice older lady and her daughter. The older woman had lived in Detroit, Michigan, 40 years ago for about 8 years. She was very helpful and friendly, and asked it we had visited the red light district! We told her no, but that we had sure heard a lot about it! Bryan noticed that the coffee shops had a minimum age of 18 to enter (because of the drugs they sell there).

We re-boarded the bus at 2pm, and passed uneventfully into Germany. The two and a half hours bus ride was used by most people to catch a little nap.

We stopped for a mandatory rest stop in Germany and had some ice cream and stretched our legs. The bathrooms were .70 euro, but you could get .50 euro off of a purchase for using the restroom. We re-boarded the bus to head to Andernach. It was a little past 8pm when we arrived at hour hotel. Our group stayed at the Anker Hotel. Bryan and I were given a room at the Rheinkrone Hotel next door (apparently, there were no double beds at the Anker). The hotels were on the Rhein River, and the view was beautiful. It was hot, mid 80's, when we arrived. We had dinner at the Anker Hotel, which was kind of like a family restaurant. We had leek soup, breaded fish (Alaskan Pollack... ha ha), french fries, mixed vegetables, and ice cream.

We had time for a short walk along the river after dinner. It was very very pretty and peaceful, and the village of Andernach was very pretty.

Our friends from L.A., Tony and Jen, pointed out some playground equipment... and were kind enough to take our picture as we "played." I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard!

We also saw a traditional Biergarten (Beer garden) on our walk!

We went back to our hot room. It had to fan and no air conditioning! There were also no screens in the window. We opened our window anyway, hoping that bugs wouldn't eat us alive in our sleep. Our "double bed" that they very kindly went through the trouble of arranging, was the two twin beds pushed together. :) It's the thought that counted.

European Journal July 7, 2010

5:30am wakeup call! We had to be dressed and ready with our luggage outside of our door at 6:30am. The idea of leaving our luggage just sitting outside of our room was a little unsettling, but we did decide to go down to breakfast around 7:00am. We enjoyed the buffet and strong coffee again, and met the group in the lobby at 7:45am to wait for our coach. (We did see our luggage on the cart!) It was a very cool morning. I'm not sure of the temperature. We boarded a coach and rode to the port at the English Channel, stopping once to pick up a couple of more passengers. We boarded the "Pride of Callais" ferry, and embarked on our hour and a half ride across the channel to France. Oh, the drive to the ferry was around two hours. I cat napped, while Bryan enjoyed the scenery. The ferry was HUGE! People even take cars on them! There were several lounges, bars, a couple of places to eat, stores, and gambling. We had a "self-service" lunch (of nothing traditional) and ejoyed getting a view of the white chalk cliffs of Dover as we left England!

We got off the ferry at a little after 1:30pm England time, but it was 2:30pm now local time. We walked out to our coach to meet our tour director. I should mention that we didn't have to show our passportsto leave England and enter France.

We met our tour director, a small Italian woman who appeared to be around our age, named Chiara. She had a beautiful, thick Italian accent, and Bryan and I enjoyed hearing her talk. We labelled our luggage for the porter, and boarded our coach for a minute, to drive to some toilets before heading to Amsterdam.

These toilets will be the subject of my nightmares for YEARS to come. Walking up to the restroom, I could see women walking out, gasping for air, their faces horrified. I did not end up using these toilets (which were free, by the way). I made it in to a stall, but was overcome by nausea, and had to escape for air. I decided I could wait!

We reboarded our coach, and Chiara gave us passport forms to fill out. This information is given to our hotels. She gave a good commentary on our way out of Callais, France, in to Belgium. Again, no passports were needed since Belgium is part of the European Union. The drive through Belgium was uneventful. We saw agricultural areas, some industrial land, and stopped at a little after 6:30pm at AC Restaurant to eat. It was a self-service place, kind of like an MCL in the US. It had very nice toilets for .30 euros each. Bryan had Moules with Pommes Frites (muscles with french fries), and I had schnitzel (like a pork tenderloin) and pommes frites. The staff at the restaurant was very nice, and spoke with very good English. We had coke and diet coke with dinner. I looked for our favorite Belgian Wheat beer, Blue Moom, but they didn't have it. Another .30 euros later, we were back on the road for another hour and 30 minutes to Amsterdam. It only took us around 15 minutes to drive into the Netherlands. Chiara gave a lot of information on Belgium and a brief history of the Netherlands. She also said that in the red light district in Amsterdam, people can buy drugs in coffee shops, and prostitution is legal! She did mention that there is a limit to how much drugs you can purchase! :-0

We saw several giant windmill power stations, and Chiara said that the Netherlands is very interested in "green energy". We arrived at our hotel, "NH Schipol" near the airport in Amsterdam after 9pm. It was a nice hotel, and had a bar. We went ot the bar, where the Germany vs. Spain soccer game was on. We each had a Wieckse White beer. It was a cold beer, and was pretty good. The room was nice, and our "double bed" was two twin beds pushed together.

This picture is actually on the morning of July 8, 2010... stay tuned for more!

European Journal July 6, 2010

After a not-so-great night of sleep (I woke up at 11:35pm, suddenly wide awake), we made our way down to the breakfast buffet at our hotel. It was surprisingly good! There was a hot food line with poached eggs, back-cut bacon, sausages, noodles, beans (they looked like pork-n-beans), "burnt ends", mushrooms, and stewed tomatoes. There was a cold line with thin slices of fish, prosciutto ham, melon and fruits, yogurt, and cheeses. I should stop here and mention that there was a platter of what looked like soft, pale yellow cheese in rather large, flat pieces. Thinking that it was a soft English cheese maybe, I had some. After tasting a big fork-full, I realized it was butter... Back to the buffet- there were waffles, crepes, pancakes, breads, honey and jam, hot and cold cereal, and juice, milk and coffee. The coffee was very strong.

After breakfast, we walke to the bus station and paid 2 euros each to ride to Westminster. At Westminster, we walked over to Westminster Abbey to see the beautiful cathedral and St. Margaret's Church.

We saw Big Ben, the Parliament Building, and several other beautiful, antiquated buildings.

We walked along the Queen's Jubilee Walkway down toward Buckingham Palace, stopping at St. Jame's Park to stroll along the edge of a pond. It had a nature area with geese (even Canadian Geese), pelicans, and several other interesting birds. And lots of pigeons. We saw a few squirrels that look identical to our American squirrels. The weather was beautiful and sunny, with temperatures in the 70s.

It was around noon when we made it to Buckingham Palace. The changing of the guard as in progress, and there were throngs of people craning to get a glimpse. We just saw some red uniforms. We were getting ready to leave, when the police closed off the street and the royal marching band marched by, playing, across to a building on the other side. This we were able to see close up, and take plenty of pictures of.

We asked about going to see the inside of the Palace, but were told this only happens on July 27th or later, "when the Queen goes away." We crossed over to the other side of the Thames River, back by the Parliament Building and Big ben.

We walked to the "London Eye", which is a huge ferris wheel with viewing capsults. It takes 30 minutes to complete one trip around. We stood in line for tickets, which were 17.95 euros each. A free "4D experience" came included. It was a short little movie showing the London Eye and a sea gull, complete with smoke, fake snow, and squirts of water. We had another line to wait in to get on the Eye, but it moved quickly.

We boarded our capsule with 18 other people, and started our trip around. Someone offered to take our picture...

The view was beautiful, and we could see for miles.

After leaving the Eye, we continued along the Thames, looking for a place to have lunch. We decided to eat at "Eat." It's a very common cafe-type eatery in London. It, along with Starbucks, was seemingly on every corner!

We had traditional British Pies with "mash and gravy." After lunch, we continued along the Thames River towards the London Tower and Tower Bridge.

We stopped at a little pub called "The Anchor" to have a beer. Bryan had a traditional English Ale, and I, thinking I was choosing something more like an American beer, chose the "Extra Chilled Strongbow." It WAS extra chilled, but it tasted nothing like beer. It was more like a white wine or a sour apple juice. Choosing beer in London can clearly be a little tricky! Bryan enjoyed his beer, and together, we finished most of mine.

We walked, and walked, and walked. We got to the Tower Bridge, and walked across to London Tower. It was very pretty and castle-like; and almost 1000 years old! It was almost 5pm by this time, so we didn't go inside to see the Crown Jewels. At this point, we were quite a ways from our hotel. We decided o use London's underground train system to get back.

We learned that "subway" doesn't mean the same thing as in America. Bryan saw this sign, and thought we were going down to the subway... which was actually just a tunnel under the street!

We asked for some help at the information window after staring at the train routes for several minutes. We had about a 20-30 minute train ride back to the station near our hotel. We walked back, sent some emails to family, and fought the urge to take a nap!

We walked from our hotel towards the King's Mall area and stopped at the Hammersmith Ram for dinner. It, too, was a traditional English Pub. We both had the fish and chips, and while Bryan had another English Ale, I decided to stick with my tried and true Diet Coke. The World Cup Soccer game between Uruguay and the Netherlands was on, and it drew quite a crowd. I helped Bryan finish a second ale, that wa actually good, even at room temperature. We went back to our hotel, where I tooke a bath in the strange, narrow, but very deep bathtub while Bryan got things together for our departure in the morning. I thought I'd mention a few peculiarities/differences we've noticed during our time in London. Some restrooms require that you pay to use them. For instance, we paid 50 euro cents a piece to use the restrooms at the Tower Bridge. Oh... and they're called "toilets." Instead of a sign that reads "restroom", you'll see "toilets". Also the toilets themselves are different. There are no tanks on the back. They all seem to flush very violently, and many have a sensor you wave your hand in front of to flush. I should mention that this is what the ladies room was like... Bryan said the men's room was "just a urinal" and not much different from the US. We also saw a cute sign on a pole that read, "Anyone who allows a dog to foul the footpath will be fined a prosecuted." Susie would have been in trouble... or rather, WE would have! ha ha!

And just some other word differences:

"Mash"- mashed potatoes

"Bangers"- sausages

"Crisps"- potato chips

"Lifts"- elevators

"Clotted cream"- we have no idea!

"Banoffee"- Something with banana and toffee