End of Amsterdam, onto Brussels, and then England

Amsterdam turned out to be a pretty interesting place we did a lot of people watching throughout our days. The bikes we rented there were a lot faster and didnt weight quite as much so we were in heaven. We did the math and think that while we were in Denmark we biked probably 12 miles a day for 3 days soooooo 36 miles in 3 days- yaaaaa buddddddddy! Anyways, we met up with Amanda's uncle who was in town for a river cruise and sat had coffee with them before they had to go to a boat meeting so it was good seeing family. After we ate lunch we went to the Anne Frank house and walked through where she hid with her family and read some of the journal entries. Its hard to imagine being as young as she was (in her teens) and being so level headed, she talked of never letting her parents she her down and always having a smile on her face. There was a good quote at the end of the tour that another concentration camp survivor wroteabout Anne Frank that I thought sumed up the experience so look at the pictures for it. the Anne Frank house became more personal when you were able to be in the living quarters she was in and see how quiet and isolated her family and others had to be.

We left amsterdam and headed to brussels in the late afternoon and we got picked up by our Couchsurfing host after she got out of yoga. While we were waiting we went to a bar called Deliruim Bar and it had 25 beers on tap and 2,500 beers available in bottles, it was amazing and tasty. We had a chocolate, strawberry and cherry beer and of course Amanda's favorite stout. After our bar adventure we went to a gas station and sat outside to wait forour host and felt what it is like for people to walk by you wondering what you were up to. We pulled out the deck of cards and I (Amanda) Dominated in a game of Polish poker. Once our host got there she took us to the college district of Brussels and we ate a really good italian meal. Kyle was saying that she looked like his cousin Katie and she was absolutely amazing. We loved staying with her. We found it interesting that everyone spoke French around the town of Brussles. The next morning she dropped us off downtown when she went to work and we wandered around for a while and then went back to our favorite Deliruim Bar to get out of the rain and to waste some time.

We caught the overnight Bus from Brussels to London that left the station at around 10pm. We both slept most of the way but by the end were very tired of all the stops for customs and all that junk. At one point Amanda lost her passport and while we were getting questioned she realized it so Kyle used his nifty track skills and sprinted back to the bus. He luckily found it right on the floor where we were sitting....Amanda was very thankful. The customs officers asked a million questions and probably thought that we were brain dead because we had just woke up. The conversation went like this:
custom officer- "where are you staying in England" Amanda and Kyle "at a friends just outside of London" Officer-" what city" Kyle and amanda- "uh we dont know the name, but the first night we will be staying in a hostel in London" Officer-"whats the name of the hostel" kyle and amanda- "we cant remember" officer- "address?" kyle and amanda "no clue" So none the less we sounded like we were up to something, but after a little more talking to them they let us through- thank god!

Here's the kicker. We get to London at 6am and we buy a ticket to the Subway (good plan so far...) we walk to the underground subway and its SHUT DOWN because the workers were protesting the exact 72 hours we were going to be there. So we tried to get on a bus that was overcrowded and confusing. And eventually we hot footed it to our hostel that was a few miles away. We ended up sleeping on their couches till we could check in at 2pm and then after that we went to a local bar and watched the England qualifying soccer match for the World Cup 2010, that was cool because the whole bar understood soccer and were diehards like Kyle and I.

Our hostel in London was probably the worst we have been to but really wasnt too bad. We were on the sixth floor with no elevators (not really a big deal) and the people that stayed over the weekend took the keys so we had to ask the reception person to walk us up to our room everynight. Its been kinda fun at the hostels though because we have met some really cool people. Our roommate in Berlin was the best we could ask-super cool guy from Tronto. And here we met a guy from Germany that was really nice and was actually going to the Qualifying England soccer game (50 pounds per ticket!!!).

The next day we went on a tour where we saw the following:

• Buckingham Palace • The Changing of the Guards • Churchill’s War Cabinet Bunker
• The Houses of Parliament • St. Martin-in-the-Fields • Westminster Abbey
• Trafalgar Square • Nelson’s Column • Wellington Arch • St. James’s Park
• 10 Downing St. • Horseguards • Whitehall • Big Ben

The queen wasnt at buckingham palace when we were there but Prince Charles was in his residence so we got to see the royal flag above his mansion. Our guide told us some really funny churchhill quotes that you will have to ask us about indivually. one was something along the lines of a lady came up to him and said "if I were your wife I would posion you so you would die" and he responded "lady if you were my wife I would gladly drink it" ha. Big ben was impressive like we thought but overall the walk was beautiful and the tourguide was great.

Check out the pictures! we will label them when we have a chance. The tour was really good we liked our guide named Pip. After the tour we took a bus up to our friend from NAU (Amanda and Kyle's undergrad college) and have been staying with them ever since.

Its getting late so we will post on the rest of england later we have done a lot of amazing things in the countryside of England so I dont want to leave anything out.

Here are the links to all the pictures from Amsterdam Brussels and England:

Amsterdam and Brussels
England


Hope all is well. Goodnight!