One thing that sticks out about Amsterdam is the large quanties of bikes EVERYWHERE. It is quite ridiculous. They don’t have parking garages with three or four floors for cars, but they do for their bikes. Below is a picture of a parking garage normally used for cars, but this one was only bikes. They also have three lanes of traffic on every street. One for cars, one for bikes and one for walkers. It makes getting around quite an ordeal and you always have to be looing out for traffic of all sorts. The mopeds ride in the bike lane but about 20 times the speed also, so they go whizzing by you. So Rachel and I couldn’t resist, we rented bikes today and rode around.

The first stop was the Anne Frank House. They take you on a tour of the house that she hid in while walking you through her story. The story never ceases to amaze me. I put a quote up on my blog about her here a few weeks ago.

Then we biked around Amsterdam. Along the beautiful canals, and through the streets. We stopped and ate at this cafe who made us sandwiches on homemade bread with Dutch cheese on top. The cool part about this cafe was that everything in it, including the plate that you were eating off of was for sale. It was a restaurant mixed with a second hand store. Were gonna head in a few minutes on a boat cruise through some of the canals.

Tonight we head off to Zurich, Switzerland and will arive there at 8:30 in the morning. This is our first over night train, so we will see how it goes. Here are some pics.

Today and last night we spent in Belgium (Brussels if you want to know the city, Darryl). It was probably the most beautiful city I have ever seen. The architecture was out of this world and the city square was probably the most fascinating. We ate at a little Greek shop that was probably the most food we got for our Euro this trip so far, not to mention how amazing it was. We also bought a bunch of chocolate and because it was so much we mailed it home. So those of you at theStory, there should be a few blocks coming your way soon, my parents will bring it with them when then get it. Another reason to wake up for chuch Church after church of beautiful buildings and all of them were open to go inside and look around. Below are a few pictures of the city square, another amazing building that is up on a hill that overlooks the entire city and my favourite church that we were at (not those kind of pics).

Now we are in Amsterdam. Very dirty, in every sense of the word, but the freedom is refreshing in an odd sort of way. Water canals everywhere and the city is full of life at night, especially in the Red Light District, which did I mention dirty? Pics and thoughts to come on the next post.

Today we are in Ireland and it’s Aaron’s birthday.
We met Rachel’s sister and husband (Aaron) in Ireland at the last leg of their trip.
So to celebrate we went to a pub here in Ireland.
We also saw a World Street Perfomer Festival (pics to come).
I drank my first ever full beer, and it was a Guiness and disgusting. But I did it for Joe.
We had many drunk Irish folk sing Aaron a song and then we left.
Ireland is probably the most laid back, casual, fun and exciting country I’ve ever been to. Canada needs to be more like Ireland.
Here are some pics.

Rachel and I just left London, England. It was a lot of fun. We spent most of the day walking and doing the typical stops. Big Ben, Westminister Abbey…you know stuff like that. A few realizations after being there for the second time.

1. People in the UK are generally nicer people. People give you directions, chat with you when you’re stopped somewhere and even yell at you if they see your Canadian patch that we so conveniently sewed on our backpack.

2. Everything is ridiculously expensive.

3. It was 4:30 in the morning when we checked in for our flight to Ireland this morning, and Rachel and I watched the bar area fill up while a large number of people grabbed pints of beer. 4:30 in the freakin morning. I understand Ron so much better now.

4. We followed our 800 page Europe book an hour out of our way North of London to a restaurant called New Culture Revolution. The mounds of food that we got for the same price as our crappy lunch earlier that day in downtown London, that made us happy.

5. We had to have walked 20 km yesturday with our backpacks weighing in at 20 pounds and 30 pounds. My Crocs are holding out well and so are Rachel’s anti-blister socks.

6. Sleeping on airport floors sucks.

Today we start Ireland. It’s raining and we are sharing a room with Rachel’s sister Danielle and her husband Aaron, a girl we met on the bus and who knows who else. We just spent £7 on a crappy breakfast something you could get for $3 in Sarnia. We’re loving it though. Rachel still loves me and I love her even though we lost her baggage on the flight from New York and I’m singing annoying songs every few minutes. A good afternoon/night sleep should do us well.

Rachel and I have bought brand new hiking bags, booked some hostels, a few flights, bought Euro Passes, shaved my head, cut Rachel’s hair, got someone to live at our house, got a free gift of a 80 gb Video IPod, and Rachel just won a 2gb IPod Nano, and as of this morning we are off to Europe. Where are we going in Europe you ask? Well we fly into England, then Ireland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, France, Spain and then back to England. For how long? We fly out the 13th of June and fly back the 18th of July. Then we are home for a few days then head right back out to enjoy some cottages up North. I would love to be able to post every once in a while. I’m sure I’ll be thinking lots especially interacting with all these different cultures, so we’ll see how the internet connection goes. I am bringing my laptop and of course my camera.

So if I don’t post you know why. If I do post, you’ll be lucky cause the blog will be full of beautiful words of deep and wondrous meaning.