Hampshire Hotel Savoy Amsterdam

... hung out with him for a while afterward-- short blond twenty-something (there's a lot of those here) with features like a rabbit.

also met muija ("may-yah... all the french pronounce it may-joo, but what can be done?") who is now a facebook friend and hopefully e-mail correspondant. studying french pastry for four years in western france, by way of among all things finland. she looks like a bird, all pale but with jet-black hair and happy blue eyes. she is ...

... was dreaming of the hard bed in the ****** hostel (as the airport benches were not too comfy).

Needless to say, we got on the plane at 7.30am (had got to airport approx 12.30am), and were both exhausted before the flight even began. With Dan placed next to a very large and sick gentleman, we were off to a flying start (excuse the pun). We both slept (finally!) and by the time some food arrived, we didn't care how **** it was, we tucked in with relish. 2 movies later (Dee ...

... picnic in Vondelpark-- the biggest park in Amsterdam proper. We earlier purchased cheese, bread, various fruits and wine and ate them in a quiet portion of the park next to a stream populated with ducks, herons and other odd aquatic birds. Sitting on the grass, sipping wine (straight from the bottle because we forgot glasses) and absorbing the afternoon promenade atmosphere was simply priceless. We made the 5 minute walk back to the boat and spent the next hour going through the canals ...

... t like the tourism image portrayed by it.

The following day I was going to go to the Anne Frank house but the lines where huge so I ended up just looking at it from the outside and then just kept going. I also went to the Heineken factory which was cool. They didn't actually let you go out and see the actual process (bit disappointing) but the museum was quite interesting and had a few beers there which is always a bonus.

... traditional Dutch blue porcelain. I also didn't know that New York was originally settled by the Dutch. They named it New Holland and many of the places like Harlem are named after Dutch cities. After the museum we walked through the red light district, which wasn't very impressive. I was expecting an open sewer debacheries. What it actually was was a small district that looked alot like New Orleans but that smelled like pot.

... I saw a guy roll a joint on the seat of his motorcycle while our tour guide was talking to us ... Crazy! Afterward, we headed back to Leiden. The dutch are known for their pancakes, so decided to stop for sustenance. The pancakes are somewhere in between crepes and American pancakes in thickness, but are the size of a platter. They're not sweet, and they put just ...

... along the Prinsenrgracht canal south to Rozengracht , east almost to Dam Square then back north to Tower Bridge where the namesake of our hotel has a statue, through the pedestrian ...

... to explain so I have included this link so that you can get an idea of the city. http://images.worldres.com/search/lang1 /map_amsterdam.png Everyone - and I mean everyone - rides bikes. Its madness. You really have to look where you're going ...

... District while the coach returned to the hotel. About half the coach got out at the stop. Several of us started out to the RLD - the family with the 3 boys, Nora, Amanda & Bryan, us, and another couple. Saw some seedy stuff and Nora and the family turned back. That left just the 3 couples who decided to stick it out. The other couple was Bruce and Suzanne from Sydney, Australia. Beautiful ...

After a good night's rest, we load our staff to the car and set off to cross the German boarders and find ourselves in Amsterdam! Of course, when I say "cross boarders" I am simply using an expression, you see, there are no boarders!! The road simply takes you from one country to the other and if it hadn't been for our friends GPS, we would still be driving in search of Holland!! The trip was short and relaxing. Hitler did cause tremendous suffering, but when it comes ...