Hotel Restaurant de Wijck Wijk aan Zee

... that tantalizing, slippery concept known as paradise. It has beguiled us humans for some time now. Plato imagined the Blessed Isles, a place where happiness flowed like the warm Mediterranean waters. Until the eighteenth century, people believed that biblical paradise, the Garden of Eden, was a real place. It appeared on maps-located, ironically, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now modern-day Iraq. European explorers prepared for ...

... I wanna sleep. My alarm on my phone (mp3 player) goes off in the middle of the day telling me its time to wake up. It's a trip. I guess the one thing I've found is that it is important to rest no matter what. I have also changed hotels since my last blog. I know, I was supposed to do the hostel thing but the idea of having my own toilet became more of a priority once I got here. Anyway, the last hotel was just too far away and more ...

... see more than our own families - our colleagues. Taking advantage of this trip to Holland (http://us.holland.com/) I was able to spend two nights with my sister Moira and her family in Huizen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huizen). It is always great to see her and the family; I wish the distance between us was not so great. Good thing I work for an airline that happens to fly to Holland; right?

... beer festivals so I have nothing to compare it to, but I think this is vastly different to such events as the Munich beer festival. Everybody is very well-dressed and behaved, they study the beers intently and talk to the brewers, take a sip and swirl it around their mouths, etc - it's more like a wine-tasting. There is a large array of beers and I don't know where to begin - I don't have a big capacity for beer and I don't want to get drunk, so I buy a 6-tasting ticket ...

... local beer which I actually like even more than Heineken. We discovered that we had wandered into a part of town called Jordaan, which is where the cool kids hangout. People were sitting outside in bars drinking and even outside their own homes on the steps drinking with their neighbours. Further exploration of this part of town revealed another little highlight of Amsterdam that we hadn't known about until today. Some of the houses have secret gardens which are ...

... I don't have time to leave the airport and enjoy Holland at all, so instead I'm writing a boring *****y blog entry. At least there's free wifi. Now why does everyone automatically speak English to me? I'm guessing the goatee pins me as American. Oh god, I just realized how early it is in Philly. I've got 2 hours to nap before boarding. Vaarwel - arp

... still chewing my circle shaped granola bar when we were landing. Once we got to the Maastricht airport we found a taxi van and he insisted that four of us and 10 luggage pieces would fit in the van...much to our discomfort, we did. We saved lots of money though :) My room at the University has lots of room for improvement and everyone's room is a different size and shape, but it makes our experience that much more unique. I am able to ...

... enjoyed walking around and along the canals. We had also arrived when the gay pride festival was on. This gave the whole place a great atmosphere and seeing the boats was fantastic fun. In the evening there was music and dancing everywhere which was brilliant. We also tried some naughty stuff which made us feel horrid...never again. Day three- my birthday. Naturally we started out with the present ...

... I caught the tram back to the train station, caught a train headed towards Leiden, and then in Leiden, caught a bus to Keukenhof Gardens. Not sure if you've heard of it or not. I hadn't until I happened to download a picture taken there off the Internet. Just from that one picture alone, I was hooked and knew that I had to see it. It's billed as "the most beautiful spring garden in the world", and I simply can't argue with that. The only place I can ...

... the drum's. Slow style with big base sounds. We had a great night. Danced and partied hard. Although when we left Randle said we could walk home and it would take about 30 miniutes, we must have walked the long way as it took about 1 1/5 hours for us to get back home. It was great to be back with Yara and Lou, my too best girls. Hope home is going great.