Amsterdam

Yesterday we said Goodbye to the hectic city of London. Our day was filled with the British Museum (another great museum with free admission) and wandering around Buckingham Palace and Green Park.

This morning we said hello to Amsterdam! Or should I say... "hallo", since it's the only dutch word I know. We left  London last night and took a train to Harwich. There we got on our night boat to Amsterdam.

 It was huge! We were on it from about 11:30pm till 7:45am (Holland time) this morning. Our room was cozy:

 

I stayed true to my long and rich history of sea sickness. During the night I was fine but the minute I stood up in the morning - sea sickness! Gravol fixed that right up. Good thing it did because as soon as we left the boat, we got on a train to Rotterdam and then another train to Amsterdam.  A bus took us to our Bed & Breakfast here in Amsterdam and we decided to have a "rest" day. The London way of life is very fast paced and Jason is still suffering from a cold/cough so we had a nice long nap and watched some dutch television in our room. Tomorrow we will find our way to the Van Gogh museum. 

In terms of traveling, things have been going very smoothly. Every train connection and boat and bus has just seemed to work out for us. For some reason I thought it would  be way harder than this! Also - much easier to live out of a backpack than I thought. We have everything we need and the actual carrying of the backpack is not a problem at all. 

My hair is an absolute disaster every day and my comfort zone feels like it's a million miles away but it's been a great trip so far.

Airplane/London Food Pictures!

To keep the foodies interested, here's some meals we've had in London:

 

Jason's airplane meal

  

Our breakfasts at the Hostel every morning
 

My lunch at the Tate Modern
 

Jason and his lunch at the Tate Modern

And dessert to share!

First Stop - London

Hello from London! Jason's computer tells me it's 1:46pm but my watch says 8:46pm. The jet lag was very hard to get used to but today being our third day, we're feeling much better.

Where do I begin? We have seen so much in the past few days. Without going into TOO much great detail (or else no one will want to hear about our trip when I get back), I will share with you the highlights.

Monday we arrived at 7:55am London time after having no sleep on the long long flight. We were exhausted and not feeling so hot this day. We did manage to travel down to the British Library. They had some free exhibits and we stayed there until we couldnt focus on the words we were reading any longer! We browsed around Camden Town (near our hostel) until 2pm when we could get into the hostel for a much needed nap. Here's the view from my room:

Tuesday is when the fun began. We took a 4 hour bike tour and saw lots of the big attractions.

Kensington Gardens
Kensington Palace
Hyde Park
Wellinton Arch
Buckingham Palace (the queen was home!)
Green Park
Canada Gate
Admiralty Arch
Trafalgar Square
The pub for lunch! (beer and fish and chips)
Nelsons column
Parliment
Big Ben
Westminser Abby
St James Park
Prince Albert Memorial
Princess Diana Memorial

After the bike tour, we hopped back on the tube and headed back to Trafalgar square and spent quite a few hours in the National Gallery. Then we got lost in Soho! Very lost. The weather was nice until the evening which got pretty chilly. No rain though!

Today we saw:
London Tower Bridge (took a tour of the bridge and engine rooms)
Monument (don't know the name but it was 311 narrow winding stairs up to a fantastic view)
Bank of England Museum
Museum of London
St Pauls Cathedral
Crossed Millenium Bridge
Tried to get into the Tate Gallery...closed at 6 though

 

I must go before this laptop dies!