Amsterdam, Belgium

Hey there!

I don't have a lot of time to post today, but I haven't done it in a while, so I'll do as much as I can. Amsterdam was a lot of fun. It's a crazy city, but unlike some people had told me, I didn't feel unsafe at all. I think that's mostly because we are in such a big group, plus we weren't staying anywhere near the red light district. We didn't get there until later in the afternoon. Once we were settled in (and the rain had subsided a bit) we went out to see the city and get some supper. We walked through the red light district in the evening but before it was dark (and it was crowded with tourists everywhere). Even in those circumstances it still is crazy... I know I wouldn't want to be there at night when it was less touristy.

The next morning we decided to check out the Van Gogh museum. I find with each museum I go to, I appreciate what I'm seeing a little better (although I'm still far from what I would call an art buff :-P). The Van Gogh museum was cool because it had a lot of his work and most of it was in chronological order, so you got to follow along his career and see how he progressed. It was really cool. After that we grabbed some lunch and wandered the city some more. Early in the afternoon we headed back to our hostel to get checked into our new room and had a bit of a rest. Then we headed out again wandering, and intending to make it to the Anne Frank House, but when we got there the line was really rediculous and none of us felt like waiting. So we wandered a little more and called it an early night.

Yesterday morning, it was time for Justine and Graham to head to London. We parted ways at the hostel because they were heading right to the airport. It's weird having them gone. They've been my travel buddies for a whole 5 weeks! Wow, 5 whole weeks, that's so long... I feel like it's been forever since I was in Canada.

After they had left Tim and I took our time but eventually made our way to the train station and we were off to Brugge in Belgium. Last night was our only night here, but I really like the city. It has a really small town feel to it. And even though our hostel is a bit out of town (but still within walking distance) I really like it. After wandering the city for a few hours, and of course trying some Belgian Chocolate, we hung out in the hostel for the night with a few of Tim's roommates from Spain. It was another interesting night of trying to communicate with people who don't speak a whole lot of english, but I think we're getting better at it :-) It helped that they understood french a little.

So now we've just checked out of our hostel and we're headed to Brussels for a night. After that we're staying in Rennes for a few nights on our way down to Spain. We originally thought we'd spend quite a while in Spain, but we're changing our mind. Apparantely inland everyone goes on vacation in August and the coast will be rediculously crazy busy. Plus we've bought tickets to a concert outside Rotterdam on August 19-21 so we need to speed things up to make it there :-)

That's all I have time for today! Talk to you soon!
Kaila