Rotterdam

We slept in again today. We missed our free breakfast. So we headed to Markthall which is an enormous indoor farmers market and food hall. It was built in 2014 because the EU threatened to make selling fruits and vegetables in an open air space illegal. We found some spicy Asian noodles to eat, sweated profusely due to the humid, standing air, then got out of there.

We strolled around Rotterdam without aim, but we saw the famous cube houses, the White House, the Erasmus bridge, the port, the old harbor, lots of boats, and many other architectural oddities.

We found several fantastic pubs with some great beer, had a pile of delicious shawarma for dinner, and found ourselves drinking Heineken and dancing with an oversized pikachu to end the night.

The next morning we forced ourselves to get up for breakfast; I mostly just looked at mine and sipped cheap automatic machine espresso. After some showers and another slow start, we got out and about.

We rented bikes from a nearby shop and started cycling around town in search of a grocery store. Once found, paninis were in had along with water and snacks for the rest of our day. We brought our bikes on the waterbus and rode up the river towards Kinderdijk.

Kinderdijk is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is an area of reclaimed land made possible by 19 windmills built in the 18C. Wind power was harnessed and used to pump water out of patches of land so it could be used for living or farming. We cycled around this picturesque area for about 3 hours and making way too many pictures.

My Dutch-Canadian ass started to show its inexperience at this point.

We couldn't decide on dinner so we went back to the Markthall because it had a ton of options. After some brief and totally atypical rude treatment by a Dutch waitress in a Greek restaurant, we settled on a different Greek ish place.

Paris to Rotterdam

At 2am last night we had to have a trip planning party to get our day figured out today. We booked high speed train tickets back to Rotterdam and booked a hotel for the remainder of our stay in Europe.

We slept off our Disneyland hangovers, drank my 5 two-sip coffees, and left our big bags at the hotel for a few hours of Paris sightseeing. We had some delicious pizza for lunch and then took the metro to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. We wandered around on a sort of scavenger hunt for famous graves: Rossini, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and Edith Piaf.

We did some shopping for our train ride and had beer o'clock before getting aboard our Thalys high speed train. We entertained ourselves by chatting with all the travelers in our car. We had two stereotypical, ignorant, overweight American women, two native Dutch ladies, and an Ethiopian man. Josie's tech skills broke the ice because she was able to get everyone's devices connected to the train's Wi-Fi (in Holland, pronounced "wee-fee"). As this happened, I happily worked my way through my stock of train beers.

We arrived in RotterDAM-I-look-sexy and had a small domestic regarding our cartography skills. We found our room, and headed out in the mist for dinner. In order to avoid eating more bread, we opted for Vietnamese. Exhausted, we headed back to our room to sleep.

Paris Disneyland!

We woke up early, I had my 5 complementary two-sip Nespresso coffees, Josie did her hair, and we talked to our fantastic hotel receptionist on the beat way to get to the park. The RER A line is under construction so we had to take the RER E to the RER A. Big stuff!

Our pre-purchased online tickets allowed us quick entrance into the park, and within 10 minutes Josie and I were screaming on Sapce Mountain. That was followed up with a severe Josie-ass-kicking on Buzz Lightyear's space shootout ride. To distract her from the pain we took in the mandatory Disneyland indoctrination of it's a small world and sang it for the rest of the day.

We had a fairly delicious Mexican lunch before checking out the haunted house, then made our way to the Disney Studios park for some serious thrills. In total, we rode Steven Tyler's Rocking Rollercoaster three times and the Tower of Terror twice. The Nemo rollercoaster was fun and unique and we skipped a large part of the queue by going in the single riders line. Armageddon and Rattatouille provided us with incredible immersive experiences; first, our space station was getting pounded by asteroids and falling apart, then we were rats in a French kitchen. 

Josie went on a food parade and I dutifully followed. We finally settled on sausages on buns, but, for the second time in two days, they ran out before we reached the window. This immediately hijacked my amygdala so I shot the impossibly happy Disneyland clerk my Canadian death glare and stomped off in search of the shitty "margarita pizza" we spotted earlier.

Our best calculation is that we hit 20 rides in total today.  We never waited more than 40 minutes for anything and typically we waited about 20. I consider that a huge success. As the sun went down, I had a deja vu moment: I got cold. So, for the second time while at a Disneyland resort, I had to buy a sweater. Josie pretended to be cold so she could buy one too.

Warm, we enjoyed the evening show at the magical castle and were impressed by the combination of fountains, lights, lasers, fireworks, projections, and music. We headed home tired, fulfilled, and with slight touches of headaches from our final Space Mountain ride.

Versailles 2

Versailles Pics

Versailles

Well, after waiting for two and a half hours, we finally got into the Palace of Versailles. Luckily, it was beautiful and we enjoyed a crowded tour around with audio guides. The meltdown didn't happen until around 3, when we finally reached a food destination.

We had to wait in line to get in... And then wait at the counter... And when we finally got to the counter about half hour later, they ran out of sandwiches. We stormed off and I went to use the bathroom. The bathroom had a ridiculously long line!!! At this point, a hangry Brad almost lost his shit and began flailing his arms and stomping around like a beta fish that saw it's own reflection. When we went to leave the snack parlour, there were sandwiches left there. Brad cut in front of the line, the man handed him two, we paid and inhaled them. We were sort of better after this.

We finished the Palace (hall of mirrors was amazing) and toured the gardens. Unfortunately, none of the foundations were on, but the extravagance of the gardens was unmatched. We walked around to the king's "break" house to get away from his job. It was at this point we both realized we were done. Versailles was beautiful, but to be quite honest the whole experience was Hell.

We took the train back to Paris and took the metro to the Sacre Coeur after dinner. It was beautiful and we got to watch the sunset.  The setting sun on the view of the city was spectacular. Brad negotiated two beer for 3€. Bonus!

We are now drinking wine on our balcony. Pretty great way to end the day!

Paris

Oh don't worry, I'm still waiting in line at Versailles. It's been... Two hours. Yay.

The good news is that I'm almost caught up on the blog!

August 8 we started by getting up and having breakfast at a cafe. We rode the metro to it, and got off by the Notre Dame Cathedral. We walked to the church and waiting in line (a much shorter line) to get inside. It is beautiful, majestic, and everything you expect it to be. It is also ridiculously busy, so you get a little different of an experience than usual churches. The spiritual affliction was diminished, but you could still appreciate how grand the church is. We then walked to the Louvre. I bought tickets online so we got to jump the queue (this would have not helped me today unfortunately) and enter. We spent the first hour battling with our stupid Louvre cellphone app, with Brad almost losing his mind. We did go see the Mona Lisa during this time. It was pretty awesome to see, but very crowded. It's not as small as people say it is; it's only that It is roped off far away and you can't see it that closely. We then buckled and bought the audio guides, which are on Nintendo 3-DS. Pretty high-tech. We walked around and did the highlights tour, taking in just as much of the art as the beautiful palace the Louvre itself is in. We saw the Mona Lisa, Slaves by Michaelangelo, the coronation of Napoleon, the Venus de Milo and countless others I can't remember the name off. It was beautiful.

Brad took me to Pont Neuf. I don't know why. I took a picture and I'll read about it later.

We walked to the Arc Dr Triomphe after this, a beautiful stroll down Champes d' Elysees. The arc is beautiful, enormous, and awesome. We saw the Tomb of the Unknown soldier.

We took a metro to the Latin Quarter for dinner, and had a nice time at a fancy/Greek restaurant. We looked at Notre Dame from the side, bought cheap wine and beer and went back to our hotel.

Today we got up, took two Metros and a train to Versailles. We waited in a long line for tickets, and luckily someone told us we could skip ahead if we wanted to use the machines with s credit card. We did, and now we've been waiting in line for two and a half hours. I'll let you know if it's worth it.

PS. There's a shit ton of military personnel hanging out at every landmark in Paris right now. It's crazy.

Utrecht-->Zeist

I am currently waiting in a massive line at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, so I thought I would pass the time by catching up on some blogging.

We slept in for the first time today because our only real goal was to get to Zeist today. Brad woke up in a panic when he realized that he had left his camera at the Mexican restaurant we went to the night before. He immediately went to the restaurant to check, but it was closed. We checked out of our hotel and went to get lunch, and passed the restaurant again on the way. It was open! We went into the deserted restaurant and asked the cook if he knew of a camera left. Luckily, it was there!!! Brad was ecstatic and we could begin our day.

We went for delicious kabobs and bread (I was trying to avoid eating a sandwich, but that is seriously all there was) at Uniq, and then went to see the old church. It is called St. Peterskerk, and is 1000 years old. Pretty awesome. It wasn't as impressive as the Domkerk, but it is certainly neat. We went to a cute little museum with candy and antiques. We also walked through the Dom's gardens, which were beautiful! I was doubtful at first, but now I'm waiting in line for an hour and a half so far to see Versaille's.  We walked around after this, booked a hotel in Paris, and then relaxed on a patio.  We then caught the bus to Zeist.

When we got to Zeist, we got off at the wrong stop because we took a different bus number than usual. This meant we waited five minutes, hopped on the same bus, and then got to our correct destination. We then walked to Mark and Margriet's!

When we got to the Spruijts, we sat outside and ate on the patio. Margriet had prepared a delicious Indonesian dish for us!  We had lovely chats and played with their four-year-old son, Erik. We then relaxed and had a drink before bed. Now, European houses are strange. I was shown where the bathroom was, and I went in there to get ready for bed only to discover there was no toilet in there! The toilet, Brad laughed, was in a separate room. Strange!

Zeist

We woke up early to have tea with Brad's relatives, but first we had to have breakfast. Guess what I ate! Delicious toast with chocolate sprinkles and butter! How can you go wrong with such a thing! Mmmmmmmm.

We then had tea with Rita, Brad's great-aunt, her daughter Monique and her husband Leon. Marv and Yvonne were also there (Brad's aunt and uncle who live in Calgary) by fluke.  It was a very nice time meeting all of them and chatting.

Mark then took us for a drive through the countryside. We saw a windmill that we got to go into, stopped for a nice lunch, and saw a bunch of castles. It was so lovely, and we wouldn't have been able to see the countryside like this before.

We got back to the house and Mark picked up some groceries. He bought me chocolate sprinkles to take home-(probably the best gift ever), and then he made us Dutch pancakes with cheese, bacon, and stroop(Dutch syrup). Dutch pancakes are a cross between a pancake as we know and a crepe. They were amazing. We ate in their beautiful garden, and then chatted inside for some time. We went to bed early so that we could have tea in the morning.

Zeist-->Paris

Oh don't worry, I am still in line at Versailles if you were wondering. It's the longest line I've ever been in. Brad just counted one line and discovered there's about 2500 people in line. We're about 1/2-2/3 through.

We got up early August 7 and went to Rita's house for tea before Marv and Yvonne left on their cruise. All the same people were there. It was quite lovely. We then left and got back to the Spruijt house. We borrowed their bikes, and biked to the cemetery were Brad's great grandfather is buried. Let me tell you, these bikes are not like the bikes we ride in Canada. For one thing, they don't have gears. For another, you sit straight up like a king. You brake pedalling backwards, and they steer so much different. I rode Margriet's as well, and she is a good 4 inches taller than me. Mark insisted on push-starting me on the bike. The hardest part was getting on the thing beside I had to jump up about 6 inches once pedalling because I couldn't touch the ground from the seat. It was interesting!

We met the Spruijts at the cemetery. It was really weird to see Brad's grandfather's name on s grave, the same as his dad's. We also saw Mark's dad's, and saw a very touching scene as Mark sat contemplative on his tomb while Erik brushed the dirt off Opa's grave.

We biked back and ate lunch before we departed to the Utrecht train station. We almost missed our train because of crazy construction of the station, but made it! We took a train to Rotterdam, and then took a high-speed train called the Thalys to Paris. It goes 300km/h.

The first thing I noticed in Paris is that yes, it does smell like piss, and some dude was beating the shit out of someone right outside the station. Ah, Paris.

We walked to our hotel though, and quickly it was easy to see that Paris is indeed beautiful. We dropped off our things and went for a delicious dinner. We went to the Eiffel tower afterwards, and it was amazing!! It is so beautiful, enormous and just such a sight to see. It left me in awe to see such a famous landmark in real life. We walked around it for hours before we returned to our hotel for the evening.

Utrecht

We spent August 4&5 in Utrecht. Getting there was fairly easy; take a train from Amsterdam! We had no issues with this. We dropped our bags off at the Eye Hotel and began our day.

We bought tickets to go to the Dom Tower and to the Speeklok Museum. We were both hungry, so we went to a Greek restaurant for lunch. It was so delicious! 
The Dom Tower used to be a part of the Dom Kerk, but there was a huge storm that destroyed the main part of the church where the congregation used to be. After these tornados, the rubble sat for 200 years! They bricked off the part of the church that was essentially a gaping hole, and now they have a nice square there. We climbed up the 465-step tower, seeing the beautiful chapel, bells and carillon (like a piano with bells) along the way. The view from the top was spectacular.

We went to the Speeklok Museum after this.  This is a museum about clocks and how the technology was integrated into player pianos. 100 years ago, there were no speakers or stereos, but people wanted to be able to dance! The solution to this was giant ballroom organs that played by themselves as someone cranked them. They played music via cardboard "ribbons" with holes in them. Essentially, air was pushed against the paper. When there was a hole in the paper, the air was forced through it and activated keys to play a chord. The really neat part about this museum is that we got to heard the organs work. They were so loud! It is no wonder that you could have one of these easily fill a ballroom with music.

We then wandered for a drink after this along the canal. The canals in Utrecht are unique because you can sit along the extra level. That is, the warehouse level is accessible from the canal and makes a sort of platform before the street level. It was beautiful.

We then wandered to another pub called Winkel and Stinkel. We drank delicious beers and made friends with some American kids. Their grandpa bought us beers for entertaining them for awhile. Brad also got another free beer because the waitress brought him the wrong one. We walked to another cute pub for a pint.

We ended our day with a walk along the old and new canals before going for a Mexican dinner.

Our hotel room was ready when we got back, and it was amazing. Totally couture.

Pictures for Amsterdam Days 1-3

Day 4

Our last full day in Amsterdam began with a wonderful commute to the Van Gogh Museum. Brad did not want to go, so I went by myself. I am very glad that I bought tickets online in advance, because I got to enterv the museum at 9am without waiting! The queue line was enormous by the time I left the museum. It was at least a couple hundred people long waiting outside in the rain! It was really neat to see Van Gogh's actual paintings that I've only seen in textbooks. They were beautiful.

Brad meet me at the museum a few hours later, and we went for lunch. We went to a place called De Hallen, which ended up being s delicious old warehouse full of food stalls. We went for Vietnamese food.  After this, Brad played a piano in the warehouse and drew a crowd. We then went to a cool pub with 52 Dutch Beer on tap. The lady there was awesome, and I ordered an 11% beer of love. As we left, Brad noticed that there was a card that said visit these four pubs in one day and get s free shirt! That's precisely what we did for the rest of the day, sightseeing and hitting up pubs. We did end up getting a free shirt by the end!

We then took a ferry ride to an island and back. This is the second time we've gone to an island and back to the mainland. Brad keeps bringing me to these places and then we leave immediately because there's nothing but residential places.
We walked back into the Red Light District that evening. Feeling a little more comfortable, I peeked into the windows. It is such a strange place.

Utrecht tomorrow!

Amsterdam! Days 1-3

Day 1: I flew into Amsterdam at 8:00am after sitting between two hot Dutch soldiers the whole way. It wad pretty fantastic. Maguerite, Brad's aunt, met me in the Amsterdam airport as she deferred a flight to meet us. We then waited for Brad. When Brad showed up, we left to drop everything else off in our hotel. We took the metro to New Markt Square and wandered around for lunch. Mmmm panini, and La Chouffe. We saw the Waag, the Oude Kerk and went through the Red Light District.  We then went for a canal cruise.  Brad and I were both very tired because of the lack of sleep with flights, and so the canal cruise became the Snooze Cruise. Brad's head started nodding off so much that his head nearly hit the table he was sleeping on. Marquette and I had a good laugh at that. We then stopped for a delicious waffle (Marguerite ate an enormous amount of whip cream).  We walked through some houses that only religious women lived in who were not nuns, walked by the I Amsterdam sign, and then went for a delicious steak dinner. By this point, my jet lag was causing me to have out of body experiences and we left to go to bed. I slept soundly for 10 hours!

Day 2: we woke up early to go to the Anne Frank house. We thought we hag left ourselves a lot of time, but we ended up havjgn to pretty much run to museum. Because I had bought tickets online, we were able to skip the line. The program started two minutes later. We luckily ducked into a bakery to grab a quick bread snack. The Anne Frank house was really neat. It is surreal to be inside the actual house where the Frank family hid from the Nazis. It was a very humbling experience.

We then left the Anne Frank house and went to an Italian cafe where we had lasagna and potato pizza. It was great. 

I wanted to go to the Rembrandt Huis, so Brad went and drank beer while I explored this museum. It was very neat to be in Rembrandt's studio and see where he lived. Rembrandt was also an etcher as well as a painter, and this museum had many of his etchings.

We went to the Heineken Experience after this,located in the old brewery. It was awesome and ridiculous. We got to ride a ride that shook you and sprayed you into becoming a beer. We also got to  take a bunch of funny pictures and videos with their promotional equipment and emailed to us. They are amazing.

We then walked around and explored the Red Light District that evening. It is a crazy place full of scantily clad women in lingerie shaking their booties at passersby. It was eye-opening!

We then went to sleep in our sweet hotel room. Brad farted in the shower, which was unfortunate for him as he discovered he created his own pod-enclosed-fart-shower.

Day 3: 
We woke up and decided that we would go to the Rijkamuseum in the afternoon. This left the morning open to do as we pleased. We first went to St. Nicolas Church, which was splendid and beautiful. We then went to the Oude Kerk, or Old Church. Brad didn't go inside because he had been there before, but i paid the 15€ to go in. It was very old and beautiful inside. The most striking this was the sheer size of the church. It was enormous inaide, and there were some 12 000 graves in the floor! It was unbelievable. I saw the grave of Rembrandt's wife, Saskia. Sometimes churches give you a very spiritual experience, and this one did. They had organ music playing and there were flowers and petals mourning the many graves on the floor. It was aw-inspiring and almost made me want to cry for some reason.

After this church, we went to the Church of Our Lord in the Attic, or Museum Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder. During the 1660's Spanish rule, Catholic churches were not allowed to be in practice. However, people were still allowed to believe whatever they wanted. Basically you could be Catholic, but the churches weren't allowed to function. What resulted because of this were full-blown churches built in houses. In the attic of this house was a church, spanning the width of three houses. It was complete with a pipe organ. It was very awesome. There were about 20 or so of these houses in Amsterdam at this time.

We then went to the Rijksmuseum. The Rijksmuseum is a huge museum with tons of art. The highlight of the museum was The Night Watch, a famous and huge painting by Rembrandt. It was gorgeous to see. I also saw paintings by Monet, and Van Gogh. It is a beautiful, huge museum. Brad and I both had a case of museum after this, and had to switch up our day.

We went to an amazing craft brewery underneath a windmill called Brouwerij 't IJ. W both sampled all their beer, and they were delicious. I was scared at first, but then ordered some dried ox sausage and cheese. Turns out it's pretty much salami and just as delicious.

It was rainy and kind of gross that night, and we tried to find a good restaurant. We ended up going to this Thai Restaurant that lonely planet recommended. It was called Thais Bird Snacks or something to that effect. It ended up being the best Thai food we've ever had, including what we ate in Thailand last year!  It was so,delicious.

Brad then took us to a pub that had ridiculously expensive drinks. For some reason we both ordered a 15€ drink. They were delicious and the pub was fantastic, but we left right away to avoid going broke. We bought beer for the hotel after this, and went home.

Testing... Amsterdam!

Good morning world! Just testing out ye old blog to see if this bad boy works!

Cheers!