Holland!!!

Ricky, G, Phillip, and I met the taxi at 5:35 Friday morning! We took the taxi to Slough train station, took one train, then switched to another train for our hour and a half ride to London Gatwick Airport, and then flew to Holland! (Holland is the same thing as the Netherlands…just 2 names for it. Amsterdam is the capital.) We were shocked to get a really nice breakfast on the flight – a drink, 2 pastries, a yogurt drink, and a cold fruity oatmeal…that was strange, but decent actually!

We had a busy weekend! After arriving in Holland, we took a train into Amsterdam. We walked around and explored the city for awhile. Crazy busy, shops everywhere, tons of people everywhere! There are canals all over that city! So interesting! The buildings are all attached to each other and are so narrow and tall that each one has a hook at the top in order to hook furniture and raise it to take it in a window upstairs! How fascinating! There is actually one building that is only 1.5 meters wide!!! It does have several floors. A student rents it. I can’t imagine all of the rooms in your flat only being about 5 feet wide! We took a canal boat tour that lasted about an hour. It was really nice to hear the guide telling us all about the city! Then we went to the Anne Frank museum…wow what an eye opener! Neat museum!

Phillip and I actually ate at McDonalds a couple times over the weekend to save money…it was way cheaper (and faster) than most places. I really like to try different things at McDonalds in different countries. This time I had a salsa chicken sandwich…delicious!!! And my favorite – SHRIMP at McDonalds!!! It was served with sweet chili sauce and was actually really good! Who would have thought that McDonalds would have shrimp?!?!? I also tried an apple milkshake...tasted just like a jolly rancher. Yum!!!

We walked through the Red Light District right as it was turning dark. The Red Light District is such a crazy place! There are girls in little skimpy “clothes” in all the windows. There are red lights above the doors to announce them. They are all prostitutes. Each window has a curtain to pull closed if they have a customer. Most of them have an area with a bed or cot or chairs or something. It is so hard for me to believe that happens at all and especially that it is legal! There were so many girls! We were even there early…apparently later there are tons more girls. Crazy…dirty…gross…sad…

Then Phillip and I took a train back to the airport area to find our hotel. Ricky and G stayed in a hostel downtown, but Phillip and I had decided against that. We splurged and got a hotel room. The hotels close by were booked though. We didn’t love having to take the train back and forth each day, but it was worth it! We saw Ricky and G’s hostel room. They stayed with 6 strangers in their room. There was one tiny bathroom – no soap, shampoo, etc. There were 4 bunk beds and some lockers to put your things in. We just didn’t feel comfortable staying there, especially with me being pregnant, and especially in a city where drugs are legal!!!! That’s right, you can buy weed, mushrooms, etc. in the coffee shops and stores there! That is soooo weird! So anyway, we finally made it back to our hotel – late – and loved it. It was sooooo nice! We had a King size, super comfortable bed. We slept great! Our showers there were great too – by far the best showers we’ve had since we moved!!!

Saturday morning, we hopped on the train again and met Ricky and G around 8:30 am. We had to meet at a tour guide place at 8:45am for our 9.5 hour tour that day!!!! We were on really nice tour busses! We went to a cheese factory, saw lots of windmills, toured a wooden shoe factory and even got to watch how they make the shoes, went to a fishing village, and had delicious fish and chips for lunch. In the afternoon, the tour took us to a tulip garden. On the way there, we saw tons of huge tulip fields. They planted 7 million tulips bulbs. Of course, they don’t all bloom at once, but I bet we for sure saw over a million tulips that day. There were tons of daffodils too, which I love. The garden was neat – I just wished my mom could have been there too. She would have loved it. They had so many different kinds and colors of tulips…amazing. They had 3 greenhouses to walk through also. There was a windmill in the garden that we could go up to the top of and look over one of the fields just full of tulips. Incredible! The garden estimated that 65 thousand people were there that day! I believe it – there were so many people that it was hard to walk sometimes!

After the tour, we walked around Amsterdam a little more, exploring the gift shops for a little while. Then we headed back to the train station and went back to the hotel. Sunday morning, we went swimming at our indoor hotel pool. It was really nice!!!! Phillip also enjoyed the hot tub for awhile. Then we got ready, packed our stuff, and headed back to Amsterdam. We met Ricky and G for lunch at Hard Rock Café…yum! Then we walked around and saw the Van Gogh museum but the line was way too long so we didn’t have time to go in. We walked around the gift shop though and still saw some neat things. Then it was time for us to head back to the airport to catch our flight! Getting home was an adventure! We took the train to the airport…got there around 4:30. Our flight was at 6:10. We arrived back in England at 6:20 (flight was around an hour…Holland is an hour ahead.) We bought train tickets to get home and got on the next available train. We had to switch trains once and take the subway once to a different train. We didn’t get home till 9:30 that night! We were exhausted, but really had a great time! Truly a once in a lifetime experience…I have a feeling this year is full of those!