Blogs from Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands, Europe - page 4

Continued from Part 1…. Upon our arrival in Amsterdam, we grabbed a Taxi and headed to our beautiful hotel, the Ambassade Hotel, on one of the main Canals within the city center. This hotel was the combination of about 10 Canal Houses and was quite unique. Our room was beautiful with a really high ceiling and exquisite decorations. I have to say, after my many hostels, I was impressed with our choices of hotels in Paris and Amsterdam. I had made reservations for us at the Mexican Restaurant, Los Pilones, which I had eaten at with Megan and Brooke back in October. I begged for forgiveness from my mom and Vivian since they eat Mexican food all the time, but I was in need of a fix. The meal took just about as long as the ... read more

Today we woke up to a wonderful, bright, sunny day. We decided that it was the perfect day for a walk on the beach. We didn't arrive at the beach in the typical Dutch way (via bicycle) instead we drove. I'm convinced that it took slightly longer to drive the 15 minutes to the beach (with parking and the traffic delays). The Dutch certainly passed us in droves on their bikes. Once we arrived we were surprised to see the Dunes Guido and Carole had raved about looked very different from the dunes we see in the states. These are protected so you can only walk on the footpaths, and are covered in vegetation - grasses, bushes and trees. Once you drop down over the dunes you see a wonderfully long, wide, sandy beach. It was ... read more

Well we're almost home - just one weekend to go. We're drinking coffee in Haarlem (Netherlands not New York). We didn't make it to any internet cafeswhen we were in Italy, but we were busy. The day we arrived at Roger's flat in Barga had been a lomg drive - mostly mad Italian motorways including the Milan ring road - think M25, but crazier, with more unindicated lane changing.The last hour or so, only about 40 miles was on a twisty turny up and downy road, a bit like New Zealand, but with traffic and little villages everywhere. When we got to Barga, we just unpackedand chilled, sitting on the balcony looking at the wonderful view:range upon range of high mountains. Next day we worked out where the bus stop to Lucca was and caught a ... read more

It wasn't a feeling of disgust, fear, or curiousity. It was a sense of complete unbelonging, an opressive moral numbness that rejected me and everything I care about. Amsterdam doesn't like me and I don't like it; I couldn't leave fast enough. I knew, on a surface level, what I'd find, but I expected to be able to handle it - I've seen a lot in two months after all - but instead, I just felt like crying. Germany is a nice place to re-adjust to western society, but Amsterdam is a good place to make me, at least, want to go home more than ever before. We took the first train out of the city we could after breakfast. Haarlem isn't anywhere near a ghetto, and it only has a few notorious coffee shops downtown. ... read more

July 1, 2007 My Beautiful Launderette We left England and took a long uneventful ferry ride across the Channel to Belgium. Thank goodness none of us had any motion sickness. It was rough out there and the bathrooms were line-up with people getting sick. We arrived in Belgium and to the lovely town of Brugge. We spent two uneventful days in Brugge eating chocolate, climbing clock towers, and gliding down the beautiful canals in lovely little boats. It was definitely bad for the diet…really bad. The chocolate was to die for. Will had a Belgium waffle with hot chocolate sauce on it for a snack…I had one bite and my heart was pounding. While in Brugge Justin and I decided to take some time to do some laundry. We got directions to the laundry from ... read more