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Our first day of the tour. We are about to undertake a Cosmos tour called Best of Europe for 16 days. The Australian code for this tour is 5161. It was distracting have so many people in the lobby of the Thistle Euston. There were several tours starting the day we were leaving, and one of the tours wasn't heading to Europe. With snow falling outside, I got totally distracted and had to go out and play a touch. In the end we found the right bus to get on. There had been a massive snow fall overnight, so we weren't able to catch the freeway to the ferry due to several accidents blocking the road, so we went along some of the back roads, which was a nice way to view the countryside. The snow just looked so beautiful (ok, just a warning, this has been my first ever experience with snow, so I was in heaven). The countryside was a winter wonderland and just covered in white! Typically when we were actually able to get out of the bus at Dover, there was not a drop of snow to be found!

The Ferry crossing, considering what the weather had been over night was totally uneventful. We were blessed as all crossings were stopped a couple of hours later, and even the tunnel ceased being in a black out for 8 hours I believe with bad weather. We had lunch on the Ferry, and there was pretty much the one option of main course and desserts. The food was lovely and luckily it was big as we ran into problems at the tea stop. Its probably a good idea to almost carry your tea the first night, but will get to that a touch later. Ferry took 90 mins.

After getting off the ferry at Calais, we then spilt into the two touring groups. We had a funny Italian that sounded just like "Borat", and everything was "very nice". The road trip from Calais to Amsterdam did get a touch boring. I know that may seem bad to say, however we only got to stop once for a tea break and by that stop it was already dark outside. It did get dark very early being winter though. I can't remember exactly but it might have been near Antwerp, there is a massive ring road. Being a friday night, the traffic was totally insane and we were stuck in peak hour like you wouldn't believe for well over an hour! That was by far the worst traffic of the whole trip luckily, but it made for a very very long day! I think we finally got out of the traffic and pulled into a very crowded bus stop on the side of the road. We were told it was a nice place you go in, select what you want then pay at the end counter. However upon entering, all the food on display was raw and you had to choose how you wanted everything cooked! There was also the language barrier to contend with. Mcdonalds was also a choice but the line there was also insane. In the end pre-plated desserts seemed to be the quickest way to go. We also took two what I thought was hot apple pie things, as they were in the dessert section, however we were lucky and they ended up being sausage rolls :S

Arrival at the hotel in Amsterdam was just after 10pm. So yes a very long day. The hotel was quite nice and had free internet on a computer in the lobby for guests to use.

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