Arrived in Amsterdam

---

Just for a little background information....
I'm in Europe. There's 6 of us in total. Me, Rod, Tavia (friend from Pharmacy), Kris (her boyfriend), Ashley (Tav's roommate) and Graham (Ash's boyfriend). We're spending 4 weeks together starting in Paris, then Amsterdam, then spliting up for 2 days (me and Rod are heading to Zurich). We will meet up in central Switzerland to spend time in the mountains before heading to Italy (Venice, Florence and Rome) and back to Paris for the flight home. Ohhh...Graham and Ash are going to Scotland for 2 weeks after that....JERKS

Even though we weren't in Paris very long we managed to do a lot of stuff. The first full day we decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower. When we got there we stopped for a snack before climbing the stairs of the tower. We climbed as high as you can and then took the elevator to the top. You can see the city til the horizon. It definitely makes Winnipeg look as small as Altona. At this point (already walking over 5km) we decided to walk to Arc de Triumph. The museum was closed so we basically walked across and watch the crazy intersection (12 streets merge into one round-about). We then headed back to the Eiffel tower for the night light show before walking back to the hotel (all in all a 15km walking day....which our bodies paid for the next day).
Our hotel was alright. It was nothing special, but it was cheap and we had our own bedrooms and it was walking distance from major attractions. The people were weird and hotel only had one computer which was incredible slow and the french keyboard has the letters in different places.
The next day we went to Notre Dame (we took an english guided tour, but after an hour of listening to a crazy old lady talk in one spot, we left) and the Louvre. At the Louvre we took another tour. We saw a few main attractions (Mona Lisa and the rest I can't name for my lack of knowledge of art). Since our feet were tired from the day before, we got cheap bottles of wine, bread and cheese and sat on the street (the lady at the front desk of the hotel said drinking on the street "is not acceptable but it is accepted").
Our last full day in France was spent taking a train ride to Dieppe in Northern France. Graham's grandpa landed there in WWII.
Today was travel day....and things were going too smoothly before today...something was bound to happen.
We got up at 6 to make sure we had lots of time to get to the train station. We had everything figured out early and had an hour and a half to wait. We got on the train to Brussels........Just out the train doors and down the escaltor to the next plateform Tav yells "MY EURAIL PASS!!!" So she runs to the train and bangs on the windows...but the train pass is lost. BUT, the nicest lady in the world at the info desk got the conductor to bring the pass back later that day. So everything is ok now...we just got to spend the afternoon in the Brussel's train station 😊
Now we're in Amsterdam. We've had just enough time to eat supper (at Pizza Hut...we're not very adventurous) and check into the hostel. After all the travel, I'm ready to go to bed!
The computer's at the hostel seem to have their USB ports hidden so I STILL can't upload any pics...but i'll figure it out soon.

MEAGAN

---