Portion of first blog that was lost...

---

HIII!!!! ok i am trying this out.

Well here it goes….this might end up being sort of a ramble…not feeling very poetic today but wanted to put a little bit up.

Here is the deal…I left Tampa on 7/17/07 and flew into Gatwick just in time to realize I had literally 20 minutes to make my connecting flight. I ran across the whole airport and made it just in time. I am staying with my friend Simone, from FSU and her boyfriend Chris in Leiden. Leiden is a medium sized town about a 30 minute train ride East of Amsterdam. My friend Tracy and her husband Tony live in Den Haag which is about a 15 minute train ride from Leiden. I am staying with S & C until the end of August and plan to travel to a couple of places and enjoy spending time with friends and getting to know a new place.

I arrived in Holland and met Simone at the airport, Chris was supposed to meet me but his train was held up by a bull on the tracks, how very Dutch. Anyway, Chris met me as I got off the train in Leiden and gave me a crash course in the train/bus/tram transportation system. Um yeah…still working on the bus system…

The next day Simone and I flew to Geneva to visit her dad and friends for the weekend. Her dad picked us up from the airport and drove us to the apartment he had in Lausanne where Simone and I were going to stay. Let me tell you this place is amazing. The building had a perfect view of ‘Lake Geneva’(aka Lake Lemon) overlooking Evian, France and the Swiss Alps. We then went to her fathers house who also has this amazing view. He cooked us dinner and we spent the night on his terrace talking and enjoying the fire we had and the view. It was the perfect start to unwind from my trip. We spent the next day hanging out and walking around Lausanne. Saturday we took the train to Bern, leaving the French region of Switzerland and going to the German region. In Bern we met up with Jenny and Sara, friend of Simone’s that she went to school with. We bought rain boots and then we went up to what I see as a mountain however everyone else classifies as a ‘hill’ to the Gurten Festival, one of the many music festivals the occur during the summer around Europe. This place was insane and makes the music festivals I have been to in the states look like kindergarten. Anyway, a cloud settled onto us and rained the whole evening…thank god for the rain boots!!

By the time Simone and I flew back to Amsterdam Monday morning I was dead. It was like sensory overload between planes, trains, busses, Dutch, French and German being spoken…I finally caught up on my sleep. I spent last week just getting settled in and learning my way around town. I met up with Simone’s friend Adam and his dog on Wednesday (?) in The Hague (Den Haag) and we went to Delft for the afternoon. Luckily Adam is a walking history book and he gave me the run down on everything I needed to know about Delft from the ‘Old’ Church having a leaning tower due to the eroding foundation made partially out of cows skin …not to worry its been said there is at least another 400 years before it might tumble. The ‘ New’ Church is where the royal family is being buried and how now only the highest in the family are being buried due to the smell…yeah…

Thursday I went into Amsterdam for the first time and took a canal tour and then met Simone, Adam and his boyfriend, Jason for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. After we walked around, Simone showed us where she works and grabbed a drink at a bar/café around the corner. Fun night with good company. Friday Marja, Chris’s mother was sweet enough to meet me in Den Haag where she had grown up for an afternoon tour. We went to Mauritshuis where the ‘Girl with the Pearl Earring’ and ‘View of Delft’are housed.

---