Blogs from Netherlands, Europe - page 377

Hey all... I've been having some email issues so I'm resending this... many of you didn't get it! Sorry if you are one of the few who did receive it! Next installment to come soon... Paris is beautiful! Love and miss you all... Well, after a frantic week of prep + goodbyes, I'm here, safe and sound. And I've already learned a few lessons the hard way... 1) The world is a really big place. My flight was on a 747 with over 650 people making their way to europe and beyond. As I looked around, I would have to say only 1 in 6 people were white. Most were connecting to flights in the mid-east and asia. I know we are all multi-cultural in Toronto but listening to all of the languages in the ... read more

Amsterdam is like New Orleans. People go there to have sex and get messed up. So what were we doing there? Well, it started off with us standing in Heathrow, not knowing what time our flight was, what number it was or even the name of the airline. However, by some weird twist of fate, we wound up on a plane there. After trains and planes and buses and everything being in Dutch, we wound up at the hostel, which was smack on the edge of the red light district. When I opened the door to our room, five guys were sitting around a table doing lines. So, we kind of threw our stuff down and went to the Heineken Brewery. That was pretty cool because they gave you a free beer every floor...not as dramatic ... read more

This has been the first chance I have had in the Netherlands to sit and type something. We have no problems accessing the internet to upload anything, we have just been too busy having fun to set aside some time for typing! So, this will be a quick update because in the next half hour or so we will either be out bicycle riding, walking, driving or something - today is too nice to waste in front of a laptop. The following covers the period from 22nd to 29th October, later today we will visit Gert and Henny, then tomorrow we are off to Wageningen to see Bert and Bianca. Then on Monday we drive to Frankfurt airport for Lorenza to get her flight home. But for now, on with the update …. The fashion police ... read more

Well Fleur and Bart talked us into spending a weekend in Amsterdam at their place so they can play tourist with us, we thought why not. They were looking forward to being able to be a real tourist while showing us around at the same time. Bart was working Friday so it was just FLeur showing us the Anne Frank House and cycling with either Leeza or myself on the back of the fiets (bike) and the other riding the other fiets. It was an interesting experience riding around a big busy city on the back of a fiets and it doesnt cost anything. It was difintely an interesting feeling walking around a house that hid people from the Nazis way back in the war days. It was really small and there were a lot of ... read more

21st, 22nd and 23rd October 2005 Amsterdam, Netherlands. WARNING! CONTENT DOES INCLUDE SOME REFERENCES TO PROSTITUTION, NUDITY, ETC. Day 10 Leaving our lovely castle in the wee hours of the morning - indeed, before there was enough light to attempt more than a few half-hearted photos (what's the use in staying in a castle if you don't get to see it?) - we headed north across the border and into the gradually flatter plains of the Netherlands. I should mention here that while many people refer to the country as Holland, that’s actually just a region (or several provinces) in the central-western part of the land, and was never the name of the country. The true name is actually the 'Kingdom of the Netherlands', or Netherlands for short. The first stop was in a rural area ... read more