London & Amsterdam

We've been in London and then Amsterdam for the past few days, here's an update on what's happened:

Here I am taking two embarrassingly touristy photos in London, one with Big Ben and the other in one of the many phone booths (kind of cool that those haven't gone away in London yet). What can I say, I got caught up in the moment, gave into peer pressure, swallowed my pride...and I liked it.

That's me at the Tower of London. I have no idea why they call it the Tower because it's practically a village in there. We saw the crown jewels which was amazing but also disgusting in a way. The extravagance was shocking, there was a Grand Punch Bowl made of solid gold and big enough to hold more than 100 bottles of wine! I cannot imagine needing a bowl that large unless you planned to bathe in it! We also saw the many suits of armor which belonged to Henry VIII. He was either extremely well-endowed or....he had his armor made to over-compensate for an area in which he was lacking. Either way, I've never seen anything quite like it.

We ate Indian Food (chicken tiki masala and naan bread... mmmmm) and all 31 of us saw Les Miserables together. It was pretty incredible and we still have the songs stuck in our heads.

Here Bitt, Ainsley and I are standing on the dock in a little village in the Netherlands. We have no idea what the village was called, our bus driver is Dutch and he kept saying it but we couldn't ever quite catch it. I do know it has 'dam' on the end of it, but what city in the Netherlands doesn't?We missed out on taking a picture with one of the Buckingham Palace guards but this was definitely the next best thing. When Brits refer to 'beefeaters' they're referring to these, not consumers of beef.After arriving in Amsterdam we stopped at a little Dutch shop called Cheese and Clogs where they made just that, cheese and clogs. We watched a demonstration on cheese-making, complete with delicious samples of seven kinds of cheeses including Gouda (apparently correctly pronounced 'how-duh'), Stinging Nettle Cheese, and Garlic & Onion cheese. I of course couldn't resist and bought myself a wheel of Gouda. We also got to watch a demonstration of how wooden shoes are made, Hans made it very entertaining. Then we were left to explore the shop and the many different sizes of wooden shoes laying around.


In Amsterdam we visited the Van Gogh museum, as evidenced by my bag, and the Anne Frank House. Both were well worth it, and seeing the secret annex where the Franks and four others hid was very interesting and made me want to right out and read the Anne Frank diaries. We also walked through much of the city and were surprised at all of the canals, they were everywhere! We heard that there are more canals in Amsterdam than in Venice and after being there we believe it.

Our last visit in the Netherlands was to a flower auction. Apparently every day at 4am buyers gather to bid on flowers from around the world. The sheer volume of flowers was amazing, and the efficiency with which they are bought and shipped is incredible. Apparently the flowers can be bought and arrive at the nursery within 24 hours. We walked through this flower warehouse, probably a mile long, and it was just packed with pallets and pallets of flowers like these.

Next up: Belgium!