11/30/04

It is hard to know how to start this blog with the end or the beginning. I will start from the beginning only because Julie Andrews suggested it is a very good place to start. Caleb and I awoke with a proverbial bang to our palm pilot alarm letting us know that it was 630am and time to get our stuff together and get to a train towards Pisa and ultimately, Rome. It had rained pretty hard all night so our sleeping bags and tent and the garbage bags that protect the rest of our stuff was wet. So instead of packing all our gear in the rain and getting everything more wet Caleb hauled everything that wasnt in the tent up to the hostel which is up the hill about 500 to 600 feet away. Meanwhile I packed the wet bags and everything else up. Once we closed camp we had to attach our gear to our main packs. We barely had enough time to get it all done. We had to run down the mile long path to the road and the bus was coming around the corner when we got down there. We got to the main train station in Florence about 5 minutes before our train was to depart, but we made it. We ran all the way from the hostel and from the bus to the station with our 65 to 75 lbs packs! We felt like Run Lola Run. So we get to Pisa and we find out that today they are having a all around transportation strike from 9am to 1pm so everything having to do with tourism, except taxis, was closed while we were in Pisa. So if we wanted to see the Leaning Tower we had to hoof it with our heavy backpacks and frontpacks. So we did. It was worth it cuz the Tower is pretty cool. I took tons of pics! They were beautiful. After taking in the whole Pisa scene we made it back to the train station to catch our train to Rome. We stopped into a "super market" to get stuff for lunch and the train. This supermarket was more like a New York bodega in that it had a bunch of old products on the shelves and not much to choose from, but you gotta work with whatcha got I guess. So we got on the train to Rome no problem. It left about 20 minutes late cuz of the strike but besides that no prob. Once on the train and in our seats we made ourselves some sandwiches and whatnot, played some cards, wrote tons of postcards, caught up on the blog entry in our palm pilot and enjoyed the beautiful scenery on the way to Rome. The train basically followed the coastline and the ocean was so pretty. A bluegreen color. And the mountains, mmmm bellissimi! Lots of wind so the waves were hitting the coastline hard. We met this cool guy from Sicily that is living and working in New York right now but is going to visit his family with his new baby and wife. He suggested we try Sicily for the beaches and sun. We may give this a try. So we get into Rome and walk out of the station to find our hostel. I had the address in the palm pilot so I looked it up but realized that we had no map of Rome. So Caleb took off his packs and set them down (we were standing in front of a well lit store window, no one behind us,not possible) and I took my front pack off and set it down with his stuff and left my big backpack on and stood in front of the bags. Caleb was not gone even 5 minutes and said that the info desk was on the other side of the station so we set out to find the hostel based on the directions someone had given me in Florence. Not 10 seconds after we picked up our stuff and started to head in what we thought was the correct direction Angie realized that the front pack she had been carrying (it held the CAMERA, THE PALM PILOT, ALL THE RECHARGERS, BASICALLY EVERYTHING BUT OUR MONEY AND PASSPORTS AND CLOTHES) WAS GONE. Someone had stolen it under her nose. I lost it. Literally. Imagine a crazy woman screaming in english and crying desperately in the streets of Rome. (I am sure I looked like a total idiot. but be in that place and see how you react. ) So we went to the police station a couple blocks away (Angie still sobbing this whole time) and reported the stuff stolen (we havent even been in a police station in the states and we have been in two here in europe, not a good track record). We eventually found the hostel and both of us are tapped. We are considering all sorts of scenarios at this point, including coming home to the states. Any good ideas, again, are welcome. I am beginning to feel like Job. Caleb initially said lets just leave Europe but is trying to keep his spirits up and be strong for me. It is like a black cloud is following us around. The only good thing to come out of it is that there is practically nothing of ours left to steal and our load is lightened considerably. All of our addresses and info for here including travel books, and all the photos and camera are GONE. Where do we go from here? We are beginning to hate Italy and feel like we just want to get out of here, but do we give up our whole trip because of a huge string of bad luck? Is it a sign that we shouldnt be here? we need some good karma

11/29/04

Yesterday we got our train tickets, look Heather a Traaaiiiinnnn hehe, to Pisa and to Rome. We will stop tomorrow in Pisa for a couple of hours to check out that leaning tower deal and then hop back onto the train to check out Rome and all its antiquities. We didn't know exactly how to use the tickets and when to get on so we went back to the train station today to find out how to do that. Well I am glad we did because we would have missed the train we thought we were going to take because they are starting a train workers strike tomorrow so we have to get on an earlier train than we anticipated. We saw a couple more exquisite churches. There seems to be an endless source of these churches. We walked forever and a day. We had lunch at a place called Angie's Pub. Man, what a great name! hehe We had an american style lunch, hamburgers and fries. We should be ashamed with all the great italian food, but when you are starving the the restaurant is named after you, you go with it. It was pretty good anyhoozle. We did get gelatto today. When we leave Italy I think I will miss that most of all:)

11/28/04

Today we found an internet place for a "reasonable" price. 2 euro for an hour. We tried to look up cpeap flights to a tropical destination to no avail. From there we went to the mcdonalds of pizza in italy for a slice for caleb and then an expencive(didnt seem expencive on the door) chineese restraunt(why chineese in italy I don't know) Thenwe went to the train station and bought our tickets of r piza and rome Ahh... it feels good to have a next stop. From there we walked up th the top of michalangelo. It was beautyful, the farether up you climb the more beautyful it gets. At the top of the hill there is a church. It has been Angie's faborite place so far. Once is started getting dark we went ot the Uffizi Museum. We had to hurry through the last half of me but we make it all the way through. We stopped by our favorite focaccia shop for dinner and we were both full so we left out the gelatto. With tired feet and a head full of art we bussed back to our hostel and played some cards and met a guy named Jose from mexico. He told us about his love story that he was in the middle of and hopefully it will have a happy ending.

11/27/04

Today we slept in... it felt so nice. But the problem was that the hostel right next to our camp site where we take showers and go to the toilette had lockdown from 10am-2pm, so we didn't get to take a shower until after that. James and Kate were leaving for Venice today so we kind of hung out with them in the hostel while we were waiting to take a shower. We met a cool guy travelling by himself, brian, from Chicago, Il. We chatted it up with him for awhile too. Then we all went into Florence and had lunch at our fave sandwich shop for calzones and focaccia sandwiches again. very yummy. And then dropped Kate and James at the train station and walked around the city. The cold weather seems to be plaguing us, following us from country to country. Ihope this trend doesn't continue into the more southern areas. We got gelatto a anew place today and it was even better than the other gelatto. Caleb had vanilla and I had the death by chocolate. Death has never taste soooo good:) We tried, to no avail, to find either an open or not expensive internet place in town. Hence the long period between blogs, so sorry people. We got a bottle of 3 euro wine and went back to the camp site and inside the hostel to warm up and hang out before bed. we met this really nice couple, Sara and Joseph, from Nova Scotia, Canada. They have been travelling in Europe since July. They, like James and Kate, also worked in England for 6 weeks in between travels. They had lots of good ips for fast and cheap travel thru euope. thanks guys! There was an italian choir in the common romm where we were hanging out. They sang for about 2 hours. They were excellent, very loud, but good.

11/26/04

Today we woke up and had our "complimentary breakfast", a hard roll and a juice box, not nearly as nice as the hostel in Amsterdam. We went with our new friends, Kate and James, into Florence to explore. We started at the Duomo and Bptistry in front of it. It is a mammoth church and absolutely breathtaking! From there we walked to the Museum Academia and saw Michelangelo's statue of David. Quite a site. We had a great focaccia sandwich for lunch and then walked down to the Ponte Vecchio. Photo ops galore. It was really romantic. From there we went to get some gelatto-italian ice cream from heaven- and then took some more photos on the bridge. We went back to the hostel and talked until 1am with James and Kate. They are super cool people. They said we should come down to Australia to visit them. I guess we will start saving for that trip when we get back:) hehe

11/25/04

After a 22 hour bus ride from Amsterdam to Florence italy and going through customs 3 times(france, swiss, and italy, switzerland took an hour and a half!)Man they are serous about their customs now. Angie was here in 2001 and they barely checked anywhere for anything. But now they dont mess around. When we got the the boarder of belgum and france both caleb and I got physically ssearched, our bags and asked us tons of questions, took our passports. We were scared. Compared to Amsterdam, florence is balmy. When we spepped out of the bus we were so happy to feel ground under our feet after being ona bus for so long. Its funny because people around here are wearing their winter coats and scarfs. We were wearing our tshirts sweating. At first anyway. We found the hostel by foot(it only took us 2 hours with our fully loaded packs, my bright idea beacause I wanted to bet a layout of the city. We found out later that you can get 4 hours on a city bus for 3.50 euro live and learn) we walked back into the city and called our parents for thanksgiving and then we had our thanksgiving dinner of pizza and pasta. Viva Italia! It was delish! We went bacl to the hostel and met a nice couple from Australia. Their names areKate and James and they come from a place near Melbourne. They are cuper cool and wwe have decided to site see with them through Florence tomorrow. Neither Caleb or Angie got much sleep on the bus so we were going on next to no sleep for 36 hours. We were exhausted, but when we got back to our tent area we had laid everything out to dry in the sun. However, at night in florence there is a tramendous amout of mist in moisture so all of our stuff was drenched. When we went to pitch the tent the ground was so hard that we had to use a rock to pound the stakes in. Angie had a breakdown at that point. So we got a laundry token and dried all the wet stuff and then went to bed in our travelling circus tent.

11/24/04

Well we are on our way out of Amsterdam(finally) and on our way to italy. Florence to be more exact. Our plan is to spend a couple of days there and then find a beach to dry out on. Then I think from there we are talking about going to Rome. So far we have been on the bus for almost 7 hour, but we are very excited. We just know that Italy is going to be fun.

11/23/04

Today we met some folks from Wales, their names are ruth and rich. They are going to hold onto my bike until we fly back home. It works out nice for us because now i dont have to sell my bike and now they have some free transportation. Also today we found transportation to italy, we will be leaving tomorrow on a bus. it is going to take like 20 hours or somthing crazy like that, but its not very expencive an thats what we need right now.

11/21/04

Last night ws a partic ularly cold night. We had frost and ce all over the outside of our tent when we got in and when we got out. We keep all our backpacks and stuff we don't want to get wet in plastc garbage bags and all of those bags were covered in ice too we decided to sleep in. Once we roused ourselves, we biked into Amsterda to go to the Van Gogh Museum. as lon as we are here we figured we might as well keep doing all the touristy activities we can It was great. I think we both liked it better then the Riks Museum. Befor we went into the museum, we came upon a No violence free concert going on in the square/park right next to the Van Gogh museum. It was really cool and the music was good too. Some hip-hop,pop/rock, some reggae. No one pr3eformed that I recognized but they all seemed like Dutch performers. After this and the museum we gathered up our bikes and rode to find dinner. We ended up finding and albert heijn and getting groceries. It is less convenient to eat this way because we e8ither have to eat outside(in the cold and rain most of the time) or find a place o make our food and eat it. But it is so much cheaper and the food is always good. After we went to Abrazas and got ouselves some hot drinks and played cards we met a group of younger girls from Frankfurt Germany and they played kings on the corners with us. It was interesting because not all of them spoke engl8ish and I couldn't explain every word of the directions in german but we got along just fine :) My germen was better then I thought it would be. Shortly after the german girls split, our friend from the hostel, the hungarian girl Amese, showed up with her boyfriend who had come into town the day before to meet her. They are very fun people! They are trying to talk us into ghoing to Hungary and stay with them and they say they will sho us around. We are thinking about it but first we just have to get out of Amsterdam and go from there. We played lucky bastard with them for a couple of hours I think. Good time. We left Abrazas the same time as Aemese and her boyfriend. Around 1050PM and we came out, we could tell that somthing was not quite right with our bikes. As we got closer in the dark alley, where our bikes had been double kryptonite locked to eath other on both wheels and the frame, we saw that both lock and be cut and Angie's bike was GONE. Stolen. Both uf us were devasteated, but because we have had sort of a hard time and were so tired we could show no emotion at the moment. They took the tools and Caleb's bike light but they left Caleb's bike. At least they \left us with a way to get home. We rode Dutch style back to the campground with Caleb driving and myself riding on the panner.
Well that pretty much changes our trip plan. Right now we are trying to find another way to travel wthat will be financally feasible for us. Dissapointment in the dutch human race is high in this moment. Needless to say we are both , and I never thought I could say htis, ready to be out of Amstedam and not come back for a long, long time. Any good ideas let us know

11/20/04

Well, we bust.
Getting to spain is proving to be more difficult then we anticipated. We took it easy this moring at the hostel. We both ate as much as we could muster for our comp breakfast at the hostel and then went upstairs to get our stuff together. Rearranging our thigs within our things seems to have helped consolidate because loading our bikes seems successfully w4ent quicker this time. We rode to central station to find out about tickets. Well there was a 40 minute line at the bus ticket station because Cannabis Cup starts this weekend and there are like 10,000-20,000 extra americans, canadians, british, etc. Anyway, we found out that no bikes are allowed on the busses. Which is fine we thought because we can just take a train. When we got to the train station we found out that not only would it cost us 225 euro apiece(which is more then our plane tickets cost) but that we cannot take our bikes with us on the train(unless it is paked up in a luggage type form similar to how we took them on the plane) Well when we found this out we just sat down on the floor in the train station for a while feeling sad because we were so looking forward to getting out of this cold rainy country and experincing more of the world. Now we are going to figure out a way to get south.

11/19/04

We woke up at 8 am, to the same weather we went to sleep to. Lots of wind and rain. But about 9:30 am the sun almost started to peak through the clouds. So caleb and I put all of our drenched cloths in the campground dryer. Then we packed up our camp and our bikes again and headed into Amsterdam. We headed into the youth hostel we had stayed at the week prevous. We were planing on getting discount train or bus tickets from them. It turns out that they only sell bus tickets. So tomorrow we are planning on either buying a bus or train ticket to south or spain. Today we checked into the youth hostel and got a two person room. No sharing! It is like a palice to us because we have hot running water, a sink right in our own room, a celing tall enough to have both of us be alone and standing, lots or room to dry our still wet gear and clothing. And a bathroom and a shower we don't have to walk outside to use. Its like shangri-la! We went to Albert-Heijn(the local chain grocery market in holland) to get dinner. It was a nice walk because the rain has ceaced for a couple of hours. A big event for these here parts. We both showered in very hot water without being timed!(usually you need at least 1 euro for 6 minutes for a shower) Then we went down to the hostel bar for some free coffee and teaa and hang out. We met this nice girl from Hungry named Emese. She has decided to come to our favorite Amsterdam coffee shop Abraxas, with us. Aftera cocoa Emese went back to the hostel and we went to play some uno(si8nce our regular cards basicly got distroyed by the rain). When we saw some locals playing uno. I aksed to deal in anbd we got starteed playing uno dutch style. Its the same but there are no words on the cards, and you can playany drawa cards on other draw cards to add them up. And when someone runds out of cards then every one keeps playing until you have only one left. Tomorrow, spain or bust!

11/18/04

Welcome to the winter of our discontent...this line has never had so much meaning in my life. Today was crazy. It started out like most mornings. Caleb and i ate breakfast in our tent to the sound of strong wind and rain hitting the roof of our tent. Ok, we pack our stuff up and get ready and start to follow the signs toUtrecht There are roadsigns for bikes just like there are for cars inHolland. pretty nice. We had biked about ohh, 18-20 kilometers, it was very cold and raining fairly hard all day,prettywindy. We were getting along ok though. Then all of the sudden Caleb's rack on the back of his bike breaks. A clean break,no fixing option. So we are out in the middle of Bumblef*** Holland (A beautiful place even in the rain, I might add) and stranded with all the stuff from Caleb's bike. We will have to take a pic of our bikes all loaded up somtime cuz it really is a wonder of eningineering in pacing that we can bike and carry all that stuff. Actually it often falls off and we have to re-engineer a packing solution. So we decided that I would stay with the bags and my bike and Caleb would bike back to the nearest town(about 2 kilometers), to find a bike shop and get a new pannier. It took himabout 50 mins to bike in, find the store,buy a new pannier and put it on and bike back. Not bad. Meanwhile I was becoming the bride of frankenstein in the rain. I have never been so happy to see Caleb in my whole life when he came riding around the corner on his bike with a new pannier intact. So we loaded up Caleb's stuff back on to his bike and started off to our way in Utrecht again. About 3 kilometers down the road Claeb discovers he has left his eyeglasses at the bike store in the town back a ways. So we turned around and rode back to the bike store together. Because of the extreme cold and so much rain and the problems we encountered we knew we had to find shelter for the night very soon. Caleb thought he had seen a camp site back about 6 kilometers or so. Unfortunately we never found the campground. So by then we were both in need of food, shelter and a bathroom very badly. We stopped at this supermarket to get sandwich makings. We are both totally soaked and wearing half our gear covered in plastic garbage bags. We looked like street people easily. We walk up to this Dutch girl working at the meat counter who could speak very little english and asked where we could find a toilet. She said she wasn't supposed to let us use the toilet but she would do it for us. She looked like she felt so sorry for us. It was hilarious. And when we went up to pay for our food Caleb reaches into his pocket to pay for the groceries and pulls out all this change and counts it out. We must have looked so pathetic. Caleb and I have laughed about it now. WE walked out and ate under the supermarket awning to avoid the rain. How romantic? hehe Tuna sandwiches with belguim bread and yogurt shakes. It only cost us 3 euro though! So we get back on our bikes and decide to find a hotel or hostel in the area to stay in and try for Utrecht the next day. But no hotels were within reasonable price ranges that we found. Then we saw that it was only 7 kilometers back to Amsterdam (you have to sort of back track to get from Haarlem to Utrecht and basically pass by Amsterdam). So Caleb says, lets just bike back to Amsterdam and camp at camping Zeeburg in Amsterdam and then get train or bus tickets to Spain within the next 2 days. This whole time it is gettting colder and raining harder. So the heading south to warmth is a plan Angie strongly endorsed at this time (remember Jen and Melis? 1993 eurail trip old skool yo!) We biked back to Amsterdam to the campground and set up our stuff in the pouring rain. Both of us absolutely chilled and drenched. We stripped and got into the tent and warmed up and held down the tent. Literally. The wind blew so hard the stakes came out on one side of the tent. Phew! We were just happy to be out of the wet and cold. All together we figure we spent about 11 hrs riding in the cold rain...sweet sleep..zzzzz

11-17-04

Caleb and I explored Haarlem again because we really like it a lot. Almost better than Amsterdam. It is a lot more laid back. We rode around quite a bit to find a place for lunch. We bought groceries from a local market and had lunch before we even left our camp site at de Liede. This Hungarian character, who's name eludes both Caleb and I for some reason, who lives in a permanent camper across the way from our camp site invited Caleb and I over to his home to have some coffee. so we walk in thru the zipper door and he says to Caleb "You, sit here!" in a very authoritative voice, and to me, "You sit!" and points to another plastic lawn chair at a table. yes, sir! hehe He has been living in Holland for the last 10 years and has moved here from Hungary to make enough money to build a home andhave his own business for his family. He saidthat in Hungary he must work 12 hours 7 days a week for about 1 euro per hour so he cannot support his family in his homeland. His wife and son and daughter were ther ein the camper but they never came out because they didn't speak any english or dutch for that matter. The little kids were cute peaking in when they could and laughing. It was very interesting meeting this guy though A totally different perspective on life. ON the way into the center of the town we saw these apartments that looked like round barn/greenhouse. They were cool lookin! Swans just swim around the canals here. It is just like normal for the people her ethey are all "Yawn" and I am such a kid like, "Sweet! A swan!" We saw a bunch of old cool, brick buildings. The architecture is so beautiful to both of us. We found a new coffeeshop called Regime. The best we encountered in Haarlem. They played some really good music there. Once we post our pics you will see pics of the both of us and that place. We took a lot more pics today. Until it started to rain. I have a feeling that the bulk of the photos we take will be in the spring because the rain prohibits the whole photo taking process. We had dinner at an Italian pizza place. When we finished they were projecting this abstract short film on the side of the building across the street. crazay We biked home the long way and hunkered down in our tent for the night.

11/16/04

Today was laundry day yay!
I think that the washers here must be super effecent. It took an hour to do the wash part of it and another hour to dry it. Our campground is out of the way by a bunch of farms. The farms here are so cute(like EVERYTHING) We met our neighbor today. His name is Rob, he has a belgan sheppord named Molly. She is less then half the size of a German shepord. I think that everything is so cute because its so small. Angie says that Haarlem is here new favorite city. It is just like Amsterdam except cleaner and the people are so much nicer.
The buildings here are amazing. We havent taken any pictures because there is never any sun.(I am not sure if the pictures that we actually took turned out or not)

So far I haven't seen very many good beer, then again we haven't been to to many bars.

Its very easy to get around on a bike, Haarlem is about the size of sturgis but everything is squished together.

I forgot to mention that last night we had a kitten playing with the strings of our tent. Angie kept wacking the side to try to scare it off, but I think it was just getting it more excited. I got out the water bottle and gave it a good squrirt and then it seemed to get the message.

We went to the grocery store and bought enought stuff for dinner and breakfast, it was funny because you have to weigh your produce and we didnt know it so we had no idea how to do it. Unlike Amsterdam not everything has english written beside it so we are very clueless about most things, we are just figuring stuff out as we go. The computer that I am on for example, its operating system is in dutch. Dutch is sort of like german though so some stuff we can figure out.

11/15/04

Today we had a lot to get done because we wanted to be sure to make it to haarlem before dark. We checked out and then heated into town for supplies. We stopped at the hardware store and I picked up some screws for my bike. Then we went to a shop that sells rollerblades and scooba equipment because we thoughht that they might sell bike equipment. When we got there the ladyh told us that all of the bike sotres in Amsterdam colos n Monday. So we went to the adventure store where we learned that the propane stove we brought with us was completely usless because they don't sell propane here, they only sell butane. So the fittings are different. But at least now we know and we can sent it home, or ditch it. We bought some more bunjies because you can never have to many of those. And headed back home to the way east side. After we took down the camp, we loaded up our bikes and headed towards haarlem. We went about 15 miles with oll of our gear fully loaded. First through the city(I hapen to have quite a wide load on me so it was a tight sqweeze in a couple of places) then its another 10 miles onto Haarlem. We took a short break in Halfweg. We figured that they must have called it that because its half way between Amsterdam and Haarlem. We just got a drink and then fnished the trip. As soon as we got off the bikeway(I like to call it that because it right by the highway and its like a highway for bikes. `its nice that bikes have a seprate place to go. We just happend upon our campground that we were looking for. It looks like most of the people that stay here basicly live here. The showers look much more modern and we are both going to take one in the morning.

11/14/04

`today was a get stuff together day. `we slept in because it was so nice. `by nice I mean partly sunny. And by some miricle it didnt rain today. I truly think that it was a great gift. We We spent time fixing the bikes and organizing. Then9in the afternoon we went to the cheese and bread store Kaasland for some super yummy cheese and some bread with some nuts or somthing in it. I am not sure what they were but they sure were good. We stopped to eat at an urban park to eat., `it was cute, there were a bunch of kids playing. `i have noticed in this city that there are more giant bells going off then sirens. `but the nice thing about the police is theat they only have their sirens going when someone is in the way. `otherwise they just use their lights. After that we just started really exploring and found a hardware store, a bike store, and a sports store. Of course they were all closed because it was so late. We rode late into the night around the city. `we were almost back to the campground when a cop stopped us and asked us where Angie's bike light was. We explained that it had gotten stolen so he let us go.

11/13/04

We finally made it to the anne frank huis today! Hooray for us! On the way we stopped at the Albert Cuypmarkt. it is a huge mark3et filled with fresh fruits and veggies local cheeses sausages chocolates(i'm not eating chocolates tee hee) bakery goods(again not eating--angie bad) clothing music bags jewlry nuts and the non people kind too and loads of the other fine things at a great market rate! Good times and food was had by Caleb and Angie! We likey the parket:p the onto finally the anne frank huis. Not the good feel story of the latter centry, bnut one which should be taken note for sure. It was creepy she ws a great writer. I didnt know that her father actually lived though the Holocaust. Anne believed her whole family to be dead when her sister passed away in the same holocaust camp that Anne died in. Ahew may have had the hope to go on if only she had known that her faither lived. Her farther's ex-secretary had held Anne's diaries until her father learned for sure that she and her sister were dead and then she handed over his daughter\s legacy to him and the world. That was moving after that we neede some fun so we headed for a couple of our favorite coffeeshops. Good time were had by all. We will probebly only be in town one more day and then head south through some other holland towns and make our way to belguim and then maby make our way to Spain. It is cold cold cold and wet here. We may seek some warmer climates:) Harrlem is our immediate next target city. Camping is working out to be a great deal. It is cold, but comfortable in the tent and under the sleeping bag it is very warm.

11/12/04

The campground doesn't include a breakfast with their accomodations, s were were fairly hungry when we got ouselves ready to bike into downtown amsterdam. \we found this great bakery by the \niewmarkt \centrum. \we got some olive bread and these apple stredul/cooking crust love things that tasted pretty much like heven. \then we picked up some cheese and spiced turkey and had ourselves a first class rainy day amsterdam lunch for the stars! It tastes so very good There is some heavenly goodness added that makes Eurpp an bread make you wanna weap. \so we liked lunch:) We rode our bikes around for hours looking for the anne frank huis. \we never found it but we sure saw a lot of the \\amserdam streets. Every restraunt looks like it will be good The bakerys! !hhh! Like pavlov\s dog i start to drool at the least wiff of a bakery in the area.

11/11/04

We got up and had our complimentry hostel breakfast around 8:30am today again. Then we each showered and pakced up our stuff. We checked out and hauled our gear to the camping zeeburg campground. It is about a 12 minute ride from downtown amsterdam. Not bad. We pitched our tent and enjoyed the first moment of aloneness since arriving in Europe. After that we went to the Rijks museum. There were many wonderful paintings there. Some we had seen before. Works by rembrandt, and many others.
We found a caffe that has free internet if you buy a drink. Its called abraxas.

11/10/04

Today we had breakfast at the hostle, it was yummy we had rice cakes and large crackers and like a large gargetto crunch thing. They were served with seasoned meats.
Our first stop was the tourist office to find out where the campground was. We found the campground pretty easily with the directions but right before we got there we ran into steps that you had to go down in order to get there. It was then that we discovered why people where giggling when we were pushing our bikes down stairs because at all of the staircases there is a bike wheel groove, like a track, that makes it rally easy to manuver your bike down the stairs. When we got to the campground we found out that it is pretty cute. It has a petting zoo right inside it whti rabbits and gotes and it is less then half of the price that we are hostelling at. Tomorrow we will stay there for sure. We took a back way once we got into the city and explored the outskirts of the downtown. The south side is much cleaner then directly downtown. We saw a van that was unloading a small car. The van was no bigger then an american van. From there we got lunch at a little sandwich shop. There we met the first person that didnt spak english. With hand gestures and nodding we managed to communicate what we watned. We stopped to eat lunch in a bike park called Ooster Park We stopped at a few small shops and caffes and were about to head home when we noticed that someone took Angie's bikelight. The funnly thing about it is that it was a 6 dollar bike light and 6 inches away on my bike is a 25 dollar let light that the person didnt steal, The other funny thing about it is that they just broke it off when they could have just flipped a switch and slid it off.
About that time we were getting hungry so we started looking for places to eat. There were so many restraunts that it made it rally hard to decided. We walked all the way up and down several streets. It seems like there are infinite restrants. I only had one beer in a out of the way placew. Most places only serve amstel and heineken. Anyway we decided on a pizza/pasta place. The pizzas were about the size on am american one but they are cracker thin so you can eat the whole thing without any trouble.We really like those tiny cars. Every time we see one we are like"look, its so cute" We thin that it is funny that we drove a lawnmower bigger then them this summer. We rode bikes back to the hostel after dinner to be safe. Then wae walked around for like 2 1/2 hours. We stopped at one of Ang's favorite cafes for the dessert cake. I had walnut cake and Angie had chocolate.

Amsterdam in da house!

Well, we are in Amsterdam!
Getting here was no easy task, always interesting and sometimes fun, but not easy. Caleb's mom. Deb was very kind to take us to the airport and to lunch. Our fflights went off without a hitch. Before we got on our first flight in Chicalg we mnet this nice retired(both of them teachers)couple, Anne and Keith from wakasha wi. They were on theirway to London and paris for a couple of weeks. We talked withthem for about an hour and a lalf before we boarded the plane. The british airways know how to fly in style. There is a lot more room and each seat has their own tv screen. You have 12 different movies, farily recent ones too, to choose from at any time. Caleb sat nextto the window and me inthe middle and the girl who sat to my right(only 3 chairs to a section not crowded)was very cool and her name is lisa and she is from scotland. She had been attending a convention in the states. Hopefully we willbe able to stay in touch with her and mabye visit with her and her family while in scotland. When we arrived in amsterdam we thought that our bikes had been left behind becasuse they were not on the baggage bely but they had been sent to another baggage claim area do to the size of the box. Customs was abreeze. The hard part came next. We had to transport our luggage and bike in a box on the trian to central station in amsterdam. The lady at the ticked officetp;distjewrpmgtraomtpgetpm, however we didnt discover this until we were onthe traingoing in the wrong direction. So luckily there are a lot of kind people in amsterdam and they helped us get on the correct train. we made our way to centeral station but it wasnt over yet. we had to put our bikes together as soon as we got to the train station. It took a little longer then we expected and both of us were freezing cold andhad to pee like race horses. Oncethe bikes were assembled we had to wour our packingmagic. it took almost aslong to get our stuff safely onto pur bikes astoput ourbikes together. Once again somevery nice amsterdamians helped us out with some egineering ideas and helped us carry theboxes tothe garbage.WIthourbikes together and stuff in tow we went to the tourist office to find a place to stay. We found an hostelling internationl(which we gotmemberships to yesterday) so we get good discounts. We get freebreakfast and lockers and underground parking for the bikes. we stay in a room with 8 other guys. Everything in clean and coufmorable. Once settled in we went out into the night to explore the city. It was bustling with actifi8ty we found lots of fun things to do. We we4re bothprettytired so we went back to the hostel around 11pm and watched tv for awhile. european mtv, no tomuchbetter then the origonal(butmuch more graphic).
Today wednesday we have decidedto stay atthe hostel again so that we have a chance to look for a good place to camp. we plan on going to an art musemtoday and getting to know the city much better on our bikes without the 60 pounds weighing us down. It will be great!

ONE DAY LEFT

Heather O'brien and Katrina Flower came last night to visit with us here in Indiana before we take off for our trip Monday. We went to Harvey Henkelmeyer's for pizza, then drove around Peru to find an ice cream place and some pool or bowling. We went to the Korner Kurl for lots of good ice cream and then went to the local bowling alley for a game of midnight bowling. It was tons of fun. We all camped out last night. We went out for breakfast with them this morning at Karen's in Rochester and stuffed ourselves silly.

Caleb and I cut the plastic for the bottom of our tent and got our bike locks today. I think we finally have everything that we need. I am sure we will discover things we have forgotten once we get there. Online I found several good camping sites that will be open and some youth hostels in the Amsterdam area. We haven't made reservations yet though. Flying by the seat of our pants all the way I guess:)P I went on one of my last bike rides today before we crate up my bike. We are both sooo excited to start our new adventure Monday! It is hard to think we will be biking and camping in Europe for six months. That is a long time. How awesome. My butt is already weary of the bike seat and we aren't even there yet-hehe. I cannot wait to land in Amsterdam!!!