Random Animals in the Netherlands

Hello all,

I know it's been a long, long time. No excuses. Here we go . . . The Netherlands.

So I arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday, September ?? . . . oh man it has been a long time since I updated this thing. OK. EasyJet, britian's budget airline, was 3 hours late in departing, and after spending 5 hours in London's Gatwick Airport getting my photo taken several times before I was able to go into the boarding area, I had little energy to roam the city. The next morning however, I ventured out into the wild canal guided streets of most young and liberal adults' city to orient myself. The only thing I kept noticing was that there was a plethera of stray, or seemingly stray, animals everywhere. They weren't necessarily gross, smelly or dirty, just all over the place. I had a grand day exploring the canals, a nice walk up to the train station to get a visitor's museum pass, and planned out the next couple of days in a great little cafe near my hostel.

Oh - my hostel. This place was interesting. Sixteen people in each room, two rooms on each floor, one bathroom. Yes people, 32 individuals shared one bathroom. You can only imagine how they tried to keep things sanitary.

There was one good thing about the hostel. No lockout. And since I brought a cold with me to the Netherlands, I was free to go to my bunk whenever I pleased. That was nice. I also met a Japanese girl and Brazilian guy who ended up becoming my drinking buddies in the city. They were cool too.

So Amsterdam was pretty chill. Went to 10 museums in 48 hours. Ended up in some amazing parks for some alone time to write in my journal. It was pretty good to me.

I wasn't able to get a hold of Annemieke, one of the wonderful young women who came to be au pairs for the Stringer children 20 odd years ago, so I went on to The Hague (or Den Haag) for a night. Called the political capital of the Netherlands, this place has basically one purpose and although I enjoyed my time there, I could have skipped it.

I did however decide to spend three days in Rotterdam which were awesome. Rotterdam's tag line is the "cultural capital" and is true to a "T." Loaded with small art galleries and private museum collections, this place was my ideal. Friendly folks, great outdoor markets, clean streets, great bridges, . . . I could go on and on. My favorite activity was watching a puppet show in the city center with a bunch of little kids. They were really just too cute.

So in the end, I loved the Netherlands. I'd go back without question. I'd go to the north too and some smaller towns with less than 500,000 people to see what that life is like too. Well, got to end this entry so I can talk about my 36 hours in Paris.