Amsterdam and Iceland!

Well, Amsterdam was awesome! My first thought when I got there was that it was like Venice with the canals, but better!

Our hostel was actually in the middle of the red light district, but that wasn't a problem at all. It was a nice area, right on the canal.

The night we got there we checked in, ate dinner, then headed to a New Europe tour (not free) of the red light district. It was really interesting learning about everything. The tour guide was really cool.

After that, Pat needed to get back to rest, so Jen, Dave, and myself went out!

The next morning was the New Europe free walking tour. Yayyyy. Again, we had a good tour guide, so the 4 of us were happy.

We saw lotsa cool things.
- the national monument
- the old church
- the new church
(Such original names in this city...)
- anne frank's house (from the outside)
- floating flower market
- the most narrow house (just over a meter wide! How does that work??)
-all the leaning buildings

After we went to lunch with the tour group, but the place had HORRIBLE service. I mean, this waiter was so bad.. We we're there for over 2 hours!

I was upset because that lunch time was valuable time in the city, and because of that and slow moving in stores after it, we sidnt get to go back to the Anne Frank house to go inside. Not a big deal, but it would have been nice to do.

After that, we just went shopping. We headed back to the hostel and got our bags, then took a train to the airport.

I gotta say, I'm really going to miss the ease of access to public transportation. It's been nice travelling this way!

Next stop, iceland.

Well, iceland stinks becausw of the time of our layover. We got in here 12am iceland time, 2 am body clock/mainland europe time/8pm jersey time. We were so tired and so bummed when we realized there was no way to get to the city. Everyone we spoke to said that NOTHING will be open (great nightlife, as pat said, must mean that everyone is still alive when it's night time). I mean, it is a wednesday night, but still!

There was no way to get to the city (other than a cab) because there were no more flights til the morning. The airport was SO empty. So, we stayed in the airport. Allll night. All the stores closed after 20 minutes of us being here. We found cushioned benches to relax on.

We made a video to pass the time, but we can't post it online yet. And by we, I mean we all talked about it, jen, pat and I worked on the scenery, pat and I filmed it, and pat put it all together. We kept losing people to sleep lol. Its a good video though... You'll see.

Oh it was weird: the sun set as we got here. It rose at 3am. But, it never got dark!!! It was raining the whole time... Woulda been cooler if it was clear skys.

So, later today I will be home! That's not your cue to never check this again though. I will be uploading pictures to Flickr (happy July! More picture alottment!) And probably doing some sort of sum up of the trip!

I can't believe it's over :-(