DETOURS!

Katie's alarm went off at 8 am to Coldplay's Violet Hill. She ignored it and then got Nicole up around 830. we packed up all of our stuff and ate the free breakfast (bread and nutella- yum!) After accidentally locking our bags in a locker (complicated story) and having to rescue them, we headed down to the cube houses. We were about a half hour too early so we wandered around and picked up some warm beverages and sang the rain song (the one where you tell it to go away) and it worked! not that it was really raining; itwas more of an intermittent sprinkle.
at that point, we walked back to the cube houses and took the inside tour, which we weren't even aware you could do until the day before. It was SO awesome! Piet Blom is a creative genius. If anyone slightly interested in architecture is ever in Rotterdam, they should definitely check it out. it's only 2.50 euros.
we left the cube houses rather chipper, headed back to the hostel to grab our packs, then headed to the train station where we missed our train because the stupid machine only took cash - and on top of that it only took coins. Who in their right mind carries around 34 euros in 2 euro coins?
We got that situation settled and waited for the next train (an hour later).
To be continued...Stan needs the computer...

Rotterdam in a Day

In the morning we gathered our belongings and did some dishes until Rob woke up. He made us pannenkoeken (pancakes- Delicious!) and took us to the train station. We wish we could have brought him with us on the rest of the trip, we like him so much! We may have convinced him to meet us in Berlin, so we'll see...
We figured out our trains and got to Rotterdam around 3:00. Katie suggested "let's find our hostel and then eat," and Nicole agreed. But once we found our hostel, we realized how close we were to the Netherlands Architecture Institue (NAI), so we said "Okay, that first, then food." The NAI was incredible, with plans and perspectives over 400 years old. We ate it up! Unfortunately we got booted out sooner than we would have liked because of closing time, otherwise we probably could have spent all day there.
Then we saw how close we were to the Euromast, so we said "That first, THEN food." The Euromast is like that spinning tower thing at Sea World, or the red tower at Six Flags. We aren't sure how high it went, but Nicole felt a little woozy about halfway up, so we didn't go any further. It had an amazing 360 degree view of the city including the port, Het park, the bridges, etc.

After that we said "Okay, we should really get some food." However, the street we were walking along became a construction zone and thus was closed so we took a detour through Het park. Once we were through the park we were really close to the Erasmus Bridge, so we said "Okay then! Bridge first, then food."
Let's just say we probably saw 75% of Rotterdam and walked about 6 miles before we fed our tummies. And guess where we ended up eating? Chinese. It's kinda tough to find dutch food places here; It's really integrated like the States.
Once our appetites were satisfied, we were happy to discover that we had walked in a giant circle through the city and were only a few blocks from our hostel. When we arrived back, we zonked out.

It's a beautiful day, is it not?

Since we went to bed so late the night before, we slept in again until about 10:30. Rob made us breakfast and we lounged around for a bit. We walked with Rob and his friend Yuki to the train station so that Yuki could catch his train to work, and we continued our stroll through the center of town towards the Jordaan, passing the Dam - where the Royal Palace and Oude Kerk (Old Church) are - and a restaurant not unlike our Hooters, called "Teasers."
We made our way to the Anne Frank Huis and took the tour of the secret annex. The tour is pretty impressive. We found it interesting that Rob and his friends don't really know much about the story of Anne Frank other than the fact that she was in hiding during the war.
After the tour, we walked a little bit further through the Jordaan and grabbed some delicious pan de chocolade (chocolate croissants) before heading back towards the city center. Once there, we stopped at a grocery store and grabbed the essentials for a picnic and headed to the Vondelpark to meet Ferr and one of his friends.
We lazed around until it started to get chilly, then went with Rob to say hellow to a couple of friends in the Leidesplein that we had met the night before. Then we took the tram back to the apartment and Ferr made us a delicious dinner. We watched a very outdated "futuristic"flick and Nicole and I tested out Rob's turntables and we figured out the plan for the rest of our last evening in Amsterdam.

The 'Dam

Day 3 (of travel, technically)
We woke up at 11 AM - Comfy couch indeed. We put away our blankets and helped do some dishes. Rob was at work, so Ferr (Rob's brother) helped us with our itinerary for the day and explained which trams to take. And we were off!
Good thing Katie paid attention to Ferr's explaining and has a generally good built in GPS system because Nicole had no clue where we were going.
We jumped on the 10 Tram to Leidesplein and strolled through the Vondelpark, one of Amsterdam's largest and finest parks. After Nicole got her pants dirty while Katie was taking a picture of her, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and headed into the Rijksmuseum, followed by the Van Gogh Museum.
After looking at a bunch of art with swarms of other people crowding our personal space, we walked down to Albert Cuyp Straat, which houses a large farmer's market. This was much more pleasant, bring outdoors and all - which reminds me, we have been blessed with some of the best weather for Amsterdam. Clear blue skies and high 60's. - We thought about buying a few things, but realized that we have zero space in our packs for non-sensical items.
Once we strolled through the market, we would probably have gone to the heineken museum, but it has been closed all summer for renovation and doesn't re-open until October 22. So we grabbed the tram back to the boys' apartment to relax a bit before our evening excursion.
Rob came home and let us know that he, his brother, and a handfull of their friends were heading back to their hometown to hang out for the evening, and invited us along. We took the invitation as an opportunity to see a part of Holland that most travelers don't normally see. Their hometown is called Hilversum, and they described it as very "preppy." All of their friends are very nice and VERY well traveled. We went to a couple of bars, played some pool, and listened to one of their friends dj. It was low-key and a good time.
We headed back around 3 AM and once home, we pigged out to some Mác'n'cheese that we had brought for Rob (unfortunately, Rob didn't get to have any...), and went to sleep.

HOOAH!

Day 1!
we jumped out of bed at 4:30 am on wednesday morning, gathered together the last bit of things, and hit the road at 5:00. After getting caught in a bit of the unruly L.A. rush hour traffic, we made it to the airport. We said goodbye to Taylour and headed inside the American Airlines International Terminal. After a few minor setbacks (Nicole's passport saying that she is from the WSA - where the hell is that? - and my account only printing 2 out of the 3 required boarding passes) we boarded our first plane.
We landed in Dallas, Texas about three hours later, after our pilot-slash-tour guide flew us over Lake Havasu, Sedona, and the Berringer Meteor Crater. This put us in at 3:25 PM local time. We had a two hour layover so we used this time to take the tram to the proper terminal, where Katie got her last fix of Mexican food and Nicole stuffed her face with food from a restaurant that she chooses to remain anonymous. We then grabbed some chocolate and boarded our next flight -departing at 5:20 and lasting a whopping 9 1/2 hours- to London.
It went by a lot faster than we had anticipate, with lots of reading along with lots of laughter; we even managed about two hours of shut-eye. We landed in London at 8:30 AM local time on Thursday.
After a three hour layover consisting of a lot of walking around and checking departure screens (our gate wasn't assigned until 45 minutes before our scheduled take-off), we boarded our plane for the last 45 minute hop, skip, and jump to Amsterdam.
Once we landed, we grabbed our packs, bought our train tickets, and headed for Amsterdam Centraal. Once there, it took us about a half hour to figure out how to get to our first couchsurfing destination, which turned out to be a piece of cake and should only have taken us about five minutes.
When we finally arrived, Rob and his brother greeted us with warm welcome. Their place is amazing, as is their couch! After we chatted a bit and got cleaned up, we headed out for a brief preview of Amsterdam. We cruised through the Dam, went to a couple of coffee houses, walked through a little bit of the red light district, and headed back home for dinner -which is where we are now, about to plan our first full day around the city.

Final Countdown

With but a week left before our departure, Nicole is spending time with her family in Monterey while Katie takes time to relax at the beach, hang out with friends, and spend numerous hours in the “travel” section of Barnes & Noble, gathering as much information as possible on her pad of Herman Miller paper.
We’ve been avidly surfing for couches, and have been relatively successful. Thus far, we have found a very comfortable couch with a guy named Robbin, who in return for shelter requested that we bring him a few boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. He lives right near central station in Amsterdam and sounds very excited about being our “tour guide” while we are there.
Stop number two is in Rotterdam, where we will stay in a hostel for one night. Katie isn’t too sure what the status of that is, or the name and location of the place, but Nicole has it all figured out…
Stop number three was originally supposed to be in Brussels, but after talking with some locals, they convinced us that Brussels should be a day trip, not a home base. This actually worked out because we couldn’t find anyone to host us in Brussels, but we found a very nice group of people willing to host us in Ghent. We have gathered that this is somewhat of a college town and we will be arriving during the first week of school. Our hosts have assured us that there will be plenty of “back to school activities” taking place.
We are still working on a place to stay in France…Katie has a couple of friends living there right now, but isn’t sure if staying with them is in the cards. We’ll see…