Amster-Damn that's a fun place

We took a train from Amsterdam (photos) to Paris at 7pm last night, arriving safely at our hotel at around 12:30 this morning. It took some good picture reading to be able to make it out of the train station, but everything went well on the cab ride to our hotel thanks to my limited French (which consists of Bonjour, si vous plais, parler vous anglais, and thanks to my trusty Lingo translator - combien. I can definitely understand now how the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. We have found that most people in the service industry speak English, but I have decided to attempt to speak French first and if need be resort to the 'parler vous anglais.' I butchered the phrase 'pourrais-je avoir la carte' at lunch, but was able to successfully purchase our tickets to the Louvre for tomorrow. I really wish I would have paid attention in French class now. I am amazed at how smart the children are here. Today as we were walking to the Arc de Triomphe we were behind a French family. The little boy was no older than five years of age and was already speaking fluent French. ;)

So today we checked out the Arc de Triomphe (which was much, much larger than I had expected), and of course the Eiffel Tower which surprisingly also exceeded my expectations. You can see a million different photographs and every movie ever made about it or including it, but they will never do it any justice. It is simply breathtaking. So breathtaking that you end up taking way too many photos trying to capture it's beauty. Such photos can be seen here, along with our other photos from the day. We then spent the rest of the afternoon at Musee de l'Armee Hotel des Invalides, which includes the Dome Church that houses Napoleon's Tomb. Tomorrow we are spending the entire day at the Louvre.

Now, for your reading pleasure - here is Mr. Osborne with his version of the last few days...


Amsterdam. Before I get into how ascetically pleasing Amsterdam is, I think I should turn back the page a bit and fill you in on how we got there.

We awake on an English morning. Take a taxi to the Holland Park Ave Tube, there we ate a very nice quiche with ham and cheese French sandwiches, and Coca-Cola light (diet coke). Our last meal in England before we left on the tubes to head quietly in the airport terminal. England was a place where you should see the country before you see the city. The walks in the park were pleasing, the wind entrains the smells of the restaurants with blooms as we walked past tress that seemed a thousand years old. But once we left the park we were sadly reminded that we were in a city....London. Which is why for me, I would love to see the country side for a bit. At last we were on our way to the airport all our luggage with us. Check. Passports and wallets. Check. Airport open and ready for us to leave because we want to go to Amsterdam. NO CHECK!

We arrive from the underground up to terminal No. 4 where we see all the future passengers walking the other direction. Kase was in front he turned to me and said, "They are evacuating." "Why" I said, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Hell if I know". We walked with other passengers to the outside parking lot. The lot was a large half moon with a big muilt-level circle in the middle connected to the moon by three small bridges. Me and my heavy ass luggage walked across this bridge to the circle, while Kase stayed to see if he could find out what was going on.

I noticed large clouds forming in the distance. I would say that there were 2 to 3 thousand people there. All waiting for the same two answers. Are we safe and when can we go. An hour passes and by this time Kase was next to me and we were looking across the gap from the moon and circle. We could see they were handing out water to drink. A large, but friendly African woman said "I don't want water I want wine, I want a chicken plate and some red wine." And I immediately thought to myself, should you drink white wine with chicken? As my thought ended we were struck by a rain storm. I was alerted by people screaming from the cold rain. We quickly duck down behind a small wall we were standing against. With the aid of a small car parked in a handicap zone we found a dry spot. Kase quickly pulled out his trusted umbrella, a cheap make otherwise it would have been blown out of his hands by the winds, instead it dramatically inverted itself, which was funny. He fixed it quickly as we layed low watching everyone get rained on, especial an attraive 30 something french woman in her black tights and gray sweat shirt she had blond French wavy hair and she was listening to her iPod singing "....mellow yellow...oolala....mellow yellow.." in the rain. The French.

The rain soon passed and we heard an announcement telling us to go to the lower floor out of the rain and then they said that we should have food in 45 minutes.
Kase thought that we should get out of here. After a bit of thought and remembering Whit saying ..."he's a lucky little shit" I said lets go.

Now leaving the airport on foot was a strange feeling. Not to mention we had no place to go, so we kept on walking. We saw cars on the horizon and walked down carrying our "already to give away to the salvation army because it is to heavy" Bags.

The temperature changed from cold to hot. And we began to sweat. I pulled out the umbrella and mind the luggage while Kase went to find us a cab. After some work we found a cab and he took us to the nearest tube station. When we came to the station we had no more sterling. The taxi driver was kind enough to take USD.

This was now 5o'clock pm. We quickly got onto the tubes headed for Waterloo Station. When we arrived it was raining and lighting. There were so many people running for the trains I've never seen anything like it. I bumped into a woman in a hurry she yelled out "bugger" and I thought I just gave that lady a sliding door. Creepy. Boom thunder echoed though the station and the people began to run even faster now, a sprinters pace. I grabbed my camera and began to shoot when I head a voice from behind me. It sounded like the fat rat in Flushed Away. I turned to see and it's a man who is very small and a woman twice his size. "Do you want to tell me why your filming the boards?" She said. I was startled. "Do you speak english?" the rat man said. "yes". "Can I see some identification?" I gave him my passport. He asked me a question about where I was going and then gave me a ticket. "What do I do with this?" I asked. "Keep it for your prosperity." So I did.

We found out the the station we were at "Waterloo" was indeed the wrong station so we moved backwards to a starting point to find the right one. We found where it was and how we should get there. We took this train. This train was London's version of the 405 Interstate in Los Angeles. It was packed. Damn, here we were with rain drenched clothes and nothing to eat since that nice french sandwich with all this, "I wish someone would push me in front of a train because it's so heavy", luggage.

We quickly packed ourselves in with local working class Londoners each with a suit, tie and each woman in a dress and coat. It was hot and the extra humidity from the rain made the smells come alive. I wished I was standing next to someone like me who had good taste in cologne, which I was not. This train was loaded down with so many people, I've never seen anything like it. At last our stop. We were off. Back to another train station. The name of it was lost before I knew it. I found a corner spot to cool off. The rain still coming down made the larger rooms much cooler then the stuffed trains. I removed my raincoat only to find that it looked like I had been dancing to "Sweatin' to the Oldies". A voice called out, was it Richards Simmons, no it was Kase. He said we had to run to platform 12, I looked up we were at No. 4. Damn. Off we were at drunk homeless mans' pace. My feet yelled at me " what the hell are you doing to us?" Sorry feet, daddy needs you to keep up.

On the train to some other places far east of London we were headed. I looked at Kase and said "where's the Mello Yellow girl". We laughed we were almost there. Just then we heard an announcement that we would be running late. Kase said this was not good because we only had 6 minetus to get to the next train. Almost I thought. Almost. "Well", I said. "look at it this way, we get to see the country side, with sheep."

The train arrived 50 minutes late. Kase yelled out something to someone I didn't listen because I thought my finger was bleeding. I thought, traveling is like going to the store for body aches. "I'll take a bad knee, sore back, two cases of plantar fasciitis and two tickets for the 'I Lost My Wallet' guided tour."

"Chad the train is this way"

This time I was running like the Elephant man. I wanted to cry.

We were on the boat before I knew it. I was amazed at how nice it was. Dammit we were sailors now. We were leaving England with the upper hand, she tried to get us down but we didn't let her.

Before we boarded the Ship we meet a nice man named Jared. I have a cousin Jared and I like him, so this Jared ought to do it for some conversation. He said he was from Illinois and that he was traveling to Europe after serving 4 years in the Armed Forces, two of which were in Iraq. I told him I'd delivered two babies and converted a man to Christianity just before I got on the ship. He was not impressed.

We ate. It was food, thats all I can say. But they had gambling, I played a little won 40 Euros in 10 minuets. This was good, I could buy 4 packs of gum with this in Paris. Kase played Black Jack. This is were he met Pete. Pete is from Yorkshire and he looked and sounded like Shrek. He wasn't green, but I thought any second there he was going to shout out "Donkey" or "I'm an Oger" which sadly he didn't. I leaned back took a drink of Heinken extra Cold and thought, "man did we just go though that?" I mean here I was drinking great beer with Kase, Shrek and an unimpressed Marine named Jared, headed for the Hook of Holland on a ship. Can I just say I felt like Leo in Titanic. Then it hit me, I hope there are no icebergs.