Amsterdam

We spent the first two nights of our trip in Amsterdam and had fun wandering through this very picturesque city. Amsterdam is a very diverse, very loose (in more ways than one!) city. It was a great place to walk off our jet lag and have our first real taste of Europe (without the help of the city's many "coffeeshops*," mind you). We did visit the Anne Frank hideout museum, but otherwise mostly just wandered - there wasn't the pressure to see a lot of major sites as in cities like Rome and Paris. The last two pictures are "Where's Waldo?" poses of me and Katie.

*Amsterdam's so-called "coffeeshops" serve marijuana. It's technically still an illegal drug there, but it's been de-criminalized.

The tower that leans ;)

Yes... this is Pisa!!!!! And yes... it really does lean!!! We just made a quick stop here on our way through to Rome... How could we be so close... and not come at least see it.... oh... and we sampled a little gelato in Pisa... after all... it might taste different here, and how else would we know what to recommend?!?!?!? More on Rome later :)

Italia

A quick hello from Italy! We're enjoying lots of pizza and gelatto. Tomorrow, we're headed for Rome after three nights in the quaint Cinque Terra along the coastline. I'm writing from a little pub with pay-by-the-quarter-hour Internet access - there's no wireless where we're staying. Naturally, it's a European keyboard, so I'm having to hit backspace a ton. Hopefully we'll have a chance to write a more detailed update soon!

Nice ;)

Nice, France. No, that's not a description, it's a place. It's pronounced "niece" and it's beautiful!!!! Though it did feel very "nice" to get here last night after sitting in traffic for 2 and 1/2 hours because of an accident. We hung out a little bit seeing the town at night, and then hit the pillow and didn't revive till late this morning. Today has been kind of our slow down and kick back day. We hit a laundromat this morning, and then just walked around town and the coast seeing the sights!!! Today it has been sunny and warm. The ocean is soooo blue, it's amazing!!!!

Bonjour!

Here we are at the top of the Eiffel Tower (taken last night - April 2). The view was amazing, although you'll have to just take my word for it because this picture really doesn't show much of anything. This is the only photo I have on my USB drive at the moment (the rest are back at our hotel), so it will have to suffice for now. (I'm typing from an Internet Cafe in Paris, which we had to look very hard to find.) Hopefully we'll get a chance to post more photos soon - we've gotten a lot of great shots. We haven't had a lot of time to hunt for Internet availability - there's so much to see, we're doing good if we remember to eat dinner before midnight.

We've spent the last two nights (and will spend the next two) at a hotel outside of Versailles. Our room is tiny, and only supposed to sleep 3, but we snuck in a fourth. We'll have to post a photo - it's pretty funny. Mark gets the top bunk and us three girls share the bottom two single beds. The beds are pushed together and we sleep on it sideways. It's plenty wide enough - our ankles just hang over the edge a tad. The bathroom looks like what you'd find in a motor home. But we really can't complain - we haven't been bit by any bed bugs yet and we're only paying $9/night each.

We spent our first day in Paris seeing the big sights - the Louvre, Notre Dame cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, etc. Today has been a more low-key day in Paris. We slept in, visited the catacombs and have been wandering the city. Our legs have already logged a lot of miles on this trip (Katie was wishing she'd brought a pedometer) and we're starting to feel it. Well, there's lots to tell, but it will have to wait. We're paying for Internet by the half hour and still need to book hostels for the next leg of our trip.

Brussels, Belgium

Gabe, Rachel and Maggie are right - we were fooling in our last post. We're in Paris now, but here's an old post I wrote in Brussels before we decided to run an April Fool's message. (We haven't had Internet access for the past few days...)

Greetings from Belgium! I had planned to post a more detailed update last night, but instead opted for a late walk around Brussels. While Amsterdam is basically an “anything goes” city, Katie and I quickly learned that Brussels is a bit more high-class. We ventured out in our sweats just planning for a casual, late-night stroll, but felt quite out of place once we realized that the city was still quite alive – and well-dressed. We ran back to the hotel to change, although our tourist clothes really weren’t that much of an improvement. But the four of us enjoyed the city nonetheless, despite our obvious lack of Gucci and Armani labels.

Brussels was planned as a “drive-through” city on our itinerary, but we ended up booking a room here after having a difficult time finding a hostel with available beds for a third night in Amsterdam. Brussels has been well-worth the stop. And after spending two nights in little cabin bunks at a campground in Amsterdam, we slept amazingly well last night in our (heated!) hotel room with an indoor shower. Luxury, indeed.

Carless in Brussels

Well, we suffered the first major setback of our trip. We spent the night at a hotel in Brussels, and all was well until we came to load up our car this morning and it was nowhere to be found. Mark is frantically calling our rental company, and trying to find out what all our insurance covers. Looks like we might be spending a few more days in Brussels than we planned. Don't worry, they say that it's relatively safe here... I guess we'll see. We are all safe, and still have all of our stuff, so don't worry too much... all will be well... I hope. We knew that it wouldn't all be smooth sailing... but this early in our trip... well, it's a little disappointing.