derek and catherine...

I love me some handmade. ;)

http://www.derekandcatharineblog.com/

my sister-in-law, Delaney, was just recently featured on this site; that was the first time I learned about this site and I've kinda been in love with it since then. ;)

and Bird 'n Bloke is fantastic. ;)

Thom and Sean

HELLO!
I have found the writings! So I am here again to finish this long un-fulfilled journey. yay! ;)

first I have to note from the previous post on Amsterdam:
the way they barter at the flea markets is really hilarious.
shopper: "how much is this?"
owner: "CAN'T YOU SEE? it says RIGHT there. put it down! can't you see?"
pretty funny, no? ;)

okie. so we get back into London in the early morning, get through customs, then we're off to sightsee until we meet up with our next couchsurfers, Thom and Sean, around 5.30pm.
we visited the British Museum and ate fish and chips. first time for Andy, second time for me. I really like it, I think it's pretty delicious, but Andy thought it was too greasy. mmmmm. ;)
the British Museum was never quite my favorite. it's HUGE. so much history, it's almost overwhelming. but I think Andy had a really great time seeing everything. so it was still enjoyable.

around 5.30, we were at one of the tube stations, waiting to meet up with Thom and Sean. I was pretty excited. they seemed so friendly online, and I was really looking forward to meeting them. we waited for about 30 minutes inside the station, wondering if we were going to recognize them if we saw them. after waiting for a while, we decided to go outside to see if they were waiting for us outside. and we saw them almost immediately. ;) turns out, Sean had actually walked inside to look for us just a few minutes before and had completely missed us. oh well. so we finally met them! and they were as fantastic as we thought they would be.
Sean works for the government, I'm not sure how...but I believe if I remember correctly, he's worked for them for quite some time. and Thom works for a theatre, which I think is pretty rad.
they had a lovely little apartment in Tooting, filled with Lost, Battlestar Galatica, and random religious memorabilia.
Thom had made us a delicious pork goulash for dinner, and we even had tea before bed!

the next day, Andy and I set out for London again. he ended up playing a $56 poker tournament while I watched the movie, I love you, man. Andy ended up going out pretty early, but I think he was so excited to actually play live, that it all ended up being okie.

alright, well this is a pretty long post, especially after not posting in so long, we don't want to overwhelm you with too much at a time. ;)
I'll let Andy right about our next experience: Counting Crows concert. oh. man. A.mazing. ;)

we have returned! sorta....

Hello to anyone who might still read this blog, hoping that one day we'll remember it, and finish posting about this trip. ;)

Well, I lost my journal that I had while on the trip. I'm on a search to find it and once I do, I'll finish posting. Until then...we'll go with what I remember. ;)

We arrived back in London around 8 or 9am, and we weren't scheduled to meet up with Thom and Sean until that afternoon, so we had time to kill. and what we did, I don't remember, so this blog entry will be quite short until I find that journal.

I'll be looking.....

My fav amsterdam photos

here are a few. appropriate or not, this first one happened to have ended up as photo #420 on the camera.

Amsterdam

it's been a few weeks since an update, and Mary-Beth has been on my case to write for some time. I've been kinda busy but here I am.
we spent the night on the ferry. there was engine noise but really it was quite comfortable. sometime in the morning, (7am or something,) the captain came over the intercom to wake everyone up. 30 minutes from docking or something. so we got up, and departed, and went through customs. I got a stamp on my passport and Mary-Beth did not. she was quite upset, and it caused quite a bit of confusion later on when we went to leave the Netherlands. idk what the first guy was thinking, he just glanced at the passport and handed it back. oh well.
from there was jumped on a train to Rotterdam, and another from there to Amsterdam. I don't remember what time we arrived, sometime before noon though. at this point we had no map, just a vague idea of where our hostel was. also, it was quite cold. very windy. and my jacket's zipper was broken, so I froze. we walked around Amsterdam for some hours, exploring. there are so so so many canals in Amsterdam. quite pretty. as it turns out, our hostel, (took most the day to find, without a map and all,) was very close to the red light district. (read: right in the middle of it.) you know, drunken, high, full-of-ladies-of-the-night type debauchery? yeah, that area. quite nice really. not was wild as your mother wants you to believe. especially not in the day time. just some bored women waiting for work to start. not really that bad at night either. unless you're mormon or something.
we did eat well in Amsterdam, mostly different hamburgers and such from little street shops. some chocolate covered waffles. those are quite tasty. get yourself one. some day.
we went to sleep in our hostel, in our nicely themed Star Wars Room. woke up in the morning and walked the whole of Amsterdam. we went to the outskirts and walked the outer circle, slowing working our way in. we found a windmill. not many of those left IN the city. and we went to a bunch of different street markets, picked up a few things. Mary-Beth get an awesome new hat for her collection. I'll see if I can find a picture.
that night, around 10pm or something, we headed back to Rotterdam, and then the Port of Holland, and back on the ferry for more sleep. and then back to London to meet our next Couchsurfers, Thom and Sean. Mary-Beth will take that assignment.

after-blogging?

we are back home.
and now it comes to days upon days spent blogging about everything, every detail. no, not really.

hmmm. so. I am going to write about Bath, England today. we arrived there in the evening and checked into our hostel, the White Hart Inn/Pub. it was very nice and not to expensive, either. they had a nice garden...which we would call a...balcony or patio...with grass. :P
we were in a room with a double bed and one bunk, but we actually got the whole room to ourselves for the 2 nights we stayed, because noone else booked the room. that was very nice. ;)

the first night we were there, we didn't do much. we walked around for a little bit, saw an abbey, went to an internet cafe, then went to sleep quite early.
we had to get up very early the next day to catch the tour to Avebury and Stonehenge.

our tour guide's name was Gary and he was quite friendly and amusing.
first we went to Avebury, which is almost like Stonehenge, but there are ALOT more of these stones in a more spread out area. you can also go up to them and touch them and hug them. whereas at Stonehenge, the stones are roped off and you can only see them from afar.
there were alot of sheep at Avebury... and hence, alot of sheep poo. that was fun.

then we drove some more. went to a pub for lunch in Lacock. ate some food called cottage pie. which is pretty much just meat, pastry, mashed potatoes and gravy. it was delicious.
we also saw the abbey in Lacock. the courtyard there was where they had filmed quite a few scenes from the Harry Potter movies...that was really amazing to see.
we also walked around for a bit in...fields of garlic. garlic grew like everywhere all over there. it was crazy.
oh and then. it actually cost like $20 to get into the abbey to see it, but Andy and I found this one place where you could just walk right through and get to see it. of course, at the doors of the abbey, you had to show your ticket, but we didn't go in there...just walked around the grounds a bit...and saw the courtyard. but. when we told our tour guide, Gary, what we had done, he said, "well. you do know that illegal, don't you?" and we were like what? there were no signs, we didn't do anything wrong, we didn't jump any fences or such fun...but apparently. it's illegal regardless. just the thought of being able to see something without paying...that's terrible...

anyway, we got back to Bath that evening around 6pm. or 18:oo. sheesh. I hate how they do their time differently. took me lik 5 minutes to figure out what time it was every single time. lol. but that could just be me.
we did a load of much needed laundry, ate some delicious American bleu cheese burgers, then walked around the city of Bath a bit more. I think the next morning, we went to a park. and then saw this massive building that looked really cool as well. we thought about going to the Roman baths, which the city is known for, but it would have cost a pretty penny. so we did not.

I forgot to mention above our trip to Nottingham. we went from London to Nottingham, saw Andy's friend, met Robin Hood, then we went to Nottingham to Bath...

so leaving Bath...we took the train to London and the train and a bus from London to the port. which is where we took a ferry to Holland. we got there insanely early and had to wait about 6 hours before we boarded. we hadn't gotten tickets yet, so we wanted to be sure to get there early and for sure have a way to get to Holland. so after we purchased our tickets, we used the internet, ate, played a game or two, and then I tried to sleep (there's a picture of me sleeping somewhere on here-not very attractive at all, but Andy insisted).
there were so many Asians in that port waiting with us. it was kinda weird. they were all listening and watching people sing hymns on tv. kinda like a church service. that was weird.

and then we hopped on the ferry and had an amazing trip to Holland...where we took a few hour long trains to get to Amsterdam. but Andy gets to tell you about that. ;)

one photo

I'm back in Texas, will be blogging soon. right now I want to sleep, as I'm still on London time. first though, you get one picture. the first picture of Stonehenge.


taken at the grounds of Stonehenge. an artist's re-imagining if you like. ;)