Amsterdam!

Not much time to update, but I figured I'd fill you in quickly on what we're up to!

Natalie and I had a full day of travel yesterday. We said goodbye to London by 2 pm, and took the chunnel over to Brussels. We were in completely different train cars, and my seat had been assigned to somebody else, too. I was a little concerned, but I flagged down the train manager and he found me a new seat. No big deal.

We only had 40 minutes in Brussels before we had to catch our train to Amsterdam. It was our first major culture-shock moment, though, stepping off the train in Brussels. Definitely a language neither of us is familiar with. There are some words where you can figure out what they mean based on German or English, but also some that did not look like they should be able to form a sound.

We also stumbled upon our first pay-bathrooms. I'd forgotten Europe is like that. We didn't have any Euro change on us, so no bathrooms for us.

We got our Eurail passes validated, and then hopped on the train to Amsterdam. It took about 3 hours. We were told halfway through the ride that we were sitting in 1st class instead of 2nd, which our tickets are for. Oops. So we had to go back to the steerage area and try to find seats. By then, it was really crowded and we hit many people with our bags. They loved us, I'm sure.

We met a couple of Belgian guys on the train, who were probably old enough to be our parents. One said he was a singer who had performed over 7000 events. ...Impressive? Anyways, they proved hard to shake. They wanted to show us the way to our hostel, but we eventually managed to convince them we didn't need their help. It was a relief to lose them.

Our hostel was pretty easy to find, even at 9:30 pm. It was full of young people. We went out to the Red Light district, which was certainly a sight to see. Bizarre, is the word I'd use.

Then, we met a couple nice Canadians at the hostel bar and just relaxed into the night.

Now, Natalie's telling me it's time to go. We have to check out of our hostel, and then see the rest of Amsterdam before we head to Bruges this afternoon!