Europe - and so it begins

We arrived at the Contiki headquarters (royal national) hotel in London on Wednesday afternoon – and the hotel is pretty ordinary to say the least. It was only one night – so we just sucked it up and slept!

That night we cruised on down to the local Laundromat to catch up on some of our laundry. After starting to plow through a Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream tub with the smallest little plastic teaspoon possible a semi-famous actor walks in to use the Laundromat. Im not sure of the actor’s name – however he is the fat guy in the movie with Heath Ledger “A Knights Tale”. Very cool!

The next morning we arose around 6am and raced on downstairs to get on the Contiki Tour bus which will be our home for the next 17 nights. We drove on down to Dover (The White Cliffs of Dover) and took a short ferry ride to Calais France, in which it was back on the bus for a few hour drive into Brussels Belgium. Here we walked around the streets with our new found friends on the tour and tasted ‘real’ Belgium chocolate, waffles and of course a local Belgium Beer. The architecture was extraordinary. Last night we stayed just outside of the city in a nice hotel and sat down for a nice 3 course meal.

This morning we had a great European breakfast with Nutella and salami’s, hams, cheese (I mean really good cheese) and some cereal – oh it was good! Then a short drive into Amsterdam. Amsterdam is a cultural mess of a place. Many people come to Amsterdam for two things – Marijuana & Sex. Certain Cafés openly sell in their menu Pot food and smoking delights and if you’re lucky you can also pick up some magic mushrooms. There were even signs saying buy 4 mushrooms and get 1 free! It was good to walk around and just be wowed at how up front it all is! We didn’t walk through the red light district – but we heard of some seedy stories from some of the other people on the tour that ventured in that area.

Tonight we head off into Amsterdam again for a nice meal and a canal cruise – should be fun. I’ll keep you posted!