Well Hello again Amsterdam

Tuesday May 31, 2011

Today was our last full day in Europe.  We awoke in Brugge and ate breakfast at the B&B, I think we may have been the only guests left, and then we spent a little more time walking around the city before we headed to the train to make our way to Amsterdam.

Let's start with where we went once we checked out of the B&B. We walked around and went searching for a few geocaches. The first one that we were trying to locate was a multiple clue cache. We found all of the places that the clues asked us to and we were within about 5 feet of the cache but we couldn't find it and we were not putting our hands in strange holes. It was frustrating to give up on it when we had spent the better part of an hour getting to the final clue but I guess that's something you have to learn to deal with if you are going to look for caches. The second one was much more basic and we were within about 10 feet of it and searching when another guy with a gps came over, we worked together and found it stuck to some metal box and signed the slip and now Jamie can cross The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Belgium off her list of countries where she's found caches!

After finding the caches we decided that we needed some more chocolate. Jamie wanted to get a few pieces to take to give to the flight attendants on her flight home and, well, I don't really need an excuse to buy more chocolate!  We went to two places, one was a branch of a place I'd been in Brussels and so I was able to get more of the chocolates that I new I really liked.  The other place was recommended by Rick Steves and it was a very cute family run shop.

We also knew that we needed to make one last stop for ice cream! This time splurging and getting three scoops on a waffle cone. The ice cream in Europe just can't be beat, I've just never tasted anything from the U.S. that tastes quite as amazing!

We were also on the hunt for one last postcard to send to our good friend who lives in Montana. We finally found one and some stamps so we just needed to drop it in the mail at the train station. With our bags loaded down we made our way to the station. We took a train to Antwerp and then transferred onto a train to Amsterdam. The trip took us about 3 1/2 hours and thankfully took us straight to the airport.

Once we got back to Amsterdam I was able to put my postcards into the mail, I had tried to mail them when we were first in Amsterdam before heading to Denmark but couldn't find a mailbox so I held onto them until we got back to Amsterdam.  After mailing my postcards and grabbing some food in the airport we caught the shuttle to our hotel. It was disappointing that the hotel didn't have free wifi but I think at that point we were both ready to be home.

The following morning we packed up one last time and caught the shuttle to the airport.  The lines at the baggage check were absolutely ridiculous and if it hadn't been for the bottle of wine in my backpack I could have skipped the line and headed through security to do a little last minute shopping and spent the 40 Euro that I had leftover. Unfortunately, Jamie's line was even longer and I didn't feel comfortable just leaving her. She was trying to fly standby on a pass but somehow she didn't get listed for the flight. I finally had to go and rush through security and catch my flight while Jamie had to head back to the hotel to spend another night in Amsterdam hoping to get on a flight to the States in the morning.

It's good to be home but I really miss traveling.  I like wearing something other than what's in my backpack but I really do love seeing new things. Hopefully I'll get to take a group of students to Europe one of these summers and do even more sight seeing.  Next on my list of places I most want to visit is Greece and the Mediterranean, I think a nice 3 week cruise would be the perfect way to see the area. Time to start saving!

Suzie :-)