Travels and Exploits of the Lamb and the Wolf

The train ride was lovely if a bit noisy (children :P). Holland reminds me a lot of central Oregon and the Willamette Valley, except that it's very very flat. It's very lush and green with lots and lots of agriculture: farming, sheep, cows. We are sitting at the "Easy Internet" cafe after having arrived in AMS this gloriously sunny Thursday. It was about 65 degrees when we arrived today and was even warmer than that in Paris yesterday. Amsterdam is an incredibly charming place. We had yummy pancakes for lunch after checking into the hotel. The hotel is beautiful, though it was a bit frustrating trying to lug heavy bags to it from the train station. We went on a walking tour after lunch through Dam Square where there was a fair going on and then South through Rokin and lots of touristy clothing and jewelry shops. Somehow we ended up near the flower market and wound our way back to the hotel. After taking a nice nap it was time to get up and moving again. We're doi...

There was a fair amount of disorientation/reorientation today for those of us who returned from London last night. After having a weekend to get reaccustomed to English speaking folks it was a bit rattling for some (myself especially) to go back to hearing mainly French. Ah Paris! It was nice though to return to our lovely apartment on the Rue Dupuis and see our friends Ryan and Bill again. They were somewhat refreshed after having had a whole weekend without us to just chill and do as they pleased. On the agenda for today was the Centre Pompidou - the National Museum for Modern Art. Steve and Bill and I went after getting a sluggish start in the morning. Ryan and Peter didn't feel like coming with us which was okay. The Pompidou is only a short distance from the apartment and the weather was typical for our stay - partly to mostly cloudy and warm. I decided it was time to be LOUD and wore my orange jeans and bright yellow dress shirt. There was a fairly long line to get in (due to...

(Posted by Allan) The four of us: Steve and I and Peter J. and his partner Steve C. took the Eurostar to London today. It is a high-speed train from Paris to the Chunnel (about 90 minutes), then 20 minutes in the tunnel, then another 90 minutes or so to London on the England side. The first thing I noticed about England was how incredibly verdant the countryside is, even more so than the Northwestern United States. Very green and lush. Must be all of that rain... Anyway it was beautiful, with lots of gently rolling hills dotted here and there with trees and sheep. Lovely. We rolled into Waterloo train station around 2:00 and made our way into the station to get tickets for the "Tube", London's subway system. There was some confusion at the ticket machines but we got our tickets and headed for the Jubilee Line to take us to Green Park and then from there out of the station and into the Mayfair District. Mayfair is a very upscale part of town with many upper-end shops, hote...

(This is being posted by Allan because Steve is napping blissfully on the couch...it's 6:30 PM) Today we got up around 8:00 after a lovely night's sleep. Peter and Ryan went out early and got our morning pastries. We were out the door around 10:30; that is Peter, Steve, and myself. Ryan, Bill, and Steve C. all decided to go their separate ways today - though we all ended up at the Louvre at some point during the day, all but Ryan that is. We walked down to the Metro and hopped on a train to Gare Du Nord to pick up our train tickets for London and Amsterdam. Poor Steve waited in several different lines to get the tickets because none of our bankcards seem to work in any of these Parisian self-service ticket machines (for trains or tickets to Disneyland or the Louvre or...). Apparently its because we poor Americans have those stupid and backward cards with a magnetic stripe instead of the fabulous new "smart cards" with a built-in microchip. :P As long as we can get cas...