The End

Ainsley, Matthew and I in the Netherlands!
We flew in to Amsterdam the morning following our Tivoli adventures, and we didn't do much. We went to the people's place we were staying at before and we relaxed. The following day was also spent relaxing and not doing much. Then yesterday, we met up with friends of mine, Matthew and Ainsley. We met in The Hague (Den Haag) where we went adventuring for some dutch pancakes. Then we went to the beach there, where it promply decided to storm on us and we got soaked to the bone in a matter of 30 seconds. We found dutch pancakes and poffertjes, had a latte, and ventured to the aquarium where we spent a good portion of time. It was then time to head back to Leiden, pack up, and go to bed so we could be awake for 4:15am in order to catch a 5am taxi (hurrah, early flights).

And now, we are back in Vancouver. Thus ends our adventures on the other side of the world.

Now, we battle jetlag for a couple days.

Thus concludes this blog. Thanks for following us on our adventures!

Denmark Time is Coming to a Close

Brandon at HC Andersen's House
I left you guys in Århus. After, we went to Odense where we checked into a hotel, thankyouvery much. I'm sorry, but hostels are just gross. So a hotel it was. About Holiday Inn quality, but twice as expensive. This is, after all, Denmark and everything is about twice as much as it is in VanCity (and I thought it was expensive there!)

Anyway, Odense. We went to the Hans Christian Anderson museum and his house, which I enjoyed quite a bit. And my Lonely Planet Denmark guide had this little neat walking tour laid out in it, so we followed that, and it took us through the small city to churches, HC Anderson thingamajigs, museums, a beautiful garden, and other such things. It was quite nice. We also had giant sandwiches from a cafe, and they were seriously delicious.

The next day we took a train back to Copenhagen (this was yesterday). We found ourselves a hotel in a very central location. Brandon left me in the room reading my book while he went out for a bit so he could "organize" things for my birthday. when he was back, we went out for a walk along the shopping street, Strøget, which took us quite a long time. We also found ourselves at the guiness book of world records museum which was interesting. (and I discovered I can only punch 31% of the record punch). I had another ginormous cafe sandwich (the danes really do good sandwiches, I admit). Then we went to an Imax movie and the planetarium, because Brandon has never been to a planetarium before.

Today is my birthday. I woke up and got a birthday cake with candles and everything, and I ate it for breakfast. Brandon ate it for breakfast too. He also sang for me. It was very cute. Then I opened the presents he got for me and then we headed to Tivoli, an amusement park. We've been going on rides and whatnot all day. Now we are back at the hotel to chill out for a while, then we are going out tonight.

Tomorrow we go back to Amsterdam where we will spend our last couple days before flying back home.

Århus, Denmark

Den Gamle By
So Brandon and I are currently in Århus, which is on Jutland. We took the train here yesterday, got ourselves a room in what I call a "low budget hotel" (though it is really crappy and it still costs us about $90 a night). Anyway, we wandered around last night trying to find something to do, only to discover that everything closes here around 5:30pm (but it is still sunny at 11pm, so i dont get why everything closes so early). So we went to a movie for lack of anything else to do. We saw Fantastic Four 2, and it was good. We both enjoyed it.

Today, we went to Den Gamle By (The Old Town), and that was actually pretty cool. Then we used the public transit system to go to Legoland, which isn't in Århus. We got there just after 3pm and wandered about and admired the lego constructions, which were really amazing, but then they kick everybody out at 6pm (which we didn't know, our travel guide said 8pm), so we were bitter that we paid for a full day ($50 each) and only got less than 3 hours for it. Lame. But oh well.

Now we are back in Århus, and tomorrow we are going to go to Odense and check out Hans Christian Anderson's home town. We will spend the night there before heading back to Copenhagen.

Denmark

At the viking ship museum in Roskilde.
So Brandon's last entry ended off with our last day in the Netherlands...I will bring you all back up to date with our adventures so far in Denmark.

We flew from Amsterdam to Copenhagen on the 13th. Unfortunately for us, our flight was actually on the 12th. We missed it byexactly 24 hours. Lucky for us, a flight with the same airline was going to Copenhagen, so we bought ourselves some more tickets (only 90 Euros each, not bad!) and hung out at the airport for a couple hours until the flight left. We arrived in Copenhagen that evening, and had an adventure on the Danish train system up to Humlebæk, where we are staying with one of Brandon's family friends.

We had a good night's sleep, and then Dorte (the person we are staying with) drove us to Roskilde, where we went to the Viking Museum (Viking ships are so cool!) and then to Roskilde Cathedral, where lots of dead people are. It was really neat.

The next day, we took the train to Copenhagen. We pretended to sleep on the train so that the ticket lady wouldn't check our tickets, because we have no idea how to do it and we stamped them all wrong (we've got it figured now, though). Our sleeping ploy worked, however. In Copenhagen, we hopped on a tour bus and went to Christiania, which is a weird hippy freetown within Copenhagen. You should all look it up, it's pretty interesting. Then we walked to a train station because we somehow missed the last tour bus of the day by being 5 minutes early. We then met up with someone that Brandon knows and had dinner with them at their apartment, then went back to where we are staying (which is actually in Langstrup, a little country farm type town, but it is right by Humlebæk).

Then yesterday, we did nothing because we were so darn tired (travelling makes me sleepy, but I love it anyway), so we just read our books, went for a walk, ate food, whatever).

Then today, (dad, you'll love this), we met up with Preben (my farmor's cousin, for those that don't know) in Helsingør, and he took us to Kronborg, which is Hamlet's castle (Shakespeare, ya know). That was pretty cool, seeing as I have my degree in literature. Then he took us to his place in Hornbæk, which is way up North, and he and his wife made us a wonderful Danish lunch (start with the fish, then go to the meats, then the cheese) and Akvavit was also involved, but not too much. Then Preben showed us around Hornbæk a bit before dropping us back off in Helsingør. From there, Brandon and I hopped on a ferry to Sweden, because, why not? It is only a 20 minute ferry ride. So we wandered around Helsingborg in Sweden for the evening, and we went to Kärnan, a tower. It was pretty neat. Then we got some dinner, and caught a ferry back to Helsingør, and then a train back to Humlebæk (the journey back only takes about 40 minutes!)

And now we are going to pack up our stuff, as we are leaving this little country house, and heading to Århus tomorrow morning, which is on Jutland. We will be there for tomorrow and the next day, then we will go to Odense on Funen, then back to Copengagen for a couple days before going back to the Netherlands.

I am not so sure how much internet I will have until we go back to Leiden, because we do not have people's computers to borrow anymore. So you may not hear from Brandon or I for a while.

At any rate, it is rainy in Denmark, but I am still having a wonderful time!!!

Brandon's Second Post Ever

The herring.
It's been a while since the last update and a lot has been done.

When Alia left off she said that we were going into the Hague, which we did. While there, we went to Madurodam, which is a small town of scale models of famous and/or interesting Dutch buildings. It's quite fun for the most part, but one such as myself can only look at so many minature buiidings. Alia liked it because it was small and cute, and she likes small and cute things.

After Madurodam, we took the tram to Scheveningen and had poffertjes on the beach. Poffertjes, for those who don't know, are something like small and very delicious pancake balls with powdered sugar and butter. After this fantastic and nutritious meal, we returned to Den Haag and met up with a friend of mine, with whom we sat down and drank beer. Later we met up with another friend of mine and had more beer, then by chance more old friends showed up and yet more beer was had. This is what you do in the Netherlands when you meet an old friend, you go to a pub and tell stories over beer and by the end of the night you are happy but have some trouble walking in a straight line and probably shouldn't operate heavy machinery.

The next day was our final day in Amsterdam which was both a good day and a bad day. It was a good day because it was tons of fun. It was a bad day because our flight to Denmark left that day instead of the next like we thought it did. We started the day with a trip to Madam Tusseauds wax figure museum. They had a Pirates of the Carribbean display going on with actors who would jump out at you. One of us got a good scare, but I won't say who. We also got to have our pictures taken with such prominent figures as Johnny Depp, Micheal Jackson, Tina Turner, Jennifer Lopez, Van Gogh and the Mona LIsa (not the real painting, but a figure of the Mona Lisa, it was interesting).

Soon after leaving Madam Tusseauds we met up with one of my friends from the previous night and Alia and I had a herring eating competition. Herring is gross when prepared by the Dutch, very gross. After the competition, which I won, we went to a fry shop where you can get the world's, or at least Amsterdam's, best french fries. They were welcome relief from the taste of herring.

That evening was spent wandering around the Red Light District, adminring the local economy and visting various naughty shops which were full of the craziest things. We also went to a sex show, which really wasn't as exciting or entertaining as I had thought it would be, that is until my friend was half dragged on stage as a volunteer participant in a dominatrix act. I won't describe to you what happened but I'll let you know that I had tears in my eyes and nearly died of laughter.

The next day we caught a flight to Denmark, which is a small country that is much more cold and rainy than Oman. I'll tell you more about Denmark later, but for now I need to go and get some breakfast.

-Brandon

Brussels, Belgium

Nemo 33. Looking up from the bottom.
So we went to Amsterdam that day and headed to the Van Gogh museum, where we admired much of his artwork and it was amazing. I have always liked van gogh, and it was really neat to see many of the paintings i have seen and heard about in person.

After the museum, we went to the Tuschinski Theatre to watch Pirates three, and it was fantastic! Now it may seem odd that we went to a movie in Amsterdam, but this theatre was spectacular. It was built in the times of silent movies, so the architecture was really neat, and they have love seats (you know, those little couches for 2 people) in the theatre. Brandon and I booked one of them, and the benefits of sitting in one of these love seats is that you get served food and a bottle of wine during the movie. It was really cool.

Then we headed to the infamous "sexmuseum" and yes folks, it is exactly as it sounds. It is indeed a museum dedicated to sex and the history of sex, and sex artwork. It was entertaining and scary at the same time. Trust me, there are some scary things in there.

Then we went back to our base camp in Leiden.

Yesterday, we headed to Brussels, Belgium, but due to some sleeping in and some missing trains, we didn't actually get there until 4:30pm. First thing we did was catch a Taxi to Nemo 33, that 113ft swimming pool, and it was actually pretty darn cool. First they make you freedive for 10 minutes, then you can grab gear, gear up, and go diving in there for about 40-45 minutes. So we obviously went down to the bottom and sat there for a while then came up and went into their little simulated cavern environment, and there, they have these little air pockets where you can pop up in and talk, while still being under pressure so it doesn't mess up any off gassing or anything. Anyway, so that was pretty cool. Then we went out for dinner close to Grand Place, and my amazing French skills were called upon because our server couldn't speak english. I actually ended up speaking a lot of french when we were in Brussels. Anyway, by the time we finished dinner, it was 9:30pm and we hadn't seen any of Brussels yet. We were planning on a 10pm train back to Leiden. Instead, we found a hotel near Grand Place and spent the night. So this morning, we woke up and there was a little market outside our hotel, which we looked at, and we wandered around for a while. We ventured in to the Musee du Chocolat (or, Chocolate Museum), and we hopped on a tour bus. Then we left on a 3:30pm train. Oh, we also came across Mannekin Pis, a little statue of a young boy, peeing. Look him up for the story.

And now we are back in Leiden. And I am all inspired to take French again.

Tomorrow, we are going to Den Haag, I think, but plans change, like spending an extra day in Belgium randomly. :D

Amsterdam

Windmill in Leiden.
So Brandon and I went to Amsterdam 2 days ago, which is only about a 30 minute train ride from where we are staying. First thing we did when we got there was head to the Anne Frank House, where we had to wait in line to be admitted for 45 minutes. It was a really neat thing to do, but really depressing. If sany of you get here, I recommend it. It was amazing...they have the original copies of her diary in there.

Then we headed to the Heineken Brewery where we walked through and saw everything in there. And the best part was that you get 3 free beers along the way.. Unfortunately for me, I don't really like Heineken, but I did drink one of them because, well, you have to! It's Amsterdam! It was also really neat. I also recommend that excursion to anyone heading to Amsterdam.

Then we went on a canal boat tour where we boated around the main canals and saw Amsterdam as a whole.

Then we went to Boom Chicago, which is a comedy/improv performance and we had a total blast. Then, we trained home.

Yesterday was spent in Leiden, where we went on a tour of a windmill (it's necessary. Holland is windmill country). It was actually really interesting. Then we biked to Wassenaar, which is Brandon's little home town, and he visited his school and talked to some of his old teachers. Then we biked to a pancake house and I had my first "real" pancake and oh my goodness it was so delicious. It was HUGE, but I ate the whole thing because i couldnt stop eating it. YUMMM. Then we biked around Wassenaar, and I got to see Brandon's old house, and where they did all the shopping (on a shopping street, no malls here), and then we boked back to base camp with the Yarnells.

Anyway, it's awesome here. We are heading back to Amsterdam today to see the van Gogh museum and such (we are staying in Leiden, yes, but we really came here for Amsterdam, so we'll probably be there quite a bit). Tomorrow we are going to Brussels, Belgium for the day.

Arrived in the Netherlands

So we are in the Netherlands now, but before i get to that, let's go back to Dubai.

Our last day in Dubai was spent mostly in the Mall of the Emirates, which you have all probably heard about, if indirectly. It is the biggest mall there, and there is the famous ski slope in this mall, which I was dragged on to by a few members of the Hill family. Now, as most of you know, I don't ski. I have never really learned. I went skiing once as a child, and once a few years ago and that's that, so I didn't really want to ski in the desert. But I was practically made to. My first couple runs were a little shaky of course and I was not having fun, but then i started to get the hang of it rather quickly and I started to have fun slicing through the snow. And now I have bragging rights, so here I go: I SKIIED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT.

After skiing, we ate some food and wandered around the mall for a while before catching a cab back to our hotel to get ready to leave. We had some dinner then headed off to the airport to catch our midnight flight. Night flights are bad. I find it difficult to sleep on them in the first place, and THIS particular night flight had the added benefit of a screaming 2 year old child in the next row. Now, he wasn't crying, he was screaming. It wasn't exactly pleasant. But the plane did have individual TVS for every seat, so I sat back and watched Bridge to Terabithia, hoping to cut out the screaming child and drift off to sleep.

And then we arrived at the Amsterdam Airport at 5:30am. We caught a train to Leiden, and a taxi to the Yarnell's, the people we are staying with here. Taxis are pricey here. Like, ridiculously pricey. Anyway, once at the house, I was introduced to everyone and they seem like a great family. I can see why Brandon and his family are friends with them. They are great. After introductions and talking, I headed up to our room and took a nice long 3 hour nap to catch up on lost sleep, then woke up around noon, got ready, grabbed one of the bikes we are allowed to borrow, and Brandon and I biked in to the downtown part of Leiden to explore. We ate some food and wandered around, and Brandon showed me a church, I forget what it is called because it is a dutch name, but it was the church where the pilgrims last prayed before heading to the Americas. The architecture is gorgeous in the city, and it is exactly as I imagined it. Oh, and its funny because I was informed by Brandon that most people here can tell North Americans right away, yet, everyone was talking to me in Dutch, so they all thought I am a local. Ha. I fooled them, except for the fact that I really don't speak dutch. Just "hi", "thank you" "bike" and "cheese", really. And I can say "I love..." (yesterday I was claiming that I love the Netherlands in Dutch). So I get a bit stuck if people speak to me in Dutch. But no problems, they all speak English too. Anyway, so that was yesterday, first day in the Netherlands.

Brandon and I are heading in to Amsterdam today, checking out the Anne Frank house for sure and anything else we feel compelled to do. We'll be there the whole day, and are leaving in just a few minutes.

In Dubai

Ugly Dubai photo...
We arrived in Dubai on Saturday night after a day of diving in Oman and then a nice long drive and really weird borders. you "exit" Oman, drive for a while, and then "enter" the UAE, lots of stamping and waiting is involved. Anyway, we got here safely and are nestled in to the Sofitel Hotel.

Yesterday we went around on the "Big Bus" which is like a tour bus, but you can get on and off wherever you want, and new busses come every half hour. It's actually a really good way to get around and see things. We stopped at old dubai, which wasn't as interesting as it sounded, and we stopped at the famous "Gold Souq", which is a souq involving only gold sellers. And being in DUbai, I just had to buy gold, so I spent a lot of money yesterday on an 18KT gold necklace, but it was fun to buy because they offer you a price, which is totally ridiculously high, and then you haggle for it. I managed to knock off 200 dirhams from his asking price (which is about equivalent to $60 Canadian), so I didn't do too badly at all. We had lunch on the way at some really random non-tourist restaurant, and I didn't know anything on the menu, so we pointed to something on the menu, hoping it would be good. we discovered that we had ordered a couple different indian curries. they were actually delicious, but it was nervewracking not knowing what the heck we ordered.

Brandon and I signed up for a desert safari, and we had an awesome time. We got picked up from the hotel at 4pm, in a land cruiser, where we went dune bashing, which is really fun. they drive you on to the desert, go over dunes, slide around, and you basically hold on for your life. At the end of the dune bashing, you end up at a bedouin camp, where there is camel riding, ATVs (and we rode both), and many other activities. I got a henna tattoo on my hand, we partook in a little shesha activity and other such traditional things. Then they served us a yummy dinner, which was followed by a belly dancer show. Then the land cruiser picked us up and took us back to our hotel. I'd recommend this "desert safari" to anyone wanting to come to the area. It was really fun.

After the safari, I fell asleep instantly. It was a good day. Today will be spent shopping and whatnot, and our plane to Amsterdam leaves at midnight.

By the way, if anyone is wanting to travel to the Middle East, don't come to Dubai. It's honestly really, really ugly. Muscat, Oman was so much more eye pleasing and has so many more "heritage" things to see like forts and whatnot. Dubai is this gross conglomeration of ugly Western style architecture, and honestly, this city is not all it's cracked up to be. 2 days is really all you need here. So go to Oman instead. You can do desert safaris there too. :D That being said, I am glad we stopped here for a couple days, now i know what it is like.