All good things must come to an end...

Okay, here I am and I fear the size of this post may overwhelm even my most faithful fans... So without further ado.. I shall commence to begin updating you on the rest of the trip, followed by the painfully slow process of posting pictures. Let's see... I think I last wrote about eating Belgian waffles. Yes, on Wednesday afternoon, we went to Antwerp which was very nice. We spent some time in this amazing cathedral and walked around - the city center which was interesting, well, it was all interesting. It's easer to just let pictures do the talking. On Thursday we went to Goes (not pronounced "Goes" as in "she goes to the store" but more like hawk up a hairball, then say "ooze." hummm, talking is so much easier than writing sometimes) - this is a city about 10 minutes from Heather's village. It's really nice - a nice big "center" with cafes all over and you can't drive in the downtown shopping area - you have to either walk or ride bike. We did some shopping walked around, ate at this restaurant that offers over 150 different kinds of pancakes. Basically they come with anything imaginable in it - if it's not in the menu you can just make one up. They are thin, but the size of your plate, I had pineapple, bacon and cheese I believe - very tasty. Saturday we went to Vlissingen - a city about a half hour away. We walked along the dike there and there was a gorgeous sunset over the beach and I got some good pictures there. Okay, Sunday and Monday we spent in Amsterdam. We were going to go to London as well, but it would have been quite rushed and expensive, so I guess I'll just have to go back sometime. Anyway, we decided to just spend some more time in Amsterdam. What did we do there... let's see... Sunday afternoon we went to a coffee shop place and had English high tea which was quite enjoyable - basically they keep brining you food and it all tastes really good. Then we walked around the city, went to the city center, and went to the Ann Frank House. That was really neat! Saw the actual place where the 8 people were in hiding, saw the moving bookcase (it's not constantly moving or anything) and walked up the really narrow and steep steps behind the bookcase up to the rooms where they stayed. The history was very interesting and a lot of the house seemed very authentic - things on the walls that Ann Frank had put there, etc. I couldn't take pictures there unfortunately. But that was a really neat place to visit. I guess there are a lot of Turkish people in Amsterdam so there's a lot or Mideastern food being sold. Which means that falafel stands were all over the place! I don't think I've had any since I got back from Israel in 2000 so that was quite enjoyable. On Saturday night we were walking to our high class hotel (that's a joke) in the dark (street lights of course, don't freak out!) and I was enjoying the taste of Israel, not realizing that it had a small leak so I arrived at the hostel looking like a walking falafel stand. The lovely Tahini sauce had been running out unbeknownst to me. Yes, that was a lovely experience. There's a lot I could stay about our sleeping arrangements in the city, but suffice it to say that our room was probably 130 degrees and it was very loud. So sleeping was a bit difficult that night. At least when we woke up, it felt more like a comfortable 145 degrees. Monday we went did more walking around the city. We went to the Jewish historical Museum, which was nice, bt a bit of a disappointment after the Ann Frank house. The evening was a lot of fun - we did a boat cruise and had pizza onboard. We didn't see the area where the buildings are right up to the water, which is my perception of Amsterdam, but it was still really neat. Tons of canals and nice scenery. Some of my supper had the same problem as the falafel the night before, so I again arrived at the hostel.... yeah, I'm sure you see where this is going. Oh, I should say that we got a new room for the next night and it wasn't as hot. I also discovered the joy of earplugs and was in a vegitative state for 6 hours. I left Tuesday morning for home and travel was pretty much uneventful. It was so much fun to do some serious traveling again and spend time with far away people that I don't see often enough... Okay, I think I'll sign off for now and try to post some pictures.