Amsterdam, Holland and Brugge, Belgium

This weekend my friend Catherine and I travelled to Amsterdam and Brugge. Both were very beautiful, unique cities with a ton of facinating history! This was our last weekend excursion while we're here in England. We also had a new experience on the way over - our bus was running late, so they decided to take us in the tunnel to France instead of the Ferry that we usually take. It was much faster, and a fun experience. Everyone has to drive into a long open train, and the train takes you through the tunnel. The train is sectioned off in case one part has an emergency (such as a fire or something), so the whole train and tunnel doesn't collapse. The tunnel is actually built below the ground under the English Channel, so we couldn't see the water or anything.

We arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday morning and took a boat tour on some of the canals. The city basically is built around hundreds of canals and has over 1,000 bridges, which makes for a very picturesque boat ride! It was very pleasant to ride along and get an overview of the city. When we got off the boat, we took a walking tour through the city to the museum district. Many of the roads in the city are old and small, so cars cannot drive on them. Thus, almost everyone travels around on bicycles. They even have tiny roads along all the streets for bikes. We all almost were run over by bikes several times, since they like to rule the road! They ring their bells at you so you can jump out of the way in time. When our free time came along, Catherine and I went to the home where Anne Frank and her family hid during the Nazi invasion. I unfortunately was not allowed to take pictures inside, but it was really neat. It was larger than I thought it would be, though still quite small. Appparently Otto Frank (Anne's father and the only one to survive the concentration camps) wanted the home to remain unfurnished, as it was after the Nazis arrested the family and removed everything. They had models and photos of what it looked like from Otto's memory. We also saw her original diary in a display case. It was very sad.

We shopped at an outdoor flower and souvineer market, looked around the city, and I found a gorgeous old church to go to for mass. It was called St. Francis (but in Dutch). The mass was entirely in Dutch, but they were kind enough to print out the readings in English. I think it's interesting that I can say I've been to mass now in 4 different languages on this trip: Latin, French, German, and Dutch. I then went on a tour to an old working windmill, which was in a pretty location in the countryside. We also went to a cheese and clog (the wooden shoes) factory. They explained how they make their cheese, and we actually watched our tourguide (who also happened to be dressed up in actual traditional Dutch clothing from the 17th century) carve the first part of a wooden shoe. We could then try the shoes on (they're surprisingly comfortable) and taste the cheeses. I bought some delicious Gouda cheese, which is one of the most popular from Amsterdam. It looks like cheddar, but tastes different (it's hard to describe). Then the tour guides took us on a walking tour of the red light district of Amsterdam. This was the one part of the trip that I absolutely despised. I thought it would be just walking around the city lit up at night with a few girls walking around, but it was much more focused on the girls than was comfortable or enjoyable. I left this part of the tour early and went back to the hotel for some much-needed sleep.

The next day we went to Brugge, Belgium. It's a beautiful little medival city with horses and carriages, bikes, and lots of people walking around on the brick streets. It also has many canals, which made for many lovely pictures. I felt like I was going back in time when walking around. We tried a Belgian beer, which I actually liked because it was so sweet. It was basically like drinking raspberry juice with some beer in it.

I also found two stunning churches. The first one I went into was The Church of the Holy Blood. It was built with two stories, the lower for the poor and the upper level for the rich. It obviously is not used in this way anymore, but it was interesting to see the differences between the levels. The poor bottom level was all stone and was very plain, but it did have some amazing statues. The upper level was really beautifully painted and very elaborate. I was not allowed to take pictures in the upper level, however. They also have a vile of what they believe to be Christ's blood there. I was able to venerate it by touching the vile. The priest then gave me a photo of the reliquary which is holding the vile, so this is the only picture I have of the upper level of the church.

The other church was called Our Lady. It was a beautiful, huge church that has the highest spire in Belgium. Unfortunately, the outside was under construction, so my photo has scaffolding all over it. I was able to see the front and side sections of the church, but the back section required a small fee. We did not have time to pay and go to see the back half, which I made me sad. However, we did see an original Michaelangelo statue in the church, which is one of the few that exist outside of Italy.

After walking around the city, we drove to a chocolate factory. We did not get to see how they made the chocolate, but they gave us free samples and the opportunity to buy some. We then travelled back on the ferry from France into England.

For all of my pictures from the trip, here's the link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2192962&id=30308465&l=ca2a4d2041