Big Brother

London has gone the way of the US, and George Orwell isn't resting peacefully in his grave because of it.

Everywhere we heard about the heightened state of security and had CCTV cameras watching our every move.

We did see a lot though, but London (in my opinion my other companions may argue differently) can't compete with Paris. Paris is the Texas of Europe. Everything there dwarfs the rest of Europe. But I won't turn this into a hate fest because it wasn't all a let down.

On our second day we split up, the girls going shopping and Quentin and I going to some museums. We ended up seeing the Rosetta Stone as well as Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts. From that museum (whose name slips my mind) we headed to the Imperial War Museum and saw a lot of D-Day/WWI/WWII exhibits that were really cool if you are into that sort of thing.

The 3rd day consisted of going see the Tate Modern art museum, the National Gallery, and the Millennium Bridge.

Now I'm on today..
We had a train ticket for 8:30am on the Eurostar leaving for Belgium. So we left early from our shitty hostel (I'm glad to be still alive from that experience) only to find that the metro was closed until 7:30am...and when you are about 30 mins outside of London, and you have to be at you train 30 mins. early to go through customs and what not, you start to panic a little (and rightly so). So we walked around thinking our best bet was the bus, but quickly realized a taxi would need to be found, and fast. By some miracle we walked upon one and got our ride to Waterloo Station. On the way, the taxi driver brought us to the place where the London bus bombing occurred last summer. When we finally made it, we thought everything was going good. We boarded with little problems (Lindsey got searched) and then we boarded and our train got delayed right before we went through the chunnel. Did I mention we had a connecting train from Brussels to Amsterdam 30 mins. after we would arrive from London. So with the delay, we ended up in Brussels running around looking for our train with 15 mins. before it would leave. Of course it was the furthest track away, but we made it.

So midway through the train ride to Amsterdam (hour 4 or 5 of our train riding for the day) we find out we have to change trains. So we got off and get on a new one and its a much better train so we don't realize we are sitting in first class. Well when the ticket man started coming around, we realized our mishap and ended up sitting on the ground at the end of the cart for the last 2 hours of the journey.

And after all of that, we've made it to Amsterdam.. glad to be out of London (where it rains all the time and can't compete with Paris).

We've already seen Anne Frank's house tonight, but its still raining even here (I blame London) so we might just enjoy this mansion of a houseboat we are staying on and plan a full day tomorrow.. or we could experience the Red Light District tonight since it is LITERALLY right outside our window.

Photos soon.. I promise.