Amsterdam, we made it!

Quick email because we've only got a day in Amsterdam now. So we're started our crazy trip to the other side of the world and occasionally I actually remember this! We hitched from scunthorpe to Gent in about 13-14 hours crossing over the channel at dover to calais. We had lifts from Kathy ( a rebellious post lady), Kartuk (Dr), Selema (Meat man... dont buy meat from small shops in london!), Camilla and Sky (from germany and scotland, who took us a long curving way from above Dover to the ferries), Jules and Steve (rugged booze cruisers we propositioned outside the terminal) who kindly took us onto the ferry after a lot of banter. Finally we found Thomas and Sarah (coming from their honey moon!) after asking pretty much everyone we could for a lift on the ferry, kindly drove us all the way to Gent and gave us a bed for the night. That night we had a tour around Gent which is a really beautiful belgium city. They kept telling us it's alot more nicer than Bruges. We had a mini tour, french fries and a beer... and then happily went to bed after a very long day!

Yesterday we woke up to a continental breakfast, they were great hosts for non- couchsurfers, felt like old friends we were visiting. Harri and I went into the city for the morning looking for Belgium waffles :) I had squirty cream and Harri had chocolate- which ending up mostly all over his jumper, trousers and face! Then Thomas drove us out of town to a service station on the way to Antwerp-en. We quickly got picked up by Lynne, then a turkish man who didnt speak any English.. but soo friendly. We weren't sure where he was heading, but he got his satnav out to take us all the to amsterdam.. 3 hours away! We kindly refused and got out on the border of the netherlands. We didnt even have time for another peanut butter sandwich when we got our final hitch from Sandor and Marisol all the way to Amsterdam, with a detour to the Haag. We had a very informative chat about politics, the queen and coffee shops.

In Amsterdam we met our host Menno who took us to his friends apartment to sleep (ill take a pic before we leave). But very nicely decorated but no bathroom yet... so we went across the city to Neils, another friends to have a shower, but on the way of course Menno paid for(!) a Thai meal for all of us. After our showers we went and scoured the red light district looking for our favorite prostitutes. We found lots, but none worthy of investment. So we just came back to our comfy double bed while our host had to sleep on the couch as he'd lost the keys to his bike! Today we're gonna do it like the locals and rent a bike and cruise the mean biking lanes of amsterdam, before cooking something english for our hosts later!

Lots of exhausted love

Lauren and Harri

xxxxxx

written by  harripix on September 19, 2010 from Amsterdam, Netherlands
from the travel blog: harripix's Travel Blog
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