Day 3

What a day we had yesterday in London. We were still sleep deprived but we headed out by nine and took the subway from where we stayed in to Picadilly. From there we jumped on the double decker tour buses (just like ones in new York city). We headed to buckingham palace to see how the Queen lives and to check out the guards. From there we saw Trafalgar Square, we saw central London and learned about the plague caused by the rats and then the London fire which burned just about everything down! We spent a couple hours at the Tower of London and from there we jumped on a cruise up the river where we got wonderful views of the gorgeous Parliament buildings, Westminster abbey where the big wedding just took place and the eye of london. We jumped back on buses and toured some more. Finally at about 8 we landed back at picadilly for dinner right about the time things were getting very lively in London. We should have taken the subway back earlier as we would have avoided the drunks but wow what people watching! We got back abot 1 in the morning only to find a note from our tour company that our tour was ready to go and that we had to have a 4:15 wake up call the first tour day OUCH!

Well this led to day 3 which began on a very exhausted note......we headed to Dover where we took a ferry across the channel into Calais , France. From there we drove into Belgium where we stopped for lunch and a little chocolate and then we continued on to the Netherlands as our goal was to get to Amsterdamn to have enough time to site see. We did make good time and by about 4 we were able to gather for a walking tour of Amsterdam's Dam Square and their red light district. They do not prosecute people for marijuana consumption so a little strange smelling it everywhere and having it sold in the coffee shops! The girls working the district are given permission as prostitution is legal. They rent spaces and pay taxes. So hard to believe that they say the population is only 7 % HIV infected. After that we continued on to a river or canal cruise for about an hour where we got to see the beautiful and affluent parts of the town. We were amazed how many people live in houseboats along the canals and even more shocked to find out how much they cost! Everything over here is so expensive compared to back home. After the cruise we had dinner on a floating restaurant and now we are off to bed. They warned us this was our nicest hotel tonight and then we were going to have to adjust to Europe's standards. We miss everyone and we hope to continue finding Internet access!