Hallo!

This weekend was spend in the very lovely Holland!
Thursday my parents and I spend our last day together in London. We visited the Horse Guards Museum and the changing of the guards and ate Lunch at the Albert. Then we said tearful cyalaters as they went off to their new hotel and I finished packing and getting ready. It helped that I was busy getting ready to leave so I didn't have too much time to miss them already again.

Nick, Billy and I left for the airport around 2:30 or so. All went well through security, except for Billy leaving a butter knife in his bag...Our plane was delayed but the flight was only about 50 minutes so it wasn't that big of a deal. We actually met some other people from Iowa on our flight, even more crazy is that one of them was from Pella and went to Pella high for a year in 2006 and graduated that year. Crazy!

Once we landed in Amsterdam, I talked to Luis who we'd be staying with to get direction for the train to Gouda, which yes is famous for the cheese, however it's pronounced more like 'gowda'. It's about an hour away from Amsterdam. The trains were quite easy to figure out and we didn't have any problem with Language as most know English.

Luis and Bridget, who we stayed with were fabulous. Luis is my uncle Konrad's twin brother. They had food for us and were just so great. It was a lot nicer to actually stay in a house rather than a hostel or hotel for a change too. It was much more relaxing. They were really great.

Friday the 3 of us ventured out to Amsterdam to spend the day there. It was a lot of fun. We ate poffertjes! Which were delicious! I wish we would have eaten more! After that we went to the Heineken brewary. It was in the place where the first Heineken factory was. We walked around a lot and saw a lot of canals and bikes were everywhere. There were tons!
We saw the basic things that most tourist see when they go to Amsterdam like a "coffeeshop" and the red light district, we didn't spend much time in either.

Saturday we spent the day in Gouda. Luis took us to the Market where we all bought a wheel of cheese. He also took us to a chocolate shop, which smelled amazing! The chocolate was wonderful too! We also went in a rock shop because Luis collects rocks and really likes them. They were cool though because there were some from all over the world and some where shaped like different things. One was like a parrot.

We walked around some more and found a windmill that we could climb up in. The miller was around and I think he lets anyone climb up in it. So we did, all the way to the top. It was really cool. I haven't even been in the one in Pella yet but I think this would be cooler because it's like a real windmill that's used daily for stuff. We stood on the like 'deck' as the miller changed the direction of the sails. It was really neat to see all of the insides too.

We then continued on our bike ride. All over Gouda. There are like 7 lakes that surround Gouda so we rode around a couple of them. This was really awesome. Although my bum did hurt after a while. The houses that we saw were pretty much surrounded by water with draw bridges. Every thing in Gouda has to be built on stilts because it is below sea level. You can dock your boat in your back yard and park your car by your draw bridge. How cool would that be!

There were a ton of geese and swans and a few cranes. They were everywhere! It was really fun to ride around and see the country side.

Saturday night Tobias (Luis's son) took us out to a club and we stayed a little too late but it was our last night there. We had to get up super early to get to the airport on time and fly back to London.

That was my weekend! I'd love to go on about this week because today was great. But now you have a cliff hanger and have to read my next one! :) and this is getting long! I'm ready for the rest of this week! I'll try to update again soon so the next one won't be super duper long again!
Miss you all!