Day 6- Berlin

Got a train for Brugges to Brussels.
We went out for 1\2 an hour between trains and then photographed ourselves in front of what we thought was the European Union building- it turned out to be the Belgium Pensions office.Fail.
We then tooka2hour train to Colonge, and then a 4 hour train to Berlin.
This sounds like a boring day but...I was doing maths on the train to Berlin, and the guy sitting next to me was from Indonesia and was really interested in it )and is now a engineering student) ,so I explained to him what I was doing,and this other guy was interested.There was also a French guy(who was reading Elementarie Differential Geometrie-WIN), he was interested also. It is a higher pleasure in life to do maths with foreigners.We then got to Berlin, passed the Reichstag and got to our hostel. For food we had the localfast food-german sausage with curry sauce and ketchup- it was pretty good.Now back at the hosel and that gets us up to date. We've met our first Brits also.
MuchLoveagexxx

Song for the Day- Smiling at strangers on trains- Frank Turner

Just for the record, the question i was doing on the train, was to find the shortest amount of 'track' between 4 cities,at the vertices of a square(of side say,of 100kilometres), such that every city is connected to any other (nb, you can do it in under 200root2km)

Days 4 and 5-Amstersdam, Brugges and Ghent

Went to Rijiksmuseum or something in Amsterdam
Wobbled around the city\got lunch- then train to Brugges (The Venice of the North)
Looked around it\saw the centre sqaure- bed at hostel

Song for the day Southbound Train- Jon Foreman

Looked around this nice mediaeval's town with canals.
Went for a boat tour
I (andrew) touched a phial of Jesus' blood (allegedly) in some Catholic-y Church
Went to Ghent for the afternoon- big Cathedral but not much else (it was apparently the biggest city in Western Europe 700yearsago,it certainly isn't today)
Got drenched in rain
Went back to Brugge to get a extortionate Belgian Waffle

Song For the day I can't really think of one,so I'll just go for Waterloo-ABBA as Waterloo is in Belgium
MuchLove xxx

Day 3

What we did:
Went to Amserdam- had a free three hour English tour
Went to Anne Frank's house- moving
Went to an English Pub (Well done Stuart Broad)
Went to the Red Light District (an experience, near-naked women in windows becknoing me in, I resisted and personally found it rather bad)
Came home

Song of the day: Red Light Sounds Danger- Billy Ocean

Much Love. AL xxx

Day 2

Aim: get from Ipswich to Amsterdam


Free Breakfast (worth 13pounds)- all you can eat bacon and fruit and croissants and waffles- so worth it- even if it meant getting up at 5:45am for it

So we were waiting out in the rain at 6:30 in the morning after breakfast, rushing to get to the station and what not, and we found some guy, who at midnight had gone into the back of a van, disheveled. He had been locked in and fell asleep. Classic.

Taxi to station- train to Harwich
Get on a boat. Boat travels to Holland- we sleep in lovely little cabin, and go around boat- the quiz machine did not pay out despite our immense general knowledge..grrr... etc.

Train from Hook of Holland to Amsterdam via Rotterdam-

trains here are amazing- they don't break down, are doubled deckered and run like clockwork. The train conductor was jokes- he basically mocked us for being English (in a nice way).Joel almost knocked a lady out with his beast of a backpack. We got here (to the hostel)shattered. Went out to some fast food place.

Also- we have Germans in our dorm- GERMANS!!!!! (as any MUN-ers will remember)

Song for the day- Bright Eyes- Another Travelin' Song

Awesome. Night night. I'm tired

Day 1: How we end up staying in a three star hotel for 5 hours for free...in Ipswich

On Wednesday, either us or people we met did the following things- try to guess who was us and who were the unfortunate people we met


a) Spend 6 hours overnight, accidentally locked in the back of a van
b) Saw a photo/portrait of someone we knew in the National Portrait Gallery
c) Illegally Travel down a 200-step staircase, when there was perfectly good lift.
d) Brought a 10kg sack of potatoes instead of a pudding
e) Were 100 metres from where the M16 guy was found dead in the bath
f) Spent two hours on a train that had no power or light




The day began with an uneventful coach journey to London, spent discussing the 'Cat bin women' and doing the crossword (how dull are we....?)
We got to London, walked to Buckingham Palace, and saw those people in funny hats, and then continued walking along the Mall to Trafalgar Square. We went to both the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery (getting them confused). There was some art including Van Gogh's Sunflowers. In the NPG, we were able to access on a computer the complete collection, even those not on display- to our pleasant dismay, the NPG holds a photo/portrait of...Chris Budd. We printed it out , and felt honoured to know a celebrity.


We then to Pimlico to meet that fine fellow, Jonathan Goddard. He now lives there. He was amazingly hospitable and seemed to have some sort of obsession with potatoes, despite this stilled cooked a very nice meal for us, which including wedges, but no potatoes (we think he brought them for the fun of it). Lively discussion ensued, and then will caught the underground to Liverpool Street, we got on the train to go to Harwich with the intention of going on an overnight boat to Holland. This is where things got interesting.


Ingatestone is a small town in Essex with population of 4500. We were there in a train for 3 hours. The train, powered by those overhead lines, had not power, had ran out of emergency power, so was in fact powerless and completely black. We missed our ferry. We were foruntate to have 15 or so other people in the same boat, (or rather more accurately, not in the same boat). We were then driven by coach to a three star hotel in Ipswich, which we arrived in at about 1:20am. We got up at 5:45am, and our amazingly posh and comfy room was wasted. Ths should have cost over 150 Pounds for both of us, yet this was paid for by the good people of National Express, who got us into this position. Luxury...!


Much Love from us ... we're in Amsterdam now...I will try and write about today's adventures, which are decidedly more dull. Out of interest...we did actually meet someone who was stuck in a van overnight.




AL
I'm not sure how often we'll be able to write mini-essays like this. They take time.

Day 1: Wednesday 25th Travelling and London

Aim:
Get a coach to London
Go to a interesting free museum
Meet up with a friend
Take a train to Harwich
Get on a ferry to the Netherlands

Song for the day: Laura Marling- Goodbye England (covered in snow)

I'm excited- didn't sleep last night- it will be good!!!! AL

That's us!!!!

it's up

woooooooooooooooooooooooo