riday 7/26/13
Well we woke up on the train and found out that we will be getting into Amsterdam an hour late. We decided to find a place to stay, we went to info. again and the gal pointed us to take the train to Spoornwoude and it was only a short walk from there to camping. We asked a man after we got off the train if he knew the place and he directed us on a wild goose chase. At least we got to see the town. We finally found our camping and we set up. We decided to head back in to Amsterdam and wander. We actually hopped on a boat tour and we were able to see quite a lot of the city and gain a little history. Amsterdam is named for the river that goes through it and then they put a dam on it. The rivers name is the Amstel so Amsteldam or Amsterdam. Just a freebie. After wandering for a bit we took the train to Haarlem, a town we want to visit on Sat. We went back to our campsite and called it a night.
Saturday 7/27/13
Saturday came and we loaded up and headed to Haarlem a little town where a family called the Ten Booms hid some Jews from the Nazis. We were able to tour the town and go to an open air market while we waited for our tour to start. We got back to the Ten Boom museum and noticed the English tour time was changed from 12:00 to 13:00 and that was going to cut us short on our train schedule. There was this lady who questioned the change and got us in earlier. The tour lasted an hour and was very interesting. He who blesses the Jewish people will be blessed and he who curses them will be cursed. In this family's life you can see how God blessed them. One way was the way they were able to have a Bible while they were in a concentration camp, they had fleas in their barracks and the nazis would not enter so they never knew about the Bible.
We finally headed to the train and heading towards Belgium. We arrived with a little more info. than normal so we found it O.K. While we were waiting and figuring out the busses this young couple asked if we were camping and they were wondering if they could tag along. Their names were Walter and Elishka from the Czech Republic. They were both students and traveling through Europe together. He is studying engineering and she pharmacy. We found our campsite for the night and decided to do a bit of laundry. While doing laundry we met a lady from Spain who didn't know English and we knew very little Spanish, lets just say a very interesting conversation. A little later we met Andre from Norway who was biking from Denmark to London around a 1500 kilometer ride. We talked a bit and let him use the remainder of our dryer time. We have been able to get some contact info. from these people and we will keep up with them that way. We had quite a storm that night but slept amazing.
Sunday 7/28/13
I forgot to mention that we camped in Brugge, Belgium. We decided to tour the town and get some fries, waffles and chocolate. Rough life right? The feel of the town was quiet and relaxed, unlike the larger cities where it was busy, hurried and noisy. We did get our Belgian fries, waffles, and chocolate. After taking many pictures of the beautiful architecture, we then headed back to the train station to catch our train to Calias, France on the coast. We had planned to camp there and take a ferry across the English Channel to the UK in the morning. We could not find any camping so we decided to catch a ferry right away for Dover, England. We arrived at the ferry office 50 minutes before the next ferry left and got tickets. The ferry ride was only 1 1/2 hours. It was beautiful weather and we were able to enjoy the trip out on the deck. We arrived in Dover at about 8:30 pm and found a hotel close to the docks. It was a treat to sleep in a bed for the night.
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