Buenos Dias

I wrote a whole post and lost it when my phone froze. Poop. So far Barcelona has been great. Good food, delish Sangria and lovely buildings. We are heading to see the Guadi museum today at Sagrada Familia then on to La Rambla. Warmer weather but not too sunny. We are both glad to be wearing flip flops.






-- Post From My iPhone

Dank U Amsterdam

For a wonderful time. As gays we have never felt so welcome and safe. We hate to leave your canals, coffee shops, pancakes, bike friendly streets, squares with open cafes, fabulous koffee and quaint little streets. We loved just walking around your city. As a kid I read The Diary of Anne Frank as many times as I read Little Women, and Trumpet of the Swan, which was a lot. It was cool to finally see the actual annex and it still broke our hearts that she missed liberation by one month. I will never understand how anyone can deny the holocost and it is so emotional to see the footage of the liberation.
Things we noticed:
- There are no fat people
- Tons of smokers
- Once you place your first order, you have to be proactive after that to get another drink or check
- Less trouble understanding the Dutch than the English
- Cabs are Mercedes
- Canals are beautiful at night
- We have seen some of the happiest people, especially kids who ride along side or on their parent's bikes
- For a city older than Boston they seem
to have a fast and effiecient trolly system
- Different languages everywhere
- Gay flags



See you in Barcelona.
-- Post From My iPhone 5/13/09

Tooling around

Today we are renting bikes and tooling around Amsterdam. The quality of life here is amazing. It stays light until 9:30pm and everyone seems really happy, the service has been great. We started the day at the cutest Pancake house, and had delicious pancakes, fresh squeezed orange juice and Koffee. It was the best breakfast we have had so far. The coffee has been especially good here. When we left the waiter gave us some cute little Dutch shoe keychains.



We decided to rent bikes, this is a little out of Mel's comfort zone, but she has been doing great. It is amazing to ride around and not be worried about getting killed, and no one wears helmets, because no one is racing. Everyone has a Dutch bike, no status symbol bikes to be seen. Biking is a relaxing way to commute. It did take a bit to get used to breaking by pedaling backwards but you get use to it. There are stop lights specifically for pedestrians, cars and bikes. We rode to the Homomonument that commemerates the gay men and women who lost their lives in WWII and the continued struggle. We hope to take a canal cruise later and hit the Anne Frank house.



-- Post From My iPhone 5/12/09

Vivelavie

Is the name of the lesbian cafe we went to and had some snacks and a glass of beer. It was cute. This great pic was on the wall.




We did a walking tour of Amsterdam today. We hit the red light district and saw some ladies in doors. Though we both think legalizing prostitution is the way to go, it was a little off putting to see men in business suits trolling the streets so blatantly. It is hard to think of it so out in the open.
It is so welcoming to see gay flags everwhere. The thing we were touch by the most was the huge photo exhibit of down syndrome children by a female artist. There is a website called "The Upside of Down" that has all this information bringing exposure to families with down syndrome children. I was moved by the photos and quotes by the parents about their special families.


-- Post From My iPhone 5/11/090

Seeing Art

After sleeping in a bit and then blowing out our hairdryer(our hair looks awesome) we headed out for breakfast. The coffee here is really good. We had a huge breakfast and headed over to the Van Gogh Museum. We did the audio tour and it was interesting. I have always liked Van Gogh so it was great to hear more details about his short life. Who knew he was so influenced by Japanese Art. The pace here is definitely slower and we cannot wait to rent bikes and ride around the city. I personally love the dogs in the front baskets on the bikes as they ride by. When we were eating breakfast this morning a cat came into the cafe, the bartender gave it some milk and it was on it's way. Such a different approach to animals. This place is Mel's heaven, cats, gays and legalized pot.
We are off to stroll a bit more, then find the lesbian cafe and maybe a boat ride.



-- Post From My iPhone 5/11/09

Hello Amsterdam

After a long interesting day on the train we finally made it into Amsterdam. It took us a while to figure out the public train system but we finally go into our
hotel. Amsterdam is very quaint, and everything you have heard about how bike friendly it is, is true there are parking areas for bikes and you cannot even imagine how many bikes are parked, it is like car parking lot.
Our hotel room is about the size of a shoebox but I guess that is the trade off for having a private bathroom. We are situated right on one of the canals and eventhough we are in back of hotel we look right on the water. We learned there are a lot of steakhouses here and the difference between a coffee house(sell coffee) and a coffee shop(pot). Though we studied some Dutch words on the train, everyone so far speaks perfect English. We are hoping to rent bikes, see some Van Gough and take a boat ride. I think we are going to really like it here.





-- Post From My iPhone 5/11/09

Brussels

We made it to Brussels and left train station in search of Chimay. We found it but Brussels was not what we expected. The train station is in a shit part of the city. We saw a couple of pubs but did not go in because there were no women in them. After looking around we think we are in a largely Moraccan(?) area of town. Anyway, I got my Chimay and it was the fastest one I ever drank as we headed back to the train station.
At the station we had to pay to use the toilet. Considering my small bladder Mel mentioned this might be a problem if it is the same way as we travel along. The nice thing is it is getting warmer as we go I had to take my long sleeve off before departure, best €.50 I spent. About to get on train to Amsterdam.



-- Post From My iPhone 5/10/09