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The flight home felt really really long... I was excited to be returning to a world of clean clothes and knowing where I'll be sleeping each night. I was not so excited about leaving the relatively responsibility-free life of traveling and the fun of meeting new people every day.

Some final thoughts on things I saw in Europe... there were a few things that I noticed in much greater abundance all over Europe compared to at home. In no particular order, here they are...
1- Coloured/patterned toilet paper. Much moreso in eastern than western Europe, it was always a fun surprise to see what the bathroom would display. My favorite was probably the pastel blue with butterflies..
2- Smoking. Not a surprise, but took some getting used to. I thought my days of returning home from a bar smelling like smoke were long gone, but apparently not. Interestingly, in the time while I was away, Gatwick airport became entirely non-smoking. So the E.U. is working on improving their collective health.. just a little bit behind us.
3- Public displays of affection. At home, when people are all over each other in public they are usually either young or very drunk (or both). Not so in Europe.. young and old, sober and drunk, many people seemed eager to display their affection (openly and loudly) in all sorts of places. Not necessarily a bad thing.. just different.
4- Public urination. Is the whole of Europe a freakin' toilet??? Again, it occurs in small doses at home, mostly late at night and usually somewhat discretely. In Europe, guys were peeing EVERYwhere and at any time of day. While I commend some cities for creating public urinals in busy areas, other areas have a lot of work to do.. that is, unless you like the smell of urine and the surprise of finding someone urinating in a public place in broad daylight. Gross.

And with that, I thank you for reading.

London

With less than one day to spend in London, I opted to spend a good chunk of it on a free walking tour (I love these!). I saw pretty much all of the sites that I knew about in London (London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, Big Ben, Tate Modern) as well as many that I had not heard of. I was exhausted by the end of the 4 hours and went to sit in Hyde park for a short while. Then I went and bought myself theatre tickets for that night.. while I had planned to see Phantom of the Opera, TKTS was all of out discount tickets for it and I opted to see Avenue Q instead. In the few hours before the show, I did a bit of shopping and a little bit more sight seeing, though I was moving very very slowly. I LOVED Avenue Q - muppets with crude language and all. I then went back to the hostel where I was reconnected with Jasmine and Winnie after several days apart. Very nice to see them and exchange stories about our weekend apart.

Amsterdam

I arrived in Amsterdam Friday and was struck by the abundance of bicycles and canals all around me. After sorting out somewhere to stay (not an easy feat!) I went on a free walking tour of the city which pointed out most of the major sites and offered a fair amount of history and explanations. After the tour I went to see the Anne Frank House. It truly was just as I had imagined it to be, small cramped rooms and all. It was fascinating to see that actual pages from the diary on display. Friday evening was "arts and crafts" night at the hostel so I got to paint little tiny wooden clogs. Found some people to walk around with at night and once it got dark we set out to explore the red light district. Both intruiging and sad to see the endless windows of women, glowing under the red lights. At one point I looked around and noticed a serious imbalance of males to females out walking on the streets. Is it that more men than women come to amsterdam? or the women just don't go to the red light district at night?

Saturday I went to the old Spanish Portuguese synagogue. Huge wooden building that happened to be celebrating their 332nd anniversary, which meant that the choir (in top hats!) was there, there were many congregants, there was a free lunch (sweet!), and I was invited along with the children to go to the Artis Zoo in the afternoon. I especially enjoyed the butterfly pavillion. So pretty. There seemed to be more sharing of zoo spaces among different types of animals that I am used to - we joked that even the animals take part in the famous Dutch tolerance. I slowly wandered my way back toward to the hostel and watched some beach soccer along the way. At night, I went out with some people from the hostel and as we were sitting at a bar along the canal, we saw a very stoned looking guy fall right into the canal! Luckily people came to his rescue and hauled him out. Given the lack of railings, I suspect this is not an unusual occurrence. Later that night, I saw an angry drunk guy trying to pull bikes from the bridge and throw them into the canal. He had only succeeded with one when another man intervened and started yelling at him. Those canals certainly get a lot of visitors!

Sunday I enjoyed a sleep in and then went to the see the Van Gogh museum. I wandered through the flower market and then attempted (unsuccessfully) to do some shopping in the afternoon. In the evening I hung out with some of the girls from the hostel and we were all happy to make it an early night.