Oh man, where have I been? The time is wooshing past me and I can't seem to grab hold of it quick enough. I recently returned from a short (10 day) trip to Europe. I say short because I could have easily stayed much, much longer. Now I am home, and it's back to life as "normal" whatever that is. It's late, and I should be sleeping, but I want to share some things about my trip. It will be short. but I've waited long enough..

Our first stop was Amsterdam, where we stayed for 3 nights. The B&B we stayed in was in a great location, right near Central Station. Also not too far away was the Red Light district, which became difficult to avoid when walking home late at night. Regardless, everything in the city is easily accessible by foot (or bike) in under 20 minutes. We spent most of our time walking around and visiting the markets and all of the cute shops, as well as people watching. We also went on a canal tour (not the tourist kind) and visited the Anne Frank House. Some amazing food was also had. All of the restaurants we went to were generally vegetarian, and very accomodating to vegans. The food was different from what is available here. They really know how to incorporate good things like nuts, seeds and grains. I had some teriffic, yet simple dishes. I was feeling fat and happy.
After our first weekend, we decided to take a short trip out of town and caught a train to Paris. We spent 3 nights in the city of love, which I couldn't grow very fond of. I didn't find it as accomodating, especially since I didn't practice any of my very limited vocabulary of French. It did have it's perks though, such as fresh baked bread, amazing wine, and good shopping. I will miss those simple things.
From there, we went to Brussels for one night. Because we were there for only one night, and the one night we were there happened to be Thanksgiving, we decided it was time to feast. In the span of 6 hours we had chocolates, frites, much beer and tasty belgium waffles. Leaving was difficult, since the guest house we were staying in was so amazing, but I was ready to return to the city I had fallen in love with to spend our last few days.
We returned to Amsterdam and had an apartment all to our selves for the last weekend. We did more shopping, lots of eating, and even some museum hopping (Van Gogh and Sex Museum). We also rented a bike for a day, but quickly discovered we preferred walking during the short time we were there. Much easier to enjoy the view that way, and the view is definately something to enjoy. The weather wasn't great toward the end, but it didn't dampen our spirits. We still had a great time and enjoyed everything we could.

All in all, it was an amazing trip. I really learned alot from visiting another country, such as the joy of experiencing simplicity. I have always dreamed of travelling abroad, but I could never have imagined the experience that I had. Here are some pictures from Flickr. It makes it so much easier than posting individual ones. Hope you enjoy!