3 More Days Till Barcelona

Its just before midnight here and we're getting ready to pass out. We had our most relaxing day yet. We walked to Anne's Mom and Dad's house which is just up the street in the most beautiful little town I've even been in. It's about an hour East of Amsterdam and it's called Bathmen but its pronounced bautem. We went up to her parents house to do our laundry because we were all out of clean clothes. I learned how to hang up clothes on a line because that is something I've never done before lol. There is actually some skill involved because the first few articles I hung up kept falling off until I was shown the right way of doing it lol. Everything here is so relaxed and laid back. Everyone here rides there bikes around and walks there dogs through the parks. The streets and sidewalks are all made of bricks and every single plant and tree is perfectly groomed. I'm pretty sure that the town is fake because everything is so perfect. While we were waiting for our clothes to dry Anne took us to a little spot to swim on the canal behind her parents house. Graham actually went swimming even though the water was ice cold. Anne and I just put our feet in and layed there in the sun and tanned. After we walked back and picked up our laundry we went out to a little restaurant in her town for some croquettes and fries with apple pie and ice cream for desert. We ended up back at Annes place and just ordered some pizza and watched a movie.

Yesterday morning Anne met us at De Dam (a big square in Amsterdam with a memorial monument) to take us on a canal tour. The tour was pretty cool because we go to see many streets of holland from the canals as opposed to the streets. The boat took us past Anne Franks house and the narrowest house in Amsterdam which was only 6 feet wide. After the canal tour we were all hungry so we went to a restaurant and ate a farely odd dinner. It was a massive pancake with bacon and cheese and a dutch syrup all over it. It tasted amazing. From there we went on to do the Heineken Brewery Tour which was much more then I ever expected. It was only 12 Euros and we got an entire tour of the place along with 2 pints and a tester beer. They also let us eat the hops and barley in it's pure form. The barley actually tasted pretty good. It was very similar to deshelled sun flower seeds but with a unique flavour. When we first walked in for the tour and checked our bags in the lady gave us our bracelets that were good for the 2 free beers during the tour but she told us if we put our bracelets in our pocket we would get another bracelet at the door. This worked so when it came time for the 2 free pints at the end of the tour we all enjoyed 4. We met 2 guys from Vancouver in the bar at the end of the tour and while we were talking to them 2 different people came up to us and gave us there beer tokens that they didn't want to drink. I'm not sure if it was our Canadian hats that caused this but I'm not complaining.

Last night Anne took us to her friends Husband's birthday party. It was just a little back yard patio party with drinks and some finger food. There was also to chickens and 2 huge rabbits which was pretty cool because you generally don't have that at parties back home. There was only 3-4 of her friends that spoke english so Graham and I were limited to who all we could talk to, however, by the end of the night we were pretty much talking to everyone because apparently after you drink a lot you learn to speak Dutch lol. Her friends were all very nice and always made sure we had a beer in our hands. As soon as you have a sip left in your beer there was a fresh beer being handed to you. At about midnight they pulled out a few bottles of liquor that we were all doing shots from. Graham really took a liking to this Dutch liquor and drank more then his fair share of it. Anne and I had to carry Graham back to her place because he could not even function enough to walk back. All in all it was a great party with a lot of great people.

Were heading back to Amsterdam Wednesday morning and we are going to spend the day there until we catch a midnight train to Barcelona where we will be spending atleast 4-5 days.