So its hard to say where I should start because so much has happened. I will just start when we left Oxford. We made a hilarious and super frustrating mistake of taking the wrong train to the wrong airport. It wasn't really anyone's fault just a misunderstanding and a lack of attention on our part. However, we stayed strong(by not talking to each other) and managed to get to the correct airport to just hop on the next flight out of London without paying any extra fees. We landed in Antwerp and hopped on a train to Brussels. We arrived about 6 in the evening and called Angela's Uncle who was going to meet us at the central train station in Brussels. This was by far the biggest part of our trip for Angela so far. This was her father's(who passed away when she was 6)brother who she hadn't seen since she was very little. So to say the least she was very nervous but excited as well. When she finally did see her Uncle Giles she was basically in tears. It was a wonderful reunion for them.
For the sake of time I am going to sum Brussels up in a few sentences real fast so I can move on to Amsterdam. I will detail Brussels later. Angela's Uncle spoiled us rotten!! He put us up in The Royal Windsor in central Brussels so we could walk around and see all the sights, took us out to numerous dinners, and took us both on a day trip to Bruges. He probably spent well over $2000 on us. All this time Angela and I thought we were backpackers and here we are being spoiled rotten in luxury. I tried numerous times to get the check or help out but the best he would let me do is purchase lunch one day when we were in Bruges so all I could do is be extremely grateful. I also had an amazing night learning all about Angela's family history. Pretty cool stuff.
So after an amazing 3 nights and 4 days in Brussels we took off for Amsterdam by train. We arrived in Amsterdam around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and it was pouring down snow...oh yeah and we had decided to wing our trip to Amsterdam...so we had no where to go. We walked about two blocks from central station and were getting frustrated with ourselves already when we passed a pub called The Flying Dutchmen that was an American/British pub. We decided to stop in and get a drink and make some phone calls from the pub to find a place to stay. I have to hand it to Angela, her outgoing and friendly nature led us to an amazing weekend. She started talking to the bartender who was an older american man named Willy. He had actually lived in Florida around the same location where I worked so we got along great. Soon enough he figured we needed a place to stay and recommended a hotel his friend worked at only a block away. He called the place up and they only had one room left but we could only have it if we booked it for 4 nights. So we shrugged our shoulders and took it. We had already checked and everything in town was taken or to expensive so this was perfect. I went to go take care of the room while Angela stayed at the pub and while I was away made friends with an older british couple who gave her the name of a B&B their friends owned in southern Spain right on the water and would discount our stay with them. How awesome is that going to be?!?

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So we dropped our bags off in the room and got comfortable. We didn't do to much the first night there because my credit cards were having problems and I had to make some phone calls to fix them, with the help of my parents back home of course. So the weather was crazy while we were in Amsterdam switching back and forth from beautiful sunshine to snow like every 30 minutes. I honestly didn't mind but I think it annoyed Angela a little. So with sporadic weather we set out on Saturday for the Van Gogh museum which at first was really overwhelming due to the number of people there. It was also Easter weekend so that might explain why there was a mass of people too. The Van Gogh Museum also had another exhibit of John Millais which I actually was more impressed with then Van Gogh. So after Van Gogh we had lunch at an Irish pub and headed back to the hotel. We ended up taking a nap for an hour or two then decided to experiment with what Amsterdam is best known for. I won't go into any great detail due to who reads this but we got stoned and stayed that way for pretty much the next 3 days and nights. Which was a good thing because on Sunday night after visiting a near by town, where we viewed the MC Escher museum, Angela got some really bad news that one of her close friends had committed suicide back in florida. It broke her heart and confused her a lot and I tried to be there for her the best I could. I am not sure what it was exactly but it brought us extremely close and we decided to continue on with our trip and we did that by getting lost in Amsterdam and in each other. To this day it is one of the greatest weekends of my life. I can't even begin to explain it. After Amsterdam we returned back to Oxford because we couldn't pass up a free place to stay and eat while we could plan better trips to take that and a place to revive a little from Amsterdam. A base of operations if you will. So from here we are headed to Dublin, Ireland for 2 nights and then back to Oxford again to set up for some warmer climates in southern Spain and Italy. After that we will probably start thinking of returning to the states. I know this isn't the best blog...no great details or anything but I am pressed for time so maybe next time.