Back from Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Alnweck Castle

I'm back from Amsterdam. I had my first drink on the boat friday night. I didn't like it very much. The little bar I was at had some great live music though, a guitar player named Desmond. He took requests. It was a lot of fun. I hung out there all night.

But before I get too ahead of myself I should mention Alnweck castle. We stopped at Alenweck castle before we got on the boat. It was pretty cool. It was the same place where they filmed a lot of the outdoor scenes in the first Harry Potter film. The inside was all restored and looked really neat. The art collection was amazing. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. The Duke and his family still live in the castle and you could tell, plasma screen t.v.s and family photos and other signs of family life. There was also a huge garden with a gigantic water fountain. The bus was a half hour late to pick us up though.

We got to Amsterdam around tenish on Saturday. A few other girls and I went on a canal tour of the city. There were a lot of houseboats and some of the buildings were very pretty. The best part, for me anyway, was the cat boat: a houseboat that doubled as a shelter for stray cats run by volunteers. After the tour we walked down to the Anne Frank house. We didn't go in because the line stretched out the door, down the block, and around the corner. We went back to where the bus would meet and went into a little souviner shop instead. I got a sweater.

I lost my group for a minute and almost panicked. I called Travis, the phsyc teacher in charge of the trip and go the number for the bus and just got on the bus. A little while later my group got on so I didn't completely loose them. One back in the boat I went straight to bed. We hit some pretty choppy water and I felt so seasick I couldn't even stand up.

I was so glad when we got off the boat today. We had to take a cab to the train station andI felt like I was going to barf but I didn't. Then we had to wait for an hour for the train. The train wasn't so bad. It was moving pretty darn quickly but at least it wasn't rocking from side to side or jumping up in the air. Once we got to Edinburgh we had to take a bus back to Dalkeith. I went up to my room and was so happy not to be moving I just layed there for five minutes. I went to dinner at a restaruant in town. I liked the gravy at the Conan Doyle better though. Now I think I'm just going to sleep. I might watch Burn Notice online. I will post some more pictures of my trip tomorrow. I'm to tired to right now.