Do you have a minute?

So we're done with London and here on the Continent, but it hasn't been as easy as it might sound. Long ago we booked a flight from London Stansted out to Eindhoven in the Netherlands so we could catch a train up to Amsterdam. After weighing all of our options on how to get to the airport from the hostel we decided to catch a shuttle bus provided by the London Hoppa because we could board at the front door and rest easy knowing we wouldn't have to change trains. So it was a 6:45am flight and we needed to be about two hours early, therefore we decided to take the 3:30 bus for an hour long journey. We booked the bus at the hostel for four pounds and would pay the other 16 to the driver... except no driver ever came. We were outside at 3:20 AM and waited until 4am with the security guard telling us they always run late. We assumed we'd been forgotten and ran to the next stop for the 4:15 bus. 4:30 rolls along and no bus with two hours until take off and an hour between us and the plane. B started signalling taxis and our first draw was a gypsy cab, B haggled with him for the price but H was not comfortable with getting in the car. A black cab came along and we we're able to talk him down from 90 pounds to a measly 80 pounds, mind you we only saved 16 for the bus ride. He took the rest in American cash so it cost us 4 pounds for a bus that didn't show and 16 pounds, $120 for a cab ride to the airport. At the airport we had to shuffle our belongings between bags so that we could sneak through weight limits (we were still 1.5 kilos over). The flight was an hour but we hardly noticed with our eyes closed. The plane had a hard landing and if we hadn't been buckled in we might have been thrown around the cabin, a rough way to wake up. We made it from Eindhoven to Amsterdam no problem but Amsterdam was swarming on a Friday afternoon. We tried to see if we could store our bags at a hostel for a few hours like we had when we were in Scotland but to no avail. We ended up going back to the train station and renting two lockers (because the large ones were either full or defective). This may be a good place for a breather so I'll skip a line so you can bookmark if you haven't time for more.

Amsterdam was pretty dirty and crowded so we promptly made our way to the Anne Frank Museumand then back to the central, also the red light district conveniently enough. After talking it over we decided to take canal tour before getting out of town and it was cheap enough, but we were the last tour and the driver seemed to be in a hurry so we missed a few snapshots but got the gist of it. From Amsterdam we went to the Hague, it was dark when we arrived so we just asked for directions to the hostel from the information desk. He sent us up the street and so we walked a few blocks knowing it wasn't far but found nothing. B asked inside a corner stand but the man wasn't very clear on his English. We walked another block to the next market and B went for more directions. When B came out H was with an officer who informed us that we were in the ghetto and lucky to not have been mugged by the dealers or junkies. Apparently we were sent down the wrong street and the officer was kind enough to give us a lift in his unmarked squad car. He said he'd seen us walking and knew that we were in the wrong area. The hostel was nice and we spent the morning walking around the Hague. The people we ran into gave pretty terrible directions all morning and we probably spent at least two hours wandering and riding the wrong trams. After we felt we had seen it all we gathered our stuff from the hostel and jumped the train for Brussels. At the very first stop (Rotterdam) we were informed that the rail line was having electrical problems and we would have to find an alternate route. The alternate route made our quick little direct connection into a round-about seven hour train ride with numerous changes. We landed in Bruges at 10pm to find the bus system shut down for the night and ourselves walking a mile or two to the hostel. We had to go throught the city centre and all the towers and church's were lit up so we had a spectacular view the whole journey, only we also had a few textbooks and three months of gear on our shoulders and backs. We're at the hostel now and actually have free wifi that we are connected to. Its 1am but we're using it while we can. We are probably going to stay in Brugge for two nights and just day trip to Brussels and Ghent. After that we'll squeeze in Luxembourg and meet the group in Paris. H says "thanks" for all the kind birthday wishes.