On the subject of London and Amsterdam

I'm back!

Let me tell you - Amsterdam was SO much fun! We had an absolutely fabulous (and safe) time. But first, I never told you about London.

Last weekend we all went to london (the whole program) and stayed at this hostel for the london school of economics right behind the Tate Modern museum. It was a really great time! We woke up really early and took buses into London and dropped off our bags. We walked around - mostly just our little group- down Queen's walk and then some of them took the Tower of London tour. Four of us spent that time wandering around that part of London - we found the giant 'egg' building (which isn't actually finished yet) and we found pieces of the old Roman wall that ran around the city. Afterwords we walked to St. Paul's Cathedral but just missed the last entrance before services. We sat around there though as it was very pretty with the bells and some couple taking their wedding pictures. We all had dinner back near the hostel and then saw Antony and Cleopatra AT the GLOBE! It was really something - I love shakespeare and this was just perfect! We stood for over three ours as our tickets were in the yard - the REAL way to watch shakespeare. That night we wandered around a bit but were unable to find the nightlife.

The next day we got quite a bit in - actually bought underground passes this time. We of course made the rounds to Trafalgar, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and then went shopping in Camden Market! It was the coolest little area - lots of random booths deep within canals and buildings - it's rather like going into diagon alley actually!!! What's on the outside masks something 10 times bigger on the inside. We had this amazing potluck lunch of ethnic foods from Morraccan to South African - and then we all rather split up. Some of us went on to buckingham and took pictures there and walked past st. James' park (it was so nice with the green and the people and a bandstand going). all in all we had a very nice, rather relaxing visit.

The past week at Cambridge was very quick, full of studying and much anticipation of our next big excursion - amsterdam!

So, to sum up Amsterdam - we left Thursday after class and took about 5 trains and busses on either side of the ferry until we finally found our hotel room at about 3 am. It was right in the heart of Amsterdam about 3 blocks from Central station. Nice. (And yes, the first night we did see some red lights even around our hotel - pretty funny actually). So, the next day was a little slow - but we did have a nice brunch and saw the Van Gogh museum! They also went to the Anne Frank house but since I had seen it I sat in a nearby pub and wrote what I consider, actually, some very nice prose. We toured the red light district that night (because you HAVE to and it was definitely worth it - but pretty safe, too - lots of tourists). The next day we took the Heinekin tour - now that was pretty fun - ran into some fellow Bruins who were on the Poli sci european tour program. We had misread the hours at the Rembrandt museum so we went shopping instead - didn't find anything really good. We had a nice dinner and then took a canal cruise. He didn't speak a whole lot of the lines in English, but we got the general idea of it all. After that we met up with some other people from the program and found a pretty busy club - LOTS of fun! All those crazy europeans and their house music. So we were really tired and woke up the next day to take about another half million trains and the ferry back to Cambridge.

Thus, we are back, safely! You can all rest assured once more. I'm having a great time but there is lots of work to be done! Next weekend I'm visiting Aunt Paula and cousin Mary in Frankfurt! VERY excited! Hope everyone is well - I will get more postcards out soon! - the mail runs rather fast but they ARE 50 pence each. (AND pictures will be out later today. love!)

Much <3 -
amanda l. berg