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Thanks everyone for the well wishes and the message board posts!
After our update yesterday we headed off in the direction of the Sacre Coeur cathedral, it should be known that it is in the ghetto, seriously, the ghetto.
We walked up through the fish market and through winding streets, up a hill to the Sacre Coeur, France has a way of hiding their majestic cathedrals adnd other landmarks behind a tall building so you can't find it until you are already there.
We spent a few minutes admiring the building (which looks cleaner and more beautiful from afar, than it does up close) then we caught the metro back towards the Eiffel Tower to get a spot for the fireworks.
We stopped at a patisserie to grab a picnic lunch, they had all been mobbed by the 1 million plus people in the area for the festivities. In line we met a wonderful woman from Maine and talked to her about our travels until it was our turn to order.
We then took our lunch over to the grass and found a spot to watch the show. We were treated to a Nelly Furtado concert, that we had not been expecting, neither of us like her, but it was hot, out, free and entertained us for awhile, then came a french singer that looked startling like CiCi DeVille, too bad it wasn't.
At 10:30 the fireworks began, shooting out into the sky by the Eiffel Tower, the French could use a lesson from Disney, the fireworks barely broke the tree line but the show was beautiful all the same and included musical accompanyment, including the James Bond theme song.
We then went home to make phone calls and sleep for awhile before our 8:00 am train.
The train this morning was an adventure to say the least. We got a free tour of the Netherlands, against our will!
Our first train to Brussels went well, our second train stopped suddenly in some mystery city and refused to cntinue, we were then bounced to another train to Rotterdam, which then also stopped and refused to caontinue. Long story short we took 5 trains to get to Amsterdam over about 5.5 hours. It should have taken 2 trains and 4 hours. Like I said free tour, free stressful tour.
Upon arriving we had some lunch, hit up the tourist office and eventually caught Tram 5 to Vondelpark. Our hostel is nice, we only have 1 quiet roommate, they have super slow internet, free breakfast, laundry services, pool tables and a bar.
After a brief nap we headed downtown, just a short walk, and had dinner at the noodle bar, WagaMama.
We then wrote some postcards, tried to do some laundry, failed and will try again in the morning and set our plans for tomorrow- a free 3 hour walking tour of the city (Jana'a idea!)
2.5 more days and the adventure ends, but's it has sure been a great ride!
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