In Amsterdam. Very different city, with churches alternating with 'coffee shops', canals with peep shows. Still, very cool even if it's very touristy and busy. Our hostel has different movie themed rooms... We're in the LOTR room, which is cool except for Golum staring at me when I wake up. Wandered around yesterday, viewing the Dutch resistance monument and the canals before popping ink an English language bookstore, where we each picked up a book, being almos...

On the train to Amsterdam today, looking forward to the last new destination of our trip. We'd just like to send a big thank you to Wolfgang, Doro, Julia, and Julia for opening their home to us. We greatly enjoyed ourselves and truly felt like part of the family. We hope that we will see them (and Bjorn as well!) again soon, either in their part of the world or ours. Auf Wiedersehen!

Nice relaxing day in Ludinghausen today, in which Pierre and I read and did our own thing for most of the day. The weather was muggy and warm, a condition that wasn't broken even after a few periods of rain. In the evening, Wolfgang warmed up the grill and barbecued for supper... We kicked our little soccer ball around for a few minutes in the backyard before the two Julia's joined us for a half hour of hitting a volleyball around. Fun, and a good workout as we...

Went for a brief excursion into the Netherlands last night, where we, along with Wolfgang and his family, got to watch a university presentation by Julia (Bjorn's sister) as part of her physiotherapy degree. Although it was all in Dutch, it was a good experience to share with the family, and celebratory drinks were had afterwards. Today, we accompanied Wolfgang as he took a large group of his pupils to a climbing center in Ahlen. The center is set in the infrast...

Today has been a catch up and relaxation day, with Pierre and I being left to our own devices. We've been sitting in the sun, reading, writing and chatting, with a brief excursion to the town centre to get a bit of lunch. We're slowly realizing that we have just over a week left in Europe... We've decided to leave Brugge, Belgium out of our trip, and have booked a hostel in Amsterdam for the weekend, before returning to Paris on Monday, with us flying home on W...