The sightseeing onslaught begins!

4:00AM Wake-up call

4:45AM Downstairs for breakfast

5:30AM On the bus

6:00AM Meet at tour company headquarters for trip info and money exchange.

6:30AM On the road again. Snooze on the bus....

9:05AM Arrive at Dover on the Southern Coast of London to take a ferry across the English Channel to Calais, France. Had breakfast on the ferry.

1:30PM Move into a new time zone and arrive in France. Head for Amsterdam, Netherlands. More snoozing on the bus.....

2:00PM Stop on the Belgium/Netherlands border for coffee break

2:30PM Continue on. Still more snoozing on the bus.....

4:00PM Arrive in Amsterdam. Take a tour of the Dassan Diamond Company. See a very brief demonstration of diamond cutting & polishing. Fell in love with a beautiful 0.26 carat Wellington Color SI 99% Brilliance Pave Ring. Mom dragged me out of store before I spent an entire month's paycheck... Oh it was calling my name... and I'm not THAT much of a jewelry girl.....

5:00PM Tour of Amsterdam via boat. Got an interesting view of the city from some of its canals.

6:30PM Dinner and sovenir shopping in Amsterdam's main street area. Had the most enormous order of fries I've ever seen with mustard. (Mustard is very sweet here in Amsterdam.) Stores really do sell everything under the sun. They had clogs, t-shirts, bongs, vibrators, marijuana seeds, "magic" mushrooms, condoms, edible underwear, etc. etc. If it had to do with tourism or the "pleasure" industry, they had it for sale.

8:00PM Walking tour of "Red Light" district. It is as racy as one can imagine... and we were out there early...The girls are young and beautiful...The men walking around are horny and rowdy. If you think Vegas is a wild time, go to Amsterdam. It makes Vegas look like a kindergarten. They have pissoirs on the street corners. Pissoir = public urinal without any covering. Men just walk up and handle their business. The funny part about this portion of the show is that my mom was so embarrassed... I was waiting for her to faint from embarrassment.

9:00PM Arrive at the hotel. I am pooped. According to our tour guide, Kevin this is the longest day of our trip. The rest of the days are not supposed to be this gruelling. (I'm not inclined to believe him since we're supposed to be up and out by 7:45AM tomorrow....)

Summary
4 Countries in one day = very tired Anne... Goodnight...zzzzzzz

Chinatown & Apple Store London

We finally did some light sightseeing. We decided to take the bus into Central London to have a look around and shop. We ended up in London's Theatre Distric & Chinatown. I did even know that London had a Chinatown! While my mom, aunt, & uncle hung around Chinatown, I made a mad dash for the Apple Store near Picadilly Circus. It was the longest walk of my life! I went to purchase a digital camera adapter for my ipod. The Apple Store in London was like the hottest place to be. It had two stories and had the music blasting. I had never seen so many young and attractive people all in one place. They had security guys at the door and for a split second I thought they were going to card me. All they need was a bar serving cocktails and that would have been it for me... It would have been nerd heaven! hahahahahah.

Side note
Although I brought my digital equipment with me, I don't think uploading will possible. I'm still looking into it.. At worst, I'll post the accompanying photos when I get back.

1st Stop - London

I'm in London at the moment and will be here until Friday. The flight from Southern Cal to here was exhausting. My aunt, uncle and I flew from Orange County to Dallas, Dallas to Chicago, & finally Chicago to London. From the time the plane left the ground in Orange County to thie time I set foot in London, it took about 17 hours including layovers. Luckily for me, I didn't sleep the night before. This made it easy for me to snooze away the majority of my flights. I think I woke up twice to have the micro-meal the airline serves and to have a beverage. Otherwise, I was completely unconscious. I hope I wasn't snoring too loudly..hahahaha..

Good news is my dad is okay. He just won't be able to travel for quite some time.. Even better news is that my mom was able to go after all.. In fact, she arrived here at 9:15 this morning. She's snoozing soundly in our hotel room as I speak.

I've been in London for about 1.5 days and haven't really gotten to see much. The jet lag is terrible. The time difference between here and Los Angeles is 9 hours. We had planned to go around yesterday, but ended up sleeping most of the day. Thankfully, our tour doesn't officialy start until Friday. Currently, I've been walking around some my hotel which is in the Islington section of London. This is considered North London. Hopefully, I'll actually get to see some sights today.. I will post more later:)

Change of Plans

I got a call from my mom that my dad was sick. She took him to the Emergency Room. As it turned out, some new medication he was taking aggravated an ulcer he has had for years... only it turned it into a bleeding ulcer. Long story, short. My dad won't be going on the trip. It's uncertain if my mom will make it either. . . She's waiting to see what the doctor says about my dad's condition. The tour doesn't start until Wednesday. So, shes hoping to catch up with us... We'll see.

Meanwhile, I leave in two hours and I'm still packing!!