Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland!!

Ok we are going to get this blog caught up right now! We are currently en route to Berlin, Germany and have been to Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland in the last eight days.

In Belgium we tried out this phenomenon called “Couch Surfing!” It is a really neat community of people who have traveled, are traveling or want to travel and are willing to let people stay on their couch or spare bedroom free of charge for a few days. People create profiles with descriptions of themselves and their couch and you send out requests to say “I would like to surf your couch!” They respond back and you make arrangements to meet up! We now have a profile and have successfully completed our first couch surfing experience! We stayed with a great guy name Lukasz, originally from Poland but living in Brussels at the moment. He was a great host! He was working while we were there but was really great in pointing out places of interest to go and see!
We spent one day in Brussels. We thought that was plenty of time to see the sights and get a taste for the city. We had delicious Belgian waffles and hot chocolate! YUM! The next day we went to Brugges, a romantic picturesque town, with amazing architecture and even better waffles…. It was a quick train ride and even more than what we were expecting to find! We had a wonderful time walking around the city, taking lots of pictures of the buildings in the town. We went to the Church of Our Lady and saw Michealangelo’s “Madonna and Child” sculpture. We ate a basket of frites otherwise known as French fries, and they came from Belgium not from France. And they were the best fries we have ever had! Turns out my habit of liking mayonnaise on my French fries is not so weird, because that is the custom in Belgium! We had an even more delicious Belgian Waffle, this time covered in caramel sauce. So delicious! Not to mention that the guy that sold us our waffle had actually been to Albuquerque, New Mexico and he had been to Carlsbad Caverns twice!
The next morning we took a train to Luxembourg. We went right into Luxembourg city and stayed in a hostel that was in a really pretty valley. The weather was really cold and rainy, but we made the most of it! We explored the casemates, which are a series of tunnels that extend all around the city. The city is actually still surrounded by a huge wall, through which the tunnels run. It was a neat little town and quite pretty we had a great time walking around the city. We didn’t have much time here because we left midday the following day to go to Amsterdam.
Into Holland, we arrived right as work was letting out for the day, needless to say the city of bikes, had turned into a sea of bicycles and the public transit was packed. People were not shy to try to shove us and our backpacks out of the way so they could get on the bus. Unfortunately for them we have been doing this far to long to be shoved out of the bus. After finding our hostel, we walked around and saw the sights. Spent the next morning doing the same thing. However, what I really wanted to do while we were in Holland is to go see the tulip fields and the windmills. We also decided that one night in Amsterdam was good enough for us and headed out to a town called Haarlem. It was a pretty little town and we got a steal on our room for booking it at the last minute, quite cheap compared to the weekend rates in Amsterdam!
We explored the town, had THE BEST Dutch cheese, enjoyed walking through the flower markets and seeing all of the people. We did get to see lots of tulips and daffodils fields as well as a few windmills!!! Yesterday we went to Keukenhof, which has tons and tons of bulb flower displays. It was really beautiful! Exactly what I wanted to see! Even better was behind the gardens there was fields and fields of daffodils! It was perfect! This was the Holland that I really wanted to see!
Jonathan and I are excited for Berlin! It is definitely a country full of history. We have about two days there before we head to Krakow, Poland to do some more couch surfing!
Love to all,
Tara and Jonathan

Check out the pix: Belgium, Luxembourg, , The Netherlands