A trip across the ocean....

Here's the Holland update you've all been waiting for, pictures included :)

On Thursday, we flew out of O'Hare on a direct flight to Amsterdam. The flight itself was unremarkable, except for our inability to sleep, despite the fact that I even took Ambien. Turns out, Ambien just makes me a little nauseous and light headed. Oh well...
When we landed in Amsterdam, we immediately took the train to Nijmegen, which is in the south near the German border. On the train, I was giddy and Andrik was jetlagged.
I expected the countryside to be full of windmills and tulip fields, but I saw no fields of tulips and only one windmill. The countryside looked a lot like Ohio, see what you think...















The actual view out the train window.















The only windmill I actually saw during the trip.

We took a taxi from Nijmegen to the hotel where the wedding was held, Jachtslot de Mookerheide. It was a gorgeous place surrounded by fields and woods. Our room was the highest room in the tallest tower and it was incredible. Gorgeous furnishings, including what must have been the coolest bed ever. On the top of the bed was a field of lit stars that bathed the room in a gentle glow. Absolutely beautiful.
















Jachtslot during the day. Our room is the one with the arrow slit windows on the right.
















Jachtslot at night.















The star ceiling of our bed

Friday night we went to the rehearsal dinner, where the food was fine, although I was generally not impressed by Dutch food. Although, the Dutch do make a decent french fry. The Dutch don't seem to have a particular cuisine or fine food, which was disappointing.

Saturday was wedding festivities all day. I woke up, had breakfast and then went back to bed, where Andrik had been smart enough to stay asleep. There was a Tea at noon, where we each had three cups of coffee and tea. Tea was followed by the Civil Ceremony, which is required by Dutch law to be completely seperate from the Church Consecration Ceremony. We went to the church after the Civil Ceremony, and the church ceremony was followed by another Tea, where we had 3 more glasses of coffee and tea, and a champagne and cake reception, which was followed by dinner. Dinner was equally decent, but unimpressive Dutch cuisine. Following dinner were cups 7-9 of coffee and tea, which fueled our dancing through the night at the reception. Overall, a very fun wedding :)















The church
















Us with the happy couple

Sunday morning we woke up way too early, considering we were partying in the hotel bar until 3 or 4 am, and took the trian to meet Jamie in Amsterdam. Thank goodness that Jamie is a better friend than any of us and remembered our hotel's name and general location so that we could meet up. Jamie wanted our first order of business to be a ride on the roller coaster inexplicably placed in in the middle of the city center plaza.















Jamie enjoying the roller coaster ride.

After the ride, we generally roamed the streets of Amsterdam for several hours, ending up drinking Heineken across from some prostitutes and the Moulin Rouge in the red light district. Amsterdam, outside of the red light district, is a beautiful and old city that I thought was incredibly goregeous.















A canal, but I can't remember which one.















Houses in Amsterdam


There are many more pictures that you can see on Ofoto, which I'll have sent out within a couple of days. I'll leave you with a picture, not of Amsterdam, but of Bo wrestling with a pile of hangars...