Europe Trip 2023 (United Kingdom & the Netherlands)

For the first time in four years, I traveled abroad. It was my third trip to Europe and my destinations were London, UK, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was my second time in London and first time in Amsterdam. Joining me on this excursion was my younger brother Justin, who was making his Europe & YouTube debut.

The two of us visited from December 15-22, 2023, and we did A TON of walking and sightseeing. Some notable places that we went to were the Tower of London, the Van Gogh Museum and The Anne Frank House.

Additionally, we ventured outside of London and Amsterdam and visited nearby cities. We went to the cathedral city of St. Albans in the UK, and we also went to Haarlem in the Netherlands. Both cities were about a 20-minute train ride.

It was an awesome trip and I naturally had to bring my camera equipment along to document it. I hope you enjoy!

After Effects title sequence template credit: @FreeAfterEffectTemps (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne6DPyxuqLE)
After Effects slideshow template credit: Videezy.com
Title graphic, JFK Airport & St. Pancras sound source: https://www.avnishparker.com/logo-intro-music

Websites for music: https://incompetech.com/ & https://www.bensound.com/free-music-for-videos

Tunes list:

Tune 1 (1:00-1:11) & (11:35-11:39)- “Flow [Sting]/Royalty Free” (https://www.avnishparker.com/logo-intro-music)

Tune 2 (1:55-2:27)- “Limit 70″ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Tune 3 (2:40-5:34)- “Bicycle” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Tune 4 (5:55-6:44)- “Angevin B” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Tune 5 (6:56-8:19)- “Paperback” by Diffie Bosman
Royalty Free Music: https://www.bensound.com/free-music-for-videos
License code: DK6FKRREW3JYS0LC

Tune 6 (8:52-10:18)- “Hip Jazz” by Benjamin Tissot
Royalty Free Music: https://www.bensound.com/free-music-for-videos
License code: W6RDUU86S9UR6GIT

Tune 7 (12:12-12:28)- “Son of a Rocket” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Tune 8 (14:49-15:26)- “Downtown” by Benjamin Tissot
Royalty Free Music: https://www.bensound.com/free-music-for-videos
License code: KPL8UPARRYG7DOI6

Tune 9 (15:58-16:34)- “Mister Exposition” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Tune 10 (17:55-18:26)- “Spring Thaw” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Tune 11 (19:21-19:48)- “Perspectives” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Tune 12 (22:40-END)- “Inner Light” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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It’s been a while since I’ve used this Thing Okay so we are at JFK airport right now I am here with my brother Justin this is his debut his YouTube debut on my channel and the two of us are going to go on a weekl long international trip around Europe we are going to be going

To London England which will be a first for him this is his first time going to Europe This Will my second time going to London and then afterward we’re going to be going to Amsterdam the Netherlands so that’ll be a first for both of us I’ve never been to the Netherlands and yeah

It’s going to be a lot of fun Justin you got any thoughts what up YouTube I am Ryan’s biggest fan I love all of his videos this is a big honor and a big privilege make sure you all like comment and subscribe you’re heard him Here All right we are officially in London we just took the train in to the city dropped off our big luggage bags at our hotel and now it’s time for the spontaneous part of this trip uh just looking for activities to do right now we’re going to go into the city we’re

Going to walk about 2 miles go towards the British Parliament in Big Ben and yeah uh should be a lot of fun big spontaneous guys big SP Aneous Justin got his first espresso in London I don’t drink coffee it’s not an espresso what’s is not an espresso it’s a hot chocolate drink IAD just’s first just’s first hot chocolate in Europe it’s very good very good Yep this is a stroll down memory lane for

Me walking by the London ey and the British Parliament obviously I’ve been here before like I mentioned in 2019 with Teresa and this time Big Ben doesn’t have scaffolding around her so I can see her in all her Glory all right so Justin and I tried to The Churchill War Museum but um it was a little expensive so we’re going to go to the British Gallery which is free the British museum very nice this place is massive ultimately Justin and I were only here for about 20 minutes or so we

Were both very tired and hungry from all the walking we had done up to that point in the day and we just needed to unwind it was similar to how I felt when I visited the Lou Museum in Paris in 2019 I was just so physically exhausted and

Thirsty from all the activities that Teresa and I had done prior and I struggled to find the motivation to walk through the exhibits at the Lou and appreciate them and that was the case here for Justin and I so we grabbed lunch and then went back to our hotel to

Check into our room and while we were on our way there this festive bicycle group passed by us blasting Casey in the sunshine bands on their boom box all right we are at the Tower of London and yeah looking forward to this I didn’t do this last time I was in the

UK so it I definitely wanted to do it this time and I’m excited All All right we just finished the Tower of London and now we are walking across Tower Bridge Back at Buckingham Palace I can never remember what the name of this statue is in the middle grass looks nice La looks fresh and Cut currently looking at this map of the Green Park some fascinating facts Justin and I continued to stroll around this park and then went to hide park across the street where we treated ourselves to some ice cream and got some Christmas gifts as well and that pretty

Much wrapped up day two of our trip and for our final Day in the UK we decided to venture a bit outside of London all right so this is day three our final full Day in the UK and we’re doing something a little different we decided

To venture outside of London and just go to a different town and today we are walking around St albin’s it’s a nice Old Town don’t really know much about it I actually don’t really know anything about it just we’re looking up different things to do places to see outside of London and this

Was one place that I saw I came across so yeah we’re just walking around the area it’s a nice little uh looking town Brit Stand Merry Christmas from St Al UK happy Holidays All right so we finished St Albin now we’re heading back to London currently on the train junior Here is still fighting the UR to fall asleep and yeah um we’re going to go back we’re going to try and check out Westminster ABY and I think that might

Be the last major activity we’ll do here in the UK back at Westminster ABY there she is outside Westminster ABY just currently strolling around London at night it’s not even really night it’s 4:15 in the afternoon the sun sets pretty early here during the winter you can see Big B lit up All right so Justin and I are at St panr International station here in London we’re getting ready to go to Amsterdam he’s currently uh getting himself a snack I’m just waiting for him outside here and yeah our train leaves in about an hour we got to get through um

Security so yeah um hopefully it’s a smooth ride we’re on the train got about a 4our ride to Amsterdam all right we finally have made it to Amsterdam I’m currently in our hotel room Justin’s doing some stretching over there but uh yeah we’re just uh letting our phones charge for a little bit because we’re very low on battery the roads were kind of confusing to navigate around and my phone was

Having a hard time picking up the navigation but we made it and uh we’re excited we have a much nicer hotel room here than we did in London London’s hotel for us was like a like a closet but uh we have more space around here I’d actually just uh briefly show

You so yeah that’s our room and yeah we’re going to venture out in a few minutes and explore the city all right welcome to Amsterdam it is raining pretty hard right now but hopefully not much harder here we can go oh look at this just walking around the

City I think our first stop on this trip is going to be the red light district looking around Dam Square a little bit thing is massive I’m really liking it here Justin and I are just walking around the city we just got done with dinner and yeah it’s rainy night it’s

Damp it’s cold but but it’s uh it’s really Cool All right day two here in Amsterdam our first full day and uh we’re currently waiting to get on the train and we’re going to go to the van go mum and it is a very very breezy day today the mang go Museum actually exceeded my expectations I’m not the

Biggest Museum fan to begin with but the museum was just the right size for me to soak up what it had I also find paintings to be more fascinating than artifacts because to me it displays more creativity I was limited though with what I was able to capture inside the

Museum so I just took a few pictures around some of the exhibitions and these were some that really stood out to me all right so we finished the van go Museum and we finished eating lunch and now we’re on our way to a little Christmas Market right behind the mang

Go Museum looks pretty nice where pack this little market had a lot of stuff to offer and I was determined to find the right Christmas present for Teresa here I ended up purchasing a nice pair of earrings for her we continued to walk around the city for a few more hours and

Then later on that night we went to the place that I was looking forward to visiting the most on this trip all right we are inside the anrank museum and we’re going to be doing a virtual well not a virtual we’re going to be doing a little um tour of the

Secret Annex that she hid in from 1942 to 1944 there’s also a program beforehand which we’ll be seeing so should be good unfortunately I’m not going to be able to take any pictures or videos during this so just giving this introduction now before we start so I was actually

Able to take some pictures of items and photos that the museum had on display in the room where we watched the program these included a timeline of events that took place during the years of an Frank’s life a bottle of oecta which was the company that her father Otto ran in

The building during that time period there was also a picture of The Swinging bookcase that concealed the door to the annex itself Justin and I also saw it in person when we toured the annex later on and there were a bunch of rare and eerie looking pictures that were taken during

The years of the second world war all right we just got done with B Frank and now yeah this looks good we’re going to grab some dinner it’s very late weather stinks and yeah okay it is day three here in Amsterdam this is our last day

In Amsterdam and our final full day of this trip and we’re going to be taking a train right now well we are taking a train to the city of Harlem or arlem I’m not exactly sure how you pronounce it but basically it’s the sameon pronunciation as the city of New York

And we’re just going to go there for a bit and see what’s there so this is Harlem this is really nice really cool a lot calmer here than in Amsterdam all right we’re at the Taylor’s Museum and uh we’re going to try and check it out the Taylor’s museum is

Actually the oldest Museum in all the Netherlands dating back to the 1770s it has a bunch of different exhibits ranging from natural history to science to Art it was really impressive and these were some of the things that stood out to me we got some sunlight we’re just walking along the

Canals here in Harlem it’s beautiful it’s absolutely beautiful and peaceful we have done so much walking this trip it’s insane we probably walked about I’d say maybe 20 something miles maybe 23 24 miles I got that currently exploring growth markets and the wind is is Blistering dude sounds like mozar This place is amazing it’s huge and apparently um that big organ that you saw with all those pipes moart apparently played on that thing when he was only 10 years old back at the end of the 18th century I believe it was like 1782 something like that so

Yeah pretty cool stuff back in Amsterdam and we’re just going to go to our hotel relax for a little bit probably get a head start on packing and then we’ll get dinner later on and that’ll probably be it our flight leaves tomorrow morning at 11:30 so we’re going to have to get up

Pretty Early all right we’re at chapal airport right now um we just made it through security and um customs and yeah now we are just relaxing just had some breakfast and we’re ready to get going back home to the United States in New York we do have an hour and 45-minute layover in

Boston um so hopefully everything just go smoothly well we did end up missing that connecting flight from Boston to New York but it wasn’t a big deal because Justin and I got booked on a later flight we made it back home safely and yeah that was our trip to London and

Amsterdam it was an amazing experience I truly didn’t take it for granted I’ll always cherish it and I’m grateful that Justin came along thank you so very much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed it and take care and see you next Time