So I’m sitting, or more accurately, laying in my bed, on the train to Prague, and I still can’t believe I’m in Europe! It’s been a whirlwind of two days! Yesterday was a blur, with getting in, finding Katie, and then essentially sleep walking around Amsterdam. But hey, we do things right, and you can’t waste a day in Amsterdam! So instead, we ate a cheese and ham croissant, sucked it up, and toured the city. Before we could tour the city, we had to drop off our luggage, a more nightmare-ish adventure than you might imagine, when the machines don’t take cash nor any kind of credit card we own (the Visa/Mastercard wasn’t working at any station as a sign informed us). They only took Maestro cards, which we did not have. We were at a loss of what to do, when a kind lady asked if she could help us. After explaining our plight, I’m not sure if we just looked that sad and lost, or if she was that nice, but she said “follow me”. She ended up using her card and then we paid her back with cash– what a lifesaver! We walked to the Bloemenmarkt where they sell “grow your own weed” kits and other plants too (obviously not as notable as the cannabis ones though). Then, because it was actually kind of cold, we decided to go on a canal boat tour, which essentially turned out to be a very expensive NAP. The warmth of the boat (which was indoors) combined with the wait of the recording to get to the English portion of the program (they were talking in four different languages!) were the perfect setting to put us both to sleep. But we were awake long enough to hear that at least one car per week drives into the Amsterdam canals – oops! After our impromptu nap, we finally decided to listen to our bodies and head back to my aunt’s place to sleep. We met up with my aunt and had a lovely homemade dinner and then promptly fell asleep at 8:30 PM. I slept for 12 hours and woke up at 8:30 AM to get ready for day two. We ate breakfast and left to go back into the city. We saw Anne Frank’s house and then ate our picnic lunch next to a canal – which would have been quite quaint had it not smelled like pee. Apparently the people who pick up the trash in Amsterdam are on strike and have been for a week, so there is trash lying all over the city. It’s quite a shame that such a pretty city is so dirty. Don’t worry though, I didn’t let Katie get the wrong idea – I didn’t want to sully her opinion of my home country! After lunch, we saw the Rijkmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum and then had just enough time to eat some pannekoeken (so yummy!) and then catch our train to Prague! We get into Prague at 9:30 AM tomorrow morning, and plan to hit the ground running! This should be interesting as we shall see how much sleep I get tonight. Funny story, beds on trains are quite short.



I am going to find out how to put up pictures here, but seeing as I am having problems finding the time/internet to post, I am just going to post this now. Check out facebook for the pictures!Well, as they say in Amsterdam, Doei!