Amsterdam-Part 1

Amsterdam has been great so far! I arrived around 6pm local time the day after leaving MD so I had somehow managed to lose almost an entire day in travel.  Since I had carry-on luggage only, I walked straight to the arrival hall and was greeted by two friendly faces from my Asia travels, Jo and Peter! I had been warned about the cold and while it is a bit chilly, it’s not as bad as I had anticipated.  I think it’s made worse because you are walking/biking outside all day in it instead of getting into a nice heated car to get around town as you would at home.

I’ve only been here 2 nights, but it’s been a blast with so many friends already! The first night, I had dinner with Peter, Viktor, Andras, and Dani (Hungarian friends of Peter who I had met in Asia as well) and my Steven!! It was a bit surreal to be eating in a Turkish restaurant in Amsterdam with Hungarians and 1 Dutchman whom I had all met in Asia.  I love globalization! : )

I’m staying with my friends Jo and Steve who are Dutch but I met in Laos.  My first day was spent touring around AMS with Steven.  He was a trooper and braved the city by foot with me when our attempt at scoring me a bike for the week didn’t pan out because the Greek bike-dealer we visited informed us he’d be heading to Greece for 3 weeks.  Turns out Peter used to live on the same street as Jo and Steven and knew all the same shops, places, etc. Small world!  So, when the bike deal stuck short, Steven and I decided to walk the city running his errands and checking out the sites along the way.  It was fun for him to be a tourist in his own city : ) We even stopped at the Anne Frank House to see where she hid and wrote her diary during the war.  It was a fascinating experience. 

The 3 Musketeers of Laos reunite in AMS!

I had been to Amsterdam about 12 years ago and had only a few vague memories of it.  This was before the currency converted to the Euro and the dollar stretched a bit further.  This was also when I used cash instead of debit/credit cards so I did not remember that I can't seem to use my cards here : (  Of course I did remember the kindness and great English of the Dutch, but my main memory was of the STEEP stairs here--Nothing has changed! I’ve almost killed myself a bunch of times on the boys house stairs : ) Their house is really nice and right downtown.  All of their roommates are nice and have made me feel very welcome.  We’ve had dinner together each night and watched local Dutch shows like Scrubs and Modern Family together.  They’re also working on getting me addicted to their local soap opera they watch : ) And so far new things I've learned are: pizza is pretty good here, ice cream is fabulous, and eating chocolate-sprinkle sandwiches for breakfast is normal.  I’ll write more when I’m not busy having fun!