Yes, it is indeed true, it is sunny today in Amsterdam! We've been here since Sunday, and forgive us for not posting anything this week - we briefly had Internet at the apartment we're staying at, and then it stopped working, and then we found out it was never supposed to work in the first place. So we've been staying at my friend Kelsey's stepmom's apartment, (yay, it's a normal keyboard here with the y's and z's in the correct places and apostrophes easy to find!) and it has been so luxurious to have our own "home"for a bit. We've definitely been watching a lot of TV in the evenings, since there are a number of English stations, including Comedy Central... and it's rained every other day, but we've still gone out and walked all over the city.
Ali and I did the "Heineken Experience" yesterday - a tour of the former Heineken Brewery - and we all browsed around the Red Light District late afternoon/evening as well. The other day, Sarah and I biked into the city center on a mission... and we made our way there fairly easily, but we probably took nearly twice as long coming back - in the rain, as it was getting dark - since we took a few wrong turns and had to find our way back somehow. This morning, I woke up to sunshine and decided to go on another bike ride (Elle, the owner of the apartment, has a couple folding bikes) into the center. Everything looks so much happier and enticing in the sun! I don't mind the rain that much, but it's not exactly a picnic walking around in the cold with wet socks.
Amsterdam is definitely a biking city - as many of these European cities have been. There is almost always a separate bike lane, and here there are even traffic signals just for the bikes. I'm not sure we've seen an actual parking lot full of cars - the cars just park on the side of the road, but the bikes park all over the place. Oh and I no longer fear cars as we did in Prague, Rothenburg and Berlin - maybe we never explained that, but there were crazy drivers in those cities!! They never stopped for pedestrians - plus the streets were often mismatched together in an odd arrangement. We actually had a car stop for us as we crossed the street today, and that was a definite first.
Well, we are probably off to Belgium next - probably to Bruges, since the hostels in Brussels look ridiculously expensive. These first 2 weeks have flown by for me - and I'm still excited for the rest. The food has been incredible everywhere, although some of our favorite places have been Mexican and Chinese places... :) We did find a delicious Italian restaurant, and went there just before 10:30 p.m. the other night - and didn't realize until we left at 11:15 p.m. (after some incredible pasta) that the place closes at 10:30 p.m.!!! We felt pretty bad, since the guy in there made all of our food all by himself, so we went back again yesterday, during the day, to have some incredible pizza. I've been reading a coupel John Grisham books, both set in Italy, and I'm in the midst of "Eat, Pray, Love," also partially set in Italy, so I'm soooo looking forward to the food there.
Anyway, we're all at an Internet Cafe today, but we're off to do some exploring on our own. Lots of love!
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