Amsterdam

It took us five hours to travel from Brugge, Belgium to Amsterdam, Netherlands. We oftentimes do not really know where we are going and ask people a lot. IT's not so hard when it's in French becase Erica can read it sometiems but the Dutch is really hard. All the words are like , well for example our hostel is on Vossiusstraat and another street is Nieuwendijk so it's just hard to read it or understand. Anyway the train ride was interesting, I think that both the Belgian and Holland countryside are not paticularily glorious looking...there are fields like KS but it's much more lush and green and more trees. There are cows. And the windmills are not like the ones in the books they look like KS wind turbines (Garret!) so yeah. Anyway when we got off the train we wanted to walk to our hostel which took 30 or 45 min and that was kind of a bad idea becasue the packs are pretty heavy but we saw a lot of things. We were just pretty blown away and were looking everywhere. There are SO MANY PEOPLE everywhere and we prob each had about10 near death experiences being run over by a bike or car or even a vespa. There are so many people riding bikes, both here and in Brugge, but here there are bike lanes and they are red and people will ring their little bell at you if you're in the way but you still might get hit. Yesterrday we rented our own bikes to blend in and get around faster but they basically scream tourist so the blending in part wasn't successful. Our hostel is crazy, there is a bar downstairs and it smells like pot. We sleep in a 14 person dorm there are people from all over the world here but mostly England. Most of them travel alone. LAst night and the night before we played games and hung out with an Irish guy (Aidan) a British guy (Ben) and a French/Spanish guy (Adrien). They were fun to hang around and it was embarrassing how knowledgable theywere of our politics and we don't know anything about theirs. They were cool and very smart. We spend out days meandering the canals, literally getting lost in the city, and seeing a few landmarks. We went to the Van Gogh museum yesterday, I think it was good but honestly we were both sad that Starry Night wasn't there! Oh well. I loved Anne Frank Huis (that's the Dutch) it was very moving and powerful and I coudn't belive I actualyl got to see the real secret annex. Oh we also went to the red light district twice, don't worry parentals it was in broad daylight. There really are hookers standing in all the windows and holy shit they are ugly and gross. Some are ok looking but a lot arefat and just yucky. And I only got yelled at once for taking a picture but see I am practicing my "hip shots"and got a few good ones (one of a really nasty one) and 2 videos too. I told Matt that if I were God and I choseto strike a place down it would be the red light district. Just pot shops and porno shops and hookers everywhere and there are people of all ages there like even really old men! it's weird. It is fairly expensive to do anything, so the last three meals we have gone to supermarkets (hard as hell to find) and gotten a few odds and ends to eat. We just get bread and cheese and a baguette and make do. We sent postcards to some of you and picked up a few presents too...We've met lots of interesting people but it's true that nobody thinks highly of Americans which I find annoying since they wear Nike nad Levi's and Justing Timberlake and American bands are played EVERYWHERE even rap like Nelly!and American brands. Tonight we are going to bed early b/c we have to get up at 6AM (or 11 PM your time) to catch a tram and then a train and then a plane to Milano where we will re-meet Nee NEe and Pops. Oh and if you guys don't get cards from us from Amsterdam it's becasue we were about 80% sure we were sticking the postcards in mailboxes. They are weird looking and I'm just not even sure that's what it was, so yeah. BEST THING ABOUT AMSTERDAM: The Anne Frank Huis, the crazy hookers and people here you'd never meet anywhere else WORST THING ABOUT AMSTERDAM: too many really unfriendly people, the crappy weather (we haven't had one sunny day yet!) I think we are both ready for the beach :)