Amsterdam

We've survived Amsterdam. Moms, I figured you guy were concerned about our lack of blogging in this sinful city, but the only place with free wi fi in our hostel is the lobby, which is in a different building, so it was more lethargy and our general busyness than anything else.

This is really an amazing city though. It reminds us all of a giant Bardstown Road in Louisville. There are all sorts of little shops, very little chain stores, and all kinds of ethnic restaurants to eat all throughout the city. The canals are beautiful and loaded with little boats. Andrew and I decided that we want to retire and buy a houseboat and keep it on an Amsterdam canal.

We found a few markets the other day, which were neat. Andrew had raw herring for lunch while Ray had a whole chicken...not using any utensils. It was quite a sight.

We were going to go to the Anne Frank house yesterday, but the line was pretty long so we were going to come back, but ended up not going. I'm slightly disappointed about not getting to go, but it's nothing heartbreaking. At this point in the trip we are all pretty laid back and don't have any real plans for the cities other than wandering around and hanging out.

The Red Light district is tamer than one would expect. Our first night we walked right through it and didn't realize it. (In our defense, it was cold and raining!) Yesterday we walked through during the day and it looked no different than the other areas of town. During prime time when we walked through, it was more amusing than anything else. All the girls are in windows that have red lights. It kind of reminded me of a zoo...just walking through and seeing all the animals. It was really interesting (and slightly uncomfortable) when we would witness a "transaction" where the guy walks in and the girl shuts her curtains. There are prostitutes of all sorts...some of them looked really young and some of them looked really old.

Amsterdam has actually been one of the cities that I've felt the safest in. There are cops everywhere in the red light district and around the major coffee shops. It was interesting to watch people rolling and smoking their joints while the cops were just riding by on their horses. There seem to be fewer homeless people on the streets than the other bigger cities that we've been to. It's just a really clean and neat city.

We're hopping on a train to Brussels here in a bit. We will definitely keep the blogging up this next week. We'll be home in a few days...that's crazy to believe.