Amsterdam!!

The first part of our trip was Amsterdam, and I fell in love with it.


Everything was so beautiful, the canals, the buildings, the bicycles. I loved it all.


The first night was just Erik, his brother Randy, and me. We walked around the city at night and saw the, uh, red light district...wasn't expecting it to be so...so... red light-ish?! Interesting to see. We then found a great wine bar to save us from the cold.


We tried some great wines and Erik made friends with the owner. Although, It took me a while to get used to the fact that people smoke cigarettes everywhere... all the time! So you go into a nice wine bar and there are people all around you smoking cigarettes, and eating. All of my clothes are going through must needed cleaning now from the smokey smell. The next day 5 of our friends from San Francisco, Maine, Ct and Turkey all arrived... It was sooo much fun. We mostly walked around and took everything in. We walked to the floating flower market...



We all got ready one morning to go to the Heineken Brewery for a tour, and when we got there, it was closed for renovations!! ah well....we saw the building!


One of the highlights was a canal tour. We brought our own wine and cheese and had a great tour of the city from the water. It was so interesting to see everything we had walked past from a different angle.

I split up from the group at one point while they did.. um...something else... and went shopping! I found this ring that reminds me of a sea anemone. Not too practical, but very cute.


I didn't do as much site-seeing tourist stuff as I would have liked (though some of us went to the Torture Museum...culture!), so I will just have to come back!
We celebrated Erik's birthday on Sunday the 18th. He and I woke up before everyone, so decided to go for a walk and see if we could find Sinterklaas. Despite the cold and our freezing noses, we found him!!! He arrived on a big boat surrounded by his mischievous elves who have black faces, tights, and funny costumes. it was HILARIOUS. All these little children shouting for Sinterklaas and singing little songs in Dutch. Erik and I couldn't get over our luck at stumbling upon this scene.

After that, we walked back to the apartment we were all staying in, and there was a parade, running right past our windows! It was sinterklaas again, and we had the best view.

I had SUCH a great time there. A wonderful city, and a great group of people. It was perfect. But not over for Erik and me yet... we were then on to London....