Overview of our arrival in Amsterdam.

Hello everyone,

So I am currently writing this in an attic room of an apartment complex; each tenant gets an attic room for storage, and our first host has turned his into a make-shift bedroom for travelers.  It contains two blow-up mattresses, a fan, and a mini-heater.  The local time is 3:56 am and it is August 8^th. There is no wifi up here, so I will have to load this later.  So far this trip has been quite an adventure!  When we arrived here the local time was 1 pm August 6th, and we were to arrive at Dennis’ place around 9pm, since he didn’t get off work until late.   When we arrived at the airport, we went through customs, which I have been nervous about for some reason, but it was seriously just a line where a guy stamps your passport and sends you on your merry way, haha.  We purchased a ticket to central station and got on the train.  Our flight was overnight; I managed to sleep quite a bit, but Matthew didn’t sleep at all, so he was quite out of it.  I suppose I was running off a lot of adrenaline.  The train ride to central station was about 10 minutes, and then you walk out into the main square of Amsterdam.  The roads here are all hand-paved flat square stones aligned in interesting patterns.  The large buildings are decadent and exquisite in detail, with big golden and copper statues and clocks and trim.  In any direction you go, you end up going down a road that has buildings so close that it looks like they are smooshing each other, all are about 4 stories high.  At street level, everything is a shop, or a restaurant, or a smoke/coffee shop; the rest are dwellings/apartments of the locals.  Every street is crowded with people.  There is a bike lane on every street, and you end up stopping longer for bicycle traffic than you ever do for cars… everyone here is on a bicycle.  They will bike in anything!  I have seen girls riding down the road in heels and a dress with a smoke in their hand. 

Anyway, now that I have set the scene, I shall tell my first couple of experiences here in Europe. When we first arrived, I felt a bit panicked and nervous, which seems to be my default emotion anymore in life, whether I’m at home or travelling. We decided to wonder around for a bit, until we found a cheap Italian restaurant near a canal to have our lunch.  After we eat pizza, we decided to begin navigating to our first place.  Even in Omaha, I use GPS to find anything, but I’m no longer blessed with this luxury; our phones have been shut off and we are left with only an address and a few basic guidelines on how to get to this apartment… this proves to be quite a challenge.  To make long story short, it took us four hours to find the place: anything from exchanging money to get on a bus, to deciding to not take a bus, to finding the park that we were told was close to the apartment, to taking a picture of a map near the park, to following the map into another maze of streets which all look the same. Finally, we found our street: Van der Hoopstraat.  I never want to navigate a new city with my big heavy backpack strapped to my back again. However,  I suspect it will be something that becomes a trend.  Anyway, we sat down, had some wine at a local bar, and waited for an hour until 9pm arrived.

The people here are super nice. Even more, we have yet to encounter anyone who doesn’t speak English fluently.  However, all of the signage and maps and menus are in Dutch.  The local cuisine includes a lot of fried food, but we have found a local mart to purchase salads and granola bars and such.  So far we have spent the first two days getting lost in the city and enjoying people-watching.  The boys seem to have more style than the girls, and there is no standard look for boys or girls.. no one stands out at all.  AT ALL!  To someone in Omaha, they would guess all the guys were gay.  And everyone looks like they deserve a page in a fashion magazine, even the ones who aren’t trying, they have some sort of interesting feature, whether it’s a haircut, tattoos, their unique bicycle, etc.  I am obsessed.  The weather has been mild; the first day was sunny and 70s and yesterday was rainy and melancholy and chilly.  Surprisingly, it was wonderful to stand near the wide canals and look up at the decadent buildings poking into the gloomy grey sky. 

Well, I am babbling, I will talk later about feelings and new insights, but I just wanted to make sure I posted something to let all you guys know I am okay.  I cannot sleep as we have not adjusted to the local time zone, and the words just seemed to flow like water from my fingertips.  We still have 140 days… this is going to be one HELL of a ride.

PS:  I love and miss you all.  Facebook seems to be the easiest way to get ahold of me, so please use that.  Besides being stressed about anything and everything (per usual), I am doing well. MUAH XOXOXOXOX.