July 15th, Amsterdam

EVERYONE should go to Amsterdam! This is what I have been told many a time. So here was my opportunity to finally visit this much talked about city as it is only a 2 and a half hour drive from Geilenkirchen, where Puppy lives.

We had to be up and out the door by 10am in order to make the 1:15pm free guided walking tour. Now you might think that getting 5 girls ready and out the door by a specific time was an impossible task, but there we were, heading down the road. Hurray for excellent travel companions! For lunch, we stopped at a Big P (if you see a sign on the highway with a capital P, that means "park" which in turn means food and gas and bathrooms, I am frequently on the hunt for a Big P) and I got a lemon Fanta and a curry chicken wrap and paprika flavored potato chips and it was very good, not at all what one might expect from a gas station. It was an overcast, windy day and when we finally arrived I was glad that I had worn long pants.

*SuperNova Travel Tip: Research the weather where you are going. Many people end up packing and dragging around stuff they will never use/wear because of the infamous phrase that plagues us all, "just in case." Now, I always wear long pants on the airplane no matter where my destination is because in an attempt to keep people in their seats and unable to move the average temperature on the plane is kept at a brisk 40 below zero using arctic breezes flowing by your feet. (If you generally run hot and think the plane temperature is a little warm, then you are probably the guy who always sits next to me and opens his overhead air vent to full blast and I'd just like to say that I loathe you.) However, there is no need to pack 2 of every kind of outfit because "you never know." No, you generally do know and in the off chance the weather is unseasonably warm or cold, remember, you can always pick something up there (see: SuperNova Travel Tip: It's a first world country).

When we arrived at the parking area in Amsterdam (you park in a huge parking garage just out of town and then take the train in so you don't have to drive through the craziness of the city), we rushed to the station to catch the train to go into downtown to catch our tour. We got on the correct train and while we were trying to figure out which stop to get off at a very helpful Dutch woman who overheard us informed us that the train was actually under construction and wouldn't take us where we needed to go, so we would need to get off and take my traveling nemesis, the bus.

When we finally arrived downtown we had long missed the walking tour. So Puppy, who'd taken the tour before, did her best to recreate it while we dodged bicycles. I have heard a lot about Amsterdam but I had heard nothing about how the Dutch are constantly trying to kill you. The Netherlands is exceptionally bike-friendly, so there are millions of them going in all directions AND there are cars AND there are buses AND there are silent trains NONE of which slow down for any reason whatsoever, in fact I suspect that they speed up when they see you. Perhaps you are thinking that if I just stayed out of the street then I wouldn't have this problem, but we had to jump out of the path of a car while walking through what I thought was a city square. I was actually almost hit by a train! There was no horn or bell, in fact, I think the driver was disappointed that I noticed it coming.

We looked in a few shops, dodged vehicles, stopped for ice coffee, and then went on a boat tour of the canals which had an automated woman's voice who would explain sights as we floated along in Spanish, French, and English which would have been very interesting if I didn't develop narcalepsy and fall immediately asleep (see: Jet Lag). After the boat tour, we had dinner at Shuripuni, a spiffy Indonesian restaurant in the Bloemen Markt and then Nancy D, Pat-Pat, E and I had coffee at a coffee shop. After that we were really ready for dessert and stopped into a cute restaurant on the river where E ordered creme brule and french fries. By the time we made it back to the car it was after midnight, so we didn't make it back home till about 3am. We all slept really well that night though!