Later

I am posting both of these entries at the same time, even though there was an entire day to separate them. We were out with Sarah & Blair all night. After two nights without much sleep, I was able to stay up until around 9pm out here! It is 6 in the morning right now, and I feel fantastic. :D

So...what did we do yesterday? Well, I didn't really feel like visiting any of the attractions I am interested in seeing. We have a few more friends arriving today, and I'm not sure who wants to do what. We spent the entire day wandering around, stopping in various coffeeshops. We went to look at the ladies in windows in the Red Light District, but I was afraid to make eye contact with any of them. It was crazy, though.

The coffeeshop we visit most often is The Greenhouse Effect. Their menu is great - it lists each strand, how it will make you feel, and a strength rating. We want to take our friends to a different coffeshop. I can't remember the name or even where the hell it is, but they had a very spacious area in the back where smokers can hang out. A lot of these places are extremely small, so it's nice to find a more comfortable one.

Sarah & Blair are staying in some little apartment that I would never be able to find on my own. We grabbed some pizza for lunch and headed back there to eat it. I did not realize until it was heated up that I ordered a tunafish pizza. It had tunafish (obviously!), tomatoes, onions and, I believe, capers(?) on it. It smelled kind of gross, but I took a few bites during our long walk, and it was surprisingly pretty good. Strange, but the ingredients went well together & made it tasty. The staircase at Sarah & Blair's place was very steep, and I had my hands full. I dropped the rest of my slice on the floor. Nick had ordered two slices of some canadian bacon pizza, and he let me have one of them. Now THAT pizza was good. mmm nom. Thanks Nick!

We went wandering again, but I was freezing. We came back to our hotel so I could get a warmer jacket, as well as my hat, scarf and gloves. Ahh, that was much better. :D

Oh yeah, they have these urinals in the middle of town. Someone asked me if they were urinals, and I giggled and agreed that they looked kinda like urinals. Later on, we actually got to see some people using them. I wanted to take a picture, but even I have limits. I did take a picture of the urinals when they were not in use, and it should be fairly easy to use your imagination for the rest.

After wandering around all day, we decided to stop at a bar. There was this one place, The Bulldog, that caught our eye. They said we could smoke in there, as long as we weren't smoking cigarettes. We were sitting awkwardly separated in this narrow hallway, but this awesome table by the window came open & we spent a while sitting there.

We ate dinner at the Royal Krosmopolsky, which is the hotel where Sarah & Blair stayed on their honeymoon. I had this penne pasta with asparagus, mushrooms, and tomatoes. It had some kind of bleu cheese cream sauce that was amazing, and I can still remember the taste of it this morning.

It was a great first day in Amsterdam. I am totally refreshed today and excited to find out what we wind up doing. Our friend Karen is flying in from New Hampshire. Our other friend, Wendy, is coming in from Canada. My cousin Katie is coming from Switzerland!! I really need to get on the internet to find out if anybody tried to contact me. I can send/receive texts, but it would be way too expensive to use my phone out here.

I really want to get a tattoo out here. I found a tattoo artist that I love, and I need to set up an appointment!!