Our introduction to Amsterdam

The flight to Amsterdam was only 2.5 hours. We landed around 10:00 PM, which was still light enough to see from the air that the entire country seems to sit on the surface of the water, allowing the tides to enter deep into the city and return to the sea at will. We found our own entry an easy one as well, due to Deirdre's confident route finding on the public transit system. We arrived at the door of our AirBnB, lugging our packs, and feeling ready to grab a quick bite and sack out. Ten minutes later, we had finally figured out how to unlock the door and, in the process, had fully announced ourselves to the surrounding neighborhood as loud Americans of low IQ.

We spent another ten minutes figuring out the lights and the sleeping arrangements and depositing our stuff and then struck out in hopes, albeit dim, of finding food. To our surprise there was - wouldn't you know it - a pizza / Surinamese place still open around the corner. We happily ordered, only to find they couldn't process our card; something to do with a hoked up credit system in the Netherlands that can't handle anything foreign. The proprietor knew where we could find an ATM, but his description of the route in broken English was no better than the gyrations of a honey bee to us, so he offered to have his employee, who was probably his nephew as well, transport one of our party on the back of his mo-ped. I mounted up behind Akmed and off we went, bottoming out the suspension on every bump. He was an expert pilot and we were there in 5 minutes, back in 15 and eating our pizza's back home again by midnight. We all thought the whole episode was hilarious and a sure sign of more adventures to come. We hit the hay around 1:00 AM, and I don't remember the rest.