Netherlands

you could do it here. But I'll get to that. Anyways..

We awake to cold, wind and rain- typical Dutch weather from what we hear. We take a train into the city center, and decide to walk around for a while anyway. Everyone who isn't Dutch seems to be an American tourist- I don't know why. We walk around a while since the rain lets up, and end up going through the Red Light District in the daytime- very..interesting? We work our way out and into a small concentration of streets, reeking of marijuana. All of the cafes that offer marijuana are called "Koffeehaus"es. It's so strange, mixing such a beautiful city with so much vice. An interesting mix, refreshingly honest. We head into a place called The Paradise something-or-other and go for it. The weather continues to suck, so we head back to Abcoude shortly after.

The next day, we decide to do some actual touring, so we take a boat tour through the canals. Something we soon realize about mainland Europe- now we are foreigners, and people will try to rip you off. Ugh. Mostly by not giving the right change, but we got smart on that after the first time. The tour was in 4 different languages consecutively, which made for a very noisy trip, and they actually overpacked the boat- some people who got on late didn't have seats (another example of ripping off tourists.) Still, it was a really cool way to see the nice parts of Amsterdam, and we got to see the Anne Frank house. Afterwards we went into a coffeeshop and got a milkshake, which we hear is legendary, and it was. Some women, who look like they could be our mothers, go into the smoking room below us, and we watch them talking, laughing, sharing a joint. That was different. We still have a few hours before we want to head to the RDL, so we catch a movie at one of these Pathe movie theaters. This place looks like a club- there is even a bar in the lounge waiting area. We see tropic thunder, and I keep catching myself trying to read the subtitles instead of listening to the English. Afterwards we go to see the Red Light District in all its glory- it was nuts. Yes, there were some seedy Dutch guys walking around looking for business, but it was also fun to see middle-aged tourists walking around just to get a kick out of it. Many of the girls looked like they were my age, which was pretty depressing. Guys on the side of the street kept trying to make eye contact, or call us over- technically hard drugs aren't legal in Amsterdam, but they flow pretty freely anyway. Guys casually walk by us offering cocaine. It's just a totally different world. We head out of the area to a really cool little bar called the Green Light District that has hookah and cheap drinks. It's not a coffeeshop, but people are smoking it anyway- you can legally smoke pot anywhere in Amsterdam, and the people clearly make sure they cover all bases. We head back, planning out our last day in Amsterdam.

It's October 2nd, and we are scheduled to leave on a night train to Munich, quite out of our way, to catch the last couple days of Oktoberfest. We go back into the city one last time to pick up some souvenirs and a couple more books at the American book center. To avoid buying bongs or wooden clogs, which is the major base of souvenir sales, apparently, we get some sew-on patches and head to the bookstore. It's in a nice area of town- we pick up a Europe Travel book to save some money (we've been buying books city-by-city) and the next two installments of Meg, a suspense-thriller that I got Ruaridh hooked on (hooray!)

The night train to Munich, well... we won't be taking night trains again, most likely. The train is about an hour late, which is no big deal, but we get on and see exactly what we paid $450 for- three bunked matts against each wall, with enough standing room for me and Ruaridh, and just enough room to slide in your bunk and sleep. We are shortly joined by a couple from Brazil, and they are incredibly nice. A short, fat woman with short grey hair walks past us, and shouts something in German, motioning us back into the cramped space. She then says in english "stay in until I come check tickets" so we hang around for a bit, talking, trying to shove our bags somewhere. She comes back, and when we ask her if the train is stopping anywhere she ignores us and walks by. She graces us later when she walks into the dining cabin, making a scene about how we were sharing a bottle of wine the Brazilians brought, and made us leave (even though the other woman said it was OK.) We give up and try to sleep, but I end up staying awake all night, because we stopped abut every 20 minutes to load and unload passengers. At about 3 or 4 in the morning another person came in our cabin, and another around 6. We were walking dead on our feet when we got to the train station. Ok, lesson learned- no-more-night-trains. And, time to invest in a Railpass soon.

After more mindless traveling and trains and getting lost trying to find the house, we arrive, a little soaked and tired, at Cor's house, one of the last places we can take advantage of Ruaridh's dad's connections. His daughter, Anna, opens the door for us. She towers over us, and soon we realize that the rest of the family will follow suit. They are all incredibly sweet, and we have a fun time trying to understand each other. In this little town outside Amsterdam, called Abcoude, everyone and their mother is on a bike. There aren't parking lots really, it's all bike lots. Although this town is adorable, with all of the little dutch houses and canals, I'm pretty comatose the first day. Tomorrow we will head into Amsterdam and see what all the fuss is about.