I AMsterdam

We decided that since we enjoyed our tour so much in Edinburgh we decided we would take another one here in Amsterdam. We met in the lobby of our hostel and then we took the tram to Dam square. Of course, it rained this morning (on and off) in which I used my umbrella and Kelley braved the weather, taking refuge under my umbrella during the stops. Unfortunately, our tour guide wasn't as awesome as last one but we still had fun on the tour. We ventured into the Red Light District which was surprisingly dead. Apparently, the government is in the process of closing down several of the "windows" and "coffee" shops in an attempt to clean up the city. While there weren't many girls in the windows, we did see one man enter the window as we passed by. Shady and awkward. We then wandered through the town some more seeing the narrowest house. We walked past the "coffee" shop where Matt Damon filmed a scene in Ocean's 12. We also went by the Anne Frank House and Museum. After the tour, we went with the group to eat at a Dutch restaurant. Kelley tried one of the specials (fried meat gravy type things) which was interesting, and I went with something I thought would be safe, cheese fingers, which basically tasted like fried cheeze whiz. Two of the girls from the group joined us after lunch, one from Germany the other from Ohio. We wandered the city for a short bit making our way to the Van Gogh Museum but only making it there a little bit before 5 and it closed at 6 and we didn't feel like spending 12 euros for only an hour so we bid the girls adieu and Kelley and I hung out in the park by it for a bit, which included the I Amsterdam sign. We grabbed some ice cream and sat on the backside of the sign where a little girl kept saying hi to us (I think she just wanted our ice cream). Then we started our long walk back to our hostel. It was nice though because we got to walk along the river. I almost got killed by two cars today and Kelley almost got taken out by a cyclist (Kelley's incident was a lot closer than mine). We then made it back to the hostel, changing into flip flops so that our feet could breathe and we set out to find food near our hostel. Kelley found a place where she could grab a Kebab which she swears was better than the one in London, minus the fact the bread scratched the roof of her mouth. I didn't try to order anything here because it was all in Dutch. We then stopped at an Italian place for me and I grabbed a pizza; it was still in Dutch but I could at least figure out most of the words. It was actually pretty good. I know you're thinking why not eat pizza when you get to Italy? I figure it is a relatiely safe food for me to eat and Italy will be all about the pasta. Oh, yeah. so I said we had yet to decide on the hostel. While we were gone during the day, the hallways developed a lovely smell. It smells like mold and we have to hold our breaths as we run down the hall to our room. Joy. Oh, well. Tomorrow, we have an all day travel to Nice where it should be warm!!!!