Western Europe: Netherlands

Howdy folks!

I'm back up in the good ol' Amsterdam, NL. As some of you may recall, I was here about 4 weeks ago with my tour group. However, we only stayed for one day, and that wasn't nearly long enough to really explore the city. So after London, I decided to meet up with my bro-in-law, Rod, in Amsterdam. After getting settled into our 5 star accommodations (check it out here), the city was our play ground.

First, we walked all over the "red light" district to get oriented around the neighborhood where our hotel is. My lawyer has advised me not to go into any further details about this.

Next, we decided to do some geocaching (see geocaching.com for more on this), which has taken us all over the city and has afforded us the opportunity for many activities. For instance, we took a canal boat tour that took us all over the city to find some coordinates for one of the caches. We also rented a water taxi to covertly explore under a bridge where another cache was hidden. Today, we rented bicycles and found several other caches.

A quick note about bicycles here: everybody rides 'em and its the most common form of transportation. In fact, there's bicycles lanes all over the place, and everything is within a 15 minute ride. Way to be eco-friendly, Netherlands!

Tonight, we're doing an organized bar tour. Basically for 20 euros (I think that's about 22.50 US dollars), the tour takes us to seven bars for a free drink at each, and I think there's some free shots included in there somewhere.

Well, that all the stuff I can remember that's happened in Amsterdam. I'll type at ya later if I think of some other stuff. So, until next time...

Good Times!!!