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Trip Start Jun 17, 2009

Trip End Jun 21, 2009

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Last night at Robert's house in Amsterdam

Flag of Netherlands Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Monday, June 22, 2009

Today we had fresh bread and cereal for breakfast- our host Robert is SO great. He let us borrow his bicycles and we biked the 14 or so miles into the City of Amsterdam. It was a great bike ride and Ramona (Ryan's GPS) saved us. Breadcrumbs were not available for this expedition. We would still be navigating the country of Holland if we did not have this GPS. The street grid in the states consists primarlily of parallel and perpindicular roads that all run in the same direction. In Amsterdam, the roads mimmick a dart board. They all go in a circle.. seriously, they do. You start out on a road trying to get east. You stay on this road- never having left it- and end up due west in a matter of minutes.

The bike lane/bike facilities are so functional here. There are bike lanes that are for the most part separated from cars on EVERY single road. There are separate signal lights at every intersection for cyclists and there are unlimited places to store your bike as well

Breakfast on Robert's balcony in Holland

. Everyone rides their bike here- everyone. Grandmas, people with babies, dogs, high-heels, children on their handlebars- everyone rides bikes!

Today was a rather easy day of strolling around the City and seeing the sights. We ran into Ryans friend (through Collin) Tom Everett who is also traveling Europe- a random run in on a random street- the world gets smaller every day! We went into a Gouda cheese store- "Gouda"is actually prounced something more like "how-da" with a hebrew sounding guttaral hock at the beginning. They have pesto cheese- its green- its amazing.

We decided that since Robert was such an excellent host, we would make him dinner. This turned out to be a bit difficult you see- Robert is vegan- what do you make a vegan for dinner? At the grocery store we had an even harder time finding vegan items as the ingredients for every product were in Dutch. We ended up making stir-fry over rice and had soy ice cream with fresh blackberries for dessert.

Tomorrow: meeting up with Ryan's friend Dustin for a bit- probably lunch- then off to Berlin!

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windmill on our bike ride into Amsterdam	one of the many canals!	crazy small car- these are everywhere!	The Parish of St. Nicholas
Sex Shop	Bikes Everywhere!	funny spice name. It means "garlic powder"	on another canal
a Vespa car! Awesome. Comments!