Amsterdam

After a week in Italy we said arrivederci and boarded our plane to Amsterdam. We figured this would be a great way to cap an incredible trip.
Mike - if you're excited about going to Amsterdam grab your right leg, raise your left arm and look like a homo.

Okay, now that that's out of the way let's go!
Upon arrival we checked into our hotel - which was right by this beautiful old train station - and then grabbed a quick dinner. Here's a view from our hotel:

After dinner it was pretty obvious what we were doing - finding a coffee shop and then walking through the red light district (believe it or not we didn't go to amsterdam for the Van Gogh Museum). About a block from our hotel we stumbled upon Resin, our first coffee shop experience:

After about 4 minutes in there I felt like this:

Buckley looked like this (yes he's sitting on a swing):

And Stephen saw double when he looked in the mirror:

We wandered around the red light district and grabbed a couple of drinks but didn't do all that much on our first night. However, we did learn a valuable lesson - coffee shops close at 1am, and bars close at 2am. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal but when you've just spent the last week in Italy out until 5am every single night that's quite a changeup...

To be totally honest Amsterdam didn't quite live up to my expectations. I attribute that to a number of things:
(1) My expectations were ridiculously high
(2) It followed Italy - which was one of the most incredible weeks of my life
(3) The city was not nearly as clean as I had expected
(4) There were some details about some of the rules/policies/common practices that I found unappealing. I will not elaborate further because I don't know what I can legally say in the US about these matters and I'm not interested in confessing to crimes committed on International Waters...

We spent all of our time in Amsterdam exploring the city, by foot & bike (except for me) and popping in and out of coffee shops and bars. The city does have some beautiful old buildings and it's cool how canals run through the city as well.

Our second night brought more of the same - a combination of coffee shops, bars & wandering. However, I saw one of the most ridiculous things ever. I don't know if this story will translate and I might have been so flabbergasted due to my consumption choices from earlier that day, but here it goes:
The red light district is just blocks and blocks of glass doors with prostitutes behind them. There were main streets, small alleys, even dead end blocks - real shady stuff. So we're walking through this area and turn up a side street, as we're walking, the 'street' is getting narrower and narrower and becomes an alley. It continues to get so narrow that you have to walk single file to continue - It was the sketchiest thing ever. Finally you pop out of this tiny opening onto a main street. After escaping that passageway with my wallet and life I was relieved and looked back to see the following sign:

The blue sign is telling parents to hold their children's hand. We had seen this sign in other parts of the city where there was a lot of traffic (crossing the street in Amsterdam is an adventure all in itself), but to have this sign in the middle of Hookerville at the entrance to the shadiest alley that I've ever seen is beyond absurd! They should post a police officer there and arrest any parent that emerges from there with a child. I found it ridiculous and thought it might be worth sharing.

As we made our way back to the hotel I almost got into an altercation with an advertisement, but we worked things out and we all retired for the evening.

Sunday had come - our last full day in Europe...
We decided to actually do something today, what better than to tour the original Heineken factory.

We had lots of Heineken, followed by lunch and lots of Amstels, followed by dinner, coffee shop visits and lots of Heinekens & Amstels. It was kind of anti-climatic but we did have a really good final dinner at an Argentinian Steakhouse, as well as some good stories, laughs and obviously a lot of reminiscing.

On Monday we picked up a couple of last minute souvenirs, enjoyed one final beer at the oldest bar in Amsterdam (which we had just learned the night before was right next to our hotel) and then headed to the airport for our flight home.
Although it might not have met my lofty expectations it was a lot of fun and an excellent way to end the trip.