Stress

That's the first thing that happens when you miss your train to Paris.

I'm lucky the last 2 days have been awesome. It helps counter things a bit.

Let's start from when I left off yesterday.

I actually typed my previous blog from the lobby of my Amsterdam hostel while I was waiting for the hosts to replace the sheets on the bed I was supposed to have. I eventually gave up waiting when the Colorado duo - Alex and Kaitlyn - showed up downstairs. I tossed my stuff in the room and we took off. Destination: FOAM. The photography museum! Rain was starting to fall as we walked out the door, so we opted to walk instead of ride bikes. I had a good idea of where it was, anyways, so I volunteered to lead the way. Twenty minutes, no problem.

Two hours later, we arrived at FOAM. It really is a twenty minute walk, I swear. It just takes longer when you get lost along the way, stop every ten meters for photos and investigate every coffee shop along the way (searching for space cake, of course)!

The museum itself was impressive. But I don't think you'd care if you're not a photographer, so I'll leave out my ooohs and aaahs. Suffice to say there is some amazing stuff in photo museums.

After FOAM, the next best place was the Van Gogh museum. This time, we made the walk in much better time, stopping only once to eat our space cake under a tree in the park. While avoiding more rain. We continued on to the musuem to find a very upsetting, very HUGE line. Typical. Next stop, AlbertHeijn (the grocery) and hostel. I left Alex and Kate to nap while I went to Amsterdam Central to book a train to Paris (yes, the one I missed) and rent a bike.

So, I hopped on the tram. Everything was perfectly fine and dandy until I reached central. There was a four hour wait for the ticket window. Take a number. Wait. Wait. Wait some more. An hour and a half into my queue, I decided to go get a bike. As I stood up, I quickly found out that the space cake had kicked in. Two hours later than expected. Bike rental was going to be a blast! I walked down the block and into the bike shop five minutes before they closed. Turns out the guy who was helping me knew a lot about Kansas. If only I were sober enough to care. I somehow managed to learn the incredibly complex locking mechanism (or so it seemed at the time) and got my bike. Back to waiting. After finally making it to the ticket window, I was told that the train from Amsterdam to Paris was booked out, so I opted for a stop in Brussles followed by a HiSpeed train to Paris.

And, hours after I had left the hostel, I began the bike ride back. Thank God I was de- stoned by that time, because I took the wrong street back. Have you ever looked at a map of Amsterdam? THERE IS NO METHOD. I ended up in Leidsplein, the shopping district I had eaten at two nights ago, and eventually found my way back to the hostel.

To turn right around and head back downtown. This time it was much more entertaining, we were headed to the Red Light District. I took a few photos, which you can see via my photo link. It was everything you'd expect, with more dildos than you can ever imagine. I even got yelled at by a girl for having my camera pointed the wrong direction! We headed back to the hostel again and met some other American travlers in the lobby. This called for a celebration! A celebration like wandering to our curch stoop and smoking some more. I'm not sure how anybody in Amsterdam gets anything done. After our smoke, I went back to the hostel and passed out.