My glaucoma... it's... it's gone!

Tee hee.

So we arrived in Amsterdam in one piece. Sleeping in the airport was back breaking, but our plane was one hour shorter than we expected, so we got to the hostel in enough time to take a long nap before exploring the city for the first time.

Hostels are hostels right, our room smells like a hippie's sock, and there is one chick in particular who coughs more than she breathes at night, but you get over it. We're in an 18 bed dorm, not much else to expect. Dermot says we have a sleepwalker/talker amongst the group. Leaning over balconies and asking the coughing girl is she okay. I haven't noticed. You put in the eye cover over your eyes and the ear plugs in your ears and you're good to go... most of the time. Our hostel is very clean, and the lounge where I'm writing this is great. Two tvs, atmosphere, and a bar open 24 hours with relatively cheap beer. Plus a cheap breakfast in the morning.

Our first day here we explored the city ourselves on foot. We ended up in Barney's Brasserie *cough ee shop*. Dont... really remember leaving... but we left not on foot. From there we floated around Amsterdam. It was raining but I didn't care. We were lost but I didn't care. Then we stopped in this magical place with the bestest brownies I've ever eaten in my life. Then this Indian princess convinced us with promises of discounted fine dining so we stopped to eat some food. It was a harrowing experience altogether. Dermot discovered that his feet had toes. And I was a little worried that my stomach was moving. Those bastards must've put something in those brownies! We'll have to go back an yell at them sternly...

Amsterdam is expensive. We took a free walking tour yesterday that lasted 3.5 hours and still we're a bit over budget. The walking tour was great though. It covered the Red Light District first. We have no photos from that part of the tour though. Our guide warned us that photos of the girls in the window is prohibited, unless you want to brave the chances of having her urine in a cup thrown over you. We weren't gonna take our chances. On to other various sites, beautiful canals, which the tour guide said "God created the world, the Dutch created Amsterdam". And a bit of Amsterdam's history - WWII especially with the Jewish quarter's strife and Anne Frank's house. Which we're very moving. Anne Frank's house especially that had the original photos on the wall that she placed there herself during the years her family hid there.

Dermot and I both agree it's an amazing city. Very European, if I may say, from an outsiders advantage. It's clean, safe, people ride bikes... and it's liberal. Very liberal.

Our hostel is in the Red Light District. A very rowdy part of town. I have pictures, a load of pictures. No puns intended. I'll post them on this site within the next two days when we anchor in Antwerp.

We head to Haarlem tomorrow, to walk around another part of The Netherlands, hopefully get a better feel for the country. It's unfair to judge a country by it's main city.

Tonight we're looking forward to a pub crawl.

Now we're looking to kill some free time before then. Free being the key word there.

Antwerp is next, stay tuned!

(We love you all, thanks for the kind comments!)