Day 72

Well the boys in orange got it done last night! I could not fall asleep til after 2 since car horns and screaming fans kept going on for that long! It was so much fun to watch in the pub, and see everyone dressed in orange filling up the tube line and walking the streets. Now the hard part is to figure out if we stay in the Netherlands or head to Germany in a few days. I still have 2 more nights in Amsterdam and will definitely have had my fill by then so either Jessica and myself move to another part of the Netherlands or move on as planned. I keep getting mixed reviews... any suggestions??

Today was an awesome day, I took advantage of the free city tour. It took about three and a half hours to walk the major parts of the city. Our tour guide Joe was a funny guy and made the tour extremely interesting. He took us through the Red Light District, Dams Square, Dutch East India Company, a few churches, The Royal Palace and more. He described how Marijuana is illegal in the country but not a criminal offence. The Dutch seem to have an unwritten rule that consists of three points... if you are not hurting anybody, you are discrete about it, and it is good for business (coffee shops make good money of the tourists), then the police will ignore it. So even though it is illegal as long as you have less then 30 grams on you, you will not get a ticket. Too funny.

Moving on from all that nonsense that I don't take part in we also had some history lessons on World War II, their golden age, and about how big of a bike city it is! Cool to learn all the interesting things of Amsterdam and that is not all about the sex and drugs. Joe told us that no one owns a nice bike in Amsterdam because the local young lads of the community think it is funny when they are drunk to steal the bikes and toss them in the rivers to see a big splash and laugh about it. Because of this about once a year the government takes them all out of the rivers and brings them to shops to fix them and sell them back to everyone. There was even a study conducted and they figured out about every 16th bike a Dutch owns in Amsterdam is one they have owned from before. Kinda crazy to think about it.

AHHH Jessica just walked in! My travel buddy from the States has arrived! So exciting. I now I have a friend for the next little bit. Well until our money runs out! I better be off, I have not seen her since last year when we met in Peru so we have lots of catching up to do!