amsterdam, the netherlands

I guess I left off while still in Sweden. It's been a few days, and we're in The Netherlands now!
In between we spent one night in Hamburg to catch a game at the fan fest. Germany was actually playing that night, so the crowds were extra crazy! The train ride to Hamburg was cool.. we had to take a ferry for part of the journey, and they put the whole train on the ferry.. ON THE FERRY! how cool is that!?

When we first got here to Amsterdam we wanted to stay at the Flying Pig, but they were super booked up so we had to stay somewhere else the first night and come back in the morning to go on the waiting list. That first night after getting settled we went to walk around and realized we were one block away from the red light district..lol i guess that's why it was cheap and not booked!

Yesterday we checked into the Flying Pig.. went to the van gogh museum, anne frank house, vondel park, and saw bruce willis! haha.. i guess it was the dutch premier of his new movie, a cartoon that he is a voice in. I think it was called Over The Hedge or something like that. It was funny.. we just saw this big crowd and happen to stumble by as he was entering the building

Today we had breakfast at this tiny little upstairs pancake house with only 4 tables. It was very cool and the owner was so nice! Then we went on the heineken brewery tour and to the rijksmuseum.

It's so easy to get lost here because of the shapes of the streets.. they are all circular and follow the canals, so when you think you're walking straight, you're really not! very easy to get confused.. hehe we had to look at the map so much!

Amsterdam is cool, but we're looking forward to going to some of the smaller towns and seeing the countryside here as well. You can tell there are a lot of tourists here, and on every corner there are "coffeeshops" and souvenir stores selling stuff all about the red light distric and pot. It's all very stereotypical and seems like its built for the tourist who comes to amsterdam for those things alone.. we want to see more!