Something more substantial

I didn't nap today, so I don't have much energy to go out this evening. The hostel computers are free, luckily, so I have writing to occupy my time. I think I'll just do a stream of conciousness style description of my past couple days. I already wrote about the Anne Frank Museum, and after that all Hannah and I did was just wander around the canals some more, and take a quick peak into the red light district. It's a bizarre place, but not as scandalous as one would think. The locals seem so comfortable with the whole thing that it really takes away the taboo edge of the district. I think the red light district in San Francisco is a lot worse, because everything is made to look more illicit and underground. Of course, in San Francisco there aren't half naked women in the windows, but that's what makes Amsterdam what it is, I guess... I don't know, I'm still processing it.

The next day, so I guess that would be yesterday, the 4th, Hannah and I got a later start. We checked out of the hostel around 10:30AM, and we took the tram to the central station and stored our bags. We then took the free ferry to North Amsterdam. It wasn't really that exciting, but it was something to do. I don't know if I mentioned this already, but Amsterdam was really quite humid, but since it wasn't so hot, it was actually nice. My hair was extra curly.

After our North Amsterdam adventure, we headed back to the Jordaan for Electric Lady Land, which is a gallery of florescant art on top of the world's first ever museum of florescent art. It was absolutely amazing. The owner/creator/artist gave us a guided tour through the museum, and explaned the scientific process behind florescence, gave us a huge pamphlet on it, and showed us various types of flourescent art. If your ever in Amsterdam, I highly recommend it!

Also, you can check out the website here. I got some great photos, but I can't put them up at the moment.

Hannah and I then killed more time walking around the city, looking in shops, buying fries off the street, eating ice cream cones, and sitting by the canals. Eventually it was time to go to the bus station though. As we were waiting for the train this guy came up to us and started telling us that the international trains were in some other part of the station. Since we were just taking a local train to the bus station I just kind of ignored him, but he got more persistent, like we didn't understand him. Eventually, I just had to tell him "we're not taking an international train, we're going to Amstel station," but he didn't let up, he had to tell us, "oh, that train is here."

"Yeah, that's why we're waiting here."

When I actually need help in a city, no one is there, but all of a sudden when I have stuff figured out, someone has to come up and ruin mz moment for me. Sure we have big backpacks on, but that doesn't mean we're taking the international train! So annoying.

Speaking of the international train, so yeah, we took the bus. The driver only made the announcements in Polish, and by the end of the ride someone had managed to piss over every single sq. inch of the bathroom, but it was still good. I got some sleep, and it only cost 24 euro. Amazing.

We had an epic time checking in to the hostel this morning, and Hannah nearly fell asleep on the train, but some how everything worked out.

Tomorrow, I'm going to get up a decent hour and check out a walking tour.

Word.