I arrived in Amsterdam yesterday on four hours of sleep. Well, plane sleep so that counts for less. I found Stephanie at our hostel which is incredibly nice and has its own bar and restaurant. We had a couple drinks, food and coffee there and relaxed. I was ready to go to bed but we made some friends at the hostel (a couple Aussies and a Californian) and so the night went on. Around 11 a bunch of guys in red tees came in and invited us to join a pub crawl. I was loopy by this point but agreed and said what the hey. And so we went with about half the people in our hotel. The Red Tees lead us to the Red Light District, to several bars and to several other fine "establishments" in this eclectic city.
I remember, just after midnight looking up while we were "crawling" from one bar to another and seeing a gaggle of swans in one of the canals - they were beautiful and against a backdrop of sex shops, bicyclists, a picturesque bridge and scantily clad women advertising "their goods" in shop window.
Welcome to Amsterdam.
