Canals, Heinekin, and Wooden Shoes

I don't care, I'm on a boat in Amsterdam!
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AmterDamn. We arrived in the city around 12:00 and were amazed at how easy it was getting from the train station to the city.  Upon approaching our accomodation for the evening, Sarah was gently reminded that she had booked us in a Christian Youth Hostel for the evening.  Ironically, it was located on the edge of the Red Light District- but we did not care, as it was the only all female dormatory available for this time period.

Once inside our hostel, despite the "God Loves You" posters everywhere, we really did not feel the love. Our "dorm" consisted of 16 other beds in one room and was much of the quality of the city- dark and dirty. We were happy that this was our last night in a hostel and kept quoting the inspirational words to each other in order to make each other more comfortable.

Not realizing that the "city" was actually a 3 block radius in most directions, our "tour" was much shorter than expected.

Our Hostel
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After tightly tucking our bags in a secure locker at our hostel, we set off to "tour" the "city".  Not realizing that the "city" was actually a 3 block radius in most directions, our "tour" was much shorter than expected.  Obviously we were not that impressed with the city, but the weather was great and there were lots of insteresting characters to "people watch" at nice outdoor ( pricey) cafe's. We had lots of time to kill so did the most toursity thing we could find and hopped on a Canal Tour Boat.  Again, not realizing that a " canal tour" is actually a tour of all of the canals in Amsterdam- which in case any of you did NOT know is built on a series of canals.  Sarah and I joked around after seeing the 23rd canal and started naming them thier respective number in consecutive order ( i.e, "That's canal number 12, That's canal number 13, etc) Sarah made the best of the situation and muttered the most famous quote from the trip, " I don't care if we're touring canals, we're on a boat in Amsterdam!"  We laughed through the rest of the 30 canals and then realized we had to spend another 4 hours in that city.

One of the MANY canals in Amsterdam
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We got off the boat and decided to grab a local brew, Heinekin while we people watched. ( By the way we are not sure how to spell Heniekin, so just enjoy our creativity.) We had enough time on the way to a cafe to take a picture in a wooden shoe. Again, you must look at the pictures to truly understand the experience.  While sitting and enjoying the day and congratulating oursleves on not being as crazy as the locals, we ran into ( surprise) some more american toursits. This time, by the names of Franklin, Neil and Adam from New York.  We joined them for the next couple hours and talked of our travels thus far.  We knew we had a early morning and flight home so decided to call it a night. Plus, The Christian Youth Hostel had a curfew and we were cutting it close.

The Wooden Shoe
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Night For Now,

Sarah and Liz