Hello Amsterdam!

May 23-24 

Greetings from Amsterdam! Yesterday morning we arrived in Amsterdam bright and early. It felt so exciting to once again be in a foreign country where I had no idea where I was or what the people around me where saying (even though pretty much everyone here speaks English). It took some time but eventually we navigated our way to our HOUSEBOAT! On our way there we hit a small intersection and had no idea which way to go. Luckily the owner of the boat, Alex, happened to run into us while riding her bike to come meet us, saving us from getting ourselves hopelessly lost. The houseboat is so awesome! I has a kitchen, a washer/dryer ( which we prolly won't use), wifi and big comfy sofas.  Once we got here we unpacked a little and relaxed some before heading into town. The boat is kinds outside of the center of town, which has turned out to be pretty nice because we've been able to see a lot by taking the busses and trams everywhere. OH and did I mention that its freezing cold! And windy/rainy so that makes it even colder. On top of that neither of us brought the right clothes for this kind of weather. Nevertheless... Despite the rain and the cold we set off to find mikes bikes where we signed up for an afternoon bike tour. Our guide Pete gave us a condensed history of Amsterdam and the basics on how to ride a bike (which I hope everyone who signed up for a bike tour already knew how to do) then took off leading us around the city.  We literally went ALL over Amsterdam on that bike tour. Even though it was 3 hours long, freezing and raining the bike tour was definitely worth it and I'm so glad that we did it. The tour was able to help us figure out where all we wanted to go back to and what we wanted to skip. At the very end of the tour, soaking wet and numb from the cold, we stopped at a small local pub and shared a drink with Pete. Bythelateafternoon we were dead tired (we had been awake for around 30 hours and had been riding bikes around a bustling city all day) so we headed back to the house boat to all it a night. However it turned out the sun doesn't set until around 10:30ish so it felt so weird going to sleep when it was as bright as day outside. Regardless the sun didn't stop me one it from passing out the second my head hit the pillow! All in all it was a great first day and I went to sleep excited about the next few days we get to spend in Amsterdam!