amsterdam

We've been in Amsterdam for quite some time now and have walked in most of the areas of town. We hightailed our way out of the redlight district which was strange and an underworld to which we are not accustomed. We've been staying in a beautiful, clean hostel near a large park in the good part of town. There are upscale shops, beautiful homes, museums, monuments etc. There were many of these things in the redlight district as well but they had such a different feel and it was hard to appreciate them in the same way. We went to the Heineken Brewery and had a great time. We sent out some photos from there. If you received any of them, please feel free to forward them to others who might be interested (some names are listed on the old e-mails we sent out) b/c for each we could only list two addresses.

We finally found a hostel with cooking facilities and we're looking forward to making the pasta we've been carrying around since mid-Scotland. We have been eating, however. Not to worry. It just costs more when you don't have a kitchen and warm food is always nice.

Yesterday we walked past the harbour and saw some beautiful ships and absolutely amazing architecture. You never know what you'll run across walking around this big city of canals. We have also been enjoying delicious sweets that are very popular here. Marzipan and stroopwafels are incredible and are everywhere. Today or tomorrow we'll be going to the Van Gogh Museum and on the diamond tour. We're figuring out our bus tickets for our trip out of Amsterdam back to London the day after tomorrow. We've also been looking through the guidebooks in these nice hostels and writing down numbers and locations for accomodations in Italy. Hard to believe that in three days we'll be in Sicily. We'll let you know how it is. It has been about 2 degrees Celcius here, though today we're having a heatwave and it is 7 degrees. Pretty nice...It is one month today since we left the United States. All is well.