Something in the air...

---

---

15:55

I maybe slept for 15 minutes on the plane. I'm exhausted. The last two hours of the flight I kinda just wanted to pull my brain out of my head with a pitchfork, I was so exhausted. But eventually we landed, my luggage made it, and I am fighting to stay awake past dinner so that I actually sleep tonight and get into a good routine right off the bat.



22:30

My first impression of Amsterdam was essentially "holy crap there are a lot of bicycles here". If you've been, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, then believe me, there are a lot of bicycles. And scooters. But bicycles, really. Bike lanes everywhere. Bikes get their own traffic signals here. It's really cool, actually. I still haven't entirely sorted out the flow of traffic, so my jaywalking-like-a-local comfort level still needs some work - maybe by tomorrow.

Also, we saw people moving furniture into a building through a window via the old rope-and-pulley system. Somehow I thought that was phased out, but apparently they still actually have to do that sometimes. 😊 Have mostly only scoped out the area by our hotel so far. But it has provided some gems. A quick walk around the area near our hotel netted us some pretty nifty views of a canal, the odd whiff of a particular sort of smoke wafting through the air, nearly getiing run over by bikes in several occasions, an amazing accordion busker (playing a Bach toccata!), the grounds of the Rijksmuseum, and the Van Gogh museum. Not that we went in but at least I know where they are now.

Sadly the brand new battery I bought for my camera in Edmonton appears to be a dud, so I'm scoping out photo shops tomorrow while I can and taking iPhone photos in the meantime, interspersed with real camera photos - my camera eats through regular AA batteries like there's no tomorrow, though, so until I find a real battery I'm sort of reluctant to use it.

I caved and had a short nap at 4:15... But I was awake and up again in time for dinner with the group. A few drinks at the hotel bar to try and stay awake to a "normal" time and fight the jet lag, and now it's off to bed...

---

Photos

Happy feet
Outside a random building near our hotel