No, I'm looking for a COFFEE shop, you know, caffeine?

Ohhhh Amsterdam. Amsterdam. Amsterdam. Amsterdam. You crazy city you.

I was told that Amsterdam is the Vegas of Europe. It did kind of feel like a classy Euro-Vegas. Fortunately there are not garish lights everywhere, needless water displays, smoke filled casinos, and tacky people hoping to win the jackpot. Just cool canals, buildings, and people.

Well hello, I'm back. You didn't even know I was gone because this is all one post. But I was. I fell asleep while writing. Yup, 3 lines in I passed out. I'm tired. So anyway, where did I leave off? Oh yes, Amsterdam, the fantasticly fun city.

I loved the vibe in this city. The buildings and architecture are so cool. Did you know that you see Amsterdam homes leaning forward not because they are old and tilting, but because they are old and designed that way. In addition to being tilted forward, you can still see hooks at the top of them too. This is because once upon a time when these narrow homes were built, they needed to get large objects to the top floors. So they would hoist said object up using the hook and would bring items in through large upper windows. The forward lean of the home meant that the large objects wouldn't hit the home or windows below the top floor on the way up, thus preventing damage. Oh those clever old Europeans. I just found out too that much of Amsterdam is on stilts about a meter above water. And much of it used to be the South Sea which they decided was in the way of them living, so they dammed and diked everything and got rid of that pesky sea. Now it's gone...and we only have the North Sea. Then they built built built. I must say, you haven't heard of many major water related disasters there. They must pay their engineers much more money than we pay our Army Corp of Engineers to build dikes and levies to keep New Orleans safe.

It was interesting, other than one jackass I about fought over a photo (see Facebook), everyone seemed happy there too. Well of course, many were "happy"...nudge nudge, wink wink. Others were high. But even then, people just seemed happy there. And they all spoke English too, it was great.

I quite enjoyed The Coffee Company and their delicious coffee. They had some yummy iced coffee. And I am referring to my favorite drink, coffee, not Amsterdam "coffee shops." That is all I'm permitted to say about coffee shops at this time. I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything.

I spent the day at a beach nearby and relaxed, that was wonderful. I enjoyed just wandering,tasting cheeses, seeing the sights, biking one day, and just finally going at whatever pace I deemed necessary. I feel like I saw less here than in other cities and I'm ok with that. I saw what, at the point I got there, I wanted to see. Would I like to go back and go to the Anne Frank house or the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, and other such sites? Of course. But for now, what I did and saw was amazing. It was enough for me to fall in the love with this city and start inquiring about jobs there. Ha ha. (This really is the city that made me REALLY not want to go home. I still don't want to go home and I want to go back there and live.)

So there you have it. I like Amsterdam (and I like cheese).