Amsterdam

After one long day in Girona and night in the Girona airport, we finally made it to Amsterdam. I have to admit that Girona was a pretty nice place to be stuck in. And, we also managed to be there on St. George's day, when they had a massive book fair in the center of town. People galore! It was the most insane crowd of people I've ever seen. Taste of Chicago crowds got nothing on this one! Not easy to navigate with our gianormous back packs, but loads of fun nonetheless. We had a picnic on a bench, wandered about for a few hours, then found a spot in the grass, before heading back to the airport, where we spent the night. It finally happened, I slept overnight in the airport. Not the most pleasureable experience, that's for sure. But, we survived and caught the early a.m. flight to Eindhoven (made sure we didn't miss this one)! Slept on the plane and bus to Amsterdam to make up for the crappy airport sleep.

Even though Girona was beautiful, this was the day when I became really homesick. Sick of living out of a backpack. Sick of schlepping all my stuff around. Sick of no private bathrooms and showers. Sick of constantly being on the go. Sick of everything. It all just really hit me that one day. I made a desperate call to Kathleen, just to vent for one minute on her voicemail. I really wanted to cry, be in my own bed, my own bathroom and shower. I just wanted to be at home.

But, then we made it to Amsterdam and had a room in the hostel we had booked. At first I thought this one was worse than the last as one could walk through the men's/women's bathroom to get to whichever gender side one wanted. NOT my idea of privacy. But, then I discovered that there were individual shower stalls that locked and had a little cubby for your stuff while you showered. Heaven! I probably spent an hour in that private little space to clean off the sleeping-in-airport filth and to just enjoy a moment of personal space. After that, I felt human again. Also, got a full eight hours' of sleep and feel quite rested and ready to explore.

Yesterday, we took another free walking tour. Aside from the obvious free perk, these tours are quite nice actually. Today, we're going to rent bikes and ride around town, which seems like a precarious prospect considering the pedestrians, millions of bikes, streetcars, regular cars, buses, and other random motorized vehicles that occupy the streets here. Tomorrow, it's the Van Gogh museum and Heineken brewery before we catch the midnight bus to Berlin for new adventures.