Amsterdam

Greetings from Amsterdam, or, should I say, "Groeten uit Amsterdam." Thank you Google Translator - you've come in handy. We got the tip to use Google Translator from our friend Kevin, who we've been crashing with since we arrived. He has been using it, with moderate success, to try to install his cable television settings. It's such a smooth, beautiful language to be exposed to, even more so when you're trying to decode "Voer televisie wachtwoord nu" (enter television password now).

It's good to have friends like Kevin - friends who you could e-mail saying "Hey, how would you like to have a few visitors?", then arrive and say, "Hey, how would you like to have a few visitors for two weeks?", and it wouldn't phase them a bit (we think.) He was relocated here from Baltimore a few months ago for work and seems to be enjoying the change. He and his golden retriever, Willy, have been amazing and patient hosts for our time here. It's been a perfect spot for us to do our laundry, use his computer to organize our next travel steps, and to be in a more residential world for a while. The first thing that Kevin had us do was to rent bikes, which is critical in Amsterdam. Apparently, there are 700,000 people in Amsterdam and over a million bicycles. Everyone uses them, and some in very interesting ways. We've seen people holding infants while riding, people with kids on the front and back of the bike simultaneously, people holding a full load of groceries while riding, and one person who was texting on a cell phone with one hand while talking on their Iphone with her other hand. What's even more interesting is how even though there a people on bikes all over the place and hordes of people passing through intersections all the time, there is some kind of smooth order to how it all flows. People here intuitively know who has the right of way and where all of the other bikes are going to go. The exceptions to this orderly flow are the idiots like us who aren't quite sure who goes where and why. We definitely were causing some problems for the first few days, but we've gotten the hang of it since. This has been a perfect place to be for Michelle, as her back has been hurting her a little bit; most sitting positions have been uncomfortable with the odd exception of sitting on a bicycle. It's been feeling better, though, which is good news since biking around the world would take quite a bit longer than how we planned.

I definitely validated my "history nerd" credentials last week with a visit to The Hague to check out the International Court of Justice, located in the Peace Palace, and with a visit to the Belgian city of Iepres (prounced like it rhymes with "jeepers". Seriously.) to visit the site of a famous World War I battle. While the city had interesting cemeteries and monuments, the crown jewel is a museum devoted to the battle in Flanders Fields. There's nothing quite like a visit to a museum that simulates a mustard gas attack, has random explosions every couple of minutes, and devotes a wing to the recreation of a battlefield, complete with trenches, bodies, barbed wire, and the sound of machine gun fire. Thank you for the nightmares.

Following this incredibly intense museum trip, I met up with Michelle and Kevin in Brugge, Belgium for the weekend, and we appreciated the medieval look of the city and it's fierce obsession with chocolate and waffles (individually and in partnership together.)

Amsterdam has been a great spot to be for a while. Beautiful parks, nice canals, delicious desserts, and occasionally friendly locals. But it's also a way more hip and fashionable place than we had expected, and we are out of league with our grimy travel gear. And since Kevin works for Under Armour, he has really helped to outfit us with comfortable athletic wear. But we would need a whole team of fashionistas to help us to blend in here: we'd need a whole lotta scarves (male and female), thin eyewear, skinny jeans (again, male and female), Italian leather shoes, sportcoats for every day of the week, etc. And that's just for starters.

Two other friends, Mike and Greg, are arriving in a few days to spend the long weekend here, and it should be great to see some more familiar faces and talk ad nauseam about Notre Dame football. We're going to get some more pictures up soon, including ones of Michelle and I visiting with some of her family in Cork, Ireland. We were successful in our second attempt to find her Irish relatives, and they graciously hosted us for an evening and took us to many of the family's historical spots. They were embarrassed that they hadn't cleaned up the house or had any food in the kitchen - I mean, after all, they had absolutely no clue we were coming and we just knocked on their door. They should have been more prepared.

We hope you all are doing well back home. More soon...

Love,
Anthony and Michelle