July 24th & 25th - Two for the price of one

Well we've missed out on blogging the past couple of days due to spotty Internet access in Amsterdam. Here is the recap:

On the 24th, we flew from Switzerland to Amsterdam. The interesting part came when we tried to rent the car. We had to return it to the French airport and not the Swiss airport where we were flying out of. We were informed of this after returning the car to the Swiss airport. We ended up having to drive 20 minutes through a maze of industrial streets to get to the French Airport. Much to our surprise after entering the building, we were just on the other side of the exact same building. Basically, curbing turned a 30 second drive into a 20 minute drive!

The flight was pretty uneventful and we made it to Amsterdam safe and sound. We grabbed some dinner and strolled along the many canals, nothing too exciting.

Yesterday, we decided to rent bikes and ride out to the countryside. The bikes were classic 3 speed cruisers, so our plan was a little ambitious. We got lost more times than I can count, but every few miles we'd find some signs that would point us in the right direction. It ended up being probably over 40 km at a very slow pace, but it was nice to see the country side and some cows, sheep and goats. We did see a few windmills but cut the trip short before we hit the motherload. When we got back, I grabbed 2 pre-dinner roast beef sandwiches and then we headed out to eat. We set our record by finishing dinner in less than an hour. We took a pretty aggressive stance and requested the check as he was clearing the table. This gave us plenty of time to explore the city some more before bed time.

We also bought a copy of the new Harry Potter to keep us company on the flight. The flight is so long, we probably should have bought the entire series.