Hallo van Amsterdam!

So...

Surprise!
After a crazy night out with Newcastle United's football fan club... I awoke on a football hooligan ferry. I asked the crazy guy with one eye where we were going and he shouted "To play Amsterdam in the football game!" Oh god, what did I get myself into... :/

Ok well actually after a night in Hadrians Lodge in Newcastle, Greg was not enjoying his trip to the maximum. We discussed it and in the end this was our solution. We would skip Scotland and Ireland (at least for now) and head straight to Amsterdam. So we took a ferry @ 50 pounds each (ouch) and got on board.

The Ferry Ride
It was long. About 17 hours long because of the strong winds. But it wasn't so bad. I actually learned a lot about myself:

1. I will not do that thing where you work for a freight company as a seaman (laugh) for free travel because I can't handle the water
2. If you want to get me drunk cheaply put me on a boat and I'll go from sober to having the spins SANS alcohol
3. Give me 1.5Liters of wine when I am on a boat and I will get amazing

So other than the wine, what did I do on the ferry? Well I saw a slot machine so for the love of my mother and father I had to play. I didn't understand the game too well. I think I spent like 2 Euros or something. I won once... I think... but then I doubled down and some card game came up and I just hit random buttons and lost. Then I saw on the ship schematic "Casino" and of course had to go. I wound up spending 20 Euros at the blackjack table. By the way, the conversion is something like 1 Euro = 70 US cents or so... I think. Dunno. Fuck it. After that I just finished some wine with Greg and watched the water. And then we headed off to bed. By the way... the toilet was in the shower, weird huh? (Maybe not for people who have been on boats before, dunno)

The Arrival in Our First Non-Native English Speaking Country
We were supposed to arrive by 10am but instead we arrived by 2pm today and got off the boat. The first shock was that they have a lot of wind turbines for alternate power generation. I think I like it already. The next thing was that I saw more bikes within 2 minutes than I have in all of England, it seems. The bike trails were clearly marked and had their own sign postings with routes and the kilometerage was different than the signs on the road... which means the trails differ. Yay! We have made it to the land of bicycle highways! They also have their own traffic lights. I love it... already... after like 20 miles :) We stopped for food and got some frites and frite sauce (french fries and mayo) and sausage w/ mayo. A ferry came from across the river with a BOATLOAD of bikers. Not kidding. A BOATLOAD... swarms of people on bicycles came off and then another swarm got on. Apparently one of the major bike trails has a river in the middle of it so they have a ferry system to get them across. Awesome. By the way, it really is flat. I was like averaging 20mph from the ferry to Amsterdam. :) My front wheel is badly out of true, I need to fix that ugh. And clean the drivetrain. Fun fun fun.

What this means for all my loyal readers
Nothing, really. Except Jeff. Your wish to make all our readers dreams come true and rush through the wasteland of Europe and get to Dresden quickly is coming true. We are in Amsterdam which is very close to you, Jeff. We will be there shortly :) Be ready to show us a good time buddy! Also, anyone else in the Netherlands or Germany... let me know cause we could visit you too! o0o0o00o0o

Love
Frank