February 17, 2011

So I waited a long time since my last entry.  Partially this was due to the fact that for the past 3 days I have been enjoying being in my room again.  I ran into my caretaker on the way to school (completely lucky because he isn’t usually here on Mondays!) and he let me into my room.  So this week has just been staying in and hanging out.  On Tuesday night I played Kings Cup with my friends and that was fun, but decided that I didn’t want to go out after we were hanging out.  The group work is ridiculous in my classes right now, I have a group in all 6 of my classes and I am the group leader in 5 of those classes.  Talk about confusing, I cannot recall a single name in 2 of my groups.  Wednesday are my days off from class and I am going to declare them my exploring days.  After some solid skyping to cure my home sick for the time being, I went on an adventure.  I decided to go down town on a solo trip and just wander for a good while.  That is exactly what ended up happening because I was there for 4 ½ hours.  It was awesome to be able to just enjoy the buildings and canals without people wanting to go somewhere you don’t want to go.  I found the coolest cigar shop, it was huge!  It had 2 rooms for cigars, and 4 places to smoke.   Then I was wandering around and found a place that claimed they had the best pancakes in all of Amsterdam.  So naturally I pulled a ‘ELF’ move and ran in and said CONGRADULATIONS,  YOU DID IT!  Though I kind of forgot that they don’t want as many movies as we do in the states.  By the way there was just one guy in there who worked there and he just stared at me.  But I ordered these amazing pancakes; my reaction was similar to Buddy’s with the coffee.  The pancakes here are like really thin and not so cooked in the middle, the syrup tastes more like molasses, and they didn’t have any freaking whip cream needless to say I was pissed because that and a bottle of water cost nine euros.  As I finished eating my crap pancakes, I looked at the store next to the one I went to….. and on their windows they had printed “Amsterdam’s best pancakes”…. I was so pissed! My adventure continued even through my set back and I found the coolest store.  It was a store that sold all American foods that were imported!  It was expensive but they had the sweetest things.  Julie was pumped when I told her they had mac and cheese.  After wandering for a bit more, I found some sweet fries and grubbed on them with some American sauce (pretty much just a spicy thousand island sauce).  On my way home I got some bike repair stuff so I could fix my flat tire, break, and light correctly this time.  So now my bike is ready to go all around Amsterdam.   At night I planned my trip for next week, I will be training all-round the Netherlands and seeing all it has to offer.   I am really excited to do it and get around.  As for this morning I just made some awesome eggs and now I’m ready for the day.