i have been told that amsterdam is a pretty crazy city...that might be an understatement. 
it is very beautiful area and there is alot of neat things to see, but there is alot of
stuff going on that is kosher in the united states. 
we arrived in eidenhoven and it was probably the quitest city i have ever been in.  since
gas is so expensive in the netherlands, everybody rides a bike and i mean everybody. 
In amsterdam we decided to rent bicycles to get around since that is what everybody does.
it was really a pain at first.  there are so many bikes going around and then there are tons
of cars on the streets and you can´t tell who is supposed to go where and who has the right
of way.  needsles to say it was quite the adventure.  We stopped by the house of anne frank
and then took a stroll through the red ligth district.  we did this during the day since we
did not want to see anything too bad.  it was still pretty bad.  there was a funny sweet
smell that came out of the coffee shops too, marajuana.  i got so used to the smell that
ben recognized that someone was using it once and i didn´t even notice it at all. 
the next day we took our bikes out to some small outlying villages.  one was called broekn waterland
and the other was called marken.  this was another highlight of our trip.  it was so much
fun just riding around to these little places.  very quaint and very clean towns.  i think
that they take alot of pride in their gardens and stuff.  marken was an island once and built
a way to get out to it.  it was way cool.  we took a small trip out to a light house from there.
all of it was tons of fun and the countryside was awesome.  they have a very intricate system
for their irrigation from the canals.  i think that we rode over 30 miles that day on bikes
that only have one gear and only foot breaks.  our legs were tired almost as much as the seat
of our pants.