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I had a 10-hr layover in Amsterdam. Having arrived in this wonderful city with 3 hrs of sleep for the past three days, I should have guessed that it was going to be quite a morning.

I should start by saying that I love this city. It is a place that I’d like to explore with leslie. It seems like she would fit in so well here. I stashed my laptop in a locker and took the train downtown at 7:30am. It was cold this morning (2 degrees Celcius) and my coat was in my packed luggage. But I felt good. God, I love this city. The train was clean and on time. I jumped off at the central station and started walking through town watching people en route to work. It was a great time of the day to people watch. Everyone frantically moving towards the train station. On bike. On foot. By light rail. No one in cars. I’m in heaven here.

There are tons of canals through this amazing city and I spent several hours walking up and down them, absorbing all of the beautiful features of this place. Like new york, every time you turn a corner, there is another and very different street. Different businesses, different architecture, different people. i found myself in the red light district, just before entering a lovely little smoke shop. He handed me a menu and I ordered 2g of ‘thai’ smoke. They sold mushrooms and hash as well, but having very little sleep or smoke in my history, I wasn’t in any shape to take on something any more intense than just good weed. So I rolled a pathetic joint and smoked it there at the coffee shop and drank my tea. It didn’t’ burn very well and I had to keep relighting it. I felt like such an amateur, but I kept the other gram that I didn’t roll. Michael and I will put that to good use in Sophia, in between manuscript writing and his complaining about how hard his job is. Damn Europeans have it so easy.

People filed into the hash shop to have their morning coffee or smoke. There was an older man next to me arguing in dutch with a younger man beside him. In my mind, the elder man was a professor, and he was discussing politics with the younger man. Superman (lois and lane) was on tv and it was a really serious one about superman incriminating lois lane for some murder (but it wasn’t really her; it was her hologram!). It was way too intense for me because I was stoned having smoked only half of the loose joint that I rolled, so after listening to the men’s conversation for a few minutes, I had to leave to go walk around. There is something disturbing about seeing superman on the witness stand and a dramatic terri hatcher; it made me very restless.

So off I went to further explore, walking down more canals and snapping photos with the disposable camera I bought. I stopped for a croissant in a café, taking the time to watch people come and go downtown. I looked for a bookstore to explore what local people were selling, but it was still pretty early and there were not many bookstores open. I was getting cold and a little bit disoriented, so I decided to return to the airport. Getting back really wasn’t the trouble; this city is so easy to navigate! it was after I arrived at the airport that I ran intro trouble. I’m only partially to blame here though; this airport has so many confusing concourses! Jeez. I left my laptop on one course but failed to write down which one it was. While this airport is well laid out, with A-H concourses, it is hard to retrace your steps here, especially while still stoned from smoking several hours earlier. So I walked around looking for the lockers, in and out of customs a couple of times, for about two hours before I finally found it. By that point, I was so thirsty and hungry when I finally found my laptop and my new gate that I had to have a beer. I’m considering having a second now, sitting at the end of the concourse where I found the only outlet in the entire damn airport. Where do people recharge their laptops here?? Actually, I haven’t seen many people with laptops. The technology age certainly exists here, but people don’t seem to adhere to the slave work makes of us as religiously as we do in America.

I have a couple more hours before my next flight leaves for Vienna where I hope to quickly find a shower and my bed before I collapse. i’m really starting to feel worn out and will need to take it easy tomorrow (Saturday) in Vienna and get my act together to travel again on Sunday to bratislava and Sophia. Hhmm. The next two weeks are going to pass so quickly. and I really need a toothbrush. Why did I check that critical instrument???