Holland Baby...

Once again, I apologize for the tardiness of this post. I just got back from Jersey and haven't any time to get this thing dialed in...

First and foremost, thanks to everyone that asked how my dad was and for the prayers that went out on his behalf. Everything on that front is looking good. Call the big man for more details.

As for our travels...What a great trip! None of us have ever been to Europe so this was an adventure for all of us.

Our first destination after meeting in the Amsterdam airport was a small Hansel and Gretel town called Hoorn. It was about an hour train ride from Amsterdam. What a great place this was. Very small and not very touristy. There were lots of looks at these four Americans. The couple of days we were there we just did a lot of walking around and patronizing of the local watering holes and cafes. The little hotel that we stayed at was run by this cool dude and his wife. Rob (owner) was a big time fishermen so we got along well. Him and his wife are probably going to be in Miami in October so I might get a chance to go fishing with him as I should be there at the same time for work.

Next, it was off to Nijmegen for my dad's test. By the way, the "j" is silent in Nijmegen so we were totally butchering the pronunciation when telling people where we were headed. Anyways, my pops had his test over Monday and Tuesday of the week. Like I said, everything went good with his test. All in Nijmegen was pretty cool. It was much bigger than Hoorn and had several more places to shop and eat. The city is on the Waal River so there was lots of great scenery and commerce up and down the river.

Wednesday morning was off to Amsterdam. Things couldn't have worked out better once we got off the train. Right when we got off, we found our buddy Dean who had just landed a few hours earlier and to our surprise we saw our friend Milko from Hoorn. So back trackin' a bit...While in Hoorn at this cafe, some locals befriended us to see how we ended up in Hoorn. Needless to say after a few hours and a few cold ones, we were the best of friends and they were all about cruising down to Amsterdam. We truthfully thought that was all beer talk and it wasn't really going to happen but Milko manned up. And it was a great thing that he did because he got us to our apartment rental place and showed us around Amsterdam a bit. His buddy Chris that we also met cruised down as well later on in the day. Great dudes. Hopefully they'll cruise to the states so we can chill here.

Anyways, the rest of the trip was awesome. We had a cool apartment above a famous coffee bar in the middle of the city. Overall we walked 1000 miles and had lots of laughs. The biggest tourist thing that we did while there was the Van Gogh museum. I'm not an art dude but I have to say the museum was totally cool.

I learned on this trip a few things:
1) Starbucks Coffee has nothing on coffee in Europe
2) I love Ham and Cheese Toasties
3) I never want to travel in Europe again without Amanda
4) If I never see the Red Light District again that would be OK with me

Call me for more details about the trip.

Oh yeah, click here for a bunch of pics...