Amsterdam...Day 1, Daytime

Lots of walking today. Chris and I slept in, had a big breakfast here at the apartment, then got ready and headed off to face our day: the Van Gogh Museum, the Heineken Experience, and a few bars.

We got the the Van Gogh Museum and then promptly kept on going to the Heineken experience due to the long line. The Heineken Experience is exactly that...an experience. It is a brewery steeped in Marketing and flash, but if you like Heineken, it promises a really tasty fresh beer for you. The weirdest thing was the "Brew You Ride" where you stood on a platform that moved to simulate what you would experience if you were being made into beer. Um...what? The best thing about it was the fans that blew on us because every building here is set at about 78 degrees. CB/JM - I want those two hours of my life back.

Then we headed back to the Van Gogh museum. It's pretty amazing. In the US, you don't get alot of chances to see these painters works up close and in reality. A painting like Sunflowers, which I'm sure many have seen, just can't be really appreciated unless you are standing there, two feet in front of it, imagining Vincent Van Gogh painting it. I also found a few Van Gogh's that I hadn't necessarily seen before - brilliant and amazing!! In addition to the Van Gogh works were originals by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. WOW!! Thanks to Mr. B's freshman year French class for turning me on to that amazingly creative art!! All in all, glad we went there. Just incredible.

We then left and couldn't help but notice the increasing number of young men in soccer - excuse me - FOOTBALL - jerseys. Apparently there was a big match today between the Amsterdam team and some other team for the Netherlands title. Amsterdam won, and I thought maybe we would get killed in the revelry. Sorry America, our bloated, drinking Bud Light, sitting on our fat asses on the couch, SuperBowl watching has got NOTHING on these folks. They know how to root for a team a fuck anyone who gets in their way.

We had lunch at an Indonesian restaurant - thanks to MK at work for telling me about Rijstaffel! It was pretty damn good, and we had a good view of the soccer fans across the street. A nice safe distance away. Bought a kilo of unpastuerized cheese that we need to eat in the next 10 days before we come home - no hard work there.

Looking forward to the later evening and going out to Arendsnest (recommended by Uncle/Godfather NL) for some great beer. More later, after a nap, and after more to drink!

Jet Lag, Day 1

Staying awake as long as we could yesterday wasn't the hard part. We left the apartment and walked around looking for a place to eat.

We found a bar called Beer Temple and went in - it was an American Beer Bar, exactly what you want to go to when in a foreign country. We had a few beers - I had a Rodenbach Vintage (excellent) and Chris had a Brewdog IPA is dead, single hopped with Bramling X hops (also excellent). Chris and I then shared a Kissmeyer Syndrome Double IPA - WOW. Super awesome. We'll be back there, I'm sure.

We then went to a beer store and scored two bottles of Westvleteren - the number 8 and the number 12. We'll be having those tonight! We had a bite to eat at a little restaurant - not exceptional, but pretty good, except for a crappy witte that we both had.

So about 8:00 we came home and crashed - just couldn't stay up...until 12:30 AM and we were WIDE awake. So we got up and watched most of the movie "Munich." Chris was up longer than I was, but we were up at 8:00 and had breakfast and getting ready for the day. I'm hoping my headache goes away - not drinking enough water.

More to come later today - and hopefully it will be more interesting than our posts so ar.

PS - Confidential to TL: over the years we have had numerous conversations about European toilets...I now completely understand.

Hello, hello...I'm at a place called vertigo...

Check the stairs at our apartment. I thought my stairs at my house going upstairs were bad, but I've had one too many tonight on an empty stomach and no sleep and thank Christ they have couple of "oh, shit" handles to grab onto.

We have arrived in Amsterdam!

Other than the threat of having no one in the tower in Iceland to guide the plane in (which didn't happen), there were no other issues with our flights. Time to be really, really proud of me - only took ONE pill before we took off in Minneapolis, then not another one. Generally I take two pills for short trips to Arizona, but I was feeling ballsy.

So we're here, tired, but not really exhausted yet, so we're going to head out for some dinner. Daniel, the apartment owner, was great - food is in the fridge, gave us some great tips. Although when he said Van Gogh museum in the official Dutch pronunciation, it took until the 5th time for me to know what he was talking about.

Chris is now taking pictures of the apartment and out the window which I find really creepy, but he won't stop. So I will need to tear him a way for dinner from his voyeurism.

More tomorrow when we site see in force.

Really?

What do you get when you cross Patty's flying phobia with an air traffic controllers strike in Europe?

Not enough Ativan in the whole goddamn world.

T-Minus 7 hours!

Thanks Blogspot. My other post didn't make it on the site, and it was pretty funny. Lots of talk about Imodium, my inability to pack light, my discussions with my doctor cousin about how much Ativan I can take before overdosing.

Well, you'll just have to imagine how funny it was.

Tomorrow we'll be in Amsterdam and the fun will begin! Say your prayers for an uneventful and safe flight for me.

More posts will come soon!

T-Minus 48 Hours

Well, in less than 48 hours, we'll be off to Europe. Me for the first time, and Chris for the second time. I'm not going to lie. I'm incredibly stressed out.

I'm pretty sure I could live in the wild in Europe for a month with all of the stuff they tell you to bring. Some of it I get...Imodium. Yeah, you don't want to be in Brussels trying to find a pharmacist that will help you find anti motility meds in a pinch. "Everyone speaks English there!" Um. Whatever. With my luck I'd get the one person in Belgium who didn't feel the need to take English as their language requirement.

So I've got my Imodium, and I have my clothes ready. For all of you that have seen Chris and I at N&J's cabin for the weekend with our GIANT suitcase would be amazed at what I'm bringing to Europe. Check out the picture. Yep, that's it for two weeks. CD asked me to promise to bring at least one pair of underwear for each day - I said NO WAY! I'm armed with giant Ziploc bags and travel Tide for easy washing. And I'm pretty sure my fleece sweatshirt will be walking home from the airport by itself after two weeks. I'll be a total travel pro by the end of May.

I've also emailed Doctor Cousin KL to ask about Ativan (awesome pills for Patty "Scaredy Cat to Fly"). She gave excellent advice while not making me feel like a moron for asking how much I could take without overdosing. She is a good doctor and a good cousin!

So keep checking in. We will be blogging regularly and sharing the ridiculous and average with you as always. Start the prayer circle too and pray for an easy flight...we fly over Cousin FL's birthday and Auntie SR's birthday, so I'm confident nothing bad can happen.

Au Revior! Auf Wiedersehen! TTFN!