Hey everyone!!

Greetings from Holland! Thats right, i know stand absolutely corrected. I love Amsterdam and i even admit a certain fondness for the Dutch. So after almost missing my flight (i had about 5 minutes before they stopped checking bags for our flight) i finally caught up to Matt and checked in super fast. The flight here was good. Matt and i were laughing the whole time, thinking how crazy it was to be leaving everyone behind, and to finally be living the dream! lol. Sydney met us at the Shipnol airport and we got lost in the Dam with our heavy packs and bags. That was quite the trip. Felt a bit like a pack horse personally!

We got to our hostel, named the flying pig, and it is sweet. They provided us with a great breakfast and then headed to a coffeeshop downtown. We bought a bunch of ganja and had our first sesh at Rookies, a little pot bar. We ventured around a bit, but it was definatel 4 in the morning ONtario time and we were totally beat. I couldnt sleep on the plane for the life of me, so i was exhusted. Unfortunately, we slept from 1:30-6:00, a well needed nap. Then we got back up and there is a sweet bar at the bottom of our hostel. The beir in Amsterdam is delicious. The dutch do know how to do a beer! Syd's cousins and Syd came at about 9:30 and we hit the town. Off to another coffeeshop were we all hung out togethere and then to a wonderful little jazz club. The music was amazing and i was totally stoked the appreciation of jazz. Amsterdam is an absolutely breathtaking city. All f the apartments have large, european windows, with no screens and that let tons of sunlight in. The weather is not to hot, which is nice since Africa is coming now.

Funny thing, nationality is huge here. The dutch are like the proudest people in the world! Last night, Lawrence was fighting with an Irish man, and told him he was Irish so he had a low IQ. THe other guy was ready to fight him for it. It was nuts. Also, all the Euros, think we are just Americans flipped around. That takes some explaining that's for sure.

We also so the red light district last night. It was more disturbing then i thought it would be. Certainly a necessary evil, because with it standardized like this people are protected from disease and are kept safe by security as opposed to the informal sex trade all over the world. Still, it was hard to try to comprehend how most of those women in the windows were feeling. I couldnt imagine really.

Anyway, Matt and i are gonna get up early, get some breakfast and get shuttled to Shipnol. We are gonnna have some brownies this morning and chill and then catch our plane.

I probably wont be able to write for a few days now, but just keep checkin if you arre interested.

Love you all,

Melissa Sharon