I Heart Holland

Amsterdam adventures!
I spent 6 days in Amsterdam with a blue bicycle, surrounded by great people. Astrid introduced me to a bunch of her friends and we had a wonderful time. I immediately went into summer mode, since it was sunny and 20 degrees almost every day. We did lots of sitting around the canals with ice cream, eating apple tart on cafe patios, and picnics! I was also introduced to the joy of fresh stroopwafels. We like food.
Having a bike was by far the best part though. I miss biking so much, and Amsterdam is just the best place to bike around. I got to see so much more of the city.

Perhaps the craziest thing we did was participating in International Pillowfight Day...look it up, it happens all over the world! Astrid, her friends Annie & Chris and I went to Dam Square on Saturday afternoon, armed with pillows and joined hundreds of other people with pillows and had a hilarious, happy pillow fight that lasted about an hour. The pictures are nuts, I'll definitely put some up when I get home. Feathers were flying everywhere, in the air, on the ground, it was like a fluffy winter. We were absolutely covered in feathers. So much fun.

Right now I'm in Utrecht. I arrived yesterday and met my first couchsurfing host, Charlotte. She's really cool and we've got lots in common. She showed me around the city and then we made a summery salad and sat in her back garden with a bottle of wine and enjoyed the weather. Today I wandered around by myself for a bit, exploring the canals and city hall, which I accidently stumbled into, thinking it was an art gallery. It kind of was though...there was some sort of young artist exhibition, so that was interesting. I met up with Charlotte later on and we went to the University museum and botanic garden, which was really nice.

We were researching an art/music festival happening in Rotterdam right now, called Motel Mozaique. It looked pretty sweet, and then today my Rotterdam host text-messaged me asking if I wanted to go to it with him, so now I've got a festival ticket for Friday. Excellent. Handsome Furs and ...AYWKUBTTOD and loads of other sweet bands are playing. Whoa whoa whoa!

So yeah, a couple more days in Utrecht, then Rotterdam, then Delft, The Hague, Leiden, and Haarlem. That'll take me to April 20th, then home. Maybe I'll get another chance to update later on...

EDIT: really good pillow fight shots here. There's even a photo of me!