Friday, March 11th - nieuwsgierige en nieuwsgierige

Last night on our ferry/cruise ship we were disappointed to find lots of fun things to do (casino, bars, cinema etc.) as this would surely ruin our plan of going straight to bed and getting a good nights sleep as we cruised over to Holland. However, pretty much everyone on the boat was a dudder, or there were only about 15 people on it. We aren't really sure which one of these was the case...if you recall we were the last 2 people on the boat and showed up as they were closing the doors so we didn't see anyone else boarding the ship. We strolled around, making a nice lap and having some awesome spring break cruise flashbacks. No sign of any such shenanigans on this boat, until a tall lad in the bar shouted across to us that we should sit and have a pint with him and his friends. We presumed he was probably a Tico due to the color of his skin....but then he turned out to be a pale english chap who had given himself a rather dark spray tan earlier that day (sorry for calling you out tan man! And thanks for the beers). Tan man and his friends were heading to Belgium to go motocross racing, which sounds like a pretty scary choice considering the smiliest of the bunch, Simon, had ended up with more of a "hoof" than a foot after a nasty accident. Obviously we peer pressured Simon to show us his so-called "hoof" - don't worry Simon, didn't look to bad to us! Hope you are reading this and digging your shout out, sorry for including the "hoof" but it was pretty blog worthy. After we had finished our beers we parted ways with the group of 6 random English lads and climbed into our bunk-beds in a cabin nicer than those on a Carnival cruise. We nixed the idea of watching a little tv as the shows on seemed to be a preview of Amsterdam's Red Light District. A few hours later, it was the crack of dawn and time to wake up. We were moving at a snails pace and were apparently long overdue for when we should have departed. Would it surprise you if we told you w
e were the last 2 people to get off the boat?...oops! Once again we were so late that we didn't see anyone else getting off the boat, sorry Stena Line employees, thanks for he awesome cabin! Once we finally did get our butts in gear, we were greeted with raised eyebrows from the funny customs guys at the arrival station.

Next we had 2 trains to get on to get from Hoek Van Holland to Amsterdam - the first broke down and sat idle on the tracks for 40 something minutes, and we missed the second despite our first train station sprint with our new backpacks on.

This travel day would have been easier if Dutch wasn't he strangest language we have ever encountered. Every written sentence looks like a Doctor Suess tongue twister and most words are a half German and half English. It's as if some Netherlands dudes wanted to talk to each other and between them they could remember a handful of English and a handful of German so they mixed them together and filled in the gaps with gibberish. Lots of words have 5 or 6 constants in a row.

Anyway, we finally got on a train and were on our way...until the ticket collector came around and told us that the train we were chilling on was more expensive than our tickets so we had to pay the difference. We had no euros so he said he would send a bill to the US for the difference of €12.50 and if we didn't pay it we would go to jail, which he said he would take care of as he worked for the justice department. Whaat a jokster, Jen immediately cracked up laughing and then got sternly told that this was not a laughing matter and he was being totally serious. He demanded our passports, flipped them each open for a split second, winked at us and walked away...uuh maybe we don't get the Dutch sense of humor?? With the exception of this strange guy, everyone here has been super nice and helpful and speaks perfect English. We have noticed that the Dutch happily squeeze in front of you when waiting in a line - maybe that's not rude here? Or maybe they are just slightly rude people?

After some tram complication we arrived at our dodgy hostel, who had forgotten our reservation so they sent us to a dodgier hostel. All is well in the in the life of these backpackers. Amsterdam is awesome and we are too busy having fun to write about it! Peace out you blog lovers. Oh, and bye Simon! Hope you enjoyed your blog mention, told you we would put you in.


Cruise ship


Snazzy bar


Tan man, Simon and the gang