Tuesday, June 22nd, 2004: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Today is organization and wander day. I sleep in until quite late, enjoying the time while I can, knowing that the next week will be one of constant travel until we land in St. Petersburg on July 1. John spends the morning updating the journal, editing pictures and drinking his usual 4 cups of coffee. We need to find an internet café to update and confirm our B&B bookings for Hamburg, Copenhagen and Stockholm. We head to the centrum via the major tourist route, which is quite unusual for us and deal with the crowds of gawkers and hawkers, swarming the Dam. One would think that in a city the size of Amsterdam considering the number of back-packers and budget travelers roaming the city, one would find a selection of internet cafés competing for your web euros. But no. We wander for an hour before deciding to head back to a small café on one of the out-of-the-way grachts that we had stumbled upon the day before. The sun is out and it feels like a beautiful summer day, and we have our lunch basking like cats in the sun. Our updating takes no time at all and we continue to stroll the grachts and head for home to drop our computer bag before heading out for dinner.

Michiel, Fred, Damien, Ron and their friend Ramond have suggested getting together for a drink later in the evening and so we do and toast our last night in Amsterdam.