We made it! The jet lag has taken its toll on our productivity, however, and I’m writing this from Bruges (more on that later). We had a pretty smooth flight from Dulles to Iceland, and then on over to Amsterdam. We were very tired, though, and had to crash for a few hours before rousing ourselves to scour the city streets for food. We found some Italian stuff somewhere but it paled in comparison to New Jersey (still better than DC though).

Amsterdam is an amazingly beautiful city. It also has a fairly unique distinction in that it charges you for food, sex, and to use the restroom. All three of the basic human needs come with a price tag. It’s rather hefty since the prices are in euros, though I have to confess we didn’t check the menus at the red light district, if you know what I mean. The toilets were more or less affordable, at least, once you find one.

I don’t want to dwell too much on the vulgarity you can find in Amsterdam. The form of the city is very beautiful, from the canals to the ancient buildings. We ended up doing a canal tour that some Canadian hustled us into doing. We had a great time chatting with our fellow tourists and I met another Canadian who travels the world teaching hockey players how to fight. Seriously.

So, some quick pictures. Captions explain them, more or less. I’ll also have them up along with many dozens of others in a flickr album in a bit.

It’s been a great trip so far, though just in saying that I feel like I’m losing sight of the scale of this whole endeavor. It has been only five days, and we have over 200 left to go! It is hard to wrap my head around that. I could probably go on about how strange that realization feels but the blog would definitely devolve into something less interesting. I hope you’re all doing well, and please post any questions (or encouraging words).