Monday, June 23, 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I arrived yesterday by train and found my way to the hotel without any problems. I spent a couple of hours in the evening exploring a bit of Amsterdam. I set the alarm for 6 a.m. and got some sleep. Jennifer's plane was arriving at 7 a.m. and I wanted to meet her at the airport.

So, early this morning I boarded a tram for the central train station and then journeyed on to the airport. Jennifer's plane arrived at 7:30 and we said our first "hello" at 8 a.m. or so. We found our way back to the hotel and enjoyed the hotel's continental breakfast together. At around 11 a.m. we went back into central Amsterdam and explored a bit of the city. At one point, we went into the train station and arranged for train tickets to Brugge and Brussels. We will be going to these cities on Thursday and Saturday respectively.

We both faded around 3 p.m. but an hour nap helped that considerably. We were off again, this time exploring the neighborhood round the hotel. There are canals in each direction and we found a number of cute shops to visit. We made our way into central Amsterdam again. We found a great little Italian restaurant for dinner, enjoyed a coffee and cappuchino at one of the many coffee houses and returned to the hotel at around 10 p.m. Amsterdam is far enough north so that it doesn't get dark untl around 11 p.m. at this time of year. More daylight for enjoying the city and its many attractions.

Tomorrow we'll do more of the "tourist" kind of things, including a visit to the Anne Frank House and Van Gogh Museum.