In Amsterdam

Let me preface this by stating that this is my first experience outside of the North American Continent.

So I’m excited.

We landed in the Amsterdam airport today and its been great. I almost held my breath when the plane touched down here, but it was awesome. Amsterdam looks a lot like MN. Is that strange? I suppose. But trees and farmland are trees and farmland.

The people here are really cool. Even the ugly women are good looking here, just something amazing about the scandinavian gene pool. Ha. Lots of indie girl rockers sporting lots of flannel. Of course, we just chilled in the airport for a few hours. In fact, I’m writing this offline, because getting wi-fi in here costs $$$ so I have to live with writing offline and then I’ll convert it later. So thats exciting.

I kinda can’t believe I’m going to leave this cute little oasis and go to Egypt. Europe seems like a cool place. I wouldn’t mind living here for a while. People seem nice. I got my first little be of shock when on the plane from MN to Amsterdam, the guy sitting next to me was named Muhammad and was from Saudi Arabia. He spoke almost no english, and my arabic seemed to be better than his english, so we had sort of jostled conversations about the US, and is family in the twin cities. When I asked him “Ei madiina?” (which city), he was all happy and impressed that I knew any arabic. So I guess this reaction is twofold. First, I obviously look American, and therefore knowing arabic was surprising to him, but secondly, that it doesn’t take much to impress these people. It may be different in Egypt. Les just say I won’t be passing as an Egyptian.

My arabic is still pretty bad.

Other interesting notes -- there is a weird store that I’m staring at over my lounge seat. The Danish are very straightforward in their labeling. I like that about a people. Donm’t beat around the bush. For example, this store I’m looking at is basically a store for vices. In huge letters outside it reads “Liquor, Tobacco, Chocolates”

Very nice. One problem I am having is the lack of milk. I brought cereal, and my thought was to simply buy some milk at the airport. While you can buy a brick of cheese for 2.40 euros, a pint of milk will run you 2.60. Its strange. I figure for another 2 euros I can buy myself a sandwich, which I’m sure in a short while, I will do so.

Since IDK when I’ll be able to upload, I’ve decided to make this podcast about a few different topics. If anyone out there owns a macbook pro, and you are having problems with the keyboard cutting out at times, or the trackpad not working, here is the secret. It is now a very famous cure in the macbook community -- get a posted note. Fold it 4 times, and lay it oh so carefully over the orange ribbon cable under the battery. a bent wire in that ribbon cable can destroy your laptop experience, the posted note fixes the problem by flattening out the wire. Crazy, I know. Its working for me!

The other two members of my posse are sitting in chairs attempting to sleep the day away. I gave up on sleep a few hours ago. I’m damn tired, but there isn’t much I can do about it. Power through I suppose. I’m going to be very tired. Its weird, just the way our flights are planned, it means we should be asleep during the day, but then we have to catch our flight, and its really hard to sleep on the plane because its so uncomfortable. So When we should be sleeping for cairo, we can’t. It doesn’t help that we get to Cairo at one in the morning, so we can’t get used to the sleep schedule until we get there. Oh well. Hopefully in Egypt I’ll find some good internet. One can hope, but I sort of doubt it. It’ll take some searching.

Alright folks, I’m going to sign off, its been real, and I’ll try to write when I can. Enjoy your day.s