Days 22 & 23 - Amsterdam and Berlin

Our second day in Amsterdam started with a trip to the Sex Museum.  For 4 Euro we were treated to pictures from the last century and life size pimp mannequins.  Let's just say it was stretch for this place to be called a museum.  I have pictures from this place but they are not going online. 

Of course we were hungry after the museum and we ran into the best vending machine in the world:

One Euro for a nice, hot vending-machine burger

After deciding we didn't want to be sick, we ate some real food and went to meet up with our walking tour.  The tour was 3 hours of walking around amsterdam and learning about the city.  Some highlights are below.

This monument was placed anonymously in from of the church in the middle of the red light district.  Why is there a church in the red light district?  Because the district was there first and sailors needed a place to repent for the sins they committed while they were there. 

On the tour we learned of a game Dutch locals like to play called throw the bike in the canal.  Bikes are everywhere in Amsterdam and drunk locals decide to randomly throw them in the water.  Last year 25,000 bikes were pulled out of the canal.  The game reached new heights when a smartcar was thrown in this year. 

The street we were standing on used to be a canal but like many it has been filled in to make travel around the city easier.  The building above is the place where shipments were recieved in medieval times.

The guy in the photo was our guide and he is standing in front of De Dampkring.  This coffee shop has become the most famous in Amsterdam since Brad Pitt and George Clooney were filmed there as part of Ocean's Twelve.  I have no idea who that lady is in the picture but I'm guessing she got a better picture.  

The tour ended with a lunch of classic dutch food: Stampot with rookworst.  I have no idea what it was but it was delicious.  The lunch also happened to be at a theater that has live comedy shows every night so we decided to buy tickets.  It was nice to stop doing the touristy thing for a while and take in a show around some dutch locals.  The US-based comedians were hysterical and made fun of both the Netherlands and the US. 

Not too much (that I want to write about) happened after the show.  Amsterdam has been my favorite place on the trip so far and its too bad it gets it's reputation only from its interesting laws.

Day 23

We checked out of our hostel and headed for the train station with no destination in mind.  Here we said goodbye to Mickey as he got on a train to the airport to fly back to the US.  After he had left Adrian and I realized we needed to go somewhere.  We studied a map and ended up booking  ticket to Berlin.  The train arrived at 10:00 pm and we didn't have a place to stay but luckily Adrian found us a hostel.  We are planning on being in Berlin for at least the next 2 full days. 

Scott