Mission: Impossible

So.  My mission today was to find the office.  Andrea said it was a little difficult to get to but it was something along the lines of go two blocks, get on a tram, transfer to another tram, get off near the office and walk another couple of blocks.

I went to the concierge and asked him how to get to the office and gave him the address.  First he had to pull out his travel map so he could look it up himself.  Then he said 3 times "oh, that is hard to get to from here".  He said I could take a taxi but I asked what I would take if I wanted a tram.  He said I would have to walk for at least 15 minutes and then catch the #4 tram and then get off at Rai (I think) and then walk another 10-15 minutes.  He gave me the map.  I walked out of the hotel and had every intention of trying to find this tram but then I realized something else - I didn't even know which way was north and which was south (which makes it kind of difficult to know if you need to go left or right out of the hotel).

So I just wandered around aimlessly up and down streets (many of them parallel to one another I'm sure!)  I eventually found a few signs that told me I was heading towards the city center so I kept walking.  I saw the tulip market,

Dam Square,

lots of canals,

 

ugh I look tired in that picture.....

and "coffee" shops where the smell of pot permeated out of the building.  One of the "coffee" shops even claimed to have air-conditioning and cleaner air upstairs (oh and you had to roll your joints inside).  What the heck is "cleaner" air?!?  I was going to take a picture of the sign but there were two guys sitting right by the window.

I went into a grocery store, bought 1/2 loaf of bread, water and stroopwafels (OH MY GOODNESS DELICIOUS - described as caramel wafers with a vanilla bourbon filling - or something like that)

and headed back to the hotel.  Don't ask me what I'm going to do with the bread.  I have no clue.  It would have made sense if I had done something like buy peanut butter to go on it but of course that would have involved too much thinking.

I'm going to try the concierge again and ask for a restaurant recommendation.  Gotta love the early midwest dinners - I'll be the only one in the restaurant at 5ish but that's alright.  I also have to figure out what to wear (and see if I can find the iron in the room - I've found the ironing board but not the iron).

P.S.  All my pictures will be on the Shutterfly website to the right (or here:  http://lifeinamsterdam.shutterfly.com/)

Peace out!