bowlinger qua bowlinger

I love slogans that tourist bureaus make up for cities (Yes, Baltimore, I will “get in on it” and my post-graduation town Carson City tells its residents to “Get Down!”). So I AMsterdam as well…Although, the symbol for the city, appropriately enough is XXX. You can see the triple Xs everywhere, on the city flag, on the grates that cover the sewers, on the manhole covers. I think it’s awesome that Amsterdam is triple X.

Biking is treacherous and should be done very carefully. My old beat-up granny bike (called The Pointer) cost me over 100 euros. It’s definitely and workout, going up and down the canal bridges. I rode on the back of our mutual friend’s bike and it was scary. JL almost planted my face into a brick wall while going around a corner. Funniest was when we were wobbling along and JL yelled out “Wo!!!”and this Dutch lady that we almost careened into yelled out “Wo!!!” too. JL and another classmate (LV) both experienced the mishap of getting their tires stuck in the tram tracks. Bike tires, oddly enough, are the exact width to get stuck in the tram tracks. This causes you to fly over the handlebars or come to a dead stop and tip over. I think they both tipped over.

I love Vlaame’s Fritehuis. The frites are sold in this hole in the wall place down kind of a shady alley. They are only 1.70 for a small cone and then you can get tons of sauces. I got the obligatory mayo on day 1. But today I indulged in something that ended up being garlic sauce. Delicious!

The law school is constantly crowded. There are over 1400 students here, most of them undergrads. And although our school has 900 or so students at least, they’re not all in classes at the same time. There are queues for the bathroom here. The snack line isn’t even worth getting into. And unlike in the US, no one has a laptop, so the computer lab is always packed. Students just plop down with their books and sit in front of the computer and ACT like it’s their laptop. So they flip through a few pages of their book, and play some game on fbook…

But, despite the monsoon yesterday that almost blew me and my bike into the canal, the weather has been generally good. Last weekend was so beautiful, I just got lost biking around, seeing the different parts of the city and exploring the parks (which are super crowded). It’s supposed to be nice this weekend too, but I’m expecting it to be cold and rainy very very soon. If you have money for plane fare saved up from your hard-earned work this summer, consider visiting!