and i'm off...

today i set off for amsterdam on my own for the first time, and it was like a dream! at one point i was walking down leidesplein (anything fabulous that you can ever imagine, plus more, is on this street, including hundreds and hundreds of fabulous shoes and bags!)

as listening to genesis sing "invisible touch" (thank you, anya!), i really felt like i was in a movie. it was pouring and windy and freezing, but it was still perfect! without an agenda or a clue as to where i was going, i really just wandered around a small pocket of the city with my notebook and a pen jotting down all the wonderful things i saw....so many things that i was left wondering, can it really be true that i live here?! i have more ideas than space or money, but that is nothing new and for now it is more than enough to satisfy ;-)

anyway, after three hours or so of taking it all in, i met scott at centraal station and we took

the train back to deimen and i made dinner with the groceries i picked up this morning--pizza and salad (the veggies here are not to be believed...they all taste and smell like i picked them right out of martha stewart's garden!) scott had a small glass of dutch gin, jenever, which we originally thought was ketel 1 vodka (definitely NOT vodka!!), and promptly fell asleep. he earned it, though,...he made his first sales call today. usually they wait three to four weeks...his first day was thursday!

tomorrow we are going back into town to meet with the immigration attorneys to finalize things in order to get resident cards which we need to get bank accounts. it will be nice to have scott off work an extra day this week, although i find myself right where i left off in portland...perfectly content with me, my ipod, a good notebook and pen, a cup of coffee, and my city. we still have yet to see the anne frank house or any of the museums...or any of the tourist attractions, actually, not even the red light district ;-) , which is crazy because i feel like i've seen so much, but there is still so, so much more...pretty cool!

also pretty cool is that on wednesday i'm going to take a solo trip (god help poor scott when i finally drag him along) to ikea for the first time. i love that my first time at ikea is here! i foresee that, to me, ikea may be a tourist attraction all on its own, and i can't wait to see it. the dutch seem to do everything right, everything but their beds. they are horrible...worse than a futon. so, sadly, even though getting to go to ikea in the netherlands is super cool, the only thing i get to buy is a super un-glamorous bed because with my bad neck/shoulder and scott's bad back, a bad mattress (no box springs...) just won't do. i would love to share this with you all!

p.s.i check my mail box EVERY DAY (hint, hint...)
botterweg 57
1113 HR
diemen, the netherlands