Thursday, January 15, 2009

We arrived in Amsterdam at 9:29 am. We took a train to Leiden for 5.90 Euros. Then we took a taxi for 10 Euros to the Central College Facility. We were supposed to be dropped off at Rapenburg 8-10 but the taxi driver didn’t understand us very well and so we were dropped off at Rapenburg 18. When we figured out we were at the wrong place, we started walking. Fortunately, we were just a few buildings down. We then meet Steef and Dennis. We then took another taxi to the Hugo de Grootstraat which is the dorms we are living in. We got settled in for about an hour and a half. Then we walked back to the Central College building and met Steef and Dennis. They took us to a Pannekoeken restaurant near the Central College facility. A Pannekoeken is a Dutch pancake. I ordered an apple, cinnamon, and sugar Pannekoeken. It was pretty good but HUGE! It may have been 12 inches in diameter no joke! Needless to say, I did not finish mine. After lunch, we went on a walking tour of Leiden. We saw restaurants, bars, historical sites, and grocery stores. Basically, it was a survival tour for the next few days. After the tour, Kyler, Joel, and I were pretty worn out. After tracking down a computer store to buy an internet cord, we returned to our residence. Around 7:30 pm, we decided to go eat some dinner. We finally decided to eat at a pizza place thinking that would be relatively simple and we could split the cost. However, the menu was in Dutch, so trying to pick something off the menu was a bit challenging. We ordered a ham and pineapple pizza and a cheese pizza. The waiter misunderstood us and gave us the four cheese pizza which had blue cheese on it. I had one bite with some of the blue cheese and decided that was enough. The pizza crust was basically a buttery cracker. The pizza sauce was very fresh tasting. I don’t know if I would eat there again but it was fun to try something new.